Happened with one of my roomates' gf's computer. Somedude hacked in and started storing files on her computer.
Okay, so you don't see anything wrong with a huge corporation, with the corresponding huge assets and power, suing a person with extremely limited financial resources? What if that person is a minor? A minor has certain protections from the police, but not from a corporation? Can they prove the amount of damages? Say that they are claiming that it is $10,000, could they possibly prove that this person is solely responsible? Of course not! But they have more and better lawyers, so it's a moot point. I agree that people shouldn't be stealing music. But electronic content at this point is so ubiquitous that it's like the RIAA hid money in hundreds of thousands of garbage cans and dumpsters around Houston. Now they are prosecuting people for digging through the garbage and taking the money. I belong to MusicMatch.com - so I pay for content. It's $6 a month, and for me that's easier than trying to find it and download it. So now I get my content from a vending machine instead of dumpster diving. I think that if the RIAA would spend their efforts on building better vending machines, they wouldn't have such a big problem. Do we really have a free society when you can be harassed by the government, jailed/beaten up by the police, and fined/sued by the corporations? There is no equity, and no justice in a corporation going after an individual. The imbalance of power is off the charts! The law is meant to protect us, but sadly it's being used as a bludgeon by the powerful.
I have no problem with it at all. Why should anyone expect to get the music for free? There are tons of people that helped make that music, and the industry is under assault. Quit breaking the law by downloading music, or participating with others by downloading music. Pay for it, like everyone else !! And, this applies to video games too. DD
The law is the law, don't steal stuff. That said, I think the RIAA's efforts would be better directed towards working on less-pirateable encryption of music and finding better ways to cash in on the download of music. They'll never shut down piracy by suing every individual person who file shares.
What if the person owns the cd's and downloads the music from the internet as well? Does owning the cd of the mp3's you have downloaded offer you some protection?
It's not downloading that's getting people in trouble, it's sharing. Like buying a new CD, making copies of it, and giving them away for free in front of a record store. As far as I know, nobody has gotten busted for ONLY downloading yet.
Some people only download old songs they cant get in stores any more. I wonder how they zero in an an individual. Does anyone know? Do they target people who are sharing a heap of music rather then the ones downloading it? Do they mainly go after people using university computers to download stuff? Also, arent they just happy to have you pay for the music you downloaded as a "Penalty"?
It is VERY questionable to say that downloading music is "stealing". What does the record company lose if the downloader had never bought the song anyway? Where is the financial damage? They constantly claim that downloading causes huge financial damage to them, yet some of the most overpaid people in the world are in the music business.
What I've read is they search for some popular songs and then check the library of people that have it. If they have a lot of music shared they go after them. And they say that just paying for the music isn't enough because you're distributing it to thousands of people, like AntiSonic said it's not the downloading but distributing they are trying to stop. I don't agree with the ridiculous amounts that they are suing for, but they have a legal right to protect their product.
Oh, you mean like using allofmp3.com, a Russian site that offers albums for around 70 cents each? Hey, the site may be shady and skirts US law, but at least I'm paying for songs, right?
Find out what songs were on the drive and beg borrow and steal the actual CD's that had the songs on them.
I was under the impression that if you download the song, move it into a new directory, they wouldn't go after you because the file was not being shared. So that's what I've been doing. I've never been a big fan of copywright law myself, although I understand the argument, and the injustice of stealing the music from the musician, I honestly believe that copywright law does not serve the public interest. It inhibits creativity, invention, and progress, on such a level that that the law itself does more damage to the world than good. The law protects individual rights. But it does not protect the public interest. Which in my opinion is far more important. At the very least there needs to be a balance between the public interest and individual rights. That I could respect. But copywright law in and of itself is inhibiting more artists than the number of artisits it protects. It's a self defeating purpose.
downloading records isn't illegal (technically as long as you own the original, but they can;t prove you don't), so people calling someone out for not paying for music are idiots. The illegal part is sharing the music. Just turn shares off on your peer-to-peer programs, people.
Can someone tell me what ths insentive is for someone to make a entire movie avalible online for Torrent programs? I can understand why people download them (Duh!) but why would you go out of your way to get these movies and upload them?
Det, you know better than that. IP is property even if its theft costs you nothing. It's a violation of their copyright, the same as buying a bootleg movie or playing a burned copy of a video/computer game instead of buying it in the store.
Really? How about the price fixing? They act like a monopoly and screw over both the consumer and artist. They got off cheap on the settlement...a bunch of warehoused garbage CDs for our libraries. I wish there was a way to just pay the artist. I still buy CDs of artists that I like ... to support them, but I think that the RIAA get's too much and the CDs are overpriced. WTH should a CD cost more than a DVD movie?
Yes, I think I know better. Your statement is way too broad. I recommend reading http://www.lessig.org/ Larry is a very smart guy, and an excellent lawyer. http://www.lessig.org/content/archives/WiredMarch.pdf
