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Supreme Court Refuses $675,000 File-Sharing Case

The case of the RIAA vs. Joel Tenenbaum – aka the case that will not die – took another turn today. Although not an entirely unexpected one.

The Supreme Court has refused to hear his case. While this is not the be-all-and-end-all for the case, it’s another roadblock.

At issue was the matter of excessive damages, specifically the statutory damages that allow for between $750-$150,000 per infringement.

In their brief, Tenenbaum’s lawyer is reported by the Boston Globe as saying “This pernicious interpretation of the Copyright Act transforms every bit of cyberspace into a potentially exploding lawsuit and is sparking the development of a spam-litigation industry”. He is, of course, referring to the many copyright trolls we’ve covered in recent weeks and months.

tenenbaumRegardless, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, without comment.

Meanwhile the case is not over. The sole issue being referred to the Supreme Court was the constitutionality of the damages, not the merits of the case in any form.

The trial judge had already reduced the damages awarded to $65,000 before having it restored by the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Nancy Gertner could still reduce the damages again, but in doing so the RIAA and it’s member studios can ask for a retrial. This has happened twice with Jammie Thomas in a similar case. It’s an option Tenenbaum has expressed support for in the past.

Who knows when this case, which started in 2004, will end, and how much more court time will be taken up .

Meanwhile, the real winners are the lawyers for the RIAA (and to a lesser extend the government), racking up fee’s despite having a poor record of getting any kind of money for artists.

This post is from the News Bits section of TorrentFreak where we present stories from around the web in a concise summary format. Full TorrentFreak articles can be found here. If you have a tip please let us know. News Bits have their very own RSS feed
  • Anonymous

    So let me get this straight. They want to ruin a man’s life because he downloaded a few songs off the internet? What the fuck? As if downloading music illegally hurts artists. If illegally-downloading music did any kind of damage, these artists would say “fuck it!” and call it quits. But they’re not, are they? Why not? Because they’re more than just artists. They make more money promoting things and just showing up to places than they do for singing. On top of that, they make a ridiculous amount of money off song sales and concerts to begin with. All these rappers, for example, rap about is all they money they have. As I recall, Drake said, “25 sittin’ on 25 Mill’ “.

    • Guest

      Rather stereotypical image of rap … meh.

      Some rap’s quite poetic, such as the song Biggie Smalls did with Bob Marley. It had meaning to it, regardless of it being a ‘badass gangster’ song.

      Anyway, your point is still valid… RIAA is a douche bag organisation.

      • Guest

        That’s an insult to douche bags.

      • Anonymous

        I agree with you. I actually listen to rap and hip-hop. Hell, I’ll listen to anything that’s not country, classical included. What I was referring to was this new generation of talent-less artists that rely on meaningless and repetitive lyrics.

        • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

          If you’re a true lover of music you’d love all music. Even country and classic. JUST SAYIN”!

        • Anonymous

          @echoman74:disqus  I said I do like classical. Country is ok but usually it’s too whiny for my tastes. Everybody has their preferences.

        • http://twitter.com/unwashed_masses unwashed masses

           I agree. the Ridin Dirty song was the type of shit that has ruined hip hop. I thought it couldn’t get any worse until I heard Nikki Minaj dribbling. Old country is ok, before it sold out.

        • Danny

          @echoman74:disqus

          Why would you have to love all music? I am a true lover of music, genetically we all are.

          Oh and country music can fuck off, that shit is painful on the ears.

        • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

          Hey don’t get me wrong or anything. You’re right everyone does have their preference. But there’s some country artist out there that are pretty cool i myself am into electronica i make my own beats etc. But i think there are several influential style of music like in dub-step remixing etc.. You can make just about anything sound good lol. 

          @Danny  that’s what i said if you love music you love all music lol. 
          I’m not talking about blue grass. Just like there is some music in all genre’s that can be annoying… :)

    • Tanisha

       www.zeropaid dot com /news/86226/study-by-online-music-licensing-org-file-sharing-makes-pop-music-more-popular/

      So they want to extort this guy when more than likely he just made it more popular, what assholes.

    • Mr. MoneySuit Monacle

      Someone needs to be shot in the fucking head.
      Riaa boardroom, here’s looking at you

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UEPEU5WVI5FRPZL7YRBA7S4S5A Echo Foxtrot

    What happened to Tenenbaum sure sucks.

    So is using a VPN the best way to cover one’s ass on torrent sites? Or have the RIAA bastards found a way to crack them?

    • Anyone

      the encryption for VPN is not yet cracked
      but you have to find one that doesn’t keep logs and doesn’t roll over like HideMyAss did

  • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

    Hopefully he’ll one day meet a judge that listens.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OK7Y7PCSTJ27RCKZ2MGRSAYCTE NEIL

    I think most of us have agreed for a number of years the ONLY ones getting rich off this nonsense are the lawyers and RIAA (from their fees) – maybe if the lawsuits were stopped RIAA members would find all that extra cash they’re whinging about losing.

  • Guest

    Hey RIAA, I just d-loaded a song. Come get some…

  • Andrew Lee

    What a fucking joke…
    http://joelfightsback.com/#/about-the-case/overview/
    * 30,000 people have been accused and almost every single case has settled.

    * The average settlement is between $3,000 – $12,000.

    Even at the low end that’s 90 million and 360 million at the high. They defiantly do not want piracy to end that’s a fact.Don’t think it’s a fact? would you give up that kind of money? The majority of all records never even come close to them figures. Even if piracy ended today they would never even get close.

    The only thing they’re looking for is better laws that allow them to go after more people and more freedom to harass,terrorize, and extort them. Piracy is their meal ticket in their eyes at least.You know the best part about that? Well my guess is the actual artist aka person with talent that unfortunately had the bad luck to signup with a bunch of freeloaders never gets a dime.

    A lot of people look at what they’re doing as okay and see pirates as thieves. Well they should realize they’re costing everyone that pays taxes. Abusing the justice system as their personal money extraction tool. It’s even worse that so many judges are insanely corrupt.

    7 songs.. His fine should have been the cost of a CD because downloading it does not magically make it worth 150 grand per song.

    Fuck by their standards if I stole a car I should be able to resell it for a good 8-9 mill. Makes sense right? Now *Tilt head to side and listen for crickets*

    I could type up a 70,000 line report on why what they’re doing is okay and still have no fucking clue why at the end.

    • Danny

      The $8 billion ipod illistrates your last point well!

       http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod.html

  • http://www.YourDonation.com YourDonation

    let’s all help this guy
    http://www.yourdonation.org
    and fund the 700K so he can live his live !

    • http://www.YourDonation.com YourDonation

       *life

  • http://www.themagicmist.com/default.asp Mandy Napier

    The Supreme Court has refused to hear his case. While this is not the be-all-and-end-all for the case, it’s another roadblock.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay

      Not surprising.  Our SCOTUS is very conservative and anywhere that Breyer seems intent on pushing for some fairness, you won’t see much done in regards to copyright.

      What annoys me greatly is that the facts suggest Nancy actually looked at the other cases and saw that remittitur would not work.  So why send it back?  Obviously, if you look at the case yourself you see the conclusion she came to that it did not work.

      Weighing all of these considerations, I conclude that the jury’s award of $675,000 instatutory damages for Tenenbaum’s infringement of thirty copyrighted works isunconstitutionally excessive. This award is far greater than necessary to serve the government’slegitimate interests in compensating copyright owners and deterring infringement. In fact, itbears no meaningful relationship to these objectives. To borrow Chief Judge Michael J. Davis’ characterization of a smaller statutory damages award in an analogous file-sharing case, the award here is simply “unprecedented and oppressive.” Capitol Records Inc. v. Thomas, 579 F. Supp. 2d1210, 1228 (D. Minn. 2008). It cannot withstand scrutiny under the Due Process Clause.

      For the reasons I discuss below, I reduce the jury’s award to $2,250 per infringed work,three times the statutory minimum, for a total award of $67,500. Significantly, this amount ismore than I might have awarded in my independent judgment. But the task of determining theappropriate damages award in this case fell to the jury, not the Court. I have merely reduced the award to the greatest amount that the Constitution will permit given the facts of this case.

      Reducing the jury’s $675,000 award, however, also sends another no less importantmessage: The Due Process Clause does not merely protect large corporations, like BMW andState Farm, from grossly excessive punitive awards. It also protects ordinary people like JoelTenenbaum.

      So she looked at the wording, found the payment excessive and reduced it something respectable.  So the process was actually fair.  Why should we go through the process again?

  • Pingback: Greek Court Orders ISP Blockades of ‘Pirate’ Music Sites | Mediafire Search Engine

  • Indie Artist

    As an indie artist, I have the songs I create up for download for free and up for sale in my store. Whether a person chooses to download or buy, I’m happy either way.

    • Cassquatch

      Dave Matthews Band toured and gave out their cds on campuses.  I wonder if they ever allowed a fan to be subjected to punishment for being such. Word of mouth is a big deal to new ventures.  We didn’t go through this with mix tapes from stuff on the radio.  These aren’t physical things we’re talking about, either.  The cd store isn’t out on merchandise. The plastic guy got paid.  The recording studio got paid.  Everything from there onward is breaking even or making profit.  The artist should be flattered, even though it doesn’t pay the bills.  And it’s not like allowing someone to be free to own some music that wasn’t paid for is less than a kindness.  I haven’t been able to buy much of anything lately.  I don’t have an mp3 player, I have some old cds, I saw a show last summer, I have debt, I have two pairs of pants that can be worn at work, and two that can’t coming to four total, I don’t eat much because I can’t buy a lot of food, I haven’t been able to get a haircut so I put in job applications where they don’t give a duck, I dropped out of college because I couldn’t pay for books (BOOOKS!!!! AND I WANTED TO DOWNLOAD THOSE SO I COULD GET A DECENT JOB, a decent job EVENTUALLY!!!) Well, if they fret that much over their damn sales, what would make anyone think they actually have any worthwhile passion for music; who wants that cd in the first place….  Oh, but, is it the artist or the faux fight for the good and righteousness lead by failed initiative? Supply and demand; if we can’t afford it, we don’t pay for it whether we have it or not.  They need to deal or hear people out who can afford to pay and have ligitimate reason why they don’t.

  • Jason

    I have lost whatever bit of respect I had for our justice system. They are now unstoppable. Write or wrong who would dare oppose the MPAA GODS now. “I dont give a crap if u downloaded or not. Pay me or your soul is mine.” I am saddened.

  • Ophelia Millais

    The article is partially mistaken when it says that Tenenbaum has expressed support for a retrial. He never wanted a District Court retrial (which seems to be inevitable at this point), he only wanted the Appeals Court to reconsider its decision to send the case back to District Court. It’s a bit complicated, but I’ll try to explain.

    The original trial occurred in a federal District Court, where he admitted liability on the stand and the jury awarded $675K to the labels. The District Court judge lopped 90% off of that, saying it was because the jury’s award was unconstitutional. This decision was appealed by both Tenenbaum and the labels—Tenenbaum because $67.5K was still unfair for $30-worth of music, and the labels for two main reasons, one being that they feel the original damage amount was proper, and the other being because judges are supposed to resolve cases without broaching constitutional issues. So if any reduction was to occur, it would have to first be done via “remittitur”, where the judge basically just says the award needs to be less, but not for constitutional reasons. With remittitur, the labels can reject the reduced award and opt for a retrial. The retrial would not be to ascertain liability (that’s already decided), but just to get a new jury to award a new damage amount. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the labels, saying the judge made a mistake by not dodging the constitutional issues, so the constitutional reduction was nullified and the case is now back to square two: a new District Court judge (the previous one retired) will have to decide whether to let the $675K award stand or reduce it via remittitur.

    The rehearing that Tenenbaum wanted was for the Appeals Court to reconsider their decision that the District Court judge had erred. He doesn’t want the award to be reduced by remittitur, because as we have seen in the Jammie Thomas case, it will prompt a retrial, which he doesn’t want; he wants the unconstitutionality of the award to be addressed. I get the impression the Appeals Court recognizes there are serious constitutional issues at stake, but unsurprisingly, they denied the request for a rehearing, because as a matter of procedure, any aspect of the case which can be resolved without broaching constitutional issues must be. And now the Supreme Court has said that they don’t want to hear any arguments that the Appeals Court was wrong. It was a longshot anyway. So it’s in the District Court’s hands now, and it’s probably going to go just like the Jammie Thomas case, round and round until someone gives up.

    • Ophelia Millais

      Actually I should clarify: when the initial $675K award was made, Tenenbaum asked the District Court for either remittitur or a retrial. So he did kind of want a retrial. But once the award was reduced by 90%, he no longer wanted a retrial. (apparently, based on the filings over at Ray Beckerman’s site)

  • Cassquatch

    Hold up hold up… When a cd is first out, they’d like to make a profit, which means they need to make back what they spent; after that, the intrinsic value would decline over time and with immediacy. 

  • Anonymous

     http://bit.ly/KpDKUP

  • Briggs

    Supreme Court conservatives are not real people.

  • revaib8nn

    hi i need this VIP

  • revaib8nn

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