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Tenenbaum Lawyers Now Passing the Hat
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Just when you think this case couldn't get any stranger, it now appears that the defendant's 'legal team' in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum is passing the hat, taking up a collection. Only the reason for the collection isn't to defray costs and expenses of further defending the action, but to pay the RIAA the amount of the judgment so that their client won't have to declare bankruptcy. I would suggest there might have been a much better way of avoiding bankruptcy. It's called 'handling the case competently.'"
Why does it seem that everybody involved in these cases is an idiot? The RIAA lawyers, the defendants and their representation, the judges, the juries...they all sound like total stooges. How has everything gone so completely wrong?
Instead of pushing for a reasonable fine, they expect sympathy from the public?
I'm afraid they're getting neither in this case.
I know it's asking for a "troll" but another option to avoid the bankruptcy would have been to avoid downloading. The music companies are being dicks and the settlements are laughable but it's kind of like complaining about the price of a speeding ticket. It's steep to stop people from speeding. Granted he was caught doing 60 in a 55 zone and they are treating it as though he was nailed for topping 200 mph in a school zone.
The money is going directly to the RIAA pockets. Be a man, declare bankruptcy and fuck the RIAA.
Where did NYCL get his law degree? I would like to know where these "good" law schools are in America.
They're everywhere. It's not the school that matters so much, it's the lawyer. The top third in the class from any law school will be very smart, very sharp thinkers, and excellent game players. The bottom third in the class will not know how to think like a lawyer, will not have a solid grasp of the fundamentals, and will be easily outmaneuvered by opposing counsel. The quality of the students in the middle will vary, as will the capability of the top students when matched against best from other institutions - that's where the school's reputation comes into play. Of course, a good lawyer on a losing case will still probably lose, no matter what his GPA or which his alma mater.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
The first problem here is his legal representation was a bunch of idiots. The second problem here is he admitted under oath that he did it, he did it repeatedly, he continued doing it after being warned not to, lied about it under oath, and said all this in front of the jury. And what his clown collection representation should be doing now is asking the RIAA if they could belatedly negotiate a more reasonable settlement, which is what the RIAA offered to do after the fact in the Jammie Dumbbitch case.
This case should have never gone to trial. He should have settled for a few thousand right at the start and called it a day and lesson learned.
And the community as a whole has made a mistake in two cases now. It rallies to the support of people who really did what they were accused by the RIAA of doing. Instead of finding a way to back those being attacked by the RIAA who are in fact completely innocent, everyone and their mother throws themselves behind the guilty ones. Neither of these cases was ever "fighting the good fight".
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
$20 is too much for a CD of sub par music. Now you want me to pay the same people who already rip me off, and get nothing?
You want people to donate $600,000 to the RIAA?
Is this from the Onion?
Not a bad school, not an astoundingly big name either. If you graduate with honors, you probably know what you're doing.
It is an excellent law school in terms of the quality of the education. It has much less prestige than Harvard Law School, however.
As to 'knowing what you're doing', my experience has been that this correlates neither to what law school one went to, nor to one's grades in law school.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Because with a competent defense, they have an almost unwinnable case. There are just so many areas to slam them on. One of the biggest I'd go for is proof of harm. While I wouldn't have the defense admit to anything, I'd slam them on the fact they have no proof of any harm. Currently, there's only been one scientific, peer reviewed study done on file sharing. It was done by UNC and Harvard (http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf). The result? File sharing has no statistically significant effect on sharing. Ok so you get that in to evidence. You can keep all their studies out on account of they paid for them (thus there's bias), there is no peer review, proper scientific method wasn't followed and so on.
At this point, the only piece of evidence on the harm of sharing, shows that there is none. So now you argue that it isn't even relevant if the sharing took place as it caused no harm. That wouldn't be your only argument, but would be a major one.
Another major one would be to attack the means of getting the information on what was shared and who shared it. There are so many problems with this, not the least of which that Media Sentry, the company that does the dirty work, is unlicensed as an investigator. So you can hammer them on their methods too.
In the end, what you'd likely have is no proof your client did it, just wild ass speculations, no proof of any harm, even if they did, and so on.
The defense was just amazingly incompetent. I mean they did stupid shit like wait too long to apply to have an expert witness speak, and thus got them excluded. That is pure amateur shit right that. "Oh duh we forgot there was a deadline." You aren't in high school, morons, you'd better be more competent than that.
Can we have a list of names of the people on "the legal team" for the defendant?
From what we've seen it appears to that it may be prudent to avoid their legal counsel in the future.
You know... the way you might want to avoid a leper colony of HIV positive fans with gonorrhea who also happen to have both avian and swine flu.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
What is your problem with Eastern Europe? You think that we are worse because we used to be commie states? We did not want communism in our countries, the Yalta conference decisions forced us into soviet hands. And who made the Yalta treaty? Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. They have decided about us, without us. If someone is guilty for lower development level of Easter Europe, comparing to western, it's the big three. Western Europe received the Marshall plan help, while Soviets forced us to refuse this help. Commie days were in fact Soviet occupation, allowed by western states during the Yalta conference.
excuse me. but there is NO other way of putting this. the reason for this shit is precisely american legal system's favoring the rich. got money ? you can outsue everyone even if you are higway bandits like riaa.
i know a lot of you americans will be bullshitting about how good a legal system it is because you people generally dont think a world outside usa-uk-australia axis exists. but, it isnt. actually you are being screwed over because more money means more rights in america. just because you embrace the philosophy with four arms. american dream is full of promises. yet i bet not even 1% of you reading this have 'made' it as to be as rich as any patron of riaa. yet you STILL keep hugging it despite there are people screwing you through it.
Read radical news here
So he knows what to say to pretty much every question the other side is going to ask. The defendant shouldn't be thinking, he should just be repeating whatever pat answers his lawyer has worked with him to be the "proper" answer. (I'm not saying perjury but you can prep people to say stuff that wouldn't be that damaging while not actually lying.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Look.
I'm just annoyed at NYCL's rude summary comments - "incompetent-apparently they don't teach [competence] at Harvard law school." I don't care if NYCL is the foremost authority on copyright cases, because I still consider it unprofessional. And juvenile. Just like I said in my first post.
We're not going to win anything if the anti-RIAA, pro-public domain lawyers fight amongst themselves like immature teenagers.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It's funny to read all those law-experts here at Slashdot who think they are better at knowing/practising law... It's hard to defend someone if what he did is actually against the law.. You may not agree with it because of your own personal reasons (being that if they start going after fileshares in a big way you will be screwed too), but that doesn't mean all those people (judges and lawyers) are idiots, they know more about law than any of you..
such that I need not fear RIAA.
Again, you completely miss the point. You are basically saying "I'm innocent so have nothing to fear from the RIAA" which implies that you believe that the RIAA only goes after the guilty, and that just isn't true.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Interesting that the pro-RIAA people are the ones so 'offended' by my 'inconsiderate' commentary on defendant's lawyers' work.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful