severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously
unreasonable, and that was not the case here. The court noted that Congress set a statutory
damages range for willful copyright infringement of $750 to $150,000 per infringed work, and
the $222,000 sought was toward the lower end of that broad range. And it noted that the
Supreme Court has rejected the notion that the constitutional inquiry calls for a comparison of an
award of statutory damages to actual damages caused by the violation – because statutory
damages are imposed as a punishment for the violation of a public law, Congress may adjust
their amount to the public wrong rather than the private injury, just as if the award were going to
the state. Accordingly, the Eighth Circuit concluded that the plaintiffs were entitled to the
$222,000 award they sought, and the question whether the district court correctly granted a new
trial after the first verdict was moot.^337
- The Immunity of the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA)
The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA)^338 made two major substantive
changes to copyright law. First, Subchapter D of the AHRA (Section 1008) immunizes certain
noncommercial recording and use of musical recordings in digital or analog form.^339 Section
1008 provides:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright^340
based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording
device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an
analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of
such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical
recordings.Second, Subchapters B and C (Sections 1002-1007) of the AHRA require (i) that any
“digital audio recording device” (DARD) conform to the “Serial Copyright Management
System” (SCMS), which allows unlimited first generation copies of an original source, but
prohibits second generation copies (i.e., copies of a copy), and (ii) that manufacturers and
distributors of digital audio recording devices and digital audio recording media (such as DAT
tape and recordable CDs) pay royalties and file various notices and statements to indicate
payment of those royalties.^341
(^337) Id. at 906, 907-10.
(^338) Pub. L. No. 102-563, 106 Stat. 4244 (1992), codified at 17 U.S.C. §§ 1001-1010.
(^339) Nimmer § 8B.01 (2000).
(^340) The immunity applies with respect to copyrights in both the sound recordings and any musical compositions
embodied therein. Id. § 8B.07[C][2], at 8B-90.
(^341) Id. §§ 8B.02 & 8B.03 (2000).