uro vii said:
dastardly said:
1) The "recording industry" doesn't assign the damages, the court does.
The thing is though, the big record labels have been at this absurd crusade for around a decade now and what has it achieved? This is yet another case of a label victimising an individual in a vain attempt to halt piracy via fear. I'd go so far as to say they may simply do this out of malice since they must have realised by now that this method does not work.
Making pirates hate you isn't going to bring them over to your way of seeing. It seems obvious and yet these big labels continue with their dogmatic witch hunt. I'm happy she is attempting too fight, because it is drawing more attention to how backwards the world's major labels have become.
Actually, it has achieved quite a bit. The major file-sharing networks, through which millions of songs were pirated a bloody
month are gone... or they've started paying the labels their due in some way or another. Napster, Limewire, etc. Just because it hasn't
eradicated piracy doesn't mean it hasn't been extremely effective.
Options like iTunes are also anti-piracy measures in that they provide a
legal way to download individual songs. That's an example of the music industry adapting to the digital age, while people scream that they're not.
What I think people might be starting to realize as a
whole is that the pro-pirate population is NOT the majority. Now, in our tiny little corner of reality known as the "vocal internet minority," yes, people who are anti-record-label, pro-piracy seem to be the overwhelming majority... but as is shown by repeated trials by
jury, it's not the majority opinion of society at large.
There is a loud, obnoxious minority that thinks downloading songs for free is somehow fair. Attempts to
reason with them fail hilariously, so the only options left are either to just give up, or to fight them. The music industry, not wanting to eventually be sunk, has chosen to fight. And make no mistake, if piracy was made legal, that would be the end. No one's going to pay for music if they can get the same quality and quantity for free, without any legal ramifications.
The following misunderstandings are informing this vocal minority, largely due to the INTERNET press (who are fairly download-friendly) misrepresenting these cases:
1) The recording industry OWNS THIS MUSIC. And no one anywhere has any "right" to it but them. So they can charge whatever they want, and our choices are to buy it or go without. That's what price tags are--barriers to entry.
2) Circumventing someone else's ownership in order to gain access to something is illegal. Even if I don't "steal" anything from your house, if I break in while you're not home, watch your TV, crap in your toilet, and sleep in your bed, you're going to be right pissed off. Why? Because it's YOUR STUFF, and I'm using it without your permission. I couldn't use the "I'm not stealing it, because it's all still there!" defense to get out of you (and the cops) being pissed.
3) When someone gets caught, they're warned. Usually several damned times. You don't hear about it, because it's a
warning. Sometimes that warning includes a fine. And yes, that fine will be higher than the price of the same number of songs downloaded legally--one, because it constitutes a penalty/deterrent, and two because this person has incurred other possible damages by making this pirated file available to others (via file sharing networks).
4) The larger penalties you hear about include things like court costs. This is because someone has been charged, found guilty,
appealed, found guilty again,
appealed again found guilty again, and so on. They're hoping the company eventually just gives up the suit, or some jury somewhere takes pity. Meanwhile, the company (who is NOT giving up) has no reason to
personally pay these costs incurred by the criminal who has refused to pay up and keeps gaming the system.
5) Internet media outlets tend to portray this as a normal, average citizen made a victim of the immense corporate machine that is the recording industry. The problem is that these are
not average citizens. They're taking music that is not theirs. And they are "victims" of due process--they're being found guilty by a jury of peers, not a panel of recording industry executives. They're being found guilty of a
crime.
6) The JURIES are also the ones awarding these massive settlements. Not the recording industry. Not the judges. Judges are typically reducing them. Most folks end up settling anyhow, for even
further reductions in the fine.
In this case, it is very much about the recording industry making it known that they have
no reason to back down. It their property, and these people took it without asking or paying. A loud minority insists they should just let it go, though no sane or logical reason has been presented to indicate why these people shouldn't pay for what they took
plus a penalty for the original crime
and for facilitating the distribution of the stolen music. They know the settlements are way out there, and they know they'll be trimmed down... unless some idiot keeps pushing the wrong button, like a retarded rat in a science experiment.
