I had to do a double take when I read the headline at Memeorandum for this article.
MPAA Says No Proof Needed in P2P Copyright Infringement Lawsuits
I dunno which law school the MPAA went to, but didn't they have to take Evidence? If accusers didn't need to prove their case, it sure would make all those lawsuits move a lot faster!
The Motion Picture Association of America said Friday intellectual-property holders should have the right to collect damages, perhaps as much as $150,000 per copyright violation, without having to prove infringement.
"Mandating such proof could thus have the pernicious effect of depriving copyright owners of a practical remedy against massive copyright infringement in many instances," MPAA attorney Marie L. van Uitert wrote Friday to the federal judge overseeing the Jammie Thomas trial.
Oh, I see. The MPAA doesn't think copyright holders should have to prove infringement. Hmm. How's that supposed to work?
A Duluth, Minnesota, jury in October dinged Thomas $222,000 for "making available" 24 songs on the Kazaa network in the nation's first and only RIAA case to go to trial. United States District Court Judge Michael Davis instructed the 12 panelists that they need only find Thomas had an open share folder, not that anyone from the public actually copied her files.
(It is technologically infeasible to determine whether the public is copying an open share folder, although the RIAA makes its own downloads from defendants' share folders, produces screen shots and, among other things, captures an IP address. An Arizona judge ruled last month in a different case that those downloads count against a defendant, a one-of-a-kind decision being appealed on grounds that the RIAA was authorized to download its own music.)
So, because it's difficult to prove infringement, the MPAA doesn't think they need to?
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