Posted on 05/21/2012 7:49:30 PM PDT by ETL
BOSTON (AP) — A former Boston University student who was ordered to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs on the Internet says he will continue fighting the penalty, despite the Supreme Court's refusal to hear his appeal.
Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., said Monday he's hoping a federal judge will reduce the amount, which he called "ludicrous."
A jury in 2009 ordered Tenenbaum to pay after the Recording Industry Association of America sued him. A federal judge called the penalty constitutionally excessive, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Seems to me punishing him by making him a the slave for life of the music industry is just a tad excessive.
why cant he just claim bankruptcy
It seems excessive particularly in light of the crappy music involved.
Cuz that's fair.
I'm this dude, I relo to a new country and toss this corrupt, insane country the bird.
Does he at least get to keep the songs?
I worked for a guy whose son shared music online about four years ago. He was contacted by a lawyer and was taken to court. The guy wouldn’t disclose the amount of money they were forced to pay because of the negotiated settlement but I’m guessing it was in the $5000 to $10,000 range. The kid was in high school when he illegally shared the songs.
Exactly, one more person chased out of this country.
In general I don’t think bankruptcy gets you out of court judgement.
I have predicted sometime in the next 10 year a jury somewhere will award the plaintiff “All the Money in the World + $1.”
they want to make him an example.
How about they get the fine from the sites that make it possible to transfer copies of music illegally?
This guy will never be able to pay that amount down. His life in the US is done. He might as well head overseas and put that education to work in a nation with saner copyright laws. The RIAA is a cancer.
And yet a corporation can steal a patent and face only civil action.
But copyright IP has been made SPECIAL IP, special only because the owners pay the politicians.
So they have created a new criminal class that is treated unequally with respect to copiers of other intellectual property.
He needs to go into politics as a Democrat. Then he can have his fine retroactively removed. Hell, they’ll probably give him $90K to store in his freezer...
problem is... these days he’d be stopped at the border for having outstanding court ordered ‘damages’
of course, he could take on another’s ssno, claim to be from mexico, and work as an illegal in the US.
He can whine all he wants, but in the end, he was stealing and got caught. All the rationalization, justification, denial, anger, resentment, etc., but he was stealing and got caught.
For $675,000, he could have the bands play for him LIVE in his backyard.
criminal fines are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
“For $675,000, he could have the bands play for him LIVE in his backyard.”
How much for whistling rights, do you suppose?
Can You buy a CD of Music and then Make copys and give them away?
Can You sue your emplyer for using your labor to make a profit and not give you a greater share???
I hope the Music industry goes bankrupt.
Insane! And corzine anyone?
Are they doing that yet?
Because the day they do is the day we are OFFICIALLY the USSR.
I bet he now hates those 30 songs.
The biggest irony however is that this was all stuff that could be had for free from radio stations. If the same student had sent out instructions on how to nab a copy from a radio station he wouldn't have even gotten noticed.
People put music up on You Tube frequently without any sign that they are paying licenses for it. Sometimes the resulting videos get automated ads for sales of official copies of the music, but won't get taken down unless the copyright holder requests a DMCA takedown.
If RIAA wants to be magnanimous about this guy's role as another hole in the massive sieve, they would reduce their request to a nominal amount if the guy agrees to do a national mea culpa about it.
Copying is not stealing. If he stole the songs the band, store etc. would not have them to sell. He made two where there was one. It is simply not the same as stealing. His penalty ought to be to remunerate the lawful copyright owner the download price multiplied by the number of times he shared it.
Yes, it is stealing. But is it right that he be made "an example" and therefore pay the price for everyone else who does it? $675,000?!
this particular Tad is morbidly obese
I'm sure we will. People will start fleeing this country en-mass with the direction we are headed.
Soon, too.
The rest of us, however, have a right to wonder about such a capricious and out of proportion system. Copyright “stealing” may dilute a market but it doesn’t remove physical goods from a vendor. You can literally steal that many CDs and suffer orders of magnitude smaller penalty for it.
He could use a stolen SSN from Connecticut. They don't prosecute for those!
Yeah! The hell with the Bill of Rights! Excessive, cruel or unusual punishments are just fine!
They should have slowly tortured him to death! His parents, too! And anyone he's ever met!
>Copying is not stealing. If he stole the songs
>the band, store etc. would not have them to sell.
>He made two where there was one. It is simply not
>the same as stealing.
Looks like you may be right...
“Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as theft. In copyright law, infringement does not refer to theft of physical objects, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.[6]
Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that “interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud.
The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... ‘an infringer of the copyright.’” In the case of copyright infringement the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law is invaded, i.e. exclusive rights, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held.[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Theft
Not many places left to go, though.
The Apaches found some Bin Laden-type crevices on this continent...
Belize, Honduras, the Yukon, etc.., Ever play “Risk”?
Better to die like a man where you stand, IMHO.
How do you legally continue fighting after the Supreme Court turns you down? Perhaps he should give them a big public raspberry and illegally download thousands of songs now, inviting, daring, the court hit him with a $675,000,000,000,000 fine -- to protest the first ridiculous fine?
Replete with peeing my pants and clutching my dolly.
>I bet he now hates those 30 songs.
How appropriate is this 2008 article I just found?
30 Best Songs About Business and Money:
http://www.businesspundit.com/30-best-songs-about-money/
Maybe he can get it cut in half with a good lawyer..
I'd probably join an organized crime outfit.
I can't make money legit? Fine. Watch this.
Oh, and as an organized crime figure, my first few whacks would be at anyone that heads up RIAA.
I know better than that my Friend- there’s just not many places left. Canada sucks like a big dog, even with the conservative resurgance up there.
Sattelites and shit have us pinned down unless we stay in populous places.
We’re good.
This isn’t a criminal matter, but a tort.
[He can whine all he wants, but in the end, he was stealing and got caught. ]
You are soooo right. And next time your taxes are underpaid by about $100, which is a stretch for the amount of royalties stolen by this kid, then you should feel fine with being charged $675k
*snort snicker snort*
>Maybe he can get it cut in half with a good lawyer.
Or have it doubled with a really bad one.
Seems a bit incongruous, eh?
Like a reverse lottery where you get slammed for the rest of your life for what many others are doing.
People kill others, go to prison and have less of an overhead upon release...
Replete with peeing my pants and clutching my dolly.
Woke the catz up and scared them when I laughed about that.
Of course, sometimes, they should be scared when I laugh.
But this was just because of the funny. That needs a picture and a spot on Very Demotivational.
/johnny
Was he convicted of a crime, or sued in Civil Court? It seems the rules would be different.
It varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but judgements aren't always dischargable via BK.
The intentionally harsh Mosaic law dictated at most a five-fold repayment as punishment for theft. Cross the RIAA on the other hand and you’re forced to pay 22500 times over.
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