$675k Verdict Against File Sharing Student Upheld

These laws make perfect sense for their intended use, which was to punish businesses that monetarily infringe on the copyrights of other businesses. There needs to be a new set of laws created for non-commercial, non-business infringement.
 
the fact you can go out -- get drunk -- and plow into a family van filled with kids, killing a few of them, and get LESS of a harsh sentence, says a lot about how messed up this country is.

I could rob a bank, shoot someone in the legs, take 50,000 dollars in cash, and have less of an overall life impact than this judgement.
 
I don't blame the jury.

They see the data that the Lawyers want them to see.

Anyone think Sony was represented by a single $100k/yr lawyer? I would guess Sony put way over a million into this case.

Their goal was not to win the case, it was to scare the public.
 
MetalX said:
*shrugs*

*keeps seeding albums*
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Thanks for seeding. It helps me out with faster downloads!

Here's my beef -

I'm going to pick on one of my favorite companies, Microsoft. In 2012, they had revenue of ~73 Billion dollars. They were hit with a $290 million dollar fine. So, the individual has to pay 1/2 of his lifetime earnings (maybe more, maybe less depending on career). Microsoft has to pay .3% (rough estimate in my head) of annual revenue? This guy is paying some 600%+ of his annual revenue.

Justice. 'Merica style.
 
rudy said:
You guys grow up a little.

When you punish a thief you have to punish them for MORE than they actually took such that they realize it was not worth it to break the law. Otherwise what reason do they have not to simply steal as much as they can then only pay back what they are caught with?

Second in most cases the person probably fought something they should have just settled for pennies on the dollar out of court. Don't fight it and drive up the lawer costs etc... If you took it then man up. You start racking up time in court and they keep increasing the costs and you can bet they are going to go after those costs.

Then lets throw in some of the other realities, he only stole 30 songs right? Oh really? I am sure someone who knows how to bit torrent and was caught, was caught on their first ever day using it, right? lol. No he has probably stolen way more than that this is just the 30 songs they could clearly prove after they threw out everything else for various reasons.

Also lay off the jury, a jury does not determine a sentence, it is not their job to decide to free someone from guilt simply because they don't agree with the sentence. Should a juror free a murderer because they don't believe in the death penalty? If you guys seriously think that its up to the jury to do that then go back to the 1900s when jurors would free a white man just because he killed a black man, because that is very much the message you are getting across if you think that a jury should be freeing people simply because of their personal belief on an issue.

Finally don't forget to preorder your PS4 everyone SONY always has you the customers best interest at hand. And unlike MS they are not a money grubbing corporation they don't even care about money ha.
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Please jump off of Mount Stupid. Your blatant ignorance and incompetence at comprehending the issue is appaling.
 
rudy said:
You guys grow up a little.

When you punish a thief you have to punish them for MORE than they actually took such that they realize it was not worth it to break the law. Otherwise what reason do they have not to simply steal as much as they can then only pay back what they are caught with?
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Yes, this is true, however you don't punish them by an unfair amount. This along the lines of chopping off ones hand for stealing something. There's a reason we consider ourselves more evolved than those in the Middle East.

Also we're not punishing a thief, if we were we'd be having a criminal trial.

Second in most cases the person probably fought something they should have just settled for pennies on the dollar out of court. Don't fight it and drive up the lawer costs etc... If you took it then man up. You start racking up time in court and they keep increasing the costs and you can bet they are going to go after those costs.
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That's right, the next time random lawyer sends you lawyer saying "pay $5000 to settle right now or the cost will sky rocket if it goes to court" you should always roll over and die!

Then lets throw in some of the other realities, he only stole 30 songs right? Oh really? I am sure someone who knows how to bit torrent and was caught, was caught on their first ever day using it, right? lol. No he has probably stolen way more than that this is just the 30 songs they could clearly prove after they threw out everything else for various reasons.
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And in the civilized world again do we punish someone based upon what he MAY have done? Or do we require evidence of what he has done?

Also lay off the jury, a jury does not determine a sentence, it is not their job to decide to free someone from guilt simply because they don't agree with the sentence. Should a juror free a murderer because they don't believe in the death penalty? If you guys seriously think that its up to the jury to do that then go back to the 1900s when jurors would free a white man just because he killed a black man, because that is very much the message you are getting across if you think that a jury should be freeing people simply because of their personal belief on an issue.
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And in this case a jury did not determine a sentence, they determined a monetary amount (well ok another jury did, this one just upheld the amount) and believe it or not, that is exactly what their job is to do. The final power rests in the jury's hands, that's kind of one of those fundamental rights bestowed on juries so that power hungry judges don't do whatever the fuck they want.

Your example of freeing a murderer is quite stupid to be frank. A jury doesn't free a murderer because they disagree with the death penalty they simply make sure the death penalty is not the punishment.

And yeah it is absolutely the jury's job to prevent laws which they believe are unjust from happening, and they have every power to do so. It's up to the lawyers to make sure they don't get anyone on the jury who's smart enough to know they can do that

.
Finally don't forget to preorder your PS4 everyone SONY always has you the customers best interest at hand. And unlike MS they are not a money grubbing corporation they don't even care about money ha.
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Did you seriously turn this rant into a PS4 fanboi spam?
 
damicatz said:
The jurors should be named and shamed.
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You should blame the lawyer for the defense because they allowed the prosecution to hand pick this jury, otherwise we wouldn't be witnessing such absurdity. Sadly, we see this kind of manipulation of the justice system all the time...
 
Let's see here...my cousin shoplifted a 5870 ($350) and 2TB ($300) hard drive from Fry's a few years ago. His punishment? $1,000 fine and 2 years probation. Now he got two felony charges but as a first offender he was able to get the felony charges expunged after he was off probation...so basically $1,000 and 2 years probation. He got to keep the stuff he stole as well.

Downloading of 30 songs ($30) = $600,000+ dollars? Yeah...that seems totally fair. Punishment CERTAINLY fits the crime! :rolleyes:
 
I think the difference according to the article was that he also shared songs. That is likely why he got hit with such a stiff penalty versus just downloading songs for personal use. When you actively engage in distributing IP, the game changes a bit.

Bankruptcy would likely do nothing as legal judgements cannot usually be absolved in the way debts can.

Personally, I would have just thrown the little sucker in jail for a week, fined him $5000 and called it a day as this type of financial penalty is going to ruin him for life. Have a legal judgement against you will totally ruin your credit and ability to obtain credit.
 
damicatz said:
The jurors should be named and shamed.
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Depends on the law. Awards may be pre-determined and the jury may only be allowed to find for or against the plantiff. Normally they would have a say but there's so much copyright law the award portion may have been taken away from them.
 
He did kind of bring this on himself though ... he admitted doing it AND he distributed the songs on the internet (not just downloading them for personal use) ... he also tried to invalidate the copyright law for his defense ... the maximum fine could have been 4.5 million and the trial judge did reduce the jury's verdict to 67,000 (but the appeals court restored it) ... luckily Sony will have all that PS4 preorder money too to cover them when he defaults on the payment ;)
 
dgz said:
This is outrageous. 22k for a fucking song, man. I wish all responsible for this verdict slow and painful death. Fucking scumbags.
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Can we get $22k damage against the RIAA per song when they infringe against an artist?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Yes, this is true, however you don't punish them by an unfair amount. This along the lines of chopping off ones hand for stealing something. There's a reason we consider ourselves more evolved than those in the Middle East.

Also we're not punishing a thief, if we were we'd be having a criminal trial.


That's right, the next time random lawyer sends you lawyer saying "pay $5000 to settle right now or the cost will sky rocket if it goes to court" you should always roll over and die!


And in the civilized world again do we punish someone based upon what he MAY have done? Or do we require evidence of what he has done?


And in this case a jury did not determine a sentence, they determined a monetary amount (well ok another jury did, this one just upheld the amount) and believe it or not, that is exactly what their job is to do. The final power rests in the jury's hands, that's kind of one of those fundamental rights bestowed on juries so that power hungry judges don't do whatever the fuck they want.

Your example of freeing a murderer is quite stupid to be frank. A jury doesn't free a murderer because they disagree with the death penalty they simply make sure the death penalty is not the punishment.

And yeah it is absolutely the jury's job to prevent laws which they believe are unjust from happening, and they have every power to do so. It's up to the lawyers to make sure they don't get anyone on the jury who's smart enough to know they can do that


Did you seriously turn this rant into a PS4 fanboi spam?
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I won't say that I think 675k is fair, but I will say that it needs to be a lot more than what the clowns around here are suggesting. How much do you think it costs for the lawyers to pursue a case like this? The longer he dragged it out the worse it got.

As for a random lawyer sending a request for 5000, clearly they found him guilty, reasonably he probably was. And that's the difference when a cop pulls me over for speeding I say sorry and suck it up, this guy is the kind of guy who tries to argue, even though he did speed. If a lawyer goes after me and I really did do it I would go contact him back and say how about for $500 we settle, guess what he's probably going to do it, even if I go to court I will probably just plead guilty say I am very very sorry and guess what the judge isn't going to hand me a 675k sentence if I do that.

As for the jury, once again I say a jury is not suppose to craft and judge on law, can they do this yes, but realistically are they? Nope because no lawyer is ever going to let that kind of a juror get into the jury. So the only way he gets in is if he lies about his convictions on the matter and I would imagine what could be a problem for the entire case in the long run. When it came to light he was going to pardon the guy no matter what.

The major problem here is people making completely ridiculous comparisons, like JoeUser and his shoplifting brother, Joe, did your brother fight and appeal his way through multiple courts? Nope I bet he did what any reasonable person would do and plea bargained a reasonable deal. So how is that at all comparable? Why would anyone compare a very trivial case to one this extreme?

http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking3/Outrageous.html

There's a link for a guy who got 50 years for stealing. Now to me it makes 675k for MP3s look like a light sentence. If we want to just compare all sorts of random events we can find plenty of horrible punishments for just about any crime.

Best thing for this guy to do was simple, plead guilty and get on with his life right away. Instead he tried to test the waters and that was a risk he knowingly took and it failed.
 
Why not up the fine to 1 gazillion dollars? Both fines would have an equal chance of getting paid.
 
To be honest they should have a hard limit.. Something like 3-5x the face value of the item at the time it was pirated. (I'm not really a proponent for copyright, either). That way you infringe and yeah, you pay 5 bucks. It blows to pay 5x what something ACTUALLY would cost.

They get a bit of compensation for you being a dick and it would still easily deter people from doing it. Cap it out at something like 3-5,000. Why? Because they'd have a lot more cases and a lot less people would do it.


Or they could just drop prices to I don't know.. fucking reasonable. Media is getting ridiculous, some formats we can get at reasonable prices and the rest is so absurdly expensive it's obnoxious to even consider.
 
Weenis said:
To be honest they should have a hard limit.. Something like 3-5x the face value of the item at the time it was pirated. (I'm not really a proponent for copyright, either). That way you infringe and yeah, you pay 5 bucks. It blows to pay 5x what something ACTUALLY would cost.

They get a bit of compensation for you being a dick and it would still easily deter people from doing it. Cap it out at something like 3-5,000. Why? Because they'd have a lot more cases and a lot less people would do it.


Or they could just drop prices to I don't know.. fucking reasonable. Media is getting ridiculous, some formats we can get at reasonable prices and the rest is so absurdly expensive it's obnoxious to even consider.
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They actually asked him for $3500 total in 2003 when this whole episode started ... it was because he declined and decided to fight this that it escalated ... as I said, he did instigate much of this himself ;)
 
Dont worry about the kid. Its a civil judgement and he will pay the $1000 for a bankruptcy lawyer and get the judgement dismissed. Of course he has a bankruptcy on his credit, but shit happens.
 
Qinsp said:
Judge: Rya W. Zobel

Decision: http://beckermanlegal.com/Lawyer_Copyright_Internet_Law/sony_tenenbaum_120823Decision.pdf
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She is only the most recent judge assigned to this ... this whole proceeding has been going for four years ... the original judge actually reduced the award to 67,000 but the appeals court (not either of the trial judges) overturned this and returned the amount to the original 675,000 ... the defendant was also originally asked for $3500 but he declined and decided to try and fight this, so he did bring down much of this on himself due to this own agenda ;)
 
When are you Americans going to take back your country from the ruthless greedy corporations that have hijacked it? Home of the free my ass.:mad:
 
Ah, yes. America; land of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. To paraphrase one of the greedy GMC chairmen, I'm sure Sony stockholders feel that 'what's good for Sony is good for America'.
 
freeloader1969 said:
When are you Americans going to take back your country from the ruthless greedy corporations that have hijacked it? Home of the free my ass.:mad:
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Never. As painful as it is to type this the America everyone once knew is dead.
 
nightfly said:
Ah, yes. America; land of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. To paraphrase one of the greedy GMC chairmen, I'm sure Sony stockholders feel that 'what's good for Sony is good for America'.
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and how many of us don't own anything built by a corporation, how many of us work for corporations, how many of us have family or friends who work or depend on corporations ;)

Although corporations can go overboard, this case originated from 2003 when the online music business was just starting up ... the defendant refused to settle, didn't deny he willfully distributed copyrighted materials, and attempted to overturn the entire copyright system as his defense ... although this got out of hand he instigated for his own agenda as much as the music companies did ... if he had paid the initial fine of $3500 he wouldn't be on the hook for $675,000 ... he thought he could run with the big dogs when he should have stayed on the porch :cool:
 
LeninGHOLA said:
How about $500 fine and a week in jail?
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I could live with that. But the "jail" would be a "media consumption" reform class. They would teach you in a series of videos and powerpoints how to legally buy music, and the only approved ways of sharing it (Don't!). You know, real brain washing stuff.
 
rudy said:
I won't say that I think 675k is fair, but I will say that it needs to be a lot more than what the clowns around here are suggesting. How much do you think it costs for the lawyers to pursue a case like this? The longer he dragged it out the worse it got.
..
Best thing for this guy to do was simple, plead guilty and get on with his life right away. Instead he tried to test the waters and that was a risk he knowingly took and it failed.
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It doesn't matter how much it costs in lawyer fees. That's completely irrelevant. If you think it's relevant, then that means you think that penalties and court fines should always be correlated to lawyer costs. So, if he didn't have a lawyer he should be liable for nothing, right?

Or if Sony's lawyer costs were $5 million, do you think that $6 million would be fair? After all, the fines should cover lawyer fees.

So he didn't plead guilty. Do you really think that $22k per song is NOT cruel & unusual ?
Seriously. Get over your "I am more moral than thou" complex.
 
freeloader1969 said:
When are you Americans going to take back your country from the ruthless greedy corporations that have hijacked it? Home of the free my ass.:mad:
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Our last Presidential election confirmed we are a nation of retards. Seriously doubt we could take back a hot fog stand.
 
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