RIAA's Tenenbaum Verdict Cut From $675k To $67.5k

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Court has reduced the jury's award from $675,000, or $22,500 per infringed work, to $67,500, or $2,250 per infringed work, on due process grounds, holding that the jury's award was unconstitutionally excessive. In a 64-page decision (PDF), District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the Gore, Campbell, and Williams line of cases was applicable to determining the constitutionality of statutory damages awards, that statutory damages must bear a reasonable relationship to the actual damages, and that the usual statutory damages award in even more egregious commercial cases is from 2 to 6 times the actual damages. However, after concluding that the actual damages in this case were ~ $1 per infringed work, she entered a judgment for 2,250 times that amount. Go figure." That $2,250 per infringed work figure should look familiar from Jammie Thomas-Rassett's reduced damages judgment — $54,000 for 24 songs.

Comments

Re:go figure?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Come on, 2250 times the actual damages for copying music. Here the court (and the law I might add) is out of balance. The law should treat each case on merits and what damages there actually were, having the punishment fit the crime. Our system of justice is not supose to treat people as examples, without regard to what the effect of the judgement is going to be on the individual, the punishment to the individual needs to fit the crime, Here it does not. Corporate profits have trumped our laws and our politics. We need a change.

I don't think this result was consistent with existing law. The judge conceded that under existing law a copyright infringement statutory damages claim should not exceed 2 to 6 times the actual damages. Had she applied that principle to her overly generous appraisal of the actual damages as being $1 per infringed work, and had she decided to "throw the book" at Mr. Tenenbaum and award 6 times the actual damages, the total judgment would be $180.

Re:go figure?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

2250 times what exactly? The price of an mp3 or the value of unlimited international distribution rights?

There was no evidence of an actual "distribution" with in the meaning of the Copyright Act, let alone of him acting as a dispenser of "unlimited international distribution rights".

Re:What difference does it make?

[PopeRatzo]

While completely disproportionate to actual damages, that is easily within a payable range (though not all at once).

Is this the new standard for corporate extortion? "It's completely disproportionate, but if he's willing to give up his life and future he can pay it".

It's bad enough that the system in the US (and most western countries) has become a simple matter of re-distributing wealth from the working class to the ownership class, but this is simply economic terrorism. Create a penalty that is so disproportionate that it frightens anyone who might consider not giving money to the corporation. Make it so that people are afraid to post their own original work to YouTube because the RIAA is likely to send a C&D letter "just in case". Send C&D letters when people use Creative Commons to make sure they learn who's boss. Make everyone pay and pay until they're willing to open their wallets, just to be left alone. Have the corporate media repeat the notion that anyone who believes in the public domain, anyone who might consider alternatives to old-fashioned copyrights is labeled a "pirate" or "anti-copyright radical".

Make public libraries emblematic of "big government" and "socialism" so that municipalities who withdraw funding for those libraries seem patriotic. Equate regulation of business with tyranny.

The new corporatism is much, much more dangerous to our society than terrorism.

Re:What difference does it make?

[cynyr]

I don't know, I think I'd take 3 months in jail over a 675k or even a 67.5k "fine". Seems like I would need to be making over 240k/year for it to be more expensive(overall), and thats just the 67.5k award, or 2.7million/year for the larger award.

I would argue against the 3 month sentence, as i can drive home drunk, physically endangering hundreds of people and get far less than that for a first time offense.Maximum penalty for a first time offender with no aggravating factors, with no priors, is 30 days and/or $1000, and goes up to 3000 and 1 year for two+ aggravating factors, in the state of Minnesota[1]. So yes, sharing 24 songs a few hundred times, for no commercial gain, seems to me to be less of an issue than driving with a .19 BAC by yourself home from the bar. Think of how many traffic lights are between your bar, and home. How well could you drive with a .19BAC(0.08BAC is the limit in Minnesota). Now i'm not saying that driving below .08 is legal, it's just a DUI instead of a DWI[1]. Your second offense in 10 years is 2 days in jail/workhose and 8hours community service per day less than 30 days in jail[2].

So yes, a basicly harmless act(at most a few hundred dollars of losses, counting the cost of each album shared* number of times shared to a unique computer), is getting someone a 67.5K fine, but no jail time, and no community service. You would need to pay back around 7k a year to pay it off, with interest, in ten years.

Not stating that drunk driving is good, to be honest I think the penalties aren't harsh enough, but then if you take away a license to drive in the USA you really have no other option. Go us not wanting to pay for anything that someone else might use.

[1] http://dwi-minnesota.com/mn-penalties.html
[2]http://dwi-minnesota.com/mandatoryminimum.html