Monday, February 21, 2011

Appellate briefs filed in SONY v Tenenbaum

SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, where the RIAA appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, despite being awarded $2250 for each download, for a total of $67,500, and where Tenenbaum cross appealed on the ground that the $67,500 was excessive, in view of the actual damages being less than a dollar per download, the parties have filed their respective appellate briefs.

RIAA brief
Tenenbaum brief
Amicus Brief of Electronic Frontier Foundation
RIAA reply brief
Tenenbaum reply brief

Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player Bookmark and Share

2 comments:

mathinker said...

From RIAA's reply brief: "the Act’s statutory damages provision embodies
Congress’s considered and reasonable judgment that copyright infringement is
always against the public interest and should always be deterred."

Seems like patent nonsense to me. If it were true, why on earth would Congress have made provisions for fair use, or passed the DMCA? It's obvious that at least some percentage of attempts at fair use will be, upon judicial review, found to be infringements. And without the "safe harbor" provisions of the DMCA, sites like YouTube wouldn't exist and there would be a lot less copyright infringement.

So, no, sorry, even the lobbyist-swayed Congress has at least some inkling of an idea that copyright requires balance.

mathinker said...

I just love the math jujitsu Nesson pulls on page 24 of his reply brief, where he takes two RIAA estimates (which are probably both inflated) and by dividing one by the other shows that their own estimates imply that the average filesharer does only $250 of annual damage to them.