Dept. of Justice sides with RIAA in MP3 File-Sharing Lawsuit

[jinjuku]

People often try to relate the $220K fine to the value of 24 songs. There is no relation what so ever. The fine actually has to do with willful infringement of some one else's copyright.

A lot of peoples RIGHTS were stepped on. That is the crux of the case.

A few objective facts:

1. Ms. Thomas made available works that were not hers available for public consumption.

2. The award was statutory in nature

3. The award was in the LOWEST sixth percentile. The max being 3.6 MILLION. The minimum $18,000

4. It took the jury only five minutes to reach a guilty verdict

So, why didn't the jury award the minimum? Why didn't Ms Thomas take the settlement offer? Why did Ms Thomas, a single mother, put her and her children in such a position?

While I agree that $220K for a single mother is a huge amount (that isn't really debatable) almost any amount for a single mother would be huge. People try to argue that the act and product of procreation should somehow lessen your obligation to society...

I am a software developer that has been impacted economically by copyright infringement. I don't go around jacking other's work from Kazaa, or Russian websites that we know are less than honest brokers. If you like someones work support them. Buy their music, attend their concerts etc... If you don't like the price, well it's a want, not a need.

 

[jinjuku]

I see both sides of this and do buy cd's so don't take this as an excuse. I took a college ethics class with the wife of a popular rock groups singer and this topic got brought up and she said that her husband loved people downloading there songs off the net because it drummed up interest in their group and brought them out to their concerts where the actuall money is made for them. I thought that it was a very interseting point. Just another point of view.

Then that group has every right to distribute their songs for free. The are other licenses like GPL, Creative Commons etc. That people can distribute their works under. Not just copyright.

 

[chris6878]

Artists are tangentially protected by this through deterrence. The street vendors are gone after. Why would you think they aren't chased down?

Cause I see them at every sporting event I attend.

 

[chris6878]

I have been burned too many times by artist putting out garbage cd's. I download my music, Illegally and then I buy it if it is any good. Well atleast I did before amazon started to let you listen before you buy, which is a great Idea.

 

[jinjuku]

Cause I see them at every sporting event I attend.

So what kind of argument are you championing? Both are wrong. If it bothers you that much then call the cops next time you see it.

Just because 10 people are speeding doesn't mean that one of them isn't going to get ticket

 

[jinjuku]

I have been burned too many times by artist putting out garbage cd's. I download my music, Illegally and then I buy it if it is any good. Well atleast I did before amazon started to let you listen before you buy, which is a great Idea.

The 30 second sound snippet is indeed a great idea. The market responded to a need. It has the ability. Some others will then justify it all away by saying "I needed to hear the ENTIRE song", d/l it and then never buy.

I agree with others that are rightfully pissed about industry execs thinking you don't have a right to make backup copies, time shift, trans-encode media to other formats/devices all for personal use. I get pissed when I buy a DVD and see the 'You wouldn't steal this women's purse' anti-piracy commercial. Thanks for calling me a thief after I just gave you my $$. Now I only buy used CD/DVD's (some artist I buy new from their website).

 

[pikers]

I get pissed when I buy a DVD and see the 'You wouldn't steal this women's purse' anti-piracy commercial. Thanks for calling me a thief after I just gave you my $$. Now I only buy used CD/DVD's (some artist I buy new from their website).

They're not calling you a thief. They're just saying in a dramatic way not to bootleg the disc.

If it never occurred to you to do so why do you get mad? I see those things and reach for the track skip button.

 

[gliz]

In a world where you can run a red light wipe out a family because you ran a red light and get a 75 dollar fine for that and a quater of a milloin for songs you posted? gee wiz! the RIAA's days are numbered they will go the way of buggy-whip makers soon. amd the artist dont loose that much when songs are downloaded it is all the other folks that loose big. I am not condoning this practice but it does seem a little lop-sided

 

[jinjuku]

In a world where you can run a red light wipe out a family because you ran a red light and get a 75 dollar fine for that and a quater of a milloin for songs you posted? gee wiz! the RIAA's days are numbered they will go the way of buggy-whip makers soon. amd the artist dont loose that much when songs are downloaded it is all the other folks that loose big. I am not condoning this practice but it does seem a little lop-sided

Really? Run a red light, wipe out an entire family and only a $75 fine? Must have missed the news snippet. Could you provide a link to that story?

Maybe people will stop being azzhats and stop infringing others RIGHTS. I see you don't values others, maybe others shouldn't value yours...

 

[Highlander]

I get pissed when I buy a DVD and see the 'You wouldn't steal this women's purse' anti-piracy commercial.

It's wrong to steal women's purses?......

Damn!......................

Anyone wanna buy a purse?

 

[birdonthebeach]

amd the artist dont loose that much when songs are downloaded it is all the other folks that loose big.

Where do you come up with this? The artists don't lose that much? Okay, let's try this. If the label loses big-time, who does that ultimately hurt? First of all, it hurts the ARTIST, who the label will DROP. Second, it hurts the consumer, because the label will RAISE the price of a CD to try and offset their loss...

People, think about this with LOGIC. Stealing is stealing, and no amount of pretzel logic will change that.

 

[jinjuku]

People, think about this with LOGIC. Stealing is stealing, and no amount of pretzel logic will change that.

You should see the idiots on /. and arstechnica. Talk about tortured logic.

 

[stratman]

I'm not taking sides, but I love lobbing grenades:

Remember, this whole lawsuit began because she decided that she wouldn't pay the default ~$2000 settlement fee. She has financial backing - this is about her lawyer and backers now. I doubt she'll ever pay a dime.

Because of Clint, I've changed my opinion on this, I didn't know she was offered a settlement for $2000.00, I was under the impression she was targeted as an example. If she has financial backing and her lawyer is leading the parade, then all premises are out the window, now its turned into a circus, I wonder what the backers and attorney will get from this besides publicity. Her credit will be damaged as she had a ruling against her financially, this will affect her credit unless her team can pull a magic rabbit.

 

[skizzerflake]

Okay, so she's distributing not stealing. Whatever. And I agree - she got off pretty easy, considering what the max fine could have been....

And what COULD she have gotten? Sue a person of modest means and award an amount of money that she could never conceiveably pay? Is that a victory? Put her and her kid out on the street and sell her stuff? For a couple thousand dollars and then what; how does she pay the rest? Since there is virtually no chance of collecting the reward, perhaps being drawn and quartered in the public square is the right punishment...she'd never do it again. I guess people who get capital punishment never repeat...the Kings of past centuries and the Bolsheviks certainly proved that. I think there's an old principal in most legal systems that says the the punishment should suit the magnitude of the crime (the real meaning of and "eye for an eye"). This reward is absurd in all senses of the word. How many people will return to the music industry because of it? Will the RIAA ever get their money? Slim chance on either.

 

[stratman]

And what COULD she have gotten? Sue a person of modest means and award an amount of money that she could never conceiveably pay? Is that a victory? Put her and her kid out on the street and sell her stuff? For a couple thousand dollars and then what; how does she pay the rest? Since there is virtually no chance of collecting the reward, perhaps being drawn and quartered in the public square is the right punishment...she'd never do it again. I guess people who get capital punishment never repeat...the Kings of past centuries and the Bolsheviks certainly proved that. I think there's an old principal in most legal systems that says the the punishment should suit the magnitude of the crime (the real meaning of and "eye for an eye"). This reward is absurd in all senses of the word. How many people will return to the music industry because of it? Will the RIAA ever get their money? Slim chance on either.

This was my orginal thought on the matter, but since there are secondary parties involved I've changed my opinion. Hopefully she wont be used and discarded by her "backers" and left to fend for herself. How old is her child? I bet he/she is the one suffering over this mess.

 

[birdonthebeach]

And what COULD she have gotten? Sue a person of modest means and award an amount of money that she could never conceiveably pay? Is that a victory? Put her and her kid out on the street and sell her stuff? For a couple thousand dollars and then what; how does she pay the rest?

Focusing on this misses the point. The point is not what her social circumstance is, it is that she broke the law and now faces consequences. Whether or not the consequences fit the crime is another discussion.

 

[jinjuku]

And what COULD she have gotten? Sue a person of modest means and award an amount of money that she could never conceiveably pay? Is that a victory? Put her and her kid out on the street and sell her stuff? For a couple thousand dollars and then what; how does she pay the rest? Since there is virtually no chance of collecting the reward, perhaps being drawn and quartered in the public square is the right punishment...she'd never do it again. I guess people who get capital punishment never repeat...the Kings of past centuries and the Bolsheviks certainly proved that. I think there's an old principal in most legal systems that says the the punishment should suit the magnitude of the crime (the real meaning of and "eye for an eye"). This reward is absurd in all senses of the word. How many people will return to the music industry because of it? Will the RIAA ever get their money? Slim chance on either.

The statutory award is anywhere from $750-$150K per infringing work. Statutory awards don't require proof of damages, just that infringement took place. Ask yourself this: Why didn't the jury award the minimum? So the range was $18K-3.6 million. She was fined in the lowest 6th percentile.

You do realize that a person has to:

1. Rip CD's (perfectly legal)
2. Install a peer to peer client/server software (also perfectly legal)
3. Register and log in to the P2P user community space
4. Make the content that you have no commercial rights to you available

Not exactly stubbing your toe.

I like the common argument "Is that a victory? Put her and her kid out on the street and sell her stuff?". So should single mothers be held to a differing standard? Commit murder, out in 18 months, because they have a kid or two?

I like the common thought: RIAA did this to her. She didn't do any of this to herself. She turned down a settlement offer. Offered a bogus hard drive as evidence. How could one as a mother be so stupid to put her and her children in harms way? That is the question to ask. It took the jury five minutes to convict.

A real easy solution: Don't infringe others rights. How much are your rights worth?

 

[birdonthebeach]

jinjuku - you are all over it! Great to see that SOMEBODY gets it!

 

[cmusic]

I work for a telephone/ISP/TV cable company that has about 15000 customers. While I mostly work in the outside plant engineering dept I talk with the guys in the ISP dept almost everyday. The RIAA and MPAA has sent us letters wanting to know the identity of our customers with certain IPs. We have not replied to any RIAA requests yet. We are waiting for official court ordered subpoenas before we turn over any customer information.

However we have came up with some interesting things in pre-examining the "wanted" customers on our system. Several IP addys the RIAA have tagged never was used by any of our customers. One IP addy was tagged by the MPAA for downloading a movie almost a year before the IP addy was put into use. Several IP addys did not have any suspicous downloads but were targeted due to sent and received e-mails with mp3 attachments, no matter if the mp3 was music or just random sounds.

 

[stratman]

I work for a telephone/ISP/TV cable company that has about 15000 customers. While I mostly work in the outside plant engineering dept I talk with the guys in the ISP dept almost everyday. The RIAA and MPAA has sent us letters wanting to know the identity of our customers with certain IPs. We have not replied to any RIAA requests yet. We are waiting for official court ordered subpoenas before we turn over any customer information.

However we have came up with some interesting things in pre-examining the "wanted" customers on our system. Several IP addys the RIAA have tagged never was used by any of our customers. One IP addy was tagged by the MPAA for downloading a movie almost a year before the IP addy was put into use. Several IP addys did not have any suspicous downloads but were targeted due to sent and received e-mails with mp3 attachments, no matter if the mp3 was music or just random sounds.

Now that's scary!