I would just cut off the last 5 seconds of each song I "downloaded" and say I never downloaded full songs, only clips.. I'm not sure about the law, but this might work..
While the penalty is harsh, she would not have been on trial had she not downloaded and shared music illegally.
I was reading she had a chance to settle earlier for $3-5K per song yet she declined and kept pushing it on. I guess they're just trying to make an example out of her.
What would the penalty have been if she had walked into Target and stolen the CDs that these would have been on?
She is a hardened criminal. She stole music. I bet she was going to let other people upload her music too. I am so disturbed that the jury didn't give her prison. ZERO TOLERANCE. Thats why I always borrowed my music/p*rn when using various p2p softwares.
Lol, what ****ing morons the RIAA are. Really? $80000 a song? Stop me at any point that this becomes ridiculous.
First, the main problem that I read is that they claimed she distributed them. She allowed her shared files folder to be accessible by other peers on Kazaa.... so it's not exactly the same as "taking the cd's from target". Second, they were able to get the files from her, themselves. They had the full copies of songs they got... from her... in the courtroom. Third, if I'm not mistaken, they originally only awarded $3500 and she refused and sought an appeal, and this is the result. The damages in this are ridiculous and it's just a sign of the times. Their attitude seems to be "Screw what's fair, let's get our justice using fear and tyranny." I can't see that sticking. Expect another appeal. While I don't think this was fair, and I don't think the RIAA has any idea what to do about this without alienating music fans more or hurting themselves, I think it's laughable the justification and reasoning that people use to make it sound like obtaining music illegally should be alright with them. Should they change the way they do business? yes. Should people think it's ok to distribute music across the interwebz to the entire world because they haven't? Probably not. Again, these damages, that jury, and the second defense team, are all ridiculous. Lastly, it states that these types of cases are no longer being filed, as they are attacking it from a more "utopian" manner by shoving big brother down the throats of ISPs and finding the more overt offenders by invading privacy, instead. I'm sure they can save money by bribing our privacy out of us through ISPs rather than trying to cut their losses with lawsuits where the punishment not only doesn't fit the crime, but where the damages will never be realized because the people they are going after don't have that kind of money. There, happy?
Whats crazy is that its a lady who downloaded just 24 songs! Why dont they at least go after people who really do some damage and are uploading gigabytes of music every day?
I read these comments on Slashdot. It puts the $80,000 per song in perspective in a few different ways.
Did you read the first part of my post where I agree the penalty is harsh? Again, that being said, if she did not participate in illegal behavior, she would not have been on trial. Regardless of anyone's feeling about the RIAA, it is currently against the law to illegally download and/or share music. Folks that obey the law have nothing to worry about.
Yah, what she got was fair. As fair as what the man in Oklahoma got for raping a 4 year old child...1 year in jail. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-06-16-rape-sentence_N.htm You gotta love our justice system.
The first trial is 200k and the retrial is 8 times that? Appeals shouldnt penalize you like that, and what jury can logically come up with that amount for the damage of 24 songs?
I think this encourages people to keep doing it. Just to stick it to the man. This isn't scaring any of the people who really download stuff hardcore. That has to be the biggest waste of time and money for the RIAA... r****ds.
