Damages – Remittitur; Copyright Infringement 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, February 8, 2010
By admin

Where a jury found that defendant, an individual, had willfully infringed 24 sound records by illegally downloading them from the Internet and awarded statutory damages in the amount of $80,000 for each song, for a total verdict of $1,920,000, the District Court finds that the verdict is so shocking that it must be remitted and concludes that remittitur to $2,250—three times the statutory minimum—per sound recording is appropriate.

In reaching this amount, Judge Davis considers that defendant acted willfully and refused to accept responsibility for her actions, even attempting to blame her children for the infringement. Thus, the court believes the need for deterrence is strong. However, defendant was an individual consumer, not a business acting for profit, who illegally sought free access to music for her own use.

Further, while plaintiffs chose statutory damages and were not required to prove their actual damages, "statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages." Although the cost of a song online may be $1.29, the court must also consider "the difficulty in quantifying the damages caused by the chain effect of [defendant’s] distribution. . . , the large scale damages caused by online piracy in aggregate, and the substantial impediments to identifying and pursuing infringers."

The court utilizes a damage factor of three times the statutory minimum because "[t]here is a broad legal practice of establishing a treble award as the upper limit permitted to address willful or particularly damaging behavior." The court emphasizes that "[t]his reduced award is significant and harsh" and also issues an injunction prohibiting further infringement by defendant.

06-1497 Capitol Records Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset (D. Minn., Davis, J.)