RIAA Settle With Mother, Kids for $7,000

[-unknown-]

[citation][nom]g-thor[/nom]...But please, keep in mind that people who illegally copy and distribute music, movies, etc. are not modern day Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. For example. if my neighbour has a veggie garden, and I steal all of his produce and give it to the food bank, it is still stealing. My not making money off of it, or not using it myself, doesn't mean I didn't take something that wasn't mine, and in our legal system, that's a crime (the question of whether it should be a crime is a whole different discussion).[/citation]
You have to be careful when assimilating 'copying' as 'stealing' as they are two distinct acts. If someone obtains a 'knock-off' rolex, accusing that individual of 'stealing' doesn't make sense (a 'knock-off' being a copy of a real rolex). Did they jeoperdize the sale of a 'real' rolex? Quite possibly, but they still didn't steal it.

On another note, I've heard this reference of Robin Hood being applied to downloaders but I think that's also an inadequate comparison. Napster and Torrents started a community of 'sharing' and didn't have much to do with poverty (since people who own PCs aren't typically poor) which is far different that the ideals presented under Robin Hood.

[citation][nom]g-thor[/nom]
What I can do is try to persuade my neighbour that he should give some to the food bank.If I don't like the music industry's way of doing business, my most persuasive act is to not buy what they make - and I generally don't. I pretty much quit buiyng CDs years back because I already have more music than I can listen to in a few months - and it's music I enjoy.The challenge is, RIAA wants to claim their financial losses are solely based on piracy. The only way we can prove them wrong, and show them that it's their services and products we don't like, is to quit file sharing music long enough for them to keep losing money at a prodigious rate without any piracy going on. Then they will be forced to change their business model, without the excuse that "the pirates made me do it". Can we, as a society, do that? I don't think so, as long as the files are "free" for the taking. It would take a lot of character and moral fortitude for such a small thing.[/citation]
Stating that a community would require a lot of 'moral' fortitude to accomplish something is an unbalanced statement due to the fact that everyone's morals differ in a community (think of the different moral values between religions). I don't believe that these 'downloaders' think they're doing anything immoral which means they wouldn't have a need to change their behaviour. A lot of people want to label their morals as 'right' and 'wrong' but people need to try to respect and listen to those who hold a differing opinion. Abortion is 'right' and 'wrong' to many but just accusing people of 'murder' and saying its 'wrong' won't be very productive to resolving the issue at heart. Same applies to this 'copying' era.

On a side note, companies will never forego using piracy, even if it was minimal, as an excuse for loss. Its just too convenient of an excuse (I mean that in the sense that its difficult to assess how large a loss would be due to piracy, so it would be easy to correlate it to any figure loss).

 

[cracklint]

an 11 yr. old can kill another child and not face punishment this severe.

 

[solymnar]

[citation][nom]baseline[/nom]I realize many of you are not old enough to remember a time before CD and DVD players but believe it or not there was. Before CD's there were cassette tape players and before them were 8-tack and reel to reel recorders. Long before the internet there was digital radio and they played whole albums that could and were recorded. We have been able to record from the radio as well. How is what is being done with file sharing any different than what we have been able to do for years? The only difference is how the songs are duplicated and the format they are in and what they are being stored on. There is nothing new here and there is no crime being committed as long as the parties involved are not reproducing the music for profit. The Motion picutre association cried the same tune when VCR's came out, they complained that they would be ruined with people copying the movies, it didn't turn out that way just ask Blockbuster. Now both of these industry's find themselves behind the times, Blockbuster is about to go under and the RIAA hasn't a clue how to go about their business in a digital age. No bailout for them adapt or die.[/citation]

That was practically exactly what I said months ago. I fully agree. The real thing hurting their sales is when they saw and said "Oh my god! Look at how many people are downloading media!"

The correct responce was "We should get involved and change our model to take advantage of this NOW in its ground floor stages"

Instead their responce was "We shall try to ban and destroy anything that could remotely threaten complete control over any and every possible form of distribution!!! And milk anyone who tries to circumvent for all their worth!"

So far their chosen route doesn't appear to be working all that well.

 

[jawshoeaw]

"it didn't turn out that way just ask Blockbuster" - I think piracy is hurting Blockbuster. It's killing movie quality too, in my opinion, although how you'd measure that I don't know.

Bottom line to me: If you don't want to pay for music or movies, then don't download it. Anyone who wants anything for nothing is a thief at heart. There's no such thing as a free lunch folks, never has been, never will be. Every religion I think agrees on this, every moral code, they are all in agreement: Taking things that are not yours, or refusing payment, is wrong. It's not murder or rape, but it's still wrong. Those kids who the RIAA pursued knew it was wrong and did it anyway. I think the RIAA is a bunch of idiots personally, but it's their legal right to go after anyone who breaks the law. Kids go to jail all the time.

I don't see how the comparison to shoplifting isn't more obvious. Why not just go steal the games, movies, music out of the store? You could burn a copy and then return it, that's OK right? The police should never be able to go after "kids" who steal thousands of dollars of media, as long as those kids make copies and then return the originals to the store. Right? Why isn't Windows 7 a free download? OK, actually that last question was seriuos. I paid for Vista, I want 7 as a free upgrade to the bloated turd of Vista. Doesn't mean I get to have it for free though, just because "I want it". That's the logic of a three year old.