RIAA wins another big verdict in P2P lawsuit

[Dimmauk]

RIAA wins another big verdict in P2P lawsuit

Mon Aug 3, 2009 1:20PM EDT


It may be losing badly in the court of public opinion, but when it comes to actual courtroom proceedings, the RIAA continues to rack up the victories.

The latest verdict in its favor has been handed down against Ph.D. student Joel Tenenbaum, who was found guilty of willfully infringing 30 songs and sharing them on the KaZaA peer-to-peer network. Despite the almost circus-like environment of the legal proceedings (in which Tenenbaum's lawyer was sanctioned for his behavior), the jury didn't take long to determine the level of damages against Tenenbaum: $675,000, or $22,500 per song he illegally shared online.

That sounds steep but it actually compares favorably to the second verdict leveled against Jammie Thomas-Rasset, who was the first individual ever found guilty of copyright infringement over a peer-to-peer network. The original 2007 verdict against her (damages: $9,250 per song) was thrown out after a mistrial was declared, but in June a new jury found her even more guilty than before, with fines set at a whopping $80,000 per song. In comparison, Tenenbaum is getting off easy.

Tenenbaum had entered the courtroom with the audicious defense that personal file sharing online was protected by "Fair Use" copyright provisions, which offer certain exemptions to the otherwise rather stringent prohibition against making copies of commercial materials. Tenenbaum's Fair Use arguments were largely denied, and Tenenbaum basically wasn't allowed to introduce that defense in his case. In fact, when he took the stand and was asked directly if he shared the files on KaZaA, Tenenbaum admitted it directly, including the fact that he'd lied about it in his written deposition late last year. In contrast, Thomas-Rasset has always pleaded that she was innocent in the file sharing allegations, though direct and circumstantial evidence has always been heavily positioned against her.

Tenenbaum says if he is pressed to pay the damages, he'll be forced to declare bankruptcy. Appeals and additional motions are pending.



I dont understand how he is liable for using KaZaA. Wasnt that the same thing as Napster?

[Senoska]

It's only going to take a few more of these til the public destroys them.

[Cephius]

Wow, Kazaa. Flashback to 2001? Serves him right for using an asstarded client. If you use that shit you're pretty much putting a bright neon sign outside your house saying I PIRATE SONGS PLEASE COME AND ARREST ME!

Still though, the RIAA is so stupid it's hilarious. Keep threatening and intimidating kids, while the larger problems of the music industry go unnoticed.

[Pringles]

Dude should totally just sue Al Gore since he claimed he invented the
Internet and all. I mean, he wouldn't have been sharing songs on the internet if there was no internet to share them on. See it's not his fault. He's just a prisoner of circumstances.

[Mizango]

lolKazaa. That is seriously the Cro-Magnon of any p2p. Seriously he's using Kazaa and is shocked?

[Dimmauk]

Wow, Kazaa. Flashback to 2001? Serves him right for using an asstarded client. If you use that shit you're pretty much putting a bright neon sign outside your house saying I PIRATE SONGS PLEASE COME AND ARREST ME!

Still though, the RIAA is so stupid it's hilarious. Keep threatening and intimidating kids, while the larger problems of the music industry go unnoticed.

The trial was an almost entirely one-sided affair. Plaintiffs built their case with forensic evidence collected by MediaSentry, which showed that he was sharing over 800 songs from his computer on August 10, 2004. A subsequent examination of his computer showed that Tenenbaum had used a variety of different peer-to-peer programs, from Napster to KaZaA to AudioGalaxy to iMesh, to obtain music for free, starting in 1999. And he continued to infringe, even after his father warned him in 2002 that he would get sued, even after he received a harshly-worded letter from the plaintiffs’ law firm in 2005, even after he was sued in 2007, and all the way through part of 2008.

LOL

[Cephius]

Yeah this kid's a modern day Einstein... hard to be sympathetic when he practically begged to be sued.

[Seraph]

Not saying the kid isn't a dumbass, but where do they keep finding these juries? Holy hell.

[Norellicus]

I'm not necessarily against the jurors finding him guilty, even I willfully know I'm breaking a law when I dl shit, but fucking really, 22k/song?

$20/song, fin

RIAA is still making out like a bandit at that rate.

[Kiro]

Pretty easy to not get caught these days. Stupid people shouldn't operate P2P shit.

[Knyghtmayre]

Stupid people shouldn't operate P2P shit.

This.

[MisterBob]

Haha, the RIAA would easily catch you if they cared to. However, morons like the guy in this article are the wounded gazelle, the lions are coming for them first.

Things like Peerguardian, Tor, and private trackers are not going to save you, it's morons like this that do.

[Ikith]

As I've always told myself and everyone else:

"If they really want to find you they will and nothing can stop them."

[archibaldcrane]

If I got caught like this kid did, I'd go out in a blaze of glory as well. I mean, what the fuck, 675k? You can't avoid it, might as well do the Hot Rod hip-thruster dance on the desk, throw papers into the air and just go balls out. The awards are obviously completely meaningless - they will never be paid.

Dropping multi-hundred-thousand-dollar lawsuits that could be filed against 95% of people who have attended an American university this decade is just so completely absurd there's no other appropriate response to it besides more absurdity.

You confuse me I'll confuse you back.

[thestalkmore]

Haha, the RIAA would easily catch you if they cared to. However, morons like the guy in this article are the wounded gazelle, the lions are coming for them first.

Things like Peerguardian, Tor, and private trackers are not going to save you, it's morons like this that do.

International seedbox, tally-ho!

[Cephius]

If I got caught like this kid did, I'd go out in a blaze of glory as well. I mean, what the fuck, 675k? You can't avoid it, might as well do the Hot Rod hip-thruster dance on the desk, throw papers into the air and just go balls out. The awards are obviously completely meaningless - they will never be paid.

Dropping multi-hundred-thousand-dollar lawsuits that could be filed against 95% of people who have attended an American university this decade is just so completely absurd there's no other appropriate response to it besides more absurdity.

You confuse me I'll confuse you back.

Except it looks like this kid had received letters warning him to stop repeatedly over the last 4 years and just ignored them and continued to download. I have no love for this kind of action, but let's be honest. They gave the kid every chance to get out of it if he simply stopped downloading music. But he didn't. They had no choice after awhile than to just go through with it.

[Dimmauk]

Except it looks like this kid had received letters warning him to stop repeatedly over the last 4 years and just ignored them and continued to download. I have no love for this kind of action, but let's be honest. They gave the kid every chance to get out of it if he simply stopped downloading music. But he didn't. They had no choice after awhile than to just go through with it.

He was probably like a lot of people, in thinking that he would never get caught.

[Cephius]

The thing is, if you get a letter you already got caught. But they give you a chance to get off without a problem as long as you either stop downloading or do it in a safer matter (private torrents, peerguardian, etc) but this kid didn't seem to care. Just saying, it's hard to feel sorry for him when he was warned multiple times and didn't change his ways, much less stop downloading.

[Plow]

If I got caught like this kid did, I'd go out in a blaze of glory as well. I mean, what the fuck, 675k? You can't avoid it, might as well do the Hot Rod hip-thruster dance on the desk, throw papers into the air and just go balls out. The awards are obviously completely meaningless - they will never be paid.

Dropping multi-hundred-thousand-dollar lawsuits that could be filed against 95% of people who have attended an American university this decade is just so completely absurd there's no other appropriate response to it besides more absurdity.

You confuse me I'll confuse you back.

To people with common sense, bankruptcy is a pretty damn serious deterrent.

[Ksandra]

at first I felt bad for the kid cause I though this was something dating back to when kazaa first came out. everyone I knew at college used that shit, 'cause no one thought they'd get caught.

then dimm showed this:

The trial was an almost entirely one-sided affair. Plaintiffs built their case with forensic evidence collected by MediaSentry, which showed that he was sharing over 800 songs from his computer on August 10, 2004. A subsequent examination of his computer showed that Tenenbaum had used a variety of different peer-to-peer programs, from Napster to KaZaA to AudioGalaxy to iMesh, to obtain music for free, starting in 1999. And he continued to infringe, even after his father warned him in 2002 that he would get sued, even after he received a harshly-worded letter from the plaintiffs’ law firm in 2005, even after he was sued in 2007, and all the way through part of 2008.