plaintiffs
RIAA Denied Sanction Claims against Criticizing Lawyer
Ray Beckerman Ray Beckerman, a lawyer defending a client against an RIAA lawsuit was targeted himself by the infamous trade group who asked a judge to sanction him for crossing ethical bounds. As Wired reports, the New York Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy however, decided that was not the case.
Continue reading »Pirate Bay Appeal Judge Faces Ban, Works For Spotify
Following the revelations that judge Tomas Norström from the original trial had connections with pro-copyright lobby groups, there had been hopes that the trial of the Pirate Bay Four could go to a retrial. However, that eventuality was denied after the Appeal Court investigated the bias issue and ruled that the judge’s ties to these groups did not influence his judgment. Instead of a retrial an appeal has been granted which will take place in November.
Continue reading »Jammie Thomas Challenges “Arbitrary” $80,000 p/song Verdict
Argues that there’s no way Congress had “illegal but noncommercial music downloading” in mind when it enacted the statutory-damages provision of the Copyright Act, and that the music industry cannot prove any actual damages caused by her “beyond perhaps $1.29 per song or $15 per album in lost sales.” Jammie Thomas is appealing her sickening $80,000 per song file-sharing judgment this time making the argument that her due process rights were violated because the statutory damages awarded in the case “are punitive in purpose or effect.” “The concerns that trigger the due process inquiry — arbitrariness, variability, and unpredictability in awards — are here in spades; of this, the nearly order-of-magnitude difference between the verdicts in the first and second trials of Mrs. Thomas is unquestionable evidence,” reads the brief filed with the court. “An arbitrary award imposed pursuant to a statute is still arbitrary.” Her lawyer cites the wide disparity between the $9,250 originally awarded for each of the 24 illegally shared songs and the $80,000 later awarded in a retrial of the case after Judge Michael Davis said he erred in instructing the jury that simply making music available in KaZaA’s “shared folder” was the same as copyright infringement.
Continue reading »RIAA hack Matt Oppenheim ‘charm offensive’
Joel Tenenbaum, 25, used to be just a Boston University graduate student looking forward to life as a doctor of physics —- once he’d won his degree. Unfortunately, though, he loves music. In one of Not-So-Golden-Oldie Harry Rodger Webb’s early hits, he sings, “I’ve got a handful of songs to sell ya”.
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