I'm just curious, what good do they do? I was under the impression that a couple of rich recording label executives just invented the RIAA whole-cloth in the early Napster days so they could start suing people and lobbying congress. Do they do something else besides that?Fiz_The_Toaster said:
RIAA Wins Appeal, Music Downloader Owes $675,000
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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I'm not scared, I'm angry. Fuck the RIAA for financially murdering this guy. I'm going to just buy used so that the RIAA never see a damn cent of my money. I'm not going to be scared into buying from these cretins.The Bandit said:
Even if they forced him to sell everything he owned, I imagine he wouldn't even come close to the amount... how the hell is he supposed to pay off the rest?
I hear prison prostitution doesn't pay well...
I hear prison prostitution doesn't pay well...
A good number of major label artists agree or tacitly consent. I know not all do, but enough do to "legitimize" this.Kalezian said:
It is amazing what they get people for. 30 songs? Really? They don't even realize they aren't actually trying pirates... Downloading 30 songs means you just had a passing interest in downloading free music. I'd think 40-100 gigs is more like the realm of a pirate.
Dear RIAA. Your claim is invalid. Your request for 675 thousand dollars for 30 songs simply put falls under the constitutional category of cruel and unusual punishment. 30 songs is the equivilent to a 2 standard CDs. If you shoplifted two CDs from a physical retail store you would NOT be charged a fine of over half a million dollars.
Dear Judge who allowed the initial verdict as well as the the one who overturned on the appeal. You need to either surrender or destroy any and all law degrees in your possession because these actions are absolutely unconstitutional to the point a 6 year old child could see it.
To both the RIAA and the Judges in question. It is nonsensical actions like this that are perpetuating the root reason the economy is falling apart. It is this. Nothing else. The use of litigation to allow corporations to hold power over individuals. Also.. by mandating this sort of an unrealistic punishment what has been accomplished? We see now the manifestation of corporate enslavement.
Somethings got to give.
Dear Judge who allowed the initial verdict as well as the the one who overturned on the appeal. You need to either surrender or destroy any and all law degrees in your possession because these actions are absolutely unconstitutional to the point a 6 year old child could see it.
To both the RIAA and the Judges in question. It is nonsensical actions like this that are perpetuating the root reason the economy is falling apart. It is this. Nothing else. The use of litigation to allow corporations to hold power over individuals. Also.. by mandating this sort of an unrealistic punishment what has been accomplished? We see now the manifestation of corporate enslavement.
Somethings got to give.
Maybe, if we hope VERY much, they will all die from the same diesease the price did.canadamus_prime said:
So, in a nutshell, their ruining a guys life for what? Downloading 30 songs, 30 bloody songs for a lifetime of debt, yet if he were to rob a store, he would not be in debt.
This won't stop pirates, it'll make people stop trusting Riaa and certainly people will keep going on with what they do.
This is why I love IPredator, nice and annoymous and the pirate bay people are never going to cave in to the RIAA. The funny thing is when I hear these things i deliberately start pirating more out of spite and make sure I share as much as possible with my friends. Honestly the $67,500 is a very effective warning, anyone who was borderline is going to be scared off by that and people like me aren't going to stop even if our internets cut, we just jump on a friends/relatives/work etc.
This is really just another story of: leech, don't seed if you live on American soil. The RIAA will never get their money, and they only appealed because they are the RIAA and they have money to. I don't know the legal systems, but I am sure he could appeal the appeal to a different court and put this into legal stasis for a long time anyways.
I think that if they want to stop piracy they should change the fine to something far more reasonable and then go out and actually "sue everybody" things such as this just ruin lives rather than making change. If every pirate on the planet started facing down a $1000-$2000 fine after a few thousand people were fined I promise you piracy will start to dry up.
Not that I'm all for that but the idea is more grounded in reality than destroying a persons life when he's a tiny part of the problem? You think 30 songs is bad, some people share their whole 30gb library.
Not that I'm all for that but the idea is more grounded in reality than destroying a persons life when he's a tiny part of the problem? You think 30 songs is bad, some people share their whole 30gb library.
Messages seems loud and clear, piracy isn't theft.
Theft is far less of a crime, go steal your cds from Walmart.
(Obviously not, but let's have a comparitive sentencing.)
I hope he at least tried that in court, brought up the legal punishment for stealing the equivalent of 3 cds.
As for these cases where they destroy an individual's life, no it's not fine because he was guilty, if he'd parked in the wrong place, should he pay for 100,000 other people's parking fines because the city can't be bothered to bring them to court?
That's all this is, the RIAA can't find a way to do this fairly and under the rules of justice, so they're fucking the system with big piles of cash and expensive lawyers.
If I was pirating, I'd think, ack, someone got caught, looks like my risk is now TWO in a million, now where are those torrent links.
Theft is far less of a crime, go steal your cds from Walmart.
(Obviously not, but let's have a comparitive sentencing.)
I hope he at least tried that in court, brought up the legal punishment for stealing the equivalent of 3 cds.
As for these cases where they destroy an individual's life, no it's not fine because he was guilty, if he'd parked in the wrong place, should he pay for 100,000 other people's parking fines because the city can't be bothered to bring them to court?
That's all this is, the RIAA can't find a way to do this fairly and under the rules of justice, so they're fucking the system with big piles of cash and expensive lawyers.
If I was pirating, I'd think, ack, someone got caught, looks like my risk is now TWO in a million, now where are those torrent links.
Back in the day of vinyl records, we're talking the 50's here, they were created to basically make sure that the vinyl records were up to technical standards, in terms of equalization, or EQ, and they still do that with every changing platform, cassettes and later CDs. They also certify gold and platinum status for albums and singles, yes they do that too.WarpZone said:
Where it does get tricky is that they also protect IPs for artists, that's where sampling gets into play where you have to have a certain amount of time for a specific sample before you have to pay royalties to the artist, and then there's copyrights. What Napster was doing was, in the simplest terms, illegal in that the artists got screwed and were not paid for the songs that were downloaded. The companies themselves don't really have much of a say after they get recording costs back, depending on the contract between the company and the artist, yeah they do get a cut, but so do the artists. Basically the music industry got caught with their pants down and didn't know what to do, they did the right thing eventually but they did it the wrong way. Yeah Lars Ulrich looked like a dick about the whole thing, but he was right. All RIAA did was look out for the artists since it was their material being downloaded illegally, and if the companies or artists, depending on how the contract is written between the two, didn't 'ok' the use of a song, then the person that downloaded the song is in trouble.
Wow that's a lot, I hope that answers your question.
This could get interesting.
Speaking neutrally, you have to understand that part of the point of these rulings is to punish the person responsible. You want to make the punishment sufficient to act as a deterrant against other criminals who will look at the penelties levied and decide not to take the same risk.
Simply levying a fine/punitive sttlement someone can afford isn't all that much of a deterrant. It's sort of like if someone was to give a cannibal child molester six months of probation despite being caught red handed, or if some guy tries to steal The Crown Jewels but is given a slap on the wrist because he makes under $20k a year or whatever.
I hold to the basic principle that these extreme penelties are usually appropriate. I'm not sue crazy (I have never filed a suit against someone) but if I did ever decide to go after someone for something I certainly wouldn't be after chump change, if I believe I've been wronged to the point of going to court I'm going to be after blood. If I'm up against a big company I've already decided I'm going to look at what their publically disclosed profits are for one quarter of operation (profits being computed after expenses) and that will likely be how much I sue for. My attitude is that if you sue a big company for an amount they can cover out of petty cash, it doesn't act as a deterrant or making a point. If they wind up getting sued for that much money regularly and go out of business, it's typically a sign they are such a group of douches they don't deserve to be in business no matter who they employ.
In a case like this, if someone tried to steal from me, the situation is going to matter. I don't really care if some junkie is dirt poor, if he was trying to steal my stuff, I am not going to say "well give me $20 and send him back out there". If it's some entitled collegiate douchebag robbing my stuff just because he can and thinks he should be able to get away with it, I'm going to be even more POed. On the other hand if I catch some starving person trying to steal my leftovers out of the fridge and they aren't a junkie or whatever, well I might feel a bit differant about that assuming I'm not starving myself at the time.... but that's a personal judgement call.
All in all, I have no real issue with companies protecting themselves against pirates, or taking harsh actions against pirates when they are caught. My problem is largely how companies tend to want to define piracy, and the extent to which they go to in trying to prevent it. I think the current IP laws are already ridiculous, and are just getting worse with every day.
Simply put this guy being punished for his conviction doesn't bother me. Depending on the details of the case (which I do not know) I may or may not agree with him ever having been convicted to begin with.
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Oh and as far as the question about "why does anyone still make music for these guys?" goes, understand that musicians might be artists but have a bit of reputation for being douchebags with money. Wild parties, massive drug abuse, and huge donations to bizzare charities, just to name a few. That money has to come from somewhere, and the labels are the ones that make it for them (though as we all know, the labels oftentimes try and rob their talent of their cut as well, many stories in the music industry about that).
There is a tendency to want to try and seperate the guys who produce a product from the guys who sell it, when in reality the distinction usually isn't that clean cut. Fortunes are spent by celebrities specifically to get the public to seperate them from their business as far as the public is concerned, so they can look like "one of the guys", while at the same time gouging for every penny they can get.
Like everything, there are exceptions, and it can be very difficult to tell. For example, I'd like to think Billy Joel is a nice guy (laugh if it you want, I like a lot of his stuff), he seems to do at least one major charity event a year, but at the same time the guy has remained at the top of his game and rich for so long that you have to wonder. Of course in his case he got nailed by the people running him, and that's supposed to be what the whole song "Piano Man" was about, when he went from being a big time performer, back to the club/bar circuit for a while (and what the whole "hey man, what are you doing here..." line from the song is all about). I'd imagine he wound up becoming pretty ruthless after that even if he wasn't beforehand.
At any rate this is getting further, and further afield, the point is that the penelty isn't that big a deal. Whether you agree with the conviction or not, the penelty needs to be sufficient as a deterrant. I can understand why the music industry opposed the lowering of the fine.
Speaking neutrally, you have to understand that part of the point of these rulings is to punish the person responsible. You want to make the punishment sufficient to act as a deterrant against other criminals who will look at the penelties levied and decide not to take the same risk.
Simply levying a fine/punitive sttlement someone can afford isn't all that much of a deterrant. It's sort of like if someone was to give a cannibal child molester six months of probation despite being caught red handed, or if some guy tries to steal The Crown Jewels but is given a slap on the wrist because he makes under $20k a year or whatever.
I hold to the basic principle that these extreme penelties are usually appropriate. I'm not sue crazy (I have never filed a suit against someone) but if I did ever decide to go after someone for something I certainly wouldn't be after chump change, if I believe I've been wronged to the point of going to court I'm going to be after blood. If I'm up against a big company I've already decided I'm going to look at what their publically disclosed profits are for one quarter of operation (profits being computed after expenses) and that will likely be how much I sue for. My attitude is that if you sue a big company for an amount they can cover out of petty cash, it doesn't act as a deterrant or making a point. If they wind up getting sued for that much money regularly and go out of business, it's typically a sign they are such a group of douches they don't deserve to be in business no matter who they employ.
In a case like this, if someone tried to steal from me, the situation is going to matter. I don't really care if some junkie is dirt poor, if he was trying to steal my stuff, I am not going to say "well give me $20 and send him back out there". If it's some entitled collegiate douchebag robbing my stuff just because he can and thinks he should be able to get away with it, I'm going to be even more POed. On the other hand if I catch some starving person trying to steal my leftovers out of the fridge and they aren't a junkie or whatever, well I might feel a bit differant about that assuming I'm not starving myself at the time.... but that's a personal judgement call.
All in all, I have no real issue with companies protecting themselves against pirates, or taking harsh actions against pirates when they are caught. My problem is largely how companies tend to want to define piracy, and the extent to which they go to in trying to prevent it. I think the current IP laws are already ridiculous, and are just getting worse with every day.
Simply put this guy being punished for his conviction doesn't bother me. Depending on the details of the case (which I do not know) I may or may not agree with him ever having been convicted to begin with.
-
Oh and as far as the question about "why does anyone still make music for these guys?" goes, understand that musicians might be artists but have a bit of reputation for being douchebags with money. Wild parties, massive drug abuse, and huge donations to bizzare charities, just to name a few. That money has to come from somewhere, and the labels are the ones that make it for them (though as we all know, the labels oftentimes try and rob their talent of their cut as well, many stories in the music industry about that).
There is a tendency to want to try and seperate the guys who produce a product from the guys who sell it, when in reality the distinction usually isn't that clean cut. Fortunes are spent by celebrities specifically to get the public to seperate them from their business as far as the public is concerned, so they can look like "one of the guys", while at the same time gouging for every penny they can get.
Like everything, there are exceptions, and it can be very difficult to tell. For example, I'd like to think Billy Joel is a nice guy (laugh if it you want, I like a lot of his stuff), he seems to do at least one major charity event a year, but at the same time the guy has remained at the top of his game and rich for so long that you have to wonder. Of course in his case he got nailed by the people running him, and that's supposed to be what the whole song "Piano Man" was about, when he went from being a big time performer, back to the club/bar circuit for a while (and what the whole "hey man, what are you doing here..." line from the song is all about). I'd imagine he wound up becoming pretty ruthless after that even if he wasn't beforehand.
At any rate this is getting further, and further afield, the point is that the penelty isn't that big a deal. Whether you agree with the conviction or not, the penelty needs to be sufficient as a deterrant. I can understand why the music industry opposed the lowering of the fine.
The kid was downloading songs so apparently he wasn't exactly swimming in dough to begin with, good luck ringing 675,000 dollars out of him. you just destoyed his credit score and along with his student loan debts (i'm assuming he has some as it said he was a college student) i doubt he'll ever land a good job or even be able to rent a home. way to go RIAA you've essentially destoyed a mans life.