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Category Archives: Copyright Law

$.70 a Song

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Joel Tenenbaum, BU’s own music pirate found liable last summer for copyright infringement in a case that attracted considerable media attention, is in the news again.  A federal court jury ordered Tenenbaum to pay $675,000 in damages to copyright holders for downloading 30 songs.  That’s $22,500 a song.   Tenenbaum’s pro bono lawyer Charlie Nesson [...]

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Treaty Draft Makes ISPs Liable for Illegal Content

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

PC World reports that a draft treaty leaked from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks would make ISPs liable for civil damages for user-generated uploads and downloads of copyrighted content.  According to PC World, the draft treaty would require ISPs to take affirmative steps, such as terminating violators’ accounts, to avoid being liable for their users’ [...]

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And Yet Again

Sunday, January 31, 2010

In 2007 RIAA v Jammie Thomas-Rasset (she was just Jammie Thomas then) resulted in a jury verdict and damages of $222,000 in favor of the RIAA.  A few months later the trial judge had second thoughts about his instructions to the jury and ordered a new trial.  In 2009 RIAA v Jammie Thomas-Rasset II:  Oops [...]

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RIAA Damages Reduced

Monday, January 25, 2010

Jammie Thomas-Rassert of Minnesota was the first defendant in an RIAA music-piracy lawsuit to go to trial.  She lost big, appealed, the trial judge decided he mis-instructed the jury on the law and ordered a new trial, she lost again, although even bigger–$1.92 million–and appealed again.   A federal judge just reduced the “shocking” damage award [...]

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Deja Vu

Sunday, December 13, 2009

A story in yesterday’s NY Times addressed the battle between backlisted authors and book publishers, focusing on the efforts of William Styron’s heirs  (Styron wrote The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie’s Choice, among others) to license e-book versions of his works.  Random House, which published Styron’s earlier works, said through a spokesman “that authors [...]

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Copyright Enforcement Run Amok

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Apology for singing shop worker:  The agency responsible for collecting copyright royalties in Scotland warned Sandra Burt, a food-store employee, to stop singing while she worked or face thousands of pounds in fines.  First the Performing Rights Society notified the store it must have a license “to play a radio within earshot of customers.”  The [...]

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Tenenbaum Postscript

Friday, October 2, 2009

From Ars Technica:  Massachusetts federal district court judge Nancy Gertner, who presided in the RIAA file-sharing trial of Boston University graduate student Joel Tenenbaum, this week entered default judgments in some file-sharing cases.  Judge Gertner awarded the RIAA statutory damages of $750 per downloaded song, or about $7,500 for each of the defendants who failed [...]

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