Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Defendant moves to amend answer in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum

In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the defendant has made a motion for leave to amend his answer.

The proposed amended answer contains only a single affirmative defense, fair use.

Motion for leave to file second amended answer
Proposed second amended answer

[Ed. note. It would seem that the proposed amended answer omits at least several affirmative defenses which might have been included, such as (a) innocent infringement, (b) unconstitutionality under the Due Process clause, (c) unclean hands, (d) copyright misuse, (e) waiver and estoppel, and (f) inability to collect statutory damages for recordings whose registration effective date was subsequent to defendant's commencement of operating an "online media distribution system" (not technically an affirmative defense but something which be included as one), etc. -R.B.]

Commentary & discussion:

ZDNet





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

2 comments:

raybeckerman said...

Comment rejected because it made incorrect assumptions about how trials are conducted. The defendant's lawyer will not be questioning the jurors, only witnesses.

Anonymous said...

I have no idea what the deleted comment said, but isn't it true that the lawyers submit questions for the judge to ask during voire dire?

(That's probably not what they're thinking of, but I remember getting questioned during jury duty and I don't think the judge wrote the questions.)