[FC-discuss] Joel Faces the Bogus RIAA Music Today

[Seth Johnson]

As I have mentioned in the past, I hope that Nesson makes reference to
the legislative and broader debate preceding the enactment of the fair
use statute in the United States, to lay the basis for his argument. 
That's where the ground would have to be for the kind of case he said
he wanted to present, though he now apparently has to do this without
specifically appealing to fair use as such.  That's because the judge
disallowed that argument jsut before the case began.  Note that
Tennenbaum does not deny actually doing the things that are the
subject of the charges against him.

My sense is that the fact that the argument was barred in this case
(and that Nesson did not waver in his pressing for it) will only
result in that fact being thrown into relief by this case.  Sometimes
the world can only realize it's crazy after its claims for what is
crazy are made the specific question.  Nesson may have already done us
all the greatest favor he could have rendered unto us by the vehicle
of this case, regardless of its outcome.


Seth


Seth Johnson wrote:
> 
> (Please do all you can to support Joel Tennenbaum.  Even if you fear
> the arguments being presented, or you presume that he's going down.
> Whatever the result, his legal team is raising some serious stakes,
> and Joel has chosen to trust them.  What he's confronting affects us
> all, and the outcome will affect us all as well.  -- Seth)
> 
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jul/27/filesharing-music-industry
> 
> How it Feels to be Sued for $4.5 Million
> 
> Joel Tenebaum and his legal team
> 
> When I contemplate the above sum, I have to remind myself what I'm
> being charged with. Investment fraud? An attack against the
> government? No. I shared music. And refused to cave
> 
> To a certain extent, I'm afraid to write this. Though they've already
> seized my computer and copied my hard drive, I have no guarantee they
> won't do it again. For the past four years, they've been threatening
> me, making demands for trial, deposing my parents, sisters, friends,
> and myself twice – the first time for nine hours, the second for
> seven. I face up to $4.5m in fines and the last case like mine that
> went to trial had a jury verdict of $1.92m
> (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/19/illegal-filesharing-fine).
> 
> When I contemplate this, I have to remind myself what I'm being
> charged with. Investment fraud? Robbing a casino? A cyber-attack
> against the federal government? No. I shared music. And refused to
> cave.
> 
> No matter how many people I explain this to, the reaction is always
> the same: dumbfounded surprise and visceral indignance, both of which
> are a result of the amazing secrecy the Recording Industry Association
> of America (RIAA) has operated under. "How did they get you?" I'm
> asked. I explain that there are 40,000 people like me, being sued for
> the same thing, and we were picked from a pool of millions who shared
> music. And that's when a look appears on the face of whoever I'm
> talking to, the horrified "it could have been me!" look.
> 
> The reason this has remained so silent despite passionate opposition
> is that nearly all people settle. My story of becoming an exception
> started four years ago.
> 
> In 2005, my parents received a letter from Sony BMG, Warner, Atlantic
> Records, Arista Records, and UMG Records claiming "copyright
> infringement". They were given a number to call, which was their
> "settlement information line", a call centre staffed by operators who,
> we are emphatically told, are "not attorneys". The process of
> collecting money from these threats was so huge, they had set up a
> 1-800-DONT-SUE-ME-style call centre.
> 
> The operators did little more than ask how you would pay (they wanted
> $3,000, I believe) and repeated intimidating lawsuit statistics. I
> sent them a money order for $500, which they returned. I told them I
> couldn't pay any more. We discussed whether I might qualify for
> "financial hardship", and then I stopped hearing from them, which I
> didn't question. I graduated from college and began studying for my
> physics doctorate.
> 
> And then in August 2007, I came home from work to find a stack of
> papers, maybe 50 pages thick, sitting at the door to my apartment.
> That's when I found out what it was like to have possibly the most
> talented copyright lawyers in the business, bankrolled by
> multibillion-dollar corporations, throwing everything they had at
> someone who wanted to share Come As You Are with other Nirvana fans.
> 
> I had assumed that as an equal in a court of law in the United States,
> my story would be told and a just outcome would result. I discovered
> the sheer magnitude of obstacles in your way to get your say in court.
> And even if you get to trial, (which only one other person, Jammie
> Thomas Rasset, has done) you're still far from equal with the machine
> controlling 85% of commercial music in the US.
> 
> But to even start fighting assumes you (a) know what you're even being
> sued for and (b) have a concept of what grounds to fight it on. Most
> of the time you know nothing except for the huge stack of paper
> written in legalese that says you owe several thousand dollars and it
> will probably cost you more than that just to hire a lawyer. If you
> can find one.
> 
> I had frequent contact with one of their Colorado counsel. While she
> was impudent to the point of vicious ("Come on Joel, I think you did
> it"), I continued to use phrases like "I respect your position" and
> "we have a respectful difference of opinion". I have no record of this
> intimidation because the person in question made sure to keep contact
> restricted to phonecalls.
> 
> Every conversation consisted of her trying to get information out of
> me about my defense, telling me how much bigger the settlement would
> be if I didn't settle now. Shaken, I would call my mother, who was a
> state-paid lawyer in child custody cases, and ask her what to do. We
> blindly fired all kinds of motions at them. Eventually my mother
> became afraid to answer my calls, worried it would be about the case.
> For the court "settlement" I offered $5,250, which the RIAA declined,
> asking $10,500. I saw myself on a conveyor belt, being pulled
> inexorably toward the meshing of razor-sharp gears.
> 
> Then in summer 2008, I arrived home to find a letter addressed to me.
> The return address said "Harvard Law School". Curiously, I opened and
> read it. "My name is Charles Nesson, professor of Law at Harvard. I
> caught wind of your case," it said. "I can be of any assistance, don't
> hesitate to call." I called. Nesson picked up. I said, "Yes, you can
> be of assistance!" My mom drafted a letter to him, summarising where
> we were. The opening line read, "Dear Professor Godsend".
> 
> Since then I've learned that you don't have to accept phone contact
> from the RIAA lawyers, but could demand correspondence by mail. I've
> been deposed twice – for nine hours one day and for another seven a
> few weeks ago – where I was asked every irrelevant question about my
> life, cars that I owned, websites I've operated. The RIAA will try to
> denigrate this, saying I was only talking for seven hours and then
> five and a half, but I was stuck in their office the entire time. You
> think it makes any difference to me when I can't work?
> 
> My sisters, dad and mother have all been deposed. My high-school
> friends, friends of the family too. My computer's been seized and hard
> drive copied, and my parents and sister narrowly escaped the same fate
> for their computers. And the professor who supervises my teaching is
> continually frustrated with my need to have people cover for me, while
> my research in grad school is put on hold to deal with people whose
> full-time job is to keep an anvil over my head. I have to consider
> every unrelated thing I do in my private life in the event that I'm
> interrogated under oath about it. I wonder how I'll stand up in a
> courtroom for hours having litigators try to convince a jury of my
> guilt and the reprehensibility of my character.
> 
> But the support helps. I've had a great team of Nesson's students
> helping and the professor himself has been magnificent. Most of all,
> I'm touched by the warm messages of support from the people who've
> written in, Twittered, and Facebooked me (though I've been too
> paranoid to friend strangers lately). Best hopes to others dealing
> with the same: Brittany Kruger, Jammie Thomas, and the other 39,997 of
> us.
> 
> The trial starts today, 27 Monday July. Regrettably, it won't be
> webcast as we requested due to the RIAA's successful opposition, but
> we will tweet [http://twitter.com/joelfightsback] (with the hashtag
> #jfb) and blog as much as possible, and there is a website where you
> can follow us and learn more (http://www.joelfightsback.com/).

-- 

RIAA is the RISK!  Our NET is P2P!
http://www.nyfairuse.org/action/ftc

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

[CC] Counter-copyright: http://realmeasures.dyndns.org/cc

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