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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."

2 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who cares by shentino · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Racial profiling from assholes like you explain exactly why legal trouble comes looking for blacks and makes this nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy.

  2. Re:Who cares by Grishnakh · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The black race is its own worst enemy.

    What this post has to do with TFA, I have no idea. However, I would like to point out this one line here, and expand on it. It's not the "black race", it's everyone. Every group of people is their own worst enemy. White people are their own worst enemy, women are their own worst enemy, Muslims are their own worst enemy, Christians are their own worst enemy, Americans are their own worst enemy, the Rapa Nuians were their own worst enemy. It's human nature I think.