Cover-your-ass strategy, and nothing more. Who, besides the ones at fault, are ever happy with these mean-nothing fines?
The justice system really needs an overhaul with how it tackles "justice" between the wealthy, the connected, the corporations, and the rest. Though I am unsure what that would look like. Minimum net wealth per category of infraction across the board?
Edit: grammar
It was started by a group of authors, not publishers.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.43...
The big deal for publishers and authors is the payout per eligible title is $3k. The 3 class representatives get $15k each.
The other thing which caught my eye is the judge slashed the class counsel's fee by half, from 12.5% ($187.5m) to 6.8% ($101m). The class counsel's unreimbursed litigation expenses were $2.6m.
> The justice system really needs an overhaul with how it tackles "justice" between the wealthy, the connected, the corporations, and the rest. Though I am unsure what that would look like. Minimum net wealth per category of infraction across the board?
% of annual turnover seems like decent strategy. Caps the amount company can sue mere mortal for copyright infringement while at billion dollar company scale can wipe quite a bit
But main problem is enforcement and lobbying, not the size of the fine
They agreed on the amount last year. The judge approved it now.
The lawsuit was for the way the books were acquired. They already ruled that it's not infringement to use the books.
The award was $3,000 per book, which is about 100X higher than it would have cost to buy the books.
It's never going to appease the people who demand companies be sued into collapse, but given that both parties came to an agreement and the damages are 100X higher than what a book costs, it looks reasonable to me.
exabrial•1h ago
BeetleB•54m ago
As such, if you pirated a book and had to pay $3000 for that one instance, I don't think you'd like it if I said you should have paid $30K or $300K instead. If anything, this is analogous to the ridiculous fines people had to pay when pirating music.
(Not that I'm complaining...)
wgjordan•19m ago
If you pirated a book for personal use the amount of liability wouldn't match a company whose profit could be attributed to pirating the same book. In US copyright law, a copyright infringer could be liable for "any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement" [1] (if the copyright owner elects to recover actual damages and profits instead of statutory damages).
[1] 17 U.S.C. § 504(b), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/504
trentor•14m ago