Tenenbaum fine: USD675,000

The jury in the Tenenbaum case has decided he must pay $22,500 for each track he used contrary to the terms of the licence, which tots up to a 675,000 dollar bill.

There's to be an appeal - given that the judge passed a summary judgement which stopped any discussion of fair use - but it's still not clear how the jury wound up at this figure in the first place. There's a maximum amount allowed by law - $150,000 per track - and a morally justifiable amount of about 99 cents a track. Where are the jury coming up with their figure from? Is there anything scientific about their deliberations, or is it simply a case of a number which sounds right?

Because it's not clear how an arbitrary fine really helps anyone, is it?

GEMA slaps Rapidshare

Germany's version of the RIAA has succeeded in getting a court to fine Rapidshare for alleged offences against copyright. [Google translated version of the page]

The detail seems to be based on 5,000 tracks which - apparently - someone had been using Rapidshare to, erm, share rapidly; the onus, says the court, is on the file-sharing service to make sure that it isn't hosting unlicensed music. There's a €24million fine, as well.

Bad news for Rapidshare, good news for GEMA. Although, perhaps, not as good as they seem to think:

Dr. Harald Heker, Chief Executive Officer of GEMA: "The decision of the regional court in Hamburg is a milestone in the fight against the illegal use of musical works on the Internet. GEMA will continue to protect its members from online piracy. We are confident in this way to be able to achieve the reduction of illegal use of the GEMA repertoire on the Internet to a negligible level. "

Really? You think that closing down one of the dozens and dozens of file-sharing services is going to be that significant?

Maybe they're thinking that they can spend some of those €24million on carrying on the fight. Just as soon as the leprechaun delivers them.

Janet Jackson's nipple: Now half a million bucks cheaper

The Janet Jackson Superbowl nip-slip wasn't indecent enough to justify the FCC fine, a US court has ruled. The federal appeals court tossed the $550,000 fine the FCC levied against CBS on the grounds that it was acting out of character:

The court found that the FCC deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so "pervasive as to amount to 'shock treatment' for the audience."

"Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing," the court said. "But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure."

The overall effect was somewhat spoiled when CBS executives present in the court dropped their trousers for a bare-arsed celebration.