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New Judge Assigned To Tenenbaum Case Upholds $675k Verdict
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY v Tenenbaum, the new District Judge assigned to the case has disagreed with the previous judge, and instead of reducing the $22,500 per file award to $2250 per file, has instead upheld the jury's verdict. The jury initially found defendant Joel Tenenbaum to have 'willfully' infringed the RIAA copyrights by downloading 30 mp3 files which would normally retail for 99 cents each, and awarded the plaintiff record companies $675,000 in 'statutory damages.' Tenenbaum moved to set the verdict aside on both common law remittitur grounds and constitutional due process grounds. Judge Gertner — the District Judge at the time — felt that remittitur would be a futility, and on constitutional grounds reduced the verdict to $2250 per file. The RIAA appealed. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals remanded on the ground that Judge Gertner ought to have decided the question on remittitur grounds and reached the constitutional question prematurely. By the time the case arrived back in District Court, Judge Gertner had retired, and a new judge — Judge Rya Zobel — had been assigned. Judge Zobel denied the remittitur motion. And then Judge Zobel denied the constitutional motion, leaving the larger verdict in place. I think it is reasonable to expect Tenenbaum to appeal this time around."
We all agree the courts are disgusting. And yet we are doing nothing to fix them. We need an internal affairs department for prosecutors, legislators and judges, who do nothing but watch over their shoulder for this kind of thing.
Should have stolen 30k songs like me. Nothing happens when you steal thirty thousand songs.
In order to steal music that I would rather stab myself in the balls with an ice pick than listen, the idiot ruined his life. Why didn't he just pay $30?
Kill a man and you get off easy.
Download 30 music files and you have your life ruined.
Yep it makes total sense. Fuck the US justice system, and fuck the corporations that have bought the US government lock, stock and barrel.
I'm not sure how they can say you owe $675,000 for stealing roughly $30 worth of products. If I stole 3 CDs from Wallmart, would I also be charged $675,000? What if I stole $30 from someone? I am not familiar with the case, but I don't see on here that he stole with the intent to undermine future sales of that company, causing significant losses.
I got caught stealing when I was younger. What happened to me was they recovered their items and I was banned from the store until I became an adult. Maybe they should just ban him from having access to these types of things, like making it illegal for him to have internet in his home, instead of an outrageous fine that most people can't afford.
May as well just start hanging people for stealing music/movies.
In Assbagistan, verdict holds YOU up!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Guilty? Undeniably.
$600,00 guilty? I think not.
The Faith I had in the justice system has been lost. All the judges do now is allow a private organization to dictate morality AND damages. How is that justice? Damages should be between 3-10 times to be punitive. How is the original level of damages fair at all?
Can't this kid just file for bankruptcy? Corporations do it all the time and skip out on their obligations. Liquidate all his assets (none) pay off what he can (nothing) and tell the creditors to shove it. Barring that, what else can he possibly do? Pay in $100 for the rest of his life? This is pure lunacy.
Yeah because being locked up for life with violent criminals in the federal pen is 'easy'. Uh, what planet do you live on?
Nobody is truly arguing that breaking copyright is ok. What people have a problem with at this point are two things.
1) The level of damages should not exceed 10 times the value of the product/song
2) The charges should not be able to be brought until it can be proved that the person being sued actually commited the crime
Hear, hear! I say, the judges should quit fucking around. Just cut his hands off and be done with it.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Being guilt is very different than be forced to pay $670k for 31 files. Even the Goldman-Sacks source code are cheaper!
I didn't really feel like pirating a bunch of music I think is bland in the first place, and what little I do listen to I listen to legally. However, it's things like this that make me want to start a bunch of torrent bots to spread as many terabytes of their content as I possibly can- just a feeling of what I want to do.. Just a feeling.. At least that's what I'm going to say.
You really need to look at how much time you actually get for murder in the US.
1) The level of damages should not exceed 10 times the value of the product/song
And where did you get that number from? So, if you are a music artist and you sell your song for $1 from your small, low traffic website, I, as a big corporation can take your song and distribute it from my big high traffic website for free and sell a million dollars worth of advertising. And the most you can sue me for is $10?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Can somebody explain in plain English what the legal hoopla really means? To me, this case seems more like a legal Goldberg machine than an actual court case....
"Fix it? It has been disintegrated, by definition it cannot be fixed!" - Gru in Despicable Me.
Ahem. 48 states signed an agreement to keep prisons at 90% capacity or more. I'm pretty sure anyone who bumps off another will be part of that 90% housed in private prisons for a very long time, if only so the state can avoid the heavy fines they would pay otherwise.
Ok, I respect old people, but I don't trust them - not one bit. This lady is 80 - how is she qualified to be a judge on a case that involves technology? The RIAA must have convinced her that "downloading" somehow stole their copy and they had to get them back... Anyways, I'd be curious to see the list of songs - just to see where those songs are in the charts / profit margins.
where copyright terms are constantly extended. Disney built their empire off the works of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Mark Twain, etc. But, congress forbid that an old black and white Mickey Mouse cartoon should ever likewise fall into the public domain.
The real theft is being done by the copyright holders, they're stealing our culture from us.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I'm just saying that people do stupid things, but does listening to 30 songs for about 1 hour per day mean that the offender should lose all hope of ever living an otherwise normal life? I will say that if you back someone into a corner and they see no way out then they either act against themselves or act out against others. The RIAA doesn't really see what's coming, or maybe they do and they think the only way to lessen the impact will be to destroy people.
Nobody "stole" anything here. Copyright infringement is not "stealing".
Yes, there is a difference. Yes, the difference matters.
No, pointing this out does not mean I condone or commit copyright infringement myself, and yes, that IS what you were going to say.
Yes, this would be an excellent way to see that justice as done, and is not likely to be abused.
Next up: Julian Assange is accused (not convicted, just accused ...) of pirating 10 songs from the internet, and has had his Internet access privilege removed for life. Justice has been done, and there were no ulterior motives involved whatsoever in this legal action.
This is a far more reasonable use for the "how to disappear" thread than the government spies angle.
Breaking copyright is absolutely ok and I advocate it. Guess what? the entire world does it daily. That's why things like fair use exists, because copyright is improperly asserted in it's current form. Copyright as is, simply does not apply properly to digital products.
And meanwhile if a corporation breaks the law the fine is like 50% of the profits they made from breaking the law.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Hear, hear! I say, the judges should quit fucking around. Just cut his hands off and be done with it.
Why cut his hands, excute him I say. He has committed the most heinous crime know to man in the 21st century.
1) The level of damages should not exceed 10 times the value of the product/song
And where did you get that number from? So, if you are a music artist and you sell your song for $1 from your small, low traffic website, I, as a big corporation can take your song and distribute it from my big high traffic website for free and sell a million dollars worth of advertising. And the most you can sue me for is $10?
Actually, this is close to the scenario for which the statutory damage amounts were created for. We should distinguish between someone who pirated a single copy of a song for personal use vs a person (or organization) who is willfully redistributing for profit.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Nobody is truly arguing that breaking copyright is ok.
I've heard plenty of people argue that breaking copyright is ok. So I guess the important word here is "truly" as in "no Scotsman truly argues that breaking copyright is ok".
The RIAA ruined his life. This fellow's only mistake is stealing MP3s instead of selling fraudulent loan securities.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Stealing the song is one offense. Using it to make a profit from in a commercial empire when you don't own it is a different offense entirely. Nice Straw-Man though.
Strawman example =[
The situation you describe would certainly be criminal infringement as it is performed on a commercial scale. No civil lawsuit would be necessary or sensible in such a case.
The major problems that most people have (admittedly excluding those who advocate abolishment of copyright) are with the ridiculously overboard civil issues that must be endured. To quote Judge Gertner regarding this case:
"(The damages are)...far greater than necessary to serve the government's legitimate interests in compensating copyright owners and deterring infringement. In fact, it bears no meaningful relationship to these objectives. To borrow Chief Judge Michael J. Davis' characterization of a smaller statutory damages award in an analogous file-sharing case, the award here is simply 'unprecedented and oppressive.'"
Want to live in that kind of shit hole, please your welcomed to defect to North Korea or Cuba at any time.
Otherwise, screw off and die in some dark hole where no one will hear from you again.
The damages are there not because he downloaded the song, but because he distributed the song. His motivation is his business. The damages to the copyright owner in terms of lost sales are the same whether he did it for profit or not.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
If the judgement is upheld, and he has to pay the $675k, he's most likely not going to be able to pay that sum.
What would happen then?
I guess they would probably seize and sell his properties, but that's probably not enough.
So would he go to jail and have his debt written off, or is he going to kept them for his whole life?
Something else maybe?
Basically, why fine someone a sum the judge knows that the defendant won't be able to pay? To make an example I guess, but is there something else?
Hello Superman.
Many studies have shown that downloaders are often loyal fans. Yes they download but they also buy a lot of stuff. As author Charles Stross (meaning he has more gravita on this matter then you) observed it makes no sense to punish people who are your customers. He says he's gained many fans from people who downloaded book one, and then bought books two thru six in the series. He made five sales where otherwise he would have had none.
And besides the punishment is ridiculous. When I steal a baker's loaf of pumperknickel bread, I've deprived him of his property. I've caused real harm. But if I *copy* the loaf then he's lost nothing. He still has his loaf of bread which he can eat himself or sell to himself.
Now you may argue that the baker "lost a sale" but I argue that's nonsense. I never would have paid for that bread anyway, especially since I don't like pumperknickel. So the potential for a sale never existed.
ANYWAY this punishment is nuts. It's a life sentence (how long it takes to payoff the fine). The punishment exceeds the damage caused. It is equivalent to if I touched your nose, you prosecute me for assault, and I get a 50 year sentence. Nuts.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
You're right; if he has nothing left to live for, he should do his best to make sure these bastards never harm anyone else again.
He should walk into their offices with an AK-47 and just start spraying bullets. He should preferably, take out all the execs and their lawyers if he can.
And you know what? The penalty he'll get for murdering 50+ people is probably less than what he's being charged with now. Chances are he'll be out in 10 years, whereas, if he accepts the fine, he'll be an economic prisoner for 90 years.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The principle is the same. Ok, forget about the 'commercial scale' whatever that means. Replace big corporation with an individual, and million dollars with say $300. The point is that the damages can easily be more than $10 and that picking such a simple number as ten times the price does not work.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Actually, since you summed your profits up so nicely, he would be able to sue you for $10,000,000. 10 times the $1,000,000 you made in advertising directly related to the music you stole. The problem is the music industry and law is treating people as competing companies when they are just people with no business interest at all. The people that have downloaded and host music files by default nature of p2p file sharing are not making any money from their actions unlike the big corporation you describe. The most damage you can sum up is the $1 lost to the sale. It's not like he turned around and sold 100 copies of the song for $0.50 or for any value.
Copyright law is to allow people and companies a short term monopoly to reap the benefits of their work and prevent other people from making money with their ideas. No one else is making money from their work.
The awesome thing is that they spend tons of cash lobbying for "tort reform" and with the other arm are using tort to roto-root people into insolvency for the pettiest of damages.
Why didn't he just pay $30?
How do you know he didn't?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Steal a little, get a huge fine and threats of prison time.
Steal a lot, go to Washington D.C.
The average musician only earns $16,000 a year (as of 2009). Let's say this average musician is like my friend who performs 10 songs per Saturday night for a year. $16k/520songs == $32 per song. Divided by 10-20 listeners at the club is $1.60 to $3.20 per person.
So by downloading my friends' music instead of going to the club and paying for it, I should have to pay $3.20 times the thirty songs == $100 to my friend. THAT is a reasonable fine, and it is based upon the average musician salary. You could even add $900 "punative damage" on top of it. That's still a more-realistic value than 675,000.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
And the most you can sue me for is $10?
The amount of money they could possibly have lost is a fraction of that.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
>>>I, as a big corporation can take your song and distribute it from my big high traffic website for free and sell a million dollars worth of advertising.
Funny you mention that. The record corporations were sued by Canadian artists because the megacorps were using the songs on compilation/greatest hits CDs and not paying the royalties due.
They owed billions but settled out of court for millions (mere pennies per song). Why is it that corporations can steal *directly* from their employees and only be punished a few pennies per act, but a citizen with essentially no money gets punished 675K/30 == $22 000 per act.
Our system is bass-backwards and your defense of it makes little sense. This young man is the one who should be punished for mere pennies/song while the billionaire corporations get whacked with the 675,000 fine (per employee-artist ripped off).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Those lost sales are a total fantasy.They aren't actual damages. They are something that was made up to address professional pirates. They are entirely inappropriate when applied to an individual.
Such a verdict also violates the tort reform concepts that so many people like you would apply to corporations.
What this really boils down to is "tort reform for the rich, and crime and punishment for the poor".
The idea of "imaginary damages" needs to go.
They are clearly unjust regardless of what kind of excuses you would like to make for them.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Fine, then make them prove they lost sales, including proving how many people he distributed it to, and the fact that none of those people bought the music after that.
See that makes it easy to distinguish between criminal infringement and "customary" infringement.
Without a paying customer you have no real damages.
THAT is what separates a commercial criminal enterprise from some guys on a torrent swarm. The transfer of money directly to the perpetrator in exchange for the product is the only thing that demonstrates that there are any lost sales here.
Anything else is a self-serving fantasy.
There are no damages if there are no willing customers.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It's per offense. So $1 song distributed 1 million times = $10million in damages.
and worst of all, fuck the jury that found him guilty
The situation you describe would certainly be criminal infringement as it is performed on a commercial scale. No civil lawsuit would be necessary or sensible in such a case.
Not necessary, but often sensible because you don't have to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt unless your case is so watertight they're going to outright cave anyway.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's part of your Constitutional law: that damages awarded cannot exceed ten times the damages endured by the plaintiff. However, this Constitutional protection is cheefully disregarded by your copyright law, which renders your copyright law unconstitutional. It also seems that judges aren't very good at math, since $150,000 damages on about $0.50 per song is 300,000x damages, which is greater than 10x damages. (The copyright holder doesn't collect the full $0.99 retail price of a song.)
It's hard to provide those facts when using a strawman argument. . . . . . It's easier to just believe that one is as, or more, persecuted as a pirate than as a murderer. Don't try to logic with it. That won't work.
"The mean prison sentence for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter was nearly 20 years and 8 months; the median was 24 years and 3 months."
Not to defend the judgement, but I'm going to go ahead and say that 20 years in prison is a lot higher on the 'life-ruining' scale than $675,000.
When I steal a baker's loaf of pumperknickel bread, I've deprived him of his property.
But when you copy that loaf of bread, wouldn't that be theft of labor? Given what we're comparing this to, I'm guessing you mean copying in the fictional sense of grabbing the bread, sticking it in a machine, pressing a button, and 5 seconds later, walking off with a copy of the loaf of bread. From your own mouth, I'm fairly certain that would constitute non-payment of worker's wages, or theft of labor, since the baker did all the work of making that loaf of bread that you then copied.
i am truly arguing that breaking copyright is ok. .because no one has a right to stop others from making use of their own property however they see fit when they aren't hurting anyone
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRqsdSARrgk
no victim, no crime
How is this modded insightful? Fucking come on /. Put the skis away, and I'm pretty sure that sharks are protected.
He actually offered to pay significantly more than $30.00.
wachovia got caught laundering drug money and made 230 BILLION dollars
they were fined 150 MILLION dollars
50%? try 00.06%
Nobody is truly arguing that breaking copyright is ok.
I am. I'm a researcher, and copyrights have been nothing but a tool for publishers to beat me and my colleagues over the head and collect profits. So I hate them. Copyrights got absolutely NOTHING good for the common person (that includes us, scientists).
Let me be clear: I support licenses (especially CC-style licenses), because giving credit where it is due, is important. But copyrights? Fuck those.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Only if you make more than $33,750 a year .... and even then, you don't have interest to worry about.
If they keep the $675,000 judgement, he will never in his life be rid of debt.
Okay, so if I make 30k a year we go 675/30 = 22.5 yrs. to pay of $675,000, this to me seems somewhat equivalent.
Kind of like saying a chainsaw murderer was convicted of littering (blood).
They jury could have have used Jury Nullification. Jury's can find someone guilty but not agree with the punishment so acquit them. Of course if you even bring up nullification you'll probably be kicked off the jury. But I give the founders some credit for at least trying to make sure the average peer could apply common sense to laws.
I wish jury nullification was taught in every school, or included in every jury summons, to let people know the power they actually wield.
Amen.
Depends who you ask.
3 meals a day and a bed vs 'guess I'm running from the law and living off the land, because that's more money than my gross income for the next hundred years'
Which just goes to show you that if you're caught downloading 30 songs, your best bet is to murder the policeman that comes to arrest you. At least then you'll have it easier.
And all this case proves is that the studios are greedy fucks that care about how much blood they'll squeeze out of this turnip, and not how much blood they themselves have lost from the defendant's actions.
They don't care about their fan base, they just care about control of the market. They see pirates as unwanted competition and copyright infringement law is just a loophole to do to them legally what they cannot legally do to lawful competition.
For those artists who signed with giant labels, just how much does the artist make per song ?
Pennies. Pennies on the dollar. They might make a whopping .50 cents per album sold whereas the label enjoys the rest of it.
So, considering the artists are getting paid pennies for their efforts, ( and they created the damn thing ) I fail to see where the industry can possibly support recouping costs of thousands of dollars per song when the label, at most, can see $15-$20 per album total per sale.
Our laws border on insanity I think.
It's because corporations are of a higher social class and thus permitted to get away with more.
Now you may argue that the baker "lost a sale" but I argue that's nonsense. I never would have paid for that bread anyway, especially since I don't like pumperknickel. So the potential for a sale never existed.
So you wouldn't have bought that bread, but I'm pretty sure you'd buy something to eat. I'm sure everybody can find a bread at the baker they wouldn't have paid for, so that they can get it for free. Everybody gets free bread and the baker makes no sales. Sounds sustainable. I'm sure you can fill your days with movies you wouldn't have watched, songs you wouldn't have heard, games you wouldn't have played and applications you'd never use if you had to pay full retail price for them. And if you would have used Linux instead of paying for Windows you should just go ahead and pirate Windows, it's not like Microsoft lost a sale right? And clearly you'd never pay $999 for Adobe Photoshop CS6 to edit your home photos, wow this is easy. Sure wish the real world was like that, I'd drive a Ferrari since I wouldn't want to pay for one.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Man I wish I had a dollar for every mp3 I illegally downloaded. Oh,wait...
The damages to the copyright owner in terms of lost sales are the same whether he did it for profit or not.
And can you tell me what the damages were? Just what were they? How much potential profit did they actually lose? Even they don't know that!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Damn... have they found those stolen MP3s files again, or are they lost forever?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
This story made me think of the excellent TED talk by Rob Reid, on copyright math. It's hilarious! http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod.html
Which is why when you want to set a precedent in court, you choose the guy that nobody will love.
Once that's done, you can go after everyone else.
I'm assuming it would be like when you download a file: at no cost of time, money, or property to the baker, a copy would be made. He wouldn't even notice.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Everybody gets free bread and the baker makes no sales.
I know. How awful. A magical way to copy food, and the complaint is that the baker isn't making any money... Maybe he should find a business model or die.
Sure wish the real world was like that, I'd drive a Ferrari since I wouldn't want to pay for one.
World hunger would effectively be eliminated. But I'm sure people would complain about loss of potential profit anyway.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
In case you're interested in reading the arguments I made in 2009 in this case, as to why the verdict was in violation of due process, here they are (PDF)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
1. Download all the songs
2. Move to USA, send list to RIAA
3. Get sued for billions of dollars
mfw I am Herostratus, and burning down libraries is too much work.
Kill a man and you get off easy.
No you don't. Knock it off with the hyperbole, reality is more than bad enough.
I used to have thousands of my CDs ripped to .MP3s, but after I started seeing court cases like this I deleted them all and donated the CDs to my local library. I even used to purchase DRM free music too, deleted that shit. Look, I can't really PROVE that I got these music files legally. The risk of a single song costing me thousands of dollars, more if you factor in legal fees and lost work time, just isn't worth it taking the risk.
My personal internet connection has a dynamic IP. I've looked up my "current" IP address several times on sites like You Have Downloaded and found that the previous holders of the addresses were using Bittorrent to download stuff -- I assume legally, since I don't presume guilt without supporting evidence; Unfortunately, the legal system doesn't always follow the same logic. Interestingly, the You Have Downloaded site is closed, citing inaccuracy concerns...
I don't have much of a choice in ISPs. That said, I have to put a lot of faith in ISP staff to do proper record keeping in order to avoid wrongful litigation from goons like the RIAA or MPAA. This is the same staff of morons who gork my bill on a regular basis, and can't give me basic info like alternate DNS settings without first following a 30 step problem resolution script.
Keeping my systems free of any legally encumbered media is unfortunately a small safeguard I must make -- I seriously can not afford to risk the alternative. Fortunately, there is a thriving local music scene where I live, and there exists creative commons licensed music and video to enjoy. I wouldn't even call what I do a "boycott" of 'mainstream' media. I'd still buy the music & movies if they came with less troubling licenses and far less dangerous litigation precedents.
Sadly, a cost vs benefit risk analysis clearly shows the danger far outweighs the entertainment value of said media. Even worse, the "lost sales" caused by me withdrawing from their markets are most certainly attributed to "piracy".
I still own a Sony Betamax dual tape deck...
Paramount once sued Sony, accusing them of contributing to copyright infringement via producing a device that could be used to record live TV, or duplicate videos. Sony won that case on the grounds that although it could be used to infringe copyright, and even if infringement was the device's primary use case, there was still the POSSIBILITY that device could be used in non-infringing ways.
My, how the times have changed, eh? I'm a long time hardware & software hacker -- I hack on all my hardware as a general rule, so I couldn't risk owning a PS3 after the Sony v G.Hotz debacle -- I would have thought his work had the POSSIBILITY of being used in non-infringing ways... Nowadays, I don't even buy their music or movies, and games with "project $10" / online unlock codes and draconian DRM are also off the table for me. Damn. This current set of copyright laws is bad for everyone.
I sometimes joke that I started making my own games because I didn't want to hang up my controller, but I couldn't find any with EULAs I could actually agree to.
When you are already serving time for murder of another adult male, most of those violent criminals fear you at least as much as you fear them, and try to work out an acceptable detente. it's when you are in that same prison for doing something that says you are prey, that you get the real trouble. Prisons have people who get beaten and worse for being 'pedos', but the guy who molested all those little girls AND killed an armed police officer with only a tire iron somehow never becomes the target for those pedo beat-downs. And, the guy who just transported dope across state lines tends to get about as many beatings and rapes as the typical molester. There are exceptions - like Jeffery Dahmer. The man who killed Dahmer was already serving time for murder himself and had reported messianic delusions, but he does claim to have acted in the interest of justice, and given Dahmer, I'm not saying he's wrong. It's not the common story, far from it. More common is to serve a lot less than life, typically only about 5 years actual time served, and have relatively little to fear from the other inmates.
Who is John Cabal?
wachovia got caught laundering drug money and made 230 BILLION dollars they were fined 150 MILLION dollars
50%? try 00.06%
Cite? Everything I can find says that Wachovia laundered some $387B. In order to have made $230B, they'd have had to keep 60% of the money they moved, which seems highly unlikely. I haven't been able to find any estimates of their profits on the money they moved, but bank fees are typically a small fraction of a percent of the money that passes through. If they were able to actually hold that money for a period of time and use it to back loans they could have made more, but I still don't think it would be that high, even with the reserve lending multiplier.
I have no doubt that they paid less than they made, but it seems unlikely it was as bad as you described. Though if you can cite reliable sources for your number I'd be interested to see them.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Ha, and we used to think the Soviet Unions leagal system was evil!
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
He downloaded 30 files, but then distributed them many, many times. And he kept distributing them after he was warned and asked to stop. Can't do the time, don't do the crime.
The fact that the songs normally retail for $0.99 is completely irrelevant. It would perhaps be relevant if he were merely downloading songs for his own personal enjoyment. That's not, however, what he was doing. He was downloading and then redistributing.
The relevant price comparison should be to the cost of a fixed price license that allows the licensee to make unlimited copies and redistribute them without restriction to anyone in the world, with no requirement to track or report on any of this to the licensor.
That license is going to cost a lot more than $0.99 per song.
But copyrights? Fuck those.
Yeah I agree... why should we get to enjoy movies and tv shows and listen to songs?
If you got rid of copyrights, those things would no longer be created. Or actually they would, but they'd be made by amateurs and they'd suck.
idiotic comments.... if you want music without copyright, then get a tuba and play. the loaf of bread is BY someone. the music is the product of someone's work. some people can't comprehend this since they think anything they see someone else work on they deserve for free. inane.
if you want music without copyright
Then get rid of copyright law.
the loaf of bread is BY someone.
And in this scenario, it can be copied infinitely at no additional cost to the baker.
some people can't comprehend this since they think anything they see someone else work on they deserve for free.
I suspect it's more about the fact that it's there than it's about deserving anything.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Except they wouldn't. There are thousands of years of art, all created before copyright existed, and much of it better than the drivel we have now.
People create art because we are human. Thats what we do. We're not going to stop doing that because people stop being willing to sacrifice all their rights to my imaginary property.
Further, you ignore the fact that artists can make money without relying on imaginary property. Go to a concert, see them live, go see an exhibit, etc...
People who claim that content will die if revenue dies are morons.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Baloney. Jokes are still good, and they aren't protected by copyrights.
If you completely ignore interests and do not engage in superfluous activities, like eating or paying your rent.
Obviously the free to use model is not optimal as there will be little incentive on developing free stuff. With all due respect towards the dearly held Linux fanbois, I can't find a stable Linux kernel which has snd-aloop.ko in Debian. Also I don't want to spend $50 of my time or someone else's to fix what can should be fixed once and shipped out to many. On the other hand I believe the pay per copy model isn't the best neither. Firstly there is the software reuse case, company A has created software xA, company B has no way to reuse company A's software. He is forced to redo the work which leaves him with a high entry barrier. This also serves to kill the competition. Another problem with the pay per copy model is that it's unfair. Should the economy really pay 1 million dollars if a film is watched a million times? I believe that there should be a logical cap. Also another case is where a guy creates a piece that is given a 90 on the scale while the other gets 91. The 91'er gets all the glory while the 90 will be inferior and get much less attention, while one could argue that the competition was the thing that made the 91 what it is.
Sooner or later copyright will be extended without end. Can you imagine what will happen to the 1st alien race that finds evidence or humanity? They'll owe a bazillion dollars in royalties for the very first song they listen to.
I hope it's something more enjoyable than Britney Spears.
why would i go to more effort than required, just to pay for something i could easily get for free?
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
1. To pay this guys fine and restore give him back his life... cmon, there's worse things to give a buck to
2. To fund ongoing ad campaigns for worldwide copyright reform
Downloading 31 songs, or ruining someone's life because they download 31 songs?
Court Check Amendments:
Court Check Amendment I:
If two thirds of the Legislatures of the several states pass an identically worded resolution declaring that a particular ruling of the Supreme Court be overturned, that ruling shall be overturned.
Congress shall have the power to enforce these overridden rulings by appropriate legislation.
Court Check Amendment II:
If two thirds of the Legislatures of the several states pass an identically worded resolution declaring that a particular Federal Judge is to be removed from the bench, that Judge shall be removed from the bench, and shall no longer be eligible for any payments, salary, recompense, or other personal benefits from the Federal Government;
Congress shall have the power to enforce these removals by appropriate legislation;
A majority of the several states shall also have the power to enforce these removals by joint military action, as provided and directed by resolution of a majority of the several states.
Isn't the median income in the USA around $33K? If so, $675K is more than 20 years of median wages. Plus your living expenses are covered in prison.
I'm not sure how they can say you owe $675,000 for stealing roughly $30 worth of products.
Say you wanted to set up a music sales site... like, say you're Apple, and you wanted to set up the iTunes Music Store. Do you think you could offer the record companies 30 bucks for a perpetual, royalty free license? Like, "here's 30 bucks, I'mma gonna go distribute a million copies of Carly Rae Jepsen"?
This case isn't about downloading a single copy... this case was about uploading and distributing potentially thousands upon thousands of copies.
...fuck the corporations that have bought the US government lock, stock and barrel.
Yeah! And you know else they did? They put a gun to every voters' heads and forced them to vote republican or democrat. The horror!
They're getting a good deal. We handed the government over to them on a silver platter with very little persuasion.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Nobody is truly arguing that breaking copyright is ok. What people have a problem with at this point are two things.
1) The level of damages should not exceed 10 times the value of the product/song
The value of a distribution license is somewhere between $20k and $200k per song, based on, for example, what Michael Jackson paid for the Beatles' catalog. So people shouldn't really have a problem with this unless they hadn't realized that he was uploading the songs too and not just leeching.
2) The charges should not be able to be brought until it can be proved that the person being sued actually commited the crime
People really shouldn't have a problem there... Tenenbaum confessed to sharing them. In court, under oath, while being questioned about it. I think that's pretty good proof.
The situation you describe would certainly be criminal infringement as it is performed on a commercial scale. No civil lawsuit would be necessary or sensible in such a case.
So, say I'm Apple... I should be able to hire some unemployed guy under the table to copy and distribute Windows 8 for free, and if Microsoft gets upset, tough luck: that guy can go to jail and serve his year (and get a nice million dollar "gift" from me) and no civil lawsuit is necessary or sensible?
Doesn't matter, just go with the bare minimum. Any intelligent human should know instinctively that murder is a far, far, far worse crime than any amount of file sharing. So if any murderer, ever, for any level or murder or manslaughter or anything like that, gets a lesser sentence than the biggest file-sharer, there's something horribly wrong with the legal system.
There is a simple truth to this. If he can declare bankruptcy and have all this go away, then do it, fine and be done with it. If they somehow insist that he has to pay his whole life, then he may as well kill all the RIAA/MPAA lawyers (and the judge and the idiots who passed the laws), or at least as many as he can. If his life is gone anyway, he may as well take a few (or as many as he can) with him. The judge and the corporation wants to send a 'lesson', and perhaps because of the stupidity they have created to basically create the mess, he could send his own 'lesson' right back at them. The last act of the brave when all hope is lost, and when there is nothing left to lose, is to take those who are trying to destroy you, and destroy them too. Its how people become suicide bombers. The corporations bought the laws from the legislative branch to control the judicial branch and rule over people. They do not represent this person. No taxation without representation. Its not just something stated, its a reality. This ruling has nothing to do with reality. Time for a reality check.
Just of the back of an envelope somebody, please... how much does it cost to produce a song?
And why can't the recording companies make a living selling the originals when Divderp with an internet connection and a DVD player can make his fortune and pay those sorts of fines if he gets caught?
Can anyone make a song about this and get rich quick or is it copyrighted?
$43k for males, but that was seven years ago, so I have no idea how much higher it may be, today. So it's closer to 15 years.
Who cares if they take away our liberties, as long as they hate fags and love jesus as much as we do, right?
Huh? You're not even comparing apples to apples, here. This guy downloaded a couple songs for his own use. You're talking about piracy, which is an act with the intention of commercial gain.
So the little bastard also effectively stole from a retailer too, who would have also received money for each of those songs! Which retailer gets to sue his ass off, too? I mean, why should only the copyright holder be able to make claims here, right? Or do they all get to sue him and he has to pay multiples of damages to *each* of them, because he *might* have potentially purchased the songs from any one of them, if he hadn't allegedly been a naughty boy!
Don't be so certain of that:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080130/020249125.shtml
He should have just walked into a store and shoplifted the physical albums.
Copyright violation replicating digital content is stealing. A bit for bit copy is obtained without purchase.
Copyright violation replicating digital content is stealing. A bit for bit copy is obtained without purchase.
Nonsense. If I record music from the radio (analog or digital) according to your twisted logic I would be a pirate. Fuck you man.
The irony of your statement is that, with the advent of this fictional replicator, the baker would already have his new business model laid out in front of him: Bake his bread like usual, "record" it into the replicator, then charge a small fee for customer access to the replicator, in addition to selling the actual bread for those who want that.
Assuming decent rates for the energy and feedstock for the replicator, that means a lower cost of doing business than selling only fresh-cooked bread, which means more money in the baker's pocket. Plus keeping the real bread around (in quantities appropriate to the reduced sales) means the bakery still smells as inviting as it ever did.
After all, he allegedly did $30 worth of damage to some corporate leeches. Now that'd be Justice!
US of A is obviously sorely in need of another revolution. When your justice system and economic model are in shambles, it's time.
There are two aspects here, one of which is conspicuously absent.
First of all statutory damages: what the infringer has to pay the copyright holder. An amount anywhere from 10 to 100 times normal sales price sounds reasonable to me.
Secondly, a fine. For some reason there is no such thing as a fine (payable to the government; not the rights holder) in this whole picture. Yet all copyright holders say it's stealing - and stealing is a crime, punishable by anything ranging from a small fine to a lengthy prison term.
Let me be clear: I support licenses (especially CC-style licenses), because giving credit where it is due, is important. But copyrights? Fuck those.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
CC licenses, and software licenses like BSD/Apache/GPL/etc. depend on the existence of copyright. Without having copyright there is nothing to license, and it's a free-for-all, and you can forget about even getting credited for your work. Your CC licensed work will fall in the public domain when it's copyright expires, just like any other works.
The concept of copyright started when copying became a serious option, the time when printing press technology really advanced and allowed for large scale reproduction of printed works.
For thousands of years, copying a book meant hand-writing a second copy. Copying a painting meant painting your own. Sound/video recordings simply didn't exist. Big difference with the current world.
Copyrights are an important concept in our world, as are patents and trademark rights. The problem is that these concepts have grown outside their intended (and useful) scope - and that problem should be addressed, abolishing them is simply not a good idea.
Employers are vicariously liable for the acts of their employees, which includes criminal acts that are in some way connected to their work. Common sense is used to interpret this. In the example you gave because Apple ordered it Apple would certainly be liable.
The value of a distribution license is somewhere between $20k and $200k per song, based on, for example, what Michael Jackson paid for the Beatles' catalog.
Yeah, totally. That's a good standard to apply to normal people. I can see that the legal system has no common sense whatsoever, and if you happen to be defending this practice, neither do you.
Tenenbaum confessed to sharing them.
Can't get any more idiotic than that. Not that a confession necessarily means he did it (people do occasionally falsely confess), but this is just a file-sharing case.
Copyrights are an important concept in our world
Then we're in trouble, because there's zero chance of stopping copyright infringement even with draconian laws that harm everyone. But I doubt they're actually that important of a concept. If someone doesn't find a proper business model, then I think they should just go out of business rather than try to claim ownership of the data stored on my storage medium/device. Less entertainment and other such things? Perhaps. Worth it? I believe so.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
We should distinguish between someone who pirated a single copy of a song for personal use vs a person (or organization) who is willfully redistributing for profit.
Why for a profit? From the perspective of someone trying to sell their music, it makes no difference if someone distribute 10,000 copies of their work makes a profit or not.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Copyright violation replicating digital content is stealing.
They have two distinct legal definitions. You're an idiot.
Remember you also suddenly lose all those much-loved copyleft licenses. Because if there is no copyright, you can not control ANYTHING about your work. You can not even require being credited for it.
Copyright as a concept, is good. As is most currently protected intellectual property. The current implementations of this however (especially the duration of copyright protection), not so good. Bring protection down to say 20, 30 years from creation; give clear rules for fair use and personal use; and we're in a lot better situation where you actually have works entering the public domain, where people can still profit from their work and keep control of what happens to it, etc.
And just because there is infringement is not a good reason to abolish copyrights. People are shoplifting, they're speeding on the motorway, they're murdering one another. But that's not a reason to just abolish laws against those acts.
As author Charles Stross (meaning he has more gravita on this matter then you) observed it makes no sense to punish people who are your customers.
I only have one data point in this from personal experience, but it supports Stross' view. Someone posted a copy of the PDF of my first book to a mailing list that probably 90% of the people in the target market are subscribed to. I saw a very slight increase in sales in the next royalty statement I got, although small enough to be counted in the noise. I certainly did not see a mass of lost sales because now everyone could get it for free. If I had to prove lost income from the wide illegal distribution, I'd find it very difficult.
And, conversely, I have had people tell me that they bought my books in PDF or ePub editions, but would not have done if they had included DRM. So, in my anecdotal experience, DRM is far more likely to cause you to lose customers than piracy. I have no idea whether I am a special case or whether this is generally true.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Free bread would be great. Most bread that people buy is based on quite old recipes. If people stopped creating new bread recipes, few people would complain. Those of us who bake bread at home would probably continue to experiment so you'd have enough new bread recipes being released to satisfy demand even without the profit motive.
In the case of creative works, it's less obvious. Tastes and requirements change. There is not just a demand for music, for example, there is a demand for new music. The same is true of films and software. The problem is that creating new works is both hard and valuable, whereas copying them is increasingly easy, but the economic situation created by copyright means that you have to do the difficult bit for free and charge for the easy bit. As a car analogy, imagine if a car manufacturer decided that they were going to sell unpainted cars for free and then charge $10K for the paint job, then push for legislation that made painting your own car illegal.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Remember you also suddenly lose all those much-loved copyleft licenses.
What much-loved copyleft licenses? I see licenses like the GPL to be better than some of the alternatives, but I by no means love it. I wouldn't mind seeing it all go.
Copyright as a concept, is good.
I disagree.
Bring protection down to say 20, 30 years from creation; give clear rules for fair use and personal use; and we're in a lot better situation where you actually have works entering the public domain
Although I disagree with copyright, I'd say this would be quite a large improvement over our current copyright laws, so I'd be in favor of it. Weaken it bit by bit.
And just because there is infringement is not a good reason to abolish copyrights.
Not what I said. I said that if it's truly important, we're going to be in trouble because of all the infringement. As for enforcing it, not only do I believe it's a waste of money (even if I believed it was harmful, I'd not see it as a big enough deal to actually try to enforce it) to do so, but also that it's completely futile. It's one of the easiest things to get away with (especially if you know what you're doing, and this person clearly didn't).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I think you need to check the post of cpu6502's that I linked. In it, they call copyright infringement "theft of labor", using the logic of the creator did all this work to create something, and then you came along and made a copy of their work with no compensation to the creator. I was merely suggesting that they are flip-flopping on their prior position by saying "well, whether it's a TV show or a loaf of bread you just copied, the creator still did all that work to create the TV show or loaf of bread. Yet it's only 'theft of labor' if you copy the TV show?".
And no this isn't a case of realizing their mistake. They've flip-flopped quite a few times on the issue.
3) The plaintiff should prove the amount of damages they claim and not pull that out of their ass.
-- Cheers!
And meanwhile if a corporation breaks the law the fine is like 50% of the profits they made from breaking the law.
Would the solution be to upload all songs as a corporation?
Bare minimum for what though? For Federal courts first-degree murder conviction means either a life sentence or the death penalty. This is why I said again which type of murder and at what jurisdiction level.
Sure, if you ignore all the gang violence, the rampant rape and STD infection spreading, etc. To think that going into a penitentiary is only just about getting 3 meals a day and a bed shows you have no fucking clue nor any sense of scale.
Most likely the elite will see you as competition on their turf and use underhanded techniques to get you out of their way.
You are not a party to their gentleman's agreement.
Actually at this point I'd like to do exactly that. I'm tired of the nonsense surrounding copyright claims, obscene damanges, the lawmaker-for-hire way of running the US, the US bullying the rest of the world who typically gives in, and the fact that virtually all the "profits" go to anyone but the artists.
F*ck copyright "law". It's a farce. It's the recording industry buying laws to enforce their long-failed business model.
I'll take the flamebait or troll mod on this one if I must, but I'm *REALLY* tired of hearing about the abusive laws around copyright (and patents). The anger isn't aimed at parent, but the general situation.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Bare minimum for any murder, any jurisdiction in the country.
Of course, as an aside, the fact that sentencing differs based on state or federal is itself a big problem too.
Still doesn't apply, though since you're probably being sarcastic I'd actually agree with what you truly mean.
In this case, we have a loaf of bread made by MANY bkaers, but through the magic of intellectual property, that same loaf of bread can be copied many times.
if you steal one of those duplicated loaves, the damage you cause should be the wages of all the bakers DIVIDED BY the number of copies of bread, or at most, how much that bread would have sold for if you had bought it.
But no, there's this stupid baker's guild that mandates huge fines for every loaf stolen, ostensibly on some grounds that it's hard to figure out.
That guild is the MAFIAA and their dong sucker buddies in congress.
They are abusing the letter of the law and raping its intent. And they damn well know it too.
$675,000 is more than most people see in their entire lifetimes, after taxes, rent, and other mandatory expenses.
Copyrights are an important concept in our world, as are patents and trademark rights.
No argument there. I agree with you on everything, thus I never claimed that abolishing them were a good idea (reining them in, yes; killing them, no)
I'm just getting annoyed with the claim that if we weakened copyright all art would die, or it would be vastly reduced in quality. This isn't true, as demonstrated by history, human nature, and the legions of starving artists with no real hopes of being rich megastars. I think the RIAA Fallacy (I've grown to be obsessed with this term) is just another shade of the modern idea that you have the "right to get rich" (entitlement). This idea has pretty much shaded or doomed much of our political culture of late. And as such copyright went from a sane thing made to promote the continued creation of arts, balancing the momentary gains of creators (the carrot) with the eventually betterment of our arts as a whole; to nothing but a tool to ensure a continued revenue stream and continued control at the cost of innovation.
The original concept had nothing to do with individuals, outside of manipulating them to be useful. And now individual profit is all that matters, which is contrary to what our founding fathers actually wanted.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The irony of your statement is that, with the advent of this fictional replicator, the baker would already have his new business model laid out in front of him: Bake his bread like usual, "record" it into the replicator, then charge a small fee for customer access to the replicator, in addition to selling the actual bread for those who want that.
That'd work great until someone found out it's cheaper to have a replicator at home or a dedicated place that does nothing but replication. You'd buy a loaf of bread from the baker once and the baker would never see any business from you again until he comes up with a new bread. And the moment he sold that bread to someone, that person could either undercut the baker on replicator access, compete by also selling the bread or just release it for free to everyone making sure the baker only gets the one sale. The baker has absolutely zero advantage from being the one who came up with the recipe and who baked the original bread.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Well, perhaps, though I'd have to dig up some data and make calculations to be sure (obligatory semi-related XKDC)...though, he seems to have obtained a physics PHD recently, so he should at least be able to make ends meet.
Either way it's an oppressive and unjustifiable judgement amount, but I would certainly choose that vs. 20 years in prison.
Technically yes I'm stealing the baker's labor, but that presumes I would have bought his bread. I would not (as I said in paragraph 4 or 5 that you failed to read). If a Trek-style replicator did not exist then I would not be buying his bread. Just as I would not be buying a Britney Spears CD. (Though it you hand me a copy for free, then yeah I'll store it away somewhere.) There is no loss if the customer had no intention to buy, either through lack of interest (me) or lack of money (Jamie).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
>>>So you wouldn't have bought that bread, but I'm pretty sure you'd buy something to eat.
Nope I'd turn-on the radio or the youtube and get my bread for free, since they are broadcasting it everywhere. The fact is I rarely buy anything because I'm a cheapass(gamer.com). Maybe if the baker had a greatest hits compilation I'd buy that on CD and he'd get his cut of the money, but that's the exception for me, not the norm. Most times I just get my bread (music) for free via legal means.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I noticed some pro-RIAA posts saying that defendant was liable for distributing, not just downloading. This is simply not so. Distribution, within the meaning of the Copyright Act, requires a sale or other transfer of ownership, or a rental, lease or lending.... none of which occurred here. 17 USC 106(3)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
as I said in paragraph 4 or 5 that you failed to read
Huh? No, I read them. But why do you say that like it is relevant to the discussion? Because they aren't relevant at all to the point I was making. Which is that you're a flip-flopper. Some days copyright infringement == theft, other days copyright infringement != theft.
There's nothing wrong with changing your mind on something because you became better informed. But you "change" it so often, it's obvious you're not actually changing your mind about anything.
The baker has absolutely zero advantage from being the one who came up with the recipe and who baked the original bread.
Nope, the baker gains the enormous advantage of reputation, as the guy who can make a recipe that many people want.
The next time he comes up with a new recipe, people are more likely to want it. If he's smart, the baker would price his first recipe sale as such to not care if it gets replicated for free later.
Considering it'll be the age of replicators, the people who "want to support the bakers (artists)" will surely accept that higher price
That doesn't make it stealing. To steal something is to deprive the rightful owner of it. No deprivation, no theft. Period.
Whether copyright infringment is wrong is a separate question.
In most cases killing a cop gets you put on death row.
If he was innocent and had "fought the good fight", I would support Stupidbaum all I could. As it is, not only did he actually do what his accusers claimed, he lied about it in court. He got what he deserved. I bet next time he won't listen to relatives that obviously got their law degrees from a bubblegum machine.
One would think that geeks like those on Slashdot would support those unjustly prosecuted (and persecuted). Instead, they mostly back lying thieving guilty idiots like Stupidbaum and Jamie Dumbitch. And then the community cries and whines when the idiots get slammed by the court.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Civil suits and the word "crime" don't go together. If he committed a criminal offense, he'd be prosecuted, not sued. As it stands, he's being sued for damages. The verdict is, of course, unfair .. horribly so, but, as I'm not the judge on the case opening up brand new briefcases full crisp new bills and a card of "thanks for your help judge, your friend always, RIAA", there's nothing I can do about it.
Jedidiah for president!
Remember you also suddenly lose all those much-loved copyleft licenses
The control that licenses like the GPL want to keep over derivative works is only to keep them open. Without copyright, it's true that people could take things under the gpl and sell their own closed source versions of them. On the other hand, people could also break the DRM on the proprietary versions and distribute them, reverse-engineer them, etc. Licenses like the GPL exist as a balance against draconian copyright law. Remove the copyright laws and the licenses are suddenly far less necessary. The dynamics of the situation change, of course, but I'm pretty sure even Stallman would be pretty happy with the situation if copyright suddenly went away (especially if patents and trade secret protections went away along with it).