Court Confirms $675,000 Fine For Downloading Music

[Guest]

A ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeals may be reopening a discussion of what the value of an illegally downloaded song is and what the appropriate monetary punishment should be.

Court Confirms $675,000 Fine For Downloading Music : Read more

 

[ikyung]

This is so dumb. Why don't they just take the price of an album and average out how much each track will cost. So this guy downloaded 30 tracks? Charge him like 30-40dollar fine and get him out of there. Unless of course this man used those 30 tracks to somehow make a profit which I doubt he did..

 

[Horhe]

That's the first time in my life I hear these words: remittitur, obviated.

Isn't $22,500 a bit excessive? 1 song != 1 car

 

[hoof_hearted]

I guess the RIAA owns the Court of Appeals

 

[JamesSneed]

This insanity needs to be changed. Just make it a $1,000 - $5,000 fine or something along those lines. What he did was illigal but the penality is just silly.

 

[NapoleonDK]

There is still so much of this I don't understand. I have a decent sized music library, 30GB or so, and I'm always pulling stuff off isohunt to get new albums. Have been for...years. I tag a song with Shazam and download it with Music Downloader Lite, both free in Android Market. What's the difference here? Why am I able to do this with a silly smartphone for free, and I'm not fined? I also listen to Pandora, and I have some precise stations that only play 20-30 songs, it's like a playlist almost. That's free too. So is the good ole' FM radio.

Maybe I'm missing the part that's so criminal?

/3pointedhat

 

[mavroxur]

I could go into a chain store, shoplift 30 CD's, get caught, and after restitution, cost costs, and any other associated fines and fees, be 99% better off than that. $67,500 is absurd. $675,000 is a complete joke and a waste of the Judicial System's time. You could put a $10,000,000,000 judgement against him. What difference would it make?

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]ikyung[/nom]This is so dumb. Why don't they just take the price of an album and average out how much each track will cost. So this guy downloaded 30 tracks? Charge him like 30-40dollar fine and get him out of there. Unless of course this man used those 30 tracks to somehow make a profit which I doubt he did..[/citation]

That's close. Taking the cost of the album, divided by the # of tracks is still too much. You have to remember that he likely received these tracks in a compressed format where there was some loss in quality. You would then determine the value of the lost quality and use that as part of the equation when determining the fine per song.

 

[NapoleonDK]

Even from the RIAA's point of view, wouldn't it be much more cost-effective to place judgement on illegal uploaders? Or apps that you can download tracks from? Even if downloading music were illegal, I doubt I would buy any ACTUAL CD's, or track from iTunes or Zune Pass. Arr.

 

[tomc100]

I think the fine is for uploading the music and then sharing with hundreds if not thousands of people. I'm not saying the fine is not excessive but that's probably the reasoning behind it.

 

[Gulli]

Who wants to bet the lawyers confused the not-so-computer savvy judge with fuzzy logic? There is no justice in this verdict.

The system is so rotten...

 

[nordlead]

The reason they don't charge $3/song is because they usually tack on a charge to make people think twice before wronging another party. However, 20k/song is excessive and the sad part is they are just trying to ruin this guys life. 60k will still ruin hurt for quite a few years, make a point not to pirate music, and allow him to rebuild his life. I mean, they are going to push him into filing for bankruptcy and they'll get nothing.

 

[sgtopmobile]

OH MY GOD if i was charged for downloading illegal music them i will have to pay let see.... i have 399 song on my ipod 10 of wich i bought in itunes so i have 389 illegal songs that leaves me with a 389 x 22.500 = $8,752,500 fine.

 

[Parrdacc]

I am telling you there should be a class action lawsuit launched against the RIAA for price gouging, intimidation and extortion. Is not paying $15 dollars or more for a cd in which a person might only like half or less of the songs excessive. Oh sure I could buy a single I suppose, but that only works if the song I want is available that way. They have been doing this for years. That covers the price gouging.

Intimidation and Extortion: This comes from numerous case over the years where they have told people they have downloaded illegally and that if they pay a small fine they will not take you to court for bigger money. Of course you give them the finger and they come after you hardcore. However that has not always worked i.e. Atlantic v. Howell and several others like the lawsuit against about 727 file sharers back about 4 years ago some of whom where deceased.

No matter how, I look at it at least, the RIAA are no better than an organized crime organization that are engaged in the some of the same crimes as the mob. Can you RICO the RIAA?

 

[beardguy]

This is absurd and makes no sense. The music industry are trying to use these scare tactics to stop illegal downloading. It's not going to work.

30 Songs ... about 3 CD's worth of music. Average music cost is 99 cents per song. That's about $30 worth of music total. Now where are they getting this insane amount?

Listen up music industry ... the hay day is over. You aren't going to make millions on music albums like in the past. Smart musicians understand this and make a killing on touring and playing live. This is how you make money in the modern music industry.

 

[kriswone]

The fines are too much, it should equate to the amount of profit or the amount if it was physical instead of digital, if anything the digital should be less.

 

[Gulli]

[citation][nom]tomc100[/nom]I think the fine is for uploading the music and then sharing with hundreds if not thousands of people. I'm not saying the fine is not excessive but that's probably the reasoning behind it.[/citation]

I'm no stranger to p2p but I have yet to encounter a torrent with hundreds of thousands of leechers (even popular tv shows usually have thousands, sometimes tens of thousands). Also this line of reasoning (multiplying by the number of leechers) is fundamentally flawed because people only send each other tiny pieces (in total they rarely upload more than they download) so chances are that for every song he downloaded he only uploaded one song. Also, when it's about multiple torrents chances are some of the leechers are the same. To illustrate: if there were 1001 leechers linked to the torrent, and all 1000 of them are arrested and fined for sharing files with 1000 people, then they'd be fined for sharing 1 million files even though only 1001 copies were created, so justice has not been served because they are actually fined 1000 times too much. This is the fuzzy math I was talking about and I suspect judges to be susceptible to.

 

[pdfsmail]

The constitution triumphs over all thats what is there for, its our law.. dont give me the obviated any constitutional due process bull crap. The media industry is limited by our laws not the other way around. I am getting so sick of this crap I would love to start a group built to knock down the overbearing forces that think they can triumph the law and make them pay.

How did they come up with that figure.. doesn't that fall under cruel and unusual punishment??!! (hence unconstitutionally excessive) That is illegal as well, they should be counter fined for that. Making someone pay loads of money they dont have, probably forcing him into welfare.. which we will pay for. Charge him the cost of the songs and maybe a small percentage penalty and move on. The music / media industry, etc.. should be sued for unreasonable requests like that.

Keep it up, start a war with the people you are making the music for.

And to think, I don't even listen to much music... let alone download it.

 

[soo-nah-mee]

The chances of him being able to actually pay the fine are probably close to nil.
If the fine sticks this time, he will probably be forced into bankruptcy and the taxpayers will be the ones paying the fines.
Thanks judicial system. Thanks RIAA.

 

[bv90andy]

OK, if the other judge didn't have the right to limit the amount, I guess you can't argue with that, but this is still wrong. If I go and steal 3 albums from a shop, I won't get anything more then maybe a year of prison with a bail 10 times, or a hundred times, smaller. The Governments have to realise that this "offence" is something that has basically entered out culture and needs to be dealt with accordingly, the problem doesn't lie with the people, you can't seriously argue that you've got a country/planet full of robbers, maybe the problem lies somewhere else, like the prices being asked for an album, or some other social problem.