@BillDem
" Trading a $1 song to their friend gets them a choice between a $5,000 fine or a prolonged legal battle costing even more. What happened to damages matching the offense?"
Here is the problem and groups like the RIAA know it:
1. If the damages match the offence, as in how I think you are meaning it to apply, if someone gives a $1 song to someone, thats the loss of a $1 sale so someone needs to cough up a dollar for that song, and so on and so forth for every time its given to someone else.
2. Lets suppose the recipient of the free song can prove beyond doubt that if they were never given the song for free, they never would have purchased it. They either didn't have the money or the interest to purchase it, plain and simple, it was available free, so why not, but if it had of cost them a dime, forget it.
The truth is, the producer lost nothing at all in such an exchange. Lost zero dollars because the recipient of the free song never would have ever purchased it anyway, ever, for whatever reason.
And that is the issue. Piles of music/movie trading goes on, but count on it as a fact that the vast majority of that sharing and trading didn't rob anyone of a penny because the vast amount of what has been accepted for free, the recipient never would have paid a thin dime for it. Ever. For whatever reasons.
And the RIAA just cant have that as the cornerstone of what guides the court to how badly they have been damaged.
Discussion on:
Message 9 of 1
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