JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Take that...music pirates!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tec_music_downloading

I had no idea that under federal law, jurors could have awarded up to $150,000 PER SONG! Hmm...how much of that would the artist have ever seen. My guess is only the statuatory rate.

Ah, yes. Reminiscent, 'tis (though I wasn't there at the time) of how Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, et al. "saved" English shipping from the Spanish pirates. Aye, they did. Guess who got nearly all the gold the Spanish ships were carrying? The English saw very little of it--even, I think, the part that had been stolen from English ships.

joe

Seems like a crazy settlement to me, far too high. I feel she is being made an example of. I'm surprised she fought the case in the first place when she had a chance of a settlement. Maybe she should get a new lawyer

I think it was just too much
amonestations are needed but not in an abusive way
i am in spain and piracy is such a big problem here, you can't guess, but the problem is that people is so convinced it's just fine that it's hard even to explain them that piracy is hurting for the musician, specially when we are offering already so many digital downloads for free.

Awards are not supposed to be a punishment - just compensation.

Tom

I don't think this verdict benefits the industry at all.

One thing this case does illustrate quite effectively is how the US laws favor the big corporations. Check this nifty little quote from Ed Black of the CCIA:


(source)

Well Jim,
It was ordinary people that sat on the jury. Maybe they don't appreciate lawbreakers. The truth is if you play by the rules life is pretty good. I still do things the hard way. Life has been good to me. You?

I think the lawsuit was stupid. I understand pirating is bad but the lady downloaded 24 songs. Why dont these companies go after the people who have 5,000 songs and up. ooh i forgot majority of these people are kids and people that do not exist.

There are quite a few absurdities about this one. She supposedly had 1,700 songs on the drive, but they only wanted to prosecute her for "a reasonable number". Reasonable to who? Imagine awarding damages for 1,700 songs, at $80,000 a pop!

So that's absurd. Seems like they were trying to play the jurors a bit, trying to get a higher per-song award for fewer songs. They probably thought that it would sound reasonable to the average person- well, it doesn't sound so reasonable now, does it? Someone figured out that at this rate, given the number of pirated copies, the annual output of the music industry is 10 trillion dollars!

So the jurors were sort of winging it. The defense never established the value of the music in any meaningful sense- maybe that was intentional. Maybe they were hoping for an absurd award. She ain't payin' it, no matter what it is, I think.

It doesn't matter what kind of people sat on the jury. The point is that this case has will not actually change anything. The RIAA is never going to collect those damages from this woman for the simple fact that she doesn't have or make that kind of money. Downloaders show no signs of being deterred by these lawsuits and record sales are still down.

At best, what this case may accomplish is US lawmakers revising the rules for assigning statuatory damages, since even the presiding judge has called the awarded sum prepousterous (and lawmakers do tend to take notice when a judge says something like that).

Ergo, this case had zero benefit for the music industry. Hurrah!



I've never had any trouble with the laws and life is pretty darn good here as well. Thanks for asking!

Yes!,
I agree that some people, no matter how the evidence is presented will still think the "Rules" are only for other people. And yes, this woman will never pay any, or most of this judgment. It was reported that she had a chance to settle for a small amount. She refused. The evidence was presented and the Jury made a decision. I don't know if there is any further action that an appeals court can take but maybe.

We have had others, here on this board, gone now, that stated that they had the right to take music for free because they only liked one or two songs on an album. The Labels were "Screwing" them so they had the right to screw the Labels.

Will this judgment hurt the Music Industry? I doubt it. I will still buy music from time to time. In fact I just sent a small order. I imagine others will too.

I think it does hurt the industry, because it again perpetuates that "the labels screwed us so we can screw them" feeling that many have. The feeling may be entirely misplaced, but it is still there... we'd fare a lot better if everyone thought "music labels are cool" instead.

I agree music piracy is an evil, and even more widely spread than we think. Recently in Sweden a political party called "The piracy party" got 8% of the swedish voters. From which I deduct that not just are people accepting piracy, they even think it is legitimate and should be legalized!

On the other hand we have these record labels who are shooting blanks in trying to deal with the problems. I agree with Jim and others that pursuing kids won't do them any good, and that cases like this makes the music industry look really bad.

How come an industry that basically are in business because they are supposed to be great at marketing, can't project a positive image of themselves? The labels are acting like they have way more credibility, than they actually have.

Instead of the constant consolidating we have seen the last 30years (even in positive market situations!??), they really need a period of rebuilding their relationships with the customers and their images IMO

I think it is too easy to polarize this issue, especially here on a musicians forum. It's always funny to me howmany musicians I know that complain a of music pirates while typing on computers that are full of pirated software. Programmers make their money in much the same way as a songwriter, if you are against music sharing NEVER share, copy, or use software unless you pay for it!

If I'm not mistaken, the fine wasn't just because she downloaded 24 songs but because her computer was used by others to get illegal copies of the songs. I think that's how the file sharing networks work but I know very little about it.