United States v. Dove
United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia
585 F. Supp. 2d 865 (2008)
- Written by Kelli Lanski, JD
Facts
Daniel Dove (defendant) was convicted of criminal copyright infringement for his participation in an online piracy organization called Elite Torrents. Members of Elite Torrents could download copyrighted movies, music, and other media for free if they allowed other group members access to copyrighted material stored on their own computers. Two victims of the infringement, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Lionsgate Entertainment, Inc. (Lionsgate) submitted requests for restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1966. RIAA asked for $47,000, which it calculated by multiplying the average wholesale price of a digital album by 17,281, the number of times RIAA alleged its albums were transferred through Dove’s server, and then applying a discount if Dove agreed to participate in public-service announcements educating the public on the dangers of piracy. Lionsgate asked for $880,000 based on its calculation of its share of movie copyrights Dove infringed and sold, although Lionsgate did not provide proof of the number of times its copyrighted movies were downloaded from Dove’s server. RIAA and Lionsgate argued that all the people who downloaded from Dove’s server would otherwise have paid RIAA or Lionsgate for the media, justifying their claims for lost profits.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Jones, C.J.)
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