P2P File Sharer to Pay RIAA $80,000 Per Song

[randomizer]

Ars Technica left out a detail. From another article:

[citation][nom]article[/nom]Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, said the industry remains willing to settle. She refused to name a figure, but acknowledged Thomas-Rasset had been given the chance to settle for $3,000 to $5,000 earlier in the case.[/citation]

This woman is stupid for not paying the previous fine. I don't condone the outrageous fine the RIAA have issued her with now but I have no sympathy for an idiot who knows she's up against some of the greediest people in the country and doesn't take the easy way out.

 

[Master Exon]

[citation][nom]Raidur[/nom]You won't scare me RIAA!! *clicks* "The Beatles" Discography. At $80k a song I should be a dead man by sunrise.[/citation]
The copyright on the Beatles expired already. You can legally download and distribute them now.

 

[Ciuy]

Jesus, they just dont want to GET IT.

You Cant Stop Piracy fss...

 

[tayb]

[citation][nom]randomizer[/nom]Ars Technica left out a detail. From another article:This woman is stupid for not paying the previous fine. I don't condone the outrageous fine the RIAA have issued her with now but I have no sympathy for an idiot who knows she's up against some of the greediest people in the country and doesn't take the easy way out.[/citation]

Okay it seems that a lot of people are confused with this but the RIAA did not fine this girl anything nor do they have the power to fine this girl. A jury of our peers was given a ballpark range of $750 per song to $150,000 per song and chose a number right near the middle with $80,000 per song. Not trying to beat a dead horse or defend the RIAA but they wanted no part of the $80,000 a song judgment, admitted that they had no intentions of collection $2 million, and tried SEVERAL times to settle outside of the courtroom for $3,000 total. I think the outrage from many people on this site here is exactly why the RIAA isn't happy with the outcome of this case.

 

[customisbetter]

hmm. im at $244,720,000. i wonder if i have to pay extra for actually getting 320Kps files instead of 128kps nonsense...

 

[tayb]

I don't understand why people are bragging about ripping off intellectual property by way of illegally downloading. Do you think that it makes you look cool to multiple your hundreds of illegally obtained songs by $80,000 and post your astronomical numbers? Good for you, you enjoy downloading someone else's hard work for free. You might think you are hurting the RIAA when you do this, and you are, but the musician isn't getting his small chunk from a possible sale either. If you want to download music go ahead and do I really don't care but you look like a bunch of idiots posting this huge dollar figures boasting about how many artists you have ripped off.

 

[Master Exon]

tayb, a large majority of illegal music downloads are by people who would not have paid for it anyways. Therefor, no potential sales were lost in those cases.

 

[ryokinshin]

There are people who would have bought it, but now download because they can and it happens a lot.

 

[twisted politiks]

[citation][nom]macer1[/nom]radio pays for those songs apache_lives[/citation]

and the people who first uploaded the songs she downloaded paid for them? so now where is your 2-second thought logic

 

[Homeboy2]

[This woman is stupid for not paying the previous fine. I don't condone the outrageous fine the RIAA have issued her with now but I have no sympathy for an idiot who knows she's up against some of the greediest people in the country and doesn't take the easy way out.

Why pay em anything? let em try and sue me.

 

[ryokinshin]

What it boils down to is, piracy not going to go away. Make your product and sell it, if it's good wether game, movie or music, it will sell. Stop putting money into bad security(games are doing this more and more, all iTunes music is DRM free pretty much) and it's win win. People will always buy your stuff if it's even decent and worth getting so I don't know what people are worried about.

 

[mogle]

tayb, i may have an astronomical number but i still buy music off of itunes and i buy cds from band sites if itunes doesnt have what i'm looking for. its not that i like ripping artists off, its that i got sick of getting ripped off. i used to spend upwards of $20 for a cd because i heard a song that i liked on the radio which was on it, just to find out the the rest of the album was complete shit. by downloading a song i can preview the entire song instead of a 30 second clip. if i like what i hear, i'll pay for it. i just seem to find a lot of shitty music and i dont care for deleteing anything unless it really sucks because i'm certainly not about to run out of disk space on my hard drive.

 

[NuclearShadow]

I'll be honest if I was in a situation like hers I would just go postal. They would end up taking everything from me and certainly garnish any income I have to a extreme amount. I would divorce my wife and let her have my son and claim all the debt. Then I would go to the offices of the RIAA and I'm sure you can assume what I would do next. I wonder if their greed will still continue then and if so will anyone do the same as I.

 

[viper666]

80k/song :| what a bunch of losers... Riaa, the judge and the jury. There is no way she will ever pay them that amount of money. I really wonder if someone will actually stop downloading after hearing this? Probably not, i sure won't... *looks at ETA*

 

[descendency]

Just force them to sue you. Once their legal fines start mounting, they will quit. Go through a large legal process with all 3 of your appeals that you are entitled by law. 3 trials per downloader that they bust will eventually bankrupt them. We will see how dedicated they are when they have to start paying out of their pockets.

They won't make a dime when you declare bankruptcy. They need for you to settle with them, or else they'll be required to go through the expensive legal process.

Once someone's case gets to the US Supreme Court, a lot of things could change. They will either back off or they'll be slapped down big time. It's clear that the industry is on the brink of a huge change.

 

[viper666]

They could wipe out every god damn music network/site on the internet, i still won’t buy anything with RIAA marked on it. CD sales don’t support the artists anyway.

I support artists by going to their shows, i’ll be damned if i ever give the f*****g RIAA a penny.

 

[demonhorde665]

this si rediculous , usually im anti piracy , but seriously LOL if i were here i'd say yeah F- you you won your freaking case good luck getting that ammount out of some one that is working at minimum wage or less.

this is just stupid

 

[shqtth]

OK RIAA is gay...


If they want respect from people, they better start suing for a more realistic value, and that value would take in account the circulation of the songs the pirate had (how many downloads), taking in the fact that it takes 2 or more to pirate(one to host pirate material, and one to pirate/download).

Anyways its not fair to find one person millions, and yet not fine the other people downloading off her.


I can see if she was running a major pirate site, that there would be a lot in damages, but for something so small, the fine is unrealistic.


Anyways, this just proves that the RIAA are out to lunch.

A fine of $10000 or something similar would be more reasonable, and more likely they would collect on it.

In the case of file sharing and when found guilty, if you are not profiting on the content, then a crime is a crime it doesn't matter how many songs(within reason). But someone profited on the content (site trafic generation, fees, sold etc) then it would make more sense to issue a fine per song.

 

[descendency]

If the RIAA started charging 2$ per song... I mean, they'd almost have a business.

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]Master Exon[/nom]tayb, a large majority of illegal music downloads are by people who would not have paid for it anyways. Therefor, no potential sales were lost in those cases.[/citation]
A common cop-out which is used to justify piracy. It is indeed true but a large number of people would pay for music if it wasn't so easy to get for free. People are lazy, not just scabs.