If you have to explain a joke, it isn’t funny.
by T. Colin Dodd
It has to be one of the foundations of the jury system that a jury is capable of understanding facts and law, and to know a crime when they see it. You might say that’s the essence of the system, and it counts on the ability of a group of citizens to determine when a harm is doen to society requiring correction. Bringing in a witness “to draw the jury’s attention to ‘the massive problem of file sharing’ seems a little like trying too hard.
If you can’t blame them for trying, you can at least laugh at them for trying too hard.
Judge bars RIAA president from testifying in Capitol Records v. Thomas
After a brief recess this afternoon, plaintiffs’ counsel Richard Gabriel and defendant’s counsel Brian Toder made their cases before the judge as to the relevance of Sherman’s testimony. Toder argued that Sherman’s testimony was not relevant to the question at hand, the fact of whether Thomas was liable for copyright infringement. Gabriel said that Sherman would be able to tell the jury why this case was significant and, more importantly, describe the harm the RIAA believes piracy has caused to the music industry.
“I don’t want to turn this case into a soap box for the recording industry,” Toder argued in response.
After Judge Davis initially struck Sherman from the witness list, Gabriel continued pressing his case, saying that Sherman would be able to draw the jury’s attention to “the massive problem of file sharing” and testify that the RIAA is “not out to get millions in damages, but to prove a point.” With the judge refusing to reconsider his motion barring Sherman testifying, the case wrapped up with witnesses from UMG, Warner Bros., and EMI Records North America, all of whom testified that the record labels did indeed own the copyrights to the recordings in question.
