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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?
'New' RIAA overlords? Haven't they been around since 1952?
If you can't declare bankruptcy and escape the life-destroying debt it is time to go on the run. I would suggest Eastern Europe, it is not easy to make money doing TOEFL anymore but you can always sling hash and weed to the English-Speaking tourists. For some reason British/French/German tourists trust American tour guides/drug dealers more so than the average E. European.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The money is going directly to the RIAA pockets. Be a man, declare bankruptcy and fuck the RIAA.
CmdrTaco was probably worried about being sued for libel by ... the Harvard law school!
Does he have anything to worry about, though?
Nah.
1. It was an expression of an opinion.
2. Truth is a defense.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
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.
Only the decision of a court superior to the one making the decision is binding on it. That means that the decision of a trial court such as this does not constitute a binding precedent - only decisions of appellate courts constitute binding precedents, and then only on courts inferior to them. Thus, a decision of the Supreme Court is binding on all federal courts, but a decision of the Court of Appeal for the 9th Circuit is only binding within the 9th Circuit.
I don't know whether or not you're joking, but just in case you aren't...
The fines were not adjusted to a level that was intended to keep people from file sharing. The fines were set long before Napster was ever contemplated. The fines were set back when a lone person wasn't the target of copyright law, companies were. For example, in China, where copyright is weak, people make lots of money pirating movies and selling them without paying any royalties to the people who make the movies. They were also designed to prevent people from setting up their own movie theater and selling tickets to a movie without sharing the profits. US copyright law is intended to prevent this type of piracy--people profiting from piracy.
What we have here is that RIAA lawyers discovered that a single person pirating a song or movie (but not profiting from it) happens to fit under the same definitions as those folks that sell pirated movies for profit.
Additionally, if I recall correctly, the fine scheme is set up such that a plaintiff can demand actual damages OR statutory damages. Statutory damages being included as an option because in the type of damage caused by a person selling pirated DVDs/CDs/tickets to their own illegit theater are often extremely difficult to prove. So Congress chose a number that would shut down a piracy business.
Immense fines don't do a very good job preventing people from downloading music because it just doesn't seem realistic. Because it's absurd. Individuals are reaping fines designed for companies. It's like getting the death penalty for stealing a CD (note, by the way--downloading music is not the same as stealing a CD--that record store had to pay for that CD).
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
Usually I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but what if he was bribed to essentially throw his own case in order to set some kind of legal precedent? I mean, it takes a special, special brand of stupid to plead guilty in circumstances like these. I honestly wouldn't put it past the RIAA to pull something like that, considering their track record (MediaSentry's constant flouting of the law comes to mind).
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)-
Ray Beckerman probably has a multitude of reasons for choosing his nickname but it won't be for lack of a degree as you can see from his short biography [beckermanlegal.com] he not only has a degree but cum laude acclamation as well. Also it indicates he did follow the path of Lincoln somewhat in that he worked his way through night school at a law firm, which might have a bit to do with his choosing that handle.
Working in a law firm while attending law school was definitely a key factor in my legal training; the interaction between the two experiences was truly remarkable, and I would recommend it to anyone contemplating law school. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my choice of the Slashdot handle "NewYorkCountryLawyer". I chose that because I like to think of myself as a "country lawyer", albeit one stuck -- by the nature of his practice -- in a big city. To me, a country lawyer is a lawyer who uses common sense, cares about his clients, and conducts himself honorably first and foremost, because he wants to be able to hold his head up in the community. When I chose the name I was thinking of Sen. Sam Ervin, who famously introduced himself as "just a country lawyer", immediately before proceeding to bring the entire "tricky" Nixon administration to justice.
Oh and he has admitted in the past that he has gained a bit of an education here as he sought to learn more about computers and networking to improve his ability to defend his client via preventing the RIAA filling the court's ear with false and improper "facts" unchallenged.
Most decidely I have learned much on Slashdot, of many things.
He has taught us many things as well.
Thank you.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
When I'm practicing law, my appraisal of the mistakes of my adversary is not something I would discuss; I am there to point out the law and the facts and to advocate on the basis of the law and the facts. If my adversary has made a mistake, so be it, but there is not much to be gained in pointing out to the Court that the other side has inferior representation.
When, on the other hand, I am a blogger or other commentator writing about legal events, it comes up from time to time -- more so in this case than in any other case upon which I have reported -- to mention omissions or mistakes by counsel and/or by judges. Were I to exercise a "professional courtesy" and refrain from pointing them out, I would be betraying the trust of my readers.
If you really care to understand, you need to separate the practice of law from the practice of journalism.
I have one frequent critic who loves to disingenuously cross the line between the two in mounting his attacks; I hope you are not he.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful