Quote:
Originally Posted by RawAlex
The trouble is this: If she shares the song only once, to someone who has no rights to the song, and they share it 1000 times... did she create 1 damage or 1001 damages? The reality is once you release something like this in the wild, you no longer has control what will happen, but you started the chain of events.
In many ways, it is similar to buying someone a gun and asking them to kill someone. If they happen to kill 10 other people while doing it, you may actually be criminally liable for all 11 murders.
If anything, the liablity could be anything up to the entire loss calculated. If that song was downloaded 100,000 times over kazaa, for instance, then she should be liable for all 100,000 downloads unless she can show that other people seeded it and shared it.
Torrents and P2P networks are very dangerous, because once you put stuff out there, you start a chain of events that cannot be stopped.
|
In that case, why arent they trying to dig through the womans logs and find out who she downloaded some of the files from in the first place, and trying to collect the 220,000$ from them instead? (yea I know she ripped a lot of her cd's too).
Bandwidth constraints put a very real limit on the amount of times she can transmit any of the files. It wouldnt take long for her ISP to cut her off (if they behave like comcast, anyways) if she were transmitting an mp3 all day every day.
Responsibility for the infringement falls on the person who transmits the material. Any subsequent transmissions of the material by other parties, are the responsibility of the parties in question. If 1000 people downloaded the file, and put it up for download, those people are responsible for transmitting the file, not her. Your, in essence, trying to punish her for other peoples crimes.
Even if you calculate in some "ripple effect", its pretty well understood that the vast majority of p2p users dont share files themselves. The networks are mostly comprised of "leechers", with a few "good samaritans" sharing their collections. So you cant really get a fair estimate of the "ripple effect" unless you take that into account. I dont know the exact numbers, I'm gonna look and see if I can find them.
I mean honestly.... I'm sure if it wasnt for her, "Guns'N'Roses - Sweet Child of Mine" wouldn't be available for download anywhere on the p2p networks...
