September 25, 2003

Newsfeed: James Speta

James Speta, associate professor of law, discusses the legalities of downloading music from the Internet

The recording industry has sued hundreds of music downloaders, alleging copyright infringement by copying and sharing music files. James Speta says the lawsuits are intended to be a deterrent.

“Obviously, given the number of users that have used Kazaa over the last couple of years it’s unlikely that they can sue everyone, but they’re not trying, actually, to sue everyone. They’re trying to let it be known that they will sue some people to create a deterrent and to try to get a sort of cultural change whereby people begin to think that music downloading is illegal or even if they don’t think it’s illegal, it’s something that they shouldn’t do.”

Speta says downloaders can face fines to cover both actual and statutory damages.

“They can face actual damages under the copyright law, but more importantly they can face statutory damages, which are essentially civil fines that the copyright owners will be entitled to, and those civil fines range between $750 and $150,000 for each song. So far they have settled the lawsuits against the end users. They’ll never recoup, that is, the record companies will never recoup all of their losses, but again I don’t think that’s their goal with these lawsuits.”

According to Speta, the recording industry is offering amnesty to those they have not yet sued.

“You have to register and agree that you are going to take any downloaded music off your computers and that you are not going to do it again. There’s a debate among lawyers who follow these matters about whether it’s in the interest of people to sign up for amnesty. Each person has to make they’re own decision about whether that’s a good idea or not.”

Speta believes statutory damages make the lawsuits more complicated.

“The difficult thing about these lawsuits is the availability of these quite significant statutory damages. Surely copyright owners should have the right to sue to get damages for copyright infringement. The availability of statutory damages makes these cases much more draconian than they would be in their absence. Several members of Congress are planning hearings to look at particularly the question of statutory damages and that’s going to be the next battlefront.”

—Samira Puskar

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