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Child Item

US woman fined $222,000 for..

gurramok

'illegally sharing 22 songs over Kazaa'

My question to boardsies is not if she was guilty or not or the rights/wrongs of 'sharing music' but does the punishment fit the 'crime'?

Take into account all other forms of crime and their consequent punishments but does sharing 22 songs over kazaa really merit a $222,000 fine that this person would pay for rest of her life due to the justice system and extreme DRM laws?

Me, i don't think so.

The following quote from sums it up..
'The US record industry said people would understand the verdict.'

Because they know that the public knows that the punishment don't fit the crime:mad:

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Tar.Aldarion

guess she should have been more careful.

Boston

gurramok wrote:

And its NOT stealing, its copyright infringement of songs.

You can steal a loaf of bread but not a song as the original song is and always will be there.

Any links to back this up as the story is all over the net?

Google news has about 625 links, i have checked the first 20, not a mention of selling songs at all
http://news.google.ie/nwshp?oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=1121627151&topic=t

You seem to have a problem reading peoples posts. I heard it on the news. That all I'm saying btw. Btw that register article says it was 24 songs not 22.

gurramok

Boston wrote:

You seem to have a problem reading peoples posts. I heard it on the news. That all I'm saying btw. Btw that register article says it was 24 songs not 22.

Well, if it was on the news(asume Irish) that it invloved selling, they must have picked it up wrong.
I'd trust the American news source more as it happened in the states nevermind the hundreds of sources i've posted from google news which state not a word of selling :rolleyes:

22 was changed to 24 in bbc article during the morning, talk about semantics

Maple

ridiculous fine, far outweighs the "crime". they're just making an example of her. Plus she was sharing the songs, not making a profit of selling them on.

Boston

gurramok wrote:

Well, if it was on the news(asume Irish) that it invloved selling, they must have picked it up wrong.
I'd trust the American news source more as it happened in the states nevermind the hundreds of sources i've posted from google news which state not a word of selling :rolleyes:

22 was changed to 24 in bbc article during the morning, talk about semantics

Or they could be just selectively leaving out details.

$Photo of DonkeyStyle \o/$ DonkeyStyle \o/

Boston wrote:

Or they could be just selectively leaving out details.

It'd certainly work in the record industries favour if people were made to believe they could face a penalty like that for nothing but file sharing.
Not sure why news sources are playing ball though... certainly some spin/propaganda going on if she was selling music.

Peanut

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

It'd certainly work in the record industries favour if people were made to believe they could face a penalty like that for nothing but file sharing..

Hmm I really don't think so, if anything they have totally shot themselves in the foot with this one.

There can't be any other reaction than a public backlash against the disproportionality of the fine.

..Add to that the arrogance of the RIAA lawyer - "This is what can happen if you don't settle," - smugness and barely veiled threats like that do not go down well with the public. The stupidity is quite immense - do they think it's a Sopranos episode or something?

Their various PR depts really screwed up bigtime by letting this happen.

Cuddlesworth

Peanut wrote:

..Add to that the arrogance of the RIAA lawyer - "This is what can happen if you don't settle," - smugness and barely veiled threats like that do not go down well with the public. The stupidity is quite immense - do they think it's a Sopranos episode or something?

Don't suppose he decided to mention after that nearly every other case that didn't settle was either thrown out of court or given a sensationalist verdict like this, then thrown out of court on appeal.

If she gets a good lawyer and spends the money on some tech experts she can get out of paying the fine very easily. She doesn't have to prove that she didn't do it, she just has to make it impossible to prove that she did do it.

AARRRGH

This whole area of law is very vague.

In Ireland it seems to be downloading is legal, uploading (or sharing) may or may not be legal.

The fact that a jury of her peers agreed to the massive payout is the most disturbing aspect of that case to me...

togster

Boston wrote:

Or they could be just selectively leaving out details.

+1
wouldn't be the first time they did it.
Downloading songs for free is wrong anyway. Just because you can share doesn't make it morally right.
Thats just my opinion loike.

Dozyart

i read that it was her who wanted it brought to court for some sort of martyrdom..if that is the case i believe she got what she deserved....

togster

Dozyart wrote:

i read that it ..

Where?

Dozyart

togster wrote:

Where?

bbc 1 teletext:"the jury ordered to pay for offering to to share 24 specific songs online at $9,250 per song"

"....was the first person accused of file sharing to decide to fight in court"

limklad

gurramok wrote:

My question to boardsies is not if she was guilty or not or the rights/wrongs of 'sharing music' but does the punishment fit the 'crime'?

In The US, a land Full of extremes and bizarre laws even more weird than this side of the Atlantic, therefore nothing will ever fits the crime!!

It's justice system is not just based on an "eye for an eye" mentality if far worst. a "Crack scull for an eye", and mob rule. if you pay for or Shout loud enough, intimidate and emotionally bully the Politicians (Who will look after their own arse for good publicity) and you get any extreme law in place. There is still a "hanging mentality" for stealing for food to eat.

After saying the above, if you steal (and not staving for food), you must pay for the crime.
After all, what about all of the legal costs of bring this case to court?
Lawyers, Judge, clerical staff, records keeping,Guards, police, Witness, etc, and costs of investigation, costs of fatalities. Could I go on?

I say $222,000 is cheap once you add up all the costs and you need to make people think before committing this crime again.

Keyzer

This case just goes to highlight the general muppetry that goes on in America...

$220,000 for 24 songs is ridiculous....
The womans life is probably totally destroyed now....

TheAlmightyArse

The stealing loaves of bread analogy doesn't work at all. With file sharing, you're not taking the data, you're copying it. How exactly is it stealing if afterwards the "victim" still has everything exactly as they had it before?

Saying that she cost record companies however much they charge for the songs if she'd bought them doesn't work either. Who's to say she would have bought them if she couldn't download them? If someone copies (not steals) something they weren't prepared to pay money for anyway, then no-one has lost anything.

Lemming

I haven't read pages 2 or 3, but this judgement sets an extremely dangerous and incredibly naieve precedent.

The judge has made an incredibly faux pas in several domains.

1. Rental companies are now liable, thus their entire business model is now defunct.

E.g. Xtra-Vision rent a DVD to you. You take it home and rip it before returning it without their consent or knowledge. Xtra-Vision are guilty, not you. Not the person who committed the act of copyright violation.

In ruling that the defendant by accident, design, or third-party misdeeds (it has not been proven either way), is guilty of the crime of copyright violation, the judge has made a farce of the entire concept of "innocent until proven guilty".

2. The RIAA did not prove any losses actually occured, which is a prequisite for awarding damages, outside of punitive damages. Thus, they have essentially been asked "So how much would you like us to rob for you?"

Two very serious errors in judgement.

And no, the punishment did not fit the crime. What-so-f*cking-ever. RIAAfia at it again :mad:

seamus

Lemming wrote:

1. Rental companies are now liable, thus their entire business model is now defunct.

E.g. Xtra-Vision rent a DVD to you. You take it home and rip it before returning it without their consent or knowledge. Xtra-Vision are guilty, not you. Not the person who committed the act of copyright violation.

I don't think that's the case. At least in this country anyway, sharing your files is in itself a copyright violation - it is a form of "publishing" the content, when the person doesn't have a licence from the copyright holder to publish or distribute the content.
The person who downloaded the content technically isn't committing an offence unless they listen to/use the content - being in possession of the content isn't a breach of copyright.

2. The RIAA did not prove any losses actually occured, which is a prequisite for awarding damages, outside of punitive damages. Thus, they have essentially been asked "So how much would you like us to rob for you?"

This indeed is a concern. All the RIAA did was prove that copyright was breached. In my eyes anyway, this doesn't prove that any loss was actually experienced.

humanji

1. Rental companies are now liable, thus their entire business model is now defunct.

E.g. Xtra-Vision rent a DVD to you. You take it home and rip it before returning it without their consent or knowledge. Xtra-Vision are guilty, not you. Not the person who committed the act of copyright violation.

Don't video rental places have consent to rent of the films, so they aren't commiting an offence?

limklad

Keyzer wrote:

This case just goes to highlight the general muppetry that goes on in America...

$220,000 for 24 songs is ridiculous....
The womans life is probably totally destroyed now....

If she knowingly and intended to committed the crime of robbing other people earnings then, she should expect to be punishment, no matter how severe.
Stealing is taking risks, get away with it or get caught. Going to court is like gambling, you win or lose. How much you lose by, depends on the odds and determination of others. Punishment in court is supposed to be a deterrent against future breaches of law.

If she was rich, she could afford some smart lawyers to get her off.

Jesus Wept

mise_me_fein wrote:

What's the difference between 22 and 22,000 in the eyes of the judge.

21,978

Surely he can do basic subtraction, he is a judge ffs.

vorbis

That is jsut bizarre logic limklad.
A punishement for a crime must be appropriate!
If you got executed for robbing a car, it wouldn't be deserved just beacuase you lost the court case!

In this case, 220,000 is laughable, I'd expect an appeal to reduce it. If she'd robbed 20 cds from a store, she would just get a fraction of this fine!

$Photo of DonkeyStyle \o/$ DonkeyStyle \o/

Peanut wrote:

Hmm I really don't think so, if anything they have totally shot themselves in the foot with this one.

There can't be any other reaction than a public backlash against the disproportionality of the fine.

What I meant was that it would work in their favour from their twisted point of view... in line with their whole making-examples-of-people game plan.
I'm thinking about this in the context of why her selling this music (as claimed earlier in the thread) isn't making the news reports.
If they can get people to believe a punishment that was really for selling music is the punishment for sharing a few songs, then it's a major win in the scare-tactics game they seem so fond of.
As for public backlash, I'd like to think there would be one, but I don't think there will be... the phrase "docile masses" springs to mind.

pickarooney

gurramok wrote:

22 was changed to 24 in bbc article during the morning, talk about semantics

In that case the fine should be amended to $242,424 to fit the crime.

enda1

So she was sharing 24 songs. But surely it depends on how many downloads of these songs there were to establish the impact it had on the record company?? I mean if 100 people downloaded each of the songs then 2400 songs were downloaded.

For some reason people equate downloading a song (freely) with robbing the songs monetary equivalent from the record company but I wouldn't have a tenth of my music collection if I had to pay full price for it so I don't think this is the case.

So anyway all I'm saying is that surely the amount of downloads is far more important than the number of songs she supplied. Still the fine is probably WAY over the top!

Keyzer

limklad wrote:

If she knowingly and intended to committed the crime of robbing other people earnings then, she should expect to be punishment, no matter how severe.

Stealing is taking risks, get away with it or get caught. Going to court is like gambling, you win or lose. How much you lose by, depends on the odds and determination of others. Punishment in court is supposed to be a deterrent against future breaches of law

Lets be honest man, she didn't kill anyone or molest children.....
She downloaded/uploaded a few songs and was fined $200,000 + ....

That, in my opinion, is a crazy punishment...

Fine her a couple of thousand dollars, enough to give her a wake up and give her some community service.
Don't ruin her life....

$Photo of DonkeyStyle \o/$ DonkeyStyle \o/

Peanut wrote:

..Add to that the arrogance of the RIAA lawyer - "This is what can happen if you don't settle," - smugness and barely veiled threats like that do not go down well with the public.

Yeah I read that on the BBC news website earlier and recoiled with horror... such disgusting gloating.
I checked back a bit later and the report had added quotes like "we don't want to litigate"... no doubt some PR clean-up job.

Lemming

seamus wrote:

I don't think that's the case. At least in this country anyway, sharing your files is in itself a copyright violation - it is a form of "publishing" the content, when the person doesn't have a licence from the copyright holder to publish or distribute the content.

The person who downloaded the content technically isn't committing an offence unless they listen to/use the content - being in possession of the content isn't a breach of copyright.

I think the judge has indeed opened a can of worms here. He stated that the woman making the files available was enough to deem her guilty. This opens several questions.

1. Who made the files available
2. Was she aware that the files were available.
3. What did she do once she became aware that the files were available.

What the judge said in his brief was essentially that regardless, it was she who violated copyright (to make life easy for the RIAAfia), not the person who actually chose to carry out the act of copyright violation.

That is a serious, serious f*cking flaw in his argument.

Oh, and the reason why the RIAAfia are not pursuing the downloaders is because they can't "prove" who's doing the downloading. They can't prove who's doing the uploading either for that matter, but they can find scapegoats. So their strategy is undermined from the word "go". It's like prosecuting the person who's car got stolen and not the bank robber who used it to get away from the bank.

interestingly though, this court judgement could possibly leave the RIAAfia wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open to a RICO case when they attempt to collect their "winnings". Appeal the sentence and file a counter-suit on grounds of losses actually accrued.

gurramok

limklad wrote:

After saying the above, if you steal (and not staving for food), you must pay for the crime.
After all, what about all of the legal costs of bring this case to court?
Lawyers, Judge, clerical staff, records keeping,Guards, police, Witness, etc, and costs of investigation, costs of fatalities. Could I go on?

I say $222,000 is cheap once you add up all the costs and you need to make people think before committing this crime again.
[/COLOR]

LOL..she DID NOT STEAL anything.

She has not been convicted of anything.

She has been sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement through sharing music files for free(until someone provides a verifiable link that she was selling then she was not selling) over Kazaa.

She is only one of 26,000 been sued who decided to fight the accusation in court which is a basic right.

And the reason why the other 25,999 didn't fight was not because they are guilty but because they cannot fight the super-rich RIAA in court due to high legal costs.
Everyone has a right to fight a lawsuit, the rest settled out of court due to exhorbant costs involved without a whisker of guilt proved.

What it proves is that the litigation laws on copyright are absurd, the EU recently have a similar copyright law with recent persuasion from the spouse(MEP) of a Vivendi executive to push it through the EU parliament.(Digi rights forum would have more info on this part)

Overheal

Hmmm heres a hack-thought: write a worm virus that seeds illegal MP3s onto someones computer.... actually that just sent a chill down my spine: dont.

artists make far too big a deal over it: they make PLENTY of cash - they could retire like a regular person off of 1 or 2 tours easilly. When you think about it like that its really stupid:: surely the idea is you want more people to hear the music and maybe they'll buy your other **** like your DVDs of live performances or *ghasp* even attend a live performance.

But I dont blame the artist I blame the Label: most artists are sensible and the other half only see the color of money.

In an ideal setting it shouldnt be a crime but the Label is within a capitalising business model: they are legally bound to turn a profit most especially to their shareholders - they need to protect that.
Having said that though this kind of thing really can put a stain on a company's public image.