Gloudas
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Welcome to Wikipedia, Gloudas!
RIAA’s damage theory- Limitations to punitive damages that can be collected have been established by prior case law, including BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore. In this case, a doctor sued BMW for withholding information from him regarding a paint job on his newly purchased car. The court stated that damages should be such that they “punish unlawful conduct and deter its repetition” but are “reasonably necessary” (Barker 538-9). There is much debate as to whether or not the damages exacted by RIAA were constitutionally justifiable. However, the RIAA has determined to eliminate its lawsuit program for the time being, stating that the intention of the program was “to educate fans about the law, the consequences of breaking the law, and raise awareness about all the great legal sites in the music marketplace” (RIAA). Furthermore, the determination of damages for pirating music has not always been consistent. For example, in 2008 a judge ruled that a 16-year-old girl would only have to pay $200 per song she downloaded through KaZaA. The rationale behind this decision was that the girl had perpetrated “innocent infringement.” RIAA’s counter argument was that the copyright notices printed on their CDs should have been sufficient to warn the girl (Bangeman).
Assessment of Damages:
“As per the US Copyright Law, except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work. In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.” The RIAA has used this statutory damages clause to sue for a variety of different prices – in some cases, defendants are only charged hundreds of dollars per infringement, but in the case of RIAA vs Limewire, the RIAA asked for the full $150,000 damages for each of the 11,000 copyrighted songs on the Limewire network.
Sources (tentatively): Case where damages per song was reduced: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/08/judge-riaa-damages-too-high-in-innocent-infringement-case/ Info from RIAA about piracy effects: http://www.riaa.com/faq.php http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504
Yes, posting to a user's talk page is the right way of contacting them. And yes, an appropriate way to discuss proposed changes to an article is to post to the talk page just like you did. Especially before making huge changes, or removing a large amount of text. Your proposal shouldn't come up against much resistance. You're right that the article hasn't been substantially edited in year, so no, you probably won't get much response, negative or positive, from other users. Another indicator of article activity is to see see how many users have an article on their watchlist by using a user-made tool, "watcher". You type the article name in the box and hit Go. As you see, the page has fewer than 30 watchers. So, again, you might not get a response. I usually wait a day or two, and if there's no negative discussion, I go ahead and make my changes. --Geniac (talk) 23:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)