US judge: offering music is copyright infringement

A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the provision of music should be regarded as a copyright infringement. He is in direct opposition to the judgment of a colleague from Minnesota.

Whitney Harper, a now 20-year-old Texas college student, was sued by the Riaa in 2007 for offering music on the Internet through Kazaa. Harper admitted this, but stated that she was not aware that this was prohibited, as she was only 16 years old when she offered the music and was not yet well aware of copyright restrictions. Judge Xavier Rodriguez did not consider this a reason to waive compensation, but to moderate it. He did not consider it necessary to hold a jury trial and sentenced Harper in a shortened procedure to pay $200 per song, totaling $7400.

Because the law prescribes a minimum compensation of $750 per song, de Riaa initially disagreed and wanted the case to be decided by a jury. The organization later came back to this point, probably because Minnesota judge Michael Davis had meanwhile ruled that offering music did not amount to distributing it and thus did not constitute copyright infringement. Harper wanted a lawsuit, because she might not have to pay anything at all.

Judge Xavier Rodriguez, however, saw no reason to change his verdict in the Minnesota ruling and found still that Harper was guilty of copyright infringement, so reports wired. He therefore did not want to hold a jury trial on the case, and Harper has to pay $ 7400 in damages as far as he is concerned. It seems that the crucial question of whether the provision of music should be regarded as copyright infringement will ultimately have to be answered by the Supreme Court.