Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson on Tuesday said that his client, 25-year-old Joel Tenenbaum, only “did what kids do” as a teenager who wants to take advantage of free song-swapping in the Internet file-sharing sites such as Kazaa.
Nesson issued the statement during the start of the copyright infringement trial against his client, a graduate student in physics at the Boston University. The case was only the second copyright violation to go to trial.
In June, a Federal jury in Minnesota ordered a woman to pay $192 million after being found guilty of copyright infringement.
It will be recalled that Tenenbaum was charged with copyright violation by major record labels for allegedly downloading and sharing songs through the Internet. Record labels cited 30 songs from the band Green Day and Aerosmith, which he “illegally” distributed.
The record labels also believe that the 25-year-old Boston University graduate has distributed more than the number it cited in the case.
The record industry claimed that since August it has stopped the filing of lawsuits against violators, who usually settle cases for $5, 000. Instead, the companies focused its sight to working with ISP to block worst offenders.
However, cases which were already filed in courts will be pushed for trial.
Meanwhile, Nesson defended his client saying that Tenebaum started downloading music form the file-sharing sites as a teenager, adding that it is the fault of record companies for enjoying the profits of their success in the past decades but were slow to adopt in Internet and technological innovations.
“It’s not my client’s fault that these record companies are too slow in coping up with technological advancements in the Internet,” Nesson said.
But one of the counsel of the record company, Tim Reynolds stressed the major revenue loss of the industry can directly be attributed to song-swappers like Tenenbaum, who even pointed the crime to his sisters and other people in his Baltimore residence.