Rich Fiscus
29 Jul 2008 18:38
The file sharing case of Tenise Barker has been going on for nearly three years now. Despite their best efforts, and even a brief in support of their case from the Department of Justice, all recording industry lawyers have managed to accomplish is to get their claim that simply sharing files is copyright infringement denied by the judge.
In response to an amended complaint filed in April she's now challenging the financial award RIAA lawyers are asking for. Her lawyer, Ray Beckerman, is arguing that the amount of $750 to $150,000 per song, which is several thousand times any real damages claimed, would be a violation of her constitutional right to due process.
According to Mr. Beckerman there are several options available to the judge, any of which would be likely to drastically increase the number of defendants who refuse to settle and choose instead to make the RIAA prove their cases in court.
One option offered would be to treat the entire case as a single act of infringement and assign an automatic $750 award to remain consistent with the letter of the law. Another alternative listed would be to award a total of $3.50 for each song in order to keep the amount less than 10 times the actual damages claimed (ie a single download of the song).
A third suggestion recommends treating the plaintiffs (labels) as having "unclean hands" due to their use of unlicensed private investigators (MediaSentry) in building their case.
If the judge agrees with any of these remedies it would be a crushing defeat for the RIAA's campaign of file sharing lawsuits. They depend on defendants settling to avoid paying more money than they make in a year if they lose.