On Declan McCullagh's politech list, Cam Barker says:
I wanted to let you know about an article on excessive penalties for file-sharing, written by me and posted [here].
The paper argues that the file sharers sued by the RIAA have a constitutional right to pay much smaller penalties than the millions of dollars they can be liable for under copyright law's minimum damages of $750 per song. With the RIAA breaking the 10,000-person barrier this week in its lawsuits against file sharers (see sharenomore.blogspot.com), and with no indication of slowing down, it seems timely to look at how much the recording industry is recovering in these lawsuits. Such a right to pay smaller penalties could reduce the settlement pressure on file swappers and could change the economics of the RIAA's mass litigation.
