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

bankrupt then what?

[alain94040]

A good example of the justice system at work for your average citizen... So really, what happens next? The guy files for bankruptcy. The RIAA doesn't get any money (not that they really intend to get significant income from those cases). What are the consequences for Mr. Tenenbaum? Can't get a credit card for a few years? Needs to get a job? I'm really curious as to what the true consequences will be.

--
fantasy camp for iPhone developers

Re:bankrupt then what?

[shark72]

They submitted fair use as a defense with the likely understanding that it would be rejected. This is Nesson's ticket to appeal.

My guess is that Nesson knows he can't get precedent set at the district court level. MGM v. Grokster made it to the Supreme Court, and I think Nesson wants to take this one to the Supremes. Tennenbaum didn't have a chance with the current interpretation of the law (basically "copyright infringement is bad, mmmkay?"), so he's trying to shake things up.

That's just my interpretation. The other possibility is that he's simply an idiot, but it's already established that he's a very smart guy.

Is this the year of clowns?

[Chyeld]

How many RIAA/Copyright related lawsuits this year have started off with a hopeful - "Yeah! Damnit! We are taking this one all the way and are going to stick it to the MAN! Fuck him! Fuck the MAN Baby!" only to result in a circus and a horrible verdict for the defendant?

Damn that's depressing, and this one was the one I was actually hoping the guy running the show had some sort of fucking clue/hidden plan that he was going to spring out at the end.

I mean, yes, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of willfull copyright infringement, but I thought at least this would come out to forcing the RIAA to cut out some of their crap.

Re:Is this the year of clowns?

[IndustrialComplex]

How many RIAA/Copyright related lawsuits this year have started off with a hopeful - "Yeah! Damnit! We are taking this one all the way and are going to stick it to the MAN! Fuck him! Fuck the MAN Baby!" only to result in a circus and a horrible verdict for the defendant?

Damn that's depressing, and this one was the one I was actually hoping the guy running the show had some sort of fucking clue/hidden plan that he was going to spring out at the end.

I mean, yes, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of willfull copyright infringement, but I thought at least this would come out to forcing the RIAA to cut out some of their crap.

Because the Plaintiffs can pick and choose the cases they bring to court. Why, out of thousands of potential defendants, would you go to court against the one that can destroy your approach?

They don't bring to court someone WE would like to see. In my case, I only download music that I have already purchased a physical copy of, so their case would be a much harder sell.

Yes what people need to remember

[Sycraft-fu]

Is your credit is, in fact, NOT ruined after a bankruptcy. Why? Because you can't file again for a number of years. Thus lenders don't have to worry about you using bankruptcy to just walk on your debts. That doesn't mean your credit is grand, but it isn't worthless. Companies will lend to you since they know you don't have that as a way out.

Re:Yes what people need to remember

[commodore64_love]

I think if RIAA ever sues me, I'm not even going to bother defending myself.

- I'll just ignore the extortion letter demanding $500 or else.
- Ignore the summons to court.
- Not bother showing up.
- Just wait for a verdict.

And then I'll have a good laugh about the whole thing, because no way would I pay a 1 or 2 million dollar fine. I'll declare bankruptcy, and then use the verdict as an opportunity to show how evil the record companies are.

- "Look what our country has become? A place where a person has to pay 2 million dollars because he heard 30 streamed songs off the net. Who's next? Your neighbor? Your self? Your child? This is tyranny pure and simple, not liberty." - except from the book, Corporate Slavery - The New Plantation

Re:Yes what people need to remember

[commodore64_love]

I don't own any real property (land). And a 2 million dollar judgement is unpayable. I'd be dead before I pay-off even a quarter that amount. That's why I'd laugh at the absurdity, and invite everyone else to laugh along with me.

Re:What is the point of jury trial?

[Jane Q. Public]

No, he admitted "liability", not "guilt". Those are two very different things. As NYCL pointed out, liability is a question of law that the defendant is not qualified to judge.

Re:Disingenuous summary

[pacergh]

Thank you.

Ray Beckerman's summary is disingenuous, which is a shame. Instead of focusing on meaningless small issues in the trial, the overall issues of the case and the posture of the plaintiffs and defendants should be focused on.

I remember an article on ArsTechnica about Nesson getting in on the act. "Oh no, here comes Harvard professors â" the RIAA must be quaking in its boots!"

The sad reality is that Nesson and his crew did just about the job you'd expect from a law clinic â" average, if not below.

That's not to say law school clinics don't provide valuable legal aid, or that they can't have a great case here or there, but it is far from the norm.

Here, you have a professor (Nesson) who has likely not had much courtroom experience over the last many years trying to guide law students who have had little to no courtroom experience in how to defend a complicated, specialized case involving copyright infringement.

The antics of the defense were not those of a principled, strong defense plan. Then again, as the above poster mentioned, it seems the idea was to lay out a possible case for a constitutional challenge to statutory damages.

Besides, the idea that Harvard has some special magic that will win the day does not play out in the real world. The special magic of Harvard isn't trial outcomes, it's networking and job options for alumni.

Nevertheless, maybe the appeal on statutory damages will go through and do some good in the end.

I just feel bad for Tenenbaum.

someone paid for it

[tizan]

This "i don't want to be forced" is a virtual problem...you/we are FORCED already.

People paid for your treatment that you defaulted, one way or the other (its not that the doctor went hungry or the hospital also went bankrupt) its paid by contingency funds that we people who contribute into...one way or another...the physicists amongst us will agree you donot invent things out of nothing...conservation laws work.

Its like people say google is free ....no its not ..its financed by ads which is paid by us because we buy stuff at higher prices for companies to
pay for ads...now if we had a tax to finance google and no ads people will shout "OMG its a tax ...i want free market and free stuff" ...yet it will cheaper than the indirect tax we pay already...because in the process of making ads we finance ad agencies and all kind of intermediates and intermediaries to finance google search engines....

Re:What is the point of jury trial?

[Chyeld]

Even in a criminal trial you could have a defendant yelling "I did it" and the lawyers arguing that he is bonkers.

And yet, his team wasn't. Was it?

More importantly, this wasn't a random "Judge up and decides the point on their own inititive" event, it was a response to a motion from the RIAA lawyers, which appearently wasn't opposed by HIS lawyers.

Regardless of anything else that is happening in this case, getting upset over the Judge doing this is pointless, appearently his lawyers didn't think it was worth fighting and they were actually in the room.

I move for a bad court thingy

[cpt kangarooski]

Lionel Hutz: And so, ladies and gentleman of the jury I rest my case.
Judge: Hmmm. Mr. Hutz, do you know that you're not wearing any pants?
Hutz: DAAAA!! I move for a bad court thingy.
Judge: You mean a mistrial?
Hutz: Right!! That's why you're the judge and I'm the law-talking guy.
Judge: You mean the lawyer?
Hutz: Right.

I am not a litigator, so I really never go to court. It being a novelty to me, I had a fun time watching the trial this week, and seeing how an infringement trial goes outside of what I've read in books. However, I noticed what I thought was a significant mistake in the jury instructions as the judge and the two sides were working them out today. I predicted that this could cause the jury to err in a particular way, and looking at the award, I think it may have actually happened.

The plaintiff suggested that the jury should award damages based on the number of infringements. The judge felt that this was acceptable, and the defense did not counter with an alternative. When the instructions were finally given to the jury, they included language to this effect. The problem with this is that the law -- 17 USC 504(c)(1) -- specifies that statutory damages are awarded per work infringed, not per infringement. That is to say, if you were on trial for distributing one copyrighted sound recording to one million people, that would only count against you one time, not one million times. But if you were on trial for distributing two different sound recordings once each, that would be two counts against you.

I feared that due to the flawed language in the instructions the jury might believe that even if they were to award the minimum of $750 per count (in this case there are 30 counts), they might take notice of the fact that the defendant infringed when he downloaded, and infringed again when he uploaded, and therefore might double their award, thinking that each type of infringement counted separately for computing damages. Or worse, they might multiply their figure more, if they thought he uploaded a lot.

Well, the figure that they came up with after deliberating was $675,000. The minimum award in this case would have been $750 per work times 30 works, or $22,500. Multiply $22,500 by 30, and you get the amount actually awarded. It is possible that the jury meant to award the minimum damages, but due to the incorrect instructions, multiplied to account for multiple acts of uploading that they believed occurred.

Or they might have just felt that 30 times the minimum was a just figure, and they understood the instructions just fine. Not having seen reports (if there are any, or are ever going to be any) from the jurors as to what their logic was when deliberating, I don't know.

But the doubt, it seems to me, could be grounds for a mistrial. This is of course entirely unrelated to the constitutionality issue that has been discussed at length. On both issues, I will be very interested to see what happens. And since an appeal is likely, and any appeal will go to the First Circuit, I will probably get to see that myself as well.