Poll: Justice?

[Arkzism]

no it's not justice... its just a little piracy... to be honest most of those record companies have too much money... and honestly... sometimes i dont want to buy the album i just want the song.... and before you itunes me... i dont use it.... and for amazon... i dont like buying things online.... but seriously as for the downloading i think some people are over reacting.. i download lots of movies... but they dont stay for that long i watch it if i like it i tend to actually buy the dvd of it

 

[magnuslion]

The fuck? For only 24 songs, they charged her

$1.92 million dollars! That's it, where' my gun, going to the Pro-Copyright places.

The recording companies accused Thomas-Rasset of offering 1,700 songs on Kazaa as of February 2005, before the company became a legal music subscription service following a settlement with entertainment companies. For simplicity's sake the music industry tried to prove only 24 infringements.

even at 1,700, times .99, even 20 or 30 times still doesnt come out to 1.92 million dollars. and assigning a monetary value to "emotional damage" is bullshit.

 

[New Troll]

However, I don't equate people who commit piracy to completely over the top cartoon villains.
New Troll in exactly want way does piracy directly involve the welfare of her children?
I mean this kind of case isn't common, the vast majority of pirates are never caught or at least are not taken to court.

She is losing money that could go towards her children's welfare. She could lose everything, which in turn could take her children away from her for not being able to financialy support them anymore. All stuff she should have thought about before commiting the crime.

I find the trend of blaming the parents for everything that happens or might happen to their children to be biased and it sometimes gets twisted/spun in a manner that's simply unfair.

Not everything a child does is thier parent's fault, but everything a parent does does impact thier child's life. Parents with moral disregards tend to influence thier children's own moralities. Sometimes for the good, but more often for the bad.

You're oversimplifying the problems and the relationships between actions and penalties.

You want over-simplification? If you're not willing to pay the fine, don't do the crime. How's that? If I speed, I should be ready to get pulled over and can't complain when it happens. If I make a copy of a movie I own to give to a friend, I should not be upset when the authorities show up at my doorstep with a $150,000 fine since it says right there before the movie it could happen. If I was giving someone else's property away without thier consent, I should be ready if the law catches me.

The amount of the fine is ridiculous, unfair and quite frankly cruel.
It being set at $80k per song, wow those must have been some amazing songs there...hmm?

I'm not saying $80k is a lot, but it also is very little considering everything to consider. She could have easily taken away more than $1.92 million from the music industry with the amount of thier product she was giving away. Even at only getting fined for 24 of the songs, I've been to several sites that offer product in this way and they will sometimes get into the hundred thousand downloads at one time. And this is only at that particular minute! Imagine, $1 a download from all those people. Even if only a quarter of them actualy pay and the rest decide it's not worth the money over-all, that's still a ton of money. Sure she got fined a lot of money, but I imagine she took away even more from the Industry so I don't feel it's too harsh.

And I do hope the best for her and especially her children. I hope she wisens up and pays off the Music Industry for whatever they're offering her and learns her lesson. If not for her sake, for her children. I don't know if she's a bad person or not, but even if she is, it's never to late to turn your life around.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

The fuck? For only 24 songs, they charged her

$1.92 million dollars! That's it, where' my gun, going to the Pro-Copyright places.

The recording companies accused Thomas-Rasset of offering 1,700 songs on Kazaa as of February 2005, before the company became a legal music subscription service following a settlement with entertainment companies. For simplicity's sake the music industry tried to prove only 24 infringements.

even at 1,700, times .99, even 20 or 30 times still doesnt come out to 1.92 million dollars. and assigning a monetary value to "emotional damage" is bullshit.

I was kidding when I mentioned emotional damage. Seriously, you think it'd be involved in an Intellectual Property suit? Anyway, if you're good with math, she'd be paying a little more than a thousand dollars per song. I'm not arguing that she should, or could, pay that much. I just corrected you when you said it was only 24 songs, because 1700 is slightly bigger than 24.

 

[Erzengel]

did the jury decide the punishment ? isn't that the judges job ?

Juries state guilt or innocence and recommend sentencing. The judge makes the final decision on sentencing, but is supposed to take the Jury's recommendations into consideration.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

However, I don't equate people who commit piracy to completely over the top cartoon villains.
New Troll in exactly want way does piracy directly involve the welfare of her children?
I mean this kind of case isn't common, the vast majority of pirates are never caught or at least are not taken to court.

She is losing money that could go towards her children's welfare. She could lose everything, which in turn could take her children away from her for not being able to financialy support them anymore. All stuff she should have thought about before commiting the crime.

Actually, I don't think anyone, out of the millions of people who pirate music, especially in early 2005 when Jammie Thomas-Rasset was caught downloading music, could have imagined losing their kids over this. It was ubiquitous. Everyone and their brother was doing it. I was ridiculed a few times for not pirating music ("Wait, you bought the songs on your iPod?").

That doesn't make it right - if I argued an Appeal to Common Practice that way, I'd want you to lock me away for my safety - but I don't think it's realistic to believe Thomas-Rasset could have imagined she'd lose her children to a copyright litigation suit. This kind of this was, at the time, unprecidented.

It's hard to think about the consequences of your actions, when the laws don't appear to have any teeth to them.

 

[Clashero]

Pirating music is always bad,

No, it bloody well isn't.
I could go through a whole number of arguments stating why pirating music isn't bad in all cases. (In my opinion, in a huge proportion of cases), but instead I'll say this.

Don't make broad sweeping generalisatons. It isn't always bad, you can say it's usually bad.

You're getting something for free when you should be paying for it. How is that not bad?

Plus, you're hurting the industry that way. While artists make most of their money from merchandise and tours, an important percentage of their money comes from the sales of CDs and songs.

Please, do tell me. I'm mostly intrigued at how it can be sometimes OK and sometimes bad to pirate music.

Example. Of a true story, lets call this guy "Person A".

Person A illegally obtains music from Person B who also illegally obtained it. Loves the music. Downloads more of it. Loves it more. Person A never would have heard of this band because the record company are greedy swines who promote drop kick artists with mass appeal but little talent, this particular band takes some getting used to and has no radio air time because they take time to attune to, and aren't just methodically produced tripe with catchy riffs.
Person A Ends up liking band so much, they go and purchase all of the albums (all 9 of them), goes and purchases a lot of band Merchandise, T-shirts, posters, Coffee mugs, you name it.

Goes to see them live 4 times, and while there buys merchandise.
Person A is a huge fan of band now, and buys every small item that comes from the band, Live DvD's come out, Person A jumps on it. Person A even purchases tab books of band.

Person A has now spent over a Grand on a band he never even would have heard of if not for pirating. Person B has also obtained some merchandise.

Both person B and Person A have never once seen the band on any TV show, never heard them on the radio, and never heard anyone talking about them without it just being a name dropped on a forum, or mentioned in passing which they wouldn't take notice of if not for them knowing the band already.

Person A and Person B quite like piracy, and suspects this band does too, and this has happened to both of them for more than this one band.

Well, I've changed my mind, then. In fact, I've done the exact same thing with Sarah Brightman. I found out about her because an artist I like did the album art for her 2008 album. Then I downloaded one song, liked it. Then I downloaded more songs, loved them. Then I bought every album and every DVD.
Thanks for the explanation.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Well, I've changed my mind, then. In fact, I've done the exact same thing with Sarah Brightman. I found out about her because an artist I like did the album art for her 2008 album. Then I downloaded one song, liked it. Then I downloaded more songs, loved them. Then I bought every album and every DVD.
Thanks for the explanation.

You really think this happens every time, or even for the majority of file sharing cases? You don't think there are people who pirate crap for the explicit purpose of not paying for what they watch, play, or listen to?

Another thing you should consider is, if you're using a bit torrent client and you download something, you're providing chunks of that song to other people.

 

[New Troll]

It's hard to think about the consequences of your actions, when the laws don't appear to have any teeth to them.

If you know something is against the law, which even back then everyone knew piracy was bad, no one should ever be surprised someone gets fined for doing it.

I once got a ticket for littering when I flicked my cigarette butt on the ground, into a pile of butts already there. Obviously I was not the first person to litter in such a fashion, yet I was the one who got caught and fined. Yes I was caught off-guard by the fine, as was everyone I knew and even the county clerk when I paid the fine, but I knew littering was wrong, knew I was doing wrong, and knew I was taking a chance by my actions. And just because everyone else does it, does not make me any less guilty. So really, no surprise.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

It's hard to think about the consequences of your actions, when the laws don't appear to have any teeth to them.

If you know something is against the law, which even back then everyone knew piracy was bad, no one should ever be surprised someone gets fined for doing it.

I once got a ticket for littering when I flicked my cigarette butt on the ground, into a pile of butts already there. Obviously I was not the first person to litter in such a fashion, yet I was the one who got caught and fined. Yes I was caught off-guard by the fine, as was everyone I knew and even the county clerk when I paid the fine, but I knew littering was wrong, knew I was doing wrong, and knew I was taking a chance by my actions. And just because everyone else does it, does not make me any less guilty. So really, no surprise.

I'm not saying she didn't deserve the fine. It's just not realistic to say "she should have thought about this before she did it." In Canada, where I live, it wasn't (and I think it's still not - unless that new, more restrictive, legislation passed) considered illegal for a person to torrent music.

I don't think the "she should have thought about her children before she pirated all that music" claim works in this case.

You could have known you'd be fined for littering - people have been fined for littering - when she used Kazaa, no one using a client had been exposed to this kind of suit.

 

[G1eet]

Anyone else have the official Escapist coverage of this slide out from under their feet? I just refreshed and I got the four-oh-four.

Oh, and stop the monopoly of iTunes and other digital music providers.

 

[Clashero]

Well, I've changed my mind, then. In fact, I've done the exact same thing with Sarah Brightman. I found out about her because an artist I like did the album art for her 2008 album. Then I downloaded one song, liked it. Then I downloaded more songs, loved them. Then I bought every album and every DVD.
Thanks for the explanation.

You really think this happens every time, or even for the majority of file sharing cases? You don't think there are people who pirate crap for the explicit purpose of not paying for what they watch, play, or listen to?

Another thing you should consider is, if you're using a bit torrent client and you download something, you're providing chunks of that song to other people.

I remember I was going to type something like that up, then for some reason didn't.
What I forgot to put in my previous post was that "Of course, most cases aren't like mine or Person A's. Most cases of people pirating music or movies are done with the sole purpose of getting something for free. There's also the case of someone liking just this one song from band X, and pirating that song, since they feel that buying a whole CD isn't worth the money for just one song (or that paying $1 isn't worth a song)

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Anyone else have the official Escapist coverage of this slide out from under their feet? I just refreshed and I got the four-oh-four.

Oh, and stop the monopoly of iTunes and other digital music providers.

It's not really a monopoly if there's iTunes and other digital music providers, is it?

I mean, there's 7-Digital, Amazon MP3, Puretracks, Zune, Wallmart, Jamendo, Slabster and a whole slew of others. Some of the more indie oriented stores give artists a larger cut of the profits. Just because white earbuds are all the rage doesn't mean iTunes is the only game in town.

 

[G1eet]

Anyone else have the official Escapist coverage of this slide out from under their feet? I just refreshed and I got the four-oh-four.

Oh, and stop the monopoly of iTunes and other digital music providers.

It's not really a monopoly if there's iTunes and other digital music providers, is it?

I mean, there's 7-Digital, Amazon MP3, Puretracks, Zune, Wallmart, Jamendo, Slabster and a whole slew of others. Some of the more indie oriented stores give artists a larger cut of the profits. Just because white earbuds are all the rage doesn't mean iTunes is the only game in town.

But if you want to get technical, it's kinda not really a capitalist system, where companies compete with one another by balancing (lowering them to attract customers) prices with quality.
As far as I know, every single company charges about a buck (or more, last I heard, iTunes took like a 30% price hike) for just 1 song, and to fill a hefty sized mp3/4 player, it'd be cheaper to buy a car.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Anyone else have the official Escapist coverage of this slide out from under their feet? I just refreshed and I got the four-oh-four.

Oh, and stop the monopoly of iTunes and other digital music providers.

It's not really a monopoly if there's iTunes and other digital music providers, is it?

I mean, there's 7-Digital, Amazon MP3, Puretracks, Zune, Wallmart, Jamendo, Slabster and a whole slew of others. Some of the more indie oriented stores give artists a larger cut of the profits. Just because white earbuds are all the rage doesn't mean iTunes is the only game in town.

But if you want to get technical, it's kinda not really a capitalist system, where companies compete with one another by balancing (lowering them to attract customers) prices with quality.
As far as I know, every single company charges about a buck (or more, last I heard, iTunes took like a 30% price hike) for just 1 song, and to fill a hefty sized mp3/4 player, it'd be cheaper to buy a car.

Uh, sure, if you buy them all at once. An album costs about as much as a plate of teppanyaki. If you treat yourself to an album every once in a while, you can get a decent collection over fairly little time. Besides, memory is cheap. Just because you have a lot of space doesn't mean you need to fill it up. (If you really need to, try out some lossless codecs. Yikes!) And then there are download subscription services, like the new Zune thing, which treat you to the equivalent of an all you can eat buffet.

And the stores do have quite a bit that differentiate them from one another. Among other things, they compete in terms of selection and sound quality.

 

[Sanaj]

You're oversimplifying the problems and the relationships between actions and penalties.

You want over-simplification? If you're not willing to pay the fine, don't do the crime. How's that? If I speed, I should be ready to get pulled over and can't complain when it happens. If I make a copy of a movie I own to give to a friend, I should not be upset when the authorities show up at my doorstep with a $150,000 fine since it says right there before the movie it could happen. If I was giving someone else's property away without thier consent, I should be ready if the law catches me.

I agree with the court's decision that she is guilty and needs to pay a fine.
However, I think that the punishment doesn't fit the crime at all.
She wasn't going around selling said pirated music to other people.
Simply it's much too heavy handed a fine, no average person could possibly expect to pay off $1.92 million.

The amount of the fine is ridiculous, unfair and quite frankly cruel.
It being set at $80k per song, wow those must have been some amazing songs there...hmm?

I'm not saying $80k is a lot, but it also is very little considering everything to consider. She could have easily taken away more than $1.92 million from the music industry with the amount of thier product she was giving away. Even at only getting fined for 24 of the songs, I've been to several sites that offer product in this way and they will sometimes get into the hundred thousand downloads at one time. And this is only at that particular minute! Imagine, $1 a download from all those people. Even if only a quarter of them actualy pay and the rest decide it's not worth the money over-all, that's still a ton of money. Sure she got fined a lot of money, but I imagine she took away even more from the Industry so I don't feel it's too harsh.

And I do hope the best for her and especially her children. I hope she wisens up and pays off the Music Industry for whatever they're offering her and learns her lesson. If not for her sake, for her children. I don't know if she's a bad person or not, but even if she is, it's never to late to turn your life around.

By the amount of their product she was giving away I guess your citing the amount of pirated songs she had.
True enough there, I will point out however, that how much of her song library was shared and the amount of times shared was never proven.

Looking at one thing a person has done and then making a sweeping generalization about his or her character...
Hmm...Yeah, this sort of thinking seems too polarized and unjust.
I'm not saying that's what you were saying in your last paragraph there, but that's what came to mind.

I would like to apologize to you, New Troll, for my tone of my first posting on this thread.
I was being a bit condescending and mean spirited.
In particular my line about oversimplification was quite poorly done.
Your postings actually brought more of my interest to this thread. Thank you.

 

[magnuslion]

1 k a song doesnt seem to be "unreasonable" to you?

 

[lizards]

yes really they have that SOMEONE used her computer to do this but not her

Someone, who used her computer, who shared music with her username?

Do you really think someone set her up? Be realistic.

no your thinking to much i think that her kids or maybe her husband was doing that and if the kids were doing it they didnt know it was wrong and if the husband was doing it he thought he wouldnt get caught but is letting her take the fall

they have no hard proof just a bunch of things that IMPLY she did it and impling shouldnt be enough

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

yes really they have that SOMEONE used her computer to do this but not her

Someone, who used her computer, who shared music with her username?

Do you really think someone set her up? Be realistic.

no your thinking to much i think that her kids or maybe her husband was doing that and if the kids were doing it they didnt know it was wrong and if the husband was doing it he thought he wouldnt get caught but is letting her take the fall

they have no hard proof just a bunch of things that IMPLY she did it and impling shouldnt be enough

While setting up Kazaa with her commonly used alias. Who's thinking to much? This was also back in 2005. Four years ago. We don't even know how old her kids would have been.

Here's another article that's a bit more thorough. I'm going to see if I can dig up the ages of her children. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/jammie-thomas-takes-the-stand-admits-to-major-misstep.ars

Edit:
I found this little nugget on one of the pages:

Making the defense's job more difficult was this afternoon's testimony of Thomas-Rasset's ex-boyfriend Kevin Havemeier, who struggled to remember most of his dates but did note with clarity that he needed help to use Thomas-Rasset's machine back when they were dating. The machine was password protected, and when combined with the fact that Thomas-Rasset wasn't using a WiFi router and used the "tereastarr" username for all sorts of Internet activity, Havemeier's testimony will make it easier for the jury to believe that Thomas-Rasset was the woman behind the "tereastarr@KaZaA" account at the center of this case.

She wasn't using Wifi and her ex-boyfriend apparently wasn't computer literate. According to her testimony her oldest kid was apparently 10 when she had her hard drive replaced - which she replaced before her investigation.

As for the hard drive that was swapped out of her computer just a month after her alleged infringement was detected, Camara says that his client never received the notices about an investigation and replaced her hard drive for a simple reason: her 10-year old son got frustrated playing a game, hit the machine, and its hard drive broke. She took it to Best Buy and they replaced the drive. Situation clarified!

The recording industry case
But it's not, not completely, and the RIAA certainly doesn't buy it. For one thing, Thomas-Rasset was notified twice, first by instant message through KaZaA and once by FedEx package from her ISP, Charter. (She claims that she never saw either notice.)

 

[lizards]

yes really they have that SOMEONE used her computer to do this but not her

Someone, who used her computer, who shared music with her username?

Do you really think someone set her up? Be realistic.

no your thinking to much i think that her kids or maybe her husband was doing that and if the kids were doing it they didnt know it was wrong and if the husband was doing it he thought he wouldnt get caught but is letting her take the fall

they have no hard proof just a bunch of things that IMPLY she did it and impling shouldnt be enough

While setting up Kazaa with her commonly used alias. Who's thinking to much? This was also back in 2005. Four years ago. We don't even know how old her kids would have been.

Here's another article that's a bit more thorough. I'm going to see if I can dig up the ages of her children. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/jammie-thomas-takes-the-stand-admits-to-major-misstep.ars

Edit:
I found this little nugget on one of the pages:

Making the defense's job more difficult was this afternoon's testimony of Thomas-Rasset's ex-boyfriend Kevin Havemeier, who struggled to remember most of his dates but did note with clarity that he needed help to use Thomas-Rasset's machine back when they were dating. The machine was password protected, and when combined with the fact that Thomas-Rasset wasn't using a WiFi router and used the "tereastarr" username for all sorts of Internet activity, Havemeier's testimony will make it easier for the jury to believe that Thomas-Rasset was the woman behind the "tereastarr@KaZaA" account at the center of this case.

She wasn't using Wifi and her ex-boyfriend apparently wasn't computer literate. According to her testimony her oldest kid was apparently 10 when she had her hard drive replaced - which she replaced before her investigation.

As for the hard drive that was swapped out of her computer just a month after her alleged infringement was detected, Camara says that his client never received the notices about an investigation and replaced her hard drive for a simple reason: her 10-year old son got frustrated playing a game, hit the machine, and its hard drive broke. She took it to Best Buy and they replaced the drive. Situation clarified!

The recording industry case
But it's not, not completely, and the RIAA certainly doesn't buy it. For one thing, Thomas-Rasset was notified twice, first by instant message through KaZaA and once by FedEx package from her ISP, Charter. (She claims that she never saw either notice.)

the bottom line is they arent proving it was her and not her kids or another person she knows because again maybe she let her kids get on and they didnt know they were doing something wrong