January 31, 2013 7:57am by David Farrar

The first copyright filesharing decision

The Copyright Tribunal has delivered its first decision under the relatively new file-sharing law. The key aspects are:

Infringement notices sent on 24 Nov 11, 19 Jun 12 and and 30 Jul 12.
Cost of songs calculated at $6.57 for three songs. Rejected RIANZ submission that you should multiply costs of songs by average number of downloads.
The costs to RIANZ of the three notices was $75 or $25 a notice. Determined that the account holder should pay 1/3 of the initial notice, 2/3 of second notice and 1005 of third notice so $50 of the $75 in total.
Account holder to pay 100% of the $200 Tribunal fee
A deterrent fee of $120 per infringement
This makes a total fine of $616.57 – pretty expensive for three songs.

Future decisions are likely to reference this one. It is likely that $600 is close to the minimum an account holder will pay if found to have infringed – unless they make the case for mitigating circumstances such as demonstrating they took steps to stop people with access to the account from file-sharing.