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Court won't reduce student's music download fine [$675,000!!]
AP via Yahoo News ^ | May 21, 2012 | DENISE LAVOIE

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: mpaa; riaa
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To: Sawdring

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.


21 posted on 05/21/2012 8:14:13 PM PDT by LtKerst
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To: ETL

Insane! And corzine anyone?


22 posted on 05/21/2012 8:18:03 PM PDT by GlockThe Vote (The Obama Adminstration: 2nd wave of attacks on America after 9/11)
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To: sten
problem is... these days he’d be stopped at the border for having outstanding court ordered ‘damages'

Are they doing that yet?

Because the day they do is the day we are OFFICIALLY the USSR.

23 posted on 05/21/2012 8:19:32 PM PDT by Lazamataz (The so-called 'mainstream' media has gone from "biased" straight to "utterly surreal".)
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To: ETL

I bet he now hates those 30 songs.


24 posted on 05/21/2012 8:20:47 PM PDT by Uncle Slayton
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To: ETL
Generally music companies get hot and bothered about people who send out lots of unauthorized copies (UPload), much less so about those who receive them (DOWNload).

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.

25 posted on 05/21/2012 8:22:37 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Churches are full of hypocrites you say? Welcome: there's always room for one more.)
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To: RetiredTexasVet
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.

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.

26 posted on 05/21/2012 8:22:48 PM PDT by DaveyB (Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. -John Adams)
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To: RetiredTexasVet
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.

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?!

27 posted on 05/21/2012 8:23:00 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: DManA

this particular Tad is morbidly obese


28 posted on 05/21/2012 8:23:49 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: sten
Just checked. We really don't have exit controls.

I'm sure we will. People will start fleeing this country en-mass with the direction we are headed.

Soon, too.

29 posted on 05/21/2012 8:24:14 PM PDT by Lazamataz (The so-called 'mainstream' media has gone from "biased" straight to "utterly surreal".)
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To: RetiredTexasVet

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.


30 posted on 05/21/2012 8:24:56 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Churches are full of hypocrites you say? Welcome: there's always room for one more.)
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To: sten
>"he could take on another’s ssno, claim to be from mexico, and work as an illegal in the US."

He could use a stolen SSN from Connecticut. They don't prosecute for those!

31 posted on 05/21/2012 8:25:34 PM PDT by rawcatslyentist ("Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one," Jeremiah 50:31)
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To: RetiredTexasVet
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.

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!

32 posted on 05/21/2012 8:26:48 PM PDT by Lazamataz (The so-called 'mainstream' media has gone from "biased" straight to "utterly surreal".)
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To: DaveyB

>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


33 posted on 05/21/2012 8:31:13 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: Lazamataz

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.


34 posted on 05/21/2012 8:32:58 PM PDT by One Name (Go to the enemy's home court and smoke his ass.)
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To: ETL
...says he will continue fighting the penalty, despite the Supreme Court's refusal to hear his appeal.

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?

35 posted on 05/21/2012 8:33:43 PM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: One Name
I'm planning on dying like a little girl.

Replete with peeing my pants and clutching my dolly.

36 posted on 05/21/2012 8:35:43 PM PDT by Lazamataz (The so-called 'mainstream' media has gone from "biased" straight to "utterly surreal".)
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To: Uncle Slayton

>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/


37 posted on 05/21/2012 8:35:52 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: ETL

Maybe he can get it cut in half with a good lawyer..


38 posted on 05/21/2012 8:36:41 PM PDT by One Name (Go to the enemy's home court and smoke his ass.)
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To: LibWhacker
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?

I'd probably join an organized crime outfit.

I can't make money legit? Fine. Watch this.

39 posted on 05/21/2012 8:36:59 PM PDT by Lazamataz (The so-called 'mainstream' media has gone from "biased" straight to "utterly surreal".)
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To: LibWhacker

Oh, and as an organized crime figure, my first few whacks would be at anyone that heads up RIAA.


40 posted on 05/21/2012 8:38:13 PM PDT by Lazamataz (The so-called 'mainstream' media has gone from "biased" straight to "utterly surreal".)
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