[TxTom]

I say she got what she deserves. They'll probably settle for a lesser amount from her through negotiations, but she had KaZaa on HER computer and was sharing songs through HER internet connection. She got caught and thought she'd throw herself on her sword and garner public sympathy (my opinion, of course)and LOST.
Fair use allows people to make copies of music for their OWN USE. I can copy or rip a song for playback on MY computer and on MY iPod. The moment I make that ripped file available to someone outside my family, I've violated Fair Use.
That's the law, folks. All the whining about RIAA greed doesn't change that. The RIAA represents the labels and their rights as owners of performances, copyrights and distribution. You want to complain about prices of music and movies? Quit buying the albums, quit going to the theaters and quit buying the DVDs and these high priced actors and performers will get a little taste of humble pie and their contracts won't be so lucrative. I mean...OMG...Adam Sandler making 15-20mil for a movie???? Come on, you people!! ;-)
This woman, regardless of race, regardless of her status as a mother--single or married--broke the law. She chose to fight it, she lost. I work at a law firm where we've had several people come in because they got caught. They all settled because they saw the screen shots of their files and couldn't deny the proof. And I love telling them that those 750 songs that just cost them $4,500 to settle would have cost them $750 at the iTunes store. (I'm not a lawyer.)
If you want to do your friends who might be a little behind the curve on technology a favor, give them very detailed instructions on how to find out if their kids are exposing them to a lawsuit. I've done that at the firm I work for and it was a real revelation to most of the people when they went home and started really checking out what their little snookums were up to.
Whining won't change the law. Songs are copyrighted and cost a lot of money to produce. The artists, distributors and labels deserve their money. If you think they're getting too much, quit buying them and make a statement. But sharing them because you think that you're justified in doing so because of RIAA greed won't make any points for you in front of a judge and jury.

[gramos]

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Your post doesn't even make sense.
If capitalism is ending, why are there more products available than ever before, as you say? If they weren't making a profit, the product wouldn't be made (unless they were Microsoft products). They are making huge profits, but they are losing revenue to people not paying for the product and obtaining it illegally.
And the same communists who complain about having to pay for things don't have basic understanding of economics or inflation.
The average price of a movie ticket in 1980 was $2.69. When you adjust it for inflation that comes to $7.20 in 2006, which is higher than the $6.58 average in 2006.
And a new audio CD in the 80s, when they debuted, cost $18. $18 from 1980 adjusted for inflation would be $48.20 in 2006! The $7 I paid for an LP in 1980 would be $18.74 in 2006.
So you don't have a leg to stand on.

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Heh heh heh...don't get caught up in the numbers, ok? /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
So, let me see if I understand you, the average ticket price of $7.20 has gone up almost a third in price in just one year, from $7.20 to $9.50? And you find this acceptable and healthy economics!? ($9.50 is a typical price for a movie.)
By the way, CD prices? Economies of scale, buddy!

[maineguy]

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4) Fining some poor schmo 200k regardless of sex, marital status, ethnicity, etc for low level file piracy is morally pathetic, even if it is technically correct. Sure, 24 songs times multiple share adds up, but she's a pretty small fish. The long term impact for her family may not be recoverable. Does this really solve anything?

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The reason the amount goes up so high is because she allows it to. Rather than accepting responsibility, she keeps fighting the charge. The same principle applies to other crimes as well. A $20 parking ticket can grow ridiculously large if you scoff at the ticket.
Truth be told, if the RIAA does as it has with other young pirates, it doesn't actually follow through on getting paid. They are more interested in the principle and publicity, not getting the money. So don't worry that some young woman and her children have been ruined.
The RIAA spends millions on the lawsuit and even if they got $200,000 this doesn't begin pay for costs. We really need to be more concerned that pirates are hurting everybody.

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So if we shouldn't worry about the young woman and her children because the RIAA is not interested in getting the money, does that make the RIAA good guys for spending millions to win a $220,000 suit? Does this make any sense??? I won't worry about the young woman and her children because whether she's a young single mother or an old married father should have no bearing, but the argument that the RIAA isn't interested in collecting seems bizarre. Interesting marketing ploy!!!
If the RIAA is serious about fixing a piracy problem, are there better investments they could make with their legal funds than spending it on lawyers to win settlements they don't intend to collect?!?!

[Moof_in_Charge]

Talscot,
Your introductory question had several connotations. All of which revolved around some form of either questioning racism's existence in this country or the legal system.
Not only you were wrong to start with that line of questioning but you continue to attempt to snowball it in to some other grandeur. I replied by trying to correct the question as it would be pertinent to the article. I simply pointed out what should have been asked. The goal was not to discuss racism in the legal system.
LOL. I'll state it again, public education in the USA is lousy.
One thing is for certain, when you run out of valid reasons, personal attacks do follow. Nice /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif keep it up... distilling down to your essence in front of the masses has some benefit.
I'll stop here, I don't like responding to folks who go down this avenue. Enjoy your weekend /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[chris_lim]

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And the same communists who complain about having to pay for things don't have basic understanding of economics or inflation.
The average price of a movie ticket in 1980 was $2.69. When you adjust it for inflation that comes to $7.20 in 2006, which is higher than the $6.58 average in 2006.
And a new audio CD in the 80s, when they debuted, cost $18. $18 from 1980 adjusted for inflation would be $48.20 in 2006! The $7 I paid for an LP in 1980 would be $18.74 in 2006.
So you don't have a leg to stand on.

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Here's a view from the other side of the world, in Singapore. In the early 90s we paid $30 to $35 for a CD. By the mid-90s till a couple of years ago, the average price of a CD was $20. Today, new releases are available for as little as $16. Or if you get the parallel China imports, they'll cost you $10. All these are legit, above board releases btw (1USD = 1.5SGD approx)
So yes, prices have been going down. Just not in the USA.

[Terrin]

Yes, except that the record companies didn't have to prove anybody actually did download one of the songs. In practically every other area of law a Plaintiff has to prove damages. The record companies here didn't have to do any such thing.

Moreover, you could steal a whole store full of CDs and not end up being fined as much. The fines for copyright infringement are absurd considering 1) the complexity of the laws, 2) how much the laws have been changed to favor the industry over the public, and 3) the severity of the punishment in relations to far more serious crimes.

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

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[hillstones]

This article was very limited in scope. The woman had her entire music library of 1,700 songs available for downloading through Kazaa. The trial concentrated on 24 of those songs for copyright violation. Her ISP testified that the account for these 1,700 songs were linked to her IP address. Her defense claimed she wasn't the one that made the songs available. The plaintiff refused to settle and went to trial instead. The plaintiff also lied about when she replaced her hard drive once she found out she was violating copyright laws.
So apparently everyone who posted a response claiming the RIAA "went too far" think it is ok to steal music. Long before MP3's and downloading existed, LP's, CD's, and Tapes all carried a copyright warning against unauthorized duplication. Making tapes in the 80's is not the same as copying music today. Making a tape resulted in a degraded copy of the original, further copies of copies continued to degrade in quality. No one wanted a degraded copy. Making a copy of a CD, or ripping a CD to MP3 or AAC, results in either an exact copy, or very close to the original, and copies of that copy do not degrade. That is why music piracy became a widespread problem.
Copying your CD's to your computer to import to your iPod is not illegal, sharing the songs with millions on the internet is illegal.
Here is a link to a more informative report on the story:
http://money.aol.com...004184909990025

[imagewrangler]

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Tell me again. For every dollar people spend on music, how much goes to the musicians and how much goes to the RIAA?

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The answer is none of your business. Does it make the RIAA more evil or more good if this amount is higher or lower?
Also, the RIAA represents the music companies that represent the musicians. So before you make ridiculous statements like "RIAA=bad, musicians=good" you should remember that musicians willingly enter into contracts with record labels and get paid money in return. Any musician can chose to be independent and not use a record company if he doesn't agree. Any musician can distribute MP3s for free without any RIAA protection if they desired to do so.

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If musicians can sell their music over the web, why do they need the RIAA?

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They don't need the RIAA, they choose the RIAA because they like it. I like the RIAA too because it ensures that record companies and artists make more money and this leads to better music in the long run.
The RIAA has done nothing wrong. They have followed the procedure of the law and have a right to protect their product. As has been pointed out previously, this pirate is not a consumer. You cannot be a consumer if you have not purchased the product.
Users do not have a "right" to obtain music or movies in the manner they want at the price they want. Pirates are the greedy ones because they want something for themselves. Music companies do not owe you free music. Music companies do not owe you cheap music.
Entertainment is a luxury not a human right.

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As a working musician you, sir, win the delusional arsehat of the year award.
The RIAA, much like ASCAP and BMI, two huge legal mafi..er, arms of the big soulless oligopolies, doesn't give the majority of recording and performing artists a penny, that said, they'll do their extortion on small to medium music venues to try to close them (they have to pay usually more in extortion money than they can afford, and more than an artist). The money goes back to the big greedy label bosses, the lawyers, and maybe if someone covers Celine Dion, they'll give a few pennies to Celine Dion.
Most the working musicians up to a few bands I'm guessing some would know on these forums have never received a penny from ASCAP or BMI, none, not a one. Yet they "represent" them. Rrrright!
I'm for Don Henley's line in that one song "kill all the lawyers, kill 'em tonight."
What really needs to happen is everyone should steal all the music, every song, or go directly to the artists web site and, if they offer CDs they made, buy them there, don't give a penny to the record companies who have made it so they're all in bed together, there is no competition between them, and they own all legitimate channels of sale and can therefore price fix. That's called racketeering, and they can because they have a huge music lobby in Washington that pays off people (aka "bribe") to make sure they're not investigated.
It's mindbogging there are really people so ill-informed on this forum thinking the RIAA is a good thing, either these people are just not paying attention, or probably lawyers, or are filthy rich do-gooders without a clue (soul or conscience).
Bring 'em down, the ologopoly music companies, hit 'em where it hurts and research and make sure every actual purchase of music is done in a way that actual artists get as much as the profits of their music as possible. Then steal the rest, destroy the big labels, it's a bit of anarchy but it's okay because like all business models when one is destroyed, a new one can begin. In this case from the ashes new models, in many cases created by musicians (which is how things started back in the day before lawyers f*ed the USA into it's ugly state, and those still reading and still clueless, lawyers take most the money even of the artists, it's just wonderful, isn't it?), musicians who would be paid by these new labels not controlled by fat, rich, white, greedy, artistic-hating but rather flavor-of-the-month hating old men and their lawyers would arise. Eat the rich (or kill them, whatever is easier). The real work is done be the artists/musicians, NOT the lawyers, A & R men, and the rich execs, they'd come out of this, they're the ones creating things, not the wealty who are killing modern music.
A final note: Many semi-large musicians have started their own artist labels to go against the large evil soulless corporate lawyer-laden scumbags, but because the big five or so labels left are all in a circlejerk together and control close to 99% of all distribution outside the net, you can't get your CD's distributed because that's controlled by essentially one group who wants no outsiders and wants control and no competition. Think about that, no competition. All you people praising this case with odd rahrah fervor are missing how actually ANTI-capitalism, and therefore anti-American, the big music labels suing are you think there's choice, there is not, as you're missing the bigger picture. Or you clearly don't care.

[greekdish]

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All the lawyer has to do is point out how this is no different than people in the 80's making mix tapes with cassettes, and handing them out to their friends.
Analog magnetic copies degrade generationally and are distributed to a very small population.
That's very different from what we're talking about here.

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The only difference is the technology....not the concept. If I give a mix tape to 3 of my friends, who they in turn, give it to 3 of their friends, and so on...the number explodes exponentially. And its irrelevant if a magnetic copy degrades after 12 years. If that were the case....all we have to say is we owned a cassette tape in 1985 of Van Halen, and thus, are legally obligated to download a "clean" version digitally.
Again, the only thing thats changed is the technology...not the actual act of sharing music.
I used to record songs right off the radio onto cassette tape, with no difference in quality between airplay and cassette. One also has to take into account that not everyone RIP's CD's into mp3's "perfectly". They are never perfect copies....they have pops and skips and sound quality is usually left at default 128. I have heard cassette tapes sound better than most mp3's off the net.

[bastion]

The only difference is the technology....not the concept. If I give a mix tape to 3 of my friends, who they in turn, give it to 3 of their friends, and so on...the number explodes exponentially. And its irrelevant if a magnetic copy degrades after 12 years.
While they do degrade with time, when I said they degrade generationally I was talking about the fact that analog copies of audio data are inherently lossy. You give three friends copies of a tape and now 4 people are "sharing" 1 license. But 3 of them are listening to copies that are noticeably inferior to anyone with decent eardrums. They each give a copy to 3 friends, and now 13 people are sharing the joy, but 9 of them are listening to something that pretty much anyone can tell is poor. And those 9 people make 3 copies, and now we're up to 40, but 27 of them are listening to garbage. And all along each person's "original" is going to suffer each time it's played.
If that were the case....all we have to say is we owned a cassette tape in 1985 of Van Halen, and thus, are legally obligated to download a "clean" version digitally.
Obligated? Geez, what if your tastes changed?
Again, the only thing thats changed is the technology...not the actual act of sharing music.
Yes, but you've neglected the reality that the technology has dramatically increased the viability of sharing. So I'll say it again:
Analog magnetic copies degrade generationally and are distributed to a very small population.
That's very different from what we're talking about here.
I used to record songs right off the radio onto cassette tape, with no difference in quality between airplay and cassette.
That you, personally, could hear.
They are never perfect copies....they have pops and skips ....
Um. What? They're never perfect copies because 90% of the data are discarded and/or averaged together. It's certainly possible to have artifacting in this process that manifests as something like a pop, but it's rare. Claiming that there could be skips is simply ridiculous.

[Steve_S]

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So before you make ridiculous statements like "RIAA=bad, musicians=good" you should remember that musicians willingly enter into contracts with record labels and get paid money in return.

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Yeah, if only it were so black and white. This is similar to you willingly enter into contractual agreement when you press the enter button to accept your EULA for software you purchased. Did you really have a choice?

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Any musician can chose to be independent and not use a record company if he doesn't agree.

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That might work for well known artists, but for everyone else, it's a guarantee for near certain obscurity.

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They don't need the RIAA, they choose the RIAA because they like it.

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Who, the musicians or the record labels? Big difference.

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The RIAA has done nothing wrong.

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Legally, I'd agree with you. However, suing your potential customers is not good publicity and only encourages piracy. This isn't a matter of personal opinion one way or the other, the results speak for themselves. The RIAA has been ineffective in terms of curbing piracy. Period.
Look, I realize the RIAA is in a tough position. I certainly recognize that. Piracy is a problem and something has to be done about it. However, the record labels themselves are the ones to blame and the answer certainly isn't suing your customer base. I've always contended that the best way to fight piracy is to offer a better product at a price that makes piracy a non-consideration. Piracy started because consumers wanted the accessibility of on-line music purchases. It wasn't until years later that they "allowed" companies like Apple to make this happen. Consumers also want DRM free music. This is just starting to happen, but the price must also be kept reasonable. Amazon is on the right track here. Finally, it needs to be convenient. If Kazaa is more convenient that your on-line music store, there is a problem.
I'm not condoning piracy, but P2P networks filled a desire / market that the record labels themselves chose and to some degree still choose not to address. Everyone feels bad (at least intitially) for the sales decline of the record industry. However, the arrogance and lack of understanding of their own customers has led the record labels to their own situation. The RIAA suing individuals only serves to desensitize consumers to the plight of the record labels.

[Steve_S]

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I say she got what she deserves.

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Really, she deserved a $220,000 law suit for 24 songs? Wow, that's something. I'd love to be on the jury if you're ever charged with something. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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They'll probably settle for a lesser amount from her through negotiations,

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Is that your rationalization for the "she got what she deserves" comment?

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but she had KaZaa on HER computer and was sharing songs through HER internet connection

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Having Kazaa on your computer is not a crime. Do you have a gun in your house? Kazaa, like a gun, is a tool that can be used for good or bad things. Let's not cite that as "evidence".

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Whining won't change the law.

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Nor will RIAA lawsuits curb piracy. What's your point? Everyone is well aware of the law. That's not the the topic of this discussion. The issue is the severity of the penality for the crime.

[bastion]

I've always contended that the best way to fight piracy is to offer a better product at a price that makes piracy a non-consideration.
It depends on how much you're trying to reduce piracy. As a content provider I don't believe there is a price higher than $0 that "makes piracy a non-consideration." I see registration codes floating around for $5, 4-star shareware whose per-user benefit can be marked at hundreds of dollars per year or more. If something can be pirated, someone will pirate it.

[Steve_S]

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As a content provider

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Not music "content" I presume...

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If something can be pirated, someone will pirate it.

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Yes, but chances are, those who pirate under these conditions would never be customers anyway. I agree that as long as the opportunity to steal something exists, some will do it. However, I also think the number of people pirating music is well beyond those who do it just because they can. I believe (actually, I know for fact) the record industry is indeed losing sales to customers that are frustrated by the products that are currently offered and resort to pirating because they're getting a product they want, regardless of price. For example, can you currently buy something from say... Sony BMG online in a non-DRM format? Imagine paying money for a DRM laden product that can be had for free, albeit illegally. My point is, to date, the record labels are not trying to compete effectively. I suspect this situation is different from the personal shareware description you are involved with.