Rich Fiscus
17 Feb 2009 13:32
The US Department of Justice may be getting ready to back the RIAA in one of their P2P lawsuits. At issue is a challenge to the constitutionality of a single provision of US copyright law which mandates minimum damages of $750 per work (1 song or album), or as much as $150,000 per work if the infringer knows what he's doing is illegal.
The challenge was filed in the case of Sony BMG v Denise Cloud as part of a motion made by the defendant's lawyer to dismiss the lawsuit. The Attorney General's office subsequently filed a notice with the court announcing they may wish to defend the damages. They are planning to let the court know what their decision is by March 25.
This is far from the first time the subject has come up, but no judge has ever had to rule on it. Just last month Charles Nesson, the Harvard University law professor assisting the defense in another RIAA lawsuit, told Afterdawn the amount mandated by law is "so grossly out of proportion that it violates the due process clause."
What is different now is the presence at the DOJ of lawyers who have been crucial cogs in the RIAA's lawsuit machine. Litigators who were instrumental in the Grokster case and the initial wave of lawsuits against P2P users have been appointed to top spots in the Justice Department by President Obama.
This is our first chance to see how these appointements will affect public policy.