In the Fringe

NASAESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: J. Gallagher (University of Wisconsin), M. Mountain (STScI) and P. Puxley (NSF).

Infringement is a fancy word that pretty much means “used without permission.”  We talked about what copyright owners had the right to do.  That means others don’t have the right to do those with the copyrighted item without the owner’s permission.  If they use it without permission – ding, ding, ding = Infringement!

For example, let’s say that you really like our blog posts.  So much so that you want to repost them in full on your website.  It’s easy, right? You copy, paste, and voila!  You have successfully infringed my copyright on my posts.  If you have included the photos or drawings, then you also infringed the copyright of that creator, too.  That means possibly two different claims infringement per post.

Now, I know that you’d never do that, but if you did, what can I do about it?  First, I may be able to enjoin you from use.  That’s legal-ese for stop you from continuing to use it.  Then, let’s say you actually printed books of my posts, I may be able to have any physical copies of the books impounded then destroyed.  Finally, I can get cold, hard cash.

An infringer of copyright is liable for either:

(1) the copyright owner’s actual damages and any additional profits of the infringer; or

(2) statutory damages.

Notice that is either/or, not both.  In establishing the infringer’s profits, the copyright owner is required to present proof only of the infringer’s gross revenue, and the infringer is required to prove his or her deductible expenses and the elements of profit attributable to factors other than the copyrighted work.  That’s a pretty good head start.  For statutory damages, the copyright owner may elect, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just per infringement. For the purposes of this, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work.

Now if the infringement was committed willfully (that is that you knew you were infringing), the court may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000. On the other hand, in a case where the infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200.

That means I can stop you, destroy your inventory, and take your money – perhaps even more than you made.  So let’s make a deal instead.  How about you ask permission first, and I won’t ask $150,000.