Law Professor Estimates His Copyright Liability in the Billions

To make the point that copyright law is wildly out of sync with people’s behavior and expectations, a law professor at the University of Utah has published an article describing how he would be liable for an estimated $4.5-billion in damages a year if copyright holders assiduously enforced their rights.

The professor, John Tehranian, says he starts the day infringing when he responds to e-mail messages. His responses automatically include copies of the messages on which he is commenting. Within an hour he has replied to and forwarded 20 e-mail messages, making him liable for $3-million in statutory damages, Mr. Tehranian writes in the Utah Law Review. Later, he violates the Copyright Act when he distributes to his students copies of three Internet articles analyzing a Supreme Court decision handed down an hour earlier. And when he bares his chest to go swimming he reveals a Captain Caveman tattoo on his right shoulder.

The professor acknowledges he is assuming a narrow interpretation of fair use and a reading of case law that favors copyright holders. Still, his point is that the law needs fixing. “One must either irrationally conclude that John is a criminal infringer—a veritable grand larcenist—or blithely surmise that copyright law must not mean what it appears to say,” he writes. “Something is clearly amiss.”—Andrea L. Foster