VIRTUAL JUNGLE
I honestly thought The Pirate Bay saga was over last month when the torrent site was sold to a public company. Pending the site’s legalization, however, The Pirate Bay is conducting perhaps its final antic.

Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University physics graduate student, owes the record companies $675,000 after being convicted of downloading 30 songs illegally. The exorbitant nature of the lawsuit created the perfect situation to inspire irksome behavior: Prominently promoted on The Pirate Bay’s home page is “The $675,000 Mixtape” by DJ Joel. The mixtape’s logo comes complete with an “Approved by RIAA” certificate and the torrent itself gives “hugs” to the RIAA.

In the comments section of the torrent, many people reported to have downloaded the torrent solely to support Tenenbaum and The Pirate Bay. Also, after five days of being uploaded, the torrent still had more than 900 “seeders,” people who have downloaded the files and are subsequently sharing them.

The promotion of this mixtape is probably superfluous. After all, The Pirate Bay is on the verge of legitimacy and Tenenbaum is not going to have funds to pay the record labels anyway. Still, the act is fitting as an end to The Pirate Bay and a revival for Tenenbaum’s case.

The track list can be found on the torrent itself or on the Katz Forums here.

by Ben Benson

For years now, the Recording Industry Association of America has sued small-time offenders for downloading copyright music. During the initial wave of lawsuits, the RIAA nabbed Joel Tenenbaum as a teen for downloading seven songs from Kazaa. However, the teenager offered only $500 to the RIAA in payment for the legal fees. Unsatisfied, the RIAA responded by filing a suit against Tenenbaum. Now a graduate student at Boston University, Tenenbaum has returned the legal volley back to the RIAA with the help of a Harvard professor.

Charles Nesson, a Harvard Law School professor, has sided with Tenenbaum to challenge the RIAA at its core reasoning for lawsuits. Nesson questions the constitutionality of the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999, the basis for which the RIAA sues music pirates. Nesson claims that the law is a criminal statute, therefore wrongly applied in a civil suit.

Should the law be confirmed as criminal in nature, then Congress would have violated the Constitution by allowing a private party to carry out a criminal prosecution. Additionally, Nesson claims that Congress bypassed the 5th and 8th Amendments by allowing the RIAA to sue for “grossly excessive” damages. The countersuit seeks to compensate Tenenbaum and his family for damages done by the RIAA.

by Ben Benson