Tenenbaum Found Guilty In P2P Trial. Could Face $4.5 Million In Fines
So Much For The Harvard Defense…
UPDATED: Massachusetts Judge Nancy Gertner reversed course and today issued a directed verdict against P2P defendant Joel Tenenbaum. The ruling says he is liable for infringing on all 30 copyrights named in the lawsuit. The jury will decide if the infringement was "willful", as well as, the size of the award which could be set at up to $4.5 million.
On the Joel Fights Back blog, Debbie Rosenbaum, a student member of the Harvard defense team wrote after the verditc, "When the music industry spent an estimated $1M to prosecute just one of the millions of individuals who use file-sharing software, Joel fought back. The battle was lost, and the war is not over."
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I’m happy about the ideology behind the verdict, but the amount is pretty egregious. I don’t understand why such large numbers are in the picture. It just fosters the perception that musicians (and record labels) are greedy. The brunt of the case against file sharing needs to be fair payment for services provided…or in other words, the cost of a CD.
What a complete waste of money time and reputation.
bbb
wheatus.com
Harsher prosecution than violent crimes…The courts have gone nuts!!
The public has gone nuts – stealing is stealing, though the current conventional wisdom seems to be that stealing music is okay. It is an odd sign of moral decay that so many people who would not steal a magazine will gladly steal music.
If you steal a magazine, are you punished with a million dollar fine?
Its not really comparing the same thing. By taking the magazine, you could be charged with theft where these recent music related trials have all been copyright infringement lawsuits. Its always up to the rights holders to police their own copyrights. If you were to scan the magazine, print out a bunch of copies and then distribute them to people on the street corner, then the publishing company could start a similar lawsuit. It seems ridiculous that someone would do that with a magazine because of the costs and efforts involved…but digital music is so easy to copy and distribute to millions of people that its easy to see how you can destroy a business pretty fast.