Woman fined $1.9 million for illegally downloading songs

[Kamsaki]

I know I'll be villified for supporting the rule of law, but think for a moment people: if I rob a bank, should my total punishment be nothing more than returning the cash I took?

She's not being punished for robbing the bank (downloading). She's being punished for laundering the cash (uploading). Important difference.

[Sdaeriji]

I know I'll be villified for supporting the rule of law, but think for a moment people: if I rob a bank, should my total punishment be nothing more than returning the cash I took?

Of course not. But neither should it be tends of thousands times the amount you took. I mean, imagine if somebody was fined $60,000 for stealing a candy bar from a gas station.

Um. Shocking though it may be, but you can go to JAIL for stealing a candy bar. A fine is a lesser punishment.

Theft of a candy bar being punishable by a maximum of 6 months in jail and a $2,500 fine (petty theft), versus a maximum of 5 years in jail and a $150,000 fine for theft of a song (copyright infringement). You can go to JAIL for stealing a song, too.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/us ... -000-.html

[Sdaeriji]

Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, said the industry remains willing to settle. She refused to name a figure, but acknowledged Thomas-Rasset had been given the chance to settle for $3,000 to $5,000 earlier in the case.

"Since Day One we have been willing to settle this case and we remain willing to do so," Duckworth said.

Yes, the fine is excessive. Which is why the RIAA, the people so many of you are whining about, offered her a much more reasonable fine. Somehow, I doubt that will silence the whining, though.

The jury doesn't just invent damages out of its ass. Both prosecution and defense argue as to the extent of the damages and the jury makes their decision based on those arguments. Somewhere along the way, the RIAA convinced the jury that they were damaged to the tune of $80,000 per song.

[JuNii]

Yes, the fine is excessive. Which is why the RIAA, the people so many of you are whining about, offered her a much more reasonable fine. Somehow, I doubt that will silence the whining, though.

The jury doesn't just invent damages out of its ass. Both prosecution and defense argue as to the extent of the damages and the jury makes their decision based on those arguments. Somewhere along the way, the RIAA convinced the jury that they were damaged to the tune of $80,000 per song.

I dunno about that. We don't know if the RIAA (who offered a substantially LESS amount for settlement) convinced anyone on the amount.

Under federal law, the jury could have awarded up to $150,000 per song.

could've been much higher.

[Vicious Storms]

So what happens if you download songs on limewire? You get like fined like she did? Or what did she do thats different?

And the artists probably couldnt give a crap as much as they wouldnt care if a squirrel farted. Wow.

[The_pantless_hero]

I know I'll be villified for supporting the rule of law, but think for a moment people: if I rob a bank, should my total punishment be nothing more than returning the cash I took?

She's not being punished for robbing the bank (downloading). She's being punished for laundering the cash (uploading). Important difference.

So they proved that 79,999 people downloaded each song from her?

[The_pantless_hero]

Under federal law, the jury could have awarded up to $150,000 per song.

could've been much higher.

That totally makes it less retarded.

[Kamsaki]

So they proved that 79,999 people downloaded each song from her?

No, but their approach of "Well, that computer had those songs on a Kazaa list, and that's what that program does" seemed to work well enough to declare intent to share the files. If she'd used an http direct download, the case against her, personally, would probably have been thrown out.

[Vicious Storms]

So what happens if you download songs on limewire? You get like fined like she did? Or what did she do thats different?

And the artists probably couldnt give a crap as much as they wouldnt care if a squirrel farted. Wow.

I'd greatly appreciate it if my question about the limewire thing is answered. Thanks.

[Valipac]

Why the hell would you want to download songs off of limewire? All it does is give you viruses.

[The_pantless_hero]

So what happens if you download songs on limewire? You get like fined like she did? Or what did she do thats different?

And the artists probably couldnt give a crap as much as they wouldnt care if a squirrel farted. Wow.

I'd greatly appreciate it if my question about the limewire thing is answered. Thanks.

Yes, they will fine you $2mil for pirating songs on limewire too, stop asking retarded questions. Especially ones that implicate yourself in illegal activities.

[Valipac]

The question you have to ask yourself in this scenario, is, "Does the punishment fit the crime". The easy answer is no, it doesn't. These songs cost maybe 80 cents to a dollar to purchase legally. How then is it justifiable to charge someone 100,000 times more as punishment? It's a fucking outrage. The money doesn't even go to the artists, it goes to the record companies. If it went to the artists, I would be at least somewhat supportive of it, after all, it is their music.

[Vicious Storms]

What's so retarded about it? Isn't it downloading songs?

[JuNii]

Under federal law, the jury could have awarded up to $150,000 per song.

could've been much higher.

That totally makes it less retarded.

considering the argument is that it's not the Jury that decided the amount but the RIAA that did...

yeah, it does make it less retarded.

[Kamsaki]

I'd greatly appreciate it if my question about the limewire thing is answered. Thanks.

If you use it as a standard bittorrent client, you're as vulnerable as with Kazaa, since you're still seeding. I'm slightly dubious about the legitimacy of the LimeWire Store given how little each mp3 costs and how big their library is, but I suspect that as a paying customer, courts would be much more lenient on you if it turns out you were complicit in a criminal operation.

Ironically, paying money to a company committing massive copyright theft probably results in you being considered less of a criminal than downloading from a simple P2P user who's giving you single unlicensed copies of albums he's bought himself.

[Vicious Storms]

Ok. Let's make this easy for a 13 year old. Limewire downloading songs = fine or no-no?

[The_pantless_hero]

I hate you.

[The_pantless_hero]

Ironically, paying money to a company committing massive copyright theft probably results in you being considered less of a criminal than downloading from a simple P2P user who's giving you single unlicensed copies of albums he's bought himself.

I bet you $1.9mil that the RIAA would disagree.

[Vicious Storms]

I hate you.

Thanks for your opinion. No one cares

[Maurepas]

Ok. Let's make this easy for a 13 year old. Limewire downloading songs = fine or no-no?

you'll be alright, as long as you dont have a mass filesharing operation going on, its unlikely you will be fined at all...

[Valipac]

Ok. Let's make this easy for a 13 year old. Limewire downloading songs = fine or no-no?

ffs don't use limewire. You will kill your computer. The sooner you learn to torrent the better.

[Vicious Storms]

Ok. Let's make this easy for a 13 year old. Limewire downloading songs = fine or no-no?

ffs don't use limewire. You will kill your computer. The sooner you learn to torrent the better.

Limewire uninstalled. Thanks

[Kamsaki]

I bet you $1.9mil that the RIAA would disagree.

I'd be quite tempted to take you up on that. The "they tricked me into paying them money for goods I didn't know were stolen" finger-pointing defense is much easier to present than the "someone else was using my computer" approach.

But then again, if I had that kind of cash, the question would be kinda irrelevant anyway.

[Heinleinites]

Sorry about that, Heinleinites. I see now that your post was relevant to the topic. Kindly pretend that I meant "My attempt at a hijack ends here."

No harm, no foul.

I grant that making a copy of some other person's work (which they have made public on a condition of payment) is not necessarily neutral. It may be a "crime" in the ethical sense but it is NOT directly equivalent to theft.

"Theft" of the content (music) is not equivalent to theft of any physical thing. To use the same word for both is inaccurate, because it is NOT ALWAYS TRUE that copying the content deprives someone of anything, including money.

The argument that "if you make a copy without paying, you will not buy a right to listen to the copy" is incomplete. It may be true in some instances, but the fact that the person who does make a copy still has a choice to buy, or not to buy, the rights to a copy AFTER taking it for no money, shows that the ownership of a physical thing is not precisely the same 'ownership' as "rights to use a copy."

Copying data does not in any degree diminish what is copied, nor deprive anyone of what is copied. Physical things are in limited supply. Copies are not.

If you can find any definition (and particularly a legal definition) of theft, which does not rely on the idea of "taking" and/or "depriving some other of the use of" then I will reconsider this.

Copying anything is not directly equivalent to theft of a physical thing.

I was thinking about this, and I ran across something that LG contributed to the thread, which I think is relevant to your point:

Stealing not only is the taking of something that doesn't belong to you, but the deprivation of that same something to the rightful owner. Copyright Infringement in the case of illegally downloading music is the making of an unauthorized copy for personal use. It's more like counterfeiting money than actually stealing it.

To my mind, illegally downloading a CD or a movie is the equivalent of going to a store and stealing the same from the shelf. In both cases, you're acquiring the material illegally. Just because you don't tuck the actual studio-produced CD or DVD under your coat and then leave the store, does not mean you are not stealing.

[Wiztopia]

Sorry about that, Heinleinites. I see now that your post was relevant to the topic. Kindly pretend that I meant "My attempt at a hijack ends here."

No harm, no foul.

I grant that making a copy of some other person's work (which they have made public on a condition of payment) is not necessarily neutral. It may be a "crime" in the ethical sense but it is NOT directly equivalent to theft.

"Theft" of the content (music) is not equivalent to theft of any physical thing. To use the same word for both is inaccurate, because it is NOT ALWAYS TRUE that copying the content deprives someone of anything, including money.

The argument that "if you make a copy without paying, you will not buy a right to listen to the copy" is incomplete. It may be true in some instances, but the fact that the person who does make a copy still has a choice to buy, or not to buy, the rights to a copy AFTER taking it for no money, shows that the ownership of a physical thing is not precisely the same 'ownership' as "rights to use a copy."

Copying data does not in any degree diminish what is copied, nor deprive anyone of what is copied. Physical things are in limited supply. Copies are not.

If you can find any definition (and particularly a legal definition) of theft, which does not rely on the idea of "taking" and/or "depriving some other of the use of" then I will reconsider this.

Copying anything is not directly equivalent to theft of a physical thing.

I was thinking about this, and I ran across something that LG contributed to the thread, which I think is relevant to your point:

Stealing not only is the taking of something that doesn't belong to you, but the deprivation of that same something to the rightful owner. Copyright Infringement in the case of illegally downloading music is the making of an unauthorized copy for personal use. It's more like counterfeiting money than actually stealing it.

To my mind, illegally downloading a CD or a movie is the equivalent of going to a store and stealing the same from the shelf. In both cases, you're acquiring the material illegally. Just because you don't tuck the actual studio-produced CD or DVD under your coat and then leave the store, does not mean you are not stealing.

It just means you are wrong. Copyright infringement is not the same as stealing.