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''Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum (1st Circuit Court)'' is the appeals lawsuit which followed the U.S. District Court case ''Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum'', No. 07cv11446-NG (D. Mass. Dec. 7, 2009). The initial district court decision awarded the plaintiffs $675,000 in statutory damages for Joel Tenenbaum's willful copyright infringement via peer-to-peer file-sharing of 30 songs. Tenenbaum then challenged the constitutionality of the damage award and asked for a retrial or a reduction of the award via common law remittitur. The district court judge rejected Tenenbaum's arguments in favor of a retrial, and declined to invoke remittitur because, in this case, it would prompt a retrial which would broach the constitutional issues remittitur was intended to avoid. Asserting that the question of the award's constitutionality was unavoidable, the judge reduced the damages to $67,500 on constitutional grounds, reasoning that the damages were effectively punitive, as well as excessive and in violation of Tenenbaum's Due Process rights.〔 Both parties then cross-appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals—Sony, et al., for full reinstatement of the original damages, and Tenenbaum challenging both liability and damages. The First Circuit rejected all of Tenenbaum's arguments, affirmed the denial of Tenenbaum's motion for a new trial, reversed the District Court's decision to reduce the damages, reinstated the original award, and remanded on the question of the common law remittitur. == Background == Defendant and cross-appellant Joel Tenenbaum was an undergraduate student studying physics and mathematics at Goucher College in Maryland 2005 prior to the original litigation in the Massachusetts District Court. During this period, Joel Tenenbaum downloaded and distributed, via a peer-to-peer file-sharing network, a number of songs owned by the plaintiffs.〔 While the plaintiffs are listed collectively as Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the plaintiffs in both the district court case and the subsequent appeal actually included five record companies: * Sony BMG Music Entertainment * Arista Records, LLC, a subsidiary of Sony BMG * Warner Bros. Records, part of Warner Music Group * Atlantic Recording Corporation, part of Warner Music Group * UMG Recordings, Inc., part of Universal Music Group As the plaintiffs are all members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and it is the RIAA which makes public statements about the case, the case is sometimes informally referenced as ''RIAA v. Tenenbaum''. However, references more commonly use ''Sony'', ''Sony BMG'', ''Sony BMG Music Entertainment'', and the more precise ''Sony BMG Music Entertainment, et al.'' as the name of the plaintiffs. During a jury trial in the Massachusetts District Court, Tenenbaum admitted liability for infringing the plaintiffs' copyright for 30 songs he downloaded and distributed via file-sharing software. The judge issued a directed verdict for the issue of liability, and the jury determined the infringement was "willful" and assessed statutory damages totaling $675,000. Tenenbaum then filed a motion claiming the damage award was unconstitutional, and requested either a new trial or a reduction of the damages by remittitur. The Court granted the retrial request, in part, by considering the constitutionality and "punitive" nature of the damage award, weighing it against the standards established by the Supreme Court in the cases ''BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore'' (referenced as ''BMW'' or ''Gore'', and favored by the defendant) and in ''St. Louis, I.M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Williams'' (referenced as ''Williams'', and favored by the plaintiffs and the U.S. Government). Citing these standards and other case law relating to statutory and punitive damages, the Court ordered the judgment in the case be amended to reduce the damage award by 90%, to $67,500.〔 Remittitur would allow the plaintiffs to reject the remitted award and opt for a retrial, which they had indicated they would do, so the Court explicitly chose to reduce the award on constitutional grounds, because a retrial would put the Court in the position of confronting the constitutional issues that remittitur was intended to avoid.〔 The plaintiffs and defendant collectively brought suit in the First District Court of Appeals to argue several matters: * statutory damages and injunctive relief〔 under the Copyright Act,〔 * constitutionality of the damages reduction * matters of fair use * a district court's ability to invoke constitutionality.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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