Pay $675,000, Joel Tenenbaum ordered
p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA:- It’s a sad, sick world when someone who’s shared music online, and admits it, breathes a huge sigh of relief because he’s been ordered to pay the multi-billion-dollar corporate music industry only $675,000. Instead of almost $2 million.
That’s the way it is with Joel Tenenbaum.
Of course, $675,000 is an eye-popping amount and just as ridiculous as the claim by the RIAA that files share equal sales lost.
But they’re getting away with it.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset is appealing a jury ruling that thanks to strenuous efforts by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA and its hirelings, she owes the corporate music industry $1.92 million for allegedly infringing the copyrights of 24 songs.
This particular jury, in Minnesota, decided each of those songs was worth $80,000.
Now, as Marc Bourgeois writes on Recording Industry versus The People »»»
Jury finds Joel Tenenbaum willfully infringed Plaintiffs copyrights in all thirty works. Awarded $22,500 per work for a total verdict of $675,000 for the Plaintiffs.
Says RIvTH’s Ray Beckerman, “No surprises there.
And in “Have any of the actual issues been dealt with in SONY v Tenenbaum?, he writes »»»
In my last Friday’s wish list for the SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum trial, I isolated the issues which I felt required resolution. Have any of them even been dealt with?
Here are what I felt should be the central issues at this trial, in which the defendant had admitted using Kazaa file sharing software to download song copies:
1. If the plaintiffs wish to prove distribution, they should have to prove:
(a) dissemination of copies
(b) to the public
(c) by sale, other transfer of ownership, rental, lease, or lending. See 17 USC 106(3).2. If the plaintiffs wish to claim statutory damages, they should have to prove as to each work allegedly infringed that its copyright registration effective date preceded the date on which defendant allegedly began using the “online media distribution system” in question. The jury should be required to make findings as to (a) the date defendant commenced using an online media distribution system (Kazaa) and (b) the copyright registration effective date of each work they find was infringed. The jury should be instructed that no statutory damages could be awarded as to any work whose copyright registration effective date was subsequent to the date of defendant’s commencement of use of Kazaa. See Practice Tip.
3. Plaintiffs’ lawyers should be prohibited from making any reference in the presence of the jury to any copyright infringement by anyone other than defendant or to their business problems or anything else unrelated to a copyright infringement by this defendant.
4. If the plaintiffs have proved a basis for seeking statutory damages, the jury should not be allowed to award statutory damages of more than $750 per infringed work, absent proof of actual damages of hundreds of dollars per infringed work. (There is long standing case law under the Copyright Act that statutory damages should bear a reasonable relationship to actual damages, and that even in commercial cases the usual multiple is from 2:1 to 4:1. Unless there is evidence of defendant actually having been a distributor, the actual damages are as a matter of law something less than the maximum wholesale price of 70 cents, so in that case the jury should be instructed to award $750 per work it found to have been infringed.) See Practice Tip.
5. If plaintiffs’ counsel claim that defendant “could have disseminated” a great number of copies “to the public” they should be required to prove that technically, rather than assuming it to be true, and they should be required to prove then that it actually did happen, rather than be permitted to speculate that it might have.
6. Plaintiffs should be required to prove that the downloaded song file copies were played and listened to, and their contents verified, by a person qualified to make such determination. See Deposition of President of MediaSentry in BMG v. Doe.
7. Testimony from MediaSentry and Jacobson should be barred under Daubert:
(a) Under Fed. R. Civ. P. and Fed. R. Evid., MediaSentry is an expert (see USA v. Ganier, 468 F.3d 920 (6th Cir. 2006); therefore its testimony should be barred for failure to provide expert witness disclosure;
(b) Alternatively, MediaSentry documents and testimony should be barred for failure to satisfy Daubert and Fed. R. Evid. 702;
(3) Jacobson testimony should be barred for failure to satisfy Daubert and Fed. R. Evid. 7028. In the event that there are multiple mp3′s from one album, the jury should be instructed that the album constitutes a single work. (See, e.g. UMG Recordings, Inc. v. MP3. Com, Inc., 109 F. Supp. 2d 223, 224 (S.D.N.Y. 2000); Rocking Chair Enters., L.L.C. v. Macerich SCG Ltd. P’ship, 407 F. Supp. 2d 1263, 1268-1269 (W.D. Okla. 2005); King Records, Inc. v. Bennett, 438 F. Supp. 2d 812, 864-866 (M.D. Tenn. 2006))
It looks like yet another fake trial in the parallel universe.
Sigh.
Stay tuned.
The perception may be they’re winning.
But are they?
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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August 1st, 2009 at 9:37 am
Whatever became of the indispensible parties?
Clearly Joel Tenenbaum was accused of direct and contributory infringement and vicarious liability. Direct infringement is for the songs he copied into his hard disk. The contributory infringement was for the songs infringed by other who copied them after downloading from Tenenbaum hard disk.
Contributory infringement and vicarious liability are court-created theories (i.e., not specified in the Copyright Act) designed to hold a party liable for its participation in the unlawful copying done by another.
For anyone to be acused of contributory infringement, I sustain must be acused in a case where the actual infringer is present as a indispensible party. The principle of indispensible party would prevent the filing of a new lawsuit against those that copied the songs by dowloading from Tenenbaum’s disk drive.
The judge has erred by allowing a lawsuit without the presence of the indispensable parties. If Tenenbaum’s lawyer did not use the indispensable party argument to get the lawsuit thrown out, the lawyer flunked and may have caused great damage to Tenenbaum.
August 1st, 2009 at 9:47 am
make your case in court; here you are “preachn’ to the choir”
but the hand-writing is on the wall: you have p2p and you have copyright data in an open share? you are toast.
get it?
August 1st, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Can someone tell me why these parasites haven’t been dragged out into the streets and shot?
August 1st, 2009 at 3:32 pm
The perception may be theyâre winning but they’re not. Before a court, sure, they’re pleased since they bought all the laws they wanted and they continue to do so, but in the real world they’re doomed: haven’t they stopped their sue-em all campaign because it just didn’t work? 18000 individuals sued for millions of people on P2P, how could that work anyway? Besides, they spent $1M for *lawyers* but they’ll never collect the fine and artists won’t see a dime either. What a great business model!
Anwyay, the sooner they disappear the better for the society. And if you want free music head over http://www.jamendo.com/
August 1st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
“Head over to * for free music ” I’m sure MediaSentry will join you shortly. By now you should have a pretty clear picture of your future.
August 1st, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Mike Acker:
Not to bait the guy (because I know that might look like flaming):
But:
1. What part of “creative commons licensed music” don’t you understand, exactly?
2. Editing out Jamendo’s name like it’s a “bad word?” Gimme a break, dumbass — I mean, that’s dumb even for an RIAA troll.
Y’know, it’s times like this I really miss “Sam I Am” — he was actually occasionally fun.
3. Thanks for the name-drop for “Media Sentry”: I’d personally love to see them go after CC-licensed stuff over on Jamendo, and get the bitch-slapping they so richly deserve.
Could somebody else please find a link for me: P2pnet did a story a while back about how “Quote Unquote Records” — an indie net-label — had all of their OWN music deleted by their ISP because of a botched application of the DMCA.
As I recall, that resulted in massive amounts of bad publicity for the dumbass ISP, and even MORE contempt for those kind of “enforcement” actions.
So toddle on off, acker, and read up on Creative Commons, Y’hear?
August 1st, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Mike:
Here: I’ll help you, since you so obviously couldn’t even bring yourself to type the forbidden name:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/
Please pull your head out of the Mitch Bainwol’s ass, M’Kay?
August 1st, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Wonder how long it’ll take for the RIAA to subpoena the jurors’ home addresses this time.
August 1st, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Sorry Joel, you should have admitted to NOTHING. Now it’s time to appeal. And re-appeal. And re-re-re appeal. And if all else fails, Chapter 7 baby!
Meanwhile the boycott marches on!
August 1st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
/sits in the stands and cheers Henry on…
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:04 am
” So toddle on off, acker, and read up on Creative Commons, Yâhear? ”
It’s Reverend Acker to us.
Ain’t THAT rich.
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:04 am
“Sorry Joel, you should have admitted to NOTHING.”
It is a good idea to admit to nothing but when the court is that rigged trust me nothing will do.
You could pick up somebody in the street randomly and have him/her condamned to pay few gazillion dollar with any kind of BS.
So what is the solution to this very serious problem?
What do you do when a very small group of people declare war on the entire society?
We have got this problem in the past and we have solve it.
we will solve it again.
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:08 am
An idea of the mind behind the comments.
http://my.net-link.net/~napfn/speech1.htm
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 am
I find myself watching a National Geographic documentary on lions today and ask myself, why don’t those water buffalo ever work together to better protect themselves? Oh, the occasional water buffalo will huff and snort at the lion stalking it, but the end result is still always the same. One by one the lions take down their prey, eating the buffalo alive even as they continue to kick and scream fruitlessly.
August 2nd, 2009 at 5:15 am
It’s interesting that none of the Defence attorneys have even called a single expert witness to refute the credibility of the prosecution damages claims.
If the Jury is expected to assess the damages of file sharing – AND they have not had the benefit of an econmist tell them what the real picture is – then how can the accused have received justice?
There are now a number of Economists who have completed empirical studies invalidating the ambit claims of the music industry.
Again – I ask, how can justice be served if none of these “experts” has ever been called to give evidence?
I can think of at least four such experts immediately – without having to think about it too hard.
August 2nd, 2009 at 6:15 am
I posted this on http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/10842#comment-45751 but i still think it is relevant.
“We appreciate that Mr. Tenenbaum finally acknowledged that artists and music companies deserve to be paid for their work”
Yes RIAA, the artists do deserve to be paid!
How much of this $675K will actually end up in the artists pockets??? history tells us not a cent!
The industry as we know it is dead, its time to embrace change and work with it instead of paddling against the current and ultimately drowning.
Associations like the RIAA’s only purpose is to enforce ridiculous fines (675K for 30 songs????$30 seems more like it) and act as the greedy middleman leaching of the hard work of the creator.
Times are changing, people are once again learning the benefits of sharing in this tough economic climate and more and more people are less willing to part with their hard earned for some of the rubbish that is going around the music scene.
File sharing is a hydra, the only way to beat it is to join it.
Anything else is fallacy.
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:49 am
Irate Pirate, sometimes those water buffalo do work together to better protect themselves, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM . To me, this means that there should be a Pirate Party and we should continue to boycott the mafiaa (but don’t expect me to give a dime to Joel, now that his team is passing the hat to collect money to… pay the RIAA (!!!) especially after such an amateurish defense to say the least). If the mafiaa gets less money their ability to corrupt politicians will lessen.
So here’s yet another free music site: http://www.dogmazic.net/
PS: Henry Emrich, maybe http://www.p2pnet.net/story/17350 is the link you were looking for
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:06 am
” Itâs interesting that none of the Defence attorneys have even called a single expert witness to refute the credibility of the prosecution damages claims. ”
They weren’t allowed to.
Pay a visit to Ray Beckerman’s site Tom. By Judges order the expert witness for the defense wan’t allowed
to testify about anything relevant, while ‘experts’ for the Plaintiffs, even if they couldn’t pass Daubert,
even if their evidence was gathered ILLEGALLY … those experts could say anything and not need
to back it up.
It was quite shady.
I wonder if ‘Justice’ Gertner has chatted with Judge Davis, they should do lunch.
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
= ” head on over to * ” means “anyplace” — a generalized version of the statement
the general message here on p2p is that it is OK to file share
all that I note here is that it can get a person into a lot of trouble if the site is distributing copyright data without permission from the owners.
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
telling someone about a search engine that might produce copyrighted material that the owners have not authorized yet is still not illegal there Mike., not that the MAFIAA are attempting to criminalize this behaviour as well..
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Hiya everyone!
Its been a while! Was out on vacation and guess where I went… LA then Toronto!
America is sooo damn beautiful with such nice people (Canada as well)… LA was absolutely fantastic, it took me a while to remember that the RIAA/MPAA
scumbags actually operate from here as their stronghold, kind of reminded me of the old rotten apple in the barrel saying….
I spoke to a lot of people about file sharing and the Swedish pirate party, I hope I changed a few of their views, it was sad in a way the way the propaganda had been gobbled up by the common man/woman on the street… but it led to some very interesting discussions. Americans love to talk and i took that opportunity to talk to anyone and everyone every chance i got esp at eating places…
Quite a few people also were convinced about how powerful the “investigative methods” of companies like MediaSentry were, after all the music industry had “caught” so many people right? After explaining to them how fishermen sometimes catch a few dolphins in their nets the industry were actually catching mostly dolphins and fish by accident… to prove my point I fired up utorrent on my laptop and via hotspots I connected to my VPN and took them on a tour of various p2p sites, I wont say i downloaded any _copyrighted_ music in writing on p2pnet but lets just say i gave them plenty of examples of how its nearly impossible for the morons/parasites/scum to catch people if they use some basic precautions IF they wanted to get copyrighted stuff… but mostly i wanted to break that power perception they had of the industry, which i think i did.
A day pass on the Metro in LA costs 5 bucks… a Subway sandwich around the same… as does a VPN for a month, which i think was a good example to give them.
I tried to follow the Joel case as best i could, I was trying to stay off the computer and the net as much as possible as thats what i do for work… and i was on vacation after all, but i do remember getting saddened everytime i read the updates… finally when I came back i saw the verdict and it shocks me that some people are saying “only” and “be happy” and “thank god” etc, I mean i expect this from the shills and trolls but I actually did see some people who i used to respect on sites like Ars say that crap.
Are we living in ****ing bizarro world where something that can be bought for less than 30 bucks put together gets a fine of nearly three quarters of a million dollars? someone had an interesting link on Ars where a human life is worth 6 times less than the what the industry has in place for a single infringement of 150k… its worth reading up on to put things in perspective.
Although the industry can celebrate their “wins” with the JT case and this one, they know theres a going to be a huge public backlash/outcry with these absurd amounts and are trying to downplay them just in case it goes up on appeal and someone with some common sense sees the injustice in this… dont let that happen, shout and let your voice be heard, comment on sites, tell your friends and family let them be outraged and pass it on as well.
But more than anything… like someone has already said above, “stop preaching to the choir” reach out to educate people who have swallowed the propaganda, let them keep buying all the laws they want… we can still bring them down in ashes and they know it – its just a matter of time.
I am saddened by the outcome of this case, but i hope the professor somehow had a plan to this madness that he’s going to spring and surprise all of us… but I am not holding my breath. Pity someone like Ray Beckerman had not handled this.
“the general message here on p2p is that it is OK to file share”
Its absolutely OK to fileshare, people share distros of Linux on p2p networks every second of the day… but I have never seen p2pnet say at anytime its ok to infringe on anyones copyright… even though I DO share that opinion as a form of public protest against the injustices the MAFIAA is trying to shove down our throats via the 18,000 lawsuits, the VICTIMS of these lawsuits, these two high profile cases, the absurd fines, the DRM, price jacking etc etc etc I can keep going on an on
@Henry, take it easy dude… you tore him two new ones instead of just one! LOL!
Sorry for my long post, and enjoy the rest of your weekend guys.
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
(Slightly OT)
Heres the link to what I wrote about a single infringement is worth more than 6 times a human life:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/06/20/france.brazil.crash/index.html
August 2nd, 2009 at 6:51 pm
The most patriotic thing one can do is to question the law, when it is clearly unjust.
August 2nd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
i’m watching a cam of the new harry potter. do you think they’ll go broke or break records ?
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:34 pm
“iâm watching a cam of the new harry potter. do you think theyâll go broke or break records ?”
My god! Because of you children are going to starve, terrorists are going to win a round, babies are going to be trampled, artists are going to go broke, and millions or people are going to lose their jobs… if we are to believe the industry of course. Ok, maybe I exaggerated a teeny bit…. kind of like how they exaggerated a teeny bit with “piracy funds terrorism” and the “you wouldnt steal a…” ads.
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Mike:
Okay, time for me to put on my “troll-smasher” hat.
(Pardon, Jon — this might get a little intense.)
1. North-American Free patriot Network?
So, I take it from looking at the site that your’e some kind of “Militia” type of guy, right?
(the “notes on the Fourteenth amendment” thing gave me pause, because from my experience, people who make “notes” on that amendment often don’t think that the Jim Crow south was depriving blacks of “equal protection under the law”, but I digress.)
Since you’re obviously so tuned-in and politically aware and such (smirk), why don’t you enlighten us on the original intention behind copyright law, hmmm? The same “law” that corporate lobbyists have turned into a coercive monopoly lasting 75 years past the “rights-holder’s” death?
(As a side-note: the only “notes on the 14th amendment” I’d like to see, would discuss the misbegotten notion of “corporate personhood”, but it’s exceedingly unlikely that a pseudointellectual, pseudo-intellectual psychopath (oh sorry — “Free patriot”), would ever mention that.
Thanks for the links.
Surfer: THESE people are why I come down hard on “conspiracy theorists”.
Mike:
The “message” of p2pnet is that copyright law has been perverted by corporate lobbyists. One of the reasons they’ve been able to get away with that, is because of the misbegotten notion of “corporate personhood”. Please do us all a favor and — since you obviously fancy yourself to be an expert in U.S. Constitutional law — and the 14th amendment in particular — and explain to us all exactly why corporations should be considered “persons”, but Blacks could rightfully be considered as “property”.
Because I’m pretty sure you’re at least a closet defender of various “peculiar institutions” endemic to the Southern U.S. — or at least an enabler.
Okay, enough of this. For the record: racists, extremely aggressive Dominionist-Christian zealots, and apologists for caste systems piss me off. Therefore, I have virtually NO tolerance for the “Militia Movement”, or it’s various front-organizations.
Much less, half-literate corporate shills originating from same.
We clear?
Bye, Y’all!
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Why Yes, I HAVE been reading Howard Zinn, why do you ask?
Ezee:
Dude, why’nt you tell me you were stateside, here?
I was willing to be gentle with Mike, until he played stupid.
The psycho-wing of the American Right is a goddamn mess, and I have very little tolerance for them.
Learn about at least SOME of them HERE: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1019373413211611015&ei=4S12St3ELMKllQfj8bitDA&q=Blood+in+the+face&hl=en&client=firefox-a
(THEY make “notes” about the 14th Amendment, too.)
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Oh and, “Revrend” Mike? My wife and I did the “Free online ordination” thing over at “Universal Life Church” a while back, too — wanted to be able to do nondenominational weddings and such at some point, maybe.)
Some trivia for the Sarah Palin fans out there: Did you know that the “pledge of allegiance” was originally created by a SOCIALIST?
http://rexcurry.net/
(Makes me wonder, with all their nattering about the evils of “socialism”, why that particular ritual gives them cream-jeans, but I digress…
(Yes, folks — I AM mean!)
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:48 am
To Thinker on the issue of indispensable parties.
So are indispensable parties the songwriters. These too can now sue Tenenbaum.
So lets see, RIAA now sues the donloaders, those that downloaded songs from Tenenbaum’ disk
and then songwiters can sue Tenenbaum and then songwriters can sue the downloaders.
In the end what should be one case turns out to be many cases and that can be stopped by the indispensable party legal doctrine.
A strategy that should be followed by the RIAA victims is to insist on including all the indispensable parties. That would make the case so complicated that it will never end, will cost RIAA millions and the courts would not want to see any more such cases.
I hope the lawyers and judges are taking notes and get their asses moving.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:05 am
@Henry,
——————————————-
Ezee:
Dude, whyânt you tell me you were stateside, here?
——————————————-
Heh
Would have loved to share a beer with you mate, my treat! But coming to the US (although a long time wish of mine) was kind of a last minute thing and besides I had no idea where you live (keep it that way-although you have a fantastic country, the way the corporations control the laws, its the old saying of the inmates running the prison) which is a good thing as you are so outspoken against the scum (you know who i mean) they might get you in trouble (maybe i sound a bit paranoid, but look at the news..).
On another point, everything is HUUUUUUGE there, LA was huuuuge, walking a few blocks normally this side of the world (Stockholm, London, Prague etc) cant really be compared to walking a few blocks in some parts of LA and its neighbors… I was walking for hours and hardly went far according to my tourist map
so when you say “stateside” I’m thinking a few hours drive?
Would have been completely lost if it was not for my handy Nokia GPS (although i got screwed on your pay-as-you-go plans on T-Mobil as i downloaded the maps using their service)
Would have been fun to swap ideas (and drinks) with you, and let you in on some of the stuff that we here at eZee are working on to screw our pals a little more in the music industry –
)
hint: downloading music for personal use is OK in Spain
at eZee we may be down, but we are far from out! Although i doubt eZee will come back the way it was before… just no time for that and the side projects because we dont get paid, its a labor of love.
Talking to a lot of people in the US it seems that finding the music they are looking for still is the main problem… esp finding non corrupted (industry seeded) files, we hope to change that while being totally in European law (reminder: U.S laws dont apply to us here… however much the industry would like to think it does)
I like your points about the US amendments, as a foreigner i dont know much about them but by your points i google… and learn as I go
very educational, keep it up!
Oops, another long post/reply… please forgive me guys!
Have a fantastic day!
R
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:56 pm
” Thanks for the links.
Surfer: THESE people are why I come down hard on âconspiracy theoristsâ. ”
YW.
I thought someone might find them interesting.
Reading about ‘Real Americans’ can be very entertaining.
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
( that’s also why I don’t have too much to say to him, my brown skin might get me
shot in his neck of the woods. )
August 6th, 2009 at 2:41 am
did anyone ever consider that mr. tenenbaum is not on our side and is put in that position to be sued by the RIAA (of course he admits he is guilty) so that he can lose his case thus setting a precedent in the courts for future trials? what do we really know about mr. tenenbaum?
August 7th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
All the 30 songs already available via torrent:
http://itoodownloadedthem.blogspot.com