On the stand, to download the 30 songs he's being sued about, and hundreds more. That was enough for Judge Gertner, who reviewed the transcript last night and this morning declared him "guilty, guilty, guilty."

It's a bit like someone on trial for murder who says, "Yep, I shot that guy, it was me, eeyuck eeyuck." Unless insanity or self-defense are acceptable arguments in a copyright case, that's probably not the smartest strategy for victory.

The only thing that makes sense to me (caveats: I am not an attorney, and usually very little makes sense to me) is that Team Tenenbaum doesn't care about this verdict, and it's plotting to win the appeal on larger Constitutional grounds -- though probably not fair use -- in order to establish precedent. In other words, they wanted to lose. Because if they had won, the record companies would have to appeal to move the case forward. And the RIAA has indicated it's finally done suing the world to make up for its own naked greed and stupidity. (I'm editorializing just a bit here.)

The other option: Nesson is trying to make a point about damages. Right now, Tenenbaum et al stand to lose as much as $4.5 million, due to the largesse of the U.S. Congress, which created laws with penalties of up to $150,000 for each infringement.

As anyone who's not connected to the record companies will tell you, that's friggin' nuts. There is no way an individual costs the record companies $150,000 by uploading or downloading a song. And if that amount is purely meant as a disincentive, it clearly isn't working, as the record companies themselves will tell you. File swapping is still the hot craze on campus; all the kids are doing it.