RIAA Asks Famed Pirate To Join Anti-Piracy Campaign

[Signa]

Unless they're going to wipe the slate completely clean, she has no reason to even consider this offer. Look at it this way: Even if the RIAA reduces the fine by 90 percent, she still owes $22,000 for 24 songs. It's obscenely disproportional. I may no secret of the fact that I don't like piracy, but this kind of response is absolutely unconscionable, and it's actions like this on the part of agencies like the RIAA that make it so difficult to have a reasoned, rational conversation about the causes and costs of piracy.

Hell, a 99.9% reduction is still too much. The only fair way out of this is if they make her buy the CD for every song she downloaded. Actually, that could end up costing more than .1% of the fine, but at least it wouldn't be an arbitrary number, and the RIAA could "profit" from selling to her.

 

[Vivi22]

Granted $222,000 is a stupid amount of money to fine someone over 24 songs that may or may not have been downloaded thousands of times, we all know it was a scare tactic to dissuade anyone else from pirating music (Which didn't work) But she's still a pirate, her trying to weasel out of any type of repayment shouldn't be supported.

What shouldn't be supported is record companies destroying someone financially for downloading 24 songs. You speak as though filing for bankruptcy is some magic get out of jail free card, when the reality is that she's basically going to be financially ruined for years. Over 24 songs.

Let's not even pretend that she's the bigger bad guy here.

 

[DarkRyter]

Good on her for sticking to her guns.

 

[Avalanche91]

I........What? How is this a thing?

You'd be laughed out of court if you tried to sue someone for such a ludicrous amount of cash for this crime in the Netherlands. Maybe 50 euro and a slap on the wrist, this is just insane.

 

[an annoyed writer]

So not only do they charge her an obscene amount to make an example of her, they try to humiliate her to give an undisclosed (probably small) amount of reduction to her fee? That is so cartoonishly ridiculous it hurts my brain. Seriously, holy shit. You're screwed either way, so you might as well take the route that's less humiliating. Glad to see she's doing that. Also, let's put this in perspective here: $220,000 is roughly enough money to buy one of these:

A Rolls Royce Ghost. Or four of these:

Four Cadillac Escalades. Think about that for a second. Four factory-new Escalades. My entire family doesn't even make that much in several years' time, and I doubt she makes much more than any of us.

 

[Lord Garnaat]

Oh no, some woman who knowingly and willingly broke the law purely for her own benefit is being forced to face the consequences of her own actions. The fine is more than a little bit excessive, but I can't really bring myself to feel sorry for this woman - she knew exactly what she was doing when she pirated that music, and should have been prepared to pay the price for it going in.

 

[Hagi]

I........What? How is this a thing?

You'd be laughed out of court if you tried to sue someone for such a ludicrous amount of cash for this crime in the Netherlands. Maybe 50 euro and a slap on the wrist, this is just insane.

Nope, not even that.

Downloading would be legal here if I'm not mistaken. It's the uploading that gets you into 50 euros and a slap on the wrist territory. Which is altogether a lot more reasonable I'd say.

 

[Vausch]

I think we should get people together to raise the money to pay this fine.
But not pay it in a check or wired deposit. No.

Pay it in truckloads of coins. Pennies. Nickles. Dimes. Massive amounts of coins. Just dump it on their front-lawn.
Stinkin' RIAA.

All for this. Can we shoot the coins to the building using a pressure gun?

Well, at least they're being open about their attempted blackmail this time.
Still, just another day for the ruthless RIAA.

As for why Thomas didn't take the deal: I guess the real value in saying 'no' is not being made a further example of.

Now, I'm not saying you should pirate (you shouldn't). I'm just saying that suing for thousands of dollars over a couple dozen songs is probably the LEAST ridiculous thing they do.

What's the penalty to retail value ratio again? Something like 400: 1?

Assuming each song is 99 cents, 222222: 1

 

[Strazdas]

Nothing new. big money will always be more important than betterment of humanity. after all we pretty much banned library content by extending copyright time just because mickey mouse current owner managed to cinvince them (read: bribe) that he isnt rich enough of something his grandfather made.

Also, did you knew that RIAA issues legally powerful (as in gets you fined for not complying) cease and dessist orders for a lot of blogs that write negative reviews, thus essentialy removing them from google index (google is forbidden to show it as a result, because copyright law ftw right). kinda fun when you write a review and suddenly google starts sending you mail that "your blacklisted".....

I........What? How is this a thing?

You'd be laughed out of court if you tried to sue someone for such a ludicrous amount of cash for this crime in the Netherlands. Maybe 50 euro and a slap on the wrist, this is just insane.

Nope, not even that.

Downloading would be legal here if I'm not mistaken. It's the uploading that gets you into 50 euros and a slap on the wrist territory. Which is altogether a lot more reasonable I'd say.

well this woman uplaoded, so fits the case.