Judge Reduces Student’s File-Sharing Fine by 90 Percent

Lucky he can afford an attorney.

Tenenbaum is a thief. Nothing more, nothing less. Hopefully the original sentence will be reinstated, though I would not be adverse to seeing him do not less than 15 years in prison in lieu of paying the fine.

The U.S. Copyright Law range is $750 to $150,000 per “willful” act of infringment and Joel admitted in court to willfully infringing 30 songs. Therefore, the jury’s verdict is within the law. Can this Judge not read the law? If Congress intended for the range to be lower, they would have not passed the aforementioned range. Furthermore, they could simply amend the US Copyright Act and lower the range. Judges should follow the law in their rulings; even the one’s they personally disagree with. If it is a matter choice, then it is not a matter of law.

I don’t know the details

I thought theft of property worth less than $500 was a misdemeanor, and unless these songs cost more than $15 per download, that’s what this crime would be. For a misdemeanor theft charge, isn’t the sentence usually less than a year of jail time followed by probation and maybe community service?I have no reason to doubt judicial1715 description of the special penalties for copyright infringement, but it sounds like the crackdown on crack (vs powdered cocaine) to me: unfair.livefreeordie, if someone stole every valuable in my house, if I came home and found my house empty, all my furniture, appliances, clothing, linens, etc. gone, I wouldn’t wish 15 years in prison on the thief, even if I couldn’t get my belongings back. That’s too long for a property crime.

How can the original award be “unconstitually excessive” when it fell within the range of the US copyright act? On what basis? If she wants to lower the award, another line of reasoning is needed. The first Copyright Act was passed in 1790; see the 31 page Justice Deparment Memo regarding this case.

One more remark and I am done. A 90% reduction seems to be rather large and I suspect bothersome to the jury who I am sure worked hard to agree on a penalty. To describe their judgment as unconstitutionally excession makes little sense to me, but I have not read the judge’s opinion yet. Joel Tennebaum was given the opportunity to settle this case for $3,500 in the very beginning; therefore, I have very little sympathy for him. Listen to his deposition on-line; he lied and was arrogant and pretentious. He should have settled.

I just read judicial1715′s latest post. As I said before, I didn’t know all the specifics. Hearing that Tenenbaum could have settled for $3500 and chose not to, I agree that he deserves less sympathy, especially if he was doing this to challenge the copyright infringement laws as Sandy Thatcher posted. Puts a new spin on things.

He (to use the word the recording industry likes to use) “stole” 30 songs. That’s the equivalent of 2 CD’s. What would the penalty for shoplifting 2 CD’s from the local WalMart be? $675,000? I doubt it. Even 10% of that? Not likely.I won’t get into the whole concept of “stealing” sound created by something you can’t even see or hold in your hand, let alone when the “victims” live like rock stars, because, well, they’re rock stars. Or how every college campus and is filled with largely unpoliced photocopiers that can be used to reproduce copyrighted written material. But how has this become a “crime” that colleges have to be the front line of protection against to the point where it’s been written into the Higher Education Act and has become yet one more regulatory burden for colleges? Is there some evidence that this is far more prevalent among college students than it is among the general public?

“The public in turn suffers from lost jobs and wages, lost tax revenue, and higher prices for honest purchasers.” ___________________________________________This is disinformation and propaganda.

In 2004, an estimated 70 million people participated in online file sharing.[89] According to a CBS News poll, nearly 70 percent of 18 to 29 year olds thought file sharing was acceptable in some circumstances and 58 percent of all Americans who followed the file sharing issue considered it acceptable in at least some circumstances.[90]In January 2006, 32 million Americans over the age of 12 had downloaded at least one feature length movie from the Internet, 80 percent of whom had done so exclusively over P2P….. ….According to an earlier poll, 75 percent of young voters in Sweden (18-20) supported file sharing when presented with the statement: “I think it is OK to download files from the Net, even if it is illegal.” Of the respondents, 38 percent said they “adamantly agreed” while 39 percent said they “partly agreed”(from the dreaded Wikipedia)

So, Performance_expert2, how do you feel about being replaced by an adjunct with less education and experience than you, but who can teach the subject matter well enough to satisfy your employer, for a lot less money, and who’ll never ask for tenure? And that, by the way, is generally speaking legal.After all, the benefits to society of saving your salary surely outweigh any “rights” you might have . . .

FYI – It should be added that when people refer to studies on the effect of file-sharing and record sales, they often point to the Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf study. According to other economists, that study is hardly the prevailing view: http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/intprop/main.htmhttp://www.serci.org/docs_1_2/waelbroeck.pdfhttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=612076And just last month in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, the controversy came up again, calling into question some of Oberholzer-Gee’s and Strumpf’s conclusions:http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Dispute-Over-File-Sharings/24881/

The recording industry seeks high damages more to set an example and intimidate potential future downloaders than to collect lost revenues (though I am sure they will be happy to cash Mr. Tenenbaum’s check, should he ever pay!). They don’t want to spend the time and legal fees to go after the tens of millions of illegal file downlaoders in the U.S. Will the tatic work by scaring off all downloaders? I doubt it.The law was passed because our congress is regularly bought and sold by powerful financial interests (the recording industry, the fossil fuel industry, commercial broadcasters, etc., etc., etc., etc.). What in a developing nation might be labeled corruption is legal in the U.S. It’s called lobbying.Finally, judicial1715- You ask “How can the original award be “unconstitually excessive” when it fell within the range of the US copyright act?” The U.S. copyright act is a statute. It is therefore subject to judicial review regarding its constitutionality in part or in whole. It may be that the judge’s ruling was unclear on this, or that a higher court will disagree with her interpretation. But the last time I checked, the function of judicial review of stautes for constitutionality was still a basic part of separation of powers.

I see there is a market for this audience for an essay on file sharing. This is not that essay though I will try and summarize.We live in an economic caste system. Much of the populace does not have a great deal of disposable income to spend on pleasure. If they have money for entertainment, the mainstay of what they pay goes to satellite or cable television. In the US, the model set up is that every household is expected to spend $100. – $120. per month on: telepone / internet connection / tv. If you don’t believe, just ask Comcast, Time Warner, or ATT. This is $1200 to $1500, per year. This is the first place working people consumer entertainment monies go. Broke people with kids with spend this money in this manner. Most markets in the USA do not have real competition. For example, where I live there is only one corporate provider that provides a working internet connection that works somewhere approaching contemporary expectations. In many ways, in the US this is a time of non-competition. Consider the Microsoft model with 95% market share or somesuch? (note: just for fun, this posting is writing on an IBM Thinkpad using not Microsoft and not Apple).File sharing increases intellectual activity. “Clamping down” on file sharing denie people the ability to explore media.The relevant economic model is that people buy what they want to buy. They may even try it out first via file sharing. People support what they want to support.Economic models are changing. For entertainment distribution, there are basically two economic models at play: retail income via people paying their earned money for entertainment via satellite/cable tv, ticket to movie theater, and buying packaged product.And then there is file sharing. Like an economic caste system, the rich and the poor, these two economic models have to co-exist. People of means support their artists and those who the money to do so like to buy premium packaged product. There is something fantastic and positive and egalitarian about a poor person with an internet connection being about to see the new music or the new movie and feel “included” in the cultural trends. It would be cruel otherwise.These multi-thousand dollar fines levied against targeted individuals is just gamesmanship from the entertainment attorneys and the judges and legal advisers who live in an upper caste and practice this authoritarian recreation.Pure ideology has a fascist bend to it. It works very nicely inside the mind, such as the idea that everyone should have filtered water or fresh produce to eat every day. Reality does not work that way. There is real responsibility to recognize the practical mean and to be humane._______________As a creative person, I too ponder the seeming dissolution of ownership and income from creative works, though the dynamic age is more complex than that. One might consider the difference in single art, sculpture or painting that can not be digitized. One might say the same thing about live performance where people have to get out there and do the work to receive the income. It has been well stated by a file sharing advocate from Sweden the fiction of the “rock star” and associated incomes. The Swede observed the reality of income from sales from the corporate retail model is very different from the promoted notion of “rock stars” etc.Today maybe more than ever, the concept of setting free and releasing a work of art is poignent. Progressive thinkers will see that there are vital and active ways to exploit their income and standing.In closing, this reminds me of looking on the internet to find the poem of a contemporary poet and finding the internet has been thoroughly scrubbed of access to the poem, the scrubbing done by some sharpies in a publishing house on the 14th floor of a building somewhere. The work of contemporary poetry is accessed through buying the volume from the publishing house. It is not in stock locally. It must be ordered through the mail. It is a tawdry arrangement from the commercial artist who places a fence around their work, does a sort of two faced nobility on the circuit. Want to read the poem? $20. for a paperback with a strip of glue on the spine. The type of binding that splits in two after the glue dries out. Moves the heart.

Open access isn’t a realistic alternative to commercial scholarly publishers? What a ridiculous assertion! No wonder it has to come from the former chief of the buggy whip makers.

Let’s examine some of the claims “performance_expert2″ makes.”We live in an economic caste system. Much of the populace does not have a great deal of disposable income to spend on pleasure. If they have money for entertainment, the mainstay of what they pay goes to satellite or cable television.”Me – The way in which individuals spend their disposable income is up to them. Cable TV isn’t a right, and neither is cheap access to music (never mind the money individuals have to invest to have computer access to do file-sharing, purchase an MP3 player, etc.) Classifying this as a caste system, is aggressively silly rhetoric. The fact is that Americans and Europeans have massive amounts of disposable income compared to the average citizen in a Third World country. The real argument underlying this is the “right to have it all.” No such right exists.As for access and providers, the expansion of Internet access to cellular systems, of cable TV to data systems (ATT U-Verse, for example) and data to cable systems, has increased choices in the country. Where choices are limited by limited infrastructure, citizens still have the option to relocate. What this has to do with copyright is tenuous at best.”File sharing increases intellectual activity. “Clamping down” on file sharing denie people the ability to explore media.” Me – One could also easily assert that file sharing increases intellectual theft and plagiarism. As far as denying people the ability to explore media, composer Jason Robert Brown addresses this argument pretty well on http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php Full disclosure – I add this as someone who occassionally visits guitar tab Web sites looking for arrangments myself (although, I would happily pay a general performance fee, similar to those churches pay for the use of contemporary religious music.) “They may even try it out first via file sharing. People support what they want to support.” Me – Then support it the way in which the artists expect. File sharing isn’t trying it out first. You can do that by borrowing a friend’s CD or checking one out of the library or listening to a song on the radio. File sharing is lifting the song in it’s entirety and making an unauthorized copy of it.”Pure ideology has a fascist bend to it. It works very nicely inside the mind, such as the idea that everyone should have filtered water or fresh produce to eat every day. Reality does not work that way. There is real responsibility to recognize the practical mean and to be humane.”Me – Nonsense on stilts is the expression that comes to mind (in particular the sloppy generalist use of the term “fascist”). But the problem is that the concept of file sharing that is being presented is itself ideological – it espouses the principle that “the poor” (loosely defined here) deserve the right to unfettered access to music and works that is owned by other people. There’s nothing any more practical about that than the assertion that hard working artists, some of whom earn rather paltry sums for their work deserve compensation for their efforts and deserve to control their content with whichever partners they choose, corporate or otherwise. What about the artist who turns to online distribution? File sharing threatens serious damage to their livelihood (be that what it may). Shall we argue that file sharers can only lift the works of the properous? Sweden’s teens have already expressed their opinion of that idea.This kind of muddy thinking victimizes the creative. It’s far closer to fascism than an enterprising artist with a popular product who seeks to maximize the profit they can make and pass on to their family (and again, I’m speaking of more than the millionaire rock stars and authors). The file sharing “ethos” presented here pretends to tackle the big corporations. In reality, it attacks the artist, the writer, and the poet. Indeed “performance_artist2″ specifically does so, for the sake of that poem they just have to read. That’s not good enough. It’s one thing to complain about excessive profit margins or spoiled millionaires or corporate fat cats. It’s quite another to use them as scapegoats for a system that undermines the intellectual rights of every creative person, down to the starving artist.

Actually, I do routinely place my own output into the public domain, but that has nothing to do with open access research or the obsolescence of commercial scholarly publishers.And dank48, since you gave me advice I’ll return the favor: you should look up “open access” to find out what it means before commenting on it. (Hint: it’s not file sharing.)

Who, pray tell, said anything about file sharing?Just to be obsessively thorough, though, I did look up “open access” and was completely underwhelmed by revelations. The only real surprise was that I did understand what it means.