RIAA Awarded $675,000 In Tenenbaum Trial

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The jury awarded the record company plaintiffs $675,000 in the Boston trial defended by Prof. Charles Nesson, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum. I was not surprised, since exactly none of the central issues ever even came up in this trial. The judge had instructed the jurors that Mr. Tenenbaum was liable, and that their only task was to come up with a verdict that was more than $22,500 and less than $4.5 million. According to the judge, her reason for doing so was that, when on the stand, the defendant was asked if he admitted liability, and he said 'yes.' The lawyers among you will know that that was a totally improper question, and that the Court should not have even allowed it, much less based her holding upon the answer to it."

Comments

$650,000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... that must have been a real big torrent, this guy downloaded, because I haven't seen music worth any money for years.

Anyone got a link to the file(s) he downloaded? Now I'm curious!

Re:Is this the year of clowns?

[st0rmshad0w]

Its the RIAA, I'm certain they'd accept the child, they have to feed their lawyers after all you know.

Re:bankrupt then what?

[st0rmshad0w]

Have you ever been to a Department of Motor Vehicles or Social Security office in the US? If so do you REALLY think it would be a good idea having an agency like that running a health care system? I think I'd sooner remove my own appendix with a dull spoon.

Re:bankrupt then what?

[Ceiynt]

This will now become my rally cry everytime I hear someone mention Social Medicine in the US. I think you kind citizen.

Re:Give it up, NYCL

[RIAAShill]

It's clear that the game is rigged. Here, with the defenses all tossed out before the case even got to the jury. Worldwide, as the Pirate Bay trial with the judge being the next best thing to a card-carrying member of the copyright cartel. All your presence does is legitimize the system by making it look like something other than the RIAA and its allies steamrolling over those without the resources (including paid-off legislators and fellow-traveler judges) to fight them.

File-sharing. A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about downloading a song through iTunes?

Re:Why was it improper?

[Jane Q. Public]

Weird. How in the world did that get modded "troll"? I guess I will never understand some people.

Re:Here's the best part of the Ars article...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Where'd your law degree come from? Jealous any? Come out and say it if you don't want to be embarrassed. Why don't you shut the hell up and stop criticizing your betters, until you can prove that you have something legitimate to say. No wonder you got modded up on an anti-intellectual place like slashdot - its right-wing bias is well-known everywhere.

Re:Yes what people need to remember

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

Apply for political asylum by jumping into a Chinese Embassy.

Re:Lessons Learned

[cliffski]

I thought the lesson was to actually use itunes?