Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Tenenbaum Case; Allows Charade To Continue
from the onwards-and-onwards dept
As we expected, the Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal by Joel Tenenbaum’s lawyers to jump straight to the Constitutional questions concerning the ridiculous statutory damages awards for sharing a couple dozen songs. While reports are claiming that the Supreme Court has “upheld the $675,000” damages award, that’s slightly misleading. At this point, the court simply refused to hear the appeal. As we pointed out in our post last week, this is really a procedural issue now. A jury had awarded $675,000 and Judge Nancy Gertner reduced the award based on Constitutional reasoning, rather than going through the remittitur process (allowing the record labels to request a new trial). The Appeals court rejected this saying that judges are supposed to avoid the constitutional questions if there’s another way.
So, all this really means at this point is that the process is going to get extended (which certainly works in the RIAA’s favor). It seems likely that the judge will now use the remittitur process to lower the award, and the RIAA will (once again) choose to have the case heard again. Eventually, it might be able to make its way up the appeals chain again. Or, Tenenbaum could decide that too much of his life is being wasted on this and just settle (which is what the RIAA is hoping for). So, today’s refusal to hear the appeal isn’t as big a deal as some are making it out to be, but it sure sucks for the guy who’s at the center of this.
Filed Under: joel tenenbaum, procedural issue, statutory damages
Companies: riaa
Comments on “Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Tenenbaum Case; Allows Charade To Continue”
just imagine what life would be like if all fines followed similar rules as copyright infringement…
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$63565746724767347368358 dollars for throwing your gum wrapper on the groung instead of the trash bin on the corner.
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*ground(what the sam heck is a groung?)
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Anonymous Coward, you have been fined $63565746724767347368358 for violation of the verbal morality code.
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it’s important to note a few things…
1) the damages were awarded by a Jury of his peers, not the RIAA,
2) it is for illegal copying and distribution, NOT downloading (as is being reported),
3) he could have settled at the outset for $5k (or less probably).
so roll the dice and this is what you get. important to understand that the highest court in the land is upholding this, gives you a sense of how serious copyright still is despite all the flag waiving to the contrary.
all that said, obviously not a good look for the RIAA, et al…
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Did you even read the article? SCOTUS did not “uphold” this ruling. Tenenbaum wanted to get straight to SCOTUS instead of wasting time dealing with more lawsuits. Instead, SCOTUS said “no, you don’t get to take any shortcuts, use remittitur first, then you can appeal to SCOTUS.”
And technically, the damages were set by the RIAA when the law was lobbied for. It’s not like a jury of his peers came up with the numbers; the law specified a range for them to pick from.
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“It’s not like a jury of his peers came up with the numbers; the law specified a range for them to pick from.”
and a jury of his peers chose these numbers when they could have chosen much less… so what’s your point? his peers went for the bigger numbers, not the RIAA…
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When a juror is made to believe that the Kafkaesque reality, in which 150K for a song is a fair fine, is the only reality, don’t expect a rational judgment from him.
In other words: after you pound a person on the head with a baseball bat, don’t expect to get a correct answer to “what date is today?”
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I’m sure they weren’t his “peers”. As mentioned in another Techdirt article today,
Recent surveys by the Pew Research Center, for example, report that 72 percent of Americans between ages 18 and 29 “do not care whether the music they download onto their computers is copyrighted or not.”
I’m sure the jury was very carefully packed – er, I mean selected – by plaintiff’s lawyers to exclude any members of that demographic other than the 28% minority. One wonders how the RIAA and MPAA will fare in another 30 years, when the only people they won’t object to on a jury will be septuagenarians.
I’d offer them 5$ per song.
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That’s $4.01 more than they’re worth.
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If I remember correctly, didn’t a Sony exec in the Thomas case say each song was worth about 70??
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That is after Apple takes its cut.
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I’ll give them tree fiddy. But only if it’s in Ogg Vorbis, none of dis FLAC or MP3 crap.
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Don’t give the mafiaa no three fiddy woman!
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“That’s *$5.00* more than they’re worth.”
Fixed.
I wonder if any of the justices read the petition beyond the title. It’s no surprise that SCOTUS won’t discuss this case now, but if they at least read the arguments, they will have time to contemplate… Earlier or later the insanity of the copyright statute must be resolved one way or another.
Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
He could have settled years ago. He could have just purchased the content in the first place from a legit source. But no, he was egged on by academics and information anarchists who continue to use him as a pawn. And he fell for all of the propaganda on this web site and places like it.
Copyright may have some gray areas but he wasn’t in any of them– unless you’re some anarchist who believes that it’s wrong to give the creator any control over their hard work.
The irony is that all of his fighting actually reinforces the claims of the industry for insanely high penalties. If it’s going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees just to prosecute one obvious case, then the industry needs to be able to levy hundreds of thousands of fines.
I’m a big believer in small, parking-ticket grade penalties that are easy to adjudicate, but if all of the creator haters continue to push looney litigation like this, we’re not going to be able to get to that point.
Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
“If it’s going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees just to prosecute one obvious case, then the industry needs to be able to levy hundreds of thousands of fines.”
So, according to your reasoning, if the people doing the suing (can’t remember the precise legal term) waltz into a courtroom with a lawyer who just happened to cost $5 million, then the fines should be set to match that automatically?
You do realize I hope that tilts the legal system entirely in favour of the people doing the suing automatically. It means the poorer person loses automatically (which sadly, is already a reality).
Please explain how subjecting Tenenbaum to economic servitude for the rest of his life (unless he somehow wins a lottery) isn’t cruel and unusual punishment?
Re: Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
“people doing the suing”
Plaintiff is the droid you’re looking for.
Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
“The irony is that all of his fighting actually reinforces the claims of the industry for insanely high penalties. If it’s going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees just to prosecute one obvious case, then the industry needs to be able to levy hundreds of thousands of fines.”
You really must be a moron to not see that the reason this guy is fighting so hard is BECAUSE of the level of the fees. I mean really, $675,000 for 20 songs. Ok, yes what he did was against the law but $675,000?
If someone sued me for that much then dang right I would fight for all I was worth. fining me $675,000 would ruin me financally for most of my life probably. So what motivation would I have not to fight? I might as well dig as deep into debt as I can fighting it. I would have nothing at all to loose at that point.
On the other hand if they fined someone something reasonable then people would just pay instead of fighting. If they came to him and fined him $1,000 there is a pretty good chance he would have just paid it. Also don’t pretend that $1,000 is nothing. If you know a few songs can cost you that much then you will just buy them legally.
Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
bob, I sincerely hope that you never have the misfortune to be on the wrong side of an aggressive an egregious lawsuit. While it may temper your enthusiasm and support for “the industry”, and perhaps provide you with some sympathy or even empathy, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Everyone else, is it feasible to try to provide some level of monetary support for Tenenbaum, and/or others so that they can continue to push their cases to the Supreme Court? While I haven’t been a fan of most of their rulings lately, I at least would like to see some of these issues tackled there. I hate to see these kinds of things settled because one side has deep pockets and the other doesn’t.
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“I hate to see these kinds of things settled because one side has deep pockets and the other doesn’t.”
really? google doesn’t have deep pockets?
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Google isn’t a party to this action. Try again.
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You might want to loosen that tin foil hat.
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It makes a great case for the end of copyrights since nobody seems to know what it is or how it should be conducted or enforced this just shows how convoluted and out of date those laws from the middle ages are in the modern society.
Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
“He could have just purchased the content in the first place from a legit source.”
I don’t know the full story but the lawsuit was for sharing the music. It is possible that he did pay for the music.
Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
“Copyright may have some gray areas but he wasn’t in any of them– unless you’re some anarchist who believes that it’s wrong to give the creator any control over their hard work.”
I think the extremely gray area was the part where he owes multiple times his entire net worth in damages for a crime that didn’t hurt anyone. If you would even try to claim that him sharing those songs cost the industry a mere 100$ you would have to be completely out of touch with reality. As soon as a song is released, and more commonly before, the cat is out of the bag.
These rulings are awful, end of story.
Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
Sucks to be flagged by the bearers of common sense? You asked for it.
Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
I do so love it when you guys censor posts you don’t like… how very SOPA of you and not very OPEN… figures… the irony is astounding…
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You don’t know the definition of “irony” based on your comment. Nor do you understand the difference between a comment being flagged/reported BUT STILL VIEWABLE WITH THE CLICK OF A BUTTON and flat out censorship. Censorship, the likes of which SOPA proposed, would mean if we were censoring bob’s post it WOULD NOT be at all viewable. In fact, it would disappear permanently. That is not the case here.
It’s ironic when trolls try to pass themselves off as being morally superior to those of us here, while not fully realizing that the point their making is anything but.
To summarize, REPORTING A COMMENT IS NOT CENSORSHIP. ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN I CAN STILL SEE IT AT WILL. But hey, maybe you’ll “score” a point/victory eventually. Keep on trying. I’m sure you’ll be right some day and you can gloat to your heart’s content. For the time being, you keep looking like a buffoon.
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if it’s such not a big deal to click/unclick why bothering censoring posts in the first place?
seems kinda funny… you only want to be exposed to those who agree with you?
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We don’t want to be exposed to ad hominim, name calling and meaningless atteck posts that claim mike’s wrong without ever providing any data to actually prove him wrong or even a valid counter arguement.
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The post isn’t censored. Do I need to repeat and explain why it IS NOT censored again? Or are you seriously that dense?
It’s not a big deal to click/unclick to view the comment. The “big deal” being made here is by you, claiming that it is outright censorship the kind of which Techdirt was against in regards to SOPA. I pointed out how it is nothing of the sort.
What seems funny, is that you are now grasping at straws in some sort of attempt to go “gotcha!” No one wants to read ad homs or rants that have no basis in reality much less anything in the way of evidence/proof to support them. That’s why some post get reported. They’re either nothing but ad homs, attempts to get people to click a link to a product or site, or so not in touch with reality that it makes people’s heads hurt from reading them.
There are plenty of comments that are not in line with the Techdirt view that ARE NOT reported on this site. Proof of which is easy enough to find in almost any article. Heck, bob alone has plenty of comments that aren’t reported, that alone should be proof enough to shut you up. But back to my point, NO, we don’t want to be exposed to only those who agree with a particular viewpoint. Some of us here like debate, and like debate with points raised by all involved and backed up with citations and facts and evidence. Now, you might not know what any of that is, as you aren’t one to do any of that (you’re more of the ad hom/”gotcha Masnick!” variety), but that’s your problem and not ours.
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why are you getting so defensive just for censoring posts on your blog? It’s your blog, you can censor if you want to, I just think it’s funny that you would say it’s not a big deal and still do it anyway… if it’s not a big deal, why take the time to censor the posts?
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This isn’t my blog. It’s Mike’s blog. I’m not getting defensive, I’m pointing out the errors in what your comments (regarding censorship and comparing reporting a comment to outright censorship ala SOPA).
And why do you keep referring to me? I didn’t report the comment. To be honest, I didn’t even know it was there til I saw people replying to it. At which point I scrolled up, clicked to view the comment (which automatically proves it’s not being censored) then closed it again because of how moronic it was.
The one hung up on the issue at all is you. As I stated once before already. So just drop it already. There’s no censorship taking place. Your original point (and the others since then) are moot. Also, I’m not Mike. Any comments about his blog you can direct at him.
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Did the government stop you from speaking on your topic in every forum (I don’t mean comment thread forum)? No? Then it’s not censorship.
Do you have a problem with flagging a post as insightful or funny? If not, you shouldn’t have a problem with a comment being reported (down-voted, essentially, as your comment is still there, along with all your ridiculous follow-up posts).
Any community is free to decide they’ve heard enough of the same old discredited dreck, and ignore it at will. And people do so, particularly when the commentary comes unsupported by any argument.
Sure, there are some people who might unthinkingly agree with something Mike (or whoever) said, but the majority of the people here can make a case for their position, and do.
Go ahead, try it.
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Ah, but it’s merely at the single click of a button: it’s not like you get page after page of “THIS SITE IS NO LONGER IN USE” and the FBI/ICE/IPR logos, and no access to your content.
Moreover, that seems foolish – if, as the Orgs involved believe, there’s criminal copyright infringement (or child porn, or terrorism) going on, then why not use the site to find them and charge THEM instead?
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“creator haters” that’s an awesome phrase, and fits here…
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Only if you haven’t a clue what this site really stands for, which is readily apparent in your reply.
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Funny, I could have sworn that one of the reasons we speak out against the lawyers and the businessmen who work in the music industry is specifically because they are not creators of anything except consumer-unfriendly lawsuits, legislation, and business models.
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what is the pirate bay creating? oh, illegally exploitation of artists worse than the labels did… oh, yeah, that makes sense… support a system WORSE for artists than the labels were… yeah, you’re a real hero…
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The Pirate Bay is creating hope 🙂
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Wow. The person you replied to said nothing about The Pirate Bay at all. They stated what some here speak out against, that those raising the biggest ruckus are people who are anything but actual creators. And are in fact, the people (those non-creators) directly responsible for some of the biggest mistakes that are driving people away and attempting to punish others not even doing anything wrong. And you bring your old “what is the pirate bay…” rhetoric? Way to attempt to hijack another thread.
No one has even said in this article that they support The Pirate Bay. Also, fyi, the site DOES NOT exploit artists. It’s users share content from the artists, but the site itself does nothing nor host any of that content.
Please try and learn some new talking points. Yours are old and debunked already. That or get ready to be “censored” (aka reported, meaning people have to want to see your stupidity and click on it to view it).
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“what is the pirate bay creating?”
Nobody ever claimed they were creating anything Mr. Straw Man, they offer a service that people find useful and really, really like.
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“creator haters” … lol … jeez, you really are a fucking moron.
(Anon, because I swore and my mother might read this.)
Justice by Cash
It’s actually pretty pathetic that our “JUSTICE” system has really boiled down to the person who has the most money wins – because they can afford to continue the litigation.
Look at how many small businesses or start-ups are pommeled out of business by legal fees. It doesn’t matter if they win… they waste valuable assets on litigation instead of product development, advertising, etc.
Re: Justice by Cash
Goes to show that the US follows the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.
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didn’t google finance joel’s defense team from harvard with w/ nesson? don’t be sore losers, tech threw a lot of money at this and lost, so what, suck it up… enjoy your post sopa victory lap while you can… chalk tenenbuam up to yet another supreme court loss… lessig didn’t win either…
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/larry-lessig-is-wrong/
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>didn’t google finance joel’s defense team from harvard with w/ nesson?
No.
C’mon, hurricane head, your rhetoric is getting old. If you’re that concerned about “SOPA-level censorship” and if you’re so confident that Techdirt has gathered such an anti-artist reputation that the majority of artists hate Techdirt, I dare you to invite your artist buddies to vote all your comments insightful. They don’t even need to leave names or comment. All the world needs to see is proof you’re not commenting based on wild conspiracy theories from your own wordpress blog.
Go on, then. I dare you.
Saddly we need about 4 more cases like Tenenbaum to get the courts interest.
The only winners...
Why is it anything relating to piracy that involves laws whatsoever, the only people that win are the lawyers? Ok, that kinda makes sense, but why is it that anyone continues to try and go this route when the reality is, noone wins but the lawyers? Is it these media guys have stock in these lawyer groups or something? It just doesn’t make any kind of business sense, common sense, moron-in-a-hurry sense, or spider sense. It’s just so obviously stupid. I’m sure online game makers are wishing they could come up with a money sink as good as this.
If I were Tenenbaum I’d take every dime I have and leave the country. To hell with this place.
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You’d have to leave the planet to get the RIAA off your back.
[quote]The Appeals court rejected this saying that judges are supposed to avoid the constitutional questions if there’s another way.[/quote]
Yes, the last thing we want is judges clarifying the law…
They should look at crowdfunding the defense here. Tenenbaum could be a professional defendant as long as it takes, just to balance out against the professional (industrial, really) plaintiffs.
AC, While I agree with you that TPB can be exploitative, its really just the tip of the ice berg for digital distribution.
Please, take the time to read through the older posts on this site. Many of them show, I’m steering away from the word ‘conclusively’ here, that artists of all forms who give away the swing of the infinite goods, such as digital copies of music, more than make up for it on the roundabouts of the finite goods, for example Special Edition Albums, T-Shirts, Event Tickets…etc etc.
Look anywhere, from that one NIN Album, (sorry, never been a huge fan, can’t remember the name of it), to the Humble Indie Bundle, to any of the other success stories featured here and other places across the web. It works, honestly, I promise.
Its also similar to the way things like Kickstarter work. If you give the people what they want, they will pay. Just don’t try to force it down there throats.
crowd-finance tenenbaum
So, the supreme court basically allowed the richer party to the case push the other one to bankruptcy through legal expenses, right?
Is there a way to crowd-finance the defendant’s case?
I have $10 here that may be spent better flaunting RIAA, MPAA and like, than cheap greasy pizza.
Sorry I missed this one while I was off on a business trip.
Tenenbaum gets what he deserves. He clearly broke the law, he chose to fight a potentially expensive fight rather than settle, selected possibly the worst sort of lawyer possible (one who seemed more interested in arguing theory than reality), and then kept doubling down.
The Surpreme Court didn’t rule to specifically uphold the ruling. But by declining to review it, they are pretty much saying that they don’t see enough there to merit such a high review, and that things have not come to any great point that needs their intervention.
Suck it up Joel, and pay the man. You tried, you failed. End.