Woman ordered to pay $222,000 for illegal downloads

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Oct 4 2007, 11:10 PM) [snapback]521562[/snapback]</div>

Why?

She knew it was illegal. She did it anyway. She got caught. Time to pay up.

 

Any P-2-P software, BitTorrent included, can be changed to prevent UPLOADING. Edit, Preferences, ...

Downloading is not illegal - distributing copyrighted material is.

This mother, I feel sorry she lost, but she knew what she was getting into.

Of course she'll declare bankruptcy and the RIAA won't get a penny - but holy cow - going to court to lose on purpose? Seven years on the Credit Black List (if not forever)?
Any legal counsel would have told her she was toast.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Oct 5 2007, 12:44 AM) [snapback]521575[/snapback]</div>

Godiva !!!!! We agree on something ! Awesome !!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mark Derail @ Oct 5 2007, 09:44 AM) [snapback]521820[/snapback]</div>

Downloading copyrighted music in the US is indeed illegal. It is legal in Canada, according to Webopedia. But in the US, the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act deems it illegal.

You can burn a CD onto another disc as an archival copy, as long as you're the user of both copies. You can have a CD and put the songs on an Ipod, and play the CD in your house and the MP3 on your IPod and be legal. You just can't give the MP3 to anyone else.

The recording industry is going after 12 year olds who download music, presumably because the 12 year olds are threatening the extinction of these large multinational companies. The "artists", who sing songs and spout off about the common man, standing up against big oil and fighting injustice, are silent hypocrites in supporting these actions. How many millions do singers need? Do they realize they are now "the man" who is persecuting the little people?

What they should do is realize that the people willing to risk the trojans and viruses associated with the peer-to-peer networks are the very same people who spend more on music than any one else. They are the very ones who are downloading legal music as well, paying a buck or more per song from the commercial services, according to the BBC.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Oct 5 2007, 02:17 AM) [snapback]521615[/snapback]</div>

Why make it legal? So people can steal and avoid responsibility?

She stole. She got caught. She's lucky it's a fine and not jail time.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mark Derail @ Oct 5 2007, 11:44 AM) [snapback]521820[/snapback]</div>

She took a gamble.

The out of court settlements have been about $3,000-$5,000. That was about the same as the lawyer's fees to fight. She took a gamble and she lost.

She's a thief. Great role model for the kiddies. I don't think bankruptcy should protect her. I think the should have any money she gets for the rest of her life garnished until she pays up.

 

She's not being fined for stealing the music, but for distributing it to others.

I don't really sympathize with the woman too much, because it's fairly simple to turn off sharing in P2P apps, as mentioned before, and with the recent press about people getting fined, nobody really has an excuse for not taking those simple steps to avoid "getting caught." However, I think the fine is completely and totally out of proportion because it's designed to fight the kind of piracy where the pirate makes a profit from distributing material, and the woman certainly did not profit from sharing those files.

On the other hand, I think the record industry is taking the wrong approach with digital media, and it will only hurt them in the end. People have adapted very quickly to the technology, but no industry likes change because change is expensive. They're wasting their money and hurting themselves and consumers by trying to hold onto their current broken model.

I have very rarely downloaded music that I didn't purchase, but I even more rarely purchase music on CD because I hate what they're doing with digital media. I never buy from iTunes Store or other online sources.

I'd say that some of the companies involved in DRM are stealing from their customers. With iTunes, you could have spent a lot of money on music files, but if you try to move them to another computer one too many times (for any number of typical and perfectly reasonable/legal reasons), you no longer get to use those files. I think any company using DRM in that way should be fined and repay their customers in a similar way.

 

If it was cocaine or heroin, would we be as lax with the distributor? Shall we make cocaine and heroin legal?

By distributing copyright material, she was stealing from those that are supported by the royalties. And that's a lot more than just the "rich" recording artist and company. It's the composer who is working hand to mouth to feed his family. And the recording studio back up players. And the guy that does the cover art. They have families. They have mouths to feed. And the few pennies that each sale makes add up to support them. They're entitled to make a living. If they can't make a living because their livelihood is being given away for free....they'll do something else.

The courts were right to find her guilty and fine her.

I buy my music on CD. I don't download. I think everyone should pay, whether they are buying an original CD or paying for a download. I don't burn copies of anything I own and give it to my friends. And guess what? I've never lost a friend because I refused to break the law for them.

Should the industry change with the times? Yes. But they still shouldn't give their product away for free or allow it's free distribution by anyone. A way must be found to allow the people who want it to pay a reasonable fee for it so the people that produce it can afford to live a decent life and be able to pay for their children's healthcare (thanks to "NO CHILD LEFT INSURED" Bush.)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Oct 7 2007, 04:26 PM) [snapback]522508[/snapback]</div>

That's fine if you still like CD's. I don't and will never buy a CD again because it is archaic and wasteful technology. Why should I go pay $10 to $15 for a piece of plastic with music on it, 80% of which I don't want, to get the couple of songs I do want? Then I have to covert it to a music file so that I can use it on my Ipod. I would much rather just buy the songs I want digitally and download them. I'm quite happy to do this legally.

HOWEVER, the anti-piracy locks put on songs from the I-Tunes store are WAY too restrictive. They basically restrict you to using that song that you paid for on one device only. So if you have say 3 IPODs, you have to buy to song 3 times to use it on each device. That is just wrong. There is also the problem if you want to upgrade your Ipod to a new one. It is possible to get around the locks, but not easy. As Apple has it designed, when you upgrade to a new IPOD you would then need to repurchase all your songs from ITunes for the new device.

I don't think you would be too happy if your CD only worked in one CD player and you had to buy one set of CD's for your home and one set for your car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Oct 7 2007, 03:30 PM) [snapback]522521[/snapback]</div>

Are you sure?

My daughter's iPod Mini recently died and was replaced with a 3rd Gen iPod Nano. AFAIK, all she had to do was to synchronize her new iPod with her existing iTunes music library and all her music was uploaded to the new device without a hitch and at no cost.

It is a different issue, though, if you upgrade computers, as I understand.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Oct 7 2007, 12:11 PM) [snapback]522482[/snapback]</div>

I think his statement to "make it legal, people" was meant to convey the concept that people should "make it legal" by downloading only legal music.

Its interesting that it is legal to share music on a P2P network in Canada, as long as you don't charge for it, but not in the US.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Oct 7 2007, 06:30 PM) [snapback]522521[/snapback]</div>

Everything you said about the iTunes is incorrect.
1st from a previous poster You can have a song bought from iTunes on up to 5 PC's at one time. If you need to update PC's you can deauthorize your iTunes account on an older PC and get your limit number back.
2nd I believe there used to be a limit of 10 iPods that the user could transfer their songs too, but I am pretty sure it is now an unlimited number of iPods, I have 5 iPods in my family and I have never had a problem with purchased music.
3rd it is extremely easy to get around all of the DRM for iTunes or any other online store for that matter for all the music you PAID for. If you don't want the DRM just burn it to a CD-RW and then recompress it in any format you wish, the main thing that you gain is that you can play it on any device that you want to. If you find the 128kbs quality from iTunes acceptable you wont even notice the slight difference in quality.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Oct 7 2007, 03:11 PM) [snapback]522482[/snapback]</div>

I agree with most of what you say, but quibble with saying "she's a thief." Despite the best PR efforts of the copyright industry, such infractions do not meet the standard definition of theft. Copyright is defined for the benefit of society, not the content creator. This is reflected in the numerous exemptions to copyright 'ownership'- exemptions that do not have equivalents in regards to ownership of physical possessions. Interestingly, the penalties for 'sharing' copyrighted works over the internet are far worse than actually going out and literally stealing the physical media from a store (which is theft - depriving the rightful owner of possession and use of their material property). That seems a bit odd.

In a moral sense, I do have acquaintances who I know use P2P to download music and I have little problem hanging out with them. Unlike theft, their downloading of music they would never buy has not deprived the owner of anything. I do not have friends who are thieves (beyond stupid kid stuff in the past) and, frankly, would not want any.

Personally, I think the penalty is disproportionate to her crime, and I'm disturbed that the judge did not actually require any finding of actual copyright infringement to penalize her (it was not required that they prove by a preponderance of evidence that anyone ever actually downloaded a single song she made available). But, I'm safe from such overzealous prosecution, as long as my teen neighbor doesn't hack my WEP protected network (perhaps it's time I dropped a couple hundred bucks to upgrade to a WPA access point, using a few year old WEP 128 bit based encryption router is now risking your house)...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mark Derail @ Oct 5 2007, 09:44 AM) [snapback]521820[/snapback]</div>

Actually, she probably didn't. The internets are full of people who say that everything is free and the owner doesn't have a right to try to control his property.

Not sure it works that way. I don't think you can avoid a judgement like this with bankruptcy.

Apparently not. I think she was represented by legal counsel.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jweale @ Oct 7 2007, 09:04 PM) [snapback]522561[/snapback]</div>

Actually you're probably better off just turning off WEP and making your wifi open to anyone. That way if you ever get caught, you can just claim that your open wifi allowed a neighbor or a drive-by wifi pirate to commit the crime.

Godiva, I think you're being a little unfair. What she did (or more specifically what she was charged with), as pointed out by jweale, is not legally the same as stealing, and the laws used to prosecute her were not designed for the kind of behavior she exhibited. Not only that, but the penalty she got is, IMO, out of proportion with the damage she may or may not have caused to the poor, toothless children of enslaved musicians around the world.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that the recording industry give their product away, but that a better model is needed. People on both sides right now are taking advantage of the confusion. Consumers are not the only part of the problem. I think the woman should be ready to take a reasonable amount of responsibility for her actions, just like I'm ready to pay a speeding ticket if I get caught doing +5, but not to go to jail for 2 years for the same offense.

I wouldn't mind too much if the recording industry collapsed and we have to go down to the pub, the library, the church or whatever public venue to hear live music performed. When was the last time you heard music performed live?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Oct 8 2007, 10:22 AM) [snapback]522684[/snapback]</div>

No, the courts are not accepting that excuse. Not owning a computer is barely enough to get off. The current prosecution indicates you are fully liable for all use made of your access point (you did read those Terms of Service you signed up for, right?). If you have an open access point that a neighbor hops on and uses, you are fully liable. There is no excuse in the stupid law, and the courts (and definitely the RIAA) have been pigheaded in giving no quarter on this issue.

 

Stupid law, stupid fine. Music should be free for all. I'm not in the music industry, what do I care?
I'm sick of seeing insainly rich entertainers and the whole machine that exists around them purely to make money while the entertainers will say they do it because they love it, love the money me thinks.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Oct 8 2007, 11:27 PM) [snapback]523007[/snapback]</div>

Good points. Yet it's the Music Industry that derives its living from music distribution that's starting to lose not only to ordinary people uploading but now, significantly, to the artists themselves who are releasing directly on the Internet for free or very cheap and bypassing traditional distribution.

EMI's new owner says the industry must get away from the old CD model.

Read all about it here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm...08/cnemi108.xml