In a famous vaudeville routine, a man is fined two dollars for spitting in the subway, but his righteous lawyer urges his client to fight the judgment. Every time the lawyer denounces the unfairness of the ruling, the judge bops the defendant on the head with a rubber truncheon, shouting “Pay the two dollars!”

Maybe Boston University graduate student Joel Tenenbaum’s lawyer should have counseled him to pay the two dollars. Or, more accurately, the $4,000 that the recording industry demanded of him for downloading copyrighted music from a filesharing website. Or maybe Tenenbaum should have just paid for the 30 songs he originally copped. Instead, his attorney urged him to fight fight fight. According to John Schwartz of the New York Times, “Nearly all of the thousands of people confronted by the industry settle for a few thousand dollars, but Mr. Tenenbaum chose to fight.”

He fought fought fought and the Recording Industry Association of America sued him.

He lost lost lost. He lost lost lost to the tune of a $675,000 judgment. That’s not the tune Tenenbaum bargained for in 2004 when he downloaded his music at a time when the recording industry went on the warpath to defend its copyrights.

According to Schwartz, Tenenbaum’s case was not helped by flamboyant defense tactics by his attorney, which may have been entertaining (they actually quite entertaining) but were not legally persuasive in the eyes of the court.

We report this because of the parallels between the music and book industries. Filesharing and pirate book websites abound, and because many of them are offshore and impossible to prosecute, the next best tactic may be to sue the downloaders. Read Can You Be Sued for Dowhnloading a Book?

Freemongers who think it’s cool to thumb their nose at copyright owners might want to take note of Joel Tenenbaum’s experience – and just pay the two dollars.

RC

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times.