Jury Hits Michael Robertson With Estimated $41 Million Infringement Bill Over MP3Tunes
from the excessive? dept
Following last week's decision by a jury that Michael Robertson could be held personally liable for songs that he "sideloaded" into his MP3Tunes music locker via the site's Sideload.com feature, the jury has now issued a verdict so complicated that no one is quite sure how much Robertson is being ordered to pay, but it's believed to be in the range of $41 million. The verdict seems questionable on a variety of levels, not the least of which is that MP3Tunes apparently had, and followed, a clear DMCA takedown policy (which an earlier court ruling had found to be sufficient). Where this case became more complicated was over the question of whether or not the company had "red flag knowledge" of infringement and whether Robertson himself was liable, in that he'd "sideloaded" certain songs that he'd found publicly available elsewhere online into his music locker. The details of the apparently very complex ruling will be important, but anyone who runs a cloud computing service might want to pay attention to this case, as it's going to be a rather important one as it moves through the appeals process.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, infringement, jury, michael robertson, sideloading
Companies: capitol records, emi, mp3tunes
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Yeah, copyright 'damages' are completely and utterly insane.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Including the artists who were supposed "damaged" by this service, but who in reality only lost a way for their paying fans to enjoy the music they already paid for.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It is a good demonstration of just how insane these laws are.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
And of course it goes without saying that not a cent will likely find it's way to the actual artists, the ones 'harmed' by his actions and supposedly the driving force behind these types of lawsuits, with the money instead going towards nice bonuses for the lawyers, execs, and what remains poured straight back into funding even more lawsuits.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
The fact that Robertson has been held personally liable for his company's actions, when other companies I could name with actual criminal offenses committed are not, speaks volumes about 'justice' in the US.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Idiots' Club meets down the hall on the left...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
This is the logic that is being applied in the Robertson case. And, in my own not-so-humble estimation, that is wrong.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
This is one of the important questions, and one the industry supporters tend to side-step (either deliberately or because they don't understand the issues everyone else is discussing).
That is - you can't just "tell" whether a file is infringing or not since the exact same file can be both infringing and infringing depending on who uploaded it. The status can also change without changing the file itself (e.g. if someone has permission to copy the file, then that permission is revoked).
The basic flaw in all the argument used tends to be that they not only don't consider these facts, but they also place the burden on to a 3rd party who cannot possibly know all of the details.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Makes perfect sense
Crash the US economy, cause millions of people to lose their jobs and homes? How about a golden parachute and a cushy job in government?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Only if you're sideloading copyrighted material then freely distributing it. Don't put legitimate service providers in the same platter as idiots who can't cover their tracks then get sued. Cloud services are completely unaffected by this and will continue to be.
Provide explanations how legit cloud providers would ever be influenced by this decision. Otherwise it's just dis-informed fear mongering.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Wait...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Only if you do it in the US, or have a subsidiary in the US. It's saner to simply avoid the US when creating new cloud computing services.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Chock-full of dumb
We don't care how useful you are, unless we get paid for EVERYTHING you can go take a running jump. All your culture are belong us.
Sincerely
The Legacy Entertainment Industries.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]