From the monthly archives:

July 2009

Waiting for the shoe to drop

by Frank Paynter on July 31, 2009

How much will the award be in the Tenenbaum versus RIAA case? It could go as high as $4.5 million. I wonder if the SONY management and shareholders have first night rights with Joel’s fiancee too?

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Corporate-people versus the people-people

by Frank Paynter on July 30, 2009

commiepics_2The RIAA warriors are suing another kid for file sharing. Joel Tenenbaum faces a huge judgment for willful copyright infringement. Defense attorney Charlie Nesson, of Harvard Berkman Center fame, appears to have been out-gunned by the corporate lawyers. His effort to raise the level of the discussion to something more philosophical has been stymied by the judge’s stubborn refusal to ignore the law.

I hope Joel has an appeal coming based on incompetent representation. The whole Mister Chips thing is great in the classroom, but Nesson doesn’t seem to have brought any discipline to the courtroom. He certainly hasn’t been an effective advocate so far. Maybe tomorrow he will save Joel’s bacon with a brilliant summation or something.

Here’s a short list of what sux so far:

  • No expert witnesses have been called by the defense to speak to economic issues. Did Joel’s downloading of thirty bucks worth of music cause CD sales to drop by half over the last decade?
  • The defense intended to call John Perry Barlow as an expert witness on the zeitgeist or something. Since Barlow couldn’t focus on what he intended to present, couldn’t provide a report for the plaintiff’s attorneys on just what the heck his expertise was intended to reveal, the judge ruled that he couldn’t appear.
  • The kid has admitted he’s guilty of downloading thirty songs so the whole issue now seems to pivot on willfulness. The verdict is pretty clear, but the amount of damages remains to be decided and they could go as high as a four and a half million bucks. Just based on his admissions, statutory damages could be awarded of thirty thousand per work, so that would be $900,000. But if willfulness is factored in the damages could go to $150,000 per song.

Tune in to twitter on Friday to hear what Nesson has up his sleeve.

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Jeepers

July 27, 2009

A sleeping dog will always tell the truth, even when authorised or encouraged to do otherwise. In 1961, Soviet scientists claimed to have trained a sleeping dog to lie, but it was discovered that it was really a dingo that had misrepresented itself during the screening process. ∞
I lifted the above citation from Anne [...]

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tbex

July 24, 2009

Travel writers are gathering in Chicago this weekend under the aegis of #tbex (yeah, that’s a twitter hashtag), the Travel Bloggers Exchange. Not coincidentally, the BlogHer 09 conference is in Chicago this weekend too. Both events are sold out. #tbex founder Kim Mance and the tbex team will gather the travel bloggers again this fall [...]

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A National Broadband Plan for Our Future, GN Docket No. 09-51

July 23, 2009

Ms. Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
Re: A National Broadband Plan for Our Future, GN Docket No. 09-51
Dear Ms. Dortch,
Compared to the rest of the world, America’s broadband efforts are shameful. An open internet is a public resource that deserves scrupulous regulation and a regulating authority that is its [...]

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Town and Gown

July 23, 2009

Cambridge, Massachusetts was in the news this week. A city cop busted a black professor on his own property following some verbal hassles. The professor was understandably freaked out by the cop’s behavior. The cop interpreted that as disrespect for the law or disorderly conduct or something. Basically, the effect of the arrest was to [...]

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July 22, 2009

This is old news, but it’s probably a meme worth propagating. Singer/song writer Dave Caroll had a grievance. United Airlines baggage handlers broke his $1500 Taylor guitar. Earlier this month the musician, with backing from his band The Sons of Maxwell, released his YouTube lament about the breakage. Three weeks later over three and a [...]

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Writer’s crap

July 21, 2009

Writer’s crap:
Derived from writer’s cramp, writer’s crap refers to a stage when one is only capable of writing utter crap.
Writer’s crap is distinguished from writer’s block by the existence of a work product. Writer’s block is a paralytic condition originating deep in the amygdala and extending outward to the somatic nervous system, a condition that [...]

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