‘I got my ass kicked,’ Charles Nesson admits
p2pnet news view | RIAA:- Harvard law professor Chales Nesson admits “I got my ass kicked” in the Joel Tenenbaum vs the RIAA trial.
Like Jammie Thomas-Rassett, Tenenbaum was ordered to pay for allegedly 30 downloading copyrighted songs.
His bill? $675,000.
But Jammie was hit for a mind-boggling $1.92 million for 24 songs.
Now, to Nesson, the “final judgment” was “both disappointing and absurdly excessive,” says the Harvard Law Review, going on:
“Addressing a room full of HLS students,” Nesson “explained his motivations and methods in the defense of Tenenbaum for the innocuous downloading of thirty mp3’s,” telling them, “What Joel did in downloading and sharing songs was what just about every kid in his generation did and which I bet a great many of you did.”
However, “He believes now, in retrospect, that he should have treated the case as a criminal case, pleading the Fifth Amendment and demanding a bill of particulars, and that future defendants should treat such cases like criminal trials,” says the post, adding:
“But despite the rejection of his theory by the trial court, Nesson believes that statutory damages were never intended by Congress to be imposed against individuals.
“Furthermore, he believes that the statutory fair use defense supports Tenenbaum’s case on each of the factors of amount of the work taken, the effect of the market, nature of the work, and nature of the use. Indeed, to Nesson, sharing music has had a net positive effect on the music market by offsetting the harm to large record producers with a huge stimulus to independent music production, and Judge Gertner’s own recognition of the ‘interregnum’ following the advent of Napster makes the policy arguments in the case eminently cognizable to a judge and jury.”
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downloading copyrighted music – Joel Tenenbaum’s $675,000 playlist, August 8, 2009
$1.92 million for 24 songs – Jamie Thomas-Rasset’s $1.92 million playlist, June 19, 2009
Harvard Law Review – Nesson says judge sank his piracy defense in RIAA v. Tenenbaum, December, 2009
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December 4th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
There is no point going to court when you deal with corporate parasites such as the Vivendi Universal you just spray the pest killer on them.
That’s all.
December 4th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Pretty sure they didn’t let him test his fair use defense in court anyway, which means the court itself is flawed in my opinion. how can you just strike a possibly valid defense from the list because you don’t like it’s potential implications and still claim to live and a fair and just society?
December 5th, 2009 at 2:53 am
The legal system, and indeed the copyright laws themselves were designed to favour big business, not the individual. This is the crux of the problem, and as long as that persists ordinary citizens will be made to suffer injustices at the hands of the greedy corporations.
December 5th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Those who are responsible for maintaining unfair and unjust societies, CEO, Chairmen, investors, bankers, Judges, lawyers and cops will have to face the terrible consequences; eventually.
December 6th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Charlie gambled with his clients future and lost, any of us would have made them work extremely hard to win a case but he mistakenly believed you could shame the cartel, that assumption was erroneous, they have no shame and dont care who or what gets damaged in their quest for revenue.