Last week, on-line music company MP3.com was ordered to pay a small
record company, Tee Vee Tunes (TVT), the sum of $300,000 for
copyright infringement. Later, two members of the jury in the case
phoned the judge to confess that they had miscalculated the sum,
which they intended to be more than $2 million.
San Diego-based MP3.com was initially delighted with the verdict
after being sued for $8.5 million. It issued a press release
entitled “Claim for Millions Severely Limited by New York
Jury.”
The jurors, one of whom was a high school maths teacher, had to
calculate damages based on MP3.com putting 145 works on its site in
which the copyrights were owned by TVT. They had to decide how much
TVT should be paid for each work. The jury awarded $3,125 per
violation for several of the works, but later admitted that they
had intended to award $31,250 per violation. They were only aware
of the total sum payable on seeing press reports after the
hearing.
In a rare judicial move, US District Judge Jed Rakoff called the
jury back to court yesterday to determine what to do about the
verdict. He said he will decide the matter in the next few
weeks.
