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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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
"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.
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.