{"id":2209,"date":"2009-07-27T10:41:13","date_gmt":"2009-07-27T15:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/?p=2209"},"modified":"2015-01-07T13:58:13","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T17:58:13","slug":"bearing-witness-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/?p=2209","title":{"rendered":"Bearing Witness, or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking of family and defending the truth<\/a>, the Joel Tenenbaum case begins today. And it’s looking like it’s not going to be the trial that Charlie<\/a> was hoping it would; instead it will be, no surprise, the judge’s trial. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Judge Gertner made a series of rulings this weekend, including one at 1:37 this morning<\/a> — how’s that for timing? — essentially striking down Charlie’s push for a defense based on the notion of fairness and couched in the cultural practices of the digital age. Along these lines, she struck proposed witness John Palfrey<\/a>; she had already ruled against me (on grounds of tardiness) and John Perry Barlow<\/a> (on grounds of the “philosophical” nature of his testimony). <\/p>\n

Here’s a nice piece published in today’s Guardian<\/a> in which Joel explains himself. One hopes that a jury of his peers will at least be moved to substantially limit the damages sought by the RIAA (now up to $4.5M for sharing 30 songs). It’s pretty clear that this would be the outcome hoped for by Gertner, and it would constitute a defeat of sorts for the RIAA, who have no doubt already spent hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars on this case; it would also, from Charlie’s perspective, constitute a defeat for him & Team Joel, who are seeking no less than a nullification of the charges. <\/p>\n

I’m sure that Charlie will find a way to make his case nonetheless, and that he will continue to register his unhappiness at the various ways his attempts to open this case up<\/a> have been prevented. If Joel & Charlie lose this case, there will be a number of issues relevant to appeal. More important, I believe Charlie & Joel have made large gains in the court of public opinion<\/a>. Whether or not the judge considers this to be a question of fairness, a lot of other people (increasingly) do. Whatever the verdict, I hope it offers yet another chance to revisit, in the public conversation, the question of sharing songs (non-commercially) and the role that a few large corporations should play in (limiting) our public culture — never mind the question of commercial lawfirms bullying people with far fewer resources. <\/p>\n

For my part, I stand by my report<\/a>. And I find the whole buying-a-song idea stranger and stranger by the day. The process of getting involved in the case — both as a possible expert witness, and in the many informal conversations I’ve had about it — has caused me to reshape my current research project<\/a> toward something like, “Peer-to-Peer Music Industry: Musical Production, Circulation, and Value in the Digital Age.” I need a snappier title than that, especially since both “peer-to-peer” and “industry” seem like such freighted terms. Thanks to all for helping me continue to think through this stuff. <\/p>\n

[Update: Ruling this morning that statutory damages must be assessed at $750\/song at a minimum — rather than, say, $0 — Judge Gertner has further removed the jury’s ability to support Joel on grounds of fairness. (Unless the jury actually decides to nullify?)]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking of family and defending the truth, the Joel Tenenbaum case begins today. And it’s looking like it’s not going to be the trial that Charlie was hoping it would; instead it will be, no surprise, the judge’s trial. Judge Gertner made a series of rulings this weekend, including one at 1:37 this morning — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[141,118,282],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-copywrong","tag-industry","tag-public"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2209"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8350,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions\/8350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}