MediaSentry is a company that investigates infringements of copyrighted media that occur over the Internet. It discovered Whitney Harper using a file-sharing program to share hundreds of audio files (songs) with other users of a peer-to-peer network (LimeWire). To gather evidence, MediaSentry downloaded all files, captured screen shots showing the files Harper was sharing, and captured metadata for each file that showed the name of the artist and song. That allowed copyright identification. After suit was filed by the copyright owners, the plaintiffs were allowed to examine Harper's computer during discovery. Forensic experts could identify all aspects of file sharing, even those that had been "erased."

1. Could the damage to the copyright owners of the songs really be a minimum of $750 per download per song?
2. Do you think Harper really had any idea of the consequences involved in violating the Copyright Act? If not, why should the "innocent" violator damage rule apply?