RIAA vs Joel and ‘millions like him’ unconstitutional
p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA News:- Harvard professor Charles Nesson, colleagues of his and students he’s teaching, are leading the way in demonstrating plainly and unequivocally to Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) and their RIAA they have no business trying to subvert American schools in the interests of corporate profits.
Nesson has, “gone to bat for an RIAA defendant in Boston, entering a case in which he will be taking the RIAA on directly, squaring off against Timothy Reynolds, Eve Burton, and Laurie Rust, the same Denver, Colorado, lawyers trying to dismiss UMG Recordings v Lindor in Brooklyn,” said Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman recently.
“The Massachusetts case is SONY BMG Music v Tenenbaum, one of the hundreds of cases consolidated in Boston under the caption London-Sire v. Does 1-4.”
The Big 4’s RIAA is, “in the process of bringing to bear upon the defendant, Joel Tenenbaum, the full might of its lobbying influence and litigating power,” says Nesson and his “crack team of CyberOne students” on Harvard’s CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion blog.
They continue »»»
The plaintiffs and the RIAA are seeking to punish him beyond any rational measure of the damage he allegedly caused.They do this, not for the purpose of recovering compensation for actual damage caused by Joel’s individual action, nor for the primary purpose of deterring him from further copyright infringement, but for the ulterior purpose of creating an urban legend so frightening to children using computers, and so frightening to parents and teachers of students using computers, that they will somehow reverse the tide of the digital future.
The plaintiffs in the suit and the RIAA are abusing law and this court’s civil process. Because Joel Tenenbaum allegedly downloaded seven songs from a file-sharing network comprised of millions of his peers doing likewise, the plaintiffs have already imposed upon him process filling a docket sheet running back over years.
Now, in The RIAA’s prosecution of copyright law is unconstitutional, a Journal of New England Technology editorial, “We believe, and are asserting legally by counterclaim, that the RIAA litigation campaign against Joel and the millions of his generation like him is an unconstitutional abuse of law,” says Nesson, going on »»»
Imagine a statute which, in the name of deterrence, provides for a $750 fine for each mile-per-hour that a driver exceeds the speed limit, with the fine escalating to $150,000 per mile over the limit if the driver knew he or she was speeding. Imagine that the fines are not publicized, and most drivers do not know they exist. Imagine that enforcement of the fines is put in the hands of a private, self-interested police force, that has no political accountability, that can pursue any defendant it chooses at its own whim, that can accept or reject payoffs on the order of $3,000 to $7,000 in exchange for not prosecuting the tickets, and that pockets for itself all payoffs and fines. Imagine that a significant percentage of these fines were never contested, regardless of whether they had merit, because the individuals being fined have limited financial resources and little idea of whether they can prevail in front of a federal court.
The intersection between technological norms and law that governs social norms is one of the most academically interesting and practically frustrating issues professionals have grappled with in a long time. Tenenbaum is, in every way, representative of his born-digital generation. The tension remains that our antiquated legal system has not caught up to the social reality of digital natives, a term my colleague John Palfrey coined to describe the generation that grew up immersed in digital technologies and for whom a life fully integrated with digital devices that are, by design, free and open is the norm. Surely, just because the laws of copyright have not yet fully addressed the ubiquity by which protected information is readily — and freely — available on the Internet, it does not make good law moot. But this case illustrates a civil sea change rooted in the transformative nature of technology, of code as law. Better understanding of how today’s generations interact with digital media will help us shape our regulatory and educational frameworks in a way that advances the public interest. Justice demands, however, that one man not be pilloried without the process due him as a civil right, without good counsel, and without the most rigorous proof that he has committed the wrongs alleged.
Stay tuned.
JN
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November 29th, 2008 at 12:54 am
One of the more interesting legal things I’ve read in a while. Cheers.
November 29th, 2008 at 2:14 am
One forgotten thing about the RIAA and Directv suits is that they have really sued people they knew were innocent. To use the court to sue someone you knew was innocent is a fraud and a crime. But when the victim of that crime files a report, they are ignored and that crime went investigated violating victim witness protections. When the Justice system ignores the crime victim, then the crime victim has to ignore justice. The next time that crime victim is a Kuror, they have to ignore justice through Jury Nullification. When a witness, ignore being a witness. If crime victims are ignored, then crimes will go uninvestigated and more crime will result. Justice has to be be given the message that even victims of a fraudulent lawsuit have to be protected when the playing field is so uneven.