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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

If you don't have any idea how much something's worth, how can you sue for damages for someone copying it?

Plaintiffs don't really have any trouble coming up with valuations when they initiate the lawsuit. Their challenge is to make it to the end of the litigation process without having too many digits lopped off their initial number.

This case is about the defendant benefiting from unambiguous public information about the market value of the works, since the law provides them with some protection when they make a reasonable settlement offer but are forced to continue litigating instead.

It's not really about the offer being made on the basis of public information though, is it.

If the eventual settlement is less than the original offer, then the plaintiff is liable for costs that occurred after the point the offer was made.

As far as copyright law goes, it seems almost sensible ...

Does this mean that in the case that you're sued by a copyright troll you can offer to settle for $1 and then if they take it to court and get nothing at all (because they don't actually have a solid case) they're now responsible for all your legal fees as well? Because if so that seems like a good way to deal with copyright trolls, since it makes the risks a bit more symmetric.

I think this only applies if the plaintiff is awarded damages.

> It's not really about the offer being made on the basis of public information though, is it.

The fact that it's based on public information puts the valuation's reasonableness on a very strong foundation, and allows the defendant to be far more confident that their offer will actually exceed a fully-litigated award.

> If the eventual settlement is less than the original offer, then the plaintiff is liable for costs...

But only if the original offer is reasonable. The basis of public information just makes it easier to support the claim that the offer is in fact reasonable.

Aren't there some situations where you can ask the court to determine damages? Pretty sure I've seen this before, though I'm not sure in what context (it may not have been copyright).

I’ve heard of cases where the Jury is asked to decide ... without any parameters!

What do you mean without any parameters? They had the whole legal argument in which both sides will have tried to convince them of what the right amount is.

It's quite a number of years ago now, but a friend of mine did jury duty on a civil case and they were just told to come up with a figure, so they all just picked a number a random and split the difference between the highest and the lowest. The rationale being that this would be a starting point and there would be further litigation to determine what was "fair".

I think that was Ireland in the 80s or 90s though, I'd "imagine" things are approached with a bit more rigor these days ...

It's basically legal malpractice to not ask for whatever extra awards the judge finds appropriate in the case after asking for the damages you're mainly after

Properly registered copyrighted works invoke statutory damages which are designated by legislation. Several hundred thousand dollars per infringement.

Legally speaking this is no different than you selling copied DVDs on the street corner and Sony catching wind and coming after you for damages. They're not going to ask for $75 (five times a $15 disc), they're going to ask for statutory damages for each infringement you've made (potentially per song for a CD, etc).

This guy has just made a business out of monetizing that for clients who can't be bothered to do it for themselves. A true entrepreneur in the spirit of HN, find a niche that your clients don't want to do for themselves or are not capable of doing for themselves, and monetize it.

This is much less cut-and-dry than patent trolling, where the real problem is that the patents should never have been issued in the first place. He's representing real clients whose works have really been infringed, and by statute they are entitled to large damages. If you want to fix that, go after the concept of statutory copyright damages.

I love Democracy Now but if they want to use this guy's photos they should approach him for licensing, not just use them and cry about the damages when he or his lawyer comes after them.

We do not need to set up a two-track system where Disney gets $300k per infringement and a small photographer gets $500 per infringement.

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