I think he's trying to make the point that IP address does not guarantee a particular user.
Perhaps her lawyer should have tried making some defence.
Anyways, the facts that she had 1,700 tracks and they decided to press charge on 24 actually shows a lot of common sense on the RIAA's part.
The damages awarded by the jury are beyond fuckwittery however, why not just award $80 bazillion per song? It's not like it's going to get paid, whether it's $80,000 or 80 *madeup number here* dollars.
Still, she should have seen she was caught red handed, and just accepted the punishment, applying to pay the $5000 over time, and to be honest, having to pay $100 a month for 50 months is going to remind her every month not to do it again.
I'm going to repost an idea of mine from earlier in the month too, as I feel it's relevant.
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SO we all know piracy hurts the industry, and we're probably going to see fewer and fewer millionaires being made in popular music.
Here how I think, and hope the future will go.
As time goes on, people will come around to buying music online, leaving behind the 'top 20' selection in supermarkets and the constant flow of 'hits' compilations.
As this happens, of course piracy will not stop, but, here's the thing about piracy, the most popular things get pirated most.
To me this suggests there's a law of diminishing returns on success in the industry, and over time hopefully it'll stop being seen as a cash cow and a way to show up, be famous with a cute ass and a few catchy tunes and then disappear into obscurity with a million bucks.
so I suggest that pop will not die, but it will stop being so relevant, and as more and more music becomes easily available, the artists that want to create, and want to make music because they can, rather than for pure profit, may end up making a reasonable living out of selling their work, while no-one will rise to the top and take a huge percentage of the total market.
Wouldn't it be great if it ends up that 10,000 bands are doing 'quite well' and earning enough to commit to being artists, instead of 10 or 20 singers that earn enough to buy pink helicopters and gold plated Bentleys.
I say this because, yes, piracy is bad, but I believe it affects the huge bands far more than the little guys, and people who 'sometimes' pirate stuff, are less likely to pirate some little upcoming band than they would grab an old Metallica cd, knowing Metallica already have a few million each. After all, try to find a Jonas Brothers torrent, ok? now go try to find a Peeping Tom torrent, I'm sure you could find both, but the popular one will be easier to locate and much faster to get. I chose Peeping Tom as someone I knew and liked, who's not 'obscure' but not a top 20 kinda band.
I think this may be more likely as a British thing than worldwide as we already resent success, heh.
I'm sure Simon Cowell will find ways to market and prepackage rubbish to idiots but I feel as the cd market withers and fades over time it will become harder, as people get online and realise there's more than 20 bands in the world, and a lot of them are more interesting than Susan Boyle and Miley Cyrus. I rate the escapist population as smart and well informed, but I'm fairly convinced there's a good proportion of the world who think the stuff on Radio 1 and MTV is all the music there is.
Anyways, do you think music could end up with the bubble bursting and being just a place for artists to sell their work, with no more superstars bathing in money? or are we doomed to forever worship the idols created for us? ( I fully understand the people in the background generally cream off far more cash than the artists btw, one more reaons I hate Cowell.)
