So, about that piracy... AKA Woman forced to pay $1.5 million for pirating music

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

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.

Partly yes, I do blame companies outside South Africa. I have no idea how why Spotify does not work in South Africa (or much of the world), but Amazon used to work here but now has chosen not to serves us, and Apple simply has never bothered to get around to opening online stores for any African country, which is a shame because I'm rather fond of Apple otherwise.

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.

I tend to agree with the performers. Up until 5 or 6 years ago, a major label was pretty much an artist's only option. Labels do take massive amounts from their musicians.The Beatles famously got less then 10% of all the money they earned, the rest either went to EMI or was taxed. In more recent times Radiohead claim that they almost decided to break up the band rather then take one of the backbreaking contracts that were offered to them. They simply didn't have any other choice but to sign away their rights. Yes a lot of musicians go into these contracts ignorant of what they are signing away, but the labels are also fully aware that this is the cases and are happy to exploit them.

Out of interest, from where do your knowledge and opinions regarding the industry stem from?

I certainly won't claim to be an expert on the workings of the record industry, but I follow things based on a personal interest as a musician in training.

 

[Uncreation]

While I hugely disagree with a fine that ridiculously high, I severely doubt that she's going to pirate aything again. In which case record companies will see this as a victory, and a warning to all other pirates

Never going to pirate anything again? Shes been economically crippled, if anything she'll pirate more

And even if she won't, this will not discourage others. So, this whole "make an example of her" thing the RIAA is going for, is not going to work.
Anyway, i hope she wins in the end.

 

[Lilani]

I think the amount is a bit overkill, but there are risks involved...

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

She should pay for the songs and pay no more, that's just plain unfair. Not everybody is as rich as them and they don't need any more money than they already have.

 

[Orannis0]

That's just absurd. No one uses Kazaa anymore.

 

[esperandote]

Damn, they better be the best 24 songs ever.

Not a smart move to refuse to pay the 5,000.

 

[wulfy42]

The real crime here is that the recording industry is wasting court time on this. The woman doesn't have near the amount they are suing for and they can not take away her house, car etc so that means even if they finally do "win" they will get almost nothing from her. That is why she is not settling (one of the reasons) because there is nothing for her to lose. Basically the $5000 they wanted is all they can possibly get and in fact by the time they finally wind she can ensure she doesn't even have $5000 anymore.

Meanwhile tons and tons of legal fees are piling up and the courts time is being wasted as a publicity stunt by the recording industry to try and scare people away from pirating. It's silly and a waste of tax payers time (since they actually have to use a jury) and money.

What the recording industry should do instead is lobby to make it a criminal offense (even if it's just as minor as shoplifting or petty theft) that includes a small fine and perhaps with multiple offenses some jail time.

That would discourage people from pirating and not cost a ton in legal fees. If it was done similar to trafic violations for instance with a ticket being given with each infaction and jail time possible if you ignore them....that would handle the problem pretty well.

To be honest most of the people who would use file sharing of any kind are not going to have enough property to be hurt by a civil lawsuit of any kind. At worst they would need to declare bankruptcy after losing the lawsuit and could avoid losing pretty much anything that way.

The only solution is to ensure such cases go into criminal court instead (if at all) and to streamline the cases with tickets. A ticket for $500 for each case of being caught downloading a file (not for each file...but for being caught in the possession of downloaded files or in the act of downloading an illegal file)with the potential to increase the fine for subsequent infractions would be the best solution in my opinion.

That could quickly pay for the resources needed to monitor internet use (not what is being done initially, just the constant amount of usage a household has on the internet) and then get a judge to sign off on a search warrant if there is suspicious activity at a home.

I bet if file sharing became a criminal offense that could enable police to use search warrants piracy would quickly become much less of a problem!!

 

[TheLaofKazi]

Sure, they should pay for the damages they've done, maybe up to a total of two times the original release value of the products that they pirated

Yes, making teenagers on average pay $1600 for their potential damages isn't absurd at all.

http://gizmodo.com/5016755/average-teen-stores-842-stolen-tracks-on-their-ipod

And remember, whether you support copyright law or not, our current copyright laws in America are completely fucked [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act].

 

[BaldursBananaSoap]

Woman doesn't know how to use a proxy.

 

[Aeriath]

Look, you're all probably right. I just like seeing people getting inordinately punished for piracy. It's probably that side of me that enjoys a good public hanging. Also, I think about the difficulty me and my friends have had over the past decade just trying to pay bills and so forth because nobody buys shit anymore... it's so much harder to make a living in music that it once was. Some of the promo CDs that I get sent at work have disclaimers on them basically begging people not to fileshare the stuff. The other day a new album from a band I love came out and there was all this shit written all over the promo disc saying "we're going to have to stop making music if you guys keep ripping our shit" and it broke my heart. I care a lot more about them than some stupid woman who really should have played ball when she was busted with her hand in the cookie jar.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a supporter of piracy (although some stuff I do would be legally iffy I believe that it is justifiable). If I had to deal with people begging me not to give away their hard work I think I'd probably take a bit of joy from this too.

Punative damages are to stop others, not just that person.

And the record companies offered to settle for that $24,000 amount even AFTER winning, and she turned them down.

I don't understand why people keep saying "they" as in the record companies are doing this. They are not. A jury awarded the insane damage amount, a jury keeps confirming the insane damage amounts, the record company TRIED to settle for a reasonable amount both before and after the initial trial. She has decided she likes being a celeb and there are lawyers working for free to make their name on this.

Sorry for my ignorance, I had no idea that she brought the massive fine upon herself. My line of thought was that $1.5 million may not serve as a deterrent - to someone such as myself it seems like an unattainable amount of money and that lessens the threat. I am currently in debt by about £1,800 and I am working to pay my parents back for bailing me out. It's going to be a tough year. For me, $24,000 is scary as hell. That is a realistic level of debt to me and would make the fine more real.

I hope I've managed to convey my (possibly stupid) reasoning for my last post.

 

[khaimera]

Here are my thoughts on piracy . . . . .

Yeah right, like I'd share them on this forum.

 

[PhoenixKing]

BLOODY HELL! Dude, 24 songs for 1.5mil? Damn man. I have nearly... I mean, I know a person who has nearly 5000 songs... Damn, it would suck for this person to be sued.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

The RIAA are bullies trying to use scare tactics to extort money out of consumers and musicians alike. Fuck 'em.

 

[Irridium]

RIAA = Assholes
Pirates = Assholes

So yeah, I'm kind of torn.

 

[rhoads1982]

Man, that's wild. My cousin pirated like, 500 songs, got caught, and all that happened to him was the songs got deleted. We're in Canada. It sucked for him, though. It took for ever to download them all. I am strongly opposed to pirating though, especially as an aspiring musician.

 

[SonicKoala]

So, going by this ruling, that would make each song she downloaded worth $62,500 dollars. That would mean that my iPod, which consists of a little over 2,000 songs, is worth $125,000,000 dollars.

Well, that makes perfect sense =D

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

If the recording companies are suing here for damages, she shouln't be liable for anything more than she's stolen. Speaking as a lawyer, that ain't right...
Still, this day and age people should know better.

My feelings exactly.

 

[Sven und EIN HUND]

Woah, didn't expect this much discussion, excellent.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I think the biggest problem is, most pirates just won't care, no matter how much they fine maybe 10 people caught a year.

It's still like a one in 10 million chance of being caught, compared with 'woo free stuff' (I'm not saying it's right, I'm stating the view from the pirate side is all. Not paying for stuff, with the 1 in 10 million risk that you'll have your life destroyed by lawyers for doing it, well, pass the torrents please.)

Now if they could hit , say 100,000 people who are downloading from popular torrent sites with a $1000 fine each, that'd hit home, I think. Suddenly there's a good chance of getting caught, and a reasonable yet scary fine. Of course, the legal system makes it impossible to do anything for less than a million dollars nowadays, or I imagine they'd have done it.

There's already been scams over here, tales of scammers sending notices out at random to people saying 'you've been caught downloading 'A' or 'B', please pay a fine of £500 or face a future court case. fortunately most people are clued up enough to ignore them.