RIAA Litigation May Be Unconstitutional 281
dtjohnson writes "A Harvard law school professor has submitted arguments on behalf of
Joel Tenenbaum in RIAA v. Tenenbaum in which Professor Charles
Nesson claims that the underlying law that the RIAA uses is actually a
criminal, rather than civil, statute and is therefore
unconstitutional. According to this article, 'Nesson
charges that the federal law is essentially a criminal statute
in that it seeks to punish violators with minimum statutory penalties
far in excess of actual damages. The market value of a song is 99 cents
on iTunes; of seven songs, $6.93. Yet the statutory damages are a
minimum of $750 per song, escalating to as much as $150,000 per song
for infringement "committed willfully."' If the law is a criminal
statute, Neeson then claims that it violates the 5th
and 8th
amendments and is therefore unconstitutional. Litigation will
take a while but this may be the end for RIAA litigation, at least
until they can persuade
Congress to pass a new law."
Re:in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it really depends on where you are. Didn't you watch the Olympics in Beijing? The sky there was gre... ... OH, you were being sarcastic. Heh. Clever.
Re:wholly analogous (Score:5, Funny)
With fines like that I-294 can be toll free (Score:5, Funny)
With fines like that I-294 can be toll free as well the rest of the IL toll way system.
Re:wholly analogous (Score:3, Funny)
A first post with a car analogy, AND by someone who actually RTFA. I think we have a kind of record here.
Re:It Never Ends (Score:1, Funny)
Why aren't any racketeering/trustbusting laws coming into play here?
Ever heard of lobbying [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
by ArchAngel (247594)
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:3, Funny)
Fry 'em! Littering trash! Fire up old sparkey & destroy their computers.
Oh, sorry, I was channeling Orrin Hatch [macobserver.com] for a moment.
I can tell that YANAL (Score:3, Funny)
Idjit.
Re:NESSON (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Light on details. (Score:2, Funny)
I think it's more a case of "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck" ...
And I've long been curious where this weird saying came from. After all, if looks/walks/quacks like a duck, it could well be a coot or gallinule (family Rallidae, order Gruiformes) rather than a duck (family Anatidae, order Anseriformes). Of course, both families have a fair variety of quacks, gaits and body shape, but in general they are sufficiently similar that most non-birders can't tell them apart by sight or sound. They're mostly good to eat, too, with a few exceptions.
I'd think that if you tried using this argument in legal circles, you'd be very likely to find that some of those lawyers are either bird watchers or bird hunters, and will ridicule you for the idea that such superficial similarities imply relatedness. I've actually heard bird hunters say that someone is so dumb "that they think a coot is a duck".
So why do people say such things that can be so easily shot down (to coin a phrase) by anyone with the least knowledge of the subject? Anyone know where the "... like a duck" meme could have originated? Google doesn't seem to know, though it does turn up attributions to lots of people.
(One good way to tell Rallidae from Anatidae is that the latter have continuous webs between their toes, while the former have flaps on the sides of their toes that overlap when swimming. There are a lot of other small structural differences between the families that make it easy to tell them apart if you can catch them.)
Re:Light on details. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Just wait... (Score:5, Funny)
The Constitution wasn't raped. It was *asking* to be fucked. I mean, it was just sitting there with its Articles and Amendments spread out for all to see. How is a president supposed to avoid putting his special pen there?
Re:Be careful what you ask for (Score:2, Funny)
wow...individual music collections soon to be more valuable than a majority share in a major bank :-)
Re:wholly analogous (Score:5, Funny)
Bah, a car analogy is the kind of thing Hitler would have used if he wanted the terrorist to win!
Re:Blue screen of no signal (Score:5, Funny)
I'm so embarrassed. My face is all #FF0000.....
You make me #00FF00 with envy that I can't come up with something that witty.
It just keeps me feelin' the #0000FF(s)
At first, I was too afraid to post this. Someone told me I was #FFFF00.
#FF8800 you glad I posted anyway?