$1.5 million for sharing $24 worth of songs? Really? Even the minimum statutory damage of $750, or $18,000 is still severe considering the crime. Going by the IFPI's figures, 40 billion files shared in 2008 (IFPI is the internation equivalent of the RIAA). If every person were to be made to pay the same amount as Jammie Thomas, the amount would be $2,500,000,000,000,000. That 2.5 quadrillion dollars, or 2,500 trillion dollars. It dwarfs the world GDP, which is only 57,843,376,000,000, i.e., 57 trillion dollars. It even dwarfs the entire net wealth of the planet. There is literally not enough money in the world for all the pirates to pay the RIAA at that level.
Obviously the sizes of the verdicts far beyond the minimum weren't based on the offense of sharing 24 songs, but rather on the supposed offense of fighting it in court rather than taking the RIAA's settlement. That is really screwed up too: to be punished for exercising your constitutional rights. The law needs to updated to take into account the individual non-commercial filesharers and have a much more reasonable damage award. $750 should be the top, or near the top, not the bottom, in such cases ($18,000 is a lot of money for normal people).
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