Wednesday, February 18, 2009

RIAA defendant asks US DOJ to intervene in support of unconstitutionality defense, in SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum

In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the defendant has asked the United States Department of Justice to intervene on his behalf "to save the constitutionality of Section 504(c) by interpreting its damage provision for willful infringement to apply only to commercial infringers."

February 13, 2009, Letter of Charles Nesson to Solicitor General

[Ed. note. This was a very ill-considered letter. (a) For the life of me, I can't understand why the letter is limited to "willful" infringement. That is like conceding that $750 to $30,000 is OK. (?!) (b) Neither can I fathom why the letter concedes that statutory damages of 450,000 times the actual damages would be okay if the defendant were a business? (!?) A letter like this one could do more harm than good. I don't think I want to watch the oral argument in SONY v. Tenenbaum. -R.B.]



Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player

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