[MW Forums]

RIAA won a key digital music file sharing case Thursday against a single mother, with a U.S. jury finding her guilty of copyright infringement. more

[aestival]

I don't see how anyone can possibly justify a penalty far in excess of what she would have been saddled with for shoplifting an armload of CDs (an equivalent crime). It's a real shame that governments are so incapable of passing laws attaching reasonable punishments for what should really have been a criminal case, not a civil lawsuit. Then again, perhaps there would be a lot less shoplifting if we assessed ridiculously high damages as in this case... and I'm all for less theft, be it digital or live.

[tallscot]

What does her race have to do with anything? Weird.

[cbh]

Try multiplying that armload of CD's by the number of people who've downloaded the contents of them, that she made available.

[fstop808]

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What does her race have to do with anything? Weird.

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EXACTLY!
Just an attempt to elicit sympathy along with mentioning her children.

[derekm]

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What does her race have to do with anything? Weird.

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Absolutely nothing. She is not even claiming any type of discriminatory action by the plaintiffs.
Note that at The Minneapolis StarTribune article it says she is a mother of two and works for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. No racial background is mentioned at all. The BrainerdDispatch (local paper) is viewable by registration only. Grrrrr!
And the fact that she has two children? Same deal there too. Someone either trying to invoke sympathy, or just following the trend today of journalists reporting all facets of the subjects personal life to make her or him more human.

[ibeetle]

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I don't see how anyone can possibly justify a penalty far in excess of what she would have been saddled with for shoplifting an armload of CDs (an equivalent crime).

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You obviously do not work in the retail businesses or gotten caught shoplifting anything for in awhile.
Adult (over 18) shoplifters face, and receive as much as 3 months in jail for something as low cost as a single DVD or CD.
Through a series of missteps and unfortunate events my step mother was arrested for shoplifting. She was taken into custody, arrested, and booked into the city jail. And although the retailer believed her story and did not file charges the city has some municipal theft codes on the books and she was charged anyway. She received a $1,000 fine and/or 40 hours of community service... for not shoplifting from a retailer that appeared in court on her behalf.
It really has become a take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to shoplifting.

[Bryan]

$220,000 for downloading 24 songs. The RIAA has gone too far.
I generally buy almost 100 CDs a year. No more, never again will I spend even $1 that might potentially end up in the RIAA's hands.

[johnnydo]

a little history of America might help you.
the least you can call it is irony, the hatred in America toward 1 Native Americans 2 Woman 3 Single Mothers.
I guess you'll just call it a coincident, but the RIAA took out the "easiest" target in our "society".
I guess due to the nature of the crime they couldn't find any inner city black youth with a police record to convict.
that first conviction is the hardest, now they can work there way up the ladder - here they come for YOU.

[pixelcruncher]

In case you missed it, here's a quote from Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, from this very trial:

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Gabriel [lead counsel for the record labels] asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, "When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Making "a copy" of a purchased song is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'," she said.

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We are all apparently thieves and as guilty, in Sony BMG's legal opinion, of stealing from them as this woman.
Paying for ringtones seems to be the tip of the iceberg, the legal minds at the record labels are actually positing that you should buy a song for every single device you own.

[jpmhughes]

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loosing billions

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Come on now, seriously.. "loosing" from a journalist??
Sorry, just one particular word that when misspelled, really irks me.
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
Jim

[shades]

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Absolutely nothing. She is not even claiming any type of discriminatory action by the plaintiffs.
Note that at The Minneapolis StarTribune article it says she is a mother of two and works for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. No racial background is mentioned at all. The BrainerdDispatch (local paper) is viewable by registration only. Grrrrr!

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I suspect that the mention of the Band and Tribe has something to do with jurisdiction, because they are not under state laws, but federal. In other words, even Ojibwe car licenses are not issued by the state (at least that was the case a few years ago)

[mac_the_knife]

$224k is a result of the Copyright Act, which mandates a minimum of $750 per song. The jury was free to (and did) depart upward from that. Also, it's not like she simply downloaded 24 songs. She made 24 songs available to upload, 1 time or 100 times.
That said, I'm with you. $224k is much too steep and hopefully she won't have to pay even a small fraction of that. There's an argument out there that statutory damages under the Copyright Act are in violation of the constitutional prohibition against excessive fines. We'll see where that goes.

[fisheye]

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/facts/
http://www.stopbigmedia.com/
http://www.freepress.net/
http://www.savetheinternet.com/