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 [Musique]
A few months ago, a jury found college student Joel Tenenbaum liable for willful copyright infringement for sharing 30 songs, and later awarded to right holders $675,000 in damages. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner dramatically reduced the award to $67,500. This decision follows another US case last year where defendant Jammie Thomas-Rasset, accused in a file-sharing dispute, saw federal District Judge Michael Davis slash the damages awarded by the jury from $1.9 million to only $54,000. While Judge Gertner reduced the large damage award on the grounds that it would have been unconstitutional, many question the authority of judges to interfere with Congress (fixing the amount of statutory damages in copyright infringement cases) and juries. In the US, statutory damages are a dollar range determined by Congress that sets limits on what juries can award for copyright infringement. If the infringement is considered willful, the jury can award damages as high as $150,000 per incident. While right holders dislike the signal sent by these decisions and challenge the judge's authority to reduce the amount of damages awarded, they have the merit to raise legitimate concerns about (what we think are) disproportionate sanctions imposed on private individuals. There is an issue of fairness that needs to be addressed...but by whom? As usual there is also a never ending democratic questioning about who makes law in the US. Source: HERE (source : CNet.com) |News saisie par Sébastien ODDOS le 18/07/2010| | |||
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