Wow. The way I see it, someone can get fined less for an act of terrorism in their own country than they can from pirating music.
So, about that piracy... AKA Woman forced to pay $1.5 million for pirating music
- Thread starter Sven und EIN HUND
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Well the only reason really American corporations/whoever can do this because you are missing the law in your books that limits the amount of money you can sue someone for.hyperhammy said:
In Finland for those 24 songs, you could at best get 100 day tickets (Which depends on your income) So lets say you are between jobs and have no early income the max amount money some one can sue you goes to 4000-5000 euros.
My father sued a hes old ISP for screwing up hes connections that he needed for work. He demanded 35hrs worh worth of hes hourly fee and 550 euros he got only 3200 euros.
The biggest legal case that there have been in Finland about pirating ended up in settlement for 8k euros (The person had over 40g of copyrighted material). And in this court session it was also decided that companies can not demand a person to pay them for breaking their copyright without courts decision.
We live in worlds apart.
(I wonder how much the the American companies could demnd for 40g of copyrighted material, 2,000,000,000 Should be enough I think?
)
She isn't. This is the third time she's been sued and she refuses to settle the case. Most people end up only paying like 3000, which is still regoddamndiculous but she's poking the bear here. She keeps downloading from the same place that gets her caught. Wonder what would happen if she learned to torrent..joshuaayt said:
and rape them ,and kill them AND give the severe heads to their families.. with a note on the side saying the rest of the parts are scattered on 5 different places the singer has been.Asuka Soryu said:
THEN she could pay 1.5 mill (and possibly jail.... for some time... in a fancy long sleeved sweater.)
Also, a note on extreme inconsistency:
Pro-Piracy Statement A: "Piracy is not theft. Comparing it to stealing physical goods is stupid and ignorant, because stealing the digital product does not rob the original owner of anything. It simply creates another copy."
Pro-Piracy Statement B: "This is a ridiculous penalty for piracy. If she had stolen the physical product from Wal-Mart, she wouldn't be charged this much, because she only took one disc (or equivalent)."
Can anyone spot the inconsistency? Ah, there it is--apparently it's only acceptable to compare digital goods to physical goods when it best supports your pro-piracy case. The anti-piracy folks are far more internally consistent in their beliefs:
1) Taking the digital item still allows someone to enjoy the benefits of a product without paying. This also provides a disincentive to pay for the product, or future products, because of the now-proven availability of the product for free. Data shows that this effect persists regardless of how "good" or "bad" the product is... and that, in fact, better products are pirated more often. The fact that the physical good is not being taken does not mitigate the action, and it is not a victimless crime.
2) Taking the digital item via nearly any file-sharing network also necessarily creates a system in which the downloader makes the file available to many others. They're not just taking the music, they're setting up a distribution center for the stolen product. The very nature of digital media is such that the same file can be copied indefinitely with no loss in quality, which means that the damage done by stealing digital media goes beyond the cost of the initial product.
Pro-Piracy Statement A: "Piracy is not theft. Comparing it to stealing physical goods is stupid and ignorant, because stealing the digital product does not rob the original owner of anything. It simply creates another copy."
Pro-Piracy Statement B: "This is a ridiculous penalty for piracy. If she had stolen the physical product from Wal-Mart, she wouldn't be charged this much, because she only took one disc (or equivalent)."
Can anyone spot the inconsistency? Ah, there it is--apparently it's only acceptable to compare digital goods to physical goods when it best supports your pro-piracy case. The anti-piracy folks are far more internally consistent in their beliefs:
1) Taking the digital item still allows someone to enjoy the benefits of a product without paying. This also provides a disincentive to pay for the product, or future products, because of the now-proven availability of the product for free. Data shows that this effect persists regardless of how "good" or "bad" the product is... and that, in fact, better products are pirated more often. The fact that the physical good is not being taken does not mitigate the action, and it is not a victimless crime.
2) Taking the digital item via nearly any file-sharing network also necessarily creates a system in which the downloader makes the file available to many others. They're not just taking the music, they're setting up a distribution center for the stolen product. The very nature of digital media is such that the same file can be copied indefinitely with no loss in quality, which means that the damage done by stealing digital media goes beyond the cost of the initial product.
Little heavy handed but if makes people take notice then job done.
I people think downloading a few songs can get you that fine(?), what would entire albums, hundreds of movies and hundreds of games cost?
Granted most don't pirate that much but still.
I people think downloading a few songs can get you that fine(?), what would entire albums, hundreds of movies and hundreds of games cost?
Granted most don't pirate that much but still.
I guess they want to ensure she never does this again by making her poor and destitute, while making large sums of money unethically. Was she dumb and wrong to pirate music? yes. Is it wrong of the industry to milk her for all she's worth? yes. Is it legal? Unfortunately also yes.
Honestly this is just a scare tactic. I know people say that they wanted to her to pay less, but the fact of the matter is that they tried to "settle out of court." Which usually means that they sent her a threatening letter and told her she had to pay 5,000 dollars or be sued.
It doesn't really do anything to curb piracy. Most of these C&D letters go unpaid. Their claims to thousands getting paid is bull. They just pick one or two people out of the bunch that didn't pay, and who they know can't pay, for the controversy. Single mother of four? That is sure to get the headlines. In the end it doesn't really amount to much. People stop using KaZaA or w/e and start torrenting instead.
It doesn't really do anything to curb piracy. Most of these C&D letters go unpaid. Their claims to thousands getting paid is bull. They just pick one or two people out of the bunch that didn't pay, and who they know can't pay, for the controversy. Single mother of four? That is sure to get the headlines. In the end it doesn't really amount to much. People stop using KaZaA or w/e and start torrenting instead.
Do they seriously expect her to pay that? Hell, do they expect her to pay that fine before she dies? Something tells me her children will be stuck with what's left of the fine.
Despite this, piracy is on the rise. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying in anyway to justify piracy, I do not believe it should be legal. What I do think is that the record industry is only fueling piracy.dastardly said:
I can't use i-Tunes, nor can I use Amazon, nor can I even use Spotify. Why? Because I'm South African. The industry is way behind the digital age. Ironically I can buy music off indie label sites such as Bleep, which just goes to show how backwards major labels are.dastardly said:
That depends. Pirates are sure as hell the majority down here. There are no internet services that cater to us and our record shops are ridiculously understocked. I love owning physical music, I buy when I can and have a sizable CD collection, most of which I had to buy abroad. For most music there is little option but to pirate.dastardly said:
Not true, I used to pirate, I know many who still do. No one is reasoning with pirates. Since the days of cassette the industry has just branded pirates as the worst of criminals and killers of music, and left it at that.dastardly said:
The industry will not sink. Major labels will die, its too late for them. The industry will live on through independent labels and musicians. Hopefully this will bring some sense to a ridiculously self-serving industry that is now about money rather then art.
dastardly said:
This is my biggest problem with the music industry, music is not the same thing as a couch or a house. You can treat art and forms of entertainment as physical property, they are not the same thing. I also think rights to music should be owned solely by the musician, as it is with indie labels. Its also important to note that many musicians against the music industry on this subject.dastardly said:
Of course they are normal people. They are not suddenly irredeemable criminals just because they've pirated some music.dastardly said:
There are people/sources who far better spoken on the subject then I am, so I will direct you to some links below
An interesting interview with Jeremy Silver, the chair of the Featured Artist Coalition on the matter:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100506/0249579318.shtml
A speech by Stephen Fry on pirating:
http://www.stephenfry.com/2009/07/27/series-2-episode-4-itunes-live-festival/
I don't care how much you hate unauthorized downloading of music or think that filesharing is "killing the music industry", if you can look at this decision and see anything other than a reprehensible miscarriage of justice? Yeah, you're a horrible monster. There is a very very good reason the RIAA has the distinction of being perhaps the single most hated group represented by an acronym in existence, and its because literally everything they do puts the lie to all their arguments. They will moan and wail about the horrors of piracy while skirting inconvenient little facts like the industries they represent making record profits that quarter, they flagrantly extort private citizens for absolutely ludicrous figures that cannot be justified by anyone in possession of a working conscience, and they do all of this in such an overbearingly smug manner that people who probably wouldn't have ever contemplated unauthorized downloading do so now out of spite.
What is killing the music industry? Those jackasses. They have made "supporting the industry" an unpalatable proposition because doing so means supporting the RIAA, and everyone hates the RIAA, because the RIAA seems to be COMPLETELY INCAPABLE of doing anything that does NOT make EVERYONE HATE THEM.
You can never stop 'piracy' - as long as there is a means for people to acquire things without paying for them, they are going to do so; all you can do is not drive down sales because you've made your would-be customers hate your freaking guts. People, shockingly enough, like to buy things! But the products you offer have to fit the desires of your target audience, and change in demand requires adaptation to that change in demand. We are in the situation we now find ourselves in precisely because the media gatekeepers tried to hold onto an aging business model that was becoming increasingly outmoded rather than adapt to capitalize on the changing market; they attempted to legislate the future away in their futile desire to maintain the status quo.
Rampant music piracy would never have been a problem it has[footnote]Supposedly, remember the RIAA isn't exactly an unbiased and entirely honest source of information on the topic.[/footnote] become if the industry had simply recognized what was patently obvious: People increasingly no longer wanted to pay $24+ dollars for an album where there was only one song they actually wanted and the rest was filler. People wanted to utilize the extreme convenience and flexibility of digital distribution, and had the industry provided their customers with those options when it first because patently obvious that their customers wanted them instead of what they actually did (attempt to sue/legislate things into staying exactly like they were, to laughably ineffective results), we probably wouldn't have produced an entire generation who view paying for music as something weird and old-fashioned. You screwed up big time music industry!
You should never have left illegal downloading out there alone as the single most convenient methodology of acquiring music - digital distribution was the service your would-be customers wanted, only you wouldn't provide them with it and the alternative was free. Now that the industry has finally jumped on the digital distribution wagon, they have to deal with a prospective customer-base who have already grown accustomed to downloading things for free. The insane strategy of suing private citizens into oblivion for 'offenses' that couldn't have incurred real damages in excess of a minuscule fraction of what the RIAA is initially willing to settle for out of court? Words cannot express how stupid that is - it absolutely does not have the music industry's best interests in mind, as it makes would-be paying customers despise the industry by extension, and no matter how harsh and incomprehensible the judgments become, people haven't stopped filesharing even slightly.
All it accomplishes is a payday for the lawyers in the RIAA, who don't seem to care about the extreme negative PR they generate each and every time they open their damn mouths, and the negative repercussion this has on the industry they claim to represent - they get their pound of flesh, so screw the artists and labels, suing is lucrative (for them). Paying for things shouldn't make customers feel dirty because they paid, and swiping things without paying shouldn't make you feel great because you're 'sticking it to the man', but this is the world the RIAA and its ilk have created.
The solution is obvious, but doing things that make sense does not seem to be the music industry's strong suit.
What is killing the music industry? Those jackasses. They have made "supporting the industry" an unpalatable proposition because doing so means supporting the RIAA, and everyone hates the RIAA, because the RIAA seems to be COMPLETELY INCAPABLE of doing anything that does NOT make EVERYONE HATE THEM.
You can never stop 'piracy' - as long as there is a means for people to acquire things without paying for them, they are going to do so; all you can do is not drive down sales because you've made your would-be customers hate your freaking guts. People, shockingly enough, like to buy things! But the products you offer have to fit the desires of your target audience, and change in demand requires adaptation to that change in demand. We are in the situation we now find ourselves in precisely because the media gatekeepers tried to hold onto an aging business model that was becoming increasingly outmoded rather than adapt to capitalize on the changing market; they attempted to legislate the future away in their futile desire to maintain the status quo.
Rampant music piracy would never have been a problem it has[footnote]Supposedly, remember the RIAA isn't exactly an unbiased and entirely honest source of information on the topic.[/footnote] become if the industry had simply recognized what was patently obvious: People increasingly no longer wanted to pay $24+ dollars for an album where there was only one song they actually wanted and the rest was filler. People wanted to utilize the extreme convenience and flexibility of digital distribution, and had the industry provided their customers with those options when it first because patently obvious that their customers wanted them instead of what they actually did (attempt to sue/legislate things into staying exactly like they were, to laughably ineffective results), we probably wouldn't have produced an entire generation who view paying for music as something weird and old-fashioned. You screwed up big time music industry!
You should never have left illegal downloading out there alone as the single most convenient methodology of acquiring music - digital distribution was the service your would-be customers wanted, only you wouldn't provide them with it and the alternative was free. Now that the industry has finally jumped on the digital distribution wagon, they have to deal with a prospective customer-base who have already grown accustomed to downloading things for free. The insane strategy of suing private citizens into oblivion for 'offenses' that couldn't have incurred real damages in excess of a minuscule fraction of what the RIAA is initially willing to settle for out of court? Words cannot express how stupid that is - it absolutely does not have the music industry's best interests in mind, as it makes would-be paying customers despise the industry by extension, and no matter how harsh and incomprehensible the judgments become, people haven't stopped filesharing even slightly.
All it accomplishes is a payday for the lawyers in the RIAA, who don't seem to care about the extreme negative PR they generate each and every time they open their damn mouths, and the negative repercussion this has on the industry they claim to represent - they get their pound of flesh, so screw the artists and labels, suing is lucrative (for them). Paying for things shouldn't make customers feel dirty because they paid, and swiping things without paying shouldn't make you feel great because you're 'sticking it to the man', but this is the world the RIAA and its ilk have created.
The solution is obvious, but doing things that make sense does not seem to be the music industry's strong suit.
While piracy is illegal and I highly discourage it, the RIAA has done nothing to gain my sympathy/dollars in recent years, so I generally only buy a few albums by bands I'm REALLY interested in. For me, the main problem is the increasing cost of albums and quality of music on an album.
Only if by "fueling piracy" you mean they continue to record and produce music. That's the only thing they are doing that could be seen to have ANY impact on the amount of piracy going on. Unless what you're trying to insinuate here is that by punishing people who are ALREADY PIRATING, they're somehow encouraging those people to pirate?uro vii said:
No. They are, and were already going to be, pirates. Some just like to use opposition as a justification for doing what they were ALREADY DOING. Punishing something deters many. It encourages none--it just gives them some "big bad" to point at and blame. They know their own choices, and they make them freely.
So you blame the nation that's making the music? Why not blame folks in your own nation for not finding some way to open up the digital trade? It's unfortunate that it's not super-readily available, but it's a bit more than just flipping a switch for a US-based company to start doing business in a foreign land with different currency and laws and blah blah blah.
If someone from that country starts the proceedings in good faith, I think they'll recognize an untapped market when they see one. Appeal to their desire to sell things, and you'll prevail.
No, you're skipping a few steps. The attempt is constantly made to show pirates the damage that is done. They refuse to recognize it, either marginalizing or ignoring it. The attempt is made to remind them that it is, in fact, illegal. They don't care, and proceed anyway. That is ignoring reason.dastardly said:
You understand some of how the recording industry works, but apparently not quite enough. Yes, major labels will start to be broken up, and independents will be on the rise. This is simply because now people have more ability to "get their goods to market" without the need of a production company. However, there's this bizarre tendency to treat labels like they're "robbing" the performers... even by the performers themselves, who chose to sign with them in the first place.
The right to copy, distribute, and receive payment for one's work is exactly what makes music treatable as property. We can debate whether or not someone "should" be able to make a living at art, but this is not the place. Fact is, they do. And if people can just take their stuff at will, they'll have no way to make money--not even enough to earn back what it took to produce the music.
Let's talk about what record labels do for a moment, and why they're often villainized. Say a young artist wants to "make it big." He writes some killer songs, does a lot of local shows, gets a lot of local publicity, maybe opens for some big acts. And he decides he really wants to cut an album and see it sold worldwide.
Okay. He sits down to record... and realizes he doesn't have the equipment or specialized knowledge to get a recording of the kind of quality people expect. That's thousands of dollars and years of trial-and-error right there. Next, he's known locally, not worldwide. He'll need to promote himself on the internet, radio, and in print if he wants any notice... unfortunately he'll also learn that in a lot of places, you NEED name recognition in order to GAIN name recognition, because there are thousands of other guys doing the exact same thing, all just as good, so why should the public favor this one?
Basically, he looks ahead and sees tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead. And he'll still have to hire some studio musicians to help record, organize a tour to promote the album, fund all of that... it's a hellstorm. Enter the label:
"Hey, we listened to your stuff, and we think it can sell. What we'll do is front the money for production and promotion, if you'll give us the rights to copy and distribute this music. In the process, you are selling us your songs, but this is necessary to ensure that we are able to earn back the money we're putting in. Otherwise, what would stop you from using our advertising power to get your name out there, and then running off on your own and leaving us with the bill?"
"Sounds fair, I'll sign!"
"Okay, but before you do: You'll only be getting a percentage of the profits. We have expenses to pay in order to get your product up to snuff and out to the public. You'll also need to demonstrate your viability by showing us you can produce more than one good album. And, just a reminder, you are selling us the rights to your music. At this point, it will no longer be "yours" to distribute, but will be ours. In exchange, we will produce and promote your album to ensure it provides a return on our investment."
"Okay, cool, I'll sign!"
"You're probably not going to get rich off this first album. Just to be clear. Those up-front costs are high, and we just want to be sure you know what's going on, so here's a very explicit contract telling you exactly what's going on. I'd suggest you and a lawyer go over it together, because if anything in this contract gives you pause, you shouldn't be signing it."
"Whatever, yeah, I'll sign!"
And then later on, when the gravity of what they've done hits, they realize the gravy train is not running as fast as they believed. They realize that it takes a TON OF PEOPLE, all working their asses off, to make them that famous. So yes, while it's their music that's being sold, the product is the sum of HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE'S EFFORT, and they have to share the money. They signed a contract that says the same.
But guess what? Those behind-the-scenes folks haven't developed a devoted fan base! So, the performer can appeal to the public and say, "See how screwed I'm getting?" They're using the name/face recognition that was provided to them by the label as a way of hating on the label for doing exactly what everyone agreed to in the first place.
Performers are far more problematic to the music industry than the labels. The labels are just doing what they feel they must to protect a substantial outlay of capital and the expectation of a reasonable return. Performers need to learn the difference between "wanting to make music" and "wanting to make millions." It has always and will always be the case that producers make more.
The point made was that they do not represent "the average." The average person doesn't pirate music. On the internet, the numbers seem inflated, but in reality it's not the case. That's why they can't seem to get a single sympathetic jury together on the matter.dastardly said:
You made me chuckle. Thank you. I had an image of a series of elderly ladies knitting with one giving the photographer the stink-eye. Sitting in the yarn baskets were pearl handled .45s.Furbyz said:
$62,500 for each P2P traded item? OHSHITOHSIT, I gotta stop torrenting stuff. Oh wait, the RIAA doesn't care about perplexity large quantities of equestrian pornography being shared, right? Good...
In all seriousness, how is $62,500 in any way representative of the crime? Assuming the actual cost per song is $1, she is being charged for the crimes of 62,500 other people. I don't care if this is what the jury awarded, it is fucking ridiculous. Had she stolen 2CDs, she would probably have had a higher chance of being caught, yet she would have faced few if any legal problems. And had she given said CDs to a friend, neither of them would have faced any consequences.
The judge who allowed this to happen should be burned at the stake, and the RIAA should then be charged for the gasoline and the subsequent clean up. By which I of course mean $5,000,000 for each gallon of gas, $1,000,000 for each match used, and $700,000,000 per hour worked on said clean up for each employee. As for the jury, shot out of a giant cannon into the sun? Yes, bill goes to the RIAA, of course. Meanwhile, the lady who did the file sharing should give $50 per song to each of the artists. If said artists are no longer alive, or actively in a band, the fine will be waived. There, isn't this a much more sensible solution?
In all seriousness, how is $62,500 in any way representative of the crime? Assuming the actual cost per song is $1, she is being charged for the crimes of 62,500 other people. I don't care if this is what the jury awarded, it is fucking ridiculous. Had she stolen 2CDs, she would probably have had a higher chance of being caught, yet she would have faced few if any legal problems. And had she given said CDs to a friend, neither of them would have faced any consequences.
The judge who allowed this to happen should be burned at the stake, and the RIAA should then be charged for the gasoline and the subsequent clean up. By which I of course mean $5,000,000 for each gallon of gas, $1,000,000 for each match used, and $700,000,000 per hour worked on said clean up for each employee. As for the jury, shot out of a giant cannon into the sun? Yes, bill goes to the RIAA, of course. Meanwhile, the lady who did the file sharing should give $50 per song to each of the artists. If said artists are no longer alive, or actively in a band, the fine will be waived. There, isn't this a much more sensible solution?