Why I Volunteered for the EFF

By Paul

A group called the U.S. Copyright Group (USCG) has filed a lawsuit against thousands of as yet unknown people who may (or may not) have downloaded or uploaded movies on file sharing networks. The strategy, which has been employed by others in the past, is to file or threaten to file a lawsuit and then offer to settle for a few thousand. Defending a copyright lawsuit will almost certainly cost much more so the offer is tempting. Plus, copyright law allows statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work, so the potential risk can be severe.

One problem with employing this strategy on the scale that the USCG is doing is that it will almost certainly result in a large number wrongly identified people who feel compelled to pay up because its cheaper than fighting. It undermines rights to privacy and anonymity. Furthermore, it doesn’t get to the real issue of how to compensate artists for their work. Lawsuits can’t possibly be a realistic long-term business model.

As far as I know, the USCG only has a large list of suspect IP addresses and is currently attempting to obtain the identities of people so they can give them the pay up or go to court offer. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a resource for people who are faced with responding to a subpoena and would like advice with responding. I have volunteered to work with people in Minnesota who are faced with this situation. There are other attorneys in other states who have volunteered as well.

The EFF Subpoena Defense Attorney List
The EFF’s press release about the case.

But. . . they did it on TV: What Glee teaches about copyright

By Paul

The fictional high school chorus at the center of Fox’s Glee has a huge problem — nearly a million dollars in potential legal liability. For a show that regularly tackles thorny issues like teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse, it’s surprising that a million dollars worth of lawbreaking would go unmentioned. But it does, and week after week, those zany Glee kids rack up the potential to pay higher and higher fines.

Check out the rest of Christina Mulligan’s post at Balkanization.

Copyright damages and a new William Patry blog

By Paul

There have been several commentaries on various blogs already about the jury verdicts against Jammie Thomas here in Minnesota and against Joel Tennenbaum in Massachusetts. My two cents: both verdicts were correct in that they both were infringing copyrights, but the amount of damages may be excessive when applied to individuals. We’ll see if the amount of damages can be limited on appeal.

That said it is great to see that copyright expert William Patry has started blogging again and he and Ben Sheffner have several great posts on these two cases and the broader issue of what is fair payment for creative works and fair punishment for infringing those works. Patry’s new blog is Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars.