The recording industry has scored gold in its court battle with Usenet, which advertises itself as a massive online file sharing community. See: Arista Records v. Usenet, 07 Civ. 8822 (S.D.N.Y. June 30, 2009) The case, filed back in 2007, pitted the record companies against Usenet, with the recording industry alleging widespread infringement of copyrighted recordings through downloading over the Usenet network and Judge Harold Baer agreed, finding Usenet guilty of direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.

By now you should have all heard about Michael Jackson’s death. Although it is tragic that such a pop icon could die at such a young age, so much of the news coverage seems to be focusing on the bizarre aspects of Michael Jackson’s life, what appears to be a serious drug addiction and his financial debts.  When Michael passed last week, he died in debt to the tune of approximately $500 million, at least if the reports we are hearing turn out to be accurate. What seems to have started Michael’s financial decline was when in 1993, he paid the family of 13 year old Jordy Chandler, $22 million dollars to settle the lawsuit they had pending against him.  From that point forward he was not really viewed the same, his last album was a failure and yet his taste for expensive things and his ability to spend became legendary.  But did you know that in 1985, Michael Jackson paid $47.5 million dollars to purchase and ATV Music Publishing, which happened to own the copyrights of more than 200 songs written by the Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney? While Michael Jackson will likely be remembered for many things, perhaps right now we should focus on what he did that made him the icon he was.  There will be plenty of time later for the sordid details, and the unsavory side of the pop legend, but there were aspects to Michael’s life that demonstrate him to be almost a Renaissance man; namely Michael the inventor, Michael the King of Pop and Michael the shrewd businessman who say the value of owning perhaps the most lucrative copyright portfolio of all time.

While it seems on one hand that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is standing down its enforcement efforts, there are several reasons to wonder whether this is really the plan or if there is more under-handed and insidious behavior yet to come. As was discussed on Monday, an RIAA favorite attorney will become the Deputy Attorney Generalof the United States, and third in command at the Department of Justice. Additionally, while the RIAA has given up pursuing some college students, they seem to be quite persistent in going after Joel Tenenbaum in Massachusetts. In this case, the RIAA sued a number of defendants in the United States District Court of the District of Massachusetts, and most were not represented by counsel and simply defaulted. Joel Tenenbaum was different though. He is one of the few defendants represented by counsel, and his counsel is Professor Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, so he is extremely well represented given this is exactly what the Berkman Center specializes in.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) fired MediaSentry, the Recording company it used to help it gather evidence for mass lawsuits it filed against people it claimed were illegally uploading copyrighted music. It would seem that the RIAA is finally coming to its senses and realizing that the way forward is not to use scare tactics or sue, but perhaps to accept the new technologies and maybe even embrace them.