Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset - 692 F.3d 899 (8th Cir. 2012)

Rule:

The United States Supreme Court never has held that the punitive damages guideposts are applicable in the context of statutory damages. Due process prohibits excessive punitive damages because elementary notions of fairness enshrined in our constitutional jurisprudence dictate that a person receive fair notice not only of the conduct that will subject him to punishment, but also of the severity of the penalty that a state may impose. That concern about fair notice does not apply to statutory damages, because those damages are identified and constrained by the authorizing statute. The guideposts themselves, moreover, would be nonsensical if applied to statutory damages. It makes no sense to consider the disparity between actual harm and an award of statutory damages when statutory damages are designed precisely for instances where actual harm is difficult or impossible to calculate. Nor could a reviewing court consider the difference between an award of statutory damages and the civil penalties authorized, because statutory damages are the civil penalties authorized. 

Facts:

Capitol Records, Inc., Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, Warner Bros. Records, and UMG Recordings, Inc., are recording companies that own the copyrights to large catalogs of music recordings. In 2005, they undertook to investigate suspected infringement of these copyrights. MediaSentry, an online investigative firm hired by the recording companies, discovered that an individual with the username "tereastarr" was participating in unauthorized file sharing on the peer-to-peer network KaZaA. During the relevant time period, KaZaA was a file-sharing computer program that allowed its users to search for and download specific files from other users. KaZaA users shared files using a share folder. A share folder is a location on the user's computer in which the user places files—such as audio or video recordings—that she wants to make available for other users to download. KaZaA allowed its users to access other users' share folders, view the files in the folder, and download copies of files from the folder. MediaSentry accessed tereastarr's share folder. The investigative firm determined that the user had downloaded copyrighted songs and was making those songs available for download by other KaZaA users. MediaSentry took screen shots of tereastarr's share folder, which included over 1,700 music files, and downloaded samples of the files. But MediaSentry was unable to collect direct evidence that other users had downloaded the files from tereastarr. MediaSentry then used KaZaA to send two instant messages to tereastarr, notifying the user of potential copyright infringement. Tereastarr did not respond to the messages. MediaSentry also determined tereastarr's IP address, and traced the address to an Internet service account in Duluth, Minnesota, provided by Charter Communications. MediaSentry compiled this data in a report that it prepared for the recording companies. Using the information provided by MediaSentry, the recording companies, through the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), issued a subpoena to Charter Communications requesting the name of the person associated with tereastarr's IP address. Charter informed the RIAA that the IP address belonged to Jammie Thomas-Rasset. The RIAA then sent a letter to Thomas-Rasset informing her that she had been identified as engaging in unauthorized trading of music and inviting her to contact them to discuss the situation and settle the matter. Thomas-Rasset contacted the RIAA as directed in the letter and engaged in settlement conversations with the organization. The parties were unable to resolve the matter. In 2006, the recording companies sued Thomas-Rasset, seeking statutory damages and injunctive relief for willful copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. They alleged that Thomas-Rasset violated their exclusive right to reproduction and distribution under 17 U.S.C. § 106 by impermissibly downloading, distributing, and making available for distribution twenty-four copyrighted sound recordings. At trial, Thomas-Rasset conceded that "tereastarr" is a username that she uses regularly for Internet and computer accounts. She admitted familiarity with and interest in some of the artists of works found in the tereastarr KaZaA account. She also acknowledged that she wrote a case study during college on the legality of Napster—another peer-to-peer file sharing program—and knew that Napster was shut down because it was illegal. Nonetheless, Thomas-Rasset testified that she had never heard of KaZaA before this case, did not have KaZaA on her computer, and did not use KaZaA to download files. The jury found Thomas-Rasset liable for willful infringement and awarded the recording companies statutory damages of $9,250 per work, for a total of $222,000. Several months later, the district court sua sponte raised the issue whether it erred by instructing the jury that making sound recordings available for distribution on a peer-to-peer network violates a copyright owners' exclusive right to distribution, "regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown." The jury again found Thomas-Rasset liable for willful infringement, and awarded the recording companies statutory damages of $80,000 per work, for a total of $1,920,000. A third trial was held in November 2010, and the only question for the jury was the amount of statutory damages. The jury awarded the recording companies statutory damages of $62,500 per work, for a total of $1,500,000. Thomas-Rasset then moved to alter or amend the judgment, again arguing that any statutory damages award would be unconstitutional, but alternatively that the district court should reduce the award under the Due Process Clause. The trial court granted Thomas-Rasset's motion and reduced the award to $2,250 per work, for a total of $54,000. The court ruled that this amount was the maximum award permitted by the Due Process Clause.

Issue:

Did the trial court err in reducing the third jury’s verdict for statutory damages?

Answer:

Yes.

Conclusion:

In holding that any award over $2,250 per work would violate the Constitution, the district court effectively imposed a treble damages limit on the $750 minimum statutory damages award. The district court based this holding on a "broad legal practice of establishing a treble award as the upper limit permitted to address willful or particularly damaging behavior." Any "broad legal practice" of treble damages for statutory violations, however, does not control whether an award of statutory damages is within the limits prescribed by the Constitution. The limits of treble damages to which the district court referred, such as in the antitrust laws or other intellectual property laws, represent congressional judgments about the appropriate maximum in a given context. They do not establish a constitutional rule that can be substituted for a different congressional judgment in the area of copyright infringement. Although the United States seems to think that the district court's ruling did not question the constitutionality of the statutory damages statute, the district court's approach in our view would make the statute unconstitutional as applied to a significant category of copyright infringers. The evidence against Thomas-Rasset demonstrated an aggravated case of willful infringement by an individual consumer who acted to download and distribute copyrighted recordings without profit motive. If an award near the bottom of the statutory range is unconstitutional as applied to her infringement of twenty-four works, then it would be the rare case of noncommercial infringement to which the statute could be applied.