---
id: "prereq-statutory-damages"
type: "prereq"
source_timestamps: ["¶14"]
tags: ["legal-knowledge", "financial-risk"]
related: ["claim-piracy-financial-risk"]
reason: "Understanding that copyright law allows per-work statutory damages (up to $150k for willful infringement) without proving actual loss is crucial to grasping the trillion-dollar liability AI companies face."
sources: ["tail2"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail2"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-tail-126-genai-copyright"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/07/can-gen-ai-and-copyright-coexist"
sourceTitle: "Can Gen AI and Copyright Coexist?"
---
# 17 U.S.C. § 504 (Statutory Damages)

**Prerequisite knowledge.** 17 U.S.C. §504 lets a copyright owner elect *statutory damages* — a per-work award set within a statutory range **without** having to prove actual financial loss. The range is up to **$30,000 per work** for ordinary infringement and up to **$150,000 per work** where infringement is *willful* (courts also have discretion to reduce awards).

**Why it matters here:** the per-work, no-proof-of-loss structure is what turns millions of pirated works into a theoretical trillion-scale exposure in [[claim-piracy-financial-risk]] once the [[concept-piracy-caveat]] applies. Crucial calibration: courts rarely award the maximum on every work, and class settlements produce far smaller per-work payouts — so the statutory ceiling is a worst-case bound, not an expected outcome.