Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 6/19/2009, 4:15 PM
Yeah, that $80,000 per song figure being bandied about by the press is pure caca.

She was found with 1,700 songs on her computer available for download, and as of yesterday she could have settled for $3,500 but chose not to. That's $2.06 per song to have had all charges dropped.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090619/ap_en_mu/us_tec_music_downloading

Too bad for her.
Sebaz wrote on 6/19/2009, 4:44 PM
A typical case of justice not being served correctly and an outrageous abuse. She broke the law and deserves to pay for it, but this is equivalent to receiving the death penalty for running a red light.

The RIAA's thugs manage to convince a jury and a judge that this woman has to pay almost 2 million dollars for pirating music. That kind of corrupt court system should only be seen in dictatorship countries such as North Korea and Iran, not in the USA.

This woman made a mistake that because of this corruption ruined the rest of her life, but she didn't kill anybody, or run a scam that robbed the savings of thousands. She downloaded songs illegally. It's wrong, and she should pay a fair, emphasis on the FAIR, price for it. $1,900,000 is outrageous, it's the RIAA and a corrupt court system taking advantage of her big time.
RalphM wrote on 6/19/2009, 5:30 PM
Well, maybe $2 a song is reasonable, but this isn't an issue of common sense. Based on what I have read, the woman probably could't pay the $3500 that was offered as a settlement either.

The recordings are the property of the artists and the recording companies. She stole the songs; the penalties are ridiculous, but they are codified in the law. The problem really stems from a changing business model that frightens the RIAA into attack mode.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/19/2009, 6:51 PM
I find it completly redicilious that in this country everybody is all worked up on healthcare costs but the max legal file for stealing a copyrighted with is $250k. The fine for filing illegal insurance forms with govt insurance is "no more insurance" & for both govt & private ~$1500 in some cases.

Yeah... priorities.
ushere wrote on 6/19/2009, 7:31 PM
sole parent, limited income, hell they should have gone for broke, at least a trillion.... (i mean a billion here or there is so common nowadays...)
musicvid10 wrote on 6/19/2009, 8:00 PM
"Based on what I have read, the woman probably could't pay the $3500 that was offered as a settlement either.'

She could have made more than that from one interview with the Enquirer.
Jeff_Smith wrote on 6/19/2009, 10:25 PM
I read (I think musicvid's link) that RIAA will probably end up settling for far less, obviously she will never be able to pay, and I am sure any actual settlement terms will be confidential. This is bad for both parties, but it sends a message. When I hear KaZaA, first thing that comes to mind is rip-off, even though they have made legitimate changes, but at a 1/10th loss in traffic (just a guess).
deusx wrote on 6/20/2009, 2:04 AM
WTF? Why do people act surprised every time something like that happens.

Maximum penalty is 5 years in jail and $250 000 for a single act of infringement.
It's as simple as that. Making any song available for downloading is illegal distribution and falls under 5 years in jail and $250 000

And didn't anybody go to schol after kindergarten to learn some basic math? $80 000 per song? Are these people that stupid and do not understand that if you share a single song it can potentially be downloaded a few million times in which case 1.9M verdict comes out to less than a$1 a song.

It's not how many times he/she or whoever actually downloaded it. It's illegal distribution that matters, and it's impossible to tell how much damage it actually caused.
ken c wrote on 6/21/2009, 3:26 PM
I hope we see a lot more actions like this (draconian as they are), because piracy continues to be a major pita for many of us content producers, eg now in addition to ebay etc I have to police rapidshare, and there's not much I can do about bittorrents...

at least having a lot of visible deterrents via court cases can help us content producers (a little) from at least usa-based pirates (who are thieves in my opinion).

It's not cool to share songs, movies or other content that us producers work our butts off creating... maybe a $75,000 fine and make her do 5 years of community service would be a more reasonable outcome, but still, I like that pirates are being punished. It's about time.

And re the original article, we all know that seldom is the finding amount actually awarded on appeal, so an appeal may well take it down to a more reasonable level. And 24 songs uploaded is not the kind of person I'd personally like to see gone after, it's more the punks in indosia/russia/malaysia that resell and make livings off of bootlegged stuff (and/or filesharing sites), I'd rather see enforcement focus their energy on (I do).

-k