Corrections and Clarifications
Much ink has been spilled about Joel’s story and Friday’s verdict, and while journalists aim to be neutral, there are some sound bites floating around that we would like to clarify.
MYTH: Joel finally admitted that he thinks artists should be paid.
JOEL: Anyone in court that day or remotely following the case knows that I’ve been adamant about this the entire time, and it was in fact one of the messages I wanted to convey on the witness stand, how much artists give. Find a quote where I say “artists shouldn’t get paid.” There isn’t one. Unfortunately, artists have never seen one cent benefit from the RIAA’s litigation campaign.
MYTH CLARIFICATION: Joel lied.
JOEL: I frantically gave some quick answers denying, that I corrected later. In deposition, I was trying to be as minimalist as possible and apparently didn’t do as well as a trial lawyer could have.
MYTH: Joel demanded thousands of dollars from the labels.
TRUTH: The day was September 25, 2008 and it was my first deposition. Professor Nesson had just taken up my case that same month. We walked into the conference room on the 25th floor of the sleek skyscraper One Boston Place. Matt Oppenheim opened, “What’s it going to take to end all this?” Nesson, ever the poker player, replied, “What would you say?” Oppenheim: “12 thousand dollars.” Nesson reflected on this, before accepting it. “Yes, I think if you pay us 12 thousand dollars, that would be fair.”
I smiled. It was meant as a joke, plain to anyone there. Of course, that might be my spin so I invite anyone reading to listen to the deposition itself, which Nesson has posted to his blog. I’d recommend listening soon because Oppenheim has threatened Nesson with sanctions if he won’t destroy the recording. Keep that in mind when you read, “Duckworth said that Tenenbaum neglected to mention that he demanded thousands of dollars from the labels…”
MYTH: Taking the stand did not help me.
TRUTH : In a way, my whole defense was me on the stand. I think the jury had a chance to pass a verdict on two very different people: (1) a lying blaming individual who ignores laws who, honestly, I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley and (2) the guy they saw on the stand. And I have to think that awarding 6/7 toward the minimum, that they chose the guy they saw. From a legal standpoint it was very incriminating but I got to say what I came to say.
Just more and more disingenuous.
-clearly, no one benefits from riaa’s litigation campaign. But that has nothing to do with whether artists get paid. They get paid when people buy their music. They don’t get paid when people take it without paying. It couldn’t be simpler and this idea that because “joel never said artists shouldn’t get paid” that makes not paying for music ok.
- joel gave some “quick” “minimalist” answers. If they’re under oath and not true, they’re lies. Plain and simple.
-joel’s settlement demand was a “joke.” Super. But that just shows how lightly he took the whole process. It’s a federal court proceeding. Show some respect.
Really, if you want to get the law overturned, great. If you want to draw attention to an unjust system, super. But do so with integrity.
Joel gave ‘quick’ ‘ minimalist’ answers you say? He was instructed to give simple answers so he would not be grilled by the RIAA as much. When you are in a courtroom being interrogated for 9 hours straight by several people then you would make quick responses as well. You do not have any heart to say these things. Joel says it the way it is. The RIAA’s goal from all along was to simply ‘use him by teaching a lesson to the world of music lovers.
As for verdict, Joel will be paying off this money for the rest of his life, all of his hard earned money wasted for the music that he and many people downloaded. The question is, why doesn’t the RIAA go after Kazaa, Limewire and those other smaller downloading music companies? To set an example, yes, something they could not admit to. And even if they have ….there will always be downloading of music.
What Joel has done is with the most integrity, he went to court to show people to stand strong against those big corporations….let’s hope they never go against the ‘little people’ again.
WAKE UP FACEBONE
our parents taught us that sharing was the right thing to do,that hasnt changed and if it werent for dubbing,borrowing,copying there would be alot less artists out there right now.legislating against sharing is dead before it starts.
I agree in part with facebone. Joel lied. Now he’s facing up to the problem after he realized how deep he was. And music should be free to share with the world? That’s not his decision. It’s the decision of the artists. The RIAA exists because artists pay them a fee to stop copyrighting. I’m not sure why that always gets left out. I’m guessing that is why Joel is only being charged for 30 songs. These 30 songs/artists are paying the RIAA to stop pirating of their music. And yes, $675,000 is a bit of a large wake-up call. Is this unfair? I don’t know. Shouldn’t Joel take responsibility for his actions?
The RIAA doesn’t go after Kazaa because Kazaa, Limewire and other companies do not share the music. They simply provide the application. The application in itself is harmless and an excellent resource for file sharing. The use of the application has itself been twisted into sharing pirated files. However, the courts have gone after companies that promote their software as music sharing software and stand to gain profits off users that buy the software specifically for this purpose. This P2P software is extremely powerful as lately realized by video streamers like cnn.com. Why put all the load on CNN when you can load balance with the world?
In my opinion, bottom line is that Joel knew he was music sharing and knew that it was illegal. For those of you that feel strongly that music sharing should be legal, do you think sharing movies should also be legal? If so, where does it stop? And if users want to pick and choose the songs they listen to, subscribe to Pandora. It’s free and you listen to what you want.
Rob: our parents didn’t teach us that it’s OK to walk into a store, or into a home and take whatever you want. Joel: “minimalist answers”? You lied. Take responsbility for telling an untruth.
this nonsense would end today if the record labels had to be half as honest or fair to the artists as they expect joel to be towards the labels.
i’m against piracy- not for moral reasons, for practical ones. every time you copy a song under riaa (meaning above all, warner music group and emi) jurisdiction, the record companies use that the same way politicians use tragedies to push their agendas. rather than give them a tool, i’d rather see everyone abandon riaa label music and trade in cc licensed music that by nature decriminalizes sharing.
sadly that is far too much to ask of everyone.
but for a growing number of people it is a possibility. some people will insist on civil disobedience- i can hardly argue with them. i like boycotts, and a boycott of the riaa without piracy is an even greater symbol than a boycott with piracy that benefits the labels one way or another. cc licensed music keeps growing and as far as i can see, collecting any other kind of music (even legally) is just too much of a liability- no thanks!
The guy broke the law with full awareness. Even those practicing civil disobedience own up to it and take the consequences. The objective of civil disobedience is to persuade the public at large that a law is immoral. And the civil disobeyer should not benefit from his violation. In this case, Mr. Tenenbaum did benefit from his violation: he gained credibility with his fellow pirates, which doubtless enabled him to download more of their pirated music.
Don’t get me wrong: I despise the record companies for overcharging their customers for so many years. So, I simply don’t purchase much music. But I can’t justify pirating music, especially when it involves distributing music illegally (Sorry, but it’s hard to call this “sharing”).
Piracy is not equal stealing. If you go to a shop and take things without paying they are no longer there. If you copy something, the thing is still there and still can be sold. However you deprived the seller of potential customer(s) (you or people you share the item with).
Copyright law is outdated and misused in these cases, where individual has no chance against legal machinery to get verdict corresponding to the damage. What value is to destroy a few individuals(aka making them exemplary) in order to keep rigid and inflexible companies to stay afloat? The only long-term solution is to change the law or make the law irrelevant (hopefully with technology progress record companies as we know them will be just a distant cry from the past).
I hope this *verdict* will be another nail into coffin of these *companies*. Let live music!
The RIAA exists because artists pay them a fee to stop copyrighting.
This is not true. The artists do not pay them the fee. The record companies do. And will the artists get paid if someone buys the CD? Look at major label recording contracts and see how long it takes and what has to be paid first before the artists get any money. It is almost slavery and definitely highway robbery.
I applaud Joel for fighting this. Major labels are loan sharks and scum.
MaR: The RIAA takes actions like this in order to deter others from following the misguided example of Mr. Tenenbaum. It works.
I agree that copyright law should be amended. But piracy is not an effective way to do it. Why? Pirates benefit from their actions.
I’d like to see a boycott of one or two record labels — or five or six bands. Don’t buy their music, even as legal MP3s. And don’t pirate them. Boycott concerts with these performers. Spread the word. Even a short-term boycott would get the attention of the record labels, whose revenues are already declining.
tubejay, the course you ask is far to great a price for society to pay. It may be practical to avoid RIAA music but it is also unjust. Why should people surrender the entire history of recorded music? Owning and sharing RIAA music might ruin you, as it has ruined Joel, but surrendering it means surrendering your cultural heritage. Culture should not have owners.
Twitter, Fashion is part of our culture. Should anyone be able to knock-off any design they please? So is automotive design. Architecture. And product and industrial design. Even certain patented processed foods like breakfast cereals. They are all part of our great collective culture and protected ip. Perhaps you’d suggest a big, permanent mash-up clusterfuck for everyone with no property and no compensation for ANYone?
It’s all culture, right? Perhaps “no property” is what Free Speech means to you. In that case, I’d like to live in your house, thank you.
Oh, I know. Maybe we can just tax everyone to their knees then distribute the taxes to live on. That would be a fine improvement. One man’s culture is another man’s merchandise, and merchandise should not have owners.
Its plain simple:
If you get someone into court and ask for compensation, is because you lost money with the actions of that one person.
Now the main theme of the song here is:
Artists are loosing money because someone did not pay for the music aswell as record companies.
This means that if RIAA is asking for compensation, where does the money go?
I mean, RIAA might have a righteous will to punish downloaders and that would be fine.
But moraly all they can ask is years of prison, because RIAA is not selling media.
If they argument that they are working in behalf of all records industry, that means that they would have to distribute the money among record companies.
Now record companies earn money from the music or other media they sell.Now whos paying the musicians? So? Who is realy stealing? Or earning at the cost of other work without compensation?
AND YOU SAY THAT IT IS NOT MPORTANT IF MUSICIANS ARE GIVEN THE MONEY OF COMPENSATION????
Looks like the ones who serve as excuses for extorsion of some individuals (downloaders) are the ones who are extorted twice (downloaders and record companies or their comon representatives)
As for comercial mp3’s, its a ripoff to pay as much or more for a music compressd in a lossy format comparing to a whole CD. I mean, If I buy a CD and divide the price by the musics a get a better price per music recorde at 44khz 16bit stereo than for an online legal MP3 at 128 bit format. Who can tell me how much an artist receives for an online sale? OH! That was not on the contract? Hummm….
“The RIAA exists because artists pay them a fee to stop copyrighting”
Wrong. In fact, the only thing more incorrect than this is any radical interpretation of theology. At least the MPAA had the common sense not to claim that movie piracy was hurting the actors financially.
The RIAA only exists because it is paid by the recording companies to exist. EMI recently threatened to pull out of the RIAA because their fees were too high. All major recording companies threatened legal action against the RIAA for not handing over any of the money it has received from ’settlements’ thus far. Accordingly, the RIAA cut its fees otherwise it would have gone out of business. So far, none of the money paid has made it anywhere near any of the artists it claims in court to represent.
RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America. Nowhere does it refer to the artists themselves. At best, it only ever says it represents artists when trying to make an emotive argument to 12 people that were either too stupid to get out of jury duty or just wanted a bit of time away from their jobs. Every single person that had an opinion on file-sharing was excluded from the jury. Who better to make an informed decision and set some of the most important case law to the current generation than 12 people that have no idea what is being discussed or at stake?
There’s so much more to this than just movies and music. Paintings have been stolen (actually stolen, not just copyright-infringed) and other works of art copied for centuries. The invention of the printing press took power from the church and gave it to the people up until the governments of the world took it back and handed it to the media companies.
The US’ entire industrialisation process was founded on stealing the ideas and methods from Europe and reproducing them at a lower cost. Hypocritical much?
The RIAA is the best thing that ever happened to both consumers and the record companies. iTunes is achieving insane sales results by not being associated with the RIAA. The cost of music is now both more realistic and affordable. There’s no need to buy a CD with 2 good songs on it….and for those people that use this to support filesharing I’d ask you to look up albums from the mid-late 80’s.
Aside from compilation albums like “1982 - With A Bullet” most albums had 8-10 songs at best so you paid more money for less content with a higher percentage of quality. Confused? You should be. It’s what supported the music industry for so long.
Co-incidentally, all companies are fighting for their lives against copyright infringement and intellectual property and it’s only going to get worse. The 3D printers used by industrial designers to prototype things such as shoes are now becoming more available to consumers. Just waiting for the day that people can download a design from the web, make their own shoes from a Nike design and there not be any difference between them. All Nike, in this example, has to do is find a way (and quickly) to sell the design and not the shoe or it too will need an RIAA.
I find it amazing how many people claim that illegal file sharing is justified because big record companies are greedy and overcharge customers while underpaying artists. At least be honest guys, you are illegally downloading songs whether they come from big labels, small labels, independent labels or simply recorded in someone’s bedroom. This isn’t an attack on capitalism, globalisation or corporate greed. It’s about getting something for free and in the process ripping off musicians, songwriters, sound engineers and session musos.
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