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Tenenbaum's Final Brief — $675K Award Too High
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The final brief (PDF) filed by the defendant Joel Tenenbaum in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum seems to put the final nail in the coffin on the RIAA's argument that 'statutory damages' up to $150,000 can be awarded where the record company's lost profit is in the neighborhood of 35 cents. Not only do Tenenbaum's lawyers accurately describe the applicable caselaw and scholarship, something neither the RIAA nor the Department of Justice did in their briefs, but they point out to the Court that the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit — the appeals court controlling this matter — has itself ruled that statutory damages awards are reviewable for due process considerations under the guidelines of State Farm v. Campbell and BMW v. Gore. The brief is consistent with the amicus curiae brief filed in the case last year by the Free Software Foundation."
I certainly hope in the end Tenenbaum gets awarded fees, or this'll just be a gain for society at Tenenbaum's expense.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Will this affect the thomas appeal?
Lawyer: "I Have created this airtight and brilliant brief! It is Irrefutable and right! All of society will benefit from my genius! I am sure to win Lawyer of the year for this awesome brief!"
Judge:"That's nice, any who, back to what I was saying..."
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
If the judge actually bothers to read it, he can still disregard it and rule in favor of the RIAA.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Maybe every court should use this as a precedent. Four hundred forty one thousand times the actual damages should be the statutory award. That makes total sense.
It seems to me that every time it looks like somebody has the RIAA staring down the barrel of a metaphorical shotgun, they somehow manage to find a friendly judge, or some implausible artifact of the legal system gets in the way.
I truly hope that this time justice prevails, and the RIAA loses its main means of intimidating guilty pleas out of the poor and vulnerable.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Will the courts really buy this argument? Does it really matter whether one rips a track from a CD and shares it on a P2P network instead of downloaded an existing track from a P2P network before re-sharing the track? Is a CD ripper-and-sharer so much more culpable than an MP3 downloader-and-re-sharer that all of the blame for downstream economic harm should be pegged to the CD ripper-and-sharer?
The fact that the defendant has made an argument isn't news. Anyone can make an argument, and the amicus curiae system even allows strangers like me to submit an argument on this case to the court. When the judge decides in favor of one party or the other, that's going to be the significant event. I would give some latitude if this were a pivotal Supreme Court case, but so far it's just a filesharing trial.
I especially like this side note:
"For additional absurdity, imagine further that the Industry actually got
judgments of $18 million in damages from roughly 30,000 teenagers, which is
approximately the number of lawsuits they filed against consumers until the end of 2008.
That would mean they had outstanding judgments for $540 billion dollars - or more than
the total revenue the recording industry can expect to earn in about 50 years at its current
size of $11 billion per year."
And yet, in view of so many incomprehensible RIAA decisions to date, it's hard to be hopeful.
hi!
NewYorkCountryLawyer insists that "damages" don't include the money lost through OTHER people downloading that the plaintiff offered up for sharing. He thinks that damages should only count the original download. Unfortunately
* This contradicts existing case law
* It contradicts what the text of the law actually says
* It contradicts how judges have interpreted the law
I think he's doing us all a disservice by sticking his hands in his ears and shouting "la la la". There are interesting arguments to be made, and he's not making them.
it doesn't mean jack shit until the court rules on it.
Tenenbaum did an excellent job. The research behind this is significant. The brief is well worth reading, in its entirety.
I especially like this side note:
"For additional absurdity, imagine further that the Industry actually got
judgments of $18 million in damages from roughly 30,000 teenagers, which is
approximately the number of lawsuits they filed against consumers until the end of 2008.
That would mean they had outstanding judgments for $540 billion dollars - or more than
the total revenue the recording industry can expect to earn in about 50 years at its current
size of $11 billion per year."
And yet, in view of so many incomprehensible RIAA decisions to date, it's hard to be hopeful.
RIAA version: "Additional $11 billion lost to piracy each year".
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This reply is one of the most clearly-worded criticisms of the RIAA's prosecution, and I wish it could be applied to all the other cases which have gone before and are still before the courts.
I think it's crucial that they specifically talk about the fact that this individual did not profit from the sharing of this handful of files, and that it is unlikely that he, on his own, was singularly responsible for the sharing of those files to specifically "millions" of people, directly leading to "billions of dollars of lost revenues".
I wrote an article recently about "RIAA Math", researching just what kind of activity an individual would have to engage in to share a small number of files enough times, consistently, with zero failure or network downtime to make this kind of punitive or statutory damage claim worthy of being awarded. I used the pending damages case regarding Jammie Thomas-Rasset, which has been posted here many times. (Short answer: for the $1.92 million they claim she is on the hook for, she'd have to share all of the infringing copies for 444 days straight, no downtime, sharing to a grand total of nearly 58,000 individuals, and that's assuming that every single person actually downloaded the entire song.)
They key piece is that this guy was not personally profiting from this. He downloaded them for personal use. Even if we assume he burned copies for a handful of his friends, that is still not a "profit" engine, and even if it were, those profits would never amount to what the RIAA is claiming.
I'm intrigued to see the outcome of this, much as I am with the Thomas-Rasset case.
ad
(Former Music Industry Employee And Pundit)
Because I can! [Brainrub.com]
I know even my friends on Slashdot don't like it when I say this, but...
The trolls are really out in force tonight, on this one. They'll be eating everyone of their nonsensical words when Judge Gertner renders her decision.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Since the "distribution troll" is working this thread, I'll make this statement once:
The distribution right in 17 USC 106(3) requires:
-that it be by a sale, or other transfer of ownership, or by a rental, lease, or lending, AND
-that it be to the public.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Because digital data reproduction does not cost money. And you can not take it away too.
The 35 cents are a lie too! You can not sell the digital data itself.
You can sell the service which results in digital data, though. But when you created it, and passed it over to someone, he now can do what it what he wants. Just as when you tell someone your name. Gone and out of control.
Their business model is based on faulty logic resulting in using bitspace objects as if they were meatspace ones. Those are two realms with radically different laws/rules (of physics).
So not only the damages that can be awarded are ZERO, but the media companies are engaged in active fraud of selling physically not existing things.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
This post is long because the brief is long.
First, keep in mind that RIAA doesn't write the law. Don't hate RIAA for using laws that Disney and others bought Congresscritters to enact into law. Hate the Congresscritters.
The first basic argument is that the companies lost nothing because even if Tenenbaum had not shared the music then someone else would have. However, the companies lose sales to illegal downloading. There's a question of how many sales, but no question that there are lost sales. So they suffer loss from one person making downloads available. If only one person made the files available, they could recover their losses by suing that person. Defendant's argument is that because many people do it, the companies cannot recover. That's like saying that if you get beaten up then you can sue your attacker, but if you get lynched by a mob then you have no recourse. The fact that many people are doing it... you know, if you have to read that here to learn it, you can't learn it. Let's move on to the next point.
From the brief: “[N]umerous courts have held that assessed statutory damages should bear some relation to the actual damages suffered.” When the Supreme Court has spoken, it makes no difference what other courts have said or how numerous they are. The Supremes get the last word. And here's the word: The "excessiveness inquiry appropriately begins with an identification of the state interests that a punitive award is designed to serve." Here, the interest is in deterring people from granting themselves licenses to engage in unlimited and uncompensated distribution of very valuable copyrighted works. Such distribution not only costs the original copyright owner money but the availability of such goods depresses or destroys secondary markets and harms, for example, used CD stores. For these and countless other reasons, the state obviously has a very large interest in deterring the conduct.
They go on to say that "we do not doubt that Congress has ample authority to enact such a policy for the entire Nation." They note that "evidence that a defendant has repeatedly engaged in prohibited conduct while knowing or suspecting that it was unlawful would provide relevant support for an argument that strong medicine is required to cure the defendant's disrespect for the law." Is there argument that Tenenbaum thought that his conduct was lawful? There is not. There is, in fact, his sworn testimony that he knew that the time that it was illegal.
Finally, the case that *defendant* cites states, ""While petitioner stresses the shocking disparity between the punitive award and the compensatory award, that shock dissipates when one considers the potential loss to respondents, in terms of reduced or eliminated royalties payments." What is the potential loss from granting a license for unlimited uncompensated distribution of all of those works? Tennenbaum got tagged for $675K and the courts routinely award 4:1 damages, so the relevant question here is whether the potential loss was more or less than $675K / 30 songs / 4:1 damage ratio = $5625/song and the answer is that such a license would clearly cost more. A helluva lot more. A whole helluva lot more. And it wouldn't matter that others also had licenses, it would still cost a helluva lot more. Tennenbaum is getting off dirt cheap.
Despite defendant's repeated claims that compensatory and punitive damages have similar jurisprudence, defendant's own brief cites State Farm v. Campbell which states, "We recognized ... that in our judicial system compensatory and punitive damages ... serve different purposes." In case you're not a lawyer, let me help you out: it never, ever gets clearer than that for any reason. Defendant's claims that the court should conflate compensatory and punitive damages are totally and unconditionally wrong at best.
Defeendant argues that even if $5625 is dirt cheap for a license for unlimited distribution of a song worth at least
People somehow seems not to connect who they vote for and what laws get threaded down over their head. You voted for the party (fill in republican *or* democrats) that promised to do this. Now they hired a bunch of RIAA lawyers to work in the justice department, and they file briefs in support of the RIAA. You watched the election where a lot of musicians, movie stars and attorneys donated a lot of money to the campaign, and were invited to the inauguration.
If you are upset the laws awards the RIAA with $150.000 if you breach their copyright on a $0.35 product, just shut up and kick your own ass. You are to blame.
Wake up and press the red button.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That brief was a fun read. And very accessible. Everybody should have a look.
I have to wonder though, if it is good strategy to call the judge an idiot in such clear and ringing tones. What is the end goal? Are they trying to get the judge to do something stupid, so it will be easier to overturn later?
Don't laugh, I swear Microsoft used this tactic during their big antitrust case.
Miles
What bothers me is that everybody assumes that judges are not corrupt, if something has been determined is that last 20 years a lot of participants in the US legal system are at least dubious.
In the US everybody has their price, is a more realistic view of things.
I was disappointed to see that Tenenbaum did not include another, more solid ground for having the damages award looked over. During the case, the plaintiff's attorneys proposed a jury instruction to the effect that the statutory damages should be calculated per infringement. The judge agreed, and that was how the jury was ultimately instructed. However, the statute is very specific that statutory infringements are calculated per work, not per infringement. Given that the final award was an even multiple -- a nice, round number, in fact -- of the minimum that could be awarded, there is a possibility that the jury meant to award the minimum, but then mistakenly multiplied the award by the number of times the works were infringed.
I, and at least one other person in the gallery at the trial were very surprised that the plaintiffs proposed that instruction, and that the defendant didn't object to it. Well, not too surprised; the defense attorneys didn't seem very good at this. But you'd think they would have brought it up by now.
Oh well.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
We like NYCL because he fights for the side of logic on this issue (outlandish damages are not logical), and he fights against the barely legal mobsters that are the RIAA. That's why we like him.
Unfortunately he's a lawyer, and being a lawyer, he absolutely cannot be trusted on anything, as his illogical abuse of another person making a logical case here shows. If NYCL happened to be working for the music industry (not that he would), he would regard it as his professional duty to be as much an illogical bastard as the RIAA lawyers are. Anything that advances a lawyer's legal case is fair game. Remember the illogical repetition of the phrase "single mother" in another NYCL case, as if sympathy had any bearing on the logic? That's how the legal game works.
Lawyers are *trained* to be amoral (not immoral), so that they can defend criminals in full knowledge that they are doing wrong. This makes them suit-wearing arms dealers, playing both sides equally and fostering legal warfare. What you train is what you get.
And judges come from the same amoral ranks, which is why you can never guess how a case will turn out. What's more, a significant proportion of politicians come from the same pool as well, which is why politicians are untrustworthy bastards by nature and why governments are such a disaster.
It's good that NYCL is fighting the RIAA, as he's doing an admirable job. Unfortunately, the profession he represents is not worth any admiration whatsoever.
This isn't criminal law (yes, there's the NET Act, but it's not being used like that... yet). The purpose of these lawsuits is one of equity: to make the RIAA "whole" by giving it its lost profits. What I'm saying is that they shouldn't collect multiple times for the same damages. Even in your bank robbery example, if the robbers took $10m all told, they're not going to collect $30m ($10m from each of three robbers) after trial. That's just not fair.
You can be fined a thousand dollars just for trying to steal a single candy bar, which actually costs the grocery store maybe 25c.
My point being that what the item actually costs the person pressing charges doesn't have to even remotely match up with the size of the penalty.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
> What is your angle?
Hard to tell, Ray. But if he's Thaetetus, does that make you Socrates? :]
Seriously, though, there are about a zillion Dan Roses out there. Mostly he appears to spend his time making random legal comments on Slashdot among a handful of others. Seems like he *might* be at UNC School of Law. The email has an extra dot, but I think Gmail ignores those. If that's true, he's part of the Lambda Law Students Association (a legal association for homosexuals), which doesn't really explain his interest in the RIAA & copyrights. That said, Google is giving some very strange results, so who knows?
That said, this exchange was pretty ugly for Tenenbaum. I assume it's what he's talking about. Of course, I see nothing in there admitting specifically to violating the distribution right. And I don't have a court transcript, either, which I trust more than random internet reports about the case.
I say that because there are other things out there like this story which claims that "Harvard Law School Professor Charles Nesson has conceded in a letter to the US Department of Justice that his client, accused peer-to-peer infringer Joel Tenenbaum, "downloaded music for [his] own enjoyment."" which points to this letter on your website. The problem is that I've read the letter three times and I can't find that "quote" in it anywhere, unless they got it by cutting out the phrase "is alleged to have," which would make their quote the same kind of dishonesty that led to $312,000 in sanctions recently.
It doesn't matter what the outcome is, society will not have a net gain. These lawyers are paid by the RIAA, which gets money from society just as the government gets its money from society. Either way, society is losing already. RIAA has lobbyists who can effect change by drafting/supporting new legislation for lawmakers. If the law does not support the RIAA, then RIAA will work to change the law. Rinse, lather, repeat.
The problem is not with how copyright works. The problem is how corporations and governments work. I am not sure which I fear more -- the extent to which this problem will worsen before it gets better, or violent revolution.
The first distribution destroys the exclusivity, and most of the value is in the exclusivity. Therefore, the first unlicensed distribution destroys most of the value of the property.
Then they should sue themselves for selling thousands of CDs with that song on them. This argument does not hold any water, except perhaps for pre-release piracy (and I mean before the very first release, not before the release in a given market)
You're wilfully omitting that they would in effect steal the person's reserves. The percentage income taxation only comes into play after all other resources have been depleted.
This is also what happens when the RIAA got settlements out of students - that used the resources they had for study, thus risking a life of poverty. I am waiting for the moment when a bunch of these kids get together, arm themselves and visit the offices of the RIAA and the lawyers working for them.
There is a lot of tension in the world right now, and the malevolent theft as perpetrated by the RIAA (winning cases by fear and blatant abuse of law) can as easily result in a lot worse, similar to the guy who planted his plane in an IRS building yesterday. I hope it won't, but if kids start shooting up their school I cannot see this being that far away either.
I suggest you stop underestimating the power of those who have nothing more to lose. And stop bullshitting.
OK, at this point I give up and I will mod you down where ever I find you.
H&M would recognise Gnutella as unlicensed and wouldn't touch it with a barge pole (as a matter of fact, I'm wondering if you haven't libelled H&M here, but IANALNDIPTBO - I am not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be one), so that loss would have never occurred - as a matter of fact, I would be surprised if that wouldn't have been pointed out by the sales rep the moment that argument came up.
However, what I *can* see happen is that the monstrous cost of songs (which are mostly profit, not distribution cost) would take a hit, and that strikes at the core of this illegal use of law: attempts to keep up a revenue stream that has become increasingly unsustainable with new technology reducing distribution costs. But that's not the debate.
Anyway, you're on my radar now. I've caught you a few times spouting absolute BS or twisting things around. If you get modded down, I hope it was me.
Incidentally, I have not yet seen any evidence of the claim you put in the subject. Maybe NYCL ought to come after you for defamation.
Define "legal", is it legal that artists only get 5-10% out of their own work from the record companies loby ? Is it legal that only 4 record companies rule 70% of the market ? I agree piracy is not a solution but record companies ARE ALSO responsible for this, not only users (BTW i mostly buy vinyl so there is no piracy there, sadly record companies don't care about quality anymore, they only make cheap CDs that SUCK !).
"do not"??? Are you saying that dishonesty and malice DO NOT EXIST???
Because that's the only way you can say "do not attribute to malice ...". Otherwise you CAN.
That attribution may be mistaken, but you CANNOT say "do not". Unless to do so is ALWAYS mistaken.
Is it always mistaken?
So Tnenbaum now has the exclusive right to distribute? That's what you're saying has been damaged. Well then the label owe Tenenbaum for all their illegal distribution (for profit!) while he had the right.
And $30k isn't a fine, it's damages damages your case: the damages were no more than $21. Seeding more than 1:1 is not on average possible.
you're dancing around it, perhaps as a tacit admission that NYCL has a good point, or out of willful ignorance, or genuine ignorance
"So you're saying that defendants can't ever confess unless they're lawyers? That's a novel perspective and I look forward to your future articles on the subject."
no, that's not novel, its a very old trick in many criminal and civil cases: a terminology has a broad common english language meaning but also a narrow and specific legal meaning. Confusion between what meaning is being addressed arises when some parties to the case are not aware of the specific legal meaning. A cunning lawyer can then sow confusion on purpose if he is aware of certain party's naivety on the legal subtleties of the specific terminology, especially when the meanings overlap with common english use
so don't obfuscate or stammer and stomp around NYCL's point. it is an obvious and easy point for you or anyone else to understand, and so you either address the point directly, or you fail to make a convincing argument of your own that dispels NYCL's point. but as it is now, your mockery of NYCL's point about the meaning of "distribution" only makes a mockery of your own position
by changing the subject, you are making yourself appear to be avoiding the topic at hand, which is really only a kind of a way to concede to the superiority of NYCL's argument in the eyes of everyone else
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you're dancing around it, perhaps as a tacit admission that NYCL has a good point, or out of willful ignorance, or genuine ignorance
"So you're saying that defendants can't ever confess unless they're lawyers? That's a novel perspective and I look forward to your future articles on the subject."
no, that's not novel, its a very old trick in many criminal and civil cases: a terminology has a broad common english language meaning but also a narrow and specific legal meaning. Confusion between what meaning is being addressed arises when some parties to the case are not aware of the specific legal meaning. A cunning lawyer can then sow confusion on purpose if he is aware of certain party's naivety on the legal subtleties of the specific terminology, especially when the meanings overlap with common english use
Agreed... and yet Tenenbaum was defended by someone who is allegedly one of the top IP lawyers, a professor at Harvard, with a full team of student-researchers. Tenenbaum wasn't defending himself, so the argument that "gosh, he was tricked by the cunning lawyers on the other side" fails.
I have a feeling that sooner or later a victim of the practices of the RIAA (or their ilk) might be going Joseph Stack on them, for lack of a better option.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
perhaps we have a temporal disconnect here, as the defendant was without lawyer in the initial part of the case
http://beckermanlegal.com/pdf/?file=/Lawyer_Copyright_Internet_Law/londonsire_does_080617TranscriptConference.pdf
therefore, the abuse of the client's naivety was well-established long before they got serious representation. the unsymmetrical levels of legal sophistication was abused by corporate counsel, specifically in regards to the common meaning of "distribution", for a long running time in the early narrative of this case
the argument that "gosh, he was tricked by the cunning lawyers on the other side" fails
no, this argument succeeds on many levels and in multiple meanings, many times, long before the harvard brigade showed up on scene
in fact, "gosh, he was tricked by the cunning lawyers on the other side" is the core of the entire problem here with the music industry's tactics
the music industry does not depend upon legal integrity to win its cases. they depend upon the unsymmetrical nature of financial resources and legal acumen between defendant and corporate counsel
so you are attempting to dispel the very meat of the issue here in this case, and in many other cases, with after-the-fact claims: that things are balanced because interested academic counsel is now involved. no. this case was imbalanced a long time beforehand, and in many other cases not so blessed by academic interest, remain unbalanced
as soon as serious counsel shows up out of empathy for the abused defendants, the corporate sharks skulk away. if no such serious counsel shows up, the sharks have a feeding frenzy. this feeding frenzy is not based on legal integrity, it is based on simple abuse of overwhelming resources on one side of the court room
so you are currently tacking in the direction of intellectual honesty in the narrow scope of this particular scenario, and i thank you for that. however, you are still failing intellectual honesty-wise on the larger themes in play here. so i ask that you now continue your tack towards intellectual honesty and extend the scope of your attempt to be honest on the issues and admit the obvious about what is really in play here: no real legal integrity on the side of corporate counsel, simply deft maneuvering, manipulation of unsophisticates, and generalized abuse of unsymmetrical resources
for example, you will never see the music industry pursue cases like this against organizations or individuals with deep pockets. because this is a fight they know they will lose. they have no case, they only have muscular posturing that impresses legal unsophisticates. the music industry merely picks on the poor and the weak with chest thumping and menace and scares them into capitulatization with overwhelming legal force
therefore, if you yourself have any legal, moral, or intellectual integrity about you, you will give up the charade that there is anything valid in the notion this is a fair fight going on here
crocodile tears
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seems like this concept has gotten fuzzy. I hope this simple three step Q and A clears things up for everyone.
1) Do you now have something that you didn't have a minute ago?
Examples might include cars, sneakers, or perhaps an MP3 audio file of a song and the enjoyment that you experience when you listen to that song.
2) Is this thing the product of someone else's hard work and financial investment?
Examples might include the years of heart ache and hard work that a songwriter puts into his craft in order to create something that enriches other people's lives. It might also include the years of rejection sweat and tears that go into a performer's craft.
3) Does the creator make, or hope to make their living by selling this thing? If so, did you take it without paying?
Examples might include a farmer who expects to be paid for the corn he grows, but you went out in the field and cut some yourself. Or a songwriter who only makes 4 cents off each sale of his song, but you downloaded it from Limewire instead of paying 99 cents on iTunes before driving down to Starbucks where you paid $4 for a cup of coffee.
If you answered "yes" to all three questions then you have stolen something that you were not permitted to take.
"(IAAL, and I am an IP lawyer)"
Seems to be more of you guys around here lately, or perhaps you're just more visible since IP law and IT ran into each other somewhere along the information highway.
It's nice to see people educated in walks-of-life close to current topics, who aren't afraid to speak up on slash, as opposed to the usual people who may be (or think they are) educated but really have little experience or background in the actual subject-at-hand.
so don't obfuscate or stammer and stomp around NYCL's point. it is an obvious and easy point for you or anyone else to understand, and so you either address the point directly, or you fail to make a convincing argument of your own that dispels NYCL's point. but as it is now, your mockery of NYCL's point about the meaning of "distribution" only makes a mockery of your own position
by changing the subject, you are making yourself appear to be avoiding the topic at hand, which is really only a kind of a way to concede to the superiority of NYCL's argument in the eyes of everyone else
So far I've asked him the same question about 10 times, in this thread and in an earlier thread from a few weeks ago, and he is unable to answer it. So don't hold your breath on getting an answer.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
trolls are my specialty, i eat them for lunch
and your good work is much appreciated
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
WTF, who modded this as troll? He stated a plain fact quoted straight from the Constitution, which is directly on topic with the conversation, and was not done in a rude or insulting manner whatsoever.
What gets me is that many of these record companies will release tracks they don't own on compilations - a major infringement. They are clearly commercially profiting, they clearly know better, but because they have teams of lawyers they release this stuff in violation of copyright laws. Friends of mine have had their recordings essentially bootlegged by major labels in this fashion - and never seen a cent.
When you get into sample clearance it gets even uglier. The little guy gets sued if he sampled, and ripped off if he's being sampled. And his only recourse are legal fees he can hardly pay on a musicians income.
so don't obfuscate or stammer and stomp around NYCL's point. it is an obvious and easy point for you or anyone else to understand, and so you either address the point directly, or you fail to make a convincing argument of your own that dispels NYCL's point. but as it is now, your mockery of NYCL's point about the meaning of "distribution" only makes a mockery of your own position
by changing the subject, you are making yourself appear to be avoiding the topic at hand, which is really only a kind of a way to concede to the superiority of NYCL's argument in the eyes of everyone else
So far I've asked him the same question about 10 times, in this thread and in an earlier thread from a few weeks ago, and he is unable to answer it. So don't hold your breath on getting an answer.
We've answered numerous times... and you fail to address why our answers are insufficient.
As I stated before, if Tenenbaum had made physical copies of these songs and placed them out like he had the MP3s electronically, then there would be no question of an infringement upon a right to distribute.
And the fact that the juries came back in both Tenenbaum and Thomas-Rassett against the defendant suggests that in a court of law that it WAS sufficiently proven that they had engaged in distribution. This has been settled as a matter of fact by a jury already.
So, WHY ARE WE EVEN ARGUING ABOUT IT?
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
And movie trailers are famous for showing only the good bits...
No sig today...
But, anyone who has bought the CD now has the necessary material to infringe the distribution right. If I now give that CD away, how is that any different from giving a copy of a track from the point of view of further distribution. I am sorry, but all your arguments over "distribution rights" are rubbish - he has not impinged their distribution right (they after all, still have it). He has distributed copies. That is copyright infringement.
If he doesn't get awarded fees, there would hopefully be thousands willing to pitch in to reimburse him for the precedent he bought us.
I'd Paypal that for a dollar.
We finally have that micropayments thing the RIAA wanted all those years ago.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
why the distribution troll has so much time to spend on this thread, constantly repeating misinformation.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
It's extremely sad to me that anyone who disagrees with the group mentality here is automatically labeled a "troll" and dismissed. Most of all because that's exactly the sort of narrow minded unbending behavior these same people accuse other of everyday on these boards.
It's just sad.
I'm willing to bet that within 15 seconds this post will be called a "troll" and modded down into oblivion.
It's sad that /. has become such a closed minded community, but maybe one of you at least will have the guts to actually learn about the subject you're discussing.
http://www.copyrightalliance.org/
There's a lot of electrons wasted talking about how "piracy" harms society. What nobody seems to recognize is how bad law and industry cartels harm society. I'll try to show some non-imaginary harms to society that result directly from the activities of the RIAA and it's member companies.
First is the distortion of law that's taken place at the behest of the RIAA and other media cartels. The balance of interests that copyright was based upon has been forgotten - we allowed creators exclusive use of their works for a time in exchange for those works being released to the public domain. In this way, not only the copyright holder but society at large would benefit. The benefit to society is almost (if not completely) eliminated - Walt Disney has been dead for many, many years but Mickey Mouse is still under copyright. Any benefit to the creator is exhausted and society still can not make use of that material.
Another loss to society is the creators of musical (and other works) are also being exploited by the RIAA companies and many, many works are not being released. Why bother when you'll never see a penny from your creation? I personally know of many composers who continue to write music but archive their works for a future date when they can find (hopefully) a chance of having some control over their creation and make some money from it, too.
As the well funded media cartels (funded by the work of the artists who don't get paid) work to distort law to support their anti-social activities, they set an example for other corporations. Put rootkits on a few hundred thousand CDs? Naughty Sony, pay a small (to them) fine and don't do that again. Now people here are complaining about games that die when there is no network connection, or operating systems that assume you're a "pirate" when they don't get to check in with the mothership. These excesses are a direct result of the DMCA (that's what "self help" means) and they're just getting started. It'll keep getting worse and worse until society as a whole says "enough" - but our "elected" representatives aren't listening to us because those media company dollars are so nice and so easy to collect.
Will the legal system finally make the "shake down the general public" lawsuit machine no longer workable? Maybe it will eventually - but those cartels won't go away so easily and they'll be lobbying hard for an even more draconian "solution".
Who is modding this?
If you think I'm wrong, post a comment explaining it. All modding this down is telling me is that you don't think the RIAA have to prove actual damages.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
To those commentators and moderators who criticized me for flaming.... I forgive you.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful