Posted on 10/05/2007 10:27:16 AM PDT by southlake_hoosier
San Francisco (IDGNS) - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) won the first of many digital music file sharing cases Thursday against a single mother, with a U.S. jury finding her guilty of copyright infringement and fining her a total of $222,000.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota could have fined Jammie Thomas as much as $3.6 million, but opted not to. She was found guilty of stealing and giving away via Internet peer-to-peer Internet file sharing Kazaa a total of 24 songs from companies including Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Records.
Thomas, a Native American, has two children.
The guilty verdict in its first ever such case is a sign the RIAA may come out victorious on more of the over 20,000 lawsuits it has filed against people in its bid to stop Internet copyright infringement. The industry association has spent millions of dollars on advertising campaigns against Internet piracy and has a zero-tolerance policy against the practice.
People have been able to share music, movies, television programs, and other Internet files for years with peer-to-peer Internet sites and software. Some sites remain open, but many have been shut down by industry lawsuits and work to create laws in countries throughout the world. Companies and industry associations say they are loosing billions of dollars a year through Internet and optical disc piracy.
What you described still sounds pretty complicated. I don’t have an Ipod I play mp3s on my PocketPC-based pda.
So when I buy a CD and “rip” it into mp3s... is that breaking the law too?
How many times has this article been copied and posted?
Are you playing for a paying audience?
If that is the case, I would think you have to pay royalties to someone.
And there is the problem right there.
Why put up with such a system if one can just rip a CD or download an unrestricted copy?
Help me out with the law... how did they know she had 1,000 downloaded? How did they know she didn't buy those songs legally and rip them into mp3s... or is that illegal too?
I would expect there to be a good chance that this verdict will be set aside for technical reasons, basically that “an IP number is not a human being.”
This is especially true of the vast number of people who are on WIFI computer systems. The ease in which they can be penetrated means that it is near impossible to tell “who pulled the trigger.”
And while a jury may find against her for “a preponderance of the evidence”, an appellate judge will be inclined to set aside their decision, since it cannot legally be determined that she was the one who downloaded or uploaded music.
This uses the same logic that you just can’t sue somebody because you feel like it. You have to prove that they were the ones who civilly injured you.
Certainly, but what's the morality of charging $9,250 per song? The RIAA is getting away with it because they got a special act rammed through on their behalf.
This woman is guilty of downloading, but so far as I'm concerned any misfortune that comes to the RIAA, whether it be market extinction or some berserk plaintiff, will be richly deserved.
Or perform in a sound-proof closet.
Typical scenario under your rules.
Me: "Hey I heard this new tune today."
My friends: "Hum a few bars."
me: "I'll try."
ASCAP: "You're under arrest."
Once upon a time, I downloaded from Napster.
Not because it was ‘free’;
Not becuase it was ‘faster’;
it was because the record companies had what I wanted locked away in their vaults, and REFUSED to reissue it to make it available, either because of “no market”; or, in many cases, it was soooo politically incorrect.
I have yet to understand why our copyrights, digital rights, owner's rights, and usage rights are so complicated and different for different media.
I copy/rip songs and play them for a non-paying audience of as many people as I can pack into my home and they can record those sounds with their own voice recorders/cell phones . . . but I can't share the same songs with a friend online.
If I were on that jury, I would have awarded the plaintiffs with the market price for every song they could prove was on this woman's harddrive and NOT ripped from her own cd's. No file, no award. If they claimed she had downloaded thousands, where are they?
Many years ago, I was a Kazaa user myself and know that a large percentage of songs I downloaded were bogus tracks, the wrong song, incomplete, and/or corrupt and unreadable. However, I was a bit smarter than this woman as I uninstalled it as soon as the courts ruled against Kazaa. Up to that point, I wasn't sure how the legal challenge would play out.
I believe the legality issue still isn't resolved in Russia and went against the RIAA in Canada. Strange stuff.
It may prevent you from paying a $220,000 judgment if you're caught. As ludicrous as this is, these people are not playing around.
This suit was filed to make an example out of this lady and warn would-be music pirates that they could be next. I doubt seriously that it will stop anyone though.
I prefer to play it safe. I bought my music downloads and I can prove it. It's not worth it to me to put my freedom at risk for 88 cents a song.
Technically, yes, thanks to our dated copyright laws. However, due to the sheer volume of people doing this, and the technology that makes it possible, that law would be unenforceable and the government knows that. They would have to lock all of us up--whoever has a computer (that can burn CDs), an Ipod, mp3 player, Blackberry, IPhone, etc.
Downloading music and sending it to all your friends is tracked however, and easier to prove in a copyright violation case.
The copyright laws need to be changed to allow "fair use" of a product legally obtained, perhaps up to 5 formats to keep pace with today's technology.
Some music companies, who have a little more common sense and have no desire to make criminals of their customers, allow this in their licensing (read the fine print). While that won't help this lady in her suit, it would protect the rest of us and be a good selling point, too.
True. And FedGov doesn't play around either. It is illegal to remove emission control equipment from your car. Some people do it anyway.
This suit was filed to make an example out of this lady and warn would-be music pirates that they could be next. I doubt seriously that it will stop anyone though.
The purpose of a civil suit is NOT to make an example of someone. The purpose is to recover damages. The RIAA is abusing the legal system.
I prefer to play it safe. I bought my music downloads and I can prove it. It's not worth it to me to put my freedom at risk for 88 cents a song.
Doesn't matter. Let's say you're a DSL user. Most residential DSL uses dynamic addressing. Let's say that a user downloads and then shares hundreds of songs. Then he logs off. You log on and you are issued his IP address from the pool.
You just became a target for the RIAA. Hope you have a big war chest to defend yourself.
At least she won't fry in hell for eternity like the RIAA and their pond scum lawyers.
..yes according to the lawyer
The courts are a pitiful way to come up with a "fix".
Eventually these guys go completely out of business. A couple of more enhancements and each of us will be able to buy a "music robot" that composes and plays music on the spot with no copies. The machine compositions will be superior to any you've ever heard and will attract human beings in every culture and country.
I suspect the player will cost about $127.39 and the software around $3298.49.
The RIAA is dead, and simply does not know it yet.
It has been long past time to bury that exploitive Dinosaur outfit.
My contention is that you cannot own music or creativity.
Wouldn’t you want your own work copyright protected?
If you wrote a song or lyrics how would you feel hearing it being played on the radio or performed by another artist doing a concert?
You may not write music or lyrics for the financial gain, but certainly some people do, and their work should be protected.
What if you recorded a musical piece (your own or something you had permission to record) and heard it on the radio knowing you were getting no royalties for it, though the station was charging advertisers and making money?
And you didn’t answer whether you were playing for a paying audience. “Other people are listening” is vague and evasive.
I know my own kids do illegal downloading, though I strongly discourage them. It’s also a violation of the computer usage policies at their schools. I don’t understand it, especially when it only costs about a buck a song to legally download. (I frequently buy them gift cards for downloading music.) If they get nailed by the RIAA they will not have my sympathy, and being over 18, they will be responsible for paying whatever fines they incur.
Maybe you should have been this lady's defense attorney?
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