Intellectual Property Rights Holders Association Blog

Boston University graduate student, Joel Tenenbaum, was ordered to pay $675,000 to four record labels. Tenenbaum admitted to downloading and sharing music online. The Providence, RI native admitted that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The jury’s only objective was to determine the monetary damages to be rewarded to the record labels.

Under federal law, recording companies are entitled to $750-$30,000 for each infringement; however, fines can be up to $150,000 if a jury finds that the infringement was “willful.” The maximum fine in the Tenenbaum case was $4.5 million.

The jurors ordered the defendant to pay $22,500 for each incidence of a copyright infringement. Tenenbaum’s lawyer pleaded with the jury to award the minimum damages to “send a message” to the record industry. Tenenbaum explained how he was thankful and, “That to me sends a message of ‘We considered your side with some legitimacy…$4.5 million would have been, ‘We don’t buy it at all.’”

Charles Nesson, Tenenbaum’s lawyer and Harvard Law School Professor, did not agree with the jury’s verdict and plans on appealing the decision.

This year, internet service providers have agreed to work with the recording industry in hopes of defeating illegal file sharing. A senior vice president for Comcast, the nation’s second largest internet service provider, Joe Waz, has said that the company has issued 2 million notices (as of March, 2009) on behalf of copyright owners.

The notices are not a policy but rather a standard practice. In a statement, Comcast said, “Comcast, like other major ISPs, forwards notices of alleged infringement that we receive from music, movie, videogame, and other content owners to our customer… This is the same process we’ve had in place for years–nothing has changed. While we have always supported copyright holders in their efforts to reduce piracy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and continue to do so, we have no plans to test a so-called ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ policy.”

Waz made his statements while being part of a panel at the Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville. An AT&T executive also issued a statement at the same panel that it will also be cooperating with the RIAA by sending notices to customers as a trial program.

Comcast, however, did not state that it will cease customer’s service.

Beginning in September, a new anti-filesharing initiative is going to be underway. Called “Share-Do not Steal,” has the support of 1,750 copyright holders and 36 groups which include the record, movie, TV, and game industries. Furthermore, nearly 2,000 artists, musicians, and other copyright holders are in support of the initiative.

The campaign, which begins in Norway, has the hopes to force Norway’s political parties to show their intentions on unauthorized file-sharing. In a statement from the organizers, beginning with, “Legal file sharing is good. Illegal file sharing is theft,” further goes on to say “Currently the systematic and organized piracy of digital media is carried out to the extent that the very existence of the basis for artists, composers, artists, filmmakers, writers and other rights holders are threatened.