DOJ Backs Landmark RIAA File-Sharing Victory
It looks like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) might finally get its payday. The U.S. Department of Justice has decided a $222,000 damage award in a digital music copyright infringement case the RIAA won in October is constitutional.On Tuesday, Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bucholtz filed a 20-page brief in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota indicating the jury-assessed damages against Jammie Thomas, a single mom from an Indian reservation, were not excessive.
“Given the findings of copyright infringement in this case, the damages awarded under the Copyright Act’s statutory damages provision did not violate the Due Process Clause” of the Constitution, the brief noted. The damages were not “so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense….”
Click here to read the rest of this story on NewsFactor.
Add comment December 6th, 2007
