White House Lauds MN RIAA Win, Analysis of Victory 368
cnet-declan writes "The Bush administration's copyright czar says the RIAA's $222,000 recent jury verdict against a Minnesota woman shows copyright law is 'effective' and working as planned. C|Net's coverage has comments from Chris Israel, the U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement. Israel is formerly a senior Commerce Department official appointed by President Bush in July 2005 who previously worked for Time Warner's public policy arm (Warner Bros. Records is one of the plaintiffs in the RIAA case). The site also features an interview with Rep. Rick Boucher, no fan of the RIAA, on whether Congress will change the law, an analysis of why U.S. copyright law is broken, and four reasons why the RIAA won."
Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when do they comment on this stuff? I'm surprised they didn't comment on the Vonage loss against that bullshit patent. Or everytime a bullshit patent is enforced. On second thought maybe they try to stay neutral in Corporation vs Corporation matters.
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Sort of like the 'war on drugs', or 'war on big tobacco', ( and soon, 'big snack food' ) you can expect public comments.
I say its time for us citizens to have a 'war on RIAA', and take no prisoners. Start with voting out anyone that in the least supports thi
Re:Par for the course (Score:4, Insightful)
I know several non techies that are terrified to download something ( if they even knew how they wouldnt ), completely due to RIAA marketing. Which will get one hell of a boost from this judgement.
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"if its free, its gotta be stealng" " if its free software, its no good and full of viruses" " how do they get paid, it must not be legal" etc.. Its really hard to explain to people at times who are programmed by the spin. The TV is a powerful device to sway the public.
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Yeah... (Score:5, Informative)
As for me, I think I'll follow NYCL's advice from the previous story and send a little something to help her appeal this. NYCL said to make out checks to Chestnut & Cambronne PA, Esqs. with a note that they're for Jammie Thomas's case and to mail them to:
Brian N. Toder, Esq.
Chestnut & Cambronne, P.A.
204 North Star Bank
4661 Highway 61
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
And that their phone number is (651) 653-0990 if you need it for FedEx.
big money in the lawsuit lottery. (Score:4, Insightful)
The fundamental idea is that some defective product can kill you or disable you for life, and you'll get less than the record company will if you pirate a few of their songs.
The administration has come out in favor of the "ownership society," remember. (By the by, "creators" are not necessarily "owners," either.)
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Assuming these are her lawyers, I wouldn't do this. Her lawyers were awful from what I saw. Rather than give them more money, I'd give her money to find some good ones.
Corroboration (Score:3, Informative)
I don't blame you for wanting proof; I think it's smart to double-check things like that.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
Magna Carta, the first Constitution in the history of the common law on which our great Republic is built, stated that "every freeman shall be fined in proportion to his fault; and no fine shall be levied on him to his utter ruin." Sad to see that in Bush's America this apparently only applies to freemen, not single moms.
Re:Par for the course (Score:4, Informative)
Whilst I agree that the magna carta is at the roots of modern democracy and the RIAA are a bunch of souless pricks, "freemen" was a restrictive term back then and did not include women, children or slaves.
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
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The only "freemen" left in this country, the only people who can truly exercise freedom, are the CEOs. So yes, no fine shall be levied on our CEOs to their utter ruin. Can't have that. That would bring America to its knees. Look at all the shady, corrupt businessmen who proverbially get away with murder almost daily.
But as for your typical American citizen, no, we're not free. We haven't been
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you make a lot more than the average American to have that view.
Poverty level is generally accepted in the USA to be anything below $10,210. This is assumed to be the minimum required to survive without incurring further debt (students, as many might point out as making far less and surviving, are often incurring future debt in the USA). Obviously, no lender will lend to a woman in $200,000 debt.
So, to pay the $200,000 in debt, plus statutory interest in MN (6% yearly), over one decade, she will need to make $271,735.90, to be repaid in yearly amounts of $27,173.59.
The average wage in MN is $41,326 per year (2006 figure). Subtracting from this that she is a woman, and therefore earns a lower average wage (about 15% less, now only $35,127.10) and subtracting taxes (7.05% MN tax equalling $2,476.46, $4,220 base federal tax + $1,119.28 additional) leaving $27,311.36 remaining income. Subtracting the poverty line from this, this leaves $17,101.36 in disposable income.
Assuming all disposable income is funneled to repaying her debt to society, on average, a woman in her situation will remain in absolute poverty for 21 years repaying the debt. She will repay a total sum of $357,019.11.
So, in retrospect, you're right. It's only fair someone remain in conditions only marginally better than prison for about 1 year per song copied. Right? And you're also right, she will, on average, be able to repay it in two decades.
Hopefully, though, she is also of average age for a Minnesotan (36). This will permit her, when she has repaid her debt (at age 57), to save for retirement (at age 65) for 8 years. This should mean she will die absolutely penniless and homeless, but able to not end up on any form of social assistance. Dying penniless is absolutely the right punishment for having "stolen" so much music.
Of course, that's all assuming everything is average. Should she have children, she will need to go bankrupt, as at this point the poverty line increase is about $3,400 for each dependent, which, if she had an average amount of children (2) would cause the load to be unrepayable at statutory interest rates (calculate it yourself, if you like) as the payments would not cover interest on the loan itself. But, again, it's only fair FCS takes the children away from such an unfit mother that stole so much music. No woman deserves to have children if they pirate music. Ever.
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
Reasonable compared to what exactly?
And moreover, when committing the same crime multiple times simultaneously, multiplying the fine by that amount is unusual and stupid except in particularly nasty cases. If you steal a pack of cigarettes vs stealing a carton are you punished 20x the amount for the carton?
If there are 24 songs or 2400 songs its the same single crime, the punishment for the larger folder should perhaps be higher, but not 100x times higher.
If I ever get charged by the RIAA for sharing X number songs that they identified I'm going to start by immediately announcing to the jury that I'm actually guilty of sharing 150,000 songs in my shared folder that I've shared for no personal gain because I did not and still do not beleive that my actions are or should be illegal. (Yes I have a 10,000 CD & LP collection, mostly out of print.) and then insist that if they convict me of copyright infringement that they must award reasonable damages of 9250 per track or around 1.4 billion dollars. Because that price has been established previously, and its both reasonable and fair, and proportional to the harm I've caused.
Nevermind that its orders of magnitude more than the courts awarded vicitims of Agent Orange testing, or to victims of human trafficking, who were forced into prostitution, and raped. Clearly I have caused the greater harm, and should be charged proportionally more.
In fact, what we should REALLY be doing is come forward as a group of 30,000,000 p2p users and admit guilt collectively through a single lawyer, and demand that we also be charged 9250 per track.
Betcha that would make news, "p2p community self assesses its guilt at 27 trillion dollars and wants to know where to drop off cheque?"
(based on an average of 100 songs per user X 30 million users X 9250 per track = 27 trillion dollars)
Of course, shortly after that, rather than actually pay them, we'd just take the 27 trillion, buy controlling interest in the member companies of the RIAA, disband them, and put the music into the public domain. We'd have money left over to tackle the MPAA, buy out Microsoft, establish a moon base, field a larger better funded military than the USA, and buy Canada outright.
Oh forget canada, we could just buy the united states outright, and get the military as part of the bundle. With enough left over to give everyone health care.
Does that drive the point home about how unreasonable this sum of money is for this crime? Indeed, does that drive how absurd criminalizing this is? When the 'damages' that would arise out of convicting everyone who is engaged in it right now are worth some 40% of the total gross domestic product of the entire planet.
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It depends on what you mean by the nebulous phrase "intellectual property". If by that you are asking if I believe that thoughts can be property, the answer is no. The only reason for the laws governing thoughts is to encourage the publication of those thoughts. I argue that our current crop of laws has the opposite effect especially when, more often than not
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's time to move on, people.
Every last one of you better be at the f**king polls next year.
Re:Par for the course (Score:5, Interesting)
Now... if I were a stockholder listening to these media companies outline their strategy, my first question would be... "Okay, so you're going to stop piracy. That's fine. Now how are you going to sell product?"
Somehow, it's as if the CEOs believe the lawyers' arguments that they'd actually sell $222,000 worth of product if they could stop this woman from pirating. How freaking dumb to you have to be to believe that?
Fact is, they could totally eliminate online piracy, and they'd still be unable to make money selling CD's, and the old record companies show NO skill whatsoever at selling downloads. You can't create value by making your product harder to use. They can extract a little cash, but, to paraphrase Keynes... in the long run, the record companies are all dead.
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A world without copyright doesn't mean that everyone includes the source for their programs... It will also raise the cost of software dramatically. Autocad might cost $300k because a la
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If Autodesk tried to charge $300K per copy for support, 3rd parties would jump in to support it for less. At the end of the day
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Liberty and justice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Liberty and justice (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, neoconservatism, which as far as I can tell is the same thing, only with better suits.
Re:Liberty and justice (Score:5, Funny)
Fascism had waaaaay better uniforms and regalia.
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There are still loonies around today who blieve the nazi crap.
Re:Liberty and justice (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a simple argument that her punishment was unjust - because it is being used as a stick to scare to the rest of society rather than an as an actual punishment, and is therefore out of proportion. How do we know that it is being used to scare society rather than as a fair punishment? Because millions of people do exactly the same as them and if everyone were prosecuted to such a degree, US civilisation would go bankrupt en masse. The penalty is inherently selective in targeting only example cases, because any consistent application of it would devastate the country. Punishments designed to scare people are not in proportion to the crime, because that is not their purpose. The interest is in creating the very greatest degree of punishment that is achievable.
Re:Liberty and justice (Score:5, Funny)
I am not liking it so I'm gonna fight it (as my ultimate rebellion is actually believing the propaganda called "democracy" and "justice" that some interest have fed us throughout the years).
But how to fight? Shall I do exactly what they want us to avoid? Or avoid their products? Or avoid them but in the cases where they are extending copyright or patents on something they have no conceivable right on? (+70years, silly patents).
On another perspective, NeoCons will have big explaining to do upstairs, if the God they're trying to justify themselves with is really there:
- "You see, My Lord, I just wanted to..."
- "Please, call me Allah."
- "...Oopsie..."
Re: Neocon God (Score:5, Interesting)
Class.
Now, if you really want to kick the industry in the chins it's very easy, but I don't have the time for it.
(1) Register a site "BuynoCDsDay" and put SENSIBLE arguments on there why what the RIAA and the record industry in general is doing is wrong. Talk about the RIAA acting as a second police force, talk about the total absence of rational proof (i.e. lack of evidence) and talk also about alternatives (saying something is bad is easy, offering alternatives is evidence you've been thinking about it)
(2) Plan a day somewhere around Xmas where normally their sales volume is quite high and ask people not to buy a single record that day. Nil, none whatsoever, and to tell their friends as well. Give good arguments (for instance, list the consequences of what happens when the RIAA is allowed to continue abusing the law) and maybe also identify that the RIAA is a primary reason of records being so expensive (here's a question for you - it costs millions to make a movie, yet I can buy a movie DVD for the same money as an album CD, why?). Try to go as wide as possible - get people to translate the site as well because the bigger you make this, the more it will hit.
(3) Market the crap out of this site. Talk to The Register, Slashdot it (which means you'll need to keep to text and small image sizes), get it in Boing Boing, Ars Technica etc, the works. Make promos and stick them on YouTube. In other words, keep hitting it. Email the BBC about what you're doing. Get on the news, annoy your parents with it, come up with a good slogan and yell it everywhere - democracy is being able to say what you think (but without insulting people - ther'e such a thing as good manners).
However, there is ONE thing you should not do. Do not promote illegal activity. Breaking copyright is wrong, whatever your reasons are you have no right to break the law. Just send a signal to the RIAA that the game is up - and this "win" of theirs (which will surely be challenged) will make all those others accused even fight harder (except the dead ones, of course).
So there, instant revolution recipe. I'll go and take my tablets and lie down now
Re: Neocon God (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't.
> whatever your reasons are you have no right to break the law.
If the law is unjust, it's not only wrong, but your obligation to break it. If the world worked by your logic, the civilisation would have never developed past the slavery, monarchies, colonialism, and so on, because every of those steps required breaking some kind of then effective, but unjust law. If you didnt ignore, fight and break unjust laws, you wouldnt even live in the US but would be a massively exploited british colony. If you happen to be black, you would still be prohibited from learning something and would have the lagal status of a "thing", could be sold, bought and auctioned, and if youre a woman, youd be prohibited from voting, studying, appearing on streets without a burqa and so on.
FUCKING NOBODY who is not profiting from artificial, enforced scarcity, perceives either this judgement or the underlying copyright fascism as "just" or democratically approved, and without massive civil movements, there seems just to be no way to change the laws, because the persons in power simply "dont allow" the people to do it bacause they know that copyright, as we know it now, wouldnt survive a single night if people _really_ decided democratically about it.
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Just imagine what would happen if everybody unsatisfied with the current laws started their own "revolution", bringing your country into chaos.
I'd imagine that there'd be a lot fewer laws, as only the ones that everyone could agree to would be on the books. I'd also imagine that, eventually people would get sick of all the rebellion and would form a government that'd be agreeable to all.
I'm from Hungary (sorry for my English), and here some far-right groups tried to make a "revolution" and a "real po
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I considered going in front of a movie theater with a sign but I figured if it was just me people would just think "look at that crazy guy..." as they were standing in line. If there's like 50 people it would be different.
I haven't sucked on the RIAA or the MPAA's teats (Score:3, Informative)
The suckage of the RIAA's client's 'product' is legendary and I see no need to support it in any way.
Unfortunately, is still too expensive to make movies because there isn't an independent movie market place for the CREATION of movies, but its coming as production equipment, (like film cameras, lenses and editing software,) keep getting cheaper and better.
It will become possible to finance the creation of movies, the distribution of movies over the internet through something like podcasting. You c
Re:I haven't sucked on the RIAA or the MPAA's teat (Score:5, Insightful)
About 20 years ago, making and recording a song was expensive. You needed some studio, good (==expensive) equipment, some way to market and distribute it, in short, you needed the aid of a studio. Today, this all vanished. You can create great music "at home", with rather low cost, your average monthly income will buy you whatever you need.
Let technology grow a little and we got the same with movies. We are already today at the point where great FX are no longer a matter of multi million dollar hardware but rather one of skill and a decent but affordable FX program. Video cams getting better and cheaper every month. Professional editing software also dropped from many thousands to a few hundred bucks. In no more than 10 years, the movie studios will face the same problem the music studios have today: They become obsolete for the ambitioned creator.
They don't "feel" the pressure yet from both sides, only from the customer side where movies are now being shared like songs have been for over 10 years now. Only recently (i.e. about 5 years now) bandwidth has been large enough that it becomes an issue. Now they react. Now it's too late.
We'll see more laws about this. In 100 years, we'll look at those laws with the same chuckle we now feel when we see laws for the protection of horse drawn cabs, about a man waving a red flag in front of a car or similar crap, lobbied in by a dying business.
Unlike them, the **AAs have a choice, though. They can turn from the middleman that tries to hold artists and customers in a stranglehold to a valuable marketing and PR tool for the former. They have all the necessary tools, knowledge and people to push your songs into the charts and make it a seller. They are, if anything, great at creating a hype. If they can change to this model and become an "advertising agency", they can survive.
If they instead try to cling to a dead business model, they will perish.
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I think the main hint is that they brought in witnesses to perjure on their behalf. I wouldn't be half as bothered by this if the evidence had some level of reliability but when you allow the plaintiff
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No, the argument doesn't apply to the death penalty.
If we executed all murderers, it wouldn't particularly change society. We used to get along pretty well when death was the standard penalty.
If we fined all people who deliberately shared songs ten thousand dollars per song, it would cause tremendous upheavals.
If it helps, think of it as the first form of the Kantian categorical imperative: Always act so that your actions could be made into a rule. Executing murderers could be a rule. It used to
A law needs support to be executable (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine you know a murderer. Would you go to the police and tell on him? Most likely. Even if he's your friend. He killed a person! Most people would certainly support a law against murder. NOt because they're directly affected, but because murder simply is something that does not appeal to us. Maybe it's part of our culture, maybe even religion, maybe just the fear that you could be next, but generally you'll at the very least consider turning him in.
Now imagine you know a filesharer. Would you even ponder going to the police? Most likely not, because at the very least you don't care about copyright laws, and if you do, you'll more likely support your friend against those laws.
Most people either don't understand copyright laws, don't understand their purpose or simply don't know something like this even exists. "Virtual property" is a quite artificial concept and hard to grasp. It's not one of the things that make sense immediately, and even when you grasp the idea intellectually, it still doesn't "feel" wrong to copy content. You didn't really "steal" anything, it's still there. That someone didn't get money who should've gotten money, or whatever reason is usually given, is something that doesn't immediately affect us.
Re:Liberty and justice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: U.S. Justice (Score:3, Informative)
IMO: Few people that express political opinions about, justice, civil liberties, or even decisions by the U.S.Supreme Court, seem to be aware of our founding fathers original views. In simple terms the basic defense against government "tyranny" in our original constitutional concept was the jury.
My Quick and Dirty Background
In 1670, the traditional right of trial, by a jury of the defendant's peers, became much more powerful. The King's Chief Justice ruled that
Corporate VS Private copyright violation (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not recommending it, but it would illustrate her plight if she would commit "sepuku" in front of the RIAA offices for TV cameras, in exchange for her kid's safety, as this wo
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Neoconservatism? (Score:3, Informative)
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I bet he's shaking!
With lots of concerts, the publicity if they cut him of due to him giving away CDs and 80 million records sold he's sure to be forgotten!
And if most of his income come from concerts and similair I guess he don't care that much if they are sold or not.
This is actually great because the sooner well known artists are cut of from the ties with the recor
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So much for so-called heroes against the evil empire.
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Face it, the laws aren't built to deter criminals. They're here for revenge. Not more, not less.
Re:Liberty and justice (Score:4, Insightful)
A just verdict would have been a fine of perhaps $2000, a requirement that all her internet activity be monitored for several years, and a warning that severe fines would be imposed upon discovery of similar misbehavior in the future. This is, after all, a first offense, and it was until this judgement a grey area in the law.
The GPL analogy is not appropriate because GPL violations generally involve attempts at substancial financial gain for the violator.
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As the pendulum swings further... (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, I kind of get a kick of seeing how the copyright system is thrown in favor of those who are responsible for most of the "content" (not worthy of the term "music" eh?
Support fair use! (Score:2)
Episode four (Score:5, Funny)
Princess Hacka: The more you tighten your copyrights, the more songs will slip through the P2P nets.
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Please Give GWB A Blowjob So We Can Impeach! (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy and his friends, as a group, have been almost unbelievable. What is even worse, is that on the rebound, a lot of people might actually think that voting for Hillary is a good idea. (shudder)
If you do not know who Ron Paul is, do yourself and others a favor and look him up. But if you really do not think honesty is important, go ahead and vote for any of the others.
Re:Please Give GWB A Blowjob So We Can Impeach! (Score:4, Insightful)
A vast majority of abortions are not done by loose women who get knocked up every few months, it's a choice that women choose carefully and rarely more than once. It's an extremely difficult decision that your average woman does not take lightly at all.
Ron Paul is the best Republican on the field though, likely because he's not a sleezebag or neocon garbage. And I won't find myself voting for a Democrat until they have a massive change of heart and get back to their roots. (I never been registered as Democrat).
If you do have interest in Ron Paul I urge you register as Republican so you may vote in the primaries. (you don't have much time left to re-register and switch from being independent, most of the primary elections are held January and February 2008, depending on state). I personally doubt Ron Paul will win the GOP primaries overall, but he might make a big impact in western states who lean far more towards Libertarianism.
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No offense to the radically leftist ones who can't seem to find their inner geek while talking about personal freedoms, but surely these are some of the absolutely worst reasons for abortions. You really haven't watched a lot of good geek TV and movies if you think a society full of parents who abort "imperfect" children is a good one. An episode of Star Trek wit
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Yeah. Yeah. I voted for Bush because of my dislike of Lieberman's anti-violent video games stance and look what that got us? Voting on a single issue still gets you a bad candidate that you didn't expect.
I really don't like Ron Paul's stance on anti-abortion, but if a president could outlaw it I'm sure Bush would have done
Making Available is not Impeachable (Score:2, Offtopic)
George on the other hand (who isn't a lawyer) would have to fail to use the 'making available' defense, and perform the blowjob himself (on someone else?) in order to commit perjury, which coul
Re:Please Give GWB A Blowjob So We Can Impeach! (Score:5, Funny)
My mother, unfortunately is one of those people. She simply cannot see how Hillary has changed from her days as first lady to the Cheney Lite drone she is today. There are many people who don't see this and it is indeed frightening.
As for giving GWB a blowjob
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So what do you label the US citizens? (Score:2)
Who re-elected him OR by not voting did nothing to oppose him? There is a saying, in the land of the blind, one-eyed is king. Think about this and see what it means to those ruled by Bush.
That you also lobby for Ron Paul suggests to me that you are not just a blind person ruled by a one-eyed freak but have lost all sensory capacities as well, rounded off with frontal lobotomy.
What I think is wrong with the world (Bush is far from the only "how the fuck did we elect him" leader) is television. Not the viol
the RIAA deserved to win, but, no surprise about W (Score:3, Insightful)
It will create more siphons, but hopefully, the press will point out that this case was NOT about downloading, but about uploading to strangers.
As to the white house, I only hope that the more that laud this ruling, the more that it comes to haunt them.
Re:the RIAA deserved to win, but, no surprise abou (Score:3, Insightful)
Jury Instruction 15: The act of making available for download copyrighted material is in itself an act of copyright infringement with a fine of $750-$30000.
Based on a screen-shot of kazaa showing some song names against her IP address they have fined her $220000. If you c
Actually, I read the article. (Score:2)
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You are but the RIAA doesn't have the technology to track those kinds of violations yet.
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They're absolutely correct. (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that a lawsuit has been won by the copyright owner demonstrates that the law does exactly what it was intended to do - set out a series of punishments for those who would break the law and copy a piece of art which they have no right to do.
I can see two bones of contention here, but they're more related to how the law is designed than whether or not it's working as intended:
1. Is the law morally justifiable?
2. Is the process of enforcing the law fair?
Both are very reasonable questions. If they're something which is important to the general public, then they'll probably become issues at the next election. But right now, I'd imagine most politicians are more interested in the easy political points - things like crime, education, war in Iraq - than those which are generating a lot of noise on
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3. Does the law set proportionate punishment?
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Teaching children (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Teaching children (Score:4, Insightful)
sharing is communism.
I think it's pretty clear what is being taught.
This is not about supporting the artist... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remove the labels and replace them with a business model that understands the enormous cost savings of technology and the internet for production and distribution.
It should be obvious, even from the court records.
I very rarely buy music and when I do I try to buy directly from the artist, but this does not stop me from lisening to a great deal more music than I have purchased (not rented).
I don't pirate but I have heard mixes others have done that remined me of plenty of songs and artists I liked years ago. But at about that time this RIAA crap started up and I figured I liked the artists and their works, not the contradictory business model of the labels as represented by the RIAA. So of course I dropped the idea of locating the music I heard on such mixes, that I might buy it.
I mean since the Mix was illegal, I wasn't supposed to hear it and certainly in not hearing it I wouldn't be remined of
I don't Pirate nor do I support rabid dogs out to bite th hand that feeds them.
The music industry labels has a history of questionable dealings such as Payola to get radio stations to play.... This sort of thing was determined to be illegal, unfair, etc... But the objective was that of getting coverage.
Now that there is plenty of coverage.... they are complaining... Why? because they are not controlling it, its more open to public choice....
Such controlling bias is not beneficial to but a few artists.
So in the mean time I wake to music I don't pay for, drive to work and back with music I don't pay for and when I get an itch for irish music I tune into livelreland and I don't pay for that either.
In fact I'd say on average over years, the music I listen to is better than 90% music I didn't pay for. And all without pirating. Most of which I wouldn't buy anyways, regardless of the fact that by the time the radio stations stop playing it, I'm sick and tired of it anyway and certainly won't have anything, and I certainly won't allow an illegal mix years later wrongly influence me to go out and buy....
Why buy and why pirate when there is plenty free and legal.....
If they shut down internet radio
Perhaps the Labels should just shut down all radio stations music playing..... That'll save them.
bad for music...but good for the BSD license? (Score:2)
People have wondered how the BSD license is any more secure than straight public domain. It's more secure because it relies on conventional copyright law. It also seems to me that the idea that conventional copyright being toothless is one of the primary justifications used for existence of the GPL.
If it is demonstrated that conventional copyright law still has some
The punishment does not fit the crime (Score:5, Insightful)
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He should check his kids pcs (Score:5, Insightful)
But then of course his risk is quite diminished: the Bush administration has an effective system for preventing that their friends are prosecuted. The time that justice was blind is behind us.
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Of course they do. The kids' iPod contents are a state secret.
Unconstitutional Fine. (Score:5, Insightful)
Back then they saw the value of using a fine as a means of punishment. The thing is they also saw that you cant issue a fine of $220,000 against a person who makes $30,000 a year. It is unrealistic and unfair.
Though for many politicians making these obscene laws, $220,000 fine to them is like $220 for us everyday people. Their problem is they cant see nor understand what life is like for the vast majority of people in this Earth.
This country needs another Abe Lincoln. A poor man who worked his way up the political ladder. Too bad he'd be filtered out of the system before even starting.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton [wikipedia.org]
Grew up quite modestly in Arkansas before breaking into higher education with earned scholarships.
Copyright czar? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
bah! (Score:2)
Republicans are STUPID (Score:2)
But yeah, ok, the entertainment industry, including all of the RIAA and MPAA members, gives more money to democrats than republicans by a factor of about 4:1. In addition, for the "family value" conservatives the entertainment industry is the next thing to the devil. So, why exactly does the president in particular support the RIAA? They're supporting his enemy on both the financial and ideological fronts.
morons.
Let's start a fund to help this woman (Score:2, Insightful)
But what would really hurt their pride and lessen their damage would be for the community to set a fund and help this person with her legal fees.
This would really show that the people won't tolerate someone's life being ruined to set an "example" and instill fear in everyone else.
(note: I'm not an American citizen, somebody please set it up instead)
This is so wrong (Score:2)
Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, excuse me while I go and see what I can do to support local "EFF" organization, so that kind of crap won't ever go through here.
Ignoring the large-scale "pirates" (Score:4, Insightful)
I have seen some very large scale operations of blatant copyright violation in the past, including network sharing of copyrighted material. For crying out loud, I've had co-workers hand me nearly their entire CD collection compressed as MP3s on a couple of CDs.
This is also completely missing the Chinese CD copy pirates that even have complete CD pressing facilities, print up scanned jacket inserts, and sell the CDs as the real thing when in fact that isn't the case at all. And don't tell me these CDs don't end up in the USA, as I know for a fact that they do. This kind of activity is blatant copyright violations and involves criminal activities where not only is the "criminal" making money off of the duplication of the content, but it also does real damage that can be measured in a genuine sense where some individuals are buying this content thinking it is the real thing, completely unaware that it was made through an illegal process and the artist gets absolutely nothing in return.
I've also see websites... and they still do exists... that have hundreds or even thousands of CDs worth of data, and even hundreds of complete DVD movies available for download in blatant disregard for copyright laws. I know some of them have been shut down, but that just means they are avoiding to advertise on Google and other search engines, and you have to "go underground" to find these websites. If you search hard enough, you can still find them.
What this woman did was the equivalent of a shoplifter taking some candy or other low-value merchandise from a store. Certainly it is illegal and perhaps needs to be prosecuted. But it doesn't need to become a national news story, nor draw the attention of multi-national corporations to fly their lawyers across the country in order to prosecute individuals who are for the most part clueless to begin with. Certainly the $300,000 fine+ court costs is way over the top.
I would also like to ask this rather tough question to the RIAA: If any of this money is collected, will even a single penny of that money go into the hands of the artist you were representing?
This is tragedy compounding the situation, as copyright law is really there to protect the content creator. These organizations like the RIAA do very little to help the plight of the ordinary musician, nor does a prosecution like this ultimately help out a journeyman musician. I'm not talking the grand masters that are at the peak of popular culture and earn their deservedly millions of dollars. They can usually negotiate reasonable recording contracts and keep most of their money. I'm talking the more ordinary folks who are getting screwed over by the RIAA, where a prosecution like this will result in that same Minnesota woman simply declaring bankruptcy to get out of the debt, and the RIAA will then claim what little was paid toward the fine as legal costs. The only people who "won" in this case was the RIAA lawyers themselves, and not their "clients" for whom they were supposedly representing.
not the same (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Are we all done if I pay a similair fee as the radio for bringing a music tracker up (not 100% comparable since I'm not the one actually having the song, but say open up my own online store then.)?
allofmp3 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Still they are the only service I know of which spread music by only paying a similair fee such as a radio station would do, so it's the only thing I can compare with. Just say they paid the same fee in USA or whatever your country are and that it would reach the right organizations (even thought it would be a low amount.)
With long time ago what do you mean? Less piracy of movies and software? Or so
Re:not the same (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The length of time of IP. That has become silly. In particular, America's pushing our version is the worst. Australia's was actually, pretty fair. Hopefully, more nations push back against US and push for something like Australia's was.
DMCA WRT DVDs/Music. We bought the movie and/or music. It is our right to back it up and use it how we see fit. As long as we are not distributing it, then there should not be an issue.
While I agree copyright is ocmpletely out of whack, do you t
Re: (Score:2)
The radio case is taken car of by royalties. If every kazaa user was required to pay royalties for every copy transferred then the RIAA would have a new business model.
Re:She should be pardoned (Score:5, Insightful)
They did that once. 'America', I think they called it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)