The money given to a copyright holder to compensate him or her for the harm caused by infringement.
Whenever the copyright in a work is infringed, there is at least the theoretical possibility that the legal holder of the copyright has been harmed in some way. If the rights-holder sues the infringer and wins, a court may award damages to the rights holder as way of compensating them for any damage that has been done. A rights-holder may seek actual or statutory monetary damages,depending on which she thinks are more valuable, or easier to determine, or an injunction compelling the defendant to cease the infringing activities.
Actual Damages
Actual damages represent the true cost of the harm suffered as a result of the infringement.
For example, if it were possible to determine exactly how many sales had been lost as a result of an act or acts of infringement, it would be possible to calculate actual damages. One thousand sales lost, at a profit of ten euros a sale = ten thousand euros damages. In practice, it can be very difficult to accurately calculate actual damages. When this is true, statutory damage provisions will frequently be used instead.
Statutory Damages
Statutory damages are damages where the amount of money a rights-holder may collect as damages is set by statutes.
Many legal regimes contain provisions for statutory damages. For example, in US law, 17 USCA 504(c) states that “Except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just.” For willful infringement, the amount can go up to $150,000!