RIAA Continues Pirating Fight

The Recording Industry Association of America has requested that Joel Tenenbaum, the Boston University graduate student convicted of illegal file-sharing, be slapped with an injunction for allegedly inciting file-sharing activities through online mediums.

In a motion filed in a Massachusetts federal court, the RIAA argued that Tenenbaum has violated this summer’s ruling—which ordered him to pay $675,000 for file-sharing—by encouraging other internet users to engage in sharing activity and it asked that Tenenbaum be prohibited from promoting sharing.

The motion comes in response to a file-package posted on the Swedish file-sharing web-site The Pirate Bay that advertises a set of 30 songs—the same songs Tenenbaum was ordered to pay damages for by sharing online—as the “The $675,000 Mixtape.”

The RIAA argue that Tenenbaum promoted the torrent and other illegal downloading activity, in violation of the ruling against him, with a post on a Twitter account devoted to his legal case called JoelFightsBack. “Interesting: a “joel” torrent list of the 30 songs is now on thepiratebay/other torrent sites and is being DL widely in protest,” Tenenbaum wrote.

But in an interview with The Crimson yesterday, RIAA Spokesperson Cara A. Duckworth said Tenenbaum’s illegal activity goes beyond the Twitter post.

Duckworth said Tenenbaum has flouted the letter and the spirit of the ruling against him by allowing links to file-sharing web-sites to be posted on his web-site, repeatedly arguing for the legality of file-sharing in interviews, and by keeping illegal files on his computer after being convicted.

Tenenbaum and his legal team contend that his recent statements represent nothing more than an exercise of his basic rights.

“He is a citizen of the United States with full First Amendment liberties and he should exercise them as he sees fit,” said Law School Professor and Tenenbaum’s attorney Charles R. Nesson ’60.

Tenenbaum’s case has emerged as a symbolic struggle between those who hope to see an open internet, unfettered by copyright constraints, and conservative industry groups whose revenues have been decimated as a result of file-sharing networks.

As a result, the RIAA has tried to use Tenenbaum as an example to dissuade other file-sharers and has employed overly aggressive tactics to that end, Nesson said.

—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.