The $150K/song isn't a government fine, but rather statutory damages awarded to the plaintiff (the copyright holder), so it isn't limited by the prohibition on Excessive Fines.
> Where a state antitrust law fixed penalties at $5,000 a day, and, after the verdict is guilty for over 300 days, a defendant corporation was fined over $1,600,000, this Court will not hold that the fine is so excessive as to amount to a deprivation of property without due process of law where it appears that the business was extensive and profitable during the period of violation and that the corporation has over $40,000,000 of assets and has declared dividends amounting to several hundred percent
Seems like it would be acceptable to fine Amazon 100x more then
If we (America) can find a way to send someone who shoplifted three golf clubs to prison for 25 years to life and have it not be “cruel and unusual punishments” we are certainly clever enough to find a way to charge companies who view fines as “the cost of doing business” enough so they will at least thing twice about it and have it not be “excessive”.
These fines DO discourage these behaviors. As some who handled fines at a very large bank, a fine would ALWAYS change the bank's procedures. ...and not only fines against us, but fines against ANY bank would alter procedures.
Please don't respond to a bad comment with an attack of your own. Your reply would have been fine with just the second sentence, and better still with just the second clause of the second sentence.
2. how is 100x the crime excessive, but $150,000 per pirated song isn't? That's a lot more than 100x the cost of a song.