from the getting-into-the-legal-weeds dept
Doug Lichtman is a well known intellectual property law professor who is a fairly big supporter of the copyright system. He's reached out to us, because of a podcast he recently recorded discussing the Joel Tenenbaum lawsuit. To be honest, I'd pretty much stopped covering anything to do with that lawsuit, because over the last couple of months, it's turned into something of a circus side-show, with both sides running around and making decisions as if they've never actually been in a court of law before. Even the judge has been making mistakes.
However, Lichtman specifically was hoping for the perspective of folks around here on the podcast, because (as he noted in his email), most of his listeners tend to be strongly pro-copyright, and he was hoping to at least find out what those of us less sure of the benefits of copyright think. To be honest, after listening to the podcast twice, it may be a bit too down in the legal weeds for many readers here -- though, if you really are interested in the legal specifics, have a listen. The first part involves Lichtman talking to Charles Nesson himself about the case, followed by three "legal experts" and then a guy from the RIAA who seems to honestly believe that the RIAA's lawsuit strategy was a success because it taught more people that file sharing was illegal. This is wrong on many different levels, since it clearly didn't impact user behavior, and has created other problems, such as the false belief in some that all file sharing is illegal (even of authorized content) and has framed the RIAA as being anti-consumer, making it that much harder for the major record labels to eventually make the shift in business models that are necessary to succeed these days.
The overall "conclusion" that Lichtman comes to is that Nesson and Tenenbaum are likely to lose the case, as precedent suggests that courts will likely find the statutory damages in the copyright act to be within the range of being constitutional. I actually agree that this is the likely outcome, though I find it, and the reasoning behind it, quite troubling. I also hope that, when (if) the case really goes to trial, Nesson has worked up a better argument than he gave on the podcast. While he does raise some good points, a lot of it feels like he only has a superficial understanding of both what's happening and the law itself. When really pressed on legal issues by Lichtman, he resorted to an emotional argument ("it's just a kid clicking on links!") which hardly is legally compelling.
However, in listening to the "experts," it sounds like it would be possible to make a more compelling case against the statutory rates by pointing out some rather simple facts: file sharing, in and of itself, creates no damage for artists -- and thus, the statutory rates have nothing to do with being a "remedy," but have everything to do with being punitive, which would make it a criminal issue, rather than a civil one.
Now, I can hear the copyright supporters (including Lichtman) shouting that it's ridiculous to claim that file sharing creates no damages for the artists -- but that's not what I said. I said, file sharing in and of itself creates no damage. And that's easily proven: just point to the increasingly large number of artists who have embraced file sharing on purpose and who have found that it's helped them earn more money. Then, what you realize is that file sharing combined with a bad business model may create damages, but those damages may be alleviated by putting in place a better business model (again, pointing to evidence of artists who have done exactly that). At that point, the "damages" have gone away. The fault is almost entirely on the part of the artist who picked a bad business model, and then did nothing to alleviate the problem when it became clear that the market was going in a different direction.
In that case, there's no actual evidence of damages, and it's difficult to see the constitutionality of charging someone $750, let alone $150,000, when there's no actual evidence of damages -- and the only actual "damage" may have been caused by the artist themselves by picking a bad business model.
Part of my problem with all of these discussions is that copyright supporters seem to automatically assume that file sharing must be bad -- but there's plenty of evidence to counter that, with artists' wide embrace of it (successfully in many cases) being exhibit A. If file sharing was really so damaging, there would be no such examples. But we see more and more every day. So it's not file sharing that's the problem. The real problem is a bad business model combined with file sharing. And it's rather ridiculous to fine Joel Tenenbaum (or anyone) because some record labels and musicians chose a bad business model.
38 Comments | Leave a Comment..
RSS
Twitter
