A U.S. judge has reduced the damage award in a Minnesota file sharing case from $80,000 per song to $2,250. The 97% reduction comes as the judge found the original jury award shocking and concluded that statutory damages must bear some relationship to actual damages.
Michael Geist
mgeist@uottawa.ca
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…Sad that 97% less is still not enough,at least in my opinion.
when deterrence becomes exorbitant
Thanks for pointing out this interesting case of a judge using common sense when dispensing a judgment regarding illegal file sharing. Fining someone $80,000 *per song* for downloading and sharing 24 files goes beyond deterrence and into the realm of the ridiculous. Naturally, record companies want consumers to be deterred from illegally sharing files, but when the plaintiff is not required to actually prove what the damages really were, it is unfair to saddle the defendant with such a massive debt. I applaud this judge and the review of this case.