Statutory damages for
copyright infringement are available under some countries'
copyright laws.
The charges allow copyright holders, who succeed with claims of infringement, to receive an amount of compensation ''per work'' (as opposed to compensation for losses, an
account of profits or
damages per infringing copy). Statutory damages can in some cases be significantly more than the actual damages suffered by the rightsholder or the profits of the infringer.
At least in the United States, the original rationale for
statutory damages
Statutory damages are a damage award in civil law, in which the amount awarded is stipulated within the statute rather than being calculated based on the degree of harm to the plaintiff. Lawmakers will provide for statutory damages for acts in wh ...
was that it would often be difficult to establish the number of copies that had been made by an underground pirate business and awards of statutory damages would save rightsholders from having to do so.
Statutory damages in the United States
In the
United States, statutory damages are set out in of the
U.S. Code. The basic level of damages is between $750 and $30,000 per work, at the discretion of the court.
Plaintiffs who can show
willful infringement may be entitled to damages up to $150,000 per work.
Defendant
In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case.
Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...
s who can show that they were "not aware and had no reason to believe" they were infringing copyright may have the damages reduced to "not less than" $200 per work.
[
Under , statutory damages are only available in the United States for works that were ]registered
Registered may refer to:
* Registered mail, letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and in need of a chain of custody
* Registered trademark symbol, symbol ® that provides notice that the preceding is a trademark or service ...
with the Copyright Office prior to infringement, or within three months of publication.
See also
* No Electronic Theft Act
The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement under certain circumstances, even when there is no monetary profit or com ...
* Capitol v. Thomas
''Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset'' was the first file-sharing copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States brought by major record labels to be tried before a jury. The defendant, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, was found liable to the plai ...
References
{{law-stub
United States copyright law
Judicial remedies
Copyright infringement