If you
were ever required by a court to turn over your hard drive for copying, in order
to glean evidence from it, you might consider a format is a good idea. Well, it
isn't! Someone tried just that, and the court is throwing the book at her. They
have leveled the maximum penalty and now it is up to the RIAA to determine just
how much they want to punish this scofflaw.
 Knowing that a court order was in place requiring her
to turn over her hard drive to be copied, the defendant allegedly used
"wiping" software in an attempt to destroy all evidence of her illegal P2P
file sharing. In response, the plaintiff record companies moved, pursuant
to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b), for the most severe form of sanctions against
the defendant '“ entry of default against her. The court granted the
plaintiffs' motion, and provided them with 30 days to submit a proposed
order spelling out their damages.
Given that the record companies' expert opined that the defendant had
downloaded over 200 sound recordings during 2005, those requested damages
will probably be substantial. Statutory damages under the Copyright Act
can go as high as $150,000 per work infringed, in the most egregious
cases.
In reaching its decision to enter default against the defendant, the
court exercised its inherent power to do so, making a note of its
obligation to act with "restraint and discretion." It found that the
defendant had acted in bad faith. That bad faith was exacerbated '“ and the
default was further warranted '“ by the fact that the defendant herself was
responsible for the destruction of evidence, that the deletion of the
files destroyed the strongest evidence relevant to the plaintiff's
infringement claims, and that less drastic sanctions would not be
appropriate. |
I wonder what would have happened, if she just deleted
all the illegal files and not the entire contents of the drive? You can check
out the story in it's entirety here.
Source: InternetCases
