That's pretty fucked up... I can see that the RIAA has to take some sort of action but $220,000 is ridiculous.

I say, go after those that reproduce/host copyrighted material for profit. There are tons of bootleggers out there trying to make a couple bucks off of other people's hard work. Throw the book at them, take their profits. But don't extort over $200,000 from some ignorant computer user for 24 songs, that's just bullshit. They should have only won about $24, the actual price of the songs. Hell even give them another $24 for 'damages'.

Hey RawAlex, I agree with you to a point.

But the thing is, it's the record companies that we should be complaining too, not the artists for signing with them. The artists seem to need the record companies for exposure more then the record companies need the artists - since there is always another artist willing to take the spot of another... anyways, it's the record companies that decide where the album is sold and how it's sold... not the artist in most cases...

I had the same argument with a very good friend just last night on the Radiohead thing... without their money gained by joining the evil greedy corporate record labels they wouldn't have been able to produce this album or sell any copies cuz no one would know who the fuck they are!

Unprotected wireless routers are a major issue. My connection is too slow to bother following the link, but I would have to say she got screwed.

Yeah, unprotected wireless routers, and a person who was hijacking her wireless also just happened to signup and use her exact same username for kazaa...

YEAH RIGHT.

She didn't do herself any favors by lying about the date her hard drive was changed either (it happens about 1 month AFTER the RIAA contacted her originally).

Damages are intended to recover what has been lost and to deter others from doing the same.

Would you stop if it cost you $48 instead of $24??? how about $480?? How about $4000?

Nothing has pointed to how many sharing violations occurred.

I had a picture up on FHM that was posted there without permission. My estimation is that it was viewed roughly 2 million times per day (they had over 20million hits daily while the picture was up) during the 2 month period it was available without my knowledge.

How much should I get paid for that? My usual fee plus some damages? $0.01 per viewing? That seems fair doesn't it? Until you learn that over 2 months that's 120 million viewings and at 1 cent per viewing I would get 1.2 million dollars. Who's to judge what's fair and what's not?

She broke the law. She got caught. I support the punishment.

Brad, the reality is that record companies are like network TV. They provide a large audience with material that is generally likes and appreciated by a wide audience. They don't typically run niche stuff, but they certainly do mainstream all well and good.

The cable industry came along, and now there are 400 channels pecking away at network viewership. But you rarely see people talking about the great show they watched on the Sailboat channel, but you can find many chat rooms about Grey's Anatomy or CSI.

However, record company versus artist distribution is only a sideline in the debate. If one person pays $1 for a song and then gives it away for free to everyone else, the band made $0. They will make money if people come to their concerts, but again, if someone stands there and records the concert on video and gives that away free online as well, ticket sales drop and the band makes less money.

At some point, unless the bands or musicians are making money at it, they won't turn out the music at the level they are currently turning it out. They will all be working as baggers at supermarkets or doing McJobs and putting out one song a year that immediately gets put on the torrents and no money is made. You take music from an industry and turn it into a hobby. Everyone from the musicians to the live show venue owners to the record companies to the music stores (online and B&M) all lose. Without income, the level and quality of the product drops until it is no longer a viable business model.

All of these things are nice. Without a viable business model, there is no business.

Exactly... most of these copyright laws were meant to prevent exactly that sort of thing. Rogue commercial outfits making a living off of other peoples work. Back in the day, it wasnt possible for a single person to do this on any large scale. It would have taken a large amount of resources to pull off such a thing. Now a single individual can be crushed by the weight of these laws that are meant for organizations much larger than any one person. I respect copyright, it is a very good thing, and allows most of us here to make a living, but the laws have got to change to fit with the times and technology.

Now if you downloaded an mp3 and accidentally leave kazaa open overnight, you can end up owing the RIAA more money than you may ever make in a lifetime? Makes no sense.

Ok, they were using your copyrighted work for profit. She wasn't. That was my point.

sucks for her

In the eyes of the law, one ifringment is equal to 20000 infringments.. the difference is the punishment.. they are both against the law.

Everyone keeps making the arguement that it's small scale.. it doesn't 'matter... she broke the rules.

Also, we aren't talking about a woman that tripped across Kazaa for one day... OOPS... she was a committed user.. knew what she was doing. and blatently was offering copyrighted works. very simple. she doesn't own the copyright, she shouldn't be sharing with others.

it doesn't matter (BTW KAZAA is making a profit by their ad sales or memberships, so her being involved in the loop overcomes the fact that she isn't making money).

part of copyright law is that I retain the rights to distribution.. no one else.. just me!

fair use says you can use it for specific purposes. Sharing with 1 million unknown friends is not one of them. especially when I am selling the product and you are undermining my ability to make money with it.

Commercial profit isn't the bar of measurement. You have to consider what was lost in the process. If the average file on Kazaa is shared and reshared 10,000 times, then making a file available to this network creates 10,000 times the hurt of giving one copy away. If the record companies get $1 profit from each record sold, then a $1 x 10,000 amount is the actual loss.

Nobody has to profit for someone to lose.

Back in the day, when people were duplicated cassette tapes, they could typically produce a couple of dozen tapes a day, of reduced quality. Most "rogue commercial outfits" could produce maybe 1000 pieces a year of any one product.

Kazaa allows this individual to produce tens of thousands of copies instantly using a distributed network setup and maintain by kazaa. The losses suffered by the record industry (and the artists) as a result of this widescale distribution far exceeds any harm that was done "back in the day". The amount of pirated music (and movies, and porn, and software) flowing around now as a percentage of total sales is many many times higher than it ever was "back in the day".

Don't forget the quality of the copies... they are not reduced quality... they are identical copies... 100% quality.. no degridation from the original.

The RIAA needs Sue Kazaa, not users. Sue bootleggers, not listeners.

If they really wanted to put an end to this, they wouldn't be by going after end users. They would go the root of the problem. But they don't, because they just want to extort money out of anyone they can.

They don't want to make a change, they just want to make some change.

Actually, that's not the reality at all. Network TV buys the rights to show shows so that it can get viewers so that they can make money off of their advertising. A very different business model.

Bands don't make much money off the album sales the record companies do. Musicians don't make music so they can become big and famous for the most part...they do it because they love to play and create music.

A viable business model was already presented by me. Give music out for free for the most part, sell to those who want to support the artist through record sales and allow the band more exposure so that they can have bigger and more profitable tours. What you are failing to realize is that under the current business model, bands make the vast majority of their money touring.

I am only assuming but this is my guess.

You sue enough end users, you then prove that the conduits are being used for nefarious purposes rather than legitimate ones. You then have the power to sue them for contributory infringement, negligence, etc etc.

You then also have the power to require checks and balances to sharing networks and require that all files to be shared pass through human filters that are required to deal with copyright issues.

just a guess.

You can't avoid the fact that the end users are breaking the law willingly. Just becasue they are small time in comparison doesn't change that they are doing it.

LOL... they don't do it for the money??? Fine.. I want my money back from the concert I went to.. Yeah.. that $250 ticket. Come play at my local park for free. We'll even make dinner for you so you aren't hungry. LOL>. not for the money.

viable for a few but not for all. many artists rely on record sales. many artists don't like doing tours. And it also neglects the talent that is not self propogating.. many artists would die without the big machine behind them.

again you are trying to ignore the facts to make YOUR substandard point

she ripped her songs to the My music folder
Kazza in the default install (the one she used shares everything in the My music folder)

She admitted to 21,000 "sharings"

She was only convicted of 24 "sharings"

The court case made a distinction between the 24 she got convicted for and the 20,976 she did not.

IF you were right about how strong the copyright act was she would have been convicted of all of the "Sharings"

SHE WAS NOT

That the point

You have to
1. determine what the difference is
2. modify your stance to acknowledge that difference.

there is no point explaining anything to you as long as you keep ignoring all the facts that don't fit your opinion

lol. They are not even close to identical quality. MP3 is a compression method and as such you are inherently going to loose quality. There are lossless formats (FLAC and others), but no one who is sharing music uses it because the files are really big. Don't believe me...go to a local audio equipment store (and no I am not talking about Big Box Hell or Best Buy or whatever) with your favourite cd and bring your iPod too and listen to your favourite tracks...notice the difference? I thought so.

Brad, again, nice in theory, but the reality of the music business is different (been there, done that, got a collection of crappy t-shirts that I gave to good will 10 years ago).

Bands start out local, group of friends, whatever. These days they put up a myspace page, maybe record a couple of songs in their basement, and try to get gigs are local clubs. Most of those gigs at local clubs pay "door" or "part of door" (especially on shared bills) and as a result, most of those musicians aren't making enough money to afford strings and gas to get to the gigs, let alone anything else.

If a band becomes popular in a local market, they may reach the level of actually getting paid to play. But even good bands aren't making enough at this level to live, when you pay a 5 piece band $1000 a night, they are still each only making about $100-$125 to play, and most of these bands play 1 or 2 nights a week max.

Record companies are what tends to take bands from this point to "suddently playing 1000 seaters on a grinding world tour". There isn't a whole bunch of space in the middle, except for a very few bands who have done things in other ways. This stuff happens because the record company fronts the money to record a decent quality CD, and get it out there, distributed to the radio stations and such so that the band gets exposure. Then the band can play these gigs and actually make money.

There are literally millions of garage bands, singer / songwriters, musicians, and digital music artists out there, but without someone to pull them out of the background noise and get larger groups of people to hear them, there is no way for them to grow.

You alluded to Rolling Stone before. You do understand of course that 99% of what is reviewed in Rolling Stone gets into their hands via the record labels. Without this, they too would be running a fishing net through noise, talking about bands nobody has ever heard before (or likely will hear again), and they would become a significantly less reliable source for music information.

It is a process. Without money coming in, most musicians are forced to take real jobs, and that music won't get made because they don't have the time or the money to make it themselves. That is what a lack of a viable business model does to things.

You end up with great opera singers selling cellular phones because he can't afford to make his own album and go on tour by himself.

Brad, these days most people do complete disk rips, bit for bit, and share them that way. No need to worry about MP3 quality. Plus, if you sample MP3 at anything over about 96k, most people couldn't tell the difference if they were paid.

Plus, once ripped down once to MP3, the quality of all subsequent duplications is exactly the same. When you copy VCR to VCR or audio tape to audio tape, each successive copy is lower quality. By the 4th or 5th version, the product is effectively worthless.

But theres a breaking point there somewhere. At some point, these laws have to be re-examined. File sharing, for the most part, is a totally accepted practice. Theres something like 9 million or more people sharing files at any given second (3 times the amount, compared to when the RIAA started its lawsuit campaign).

So far, massive lawsuit campaigns and fearmongering hasn't worked, DRM hasn't worked, and copyright laws sure as hell havnt worked. Its unlikely there will ever be some technological magical bullet that will work, unless you want to hand over your entire private life and rights to the media companies while they scrutinize your every digital move.

Most people aren't going to have a guilty conscience for sharing or downloading files owned by companies they feel ripped off by to begin with. The laws are going to have to bend for the people, not the other way around (eventually).

You miss the point. I am stating that bands don;t start making music so they can become big stars. Eventually when it becomes profitable for them to do so they make it their job, not before that.

Paying $250 is obscene if you ask me, but to each their own. At least the majority of the money from that show made it's way to the artists pocket with the rest going to Clear Channel and TicketMaster and the venue.

And, no...most artists don't rely on album sales unless they don't tour in which case that's their choice and they are loosing out. Why do you think these old bands do tours (for $250 per ticket) and not keep putting out albums? For the money.

Also, most "bands" know how to self promote because they were probably doing it for years before any of us knew about them. So why not put the power in their hands?

Even one violation is breaking the law.

you are using the numbers and I don't believe you are accurate. I am looking for the information.

I am still waiting for you to point me to where in section 106 and 107 or any case law where it says you can act in any capacity to distribute copyrighted material.

I gave you in 106 where I get to retain my distribution rights... where's the support on your side?

Agreed, going after them all (or even a tiny percentage) is futile:

"The group says the number of households that have used file-sharing programs to download music has risen from 6.9 million monthly in April 2003, before the lawsuits began, to 7.8 million in March 2007. "

:helpme

Of course, they want to target the big users to scare off others, but I'd assume the 7.75 million "light" users combined will think they have nothing to worry about - they don't share enough, in their opinion, to show up on the radar. Certainly it will scare off some, but I doubt enough to make much of a dent in the billions of GIGs of songs being downloaded.

so let me get this straight... file sharing is a commonly accepted practice therefore it should not be against the law.

with that kind of reasoning... one person buys a CD... the rest of the world has access to it now.

What's teh point in producing product at that point? it's too expensive.

I have a right to be compensated for my product. You don't have a right to get it for free, unless I give it out for free.

ok that is only 1700 of the 21,000 she admitted to sharing so what about the rest.

The RIAA chose to not go after her for the songs she could prove she owned BEFORE she downloaded the songs as well.

They did the same thing in the case of "Cecilia Gonzalez" only targeting her for the 30 songs out 1300 that she did not own.


again if that were true then she would have been convicted for a lot more violations
since the RIAA specifically choose to exclude songs that she owned from the ruling thereby limiting the scope only to songs she did not buy a right to.

having files "you have never owned" in your Kazaa shared folder is enough to prove intent to distribute, which is exactly the point i have repeatedly made.



well considering that the case ignored the circumstance where you the person owned some rights to the music (by choice by the RIAA) and didn't target Kazaa that makes sense

The point is you are pointing to the case and arguing that it INCREASES their liablity which is equally false.

And the problem with this is what exactly? If a performers talent doesn't self propogate, then do they really have talent to begin with? I would be happy to have all the garbage songs off of the airwaves, and lackluster performances off my TV set.

You might want to re-read that and think to yourself for a few minutes, give it time to soak in.

What you are essentially saying with that, is that a commonly accepted practice should be an illegal act. Sounds kinda backwards, doesn't it?

So, let's keep with isn't working now and see what happens then? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Obviously you think I don't understand the business, that's fine. The reality is that record companies serve as a promotional machine that can't sell it's products anymore. So they need to change.

Rolling Stone and other media outlets put what they put either in publications or on air because of advertising, people from the record company calling them non stop until they get their artist on the air or in print, and by advertising as much as is financially possible. That is no different from what you or I could do from a grass roots level. Can you pick up a phone? Network? Buy advertising? I thought so. That is unless we are talking Clear Channel (who do whatever they want to make money because they are a huge conglomerate and don't care what they sell as long as it makes money).

You will say...all this takes money. Yes it does, and eventually there will be small companies signing artists and operating outside the umbrella of the big companies.

Music will always exist because as I said before, the true artists aren't there only to make money. They make music because they love music. It is an art not commerce they are after (and no I'm not talking about Britney or Xtina).

And on your last point...guess what, there already are great musicians and "opera" singers who are selling phones because they either were not ambitious enough or were in the wrong place and time. The music industry is not a field of dreams...it takes long hard work to get to where these people are for the most part.

Rough day for her

only if you take it backwards.... a common practice, if illegal at the time.. is still illegal, whether or not the masses are doing it.

Who says you and everyone else have the choice about what makes it and what doesn't? that's where the market comes in. The industry helps to push that market.

and i am still waiting for your answer to my last question

Tell you what answer my question and i will answer your (again)

if your arguement is correct and the copyright is so strong
why is the act of trying to take away the .torrent files creator not a violation of their copyright

remember the file has no copyrighted material in it, and has no trade secrets since it based on an open spec.

I keep forgetting that the government doesn't look out for the people anymore, only lobbyist organizations.

If a huge percentage of Americans are 'breaking the law', it's obviously time to rethink/rewrite that law.

Its eventually going to get to the point where all of us as a whole are going to have to sacrifice a great deal of our rights and subject ourselves to massive oversight and technological shackles to allow copyright holders to adequately enforce their copyrights in a digital medium. Or, copyright as we know it for digital works is going to have to be reworked to accommodate the behavior of the masses, and also provide an incentive for people to continue to create works of art.

The debate is going to be over what provides more benefit to society as a whole.... copyright law to prop up old business models that cant adapt to modern technology and all the restrictions it creates or complete freedom of information?

did you even read the court filing of the complaint????

It was not whether or not she had legal right to 26 songs. I was over redistribution.

Read the filing.. then come back and argue.

I can' spend all day on here arguing this thing.

The bottom line is that suing customers is not going to stop anything. They only have the power to sue people in the US so they really don't have that much power. I don't agree with what they are doing to stop file sharing and they have been unable to go after the source so they are kind of at a dead end.

Record companies need to think fast and hard and decide how they are going to make money in this new climate. It's not like they haven't had since 1999 to figure something out. This is a classic case of being too stubborn to make changes. It is time to adapt/change or go out of business, it's that simple. The only thing they have tried is to copy protect cds and look how that turned out. The internet has changed the way we live, how we interact, and how we share information. Look at the newspapers...many people are reading them online now, do you see the New York Post crying? No...they figured out how to make it profitable and go on with life. The music industry will have to learn how to do the same or fade into obscurity.

Point well taken and well stated.

Without the creations, there is nothing to utilize. So you have to balance the quality of the work. You may get artists happy that their work is being used... even for free. but the quality artists that everyone wants will refuse to work because their product is not protected adequately.

An interesting debate indeed.

Do you create any sort of product that has the potential for misuse? Something you would like to have purchased rather than shared?