17,000 Downloads Does Not Equal 17,000 Lost Sales 398
Andrew_Rens writes "Ars Technica has a story on a ruling by a US District Judge who rejects claims by the RIAA that the number of infringing downloads amounts to proof of the same number of lost sales. The judge ruled that 'although it is true that someone who copies a digital version of a sound recording has little incentive to purchase the recording through legitimate means, it does not necessarily follow that the downloader would have made a legitimate purchase if the recording had not been available for free.' The ruling concerns the use of the criminal courts to recover alleged losses for downloading through a process known as restitution. The judgement does not directly change how damages are calculated in civil cases."
Re:Exactly right! (Score:5, Informative)
Download != Lost Sale
This is especially true for me, since I always check RIAA Radar [riaaradar.com] before purchasing an album. If it's an RIAA artist, then they don't get any money.
Re:Exactly right! (Score:5, Informative)
That got shot down [cnet.com]; a judge ruled that just having the file available for download did not constitute damages unless there was proof that that file had been downloaded.
Re:Exactly right! (Score:4, Informative)
There are some differences between what you're talking about and the actual situation in the article.
This person is actually the operator of a torrent site, not a peer. He's already received fines and prison time for the sharing others have done using his site. The RIAA/MPAA asked for restitution in addition, which is based on actual damages. (The typical sky-high figures are fines and statutory damages.)
Re:Economics 101... (Score:5, Informative)
Damn it, got the arrow pointing the wrong way... I was too concerned about getting it to show up at all what with the < and all.
Re:Exactly right! Nope you're wrong (Score:3, Informative)
If you really think every illegal download constitutes a lost sale and that the downloader would have purchased the music legally if they weren't able to get it illegally...
You're an idiot.
Re:Your crappy music is not worth its iTunes price (Score:2, Informative)
That's a pant load.
Of course we get to decide - everyone does.
The vendor gets to decide what they think the product is worth.
If we disagree, we don't buy.
Whether or not we then illegally download a copy is an entirely different matter.
DROVES of people have already made the determination that the Itunes prices are excessive and aren't buying.
In most cases, it's the drm and not the music/cost that people object to.
It's ok though. Itunes isn't the only, or remotely the best, place to purchase digital music.
Re:Exactly right! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Exactly right! (Score:5, Informative)
Oh shut up. Seriously, "wage slavery"? You've got to be trolling.
Unless you want to supply your own means to live - farming crops, building and repairing your house, getting your own water, making your own clothes - then you have to get a job for money so you can pay other people to do those things. This is not slavery, it's an almost-universally adopted alternative to self-sufficiency.
Property ownership and medical attention are not rights. We have the freedom to PURSUE life, liberty and happiness, not the right to them. You work in exchange for modern conveniences. It's a very, very complex barter system, but it most certainly not slavery. Suck it up.
Re:Exactly right! (Score:5, Informative)
This person is actually the operator of a torrent site, not a peer. He's already received fines and prison time for the sharing others have done using his site. The RIAA/MPAA asked for restitution in addition, which is based on actual damages. (The typical sky-high figures are fines and statutory damages.)
Correct. And where this ruling becomes relevant to the statutory damages civil cases is that (a) the disproportion of the statutory damages being sought to the actual damages has been decried judicially [blogspot.com] and is the basis for a constitutional attack in several of the civil cases, such as Capitol Records v. Thomas [blogspot.com], SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum [blogspot.com], and others, and (b) the theories which the RIAA lawyers have used to justify the size of the statutory damages are the identical theories whose logic was just shot down by Judge Jones.