TRIAL DAY 3
Today’s trial put the following witnesses on the stand:
- – Antonio Franko, Joel’s high school friend
- – Dr. Doug Jacobson, a technology expert from Iowa State University
- – JoAn Cho, Attorney for Universal Music Group
- – Stan Liebowitz, Economist and Professor from UT
Details can be seen here.
Some of the highlights:
- The most amazing moment would be if Trent Reznor, the Nine Inch Nails front man, came barging through the courtroom doors and asked the music industry to stop suing Joel for his music (which they are). Much of the music Joel is being accused of file-sharing is alternative with sc**w-the-man type lyrics. And yet, it’s the man who is suing the individual. Oh, the irony.
- Dr. Jacobson, technology computer science expert, has never been spoofed or rick rolled. The only question is: which internet is *he* on? He has also been paid $100,000+ for his work in these file-sharing cases.
- To Dr. Jacobson: “Have you ever examined the mediasentry software?” Answer: “Well, no.” “Does software operate perfectly 100% of the time?” Answer: “I’m not sure.”
- Cho: “There’s Garbage on this page.” Attorney: “Like trash?” Cho: “No, Like the band.”
- Nesson: “Is the reason for these lawsuits to teach people a lesson?” Cho: “Yes.”
- Professor Liebowitz: “File-sharing is the sole reason for the precipitous decline in record sales.”
- Professor Liebowitz: “It is impossible to know the effect of a single file-sharer.”
Tomorrow we resume with cross-examination of Professor Liebowitz. And Joel takes the stand in the afternoon.
hah when i read your first highlight i didn’t catch the “would be”, doh!
From Ben’s most recent post on arstech it seems the writing is on the wall I don’t know how much they are going to stick you for but I hope they go easy..
Professor Liebowitz: “File-sharing is the sole reason for the precipitous decline in record sales.”
Preposterous. The music industry has failed to properly capitalize on new technologies, and they’re blaming you for their failure, Joel. Stick it to them.
You must mention at some point how in the last years we all have less time to do one thing and a lot more options to be entertained as one cause for the drop in music sales:Internet ,TV (and many more music channels),game consoles and ofc all the other reasons like price,DRM, independent studios/artists and combat the idea that artists suffer since they don’t get anything from CDs anyway,and the “pirates” do go to concerts and do buy merchandising..
Sorry i know i’m most likely saying things you already know very well but i can’t help myself,i have to say at least a little every now and then since i can’t help in any other way.
Professor Liebowitz: “It is impossible to know the effect of a single file-sharer.”
Especially when the downloading user would just pull from someone else in the file cloud if said single file-sharer did not exist.
It could have been me, so thank you ever so sincerely for taking my battle and fighting it so valiantly.
Be Happy!
Richard Stallman has thrown the weight of his moral authority behind your case. He points to your story in The Guardian and says, “Joel Tanenbaum writes about being sued by the RIAA for 4 million dollars for sharing music. Sharing is not wrong; to stop people from sharing is wrong.”
I’m sorry for the tremendous harassment and disruption the RIAA has created for you and 40,000 other people. This is judicial extortion and an organized crime. It is extortion because they are not interested in recouping actual losses. It is a crime because they threaten the entire community and prevent people from doing what is natural and right. Billions of dollars are spent convincing people what the music industry does is right, but it does not stand up to practice and thought. The industry has declared war on their biggest fans and promoters, they should be ashamed of themselves. Music is supposed to be a unifying and fun thing. The recording industry has turned it into a life threatening toxin that sane people would purge from their computers. Surely we can build a healtheir culture than that.
You know, a candy bar costs about $1 too. How about every smarmy little teenager who steals a Twix from the local gas station pays $50,000 for it in return? Of course not. The RIAA is a greedy corporation that’s butthurt no one wants to pay $20 for a CD with one good song on it anymore.
When Google start to let “Pro-Am” musicians to upload their music for free, let people rank the uploaded music (so the best floats to the top), we will find out that with modern technologies, the difference between Nine Inch Nails and Eight Inches Nails is actually, a lot less than an inch.
At that point, faced by the implosion of their Industry, the RIAA will massively embrace the digital age & prices will drop dramatically when competing with 90% as good “free” music (for bands that just love their music & want to be popular enough to win gigs & score concerts).
The future is soon - within the next 3 years for sure…
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