joe, beta

Judge Kimba Wood has just granted summary judgment against LimeWire, agreeing with the labels that the peer-to-peer company was liable for inducing copyright infringement. Turns out that asking LimeWire downloaders to check a box marked "I will not use LimeWire for copyright infringement" before proceeding doesn't count as "meaningful efforts to mitigate infringement.

This isn't very surprising. LimeWire is one of those peer-to-peer clients from back in the day that came with baked-in media players. The intent was clear. And I have no authority to cite for this assertion, but I suspect they made a lot of money by bundling spyware with at least their earliest versions.

the industry has succeeded in nailing Whitney Harper who was between 14-16 years old when she downloaded 37 songs. The Court of Appeals increased the penalties against her — amounting to as much as $40,000.

While the parties agreed that she would be liable for $200 a song (under the “innocent” downloading figure), the industry said it would seek $750 if she challenged them on appeal.

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a new task force on intellectual property in an effort to crack down on a "growing number" of IP crimes in the U.S. and elsewhere, the agency announced.

The task force, announced Friday by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, will focus on working with state, local and international law enforcement agencies to "combat intellectual property crimes," the DOJ said in a press release.

The task force will work closely with the recently established White House Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), which has the responsibility of drafting a strategic plan on IP for President Barack Obama's administration. The task force will recommend ways to improve IP enforcement, the DOJ said.

"The rise in intellectual property crime in the United States and abroad threatens not only our public safety but also our economic well-being," Holder said in a statement. "The Department of Justice must confront this threat with a strong and coordinated response."

U.S. officials have suggested that the counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals, vehicle parts and electronics can endanger the public. In some cases, pirated products also finance large criminal operations, officials have said.

I have to agree, in my limited capacity as a 1L, with the hope of Public Knowledge's president Gigi Sohn that such a task force will focus on the commercially-motivated piracy that does the most damage to rights holders' brands and bottom lines.

No one wants to find out some schmuck is sharing thousands of mp3s via P2P tech, but money lost doesn't seem nearly as damaging as money lost to someone else, who will use it to build out more resources.

This differentiation between "passive" piracy and "active" piracy shouldn't mean the former is left to run rampant while the latter is pursued with all of the government's efforts. But the difference should certainly inform federal anti-piracy policy. Prioritize the money-making pirates, both behind the scenes and in the public eye, and you'll suffer less of a pr fail than the RIAA.

After all, it's much easier for the public to demonize a corporation in support of the little guy than it is for them to champion the right of mass-market pirates to profit from their pilfering.

Okay, I've achieved my morning alliteration.

Learn more about Public Knowlege at their website:

http://www.publicknowledge.org/

"The notion that an infringer who does not make a profit should automatically be entitled to better treatment than an infringer who does make a profit is found nowhere in the law," the Recording Industry Association of America said this week in papers rejecting U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis's decision to slash the damages Jammie Thomas-Rasset must pay from a "monstrous and shocking" $1.92 million to a "significant and harsh" $54,000.

No commentary on this one. Just a reminder that this case will likely go to a third trial, solely on the question of damages.

Ars Technica's policy blog, Law & Disorder, has a really good artcile on this story, as well. It ran a couple of days ago.

Also check out Google News for more information on the third trial. And, of course, you can see my previous coverage of the RIAA, which includes both of the cases mentioned in the MediaPost story quoted above.

Joe Sibley, Thomas-Rasset’s attorney, said in a telephone interview that even the reduced amount of damages is unconstitutionally excessive. It’s a penalty of 2,250 times an assumed $1 cost of a music download.

“We’re still appealing the underlying constitutionality,” he said. “It’s the difference between Joseph Stalin and the Khmer Rouge,” Sibley said. “It’s still egregious.”

The Copyright Act allows damages of up to $150,000 per track. A Minnesota jury dinged Thomas-Rasset $80,000 a song. Davis, the judge who presided over the trial in Duluth, Minnesota, lowered it Friday to $2,250 per song — three times the $750 minimum. The judge declared the $1.92 million verdict “shocking” and said damage awards “must bear some relation to actual damages.”

From $1.92 million to $54,000. That's more than the minimum per-track award. But the judge who altered the amount called the previous amount "shocking."

What exactly is less shocking about the new verdict, which amounts to $2,250 per song, about $2,249 more per song than you would spend in iTunes?