A Harvard Law School professor filed a counterclaim last Friday against the Recording Industry Association of America that challenges the constitutionality of the RIAA’s efforts against those caught downloading music from file-sharing services.
Charles R. Nesson ’60, the founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, is defending Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University graduate student charged in 2005 with downloading seven songs from a file-sharing network. According to RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth, the amount sought from Tenenbaum is undisclosed and left to the judge’s discretion, though Tenenbaum may face over $1 million in penalties.
Nesson argues the RIAA’s prosecution of Tenenbaum oversteps legal boundaries.
TechDirt had this story last week. They note that this isn’t the first time folks have argued that the damages sought by the RIAA against file sharers are unconstitutional. And that the few times it’s been brought up in court, the arguments haven’t been persuasive.
However…
…this time around, it looks like the big legal guns are getting involved, and the argument seems a lot more comprehensive and compelling. In the past, it’s been noted that the RIAA has curiously avoided suing any Harvard students, with one of the theories being that Harvard had made it quite clear to the RIAA that it would fight back hard. And, with Harvard law school at its disposal, and various professors there indicating that they had serious legal problems with the RIAA’s strategy, the RIAA simply decided to ignore any file sharing going on at that prestigious university.
Read on for the particulars of the argument that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is very much unconstitutional.