Song-Swapping Lawsuits Face [real] Challenge
The quick recap:
* peer to peer file swapping is huge
* recording industry believes song swapping interferes with sales
* Song swapping really is a copyright infringment in many cases
* Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sought to deter illegal file swapping by suing individuals (college students, mostly) for large damage claims, then settling for smaller amounts, typically $3000-$5000 per person.
Critics of the RIAA strategy say, well, they say many things, but the thing that is relevant to this particular post is that the statute under which the RIAA lawsuits are brought is unconstitutional. The short explanation is that the statute may create a criminal offense with a private enforcement mechanism. In other words, the “damages” that the RIAA seeks in these lawsuits are really a “fine” for copyright infringement, but instead of the usual criminal enforcement procedures - that include all the constitutional protections for the defendant - this statute allows enforcement in an ordinary civil lawsuit. The main problem with that is that the person being sued, who is in the position of “defendant,” is not innocent until probven guilty. In fact, nearly all of the lawsuits have settled for the simple reason that individuals will spend far less by settling for a few thousand dollars than they would spend to hire a lawyer to try and defend against the corporate law department of the RIAA, who would think nothing of spending far more on attorney fees than the amount of money they stand to win. They are in it for the deterrence effect.
Anyway, one of these lawsuits is about to be defended by an attorney with the argument that the underlying statute is unconstitutional. This is not an argument that the file sharing is protected or otherwise “okay.” It is merely an attack on the strategy being used by the RIAA. But to the extent that critics are right and the strategy is heay-handed, over-reaching, and unconstitutional, this is an important case.
You can read more from the AP here.
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