New Judge Assigned To Tenenbaum Case Upholds $675k Verdict

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY v Tenenbaum, the new District Judge assigned to the case has disagreed with the previous judge, and instead of reducing the $22,500 per file award to $2250 per file, has instead upheld the jury's verdict. The jury initially found defendant Joel Tenenbaum to have 'willfully' infringed the RIAA copyrights by downloading 30 mp3 files which would normally retail for 99 cents each, and awarded the plaintiff record companies $675,000 in 'statutory damages.' Tenenbaum moved to set the verdict aside on both common law remittitur grounds and constitutional due process grounds. Judge Gertner — the District Judge at the time — felt that remittitur would be a futility, and on constitutional grounds reduced the verdict to $2250 per file. The RIAA appealed. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals remanded on the ground that Judge Gertner ought to have decided the question on remittitur grounds and reached the constitutional question prematurely. By the time the case arrived back in District Court, Judge Gertner had retired, and a new judge — Judge Rya Zobel — had been assigned. Judge Zobel denied the remittitur motion. And then Judge Zobel denied the constitutional motion, leaving the larger verdict in place. I think it is reasonable to expect Tenenbaum to appeal this time around."

Re:Stealing $30, Paying $675,000....

[gstoddart]

I'm not sure how they can say you owe $675,000 for stealing roughly $30 worth of products.

Because the *AA's managed to pass laws that made for ridiculous statutory damages [wikipedia.org].

the original rationale for statutory damages was that it would often be difficult to establish the number of copies that had been made by an underground pirate business and awards of statutory damages would save rightsholders from having to do so

So, it's an inflated number to allow them to sue for massive damages on the presumption that you've cost them vast sums of lost revenue that they can't prove. It basically says that in the FBI trailer on movies.

Not defending it, but that's how we got here. The *AA's don't believe in the concept of "personal use" or "fair use" -- as far as they are concerned, you have committed Great Evil.

Re:Who cares

[niado]

He actually offered to pay significantly more [wikipedia.org] than $30.00.

Re:There's also that third thing...

[msauve]

Whoosh.

The Copyright Act of 1790 provided for a 14 year term, which could be renewed for another 14 years if the author were still alive. So, by those terms, anything pre-1984 would now be in the public domain. And, I'd argue that's enough "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 Beatles weren't thinking "we won't do this, if we can't get royalties 50 years from now" when they recorded "Love me do."

In 1831, the term went to 28 years + a 14 year extension.
In 1909, 28 + 28.
1976, life of the author + 50 years. (75 years from publication, 100 years from creation for "works for hire."
1992, "renewal" became automatic.
1998, life of the author + 70 years. (95 years from publication, 120 years from creation, for "works for hire")

My amicus curiae brief in this case

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

In case you're interested in reading the arguments I made in 2009 in this case, as to why the verdict was in violation of due process, here they are [beckermanlegal.com] (PDF)

Re:Who cares

[Artifakt]

When you are already serving time for murder of another adult male, most of those violent criminals fear you at least as much as you fear them, and try to work out an acceptable detente. it's when you are in that same prison for doing something that says you are prey, that you get the real trouble. Prisons have people who get beaten and worse for being 'pedos', but the guy who molested all those little girls AND killed an armed police officer with only a tire iron somehow never becomes the target for those pedo beat-downs. And, the guy who just transported dope across state lines tends to get about as many beatings and rapes as the typical molester. There are exceptions - like Jeffery Dahmer. The man who killed Dahmer was already serving time for murder himself and had reported messianic delusions, but he does claim to have acted in the interest of justice, and given Dahmer, I'm not saying he's wrong. It's not the common story, far from it. More common is to serve a lot less than life, typically only about 5 years actual time served, and have relatively little to fear from the other inmates.