RIAA Wins Appeal, Music Downloader Owes $675,000

lSHaDoW-FoXl

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Jul 17, 2008
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Makes you wonder who the real criminals are, doesn't it? I feel the individual should be punished, but anything that's worth more than thirty fucking songs is just inexcusable. And any arguments relevent to them 'making an example' is completely null and void. Seems more to me like it's a bunch of greedy money grubbing twats looking for any fragile excuse they can use to justify their blatant greed. I believe in punishment, and I believe that yes, the individual responsible for these crimes should pay up. But there's a certain line between 'punishment' and just being utterly retarded.

When I see stupid shit like this happening every time I find it progressively harder and harder to find that the people responsible for piracy are the ones that should be punished. I may not be religious, like, at all because I'm an atheist. But I do understand this: It may be a commandment not to steal, but greed however, is a deadly fucking sin. And regardless of our religion I think we can all come to an agreement that the latter is a far greater evil, particularily when it plays a part in fucking someone's life up over thirty fucking songs.

And to all those that think it's justified, well, where the fuck is this 'justice'? A needlessly harsher punishment for a seemingly minor crime is NOT justice, that's just condemnation. Jesus christ, I bet if I accidently dropped a PS3 in a store that would probably be worth a lot more than a few measly thirty songs.
 

ZippyDSMlee

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No profit no crime, FIGHT THE POWER!

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I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
 

Aeshi

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Dec 22, 2009
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Gotta love the hypocrisy here.

People pirating music and such is fine since it's "technically not illegal/freedom of speech/information/[insertexcusehere]" but the moment "The Man(tm)" decides "Well if they aren't gonna play by the rules, neither will we" it's suddenly "illegal" and "immoral"
 

Tiger Sora

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Aug 23, 2008
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Yo ho ho piratin music to go. One of the online pirates shanties.
675000 bucks o cash the RIAA will never see. My internet rule is if you don't want people to see/have something. Don't put it on the internet. Cause if you do people are gona find a way to get their hands on it.
 

ShadowKatt

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Mar 19, 2009
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I wonder if we'll start bringing back debtors prisons. Obviously there's no way he can pay this. So the first this he fails to pay they'll slap him for non-compliance or worse yet contempt of court. A warrant Will be issued and he Will be arrested and imprisoned until he can pay off his debt, which is statistically impossible even out of prison, much more so in prison.

Also, he's been convicted of a felony. This means that roughly 98% of all job prospects in this country are now unavailable to him because of his criminal record. He can't drive commercially, he can't get a firearm, he can't vote. Short of the Geneva convention, he's essentially a non-citizen and non-human.
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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Aeshi said:
Gotta love the hypocrisy here.

People pirating music and such is fine since it's "technically not illegal/freedom of speech/information/[insertexcusehere]" but the moment "The Man(tm)" decides "Well if they aren't gonna play by the rules, neither will we" it's suddenly "illegal" and "immoral"
Prrrrrretty sure you're knocking down a strawman here.
 

tzimize

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GeneralFungi said:
The RIAA isn't making themselves look very good with this case. It's true that Joel broke the law, but sending him into debt for the rest of his life isn't the way to go about earning a reputation.

But money talks, I guess..
A reputation? This is so far beyond ridiculous it should be against the law. I'm pretty sure people have paid smaller fines for assault. Cases like this make me lose respect for the law, the judges, the RIAA (hah, kidding how could I have a gram of respect for them?), society and people in general.

Thank goodness I'm awesome at blocking out stuff I dont like. If I allowed myself to feel what I really feel about this I would explode in a cloud of blood and bones.

Aeshi said:
Gotta love the hypocrisy here.

People pirating music and such is fine since it's "technically not illegal/freedom of speech/information/[insertexcusehere]" but the moment "The Man(tm)" decides "Well if they aren't gonna play by the rules, neither will we" it's suddenly "illegal" and "immoral"
Circumstances matter.

Sure its illegal to pirate the latest CD of [insert filthy rich pop-artist here], but I'm pretty sure that artist will still get butter for his bread. Does this make it ok? No. But it does in NO FUCKING WAY warrant a fine the size of the moon for pirating a handful of songs. If you dont see a problem with this I dont know what to do about you and any further arguments will be pointless.

There is NO CONCEIVABLE WAY that anyone can cause losses worth over half a million dollars by pirating twenty song. Let me repeat: NO CONCEIVABLE WAY. Any and ALL speculation in how much money has been lost is JUST THAT. Speculation. How the flying fuck can you convict someone on that basis? HOW?!

If I steal a CD in the shop, will I get a half a million dollar fine? HELL NO! Could I go home, rip the CD and share it with half the world? Hell yes! But even if THE WHOLE WORLD pirated that CD, it STILL doesnt prove an actual money loss. The only way to prove this would be to invent a time machine.

At some point now I'm sure I'm rambling so I'll just stop. But come on. This fine is beyond the realm of stupid, so are the judges, the legal system and any individual involved in making this conviction happen. How the fuck can anyone stand for this?!

God damnit. I REALLY hate the world sometimes.
 

neolithic

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Feb 22, 2009
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where can I sign up to work for the RIAA?? I can run down IP's and file the requisite legal form letter with a judge for 22k a song.

I think their case of "we need to recoup the costs of running down the pirates" needs to be examined.

Grats guys, you spent a mountain of money on something a script kiddy can do in 15 minutes. Does it really cost that much to send paperwork to a judge? yeesh.

Burn in hell RIAA...
 

I.N.producer

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May 26, 2011
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Th thing with music piracy is that it barely even affects the artists. Nearly all of their money comes from shows. Allowing music piracy would lead to more people listening and going to shows.

So really the RIAA trying to "protect artists" could actually be harmful to them.
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Copyright Law in the States is criminal at the moment. There's more than enough evidence to back up the claims; and worse, the people owed the money (The Creators) aren't getting jack squat from these million dollar lawsuits.

Americans: Talk to your congressmen before things get worse. Please.

Aeshi said:
People pirating music and such is fine since it's "technically not illegal/freedom of speech/information/[insertexcusehere]" but the moment "The Man(tm)" decides "Well if they aren't gonna play by the rules, neither will we" it's suddenly "illegal" and "immoral"
"The Man"(sic) has never played by the rules. If they did, then they would treat each artist fairly, not use copyright as a tool to enforce rising prices, and release back catalogs to the public once they had passed a certain point.

They don't. "The Man" has a stranglehold on both artists and legitimate users. The one group it can't touch is Pirates, so the occasional one it catches gets hit with insane claims.
 

silent-treatment

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Oct 15, 2009
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This stinks of a pay off to me. Anyone with half a brain can see that $675,000 is WAY excessive. All this does is piss off the wrong kind of internet goer.
 

Riobux

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Apr 15, 2009
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The music industry, the only media medium that is left making half it's money via lawsuits because they just need a bit more money (not to give the impression they're poor and struggling to make ends meet, they're not).
 

Alandoril

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Jul 19, 2010
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Absurd. He should only have been fined for the cost of those songs at their maximum individual retail price.
 

Chameliondude

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Jul 21, 2009
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Wow, $22 500 for a song, when its only $0.99 to buy on itunes, how do they justify that, they didnt even lose anything by him copying the song,

Thats like me copying a $10 dvd from my library onto my computer and the library charging me $300 000
 

TheAmazingHobo

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Oct 26, 2010
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Chameliondude said:
Wow, $22 500 for a song, when its only $0.99 to buy on itunes, how do they justify that, they didnt even lose anything by him copying the song,

Thats like me copying a $10 dvd from my library onto my computer and the library charging me $300 000
I guess the idea is that by making the music avaible to the public at no cost, he severly damages the prospects of making money from said music. So the 22.500 dollar per song are supposed to compensate the lable for a loss of income.

Which is of course bat-shit insane, as can be deduced by analyzing the behaviour and limitations of peer-to-peer networks (the idea that such a level of distribution could ever be achived by a single distributor is laughable).

A low 3-figure number is a much more reasonable maximum amount of damages.
Which is exactly the amount he would have to pay per song in most EU states.