Comment by MaxwellKennerly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MaxwellKennerly | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

MaxwellKennerly

You're making my argument: "neither he nor any of the plaintiffs witnesses contributed any proof of the "actual damages.""

That's not entirely true, as the record companies did briefly call their own lawyers to testify as to ownership of the songs, thereby establishing Tenenbaum's wrongful (i.e., unpaid) use of them. Ergo, $0.99 actual damages.

Otherwise, that's the whole point: we have a $22,500 award (per song) on $0.99 proven damages. That means the vast majority of the award -- over 20,000-to-1 -- is for punitive damages, triggering Gore/Campbell due process concerns.

What part of that don't you get? The fact that a statute says this is okay is meaningless: the constitution prevails.

Your argument is just plain silly. Since the plaintiffs didn't have to "prove" the amount of damages due to unauthorized distribution, you unilaterally and rather brazenly set the figure at zero. You then use the figure used during a separate demonstration (by the defendants, I might add) of how easy it is to download music legally, along with the courts determination that unauthorized reproduction took place, to get to your 20,000-to-1 ratio. You do see that this is preposterous, don't you?

Essentially, your logical flaw is to apply a court case that has nothing to do with copyright to one that is purely about copyright. In the case you reference, it is in theory possible to determine the damages caused: just sum the quantities spent by each of the plaintiffs on doctors' fees and other medical expenses. It is impossible to do that in the context of unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material. This is why the statutes give the courts leeway in this domain -- as you have acknowledged elsewhere.

If we take your argument it its logical conclusion, the maximum damages for sharing a song should be $4, since one can never "prove" the quantity of damages resulting from unauthorized distribution. Do you really think that damages of this size are going to deter anyone from filesharing?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com