In Counterfeit DVD and CD Case, Victim Cannot Recover Future Economic Losses.
When a person owns a copyright and finds out that another person has been selling items governed by the copyright without approval, that person is understandably outraged. The intellectual property that is represented by the copyright has been stolen and sold, enriching the thief.
It is easy to calculate the loss to the copyright owner for the items sold without approval. This is restitution.
It is a far more difficult, if not speculative, task to calculate the copyright owner’s losses that he will suffer in the future because items were marketed improperly by the copyright infringer, sold to others who resold the items, or who sold the items in developing markets before the copyright owner could enter that market, displacing the copyright owner’s sales.
California Penal Code
