RIAA continues trend of courtroom losses
by Rich Fiscus on August 11th, 2008
In January of 2003, after a number of unsuccessful attempts to extort money from a number of big companies via lawsuit the RIAA came up with a brilliant new scheme. As they realized, the problem with suing companies is they usually have the means to defend themselves. What they needed was a target that couldn’t fight back. In January they found what they were looking for in the form of four Verizon internet subscribers.
In June of 2003 an appeals court decided not to get in the way of the RIAA’s claim that they DMCA allows them to gather information about internet subscribers with no judicial review. In July of the same year they began what has become a major campaign against P2P file sharers.
What RIAA executives seemed to figure out was that they weren’t going to be able to get millions of dollars from a few companys. So instead they moved on to the next best thing. They decided to get thousands of dollars from millions of individuals. Since then everyone from the Justice Department to the House of Representatives and Senate have gotten behind them.
You see unlike companies, most individuals can’t afford the time or money required to defend themselves in court. In most cases they’re not even familiar enough with the technology or legal issues involved to figure out whether they even have a chance of winning if they do decide to fight back.
his worked pretty well for a while. Then something happened that they weren’t anticipating. A few people not only forced them to make their cases in a courtroom, they actually had the nerve to stick with it after months, or even years of stonewalling and stalling. For a while the RIAA was able to minimize the damage in these cases by dropping any lawsuits that looked like they’d turn out badly.
After nearly two years of circling the courtrooms like vultures they’ve now entered a new phase of the campaign; one they apparently thought they could avoid. Rather than simply sitting back and waiting for defense attorneys to counter RIAA arguments, many judges are putting the ball in the record labels’ court and requiring actual proof instead of just legal theories and technical mumbo jumbo.
The last year has been particularly painful for the RIAA. From repeated judgements requiring them to pay lawyer fees for Tanya Anderson to questions about the legality of their entire evidence gathering process, they’ve found themselves increasingly on the wrong side of judgements.
Even though it’s not a complete defeat, the latest ruling against them may be the first step in a long journey that may lead to the end of their legal jihad. A federal judge has ruled their damage award in a case where someone has actually admitted sharing files will be limited to $200 per song rather than the $750 or more they claim the Copyright Act entitles them to.
Although this particular ruling specifically addresses the issue of “innocent infringement,” where the defendant didn’t realize what she was doing at the time, it opens the door at least a crack for legal debate about the legality of awarding $750 or more for a violation that amounts to less than $1 in real damages. That’s been a cornerstone of cases argued by Ray Beckerman, who is probably the highest profile defense lawyer against RIAA lawsuits.
Mr. Beckerman has been arguing for years that the RIAA’s damage claims violate the US Constitution’s promise of due process, and based on cases where the labels themselves have successfully gotten damages reduced because they were too high compared to the actual financial impact it seems like a sound argument.
Followed to its logical conclusion, his suggestion that damages be capped at less than $10 per song would almost certainly result in reduced revenue for the labels, perhaps to a point where it wouldn’t cover the administrative expenses to collect the money.
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