[Coco] Re: Hot Coco Post Partum

[Frank Pittel]

On Mon, Aug 01, 2005 at 06:24:19PM -0700, John R. Hogerhuis wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-08-01 at 21:10 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > IDG would have a heck of a time showing any losses other 
> > than what they would have to pay their attorny's to pursue it.  
> > Either way, its a net loss for them, particularly after we make a bit 
> > of noise on slashdot about the basic injustice of their attitude.
> 
> Alas, they don't need to show actual damages. The law allows for
> statutory damages.
> 
> The court can award between $750 minimum and $30,000 maximum per
> infringement regardless of actual damages. Then if the court decides the
> infringement was "willfull" the court can award up to $150,000 per
> infringment.
> 
> http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2000-all/landau-2000-10-all.html
> 
> The judge probably wouldn't grant such a high level of damages in a case
> like this. But add on whatever he does award plus attorney's fees ($200+
> per hour the plaintiff spends on their attorneys), and I hope whoever
> does this is judgement proof (poor). Better just trade samizdat copies
> on the sly, which seems to be what happens now (this is not legal advice
> or an inducement to infringe... just a statement of the way things seem
> to work).
> 
> -- John.
> 

The emails on the list and I suspect in the Yahoo groups from people suggesting
that we simply ignore the copyright and go ahead and distribute the disks and not
worry about the copyrights will not sit well with a judge.

The question is does anyone have enough funding to pay the damages in the case of a
lawsuite??

Frank