Monetary damages can be in the amount of the infringer's profits arising from the infringement.
[The following is copied and pasted from a Common Draft annotation:]
Consider the case of Frank Music Corp. v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 886 F.2d 1545 (9th Cir. 1989) (Frank Music II): [1]
+ The MGM Grand Hotel had a floor show called Hallelujah Hollywood!, which included ‘tributes' to various MGM movies.
+ The floor show incorporated significant portions of the musical Kismet, which had been made into an MGM movie.
+ The court found that this went beyond MGM's ‘movie rights' and therefore infringed the copyright in the musical.
+ The resulting damage award included not just a portion of profits from the floor show itself, but 2% of the overall profits from the MGM Grand's hotel operations — including 2% of the casino profits — which, the court found, were indirectly attributable to the promotional value of the infringing floor show.
Why do you think the monetary damages are small? Going head-to-head against a company that is apparently valued over $1billion by stealing their source code sounds expensive.
