Free Republic

Country’s National Assembly passes draft law that kills illegal downloaders’ internet accessThe French National Assembly has passed one of the toughest laws against internet piracy that the world has ever seen.Under the new legislation, backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, illegal downloaders of games, music and movies will be sent two warnings - first by email and then by recorded delivery. Following these cautions, the offender's details will be passed to a judge – who now has the power to cut off Internet access and issue heavy fines or even prison sentences.The law was narrowly passed by 285 votes to 225....

Can't stop the (free) music Why last month's $675,000 judgment against a BU student won't stop people from downloading songs illegally By Joseph P. Kahn Globe Staff / August 25, 2009 iTunes wasn’t around yet, and David Tanklefsky was in the eighth grade when Napster, the now defunct music file-sharing website, became the must-go destination for computer-savvy music fans.

New York, NY (AHN) - A judge has ordered a graduate student to pay a total of $675,000 (404,000 pounds) after he was found guilty of illegally downloading songs from a shared music Web site. Joel Tenenbaum, the 25-year-old Boston University student, has pleaded guilty of the charges of downloading and distributing 30 songs. He will be paying $22,500 per song to four record labels for willfully infringing on the copyright of the songs by bands, including Green Day, Incubus, Nirvana and Aerosmith. The U.S. District Court jury could have ordered him to pay a maximum of $4.5 million in...

Jury Awards $675,000 in Music Downloading Case BOSTON – A federal jury on Friday ordered a Boston University graduate student who admitted illegally downloading and sharing music online to pay $675,000 to four record labels. Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels. Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful....

ASCAP Makes Outlandish Copyright Claims on Cell Phone Ringtones EFF Argues Phones Ringing in Public Do Not Violate Copyright Law New York - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal court Wednesday to reject bogus copyright claims in a ringtone royalty battle that could raise costs for consumers, jeopardize consumer rights, and curtail new technological innovation.Millions of Americans have bought musical ringtones, often clips from favorite popular songs, for their mobile phones. Mobile phone carriers pay royalties to song owners for the right to sell these snippets to their customers. But as part of a ploy to squeeze more...

According to CNET, the RIAA has emerged victorious in their case against Usenet.com for wholesale copyright infringement. Filed back in 2007, the RIAA took particular issue with the outfit's ads promising "access to millions of MP3 files" for the monthly $19 payment. While the advertising was bad enough, the case was made substantially easier for the RIAA thanks to the fact that Usenet.com was destroying evidence on hard drives, often supplying incorrect information -- and even sent several employees to Europe to prevent them from testifying. In a statement, the RIAA lauds the courts for taking action against Usenet.com's "egregious...

The recording industry secured a resounding victory last week when a Minneapolis jury awarded the four major labels $1.92 million in damages after unanimously finding that a 32-year-old mother had willfully infringed on their copyrights by downloading and sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa peer-to-peer network. But a question arose after the verdict about whether the sheer size of the damages could lead to a backlash against an industry that is already portrayed in some quarters as overreaching. Sony BMG attorney Wade Leak, who testified at the trial, said he was "shocked" by the damages award. No one expects that...

Following the recent jury decision against alleged file sharer Jammie Thomas, in which the woman was fined $80,000 USD for each of the 24 songs she shared via P2P, the popular artist Moby has written a blog entry claiming the RIAA "should be disbanded" for using the wrong techniques against people who are just trying to listen to music. His full post: "The riaa have sued Jammie Thomas-Rasset of minnesota for $2,000,000 for illegally downloading music. argh. what utter nonsense. this is how the record companies want to protect themselves? suing suburban moms for listening to music? charging $80,000 per...

In what turned out to be a nightmare for the defendant, a federal jury on Thursday ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs. Record companies were awarded $80,000 per song, for a total of $1.92 million. This is the second time Thomas-Rasset went to trial on the matter. The single mother from Minnesota had planned to appeal the first ruling that came down from a different federal court in October 2007. But the judge in that case decided he had given the jury erroneous instructions and a new trial was ordered. Thomas-Rasset may wish she had...

MINNEAPOLIS — A replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial has ended with the same result — a Minnesota woman was found to have violated music copyrights and must pay huge damages to the recording industry

A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said. Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents. She plans to appeal, he said. Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the RIIA was "pleased that...

MINNEAPOLIS – A replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial has ended with the same result — a Minnesota woman was found to have violated music copyrights and must pay huge damages to the recording industry. A federal jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song. Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment.

A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each — a total of $1.9 million — for 24 songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said. Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents...

THEY could be the lesbian power couple of all time: Randi Weingarten, the new president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, is dating Hilary Rosen, former head of the Recording Industry Association of America, who appears on CNN and is Washington, DC, editor-at-large for the Huffington Post.

The MPAA apparently said that the “enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic” during the World Copyright Summit. The worry is that their pro-copyright advocacy perspective is fading away in the public conscious. In an interesting report from IP-Watch where there were a few choice words levelled against those that disagreed with the view-points of the copyright industry. Apparently, Fritz Attaway suggested that it's false to assume that the rights of the industry and the interest of...

Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants an internet filesharing free-for-all, is one of the surprise entrants to the European Parliament after winning 7.4 per cent of the vote. The party, which also wants to beef up internet privacy, was founded in January 2006 and quickly attracted members angered by Swedish laws that criminalise filesharing and authorise the monitoring of e-mails. Its membership shot up after a court in Stockholm sentenced four men in April to a year in jail for running one of the world’s biggest filesharing sites, the Pirate Bay. Voters had their revenge last night by electing at least...

After 24 years, polka has had its last dance at the Grammys. The Recording Academy, which bestows the Grammy Awards, announced late on Wednesday that the polka category would be eliminated, saying in a statement that it had been cut “to ensure the awards process remains representative of the current musical landscape.” To many in the polka world, that read as a kind of industry code meaning that their genre — once capable of supporting artists with million-selling hits, but long since relegated to micro-niche status — had slipped off the mainstream radar entirely. “It’s devastating,” said Carl Finch of...

A bunch of states have been pushing forward with plans to add taxes on digital downloads. The state of Washington apparently passed just such a law, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 26th. Nate sent in a note, pointing out that under a strict reading of the details of the bill you could see how the state could go after unauthorized downloaders as "tax evaders." Now, that may not be the case (and it would be great if we could get someone from the state to clarify), but it seems that what Nate is likely referring to...

Plenty of folks have noted that the Justice Department has been the landing place for a number of RIAA lawyers. Some have suggested not to get too worked up about this, given that the Obama administration's ethics rules supposedly forbade those lawyers from being involved in issues related to their former work. However, it looks like the limit on these guys is actually quite narrow and for a very short period of time. We'd already noted that the highest ranking former RIAA lawyer, Thomas Perrelli, in his Senate confirmation hearings, said he hoped to use his position to increase intellectual...

Pirate Bay lawyer demands retrial, saying judge was biased in file-sharing case STOCKHOLM (AP) -- A defense lawyer in the Pirate Bay file-sharing case said Thursday he will demand a retrial after the judge admitted he was a member of copyright protection organizations. A Stockholm court last week convicted four men behind the notorious Web site of helping others commit copyright violations and gave them one-year prison sentences. They also were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to entertainment companies, including Warner Bros., Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures. Peter Althin, who represented Pirate Bay...

The founders of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay have been sentenced to a year in jail in Sweden for breaking copyright laws by helping millions of users download music, movies and computer games for free. The four were also ordered to pay $3.6 m (£2.4m) in damages to copyright holders, including Warner Brothers, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony and Universal, according to Swedish media reports. In a Twitter posting before sentencing, Mr Sunde said: "Nothing will happen to TPB [the Pirate Bay], this is just theatre for the media." The Pirate Bay provides a forum for its...

The Obama Administration this week tapped a fifth RIAA attorney to serve in the Justice Department. Collectively, they've argued for the entertainment industry on a myriad of issues, including the argument that ISPs should be forced to hand over personal information on P2P users without a subpoena. Assuming he adheres to them, Obama's own rules would prohibit these gentlemen from working on issues where they've represented the entertainment industry. Still, the collective thinking that permeates the new Department of RIAA Justice worries those who were hoping for more progressive leadership on issues of copyright.

If you were online and couldn't access some websites today, we might know the reason why. The FBI raided a Dallas building that houses servers for several different websites. CBS 11 News has learned that the raid is part of a general criminal investigation. Because of the confiscation of computers at Core IP Networks, a number of legitimate businesses have been affected. From the downtown office building in the 2300 block of Bryan Street, FBI agents seized what one source described as millions of dollars in computer equipment. Matthew Simpson, the owner of Core IP Networks, said in a letter...

According to some people who are paid lots of money to think about these sorts of things, the legal, ethical and economic questions facing the music business aren’t just about preserving the livelihoods of people who work in that industry. No, the very future of democracy is at stake.... At the heart of the debate is how to license peer-to-peer sharing of music files, widely blamed for the huge drop in sales of recorded music this decade. Sandy Pearlman, a veteran producer and McGill University professor, and entertainment lawyer Dina LaPolt raised the specter of a “darknet,” in which information...

Under pressure from the big record labels, several countries around the world are cracking down hard on illegal file-sharers with a "three strikes, you're out" policy — and the United States may be next. The basics are simple: Get caught three times sharing files illegally, and your Internet access gets cut off. But in a day and age when Internet access is almost as essential as a cell phone or electricity, should the music industry or Internet service providers [ISPs] have the power to determine who can and can't get online, particularly without criminal charges being filed? And what if...

The Obama administration has sided with the recording industry in a copyright lawsuit against an alleged peer-to-peer pirate, a move that echoes arguments previously made by the Bush administration. A legal brief filed Sunday in a case that the Recording Industry Association of America is pursuing in Massachusetts argues that federal copyright law is not so overly broad and its penalties not so unduly severe that they count as "punitive." Current law allows a copyright holder to receive up to $150,000 in damages per violation. The brief says "the harms caused by copyright infringement" on the Internet include limiting "a...

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes"The Obama Administration's Department of Justice, with former RIAA lawyers occupying the 2nd and 3rd highest positions in the department, has shown its colors, intervening on behalf of the RIAA in the case against a Boston University graduate student, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, accused of file sharing when he was 17 years old. Its oversized, 39-page brief (PDF) relies upon a United States Supreme Court decision from 1919 which upheld a statutory damages award, in a case involving overpriced railway tickets, equal to 116 times the actual damages sustained, and a 2007 Circuit Court decision which held...

A court case in British Columbia has the potential to drastically change the Canadian Internet landscape by making search engines such as Google and Yahoo illegal. A case brought against the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) by a small search engine for BitTorrent files, called ISOHunt Web Technologies Inc., is raising questions about whether search engines are liable for the sharing of copyright-protected content online. The question before the British Columbia Supreme Court is, if a site like ISOHunt allows people to find a pirated copy of Watchmen or The Dark Knight, is it breaching Canadian copyright law? “It’s a...

Last September, the Bush administration defended the unusual secrecy over an anti-counterfeiting treaty being negotiated by the U.S. government, which some liberal groups worry could criminalize some peer-to-peer file sharing that infringes copyrights. Now President Obama's White House has tightened the cloak of government secrecy still further, saying in a letter this week that a discussion draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and related materials are "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958." The 1995 Executive Order 12958 allows material to be classified only if disclosure would do "damage to the national security and the...

As expected, the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group of the four largest music labels, has laid off between 20 and 25 workers, or about 20 percent of the RIAA's workforce, according to music industry sources. In addition to the layoffs, the RIAA eliminated some positions through attrition, the sources said. In all, 31 of the company's 104 employees, or just under 30 percent, were either laid off or quit recently and will not be replaced. The RIAA leadership remains unchanged. My sources say CEO Mitch Bainwol and President Cary Sherman have contracts extending through the end of...

Asks for time to make up its mind in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Cloud In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Cloud, a Pennsylvania case in which the RIAA's statutory damages theory -- seeking from 2200 to 450,000 times the amount of actual damages -- is being tested, the United States Department of Justice has filed papers indicating that it is considering intervening in the case to defend the constitutionality of such awards, and requesting an extension of time in which to make the decision. United States Motion for Extension of Time in Which to Determine if Intervention is Appropriate...

RIAA-fan Biden's influence in the Obama administration may be larger than anticipated, at least when it comes to file sharing: His good pals with RIAA and BSA connections keep getting Department of Justice's seats. According to CNET, "President Obama is continuing to fill the senior ranks of the U.S. Department of Justice with the copyright industry's favorite lawyers" with the selection of Donald Verrilli, from the Verrilli Family, el Señor Presidente's latest acquisition.

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the "free culture" movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party. That was then. As president-elect, one of Obama's first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America's favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department. And Obama's pick as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position, is the lawyer who oversaw the defense of the Copyright Term Extension Act--the...

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.(edit)Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers(edit)If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

Will Obama's copyright czar help save the music? From Bruce Springsteen to Stevie Wonder, plenty of musicians supported President-elect Barack Obama. Now music executives are wondering what kind of support they'll see from the Obama administration. Soon after an inauguration that Washington, D.C., insiders are speculating could be one of the musical events of the year, Obama will officially name a copyright czar -- one of the most important decisions he'll make, as far as the music business is concerned.

There was fear and trembling on the Internets earlier this month when the word went out that storied Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson - "Billion Dollar Charlie" - had decided to go mano a mano with the most-hated institution in America. The Bush White House? No, the Recording Industry Association of America. (snip) Now 69, Nesson has become something of a legend, not necessarily for the right reasons. A few years ago he spoke openly about his occasional marijuana use, and of late he has been haunting the onanistic underworld of Second Life, a computer-generated, "virtual reality" universe. But...

A Harvard law professor has opened a new front in the battle between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and alleged music pirates by challenging the constitutionality of a statute being used by the industry group to bring lawsuits against alleged copyright violators. The case involves an individual named Joel Tenenbaum who was sued by the RIAA for allegedly illegally copying and distributing copyrighted songs belonging to several music labels. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston in August 2007 after what the music labels claimed was more than two years of effort trying to get...

"In the past, it's been noted that the RIAA has curiously avoided suing any Harvard students, with one of the theories being that Harvard had made it quite clear to the RIAA that it would fight back hard. And, with Harvard law school at its disposal, and various professors there indicating that they had serious legal problems with the RIAA's strategy, the RIAA simply decided to ignore any file sharing going on at that prestigious university. However, for RIAA critic and well known law professor, Charles Nesson, waiting around for the RIAA to sue someone at Harvard was getting boring,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law on Monday a controversial bill that would stiffen penalties for movie and music piracy at the federal level. The law creates an intellectual property czar who will report directly to the president on how to better protect copyrights both domestically and internationally. The Justice Department had argued that the creation of this position would undermine its authority. The law also toughens criminal laws against piracy and counterfeiting. The Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America backed the bill, as did the U.S. Chamber of Commerce....

President Bush on Monday signed into law an intellectual-property enforcement bill that would consolidate federal efforts to combat copyright infringement under a new White House cabinet position. The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act establishes within the executive branch the position of intellectual property enforcement coordinator, who will be appointed by the president. The law also steepens penalties for intellectual-property infringement, and increases resources for the Department of Justice to coordinate for federal and state efforts against counterfeiting and piracy. The so-called Pro-IP Act passed unanimously in the Senate last month and received strong bipartisan support in the...

RIAA v. The People: Five Years Later September, 2008 On September 8, 2003, the recording industry sued 261 American music fans for sharing songs on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks, kicking off an unprecedented legal campaign against the people that should be the recording industry’s best customers: music fans.1 Five years later, the recording industry has filed, settled, or threatened legal actions against at least 30,000 individuals.2 These individuals have included children, grandparents, unemployed single mothers, college professors—a random selection from the millions of Americans who have used P2P networks. And there’s no end in sight; new lawsuits are filed...

The $222,000 verdict against Jammy Thomas for copyright infringement by P2P is no more. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis dismissed the verdict (PDF), saying it was based on the faulty “making available� theory of distribution. Thomas will face a new trial, in which the RIAA will have to prove actual distribution. The decision means the RIAA now has zero wins at trial, Wired notes. RIAA’s “making available� theory would hold that someone has distributed copyright material merely by creating the potential for distribution. Under the RIAA’s theory, it need not show actual distribution. The judge soundly denied this legal...

Over the last few years, attorney Ray Beckerman has been defending broadband users accused of copyright infringement by the RIAA, and frequently blogs about it. His blog frequently highlights instances where the RIAA has sued individuals in error, often highlighting the tenuous legal ground many RIAA cases rest on. The RIAA is now targeting Beckerman, claiming he's a "vexatious" litigator, and demanding unspecified monetary sanctions to punish him for blogging about his cases.

Ann and Nancy Wilson are p*ssed at the Republican Party and have fired off a cease and desist letter to the McCain/Palin campaign. Specifically, the Heart women are upset that the GOP has used their classic "Barracuda" as a theme song for Sarah Palin. TMZ obtained a statement from Heart's rep, who says "The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission." The statement goes on: "We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored."

By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide, and whose anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP. That's probably okay with Barack Obama: Biden likely got the nod because of his foreign policy knowledge. The Delaware politician is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee who voted for the war in Iraq, and is reasonably well-known nationally after...

Unlike Barack Obama (and John Kerry, for that matter), Joe Biden has an actual record of legislative accomplishment in the Senate. The record shows a career focused mainly on crime, which gave Biden some substance in his claims as a moderate. One bill in particular, though, may create a lot more problems among Obama’s youthful supporters than he will bring to the ticket. Biden crafted the Perform Act, and as Declan McCullagh notes, that and more of Biden’s record on tech issues could antagonize Obama’s college-age base: By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected...

A certain amount of celebrity glow has long been a part of both political parties’ gatherings. But thanks in part to the youthful charisma of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive nominee, the Democratic convention, which begins on Monday in Denver, is shaping up as an unlikely hot spot for the music world, with multiplatinum rappers, indie-rock scenesters, D.J.’s and Jennifer Lopez arriving by the van- and private planeload to perform, rally or schmooze with the political elite. “It’s the Sundance Film Festival for politicos,” said Laura Dawn, the cultural director of MoveOn.org, who also happens to sing with Moby... Kanye...

By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide.... After taking over the Foreign Relations committee, Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs.......

ASPEN, Colo.--Recording industry and motion picture lobbyists are renewing their push to convince broadband providers to monitor customers and detect copyright infringements, claiming the concept is working abroad and should be adopted in the United States. A representative of the recording industry said on Monday that her companies would prefer to enter into voluntary "partnerships" with Internet service providers, but pointedly noted that some governments are mandating such surveillance "if you don't work something out." "Despite our best efforts, we can't do this alone," said Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the...

It has been something of a David and Goliath battle, but the first skirmishes in the war on file sharing are over. While the RIAA jubilantly claimed success last year, it is another case that has has now silenced the RIAA, as it avoids drawing attention to the case it never had. If you read a mainstream media news report about file sharing or talk to a reporter about (illicit) filesharing, you would think that the only case involving the RIAA was Capitol V Thomas, a case that made news nationwide for the size of the fines. However, there are...