RIAA Wins $675K from Tenenbaum Case

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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Boston student Joel Tenenbaum was found guilty of infringement for illegal file-sharing and was ordered to pay $22,500 per song for a total of $675K. Even the defense presented by Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, who joined Tenenbaum’s legal team early in the case, wasn’t enough and the verdict came down from the jury after less than 3 hours’ deliberation.

"I'm disappointed, but not surprised, but I'm thankful that it wasn't much bigger, that it wasn't millions," Tenenbaum told Ars after the verdict was announced. We asked him if he regrets not settling earlier on in the process. "Ask me in a couple of months," Tenenbaum replied. He also told Ars that he doesn't have the ability to pay the judgment and said that he'd be filing for bankruptcy if the award stands.
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They make these huge fines. I wonder just how much they will get out of these people before they die.
 
Filesharing will not go away until ISP's step in and no ISP in their right mind will step in unless they want to lose customers. Either companies find other ways to make money or get the government to pass a law against it, otherwise, it stays.

On a side note though, I think it's pretty funny how people get sued by being a fan of a band. Someone post a music video to youtube, to spread the word and let other fans enjoy and discover the band, and it gets pulled, like they are doing it maliciously or something. It's counterproductive in terms of increasing a fan base.
 
What is exceptionally irritating are all the retards on the jury could have AT LEAST only granted the statutory minimum of $750/song... which realistically would have been something that he perhaps COULD have paid instead of being forced into bankruptcy.
 
Seriously if I ever got hit with a fine like that (god forbid) I would just use all my money to pay off other debts (house, cars, whatever) use a lot of money to buy random things I wanted but "couldnt afford" and file for bankruptcy rather then pay them that ridiculous sum.
 
You gotta wonder where exactly the RIAA is infiltrating the legal system in order to cherry pick these juries.
 
I believe the intent is to escalate this a higher court which might consider the constitutionality of such enormous fines.

The defendant admitted liability on the stand, so it's not exactly like they were fighting this hard.
 
i wonder why they go through all the trouble and insist on such high dollar figures as value when they know going into it they will never see the money......
 
The 675K is determined by estimated "damages" by the lawyer, who'll probably enjoy 33% of for his time in working the case and don't forget that the trial was conducted before a jury.

So it wasn't the judge that said hmm.. "I think I'll just give the RIAA 675K, of which the RIAA won't return to the Artists." It was the jury and the lawyers work.

There's too many holes filled with bullshit. No justice is served here. The punk, was probably on a P2P or something and liked some songs. He downloaded them, and decided to keep them on his hard drive, not knowing that he would be seeding the torrent. As a result now he's going to help pay the mortgage for the lawywer's manhattan condo and smoked salmon & dill?

What about the poor jurors, who were snatched away from their lives of twittering and texting while driving. They were so pissed off that they couldn't wreck any subway trains that day, that they just decided to award a big fat judgement and stomp on the university student to death.

Sheesh... What times we live in...
 
meanwhile when its the other way around. companies ripping off people, then the fine is $0.10 per instance and nobody ever has to take responsibility.

we get the picture. we know who our masters are.
 
I cant express my... distaste... for cases like this. There is a serious flaw in the system when something that is worth at most $100 (And thats really inflating the price of each song) can be calculated to over 600k. Beyond that, I believe any lawyer who would go to bat for such outrageous demands should be disbar'd and forbidden from practicing law again.

If you do something illegal, I agree in paying for it. I dont agree in paying (I fail at math, valuing at $3/song. what, 749,900% more than the cost of the song). At most, triple value of each song. No more, anything beyond that is just outrageous and beyond common sense. Even that is a bit far in my eyes unless they can prove that you distributed the content to other users. If you cant prove that 100%, then there is no excuse to charge more than the base cost of the song. Other charges can be added such as court fees, but those must also fall within a realm of reasonable cost.
 
jimmyb said:
I believe the intent is to escalate this a higher court which might consider the constitutionality of such enormous fines.
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The judge announced before the trial started that he would review damages for constitutionality. She may lower the award, but even if she does it's not likely that it would be anywhere close to the minimum ($750 per infringing work) given that Tenenbaum admitted lying under oath and willfully infringing even after being notified.

The problem is that the code spells out pretty high damages for "willful infringement" and it is separate from commercial infringement (which has even higher damages). Tenenbaum didn't get anywhere near the maximum possible. The USSC hasn't overturned statutory damage judgements in copyright cases, which it has addressed a couple of times between labels and studios, so good luck hoping for that.

The lesson here is if you want to exercise your non-legal "right" to "share" songs on P2P in the US, you should probably settle for $3000 if you're caught. :p
 
pxc said:
The problem is that the code spells out pretty high damages for "willful infringement" and it is separate from commercial infringement (which has even higher damages). Tenenbaum didn't get anywhere near the maximum possible. The USSC hasn't overturned statutory damage judgements in copyright cases, which it has addressed a couple of times between labels and studios, so good luck hoping for that.
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I would hope that the courts are able to distinguish labels and studios infringing copyright amongst each other for commercial purposes, and individuals downloading music. To my knowledge, there isn't any particularly relevant precedent with respect to cases like this.

In any case, I'll take any luck you're offering.

Your lesson applies if you're concerned with not being entangled in an enormous legal battle that could permanently mess up your life; but for individuals who are more concerned with challenging unfair law and perhaps bettering society for it, then the lesson is to fight it.
 
I didn't think it was the Jury's job to hand down sentancing. Not decide how much each song cost. I thought the only thing they could do is find if he is Guilty or not and that the judge would hand down the sentancing.
Something funny about all this.
 
soulman901 said:
I didn't think it was the Jury's job to hand down sentancing. Not decide how much each song cost. I thought the only thing they could do is find if he is Guilty or not and that the judge would hand down the sentancing.
Something funny about all this.
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There isn't any "guilty" verdict in civil court, nor is there "sentencing".
 
FighterAce124 said:
Beyond that, I believe any lawyer who would go to bat for such outrageous demands should be disbar'd and forbidden from practicing law again.
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Write your Congressman/Senator then. The damage awards are written into statute, not just arbitrarily decided or asked for.

The only way to change this is:
1. Supreme Court throws out the damage awards as unconstitutional
2. Congress changes the law

soulman901 said:
I didn't think it was the Jury's job to hand down sentancing. Not decide how much each song cost. I thought the only thing they could do is find if he is Guilty or not and that the judge would hand down the sentancing.
Something funny about all this.
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Incorrect. Here they were not allowed to decide on guilt, but they were allowed to decide on damages. The jury was allowed to pick any number between $750 and $150,000 for each song.
 
DeFex said:
meanwhile when its the other way around. companies ripping off people, then the fine is $0.10 per instance and nobody ever has to take responsibility.

we get the picture. we know who our masters are.
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Kahoona said:
The 8th Amendment needs to be revised to apply to these types of cases.
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To the Land of the Free..and the Home of the B....
Oh wait...where did they go?

With the times that are running where everything is related to technology. There is no chance for Chaos. Hence not chance for liberty. Only through Totalitarianism a system like the one we are running today can be controlled and dominated.
 
ChairmanMiau said:
There isn't any "guilty" verdict in civil court, nor is there "sentencing".
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Additionally the jury could have decided on damages ranging from 750 dollars a song up to a maximum of 30,000 dollars. They chose 22,500 dollars/song. If you're outraged about the amount of punitive damages, direct it towards the parties responsible - the jury and the laws/precedents that dictate what those damages can be.
 
Flexion said:
There's too many holes filled with bullshit. No justice is served here. The punk, was probably on a P2P or something and liked some songs. He downloaded them, and decided to keep them on his hard drive, not knowing that he would be seeding the torrent. As a result now he's going to help pay the mortgage for the lawywer's manhattan condo and smoked salmon & dill?
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thats the thing, he wont be giving them anything, i would do the same thing, file chapter 7, in the end they get nothing but a feather in their cap, but isn't the entire premise that there are monetary losses and the entire reason they are doing this is to recover "lost profits"? in the end they recover nothing, so all i see is a LOT of money spent to get nothing
 
I don't think these suits are against people downloading... They are against uploaders. So while $750 min for a song seems outrageous, its not just the copy they have its the copies they gave away too.

So at $1 per song, if 750+ people downloaded the song that could equate to $750+ per song.

But yes it is pretty outrageous given the circumstances of awards to be that large against normal everyday people that have no hope of paying.

These suits are more of an advertisement then anything as well, the award in the paper is worth more then the actual cash. If they scare enough people into buying from itunes or Amazon, they won.

There really does have to be a realistic penalty for this type of thing. Copywrite law is to protect the owner yes but really is meant for a more anti-pirate as a business type of thing (imho). When normal people are doing fairly normal things it just seems like the laws are over the top.
 
nobody_here said:
thats the thing, he wont be giving them anything, i would do the same thing, file chapter 7, in the end they get nothing but a feather in their cap, but isn't the entire premise that there are monetary losses and the entire reason they are doing this is to recover "lost profits"? in the end they recover nothing, so all i see is a LOT of money spent to get nothing
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They're getting a lot. This is the second high-profile file sharing case in recent memory and the second win for the RIAA. If this doesn't scream "take our settlement offer or else risk ruining your life" then I don't know what will.
 
SockMan! said:
They're getting a lot. This is the second high-profile file sharing case in recent memory and the second win for the RIAA. If this doesn't scream "take our settlement offer or else risk ruining your life" then I don't know what will.
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it only means a lot to people with something to lose though....i could file a chapter 7 tomorrow and lose essentially nothing but my credit (which i dont use anyways)......i would imagine a larger percentage of people that are illegally downloading and sharing are in my situation more so than the guy that has lots to lose....because the guy with lots to lose typically has lots to spend, or no problem paying for their own music anyways....

the target of their cases in most cases are broke people to begin with is my point, who will realistically never pay a dime no matter what they waste time proving
 
nobody_here said:
it only means a lot to people with something to lose though....i could file a chapter 7 tomorrow and lose essentially nothing but my credit (which i dont use anyways)
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Unless you're saying you own nothing, you'd lose a lot more than your credit score. All non-exempt assets will be turned over to your trustee.
 
God some people are stupid. If you download a lot of stuff nowadays and don't use usenet, you're knowingly risking this kind of thing happening.
 
Frobot said:
Unless you're saying you own nothing, you'd lose a lot more than your credit score. All non-exempt assets will be turned over to your trustee.
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everything i own is non-exempt, everything is paid for, no house, no credit cards, nothing financed, nothing which values would make it inclusive.....we live in an apartment and pay cash for everything, cars are paid for, etc.....

i dont subscribe to the credit whore mentality, if i dont have the money to pay for it i dont get it, period, so losing the ability to finance anything would mean nothing to me
 
randomdean100 said:
Bolded and underlined statement is fail. private torrent trackers > usenet.
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LOL not even close.

Usenet has more content, faster speeds (will max your pipe every single time - I've downloaded at 11 megabytes per second before!), 256bit SSL encryption, and you don't have to upload to download. In other words, you are invulnerable to prosecution AND even your ISP can't see what you're doing in the first place.

Sorry noob, but you're way off base.
 
lol, they do nothing but waste time and money doing this crap. don't they realize that bands will make up the money elsewhere, even if people are getting the music for free.

I mean, how much money have I spent on Iron Maiden t-shirts? Or concert tickets?
 
computerpro3 said:
LOL not even close.

Usenet has more content, faster speeds (will max your pipe every single time - I've downloaded at 11 megabytes per second before!), 256bit SSL encryption, and you don't have to upload to download. In other words, you are invulnerable to prosecution AND even your ISP can't see what you're doing in the first place.

Sorry noob, but you're way off base.
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The difference is that you pay to pirate, I don't.
 
FighterAce124 said:
I cant express my... distaste... for cases like this. There is a serious flaw in the system when something that is worth at most $100 (And thats really inflating the price of each song) can be calculated to over 600k. Beyond that, I believe any lawyer who would go to bat for such outrageous demands should be disbar'd and forbidden from practicing law again.

If you do something illegal, I agree in paying for it. I dont agree in paying (I fail at math, valuing at $3/song. what, 749,900% more than the cost of the song). At most, triple value of each song. No more, anything beyond that is just outrageous and beyond common sense. Even that is a bit far in my eyes unless they can prove that you distributed the content to other users. If you cant prove that 100%, then there is no excuse to charge more than the base cost of the song. Other charges can be added such as court fees, but those must also fall within a realm of reasonable cost.
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That's more than an expensive lesson learned. That's insanity. You're crippling the guy for a long time for downloading music.
 
ChairmanMiau said:
Oh, do shut up!
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The decision was truly a dark day for the rationalizers.

first it was... "I do it because it's legal"

then, "I do it because I won't get caught"

and then, "I do it because if I get caught, nothing will happen to me"

and then still, "I do it because if I'm caught I won't be found infringing and fined"

and finally, "I do it because if i'm caught and found guilty I won't pay anything"

:D
 
nobody_here said:
everything i own is non-exempt, everything is paid for, no house, no credit cards, nothing financed, nothing which values would make it inclusive.....we live in an apartment and pay cash for everything, cars are paid for, etc.....

i dont subscribe to the credit whore mentality, if i dont have the money to pay for it i dont get it, period, so losing the ability to finance anything would mean nothing to me
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same here, i was actually in college when they changed that bankruptcy wouldn't remove student loan debt.. I was planning from the day i walked through my school doors to file after i graduated. As such that is the only debt i really have....ok and like a few hundred dollars on a newegg card that I could pay off immediately

the point there being... they are going after these people on purpose. I could probably name a handful of reasons. But more than anything it's clear they want the publicity for their "don't fuck with us" attitude more than anything

that being said i'd like to see this go higher.
 
Anyone care to guess how much money out of the fines the RIAA actually collects will actually be seen by the artists who recorded these songs? How about next to nothing,the parasites who call themselves lawyers will get most of it.I doubt even they expect to get much out of these ridiculously bloated judgments,they're happy to live high on the hog on the exorbitant fees they charge the suckers in the recording industry.
 
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