The Joel Tenenbaum P2P trial has been stumbling around since 2005, when the former Boston University student was first accused of downloading thirty-one copyrighted songs without paying for them. Tenenbaum's lawyers successfully argued that his original fines were excessive. The Judge at the time agreed, lowering the fine to $67,500, or $2,177 per song -- though the recording industry appealed to the higher courts. Thanks to that appeal, and a refusal by the Supreme Court, the original fine has been reinstated.
A federal court in Massachusetts last week upheld a $675,000 fine Tenenbaum is being forced to pay for his P2P usage, meaning he'll be paying a whopping $21,774 for every song:
quote:U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel rejected Tenenbaum's request for a new jury trial, saying jurors had appropriately considered the evidence of Tenenbaum's actions -- downloading and distributing files for two years despite warnings -- and the harm to the plaintiffs. The penalty is at the low end of the range for willful infringement and below the limit for even nonwillful infringement, and thus was not excessive, the judge ruled.
Of course nobody really wins here. Tenenbaum won't be able to pay, and the RIAA's tactics of trying to scare everyone into avoiding copyrighted files has never worked as continual piracy rates make very clear. In fact, the effort backfires for the RIAA -- in that the amount owed is so disconnected from reality that people wind up seeing copyright law as even more bizarre and undeserving of respect. Tenenbaum certainly shares plenty of blame for lying to the courts and a Keystone-cops-esque legal team, but that certainly doesn't make paying $675,000 for thirty one songs reasonable -- or Constitutional.
And the lawyers (rightfully so as they now spent twice as long in court on this) and court costs. and even the RIAA which finaced the legal fees and costs upto now, and the recording compamy that actually made the invest in the record, but then failed to get all the sales they should have.
If the RIAA is claiming those lawyers are so expensive (they probably were), maybe they should have worked to improve their business model, not spend all their money on high-priced lawyers to try and sue the sh*t out of ordinary people.
quote:nd the RIAA's tactics of trying to scare everyone into avoiding copyrighted files has never worked as continual piracy rates make very clear.
Karl, youre kidding right? This has ZERO affect? You dont think even a few dipshits read this headline on here and will reconsider BREAKING THE LAW?
I for one, am glad this shmuck got sued, think he'll do it again? Would you at least acknowledge that this lawsuit prevented ONE person from engaging in further copyright infringement?
Simple solution, download legally, everyone wins. $1 a song on Itunes is a lot? Didnt think so.
If what they copy and pasted was my product, that I and thousands of other worked hard to create and the sale of which was my livelyhood? I think some probably would, however we have a legal system, which is finding against the priates (interesting choice of terms) more and more. because the process is difficult and slow you love to proclaim victory. I cry for those effected by the collateral damage. and the young and inocent drawn in and tainted by your vile behavoir. You are the "Stranger Danger" we were warned about.
If what they copy and pasted was my product, that I and thousands of other worked hard to create and the sale of which was my livelyhood? I think some probably would, however we have a legal system, which is finding against the priates (interesting choice of terms) more and more. because the process is difficult and slow you love to proclaim victory. I cry for those effected by the collateral damage. and the young and inocent drawn in and tainted by your vile behavoir. You are the "Stranger Danger" we were warned about.
Copying is not stealing unless one considers unnatural notion of owning an idea, method, or concept. ( an idea born out of unbelievable greed )
Good luck making that work. Never has, never will.
Well believe it, you can. Its also against the law to upload and download copyrighted "works", whether you like it or not. Too f'king bad.
When most people do the right thing, and pay their fair share for music, movies, books, software, etc, What makes YOU so damn special that you can get those things for free? Because you know what a "torrent" is, and have internet access? Big fucking deal.
There are millions of people employed by the existence of copyrighted material, and "idea's" You think its OK to take bread off these peoples tables? I'll never understand how people can lack such simple morals, and certainly not how shmucks like you actually defend this STEALING.
Why dont you bring a citation along? Or perhaps give more details to this "case" which probably consists of 1000's of pages of literature. "rectangular phones" ? I think Alexander Bell still owns that one.
Doesnt matter if I keep up with them or not. My argument against you stands, COPYing a patented idea is STEALING. I write a song and you copy it, is STEALING in my book, and I promptly kick your ass.
Doesnt matter if I keep up with them or not. My argument against you stands, COPYing a patented idea is STEALING. I write a song and you copy it, is STEALING in my book, and I promptly kick your ass.
In the same manner that all "rectangular phones" is stealing from Apple.
No. It's patent infringement. If it was a copyrighted work instead of patent, it would be copyright infringement. Stealing requires the taking of money or property and preventing their use or benefit.
When you have COPIED and idea you are not depriving their use nor are you taking any monies that have been earned.
There is a reason why there are different laws between patent/copyright infringement and stealing/theft, because they are different crimes.
Anybody can see our patent system is a failure ( as is the whole concept in general )
What do you suggest? If there were not patentent system their would be no innovation and development of technology. Why would a company spend millions researching new ideas if as soon as they come up with it another company could sell it? Why would google develope the adroid if they could not make money off licensing it. Sure in some hippy world we would have people doing it for the benefit of society but we live in the real world and people need motivation to do things.
There is nothing wrong with the concept of patents. They exist to encourage innovation by allowing inventors to recoup R&D expenses. Without patents, there is little motivation to spend millions of dollars for R&D. What's the motivation when someone can reverse engineer your product and undermine your ability to recoup your R&D costs? You can't even recoup your investment, much less make a profit, so why would you bother developing any new product or technology? The patent clause of the US Constitution provides as good of an explanation as any for the necessity of patents, I've bolded the two most important parts:
"The Congress shall have the power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
The system as currently implemented is deeply flawed and needs reform. If you want to talk about that I'm game, but to claim that the concept of patents is flawed is absurd.
quote:The Joel Tenenbaum P2P trial has been stumbling around since 2005, when the former Boston University student was first accused of downloading thirty-one copyrighted songs without paying for them.
He was sued for making these songs available for download on Kazaa, not, downloading them directly.
Exactly. It's total hypocrisy. And insanity. They claim damages, but they still can't prove that anyone would have actually bought the CDs/iTunes if they couldn't pirate them.
And so Joe Blow walks into a WalMart and shoplifts three music cd's (31 songs?) gets caught, pays a hundred dollar fine, maybe gets banned from the store...
Was any legitimate way available to download music in 2005?
When did iTunes begin offering to download music. When Joel made music available there was no legitimate way to legally download music. Continuing to pursue Joel is like requiring a person to serve out a sentence for violating a law that was eliminated.
Just ask yourself this question. Who has caused more damage? The defendant or the prosecutors?
This person has had his life sidetracked by "legal" bullies. And it's all for nothing too. They are still going to lose control over distribution of media, to the point where they are largely irrelevant regardless of these lawsuits.
Of course, this is a publicity stunt by the RIAA. Very much in the same way that Thomas Edison would burn animals alive with Tesla's electricity to try and stop the inevitable, just because he owned all the patents for DC. He was going to lose anyway, but he decided to be a dick about it just like the RIAA and MPAA are. This would be a perfect analogy except this is much worse, since it involves people, not animals.
The internet is the "AC" to the MPAA & RIAA's "DC".
Theoretically, the penalty in this case should not be the retail price of the songs...$1. If that were the case EVERYONE would pirate since if you aren't caught you get free songs and if you are caught you merely pay what you were supposed to. If the probability of being caught is 0.1%, much higher than reality, then the expected cost of pirating 10 songs is like 1 cent. Since monitoring for pirates is very hard and it costs a lot to litigate, the monetary penalty MUST be much higher than the retail price of the song. It has to be in the thousands per song, at the least, so that it acts as a deterrent to other pirates.
The actual probability of being caught is probably 1 out of 100K or lower. If the penalty for being caught is 20K per song this means the expected cost of pirating is only 20 cents per song, versus the $1 retail price.
Re: the writers for this blog are not that logical
A VPN costs $5 a month, and the chance of being caught is near zero with that. You have a higher chance of winning the lottery. When the trolls fish for IP addresses, they get the VPN's IP address. They send a letter to the VPN provider who responds by saying that they don't keep any logs. It'll be damn near impossible for the trolls to find the original downloader.
Re: the writers for this blog are not that logical
Except that they could threaten to sue/shut down the VPN unless they cooperated in tracking from that point forward to catch the peep who was using the VPN.
I'm no backer of a non-governmental agency that can bring criminal prosecutions to court unanswerable to any elected official so don't mistake me for a sympathizer to the RIAA or the MPA. What gets me about this case isn't the fine because it's nonsensical anyway but the fact the kid was warned repeatedly to stop uploading copywritten material. It's not like he didn't know and these people just leaped out of nowhere... surprise! This was sheer pigheadedness and stupidity.
Actually, if you RTFJ Tenenbaum was either a complete fool or as described by the judge- engaged in WILLFUL MISCONDUCT. He continued infringing for not two but FIVE YEARS, receiving THREE written warnings about infringement from 2002-2005 which he either ignored or blew off, before actually getting sued in 2007. So yes, this judgement is excessive but you can't say he doesn't deserve it. The law may be wrong but it doesn't mean you should blatantly ignore it when you've been warned they have you in their sights.
Yeah he could file for chapter 7 to have his debts discharged, I assume this is what most people end up doing. The post here says "unconstitutional" but clearly it IS constitutional because the Supreme Court declined to accept the appeal.
If a song only costs $0.99 each, then, isn't that the value? That makes this petty theft AT BEST, a 3rd degree misdemeanor. If the song is only $0.99, and if all he did was download the song, then it's a travesty of justice to charge him anything more than the face value of each song. This sounds like 3rd world prison extortion, utter corruption. Unless he was making money from another persons copy-written material, then all he did was steal...again, at the very MOST you could argue petty theft. We are the owners of this country, not the government. It starts now, and any law maker that supports this criminal law making, shall be voted out of office...and replaced with uncorrupted, unbiased representatives for us...the people.
Common sense should apply here. There is the crowd who are staunch advocates of the business model here in the USA and have a right to protect there property,then there is the crowed who says they should be able to download whatever they want.
That's not to say that all the pirates are the problem but my observation is now the dinosaurs who are playing catch up and are using the courts as the only solution instead of going to whatever department they have and ask them to think of fresh ideas to keep the money flowing into the company's coffers, then I am sorry but they should die off and get some fresh faces to shake it up and come up with new ideas to help keep a industry that has been sitting on its ass for the last couple of years. The pirates should have opened there eyes years ago to see the trend and instead should have reevaluate there business model instead of going on this scorch the earth policy spending boat loads of cash to catch a snot nosed kid living in his mommy's basement and make a example of him.
I am a video producer and recording engineer. For several years, I have been producing DVDs, annually, for a client that was producing a multipart series on Jazz music methods. He is a famous instructor and his DVDs were selling well. We usually have the master class at a local university in June. This year, he skipped. I spoke with his manager and learned that he discovered his first DVD on Pirate Bay or Bit Torrent. He was livid and just stopped the whole thing. As a result, I am down almost $2000 this year on production business. People don't realize it, when they make stuff available unauthorized that they also hurt a lot of other people involved in production--not just the artist.