IP Law: Constitutionality of Song Download Damages Awards



Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) — Only two peer-to-peer file-sharing copyright infringement actions have gone to trial against individual defendants. In Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum the statutory damage award returned by the jury was $675,000. In Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset the damages award was $1.5 million. Michael Dunn, Bloomberg Law Intellectual Property Law Report editor, talks with Josh Block on Bloomberg Law’s “Intellectual Property Review” about whether such awards may be unconstitutionally excessive. Also a review of IP developments including a popular petition on the White House website calling for an end to the issuance of software patents, McDonald’s attempt to block others from registering trademarks on ‘Mc’ and ‘Mac’ words, and Kodak, sitting on patents valued at as much as $3 billion, considers its next move.