Can torrent sites be prosecuted.

[Hurlshort]

Obviously actually debating the pros and cons of filesharing is a bannable offense here, so carry on with your bashing of a single mother whos had her life ruined by a couple of low quality mp3s.

 

edit: Think about this: she would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist had she actually shoplifted these CDs

 

Did you miss the part where she could have settled for about $3500? She chose to take it to trial.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Obviously actually debating the pros and cons of filesharing is a bannable offense here, so carry on with your bashing of a single mother whos had her life ruined by a couple of low quality mp3s.

 

edit: Think about this: she would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist had she actually shoplifted these CDs

 

Did you miss the part where she could have settled for about $3500? She chose to take it to trial.

 

Yes, a dumb move considering she lied to the police and changed her harddrive to a new one and gave it in as evidence. Still, even rapists get off easier.

 

To clarify; yes she broke the law, yes she didn't take the settlement and went to court without a case and yes she probably deserved to lose. But 2 million is way, WAY too much money for a teeny tiny offense like this which probably half the court were also guilty of.

Edited June 21, 2009 by Lare Kikkeli

[Hurlshort]

Rapists go to prison, that is a silly comparison.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Alright, I'll admit rape is maybe a bit too extreme of an example, but I could think of dozens of fineable offences that are a lot worse than downloading and unknowingly sharing a few songs on the internet. Hell, most fineable offences are! DIU gets 14 to 30 days in jail (or if you're rich, 4) and you've just risked a number of lives. I bet that woman would take 30 days, or even a year in jail over that 2 million.

Edited June 21, 2009 by Lare Kikkeli

[samm]

[Hurlshort]

I can think of a few relatives I'd trade for the rights to popular songs.

[Meshugger]

Personally, i think that verdicts like these are countrproductive in the long run. As Samm demonstrated, if file-sharing mandates higher fines than what airlines pay to relatives of deceased passages, it will undermine the people's trust in the laws of the land and even maybe parts of society.

 

First of all, shouldn't theft or copyright infringement be payed according to the damages? How do you prove a lost sale equals a download to begin with? The closest that they can prove IMO, is that the woman in question would have to pay for each downloaded song, which should be in the vein of 1-2$ per song if one follows the prices at iTunes. Second, they could only prove that it was her computer that shared the files, not who exactly installed the software and who downloaded the songs. Let's extrapolate a bit, is she still liable if someone uses her WLAN, installs the software and start downloading? Extend this to any WLAN hotspot that there is.

 

The bottom line is, you can destroy your neighbours car and burn their lawn and still get away more easily. You can assault a person and almost beat them to death (a barfight) and still only pay for cosmetical damage and maybe for loss of worktime, which ofcourse would be significantly less than this verdict. But if you download a song....

 

Thus, people's trust in the courts, judicial system and society will falter.

[Humodour]

Sure. The jury accused her of 'wilful' violation. Wilful in this sense means essentially 'with malicious intent to cause damage to the copyright holders' and is distinct from what she obviously did: caused a loss of a sale, which caps out at damages of, from memory, $30,000 per infringement (as opposed to the cap of $150,000 for wilful violation). Moreover, the album itself was the sale lost, not each individual song, so the calculation of per song is also dubious.

Yes, but how is this unconstitutional? Illegal isn't the same as unconstitutional. Further, this isn't a criminal trial, and the requirements for proving intent are not necessarily so strict, I think Enoch pointed this out already.

 

Why are you so vehemently convinced that the ruling violates the US Constitution? Again, my specific knowledge of the US Constitution is null, so any links you can produce that show how the verdict contravenes part(s) of the Constitution would pretty much settle the matter.

 

Yes, you unaware of the US Constitution; excessive punitive damage awards are considered to violate the Due Process clause of the US Constitution.

 

http://current.com/items/90233505_1-9-mill...l-questions.htm

 

Your second point that people who are technically illiterate are 'retards' is not worth replying to.

[213374U]

Yes, you unaware of the US Constitution; excessive punitive damage awards are considered to violate the Due Process clause of the US Constitution.

 

http://current.com/items/90233505_1-9-mill...l-questions.htm

Just as I suspected. So you just read that news item and took it as gospel - your certainty isn't born from an intimate knowledge of the US Constitution, but from a possibility raised by your fave news site. Lemme guess... Slashdot? I guess it was too much to ask that you had, for once, shown some hint of independent thought.

 

A quick note. The people who wrote that (obviously better acquainted with US Constitutional law than you) were cautious enough to leave the door open to the possibility that judges and courts may not agree with their interpretation. Never one to disappoint, you, once again show that you have as much sense as you do humility. Sigh.

 

 

Your second point that people who are technically illiterate are 'retards' is not worth replying to.

Style over substance, Krezzy? How predictable. The thing is, I have reworded that argument at least twice and explained the reasons behind the retard allusion (if, after reading the FAQ, people still don't know they are getting the files from other private computers, one can only question their intelligence). But you'd much rather ignore that and attack my lack of PC... because, unless they do the work for you at Slashdot, you have nothing to work with.

 

Thanks for the laugh.

Edited June 22, 2009 by 213374U

[Kaftan Barlast]

24 songs is about 2 albums, so the fair amount of damage should be the price of 2 albums.

[Meshugger]

24 songs is about 2 albums, so the fair amount of damage should be the price of 2 albums.

 

Most likely, yes.

[Gorth]

I wonder if anybody actually read the Associated Press story or only see what they want to see?

 

She wasn't being sued for for helping herself to stuff that didn't belong to her, she was being sued for distributing it. Even if it had "only" been for acquiring files that didn't belong to her, it would be ridiculous only sueing people for the actual value, as there is no deterrent in that. By comparison, if the worst that could possibly ever happen to you for shoplifting was that you were sentenced to pay the 0.50$ for the chewing gum or whatever, what would be the point? If they finally got around to sentence people to serve time, either behind bars or doing community service on a regular, frequent basis, would people still have the same cavalier attititude towards what is mine and yours if there was a visible risk involved?

[Humodour]

I wonder if anybody actually read the Associated Press story or only see what they want to see?

 

She wasn't being sued for for helping herself to stuff that didn't belong to her, she was being sued for distributing it. Even if it had "only" been for acquiring files that didn't belong to her, it would be ridiculous only sueing people for the actual value, as there is no deterrent in that. By comparison, if the worst that could possibly ever happen to you for shoplifting was that you were sentenced to pay the 0.50$ for the chewing gum or whatever, what would be the point? If they finally got around to sentence people to serve time, either behind bars or doing community service on a regular, frequent basis, would people still have the same cavalier attititude towards what is mine and yours if there was a visible risk involved?

 

Did you read my posts? I covered that point in more than one of them.

[Humodour]

Yes, you unaware of the US Constitution; excessive punitive damage awards are considered to violate the Due Process clause of the US Constitution.

 

http://current.com/items/90233505_1-9-mill...l-questions.htm

Just as I suspected. So you just read that news item and took it as gospel - your certainty isn't born from an intimate knowledge of the US Constitution, but from a possibility raised by your fave news site. Lemme guess... Slashdot? I guess it was too much to ask that you had, for once, shown some hint of independent thought.

 

A quick note. The people who wrote that (obviously better acquainted with US Constitutional law than you) were cautious enough to leave the door open to the possibility that judges and courts may not agree with their interpretation. Never one to disappoint, you, once again show that you have as much sense as you do humility. Sigh.

 

The EFF makes it pretty clear that those excessive damages are unconstitutional. The only doubt is whether or not the Supreme Court will overrule those damages, not whether or not they are constitutional. Thanks for the ad hominem.

 

Your second point that people who are technically illiterate are 'retards' is not worth replying to.

Style over substance, Krezzy? How predictable. The thing is, I have reworded that argument at least twice and explained the reasons behind the retard allusion (if, after reading the FAQ, people still don't know they are getting the files from other private computers, one can only question their intelligence). But you'd much rather ignore that and attack my lack of PC... because, unless they do the work for you at Slashdot, you have nothing to work with.

 

You've had it explained to you by at least 3 different people in this thread why it's not 'stupidity' or 'retardedness' to not understand how computers work yet you persist on that point. You're a pretty arrogant person.

 

You've also brought up Slashdot twice, yet I've not mentioned it or linked to it once. How about you quit attacking me personally and not post in this thread if you have no actual input of substance.

[Gorth]

Did you read my posts? I covered that point in more than one of them.

I probably did at some point. It was a general observation based on the last few thread pages.

 

The mindset of people into those kind of things fills me with an equal mix of revulsion and fascination, not unlike watching some dead sea creature washed up on the beach. It really is very simple, yet people concoct all kinds of schemes trying to rationalise their actions, whether it be because they need to convince themselves or just feel defensive about it in general when not in the company of likeminded. Ideas range from advanced semanthic exercises to the outright pathetic whining, depending on who you ask, yet the one thing most people adamantly refuse to face is, that they are victims of a very base end primitive human trait: Greed

 

We all have it in various degrees, some less, some more. It's the same thing that turns "nice" little old ladies taking their ugly doglings for a walk in the part into frothing killers in the warehouse, when there is a limited stock on a super sale, running over women and children with their trolleys and killing warehouse employees that aren't fast enough to dodge out of their way.

 

People tend covet things they can't afford (imnsho), so we weigh our options and put the pros and contras of different approaches up against each other. Is there a way I can get what I want? Can I afford it? Whats the catch? When giving in to temptation, we try rationalise our weakness after the fact. Everybody does it, therefore it can't be bad. I didn't find anybody on my doorstep with a spraying arterial bleeding, therefore nobody that I know suffered any consequences. One self deceit more sad than the next. As if it was possible to master greed when we have no culture and no tradition for it in those areas of our lives.

 

Strange that people put so little value on other peoples time and effort really, as I always thought time was indeed the most precious commodity that a human being had to offer and the use of which being one those things more deserving of respect than any simple tangible commodities, for what are those but things bought with the time invested in their procurement. Yet people gladly squander other peoples time, robbing them of the rewards of the time invested in something with barely a thought.

 

Ah well, just a bit rambling in case people wondered what I thought about the subject (typos and all, it is late night here). A grumpy old man with days that have way less than the 32 hours needed to do all the things required of him

[213374U]

The EFF makes it pretty clear that those excessive damages are unconstitutional. The only doubt is whether or not the Supreme Court will overrule those damages, not whether or not they are constitutional.

*Krezack rolls reading comprehension*

 

*Critical failure!*

 

Ah, it seems I'm going to have to hold your hand through this. I am shocked, to be sure.

 

In evaluating whether an award "grossly excessive," courts evaluate three criteria: 1) the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant

[alanschu]

Your second point that people who are technically illiterate are 'retards' is not worth replying to.

 

Yet you did!

[Llyranor]

So did you.

[Enoch]

For the purpose of the Due Process clause, methinks that courts would see a demonstrable difference between punitive damages that were awarded on top of compensatory damages simply because a judge and jury think it's appropriate, and damages that are awarded within the range stipulated by the Copyright Act.

 

Excessive punitive damages sometimes are held to violate Due Process because, when judges and juries grant damages so far in excess of the matter involved in the case, it is akin to a court-ordered transfer of wealth without legal authorization. In such cases, the court essentially takes the defendant's property without providing the process that was due to him/her/it, because that excess damage amount cannot conceivably be considered to be within the scope of the trial they just held.

 

Here, however, everyone coming into the trial has the opportunity to open up their copy of the U.S. Code and read all about the amount of damages that are authorized under the Copyright Act. Thus, everyone is on notice that the trial they are holding involves potential illegal activity that can be the basis for damages in the amounts laid out in the statute. To overturn this case based only on the level of compensation, an appeals court would have to declare portions of the Copyright Act itself unconstitutional. That ain't going to happen, particularly given that the Constitution specifically grants Congress the power to regulate copyrights:

The Congress shall have the Power ... To promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

It would take a mighty powerful feat of "judicial activism" for the Supreme Court to rule that the comparatively loosey-goosey language about due process outweighs Congress' explicit authority to set whatever rules it wants in the copyright area.

Edited June 22, 2009 by Enoch

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Well, it looks like I've missed most of the fun this week -damn, I would have never guessed id would be bought by Bethesda- seeing as I am out of town and away from my internet connection (I should be on more next week and I will update my let's play as soon as I have a better wireless signal.), but I did think I would drop into this topic and make a quick post. The fines are outrageous and disproportional to the crime that was committed, true, but the fact that they were even accepted shows how out-of-touch the music industry is with its consumers. Do I want to legally get my music? Yes. Do I want to support a company that thinks that sharing 24 songs should be punishable by a two-million-dollar fine? No. Seeing as I already buy mainly from a local store (I happen to have a musical specialty shop in my area that imports most of its titles directly from the original publishers, thus cutting out the US record labels in some cases) this will not be that hard, but I do think that this is an extremely pad PR move on their part.

[Lare Kikkeli]

this is an extremely pad PR move on their part.

 

Exactly. This is tainting the image of the whole music industry. The few in this thread in favour of these fines are a small minority. Most (young) people see RIAA as the embodiment of corporate greed.

[Blarghagh]

It doesn't help much that some musicians actually endorse and encourage that view.

 

I am slowly but surely working to turn my mp3 collection into a CD collection. Progress is slow due to limited funds.

[Walsingham]

I have a msuic subscription, and regard it as indispensable now. Music whenever I like and whatever I like. I've made huge leaps in terms of breadth and depth of music. I have no idea how anyone gets paid tho.

[Hurlshort]

I have a msuic subscription, and regard it as indispensable now. Music whenever I like and whatever I like. I've made huge leaps in terms of breadth and depth of music. I have no idea how anyone gets paid tho.

 

I really enjoyed my subscription to Rhapsody as well, but the DRM synching was a hassle. Basically I had to plug my MP3 player in once a month to update my subscription, but it was always having trouble recognizing the device and renewing the license. I think it was more of an issue with my IP and Rhapsody though. If it had worked smoothly, I never would have cancelled it.

[Gorgon]

Didn't I read here that Itunes was to start selling music without DRM.