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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 4966587" data-attributes="member: 19675">I'm breaking my self-imposed vow to avoid piracy threads (due to my blood pressure) to address this one:Before you decry the settlement, check the law about the penalties that are possible.<a href="http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html" target="_blank">U.S. Copyright Office - Copyright Law: Chapter 5</a>The copyright holder has a choice of remedies including 1) actual damages & recovery of lost profits, 2) statutory damages ($750-30,000 per infringement- yes, this is meant to be punitive and a warning to others), 3) forfeiture and destruction, 4) a flat $150,000, 5) costs & attorney fees (so that even low-income IP owners can afford to sue), 6) injunctions.  If the infringement was deemed to be a "Criminal Infringement"- you can get jail time up to 5 years AND a fine of up to $250k.By the description, its possible that these people were chargeable with criminal copyright infringement.  Its also possible that WotC was asking either for the flat fee or statutory damages rather than lost profits.So settling for 125k is probably a pretty good deal.Fair?  Yep.A certain subset of people don't seem to see or care that piracy is an attack on the geese that lay golden eggs.Me?  I have to represent people who see people downloading their stuff while they're trying to support their families with 2 minimum-wage jobs, possibly facing financial disaster when they can't repay the loan that let them record their album or write their book when pirated copies outsell legit ones.</blockquote>

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