$30,000 for Sharing a Pirated Movie is Excessive Punishment
A federal court in Washington has rejected a $30,000 damages award against several Internet subscribers accused of downloading a pirated movie via BitTorrent. Judge Thomas Rice doubted that filmmakers were hurt much by the pirates and said the requested amount would be "excessive punishment."
Over the past several years hundreds of thousands of Internet subscribers have been sued in the United States for allegedly sharing copyrighted material, mostly films, online.
The goal of these lawsuits is to encourage alleged downloader to settle, and in some cases copyright holders continue proceedings against the defendants after being identified by their ISPs. If the alleged pirates then fail to respond, the rightsholder can ask the court for a default judgment, where they usually get their way.
