Legal News

A Beantown Headscratcher: Nesson?s Client Admits to Infringement

By Ashby Jones

Just when we thought the allegedly illegal downloading case taking place up in Boston couldn’t get any stranger, it did. The BU graduate student being sued by the recording industry for illegally downloading music online admitted on Thursday from the witness stand that he infringed on the copyrights of the 30 songs at issue in the federal case.

Huh. We’re guessing that might have a slightly bigger impact on the case than defense lawyer Charlie Nesson’s demonstrative opening argument. Click here for the story, from the Boston Globe.

The defendant, Joel Tenenbaum, is one of more than 18,000 recipients of letters from the Recording Industry Association of America in recent years demanding payment for illegal file-sharing, but is only the second to challenge a lawsuit in federal court.

"On the stand today, are you now admitting liability for downloading and distributing all 30 songs?'' asked Timothy Reynolds, a lawyer for the four record labels that filed suit.

"Yes,'' said Tenenbaum.

And that single word set things into motion. According to the Globe report, the recording industry asked Judge Nancy Gertner to rule that Tenenbaum was liable for copyright infringement and to move directly to the damages phase of the trial. Gertner is expected to rule this morning on the industry's request.

According to the Globe’s account, the concession came at the end of some other rather provocative testimony. Tenenbaum unapologetically admitted downloading more than 800 songs from 1999 to at least 2007. While “smiling often,” he reportedly explained that he grew up in a family that loves and plays music, and that file-sharing networks made it easy for him to get the songs he liked for free, including those by Nirvana, Green Day, the Ramones, and Aerosmith.

He also matter-of-factly admitted lying about downloading in sworn statements to the record labels and falsely blaming others who he said might have had access to his computer in Providence, including his two sisters, friends, and house guests.

If it sounds like Tenebaum’s lawyer, the oft-described “eccentric-but-brilliant” Harvard Law professor Charlie Nesson might be struggling a bit, you’d be right, at least according to the Globe’s writeup: “Nesson has struggled throughout the four-day trial to make his points, drawing countless objections from the plaintiffs and warnings from Gertner to ask simple questions, stay within appropriate boundaries, and avoid making arguments.”

We’re guessing that Nesson’s strategy is still one based on a theory akin to jury-nullification: that despite the concession, the jury will award no or low damages, despite the statutory damage amounts laid out by the copyright law.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 31, 2009 (boomark / email).