Appeals Court Reject's Tenenbaum's Request To Rehear Arguments For Rejecting $675,000 Award For File Sharing
from the no-surprise dept
This one is hardly a surprise. We’ve been arguing for a while now that the choices by Joel Tenenbaum and his lawyers in his file sharing case haven’t made much sense. They’ve been arguing the case in a manner that basically begs the court to go against them. I really don’t understand the legal strategy here at all. Back in September, you may recall, the appeals court reinstated the $675,000 award against him for file sharing 30 songs. That had been the original jury award, that had been unilaterally reduced by the judge in the district court. However, the appeals court noted that the judge basically used the wrong procedure to do this, and had to first give Sony Music the option to redo the case. In other words, the entire issue at this point was a procedural issue. Thus, I can’t fathom why Tenenbaum and his legal team again tried to argue on the merits at this stage. It’s not the right time for that argument… but they still went ahead and asked to rehear the issue with the full slate of judges on the appeals court. That request has been rejected, as pretty much everyone expected. Even worse, it sounds like Tenenbaum’s didn’t just not focus on the procedural issue at hand, but also sought to talk about larger issues, like how statutory rates were a way to go after a “generation of kids.” Whether or not we agree with that general sentiment, there’s a time and place to bring that up… and this wasn’t it. What’s really dumb here is that this seems to undermine whatever small chance he might have had if the case was argued in good faith.
Filed Under: appeal, copyright, damages, joel tenenbaum
Comments on “Appeals Court Reject's Tenenbaum's Request To Rehear Arguments For Rejecting $675,000 Award For File Sharing”
This whole thing is suspicious.
Tenenbaum has botched this so thoroughly, it smells like he’s being paid by the MAFIAA to get favorable (to them) court rulings on the books.
Charles Nesson
Why is Tennenbaum still being represented by Charles Nesson? Was he not paying attention during the trial? Nesson torpedoed the case with his ignorance of basic procedure and total lack of experience as a trial attorney. If he had better counsel, Tennenbaum might have done less damage to his own case, because better counsel would have tackled him as soon as he opened his mouth.
Nesson is obviously a very talented teacher, but there’s a big difference between lecturing on the law and actually practicing it. He is a classic example of the old fallacy, “Those who can’t do, teach.”
I love how you guys throw Joel under the bus even though he uses the exact same absurd rationalizations and cliches that you do.
Any one of you could be in his shoes right now.
Response to: Anonymous Coward on Nov 18th, 2011 @ 3:59pm
Again the major flaw in your argument is the assumption that we pirate, not to mention the assumption that we don’t know competent lawyers.
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I think you may have misread the article…
Joel and Nesson are not being criticized for what they are saying, but rather when they are saying it. They are bringing up important arguments that should be heard by the courts, but they are doing it at the wrong times.
There are significant due process issues when the sharing of 21 dollars worth of music results in a $675,000 fine. No one in their right mind could think that this level of damages awarded for non-commercial personal infringement could ever withstand scrutiny on grounds of constitutionality.
I’m sure that if any one of us were in his shoes right now we’d be handling things significantly different. Even YOU could handle this better then they are.
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What rationalizations are you talking about, on either side?
And no, any one of us could not be in his shoes right now. I can’t speak for everyone else, but personally I don’t “pirate” anything. I don’t download any paid product that I didn’t legitimately pay for. I don’t approve of people who download products that they could just as easily purchase.
That still doesn’t mean I approve of a $675,000 judgment against the guy for sharing 30 songs.
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Any one of you could be in his shoes right now.
How? Every song on my computer is legally obtained.
Why do you always assume otherwise?
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I got so disgusted over how the music industry treated its fans that I haven’t had anything to do with them in at least 6 years. It may be closer to 10. It’s hard to keep track of these things.
Either way, I certainly have no infringing music on my computer now and any tracks that I legally obtained were lost in a flood long ago.
I should add, the amount of the award is absurdly high and I hope it will be found unconstitutional.
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In fact, I bet many of the “regulars” here don’t have much to do with your industry anymore.
Speaking for myself, I’m disgusted by your behavior and I speak out against you due to a sense of moral outrage.
Your persecution of my friends ruined my appetite for your product and I am equally outraged that I cannot even escape you now because your plans have the potential ruin the things I still enjoy on the internet.
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I wouldn’t be so arrogant as AC is. I could say the same phrase a bit differently:
Any one of us could be in his shoes right now.
And, Mike, with all my respect, you sound arrogant too. There are many ways to find oneself in JT’s shoes… Copyright law is abused so widely these days… Although I try not to break the law, I’m not sure anymore that 100% of what I have on my hard drives is legal.
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“How? Every song on my computer is legally obtained.”
If he accepts that… you are no longer Pirate Mikey and his already unstable world collapses.
Golly Mike, way to spread FUD.
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“Every song on my computer is legally obtained.”
I’d love to see proof of that, as I’m sure many others would.
Every single one, huh? ;>
The funniest part is that the sort of arguments that they tried to use are the same ones used by the most whiny posters here. I wonder if they will ever except that they are just plain wrong.
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Every song on my computer is legally obtained. Why do you always assume otherwise?
cuz you’re the most zealous piracy apologist on the web? That’d personally be my guess…
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They wont, because they are right. They will continue to use the same arguments because they are valid. Those fat cats who write your check for disrupting this website have pulled the wool over your eyes with their lies.
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God, shut your idiotic mouth, you raging douchenozzle.
You’re no doubt a liar, and also seem to enjoy ignoring the fact that most independent record labels work on a 50/50 split. Oh the fucking horror. Try finding that deal in Douche er Silicon Valley.
Go die in a fire, you worthless vermin.
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I’m pretty sure that you aren’t the one without sin, so stone-throwing should be less of a hobby for you.
These laws has no legitimacy anyway
These laws has no legitimacy anyway, since they were bought by the MAFIAA in the first place. I would feel under no moral obligation to respect them if they were in force in my country.
Remember that in some countries (UK for instance), ripping a CD is illegal, so even if you did obtain the songs legally, it’s still illegal to put them on your PC.
Fortunately in my country downloading for personal use is still legal (for now), so I haven’t broken any laws either! Of course the MAFIAA is trying to buy our lawmakers to change that.
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Hi Prick!
Sorry to disappoint you, but nobody writes me a check to post here. I post my opinions, and as the court has ruled, my opinions have been supported.
Tired arguments are similar to trying to paint someone as a shill – they ain’t working, nobody is buying it.
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“I’d love to see proof of that, as I’m sure many others would.”
I seem to recall recently seeing Mike respond (most likely to you) saying he would gladly show receipts for all his music and movie purchases. Followed immediately by you “disappearing” entirely from the thread at that point. It seems to me you want to see this or that, but when proof is presented that proves you wrong or is about to be presented, you either disappear or ignore it entirely just to continue on your little tirades against Mike, Techdirt and the other posters here in general.
You know what I would love to see, some kind of thing where we can block a person’s comments (all of them) based on the IP address used. An example would be, say I don’t want to see ACs (the one I’m replying to) comments, I can just log in (somehow) hit block and it blocks only his comments. And by block I mean it’ll still say “click here to view comment” (because otherwise, he’ll cry censorship and free speech violations, despite the fact that the comment(s) are still there and can be easily seen if wanted), but I can just ignore them and spare myself and my brain the pain of reading such stupidity.
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Your “opinions” are in the minority, regardless of the positions of those who support them.
By your logic, pointing out that someone is a shill/corporate mouthpiece works just as well as you using your broadbrush to label everyone who doesn’t agree with you a pirate. Well, except for the latter having absolutely no credibility or validity.
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Since I didn’t label anyone as a pirate, your argument is silly.
I would say you need to step back and realize that what you THINK I am saying isn’t at all what I am saying. You lose credibility when you start making assumptions about what the other person is saying.
You want to call me out as a shill, and I say “fuck you idiot, I am not a shill”. If you cannot handle the truth, stop bothering to even try.
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I don’t need to make assumptions. I can just read what you post.
“The funniest part is that the sort of arguments that they tried to use are the same ones used by the most whiny posters here. I wonder if they will ever except that they are just plain wrong.”
You’re not fooling anyone who is knowledgeable of the matter at hand. The obvious reason that comes to mind of why you support the ruling of this case is you have a vested interest in it, or something to gain. Money, perhaps? Sounds like something a shill would do, even if they don’t benefit directly from this.
Even if you aren’t a shill, you certainly share the same goals/mindset as one.
These laws has no legitimacy anyway
I don’t really care what the law says about ripping CD’s to my PC, or my iPod, or anything else. I’ll do whatever the hell I please, and there is no way for them to find out, so screw the law. If they think they could invade my privacy to the extent necessary to determine that I ripped my own CD’s, they’d better start shopping for their burial plots.
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So… you have no valid, substantive comment, then. Right.
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Let us know when your mother dies of cancer. What goes around, comes around, shithead.
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If Masnick “would gladly show receipts for all his music and movie purchases”…
All he has to do is do it.
Mike Masnick is the biggest piracy apologist on the web.
No one believes him when he says “Every song on my computer is legally obtained.”
Unless he’s just talking about his business computer, not his external music drive ;>