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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?
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.
You want people to donate $600,000 to the RIAA? Is this from the Onion?
I'm still hoping I've been pranked.
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).
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.