She Fought the RIAA
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Baker stressed two points as he argued the case in October. First, he argued that the summary judgment was improper because Gonzalez has a constitutional right to have a jury determine what damages, if any, are due. Judge Frank Easterbrook, who wrote the court’s opinion, disagreed. “Where there are no disputes of material fact the court may enter summary judgment without transgressing the Constitution,” he wrote. Interestingly, during oral arguments an attorney representing the labels called into question the number of tracks Gonzalez both downloaded and owned on CD–inadvertently suggesting that there was perhaps a dispute about the material facts of the case. Easterbrook briefly chided the lawyer–“You’re busily shooting your foot full of holes,” he said–before moving on.
Baker’s second argument was that Gonzalez’s downloading fell under the doctrine of fair use because, he said, she caused “no pecuniary damage to the record companies”–she was sampling songs in order to decide whether to buy them. “She would listen and buy, and buy and listen,” he says. “It was not the kind of pimply-faced Princeton junior literally downloading anything he could for free so he didn’t have to buy it. It’s sort of this anomalous case.” In the initial suit Gonzalez was accused of illegally downloading 1,374 songs, the overwhelming majority of which she already owned on CD, according to Baker; the record companies later reduced their claim to 30 songs to be as fair and reasonable as possible to Gonzalez, according to an RIAA spokesperson.
Baker says a settlement is still possible. “We would be interested in hearing how the RIAA might like to try to resolve this,” Baker says. “Even Judge Easterbrook noted kind of scoffingly during the oral argument that Cecilia is what we call ‘judgment-proof.’ They’re not going to get anything out of her.” (The RIAA declined to comment on how it would pursue collecting the fines from Gonzalez.)
Delays in album artwork and production are part of the reason for the new release date. Another was Overcoat’s surprise success with In the Reins, a collaboration between Iron & Wine and Calexico, which has sold nearly 100,000 copies worldwide since it came out in September–twice what label owner Howard Greynolds anticipated. Greynolds says he has no plans to develop a series of such collaborations, though, stressing that the two releases were products of long-standing relationships with the bands involved.
Superior Street, the production company Anderson cofounded in 1995, went out of business in September, but he’s currently finishing two music-related projects slated to come out in 2006. Rhino Handmade will release God Bless Tiny Tim, a documentary on the cult figure; a video of a 1997 Steve Goodman tribute concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music featuring John Prine, Emmylou Harris, and Lyle Lovett will come out on Red Pajama, a label dedicated to archival Goodman releases.
