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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."
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.
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.
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
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
Not exactly. Judges can render laws partly or wholly invalid (or inapplicable in a specific case) should they violate the US Constitution. The original judge in fact did just that: held the statutory damage in this case to be "cruel and unusual" and thus reduced them. But yes, the primary fault is with the lawmakers. The judges do share in the blame in this case, though.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
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.
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.
Having now read the opinion, here's how the judge came out:
1. The jury found this guy guilty of infringement.
2. The guy had 8 years of known infringing activities
3. The guy destroyed evidence
4. The guy lied repeatedly
5. It wasn't just a matter of him downloading songs, he was uploading them too
6. The jury got to see all the evidence
7. Congress set the bounds for copyright infringement's statutory damages
8. The jury pick something on the arguably low end of the range
9. When looking at the common law rules the judge did not feel the case was inequitable under the circumstances.
I would wager good money that had 2-5 been different, the judge WOULD have found the award inequitable.
That said, I have some questions about why 2 and 5 were even in evidence at all. They seem irrelevant to copyright infringement of the songs at issue here. I haven't kept pace with this case, but I should think those are irrelevant unless they were themselves proved to be infringements.
Also, it helps not to destroy evidence or lie.
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!
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.'"
Judges are supposed to uphold the law.
And the Eighth Amendment is part of the highest law of the land.
We should not pass crappy laws and then blame the judges for upholding them.
We're blaming the judge for not upholding the law. Specifically, that part of the law which states that "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed".
You don't have to be on the SCOTUS to knock down a law that is blatantly unconstitutional. A law that conflicts with the constitution is null and void at any level.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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"
"Nobody involved is Roman, you insensitive clod!"
Are you sure? What about that guy, Remittitur, they talk about?
Agreed, the jury in this case should be ASHAMED of themselves. There are people who are at fault accidentally killing other human beings who receive less punishment than they are handing out for someone "stealing" 30 songs.
The verdict handed down in this case is a life destroying verdict for a young man. That the RIAA keeps appealing for its huge award is DISGUSTING.
Giant corporate entities are working at utterly destroying one person's life. The RIAA deserves every ounce of contempt and disdain it gets from the people.
For companies that like to believe that they create things that move human emotions and make people think, the RIAA collectively is a horribly dark, twisted, and evil group of people (and the MPAA is even. worse.)
>>>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.
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 took him 8 years to download 30 songs?
I'll never complain about my Internet speeds again!
This signature is false.
He actually offered to pay significantly more than $30.00.
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.
Damn... have they found those stolen MP3s files again, or are they lost forever?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
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.
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.
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
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.