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.
U.S. Judge Drops “Shocking” File Sharing Damage Award By 97%
2 Comments
Recent Posts
The Two Weeks That Reshaped Canada’s Digital Policy 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 274: Mark Musselman on What Stakeholders Really Think About the Government’s Reversal of the CRTC Online Streaming Act Decision 
Improv Policy: The Government Doesn’t Know What To Do About Its Online Streaming Act Mess 
Soft Ban or Hard Verification Requirement?: Why Bill C-34’s Social Media Ban Exemption Gets the Incentives Wrong and Comes Too Late to Matter 
New Rights, New Powers, Long Delays: Bill C-36’s Seven-Step Process for Privacy Reform to Take Effect
…
…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.