David Kravets, Wired.com; First RIAA File Sharing Trial Morphs Into Groundhog Day:
"The nation’s first file sharing copyright infringement trial has morphed into a legal Groundhog Day.
In a bid two avoid a third trial — after two mistrials — the Minnesota federal judge presiding over the 4-year-old Jammie Thomas-Rasset case wants the Recording Industry Association of American and the defendant to negotiate a settlement.
But, as Thomas-Rasset’s attorney, Joe Sibley, said in a telephone interview Monday, a settlement is not likely to happen. The reason is both sides are a universe apart on what it would take to avoid a third trial.
That’s why there were two trials: neither party would budge during court-ordered negotiations: Under the latest failed negotiations, Thomas refused in January to pay anything. The RIAA wanted $25,000 for the 24 tracks two federal juries concluded she pilfered on Kazaa. That offer came after a second Minnesota jury had awarded $1.92 million, and the judge reduced it to $54,000 a year ago.
“There is nothing we have to offer they would be willing to accept,” Sibley said Monday. He added that Thomas-Rasset might agree to settle for the statutory minimum $750 a track.
“We’ve always hoped Ms. Thomas would accept responsibility and join us at the settlement table — especially after a judge and two different juries affirmed her clear liability. But her approach so far … does not make for productive settlement discussions,” RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said via an e-mail.
The Copyright Act allows a jury to award damages of up to $150,000 per purloined download. The Obama administration supported the nearly $2 million judgment.
U.S. District Judge Michael [Davis] [sic] declared the $1.92 million verdict “shocking” and said damage awards “must bear some relation to actual damages.”
Davis’ decision was the first time a judge has reduced the amount of damages in a Copyright Act case.
A third trial, scheduled for Oct. 4, would involve a jury assuming the woman’s liability and affixing a new damages figure.
Because of the posture of the case, the parties could not directly appeal the judge’s decision last year lowering the jury’s verdict. Assuming the judge reduces the damages again after the October trial, the appeals courts would be more inclined to take the case to avoid another day of legal ground hog, legal experts said.
Among the big bones of contention that would be addressed on appeal, Sibley claims damages under the Copyright Act are unconstitutionally excessive. The RIAA claims the judge did not have the power to lower a Copyright Act jury award.
Thomas-Rasset, of Brainerd, Minnesota, famously lost her first trial in 2007, resulting in a $222,000 judgment. But months after the four-day trial was over, Judge Davis declared a mistrial, saying he’d incorrectly instructed the jury that merely making copyrighted work available on a file sharing program constituted infringement, regardless of whether anybody downloaded the content.
He ordered both sides to the settlement table, where no deal was reached.
The only other file sharing case to have gone to trial resulted in a Boston jury in July awarding the RIAA $675,000 for 30 songs. A decision is pending on whether that award should be reduced.
Most of the thousands of RIAA file sharing cases against individuals settled out of court for a few thousand dollars."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/filesharing-groundhog-day/#ixzz0rXbVpz00:
Showing posts with label RIAA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RIAA. Show all posts
Monday, June 21, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
LimeWire Begs Music Industry for Second Chance; Wired.com, 5/25/10
David Kravets, Wired.com; LimeWire Begs Music Industry for Second Chance:
"The company behind the file sharing software LimeWire is considering aggressively filtering out pirated content and is hoping to strike a deal with the music industry in which it would be permitted to live on as a for-pay music download service, a company executive said Monday.
“The biggest challenge right now is changing the behavior of a generation of internet users to get them to pay for music,” said Zeeshan Zaidi, LimeWire’s 35-year-old chief operating officer, in an interview two weeks after suffering a crushing defeat in a copyright lawsuit that threatens to leave the company insolvent.
On May 11, a federal judge ruled that LimeWire’s users commit a “substantial amount of copyright infringement” (.pdf) and that parent company Lime Group “has not taken meaningful steps to mitigate infringement.”
The ruling sets the stage for a potentially massive damage award against the company that could leave it insolvent. Attorneys for Lime Group and the Recording Industry Association of America are expected to return to court next month to haggle over the company’s fate.
Zaidi said in a telephone interview that the company wants to convert its 50 million monthly users into paying music customers, and become a player in the paid music-distribution business. For now, the bulk of LimeWire’s traffic consists of unauthorized copyright material — some 93 percent, according to RIAA estimates.
“One way to address what the court is talking about, short of shutting down the network, which I think is overreaching and drastic, is to filter the network of these files in question,” Zaidi said. “This is a way for us to move forward in the case.”
Zaidi’s plan could put LimeWire on roughly the same course followed by Napster after its 2002 courtroom defeat to the RIAA. Roxio purchased the Napster brand and domain name at a bankruptcy auction and attached it to a legitimate music download service, which exists today as an also-ran in a field dominated by Apple’s iTunes.
Similarly, Swedish entrepreneur Hans Pandeya had dreams of legitimizing the The Pirate Bay, the world’s leading BitTorrent search engine. His plan was to strike licensing deals with content providers and sell movies, music, games and software on the notorious site, but he never managed to pull off the acquisition of The Pirate Bay’s domain name.
To be sure, moving from the pirate model to the pay-to-play model has many built-in assumptions.
Foremost, converting copyright scofflaws into paying customers is a tough sell. And for LimeWire, it may prove to be a futile endeavor to get the major record labels — which just defeated LimeWire in court — to cut licensing deals.
“Suffice it to say, we’re talking to all of the major players in the industry to try to get the licenses we need to get this service off the ground,” Zaidi said.
Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, which represents Sony BMG, Universal Music, EMI and Warner Music, said “we intend to pursue damages.”
Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA’s chairman, said two weeks ago that, “Unlike other P2P services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators.”
For now, LimeWire has about 5 million songs on its online retail store, none of them from the RIAA’s Big Four, Zaidi said. He declined to provide sales figures.
In its LimeWire lawsuit, the RIAA is seeking up to $150,000 per copyright violation, though the final damages have not been determined. It was the first case targeting a file sharing software maker following the 2005 Grokster decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for lawsuits targeting companies that induced or encouraged file sharing piracy.
Zaidi said the recording industry should take the opportunity to partner with LimeWire, “to put the most amount of money into the pockets of artists and those who own their copyrights.”
The music industry, he said, “is in the driver’s seat. What happens next depends on what they choose to do."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/limewire-filtering/#ixzz0r8O5w65F"
"The company behind the file sharing software LimeWire is considering aggressively filtering out pirated content and is hoping to strike a deal with the music industry in which it would be permitted to live on as a for-pay music download service, a company executive said Monday.
“The biggest challenge right now is changing the behavior of a generation of internet users to get them to pay for music,” said Zeeshan Zaidi, LimeWire’s 35-year-old chief operating officer, in an interview two weeks after suffering a crushing defeat in a copyright lawsuit that threatens to leave the company insolvent.
On May 11, a federal judge ruled that LimeWire’s users commit a “substantial amount of copyright infringement” (.pdf) and that parent company Lime Group “has not taken meaningful steps to mitigate infringement.”
The ruling sets the stage for a potentially massive damage award against the company that could leave it insolvent. Attorneys for Lime Group and the Recording Industry Association of America are expected to return to court next month to haggle over the company’s fate.
Zaidi said in a telephone interview that the company wants to convert its 50 million monthly users into paying music customers, and become a player in the paid music-distribution business. For now, the bulk of LimeWire’s traffic consists of unauthorized copyright material — some 93 percent, according to RIAA estimates.
“One way to address what the court is talking about, short of shutting down the network, which I think is overreaching and drastic, is to filter the network of these files in question,” Zaidi said. “This is a way for us to move forward in the case.”
Zaidi’s plan could put LimeWire on roughly the same course followed by Napster after its 2002 courtroom defeat to the RIAA. Roxio purchased the Napster brand and domain name at a bankruptcy auction and attached it to a legitimate music download service, which exists today as an also-ran in a field dominated by Apple’s iTunes.
Similarly, Swedish entrepreneur Hans Pandeya had dreams of legitimizing the The Pirate Bay, the world’s leading BitTorrent search engine. His plan was to strike licensing deals with content providers and sell movies, music, games and software on the notorious site, but he never managed to pull off the acquisition of The Pirate Bay’s domain name.
To be sure, moving from the pirate model to the pay-to-play model has many built-in assumptions.
Foremost, converting copyright scofflaws into paying customers is a tough sell. And for LimeWire, it may prove to be a futile endeavor to get the major record labels — which just defeated LimeWire in court — to cut licensing deals.
“Suffice it to say, we’re talking to all of the major players in the industry to try to get the licenses we need to get this service off the ground,” Zaidi said.
Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, which represents Sony BMG, Universal Music, EMI and Warner Music, said “we intend to pursue damages.”
Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA’s chairman, said two weeks ago that, “Unlike other P2P services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators.”
For now, LimeWire has about 5 million songs on its online retail store, none of them from the RIAA’s Big Four, Zaidi said. He declined to provide sales figures.
In its LimeWire lawsuit, the RIAA is seeking up to $150,000 per copyright violation, though the final damages have not been determined. It was the first case targeting a file sharing software maker following the 2005 Grokster decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for lawsuits targeting companies that induced or encouraged file sharing piracy.
Zaidi said the recording industry should take the opportunity to partner with LimeWire, “to put the most amount of money into the pockets of artists and those who own their copyrights.”
The music industry, he said, “is in the driver’s seat. What happens next depends on what they choose to do."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/limewire-filtering/#ixzz0r8O5w65F"
LimeWire Crushed in RIAA Infringement Lawsuit; Wired.com, 5/12/10
David Kravets, Wired.com; LimeWire Crushed in RIAA Infringement Lawsuit:
"LimeWire was found liable of copyright infringement Tuesday in a decision that threatens to financially devastate the New York company behind the file sharing application.
In a 4-year-old case brought by The Recording Industry Association of America, U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood ruled that LimeWire’s users commit a “substantial amount of copyright infringement” (.pdf) and that the Lime Group, the company behind the application, “has not taken meaningful steps to mitigate infringement.”
The RIAA was seeking up to $150,000 per copyright violation, though the final damages in the lawsuit have not yet been determined. The lawsuit claimed at least 93 percent of LimeWire’s file sharing traffic was unauthorized copyright material.
Limewire claims “50 million unique monthly users.” Its website says its “software is downloaded hundreds of thousands of times every day and boasts millions of active users at any given moment.”
It was the first case targeting a file sharing software maker following the 2005 Grokster decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for lawsuits targeting companies that induced or encouraged file sharing piracy.
Before the RIAA filed suit, the record label’s trade group urged LimeWire to license its material or shut down.
“LimeWire is one of the largest remaining commercial peer-to-peer services,” Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA’s chairman, said in a statement. “Unlike other P2P services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators.”
George Searle, LimeWire’s chief executive, said in a statement that the company “remains committed to developing innovative products and services for the end-user and to working with the entire music industry, including the major labels, to achieve this mission.”
Searle was not immediately available for comment.
Judge Wood scheduled a June 1 hearing to determine how to proceed.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/limewire-crushed/#ixzz0r8Mg5a3p"
"LimeWire was found liable of copyright infringement Tuesday in a decision that threatens to financially devastate the New York company behind the file sharing application.
In a 4-year-old case brought by The Recording Industry Association of America, U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood ruled that LimeWire’s users commit a “substantial amount of copyright infringement” (.pdf) and that the Lime Group, the company behind the application, “has not taken meaningful steps to mitigate infringement.”
The RIAA was seeking up to $150,000 per copyright violation, though the final damages in the lawsuit have not yet been determined. The lawsuit claimed at least 93 percent of LimeWire’s file sharing traffic was unauthorized copyright material.
Limewire claims “50 million unique monthly users.” Its website says its “software is downloaded hundreds of thousands of times every day and boasts millions of active users at any given moment.”
It was the first case targeting a file sharing software maker following the 2005 Grokster decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for lawsuits targeting companies that induced or encouraged file sharing piracy.
Before the RIAA filed suit, the record label’s trade group urged LimeWire to license its material or shut down.
“LimeWire is one of the largest remaining commercial peer-to-peer services,” Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA’s chairman, said in a statement. “Unlike other P2P services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators.”
George Searle, LimeWire’s chief executive, said in a statement that the company “remains committed to developing innovative products and services for the end-user and to working with the entire music industry, including the major labels, to achieve this mission.”
Searle was not immediately available for comment.
Judge Wood scheduled a June 1 hearing to determine how to proceed.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/limewire-crushed/#ixzz0r8Mg5a3p"
Saturday, May 29, 2010
ABA Journal Highlights How The Music Industry Is Thriving And How Copyright Might Not Be That Important; TechDirt, 5/28/10
Mike Masnick, TechDirt; ABA Journal Highlights How The Music Industry Is Thriving And How Copyright Might Not Be That Important:
"Michael Scott points us to one of the best summaries I've seen of the state of the music business today -- published in the ABA Journal. It's an incredibly balanced piece, that really does carefully present both sides of the story on a variety of issues, and presents actual evidence, which suggests the RIAA is blowing smoke on a lot of its claims. The piece kicks off by highlighting that the music industry appears to be thriving, and then noting that it's not the same as the recording industry, which has been struggling.
Much of the piece does present the RIAA's viewpoint on things, such as the idea that the legal strategy the labels have taken has been a "success." However, it follows it up by questioning what kind of success it has been when more people are file sharing and more services are available for those who want to file share. From there it segues into a discussion on "three strikes" and ACTA, which includes the jaw-dropping claim from an RIAA general counsel that "three strikes" was "never even put on the table."
I've heard from numerous ISP folks who say that's not true at all. However, the article does a good job (gently) ripping apart the RIAA's claims, with evidence to the contrary, and does a beautiful job digging deep into ACTA to show how the text might not explicitly require three strikes, but is worded in such a way as to make it hard to qualify for safe harbors without implementing three strikes.
The latter part of the article then focuses on how the music industry really is booming, and how more people are making music, and there are lots of opportunities for musicians to do well these days, even without relying on copyright law. The arguments made (and the people and studies quoted) won't be new to regular Techdirt readers, but it really is a very strong piece, targeted at lawyers (many of whom may not have realized some of these details). For example:
If the ultimate goal is to promote the creation of new works, then perhaps it isn't really necessary to take stronger legal actions against illegal file-sharing because the evidence does not suggest that it is hindering the creation of new works by musicians I certainly don't agree with everything in the article, and there are a few statements from the RIAA folks that could have been challenged more directly. But, on the whole, it's definitely one of the better articles I've seen looking at the music industry from the perspective of the legal profession that doesn't automatically drop into the "but we must protect copyrights!" argument from the outset."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100527/0347199599.shtml
"Michael Scott points us to one of the best summaries I've seen of the state of the music business today -- published in the ABA Journal. It's an incredibly balanced piece, that really does carefully present both sides of the story on a variety of issues, and presents actual evidence, which suggests the RIAA is blowing smoke on a lot of its claims. The piece kicks off by highlighting that the music industry appears to be thriving, and then noting that it's not the same as the recording industry, which has been struggling.
Much of the piece does present the RIAA's viewpoint on things, such as the idea that the legal strategy the labels have taken has been a "success." However, it follows it up by questioning what kind of success it has been when more people are file sharing and more services are available for those who want to file share. From there it segues into a discussion on "three strikes" and ACTA, which includes the jaw-dropping claim from an RIAA general counsel that "three strikes" was "never even put on the table."
I've heard from numerous ISP folks who say that's not true at all. However, the article does a good job (gently) ripping apart the RIAA's claims, with evidence to the contrary, and does a beautiful job digging deep into ACTA to show how the text might not explicitly require three strikes, but is worded in such a way as to make it hard to qualify for safe harbors without implementing three strikes.
The latter part of the article then focuses on how the music industry really is booming, and how more people are making music, and there are lots of opportunities for musicians to do well these days, even without relying on copyright law. The arguments made (and the people and studies quoted) won't be new to regular Techdirt readers, but it really is a very strong piece, targeted at lawyers (many of whom may not have realized some of these details). For example:
If the ultimate goal is to promote the creation of new works, then perhaps it isn't really necessary to take stronger legal actions against illegal file-sharing because the evidence does not suggest that it is hindering the creation of new works by musicians I certainly don't agree with everything in the article, and there are a few statements from the RIAA folks that could have been challenged more directly. But, on the whole, it's definitely one of the better articles I've seen looking at the music industry from the perspective of the legal profession that doesn't automatically drop into the "but we must protect copyrights!" argument from the outset."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100527/0347199599.shtml
Monday, May 24, 2010
Mark Gorton, Man Behind the Music Service; New York Times, 5/24/10
New York Times; Mark Gorton, Man Behind the Music Service:
"Mark Gorton is a confident guy. He’s confident about his ideas. He’s confident about his enthusiasms. And he’s confident that his successes — like making money on Wall Street and promoting alternative transportation in New York — provide a record that backs him up.
But that confidence faces a new test, Joseph Plambeck writes in The New York Times. Two weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that he and the popular file-sharing service he created, LimeWire, were liable for copyright infringement and could be forced to pay up to $450 million in damages.
Mr. Gorton, 43, says he did not think it would come to this point. He thought that the record industry, sometime since the lawsuit was filed in 2006, would come to appreciate his vision for the future of LimeWire — a paid subscription service providing unlimited downloads of licensed songs — and want to join forces instead of continuing litigation...
The Recording Industry Association of America, the industry group that managed the lawsuit on behalf of 13 record companies, said it thought he had willfully skirted the law, motivated by the money generated by the millions of users of LimeWire. Total revenue increased to an estimated $20 million in 2006 from $6 million two years earlier, according to the court ruling, much of it from a paid service that allowed for faster downloads.
“He thought with his cleverness that he could get away with it,” Mitch Bainwol, the association’s chief executive, said. “He’s the Bernie Madoff of Internet crime. He was thumbing his nose at the rule of law to profiteer enormously.”...
“People have a short memory, and they’ve gotten caught up in the mythology of P2P’s being run by ne’er-do-wells and eye-patch pirates,” said Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has represented some of the file-sharing services in copyright cases. (Mr. Lohmann was named in the ruling as having given legal advice to the company about how to protect itself from liability.)
“LimeWire was not a fly-by-night operation,” he said...
Mr. Gorton says he has tried to take that same strategy to the record labels to explain the new service he is proposing.
“I tell them to think of Woodstock,” he said. “The first one was free, but it ended up making the industry a lot of money and was a huge success. The second and third ones were very expensive for fans and were failures.”
But before he can hope to make any progress with the labels on his paid service, he will need to get the lawsuit behind him. And given the heated rhetoric from Mr. Bainwol and the record association, the coming negotiations may not be easy.
At a minimum, the record association says, LimeWire needs to shut the current service and Mr. Gorton needs to pay for damages out of his own pocket. A status conference with Judge Wood is scheduled for June 7.
Mr. Gorton says he knows that the music industry needs to alter the behavior of a generation of people who have grown accustomed to getting their music free.
Still, he says that LimeWire has a relationship with that generation that can help make the change. And he says he remains optimistic that, in the end, his idea will triumph.
“I don’t want to be on my deathbed thinking that I kept a bunch of musicians from making money,” Mr. Gorton said. “I have a lot of work to do to get my karma scores up.”"
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/mark-gorton-man-behind-the-music-service/?scp=2&sq=limewire&st=cse
"Mark Gorton is a confident guy. He’s confident about his ideas. He’s confident about his enthusiasms. And he’s confident that his successes — like making money on Wall Street and promoting alternative transportation in New York — provide a record that backs him up.
But that confidence faces a new test, Joseph Plambeck writes in The New York Times. Two weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that he and the popular file-sharing service he created, LimeWire, were liable for copyright infringement and could be forced to pay up to $450 million in damages.
Mr. Gorton, 43, says he did not think it would come to this point. He thought that the record industry, sometime since the lawsuit was filed in 2006, would come to appreciate his vision for the future of LimeWire — a paid subscription service providing unlimited downloads of licensed songs — and want to join forces instead of continuing litigation...
The Recording Industry Association of America, the industry group that managed the lawsuit on behalf of 13 record companies, said it thought he had willfully skirted the law, motivated by the money generated by the millions of users of LimeWire. Total revenue increased to an estimated $20 million in 2006 from $6 million two years earlier, according to the court ruling, much of it from a paid service that allowed for faster downloads.
“He thought with his cleverness that he could get away with it,” Mitch Bainwol, the association’s chief executive, said. “He’s the Bernie Madoff of Internet crime. He was thumbing his nose at the rule of law to profiteer enormously.”...
“People have a short memory, and they’ve gotten caught up in the mythology of P2P’s being run by ne’er-do-wells and eye-patch pirates,” said Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has represented some of the file-sharing services in copyright cases. (Mr. Lohmann was named in the ruling as having given legal advice to the company about how to protect itself from liability.)
“LimeWire was not a fly-by-night operation,” he said...
Mr. Gorton says he has tried to take that same strategy to the record labels to explain the new service he is proposing.
“I tell them to think of Woodstock,” he said. “The first one was free, but it ended up making the industry a lot of money and was a huge success. The second and third ones were very expensive for fans and were failures.”
But before he can hope to make any progress with the labels on his paid service, he will need to get the lawsuit behind him. And given the heated rhetoric from Mr. Bainwol and the record association, the coming negotiations may not be easy.
At a minimum, the record association says, LimeWire needs to shut the current service and Mr. Gorton needs to pay for damages out of his own pocket. A status conference with Judge Wood is scheduled for June 7.
Mr. Gorton says he knows that the music industry needs to alter the behavior of a generation of people who have grown accustomed to getting their music free.
Still, he says that LimeWire has a relationship with that generation that can help make the change. And he says he remains optimistic that, in the end, his idea will triumph.
“I don’t want to be on my deathbed thinking that I kept a bunch of musicians from making money,” Mr. Gorton said. “I have a lot of work to do to get my karma scores up.”"
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/mark-gorton-man-behind-the-music-service/?scp=2&sq=limewire&st=cse
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Axis of P2P Evil? Congress, RIAA call out six worst websites in the world; Ars Technica, 5/19/10
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica; Axis of P2P Evil? Congress, RIAA call out six worst websites in the world:
"This morning, the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus held a press conference along with RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol to call out the six worst websites in the world. Think of them as an "Axis of P2P Evil."
Who made the cut? The Pirate Bay, naturally. Canada's IsoHunt was no surprise. One-click download service RapidShare was less expected, as a German court ruled only two weeks ago that the site was not responsible for infringement by its users and that it had no duty to preemptively censor uploaded content.
More surprising were the last three sites: Ukraine's MP3fiesta, which operates like the now-shuttered allofmp3.com; Luxembourg's RMX4U.com, which bills itself as "the biggest community for black music in world!"; and Baidu, the Chinese search engine so popular, Google couldn't even make a dent in its ratings.
The IAPC is a bipartisan group of 11 senators and a huge number of representatives, and they are concerned that America's copyright industries are suffering at the hands of "lax or nonexistent enforcement by many foreign governments." That's why, they wrote in a recent letter (PDF), the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is so important.
But look at that list of websites and services for a moment. What's missing? Grokster, Demonoid, Oink, Allofmp3, LimeWire, Napster, Newzbin, Mininova...
That's because the copyright industries have in fact been remarkably successful in court within the existing legal frameworks of both the US and foreign countries over the last few years.
Newzbin announced its own closure this week after a long legal fight, while LimeWire lost in a US federal court last week. Even the Pirate Bay's ISP had to stop hosting the site this week, and a Swedish court has already ruled against The Pirate Bay's administrators.
Hold your children close
Still, even with such tremendous victories behind it, the RIAA can't resist a spot of over-the-top rhetoric.
"The global challenge in the years to come will be to win the battle for a civilized Internet that respects property, privacy and security," said Bainwol. "An Internet of chaos may meet a utopian vision but surely undermines the societal values of safe and secure families and job and revenue-creating commerce. Shining the spotlight on these websites sends a vital message to users, advertisers, payment processors and governments around the world."
Yes, that's right: a Ukrainian website called "mp3fiesta" is threatening the safety and security of your family. And a good chunk of Congress wants to do something about it."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/axis-of-p2p-evil-congress-riaa-call-out-six-worst-websites-in-the-world.ars
"This morning, the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus held a press conference along with RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol to call out the six worst websites in the world. Think of them as an "Axis of P2P Evil."
Who made the cut? The Pirate Bay, naturally. Canada's IsoHunt was no surprise. One-click download service RapidShare was less expected, as a German court ruled only two weeks ago that the site was not responsible for infringement by its users and that it had no duty to preemptively censor uploaded content.
More surprising were the last three sites: Ukraine's MP3fiesta, which operates like the now-shuttered allofmp3.com; Luxembourg's RMX4U.com, which bills itself as "the biggest community for black music in world!"; and Baidu, the Chinese search engine so popular, Google couldn't even make a dent in its ratings.
The IAPC is a bipartisan group of 11 senators and a huge number of representatives, and they are concerned that America's copyright industries are suffering at the hands of "lax or nonexistent enforcement by many foreign governments." That's why, they wrote in a recent letter (PDF), the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is so important.
But look at that list of websites and services for a moment. What's missing? Grokster, Demonoid, Oink, Allofmp3, LimeWire, Napster, Newzbin, Mininova...
That's because the copyright industries have in fact been remarkably successful in court within the existing legal frameworks of both the US and foreign countries over the last few years.
Newzbin announced its own closure this week after a long legal fight, while LimeWire lost in a US federal court last week. Even the Pirate Bay's ISP had to stop hosting the site this week, and a Swedish court has already ruled against The Pirate Bay's administrators.
Hold your children close
Still, even with such tremendous victories behind it, the RIAA can't resist a spot of over-the-top rhetoric.
"The global challenge in the years to come will be to win the battle for a civilized Internet that respects property, privacy and security," said Bainwol. "An Internet of chaos may meet a utopian vision but surely undermines the societal values of safe and secure families and job and revenue-creating commerce. Shining the spotlight on these websites sends a vital message to users, advertisers, payment processors and governments around the world."
Yes, that's right: a Ukrainian website called "mp3fiesta" is threatening the safety and security of your family. And a good chunk of Congress wants to do something about it."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/axis-of-p2p-evil-congress-riaa-call-out-six-worst-websites-in-the-world.ars
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
LimeWire Found to Infringe Copyrights; Wall Street Journal, 5/13/10
Ethan Smith, Wall Street Journal; LimeWire Found to Infringe Copyrights:
"A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the makers of LimeWire, a popular file-sharing application, were liable for copyright infringement and related claims brought by a consortium of 13 major music labels.
The blistering, 59-page ruling from Judge Kimba Wood of U.S. District Court in Manhattan granted several requests for summary judgment made by the music labels, which are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America.
For many in the music industry the ruling is a throwback to an earlier digital era. LimeWire and similar software had their heyday several years ago, and while still present on many people's computers they have been eclipsed by newer downloading methods such as BitTorrent.
In a statement, LimeWire Chief Executive George Searle said: "LimeWire strongly opposes the court's recent decision." RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol, in a statement, called the ruling "an extraordinary victory for the entire creative community."
Nonetheless, it is unclear whether the ruling will have a tangible effect on illegal downloading of music and other media, experts said, given the diffuse nature of the networks on which the material travels.
Judge Wood's ruling didn't shut down LimeWire, though she could do so after subsequent hearings.
But even if she does issue such an order, experts say it is unlikely to stop its use by people who have already installed the software on their computers, since the file-trading network operates independently, out of the control of the company or any other central authority.
LimeWire was the last major commercial distributor of software that lets users access the once-popular Gnutella network, where people shared music.
NPD Group, which tracks consumer behavior, said LimeWire is present in 1.7 million households and used by 58% of people who download music using so-called peer-to-peer networks. NPD added that most people who download music from such networks use more than one kind of software, meaning that LimeWire users are also likely to use BitTorrent and other method.
Illegal downloading activity is difficult to measure but by many estimates it far exceeds paid downloads, despite the growth of Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store.
"The music marketplace and the digital entertainment marketplace is overwhelmingly a pirate market," said Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne LLC, which monitors file-sharing activity for clients including media companies.
Mr. Garland offered what he called a "conservative" estimate that around one billion songs a month, or 12 billion a year, are downloaded illegally. That compares with 1.2 billion songs downloaded in all of 2009 from paid services in the U.S.—by far the world's largest market for digital downloads. Even adding in other nations' downloading, peer-to-peer sharing likely dwarfs paid music downloads by about seven to one."
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704247904575240572654422514-lMyQjAxMTAwMDEwMjExNDIyWj.html
"A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the makers of LimeWire, a popular file-sharing application, were liable for copyright infringement and related claims brought by a consortium of 13 major music labels.
The blistering, 59-page ruling from Judge Kimba Wood of U.S. District Court in Manhattan granted several requests for summary judgment made by the music labels, which are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America.
For many in the music industry the ruling is a throwback to an earlier digital era. LimeWire and similar software had their heyday several years ago, and while still present on many people's computers they have been eclipsed by newer downloading methods such as BitTorrent.
In a statement, LimeWire Chief Executive George Searle said: "LimeWire strongly opposes the court's recent decision." RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol, in a statement, called the ruling "an extraordinary victory for the entire creative community."
Nonetheless, it is unclear whether the ruling will have a tangible effect on illegal downloading of music and other media, experts said, given the diffuse nature of the networks on which the material travels.
Judge Wood's ruling didn't shut down LimeWire, though she could do so after subsequent hearings.
But even if she does issue such an order, experts say it is unlikely to stop its use by people who have already installed the software on their computers, since the file-trading network operates independently, out of the control of the company or any other central authority.
LimeWire was the last major commercial distributor of software that lets users access the once-popular Gnutella network, where people shared music.
NPD Group, which tracks consumer behavior, said LimeWire is present in 1.7 million households and used by 58% of people who download music using so-called peer-to-peer networks. NPD added that most people who download music from such networks use more than one kind of software, meaning that LimeWire users are also likely to use BitTorrent and other method.
Illegal downloading activity is difficult to measure but by many estimates it far exceeds paid downloads, despite the growth of Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store.
"The music marketplace and the digital entertainment marketplace is overwhelmingly a pirate market," said Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne LLC, which monitors file-sharing activity for clients including media companies.
Mr. Garland offered what he called a "conservative" estimate that around one billion songs a month, or 12 billion a year, are downloaded illegally. That compares with 1.2 billion songs downloaded in all of 2009 from paid services in the U.S.—by far the world's largest market for digital downloads. Even adding in other nations' downloading, peer-to-peer sharing likely dwarfs paid music downloads by about seven to one."
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704247904575240572654422514-lMyQjAxMTAwMDEwMjExNDIyWj.html
Friday, April 16, 2010
Digital Economy Act: This means war; (London) Guardian, 4/16/10
Cory Doctorow, (London) Guardian; Digital Economy Act: This means war:
Baking surveillance, control and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell:
"With the rushed passage into law of the Digital Economy Act this month, the fight over copyright enters a new phase. Previous to this, most copyfighters operated under the rubric that a negotiated peace was possible between the thrashing entertainment giants and civil society.
But now that the BPI and its mates have won themselves the finest law that money can buy – a law that establishes an unprecedented realm of web censorship in Britain, a law that provides for the disconnection of entire families from the net on the say-so of an entertainment giant, a law that shuts down free Wi-Fi hotspots and makes it harder than ever to conduct your normal business on the grounds that you might be damaging theirs – the game has changed.
I came to the copyfight from a pretty parochial place. As a working artist, I wanted a set of just copyright rules that provided a sound framework for my negotiations with big publishers, film studios, and similar institutions. I worried that the expansion of copyright – in duration and scope – would harm my ability to freely create. After all, creators are the most active re-users of copyright, each one of us a remix factory and a one-person archive of inspirational and influential materials. I also worried that giving the incumbent giants control over the new online distribution system would artificially extend their stranglehold over creators. This stranglehold means that practically every media giant offers the same awful terms to all of us, and no kinder competitor can get our works into the hands of our audiences.
I still worry about that stuff, of course. I co-founded a successful business – Boing Boing, the widely-read website – that benefits enormously from not having to pay fealty to a distributor in order to reach its readers (by contrast, the old print edition of Boing Boing folded when its main distributor went bankrupt while owing it a modest fortune and holding onto thousands of dollars' worth of printed materials that we never got back). My novels find their way onto the bestseller list by being distributed for free from my website simultaneous with their mainstream bookstore sales through publishers like Macmillan and HarperCollins and Random House.
My whole life revolves around the digital economy: running entrepreneurial businesses that thrive on copying and that exploit the net's powerful efficiencies to realise a better return on investment.
Parliament has just given two fingers to me (and every other small/medium digital enterprise) by agreeing to cripple Britain's internet in order to give higher profits to the analogue economy represented by the labels and studios.
But today, my bank-balance is the least of my worries. The entertainment industry's willingness to use parliament todi impose censorship and arbitrary punishment in the course of chasing a few extra quid is so depraved and terrible that it has me in fear for the very underpinnings of democracy and civil society.
In the US, the MPAA and RIAA (American equivalents of the MPA and the BPI) just submitted comments to the American Intellectual Property Czar, Victoria Espinel, laying out their proposal for IP enforcement. They want us all to install spyware on our computers that deletes material that it identifies as infringing. They want our networks censored by national firewalls (U2's Bono also called for this in a New York Times editorial, averring that if the Chinese could control dissident information with censorware, our own governments could deploy similar technology to keep infringement at bay). They want border-searches of laptops, personal media players and thumb-drives.
They want poor countries bullied into diverting GDP from humanitarian causes to enforcing copyright. And they want their domestic copyright enforcement handled, free of charge, by the Department of Homeland Security.
Elements of this agenda are also on display (or rather, in hiding) in the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a treaty being drafted between a member's club of rich nations. They've turned their back on the United Nations to negotiate in private, without having to contend with journalists or public interest groups. By their own admission, they intend to impose this treaty on poor countries as a condition of ongoing trade, and in the US, the Obama administration has announced its intention to pass ACTA without Congressional debate.
I'm not such a techno-triumphalist that I believe that the free and open internet will solve all our socio-economic problems. But I am enough of a techno-pessimist to believe that baking surveillance, control and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell.
Chekhov wrote that a gun on the mantelpiece in act one is sure to go off by act three. The entertainment industry's blinkered pursuit of its own narrow goals has the potential to redesign our technology to be the perfect tools and excuses for oppression."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/16/digital-economy-act-cory-doctorow
Baking surveillance, control and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell:
"With the rushed passage into law of the Digital Economy Act this month, the fight over copyright enters a new phase. Previous to this, most copyfighters operated under the rubric that a negotiated peace was possible between the thrashing entertainment giants and civil society.
But now that the BPI and its mates have won themselves the finest law that money can buy – a law that establishes an unprecedented realm of web censorship in Britain, a law that provides for the disconnection of entire families from the net on the say-so of an entertainment giant, a law that shuts down free Wi-Fi hotspots and makes it harder than ever to conduct your normal business on the grounds that you might be damaging theirs – the game has changed.
I came to the copyfight from a pretty parochial place. As a working artist, I wanted a set of just copyright rules that provided a sound framework for my negotiations with big publishers, film studios, and similar institutions. I worried that the expansion of copyright – in duration and scope – would harm my ability to freely create. After all, creators are the most active re-users of copyright, each one of us a remix factory and a one-person archive of inspirational and influential materials. I also worried that giving the incumbent giants control over the new online distribution system would artificially extend their stranglehold over creators. This stranglehold means that practically every media giant offers the same awful terms to all of us, and no kinder competitor can get our works into the hands of our audiences.
I still worry about that stuff, of course. I co-founded a successful business – Boing Boing, the widely-read website – that benefits enormously from not having to pay fealty to a distributor in order to reach its readers (by contrast, the old print edition of Boing Boing folded when its main distributor went bankrupt while owing it a modest fortune and holding onto thousands of dollars' worth of printed materials that we never got back). My novels find their way onto the bestseller list by being distributed for free from my website simultaneous with their mainstream bookstore sales through publishers like Macmillan and HarperCollins and Random House.
My whole life revolves around the digital economy: running entrepreneurial businesses that thrive on copying and that exploit the net's powerful efficiencies to realise a better return on investment.
Parliament has just given two fingers to me (and every other small/medium digital enterprise) by agreeing to cripple Britain's internet in order to give higher profits to the analogue economy represented by the labels and studios.
But today, my bank-balance is the least of my worries. The entertainment industry's willingness to use parliament todi impose censorship and arbitrary punishment in the course of chasing a few extra quid is so depraved and terrible that it has me in fear for the very underpinnings of democracy and civil society.
In the US, the MPAA and RIAA (American equivalents of the MPA and the BPI) just submitted comments to the American Intellectual Property Czar, Victoria Espinel, laying out their proposal for IP enforcement. They want us all to install spyware on our computers that deletes material that it identifies as infringing. They want our networks censored by national firewalls (U2's Bono also called for this in a New York Times editorial, averring that if the Chinese could control dissident information with censorware, our own governments could deploy similar technology to keep infringement at bay). They want border-searches of laptops, personal media players and thumb-drives.
They want poor countries bullied into diverting GDP from humanitarian causes to enforcing copyright. And they want their domestic copyright enforcement handled, free of charge, by the Department of Homeland Security.
Elements of this agenda are also on display (or rather, in hiding) in the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a treaty being drafted between a member's club of rich nations. They've turned their back on the United Nations to negotiate in private, without having to contend with journalists or public interest groups. By their own admission, they intend to impose this treaty on poor countries as a condition of ongoing trade, and in the US, the Obama administration has announced its intention to pass ACTA without Congressional debate.
I'm not such a techno-triumphalist that I believe that the free and open internet will solve all our socio-economic problems. But I am enough of a techno-pessimist to believe that baking surveillance, control and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell.
Chekhov wrote that a gun on the mantelpiece in act one is sure to go off by act three. The entertainment industry's blinkered pursuit of its own narrow goals has the potential to redesign our technology to be the perfect tools and excuses for oppression."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/16/digital-economy-act-cory-doctorow
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Obama admin: time to make radio pay for its music; Ars Technica, 4/2/10
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica; Obama admin: time to make radio pay for its music:
"The recording industry scored a significant victory today with news that the Obama administration will provide its "strong support" for the Performance Rights Act. The bill would force over-the-air radio stations to start coughing up cash for the music they play; right now, the stations pay songwriters, but not the actual recording artists.
This has been a dream of the recording industry for decades, but it has taken on new importance as the revenues from recorded music have plummeted over the last decade. The broadcasters refer to the idea as a new "tax" that will largely benefit foreign record companies such as Universal (France), Sony (Japan), and EMI (UK).
Taking sides
Today, a letter from the Commerce Department's general counsel, Cameron Kerry, makes clear which side has the administration's support: the recording industry. (We double-checked with Kerry's office; this is no April Fools' joke.)
"The Department has long endorsed amending the US copyright law to provide for an exclusive right of public performance of sound recordings," says the letter. It pledges "strong support" for the current bill and approves the idea that radio's payment exemption is nothing more than "an historical anomaly that does not have a strong policy justification."
A copy of the letter was sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the letter, Kerry says that making radio pay for music is really a matter of fairness—not just to artists, but to Internet webcasters and satellite radio, too.
That's because both webcasters and the satellite radio folks currently do have to pay a public performance right on the music they play; the exclusion granted to over-the-air broadcasters thus distorts the market and makes it difficult for new technologies to gain traction. "It would also provide a level playing field for all broadcasters to compete in the current environment of rapid technological change, including the Internet, satellite, and terrestrial broadcasters," says the letter.
In addition to rationalizing the performance rights scheme in the US, Commerce points out that the US is the only major industrialized country to have such an exemption for over-the-air radio. Making a change isn't just a case of bowing to peer pressure; real money is at stake, since many artists are unable to collect the public performance money due them in other countries because of "the lack of reciprocal protection under US copyright law.""
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/obama-admin-make-radio-pay-for-its-music.ars
"The recording industry scored a significant victory today with news that the Obama administration will provide its "strong support" for the Performance Rights Act. The bill would force over-the-air radio stations to start coughing up cash for the music they play; right now, the stations pay songwriters, but not the actual recording artists.
This has been a dream of the recording industry for decades, but it has taken on new importance as the revenues from recorded music have plummeted over the last decade. The broadcasters refer to the idea as a new "tax" that will largely benefit foreign record companies such as Universal (France), Sony (Japan), and EMI (UK).
Taking sides
Today, a letter from the Commerce Department's general counsel, Cameron Kerry, makes clear which side has the administration's support: the recording industry. (We double-checked with Kerry's office; this is no April Fools' joke.)
"The Department has long endorsed amending the US copyright law to provide for an exclusive right of public performance of sound recordings," says the letter. It pledges "strong support" for the current bill and approves the idea that radio's payment exemption is nothing more than "an historical anomaly that does not have a strong policy justification."
A copy of the letter was sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the letter, Kerry says that making radio pay for music is really a matter of fairness—not just to artists, but to Internet webcasters and satellite radio, too.
That's because both webcasters and the satellite radio folks currently do have to pay a public performance right on the music they play; the exclusion granted to over-the-air broadcasters thus distorts the market and makes it difficult for new technologies to gain traction. "It would also provide a level playing field for all broadcasters to compete in the current environment of rapid technological change, including the Internet, satellite, and terrestrial broadcasters," says the letter.
In addition to rationalizing the performance rights scheme in the US, Commerce points out that the US is the only major industrialized country to have such an exemption for over-the-air radio. Making a change isn't just a case of bowing to peer pressure; real money is at stake, since many artists are unable to collect the public performance money due them in other countries because of "the lack of reciprocal protection under US copyright law.""
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/obama-admin-make-radio-pay-for-its-music.ars
Sunday, December 13, 2009
‘Missed Opportunity’ In File Sharing Case? Don’t Believe It; Wired, 12/8/09
David Kravets, Wired; ‘Missed Opportunity’ In File Sharing Case? Don’t Believe It:
"With the $675,000 judgment against Joel Tenenbaum now final, the inevitable finger pointing has begun.
Tenenbaum was only the second person in the nation to be sued by the RIAA for file sharing and to take the case all the way to jury trial, making it a closely watched case. It’s not surprising he lost, given that he admitted to sharing 30 songs on Kazaa and Limewire. But a few commentators have decided that Tenenbaum’s lawyer, Harvard’s Charles Nesson, is to blame for failing to offer the nuanced “fair use” defense invited by the judge...
What’s gone ignored, though, is that the defense invited by commentators and Judge Gertner wouldn’t have helped Nesson’s client in the least. Virtually none of the scenarios laid out in the ruling applied to 25-year-old Joel Tenenbaum, a classic copyright scofflaw who was neither space-shifting nor downloading music otherwise unavailable online.
“For the most part, he was downloading them and sharing them like the rest of the kids — and not particularly for sampling,” Nesson said in a telephone interview. “That is the bottom line.”...
Nesson’s performance wasn’t as stellar as it was in 1971, when he successfully defended Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case. Judge Gertner took the time to upbraid Nesson for his behavior.
“Defense counsel repeatedly missed deadlines, ignored rules, engaged in litigation over conduct that was plainly illegal (namely, the right to tape counsel and the Court without consent), and even went so far as to post the illegal recordings on the web,” Gertner wrote, adding that Nesson and his defense team of Harvard students mounted a “chaotic” defense.
But if he’d lied about the facts — making Ars Technica and the L.A. Times happy — his client would be no better off.
The other defendant to go against the RIAA before a jury is Jammie Thomas-Rasset. A Minnesota jury dinged her $1.92 million for 24 songs this summer after jurors concluded she lied on the stand, testifying that perhaps others, including her children, were the actual copyright scofflaws.
Copyright reform advocates are perennially frustrated that their perfectly reasonable ideas of what qualifies as “fair use” online don’t get a chance to be heard in court. That’s no coincidence — the RIAA isn’t going to take a case to trial if it might produce a pro-consumer ruling. But the armchair barristers blaming Nesson for failing to carry their reform message to the Tenenbaum court are misguided.
Regardless of whether the Copyright Act is flawed, or Nesson was out to lunch, the simple fact is the RIAA had Tenenbaum dead to rights."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/nesson-2/#more-11854
"With the $675,000 judgment against Joel Tenenbaum now final, the inevitable finger pointing has begun.
Tenenbaum was only the second person in the nation to be sued by the RIAA for file sharing and to take the case all the way to jury trial, making it a closely watched case. It’s not surprising he lost, given that he admitted to sharing 30 songs on Kazaa and Limewire. But a few commentators have decided that Tenenbaum’s lawyer, Harvard’s Charles Nesson, is to blame for failing to offer the nuanced “fair use” defense invited by the judge...
What’s gone ignored, though, is that the defense invited by commentators and Judge Gertner wouldn’t have helped Nesson’s client in the least. Virtually none of the scenarios laid out in the ruling applied to 25-year-old Joel Tenenbaum, a classic copyright scofflaw who was neither space-shifting nor downloading music otherwise unavailable online.
“For the most part, he was downloading them and sharing them like the rest of the kids — and not particularly for sampling,” Nesson said in a telephone interview. “That is the bottom line.”...
Nesson’s performance wasn’t as stellar as it was in 1971, when he successfully defended Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case. Judge Gertner took the time to upbraid Nesson for his behavior.
“Defense counsel repeatedly missed deadlines, ignored rules, engaged in litigation over conduct that was plainly illegal (namely, the right to tape counsel and the Court without consent), and even went so far as to post the illegal recordings on the web,” Gertner wrote, adding that Nesson and his defense team of Harvard students mounted a “chaotic” defense.
But if he’d lied about the facts — making Ars Technica and the L.A. Times happy — his client would be no better off.
The other defendant to go against the RIAA before a jury is Jammie Thomas-Rasset. A Minnesota jury dinged her $1.92 million for 24 songs this summer after jurors concluded she lied on the stand, testifying that perhaps others, including her children, were the actual copyright scofflaws.
Copyright reform advocates are perennially frustrated that their perfectly reasonable ideas of what qualifies as “fair use” online don’t get a chance to be heard in court. That’s no coincidence — the RIAA isn’t going to take a case to trial if it might produce a pro-consumer ruling. But the armchair barristers blaming Nesson for failing to carry their reform message to the Tenenbaum court are misguided.
Regardless of whether the Copyright Act is flawed, or Nesson was out to lunch, the simple fact is the RIAA had Tenenbaum dead to rights."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/nesson-2/#more-11854
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
[OpEd] An opportunity missed to apply 'fair use' to file sharing; LA Times, 12/7/09
[OpEd] LA Times; An opportunity missed to apply 'fair use' to file sharing:
"Joel Tenenbaum set out to become the standard-bearer for people who fight back against Recording Industry Assn. of America lawsuits, but he has come to symbolize fighting back the wrong way. After he admitted on the stand to downloading and sharing 30 songs -- contrary to what he'd claimed in a deposition -- a federal jury found the Boston University graduate liable in August for copyright infringement and ordered him to pay the labels $675,000. Today, the U.S. District Court judge who presided over the case, Nancy Gertner, issued a formal ruling explaining why she had rejected Tenenbaum's "fair use" defense. In a crisp indictment of Tenenbaum's legal team (which was led by notable copyright expert Charles Nesson from Harvard Law School), Gertner said she was prepared to consider a more expansive fair-use defense than other courts had entertained, but the defense blew it."
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2009/12/an-opportunity-missed-to-apply-fair-use-to-file-sharing.html
"Joel Tenenbaum set out to become the standard-bearer for people who fight back against Recording Industry Assn. of America lawsuits, but he has come to symbolize fighting back the wrong way. After he admitted on the stand to downloading and sharing 30 songs -- contrary to what he'd claimed in a deposition -- a federal jury found the Boston University graduate liable in August for copyright infringement and ordered him to pay the labels $675,000. Today, the U.S. District Court judge who presided over the case, Nancy Gertner, issued a formal ruling explaining why she had rejected Tenenbaum's "fair use" defense. In a crisp indictment of Tenenbaum's legal team (which was led by notable copyright expert Charles Nesson from Harvard Law School), Gertner said she was prepared to consider a more expansive fair-use defense than other courts had entertained, but the defense blew it."
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2009/12/an-opportunity-missed-to-apply-fair-use-to-file-sharing.html
Friday, October 30, 2009
British Copyright Org Threatens Singing Store Employee, Then Apologizes; DailyTech, 10/23/09
Jason Mick, DailyTech; British Copyright Org Threatens Singing Store Employee, Then Apologizes:
"The humorous tale involves the organization catching wind of a “heinous” offense -- an employee singing in public. Sandra Burt, 56, who works at A&T Food store (a British supermarket) in Clackmannanshire, UK was told by organization representatives that she would likely face fines for lost royalties for her "performance".
The debacle began earlier in the year when the PRS threatened the grocery store she worked at, telling them to ditch the radio that played in earshot of customers or pay royalty fees. Missing the music, Ms. Burt decided to start singing some of her favorite tunes. She describes, "I would start to sing to myself when I was stacking the shelves just to keep me happy because it was very quiet without the radio.
"Then came new threats from the PRS. Ms. Burt describes, "When I heard that the PRS said I would be prosecuted for not having a performance license, I thought it was a joke and started laughing. I was then told I could be fined thousands of pounds. But I couldn't stop myself singing."
http://www.dailytech.com/British+Copyright+Org+Threatens+Singing+Store+Employee+Then+Apologizes/article16592.htm
"The humorous tale involves the organization catching wind of a “heinous” offense -- an employee singing in public. Sandra Burt, 56, who works at A&T Food store (a British supermarket) in Clackmannanshire, UK was told by organization representatives that she would likely face fines for lost royalties for her "performance".
The debacle began earlier in the year when the PRS threatened the grocery store she worked at, telling them to ditch the radio that played in earshot of customers or pay royalty fees. Missing the music, Ms. Burt decided to start singing some of her favorite tunes. She describes, "I would start to sing to myself when I was stacking the shelves just to keep me happy because it was very quiet without the radio.
"Then came new threats from the PRS. Ms. Burt describes, "When I heard that the PRS said I would be prosecuted for not having a performance license, I thought it was a joke and started laughing. I was then told I could be fined thousands of pounds. But I couldn't stop myself singing."
http://www.dailytech.com/British+Copyright+Org+Threatens+Singing+Store+Employee+Then+Apologizes/article16592.htm
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Record Labels Say Student Is Still Encouraging Illegal Downloads; New York Times, 9/3/09
Dave Itzkoff via New York Times; Record Labels Say Student Is Still Encouraging Illegal Downloads:
"The cautionary tale of Joel Tenenbaum continues. Weeks after he was ordered to pay $675,000 to record labels for illegally downloading and sharing music, those labels are saying that Mr. Tenenbaum, 25, a graduate student at Boston University, is continuing to encourage music piracy by linking to a file-sharing service on a Web site created for his defense, The Boston Globe reported. A Twitter feed for joelfightsback.com, a Web site run by Mr. Tenenbaum’s legal team, posted a link to the Swedish file-sharing service The Pirate Bay. That site, whose founders were convicted in April by a Swedish court of aiding in copyright violations, posted a playlist called “The $675,000 Mixtape,” which linked to the songs that Mr. Tenenbaum admitted to downloading illegally, and featured a photograph of Mr. Tenenbaum with his arms crossed. The Recording Industry Association of America has filed for an injunction that would order Mr. Tenenbaum to destroy his illegal files and stop promoting piracy. Mr. Tenenbaum said he had nothing to do with the song list on The Pirate Bay, and plans to appeal his verdict and fine."
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/record-labels-say-student-is-still-encouraging-illegal-downloads/?scp=2&sq=tenenbaum&st=cse
"The cautionary tale of Joel Tenenbaum continues. Weeks after he was ordered to pay $675,000 to record labels for illegally downloading and sharing music, those labels are saying that Mr. Tenenbaum, 25, a graduate student at Boston University, is continuing to encourage music piracy by linking to a file-sharing service on a Web site created for his defense, The Boston Globe reported. A Twitter feed for joelfightsback.com, a Web site run by Mr. Tenenbaum’s legal team, posted a link to the Swedish file-sharing service The Pirate Bay. That site, whose founders were convicted in April by a Swedish court of aiding in copyright violations, posted a playlist called “The $675,000 Mixtape,” which linked to the songs that Mr. Tenenbaum admitted to downloading illegally, and featured a photograph of Mr. Tenenbaum with his arms crossed. The Recording Industry Association of America has filed for an injunction that would order Mr. Tenenbaum to destroy his illegal files and stop promoting piracy. Mr. Tenenbaum said he had nothing to do with the song list on The Pirate Bay, and plans to appeal his verdict and fine."
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/record-labels-say-student-is-still-encouraging-illegal-downloads/?scp=2&sq=tenenbaum&st=cse
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Podcast [7 min. 56 sec.]: $675K fine for music downloads; CNN, 8/4/09
Podcast [7 min. 56 sec.]: $675K fine for music downloads:
A college student who shared music he downloaded talks about the $675,000 fine:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/08/04/am.tenenbaum.music.fine.cnn
A college student who shared music he downloaded talks about the $675,000 fine:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/08/04/am.tenenbaum.music.fine.cnn
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Oy Tenenbaum! RIAA wins $675,000, or $22,500 per song; Ars Technica, 7/31/09
Ben Sheffner via Ars Technica; Oy Tenenbaum! RIAA wins $675,000, or $22,500 per song:
After a brief deliberation, a federal jury has ruled that PhD student Joel Tenenbaum willfully infringed on the record labels' copyrights, awarding them $675,000 in damages, $22,500 for each of the 30 songs in question. Ars reports with reaction from Tenenbaum and his attorney, Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson.
"A Boston federal jury has ordered Joel Tenenbaum to pay a total of $675,000—$22,500 per song—to the major record labels for willfully infringing 30 songs by downloading and distributing them over the KaZaA peer-to-peer network. The figure is closer to the $222,000 award in the first Jammie Thomas-Rasset trial than the $1.92 million figure from the second trial.
The verdict came down at late Friday afternoon after a little more than three hours of deliberation."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-riaa-wins-675000-or-22500-per-song.ars
After a brief deliberation, a federal jury has ruled that PhD student Joel Tenenbaum willfully infringed on the record labels' copyrights, awarding them $675,000 in damages, $22,500 for each of the 30 songs in question. Ars reports with reaction from Tenenbaum and his attorney, Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson.
"A Boston federal jury has ordered Joel Tenenbaum to pay a total of $675,000—$22,500 per song—to the major record labels for willfully infringing 30 songs by downloading and distributing them over the KaZaA peer-to-peer network. The figure is closer to the $222,000 award in the first Jammie Thomas-Rasset trial than the $1.92 million figure from the second trial.
The verdict came down at late Friday afternoon after a little more than three hours of deliberation."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/o-tenenbaum-riaa-wins-675000-or-22500-per-song.ars
Friday, July 31, 2009
Judge: Tenenbaum guilty of copyright infringement; Ars Technica, 7/30/09
Eric Bangemen via Ars Technica; Judge: Tenenbaum guilty of copyright infringement:
"In a reversal of her decision Thursday night, Judge Nancy Gertner has issued a directed verdict against P2P defendant Joel Tenenbaum, ruling that he is liable for infringing the record labels' copyrights on all 30 of the songs in question. It will be up to the jury to determine whether the infringement was willful and the size of the award—which could be as high as $4.5 million.
Judge Gertner's change of heart came after she had a chance to review the transcript of Thursday's testimony by Joel Tenenbaum. During direct examination, Tenenbaum was asked a simple question by the labels' counsel: "on the stand now, are you admitting liability for downloading and distributing all 30 sound recordings that are at issue and listed on Exhibits 55 and 56 of the exhibits?" His simple "yes" answer was enough to hand the labels a victory on the question of liability...
For all of the theatrics in the months leading up to the trial, things have gone down differently since the trial started Monday morning. Judge Gertner eviscerated Tenenbaum's Fair Use defense right before things got underway, and it has been all downhill from there for the defendant. Should the jury throw the book at Tenenbaum on the issue of damages, his counsel, Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, will challenge the constitutionality of the damage provisions of the Copyright Act. But that's another chapter; this one is all but written."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/judge-tenenbaum-guilty-of-copyright-infringement.ars
"In a reversal of her decision Thursday night, Judge Nancy Gertner has issued a directed verdict against P2P defendant Joel Tenenbaum, ruling that he is liable for infringing the record labels' copyrights on all 30 of the songs in question. It will be up to the jury to determine whether the infringement was willful and the size of the award—which could be as high as $4.5 million.
Judge Gertner's change of heart came after she had a chance to review the transcript of Thursday's testimony by Joel Tenenbaum. During direct examination, Tenenbaum was asked a simple question by the labels' counsel: "on the stand now, are you admitting liability for downloading and distributing all 30 sound recordings that are at issue and listed on Exhibits 55 and 56 of the exhibits?" His simple "yes" answer was enough to hand the labels a victory on the question of liability...
For all of the theatrics in the months leading up to the trial, things have gone down differently since the trial started Monday morning. Judge Gertner eviscerated Tenenbaum's Fair Use defense right before things got underway, and it has been all downhill from there for the defendant. Should the jury throw the book at Tenenbaum on the issue of damages, his counsel, Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, will challenge the constitutionality of the damage provisions of the Copyright Act. But that's another chapter; this one is all but written."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/judge-tenenbaum-guilty-of-copyright-infringement.ars
Tenenbaum takes the stand: I used P2P and lied about it; Ars Technica, 7/30/09
Ben Sheffner via Ars Technica; Tenenbaum takes the stand: I used P2P and lied about it:
"Accused of sharing 30 songs on the Internet, Joel Tenenbaum today admitted his liability in a federal courtroom, then told the court he told a "lie" in his earlier sworn responses. The labels have moved for a directed verdict of copyright infringement, and look likely to get it.
“Joel Fights Back,” proclaims the website for Joel Tenenbaum, the Boston University grad student standing trial for copyright infringement this week in a federal courtroom. But today, when he took the stand at his closely watched copyright trial, he didn’t.
Instead, over and over, Tenenbaum admitted under oath that he used KaZaA, LimeWire, and other peer-to-peer software to download and distribute music to others unknown.
“This is me. I’m here to answer,” said Tenenbaum. “I used the computer. I uploaded and downloaded music. This is how it is. I did it,” he testified before a packed courtroom, whose spectators included an all-star cast of Harvard Law School copyright scholars: Lawrence Lessig, John Palfrey, and Jonathan Zittrain.
“Are you admitting liability for all 30 sound recordings” on which the record labels brought suit, asked the plaintiffs’ attorney Tim Reynolds.
“Yes,” said Tenenbaum.
Tenenbaum then admitted that he “lied” in his written discovery responses, the ones in which he denied responsibility.
“Why did you lie at that point?” asked Tenenbaum’s attorney, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson. “It was kind of something I rushed through,” responded Tenenbaum. “It’s what seemed the best response to give.” At the time he gave the admittedly false discovery responses, Tenenbaum testified that he was being advised by his mother Judith, a family law attorney who works for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/tenenbaum-takes-the-stand-i-used-p2p-and-lied-about-it.ars
"Accused of sharing 30 songs on the Internet, Joel Tenenbaum today admitted his liability in a federal courtroom, then told the court he told a "lie" in his earlier sworn responses. The labels have moved for a directed verdict of copyright infringement, and look likely to get it.
“Joel Fights Back,” proclaims the website for Joel Tenenbaum, the Boston University grad student standing trial for copyright infringement this week in a federal courtroom. But today, when he took the stand at his closely watched copyright trial, he didn’t.
Instead, over and over, Tenenbaum admitted under oath that he used KaZaA, LimeWire, and other peer-to-peer software to download and distribute music to others unknown.
“This is me. I’m here to answer,” said Tenenbaum. “I used the computer. I uploaded and downloaded music. This is how it is. I did it,” he testified before a packed courtroom, whose spectators included an all-star cast of Harvard Law School copyright scholars: Lawrence Lessig, John Palfrey, and Jonathan Zittrain.
“Are you admitting liability for all 30 sound recordings” on which the record labels brought suit, asked the plaintiffs’ attorney Tim Reynolds.
“Yes,” said Tenenbaum.
Tenenbaum then admitted that he “lied” in his written discovery responses, the ones in which he denied responsibility.
“Why did you lie at that point?” asked Tenenbaum’s attorney, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson. “It was kind of something I rushed through,” responded Tenenbaum. “It’s what seemed the best response to give.” At the time he gave the admittedly false discovery responses, Tenenbaum testified that he was being advised by his mother Judith, a family law attorney who works for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/tenenbaum-takes-the-stand-i-used-p2p-and-lied-about-it.ars
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tenenbaum lawyer admits liability; damages now main issue; Ars Technica, 7/29/09
Nate Anderson via Ars Technica; Tenenbaum lawyer admits liability; damages now main issue: The second-ever P2P file-sharing case to go to trial has been anything but conventional, and today was no exception: one of Joel Tenenbaum's attorneys admitted in court that his client was liable for infringement. The real issue now appears to be the amount of damages.:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/tenebaum-day-three.ars
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/tenebaum-day-three.ars
Monday, July 27, 2009
Judge rejects fair use defense as Tenenbaum P2P trial begins; Ars Technica, 7/27/09
Nate Anderson via Ars Technica; Judge rejects fair use defense as Tenenbaum P2P trial begins: Hours before the second P2P file-sharing trial in the US gets underway, the judge finally rules that defendant Joel Tenenbaum cannot claim "fair use" in the case. The proposed defense would be "so broad it would swallow the copyright protections that Congress has created," she wrote:
"There will be no fair use defense for Joel Tenenbaum at trial this week...
That won't happen, because Judge Gertner this morning granted the record labels' request for summary judgment on the issue of fair use. Noting that defendants only have the right to a jury trial when there are material facts in dispute, Gertner went on to point out that Tenenbaum has admitted to the activity in question and that she may therefore rule on the issue of fair use as a matter of law...
Gertner has been no fan of the labels' litigation campaign, telling industry lawyers in the past that they were "basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it."
But that hasn't stopped her from taking on Team Tenenbaum's attempt to eviscerate copyright. As Nesson wrote in his pretrial outline of the case, "the idea of imposing law on the global ocean of free bits that has flooded into cyberspace is a gross and harmful over-extension of the power of the state and authority of the law." Gertner, whatever her own feelings on these kinds of cases, sees clearly that such claims amount to abolition of copyright in the digital age and are at odds with the law as currently written."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/judge-rejects-fair-use-defense-as-tenenbaum-p2p-trial-begins.ars
"There will be no fair use defense for Joel Tenenbaum at trial this week...
That won't happen, because Judge Gertner this morning granted the record labels' request for summary judgment on the issue of fair use. Noting that defendants only have the right to a jury trial when there are material facts in dispute, Gertner went on to point out that Tenenbaum has admitted to the activity in question and that she may therefore rule on the issue of fair use as a matter of law...
Gertner has been no fan of the labels' litigation campaign, telling industry lawyers in the past that they were "basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it."
But that hasn't stopped her from taking on Team Tenenbaum's attempt to eviscerate copyright. As Nesson wrote in his pretrial outline of the case, "the idea of imposing law on the global ocean of free bits that has flooded into cyberspace is a gross and harmful over-extension of the power of the state and authority of the law." Gertner, whatever her own feelings on these kinds of cases, sees clearly that such claims amount to abolition of copyright in the digital age and are at odds with the law as currently written."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/judge-rejects-fair-use-defense-as-tenenbaum-p2p-trial-begins.ars
Monday, July 20, 2009
Tenenbaum circus enters big top next week; what to expect; Ars Technica, 7/20/09
Nate Anderson via Ars Technica; Tenenbaum circus enters big top next week; what to expect: The second US trial of a file swapping defendant begins next Monday in Boston. Ars previews the arguments to be used by graduate student Joel Tenenbaum and by the recording industry:
"The second full trial of a US peer-to-peer file swapper begins next week. Sublimeguy14@KaZaA (aka Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston College grad student) will make his way through the marble corridors of Boston's federal courthouse next Monday to face a set of RIAA lawyers who are fresh from a $1.92 million victory in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case and eager to go 2-0 in such prosecutions.
But Tenenbaum has a secret weapon—Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, who will argue that the 816 songs in Tenenbaum's KaZaA share folder back in 2004 were simply a "fair use" of the recording industry's protected work."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/tenenbaum-circus-enters-big-top-next-week-what-to-expect.ars
"The second full trial of a US peer-to-peer file swapper begins next week. Sublimeguy14@KaZaA (aka Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston College grad student) will make his way through the marble corridors of Boston's federal courthouse next Monday to face a set of RIAA lawyers who are fresh from a $1.92 million victory in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case and eager to go 2-0 in such prosecutions.
But Tenenbaum has a secret weapon—Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, who will argue that the 816 songs in Tenenbaum's KaZaA share folder back in 2004 were simply a "fair use" of the recording industry's protected work."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/tenenbaum-circus-enters-big-top-next-week-what-to-expect.ars
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