Single mom can't pay $1.5M song-sharing fine (24 songs @ $62,500 per)

[underpants]

Source: MSNBC

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota woman ordered to pay a recording industry trade group $1.5 million for illegally sharing music online doesn't plan to pay those damages as her attorneys continue to argue the amount is unconstitutional, she said Thursday.

A federal jury found Wednesday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, of Brainerd, must pay $62,500 per song — for a total of $1.5 million — for illegally violating copyrights on 24 songs. This was the third jury to consider damages in her case, and each has found that she must pay — though different amounts.

Under federal law, the recording companies are entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement but the law allows the jury to raise that to as much as $150,000 per track if it finds the infringements were willful.

Thomas-Rasset, 33, was the first person to go to trial. In 2007, jurors decided she willfully violated the copyrights on all 24 songs, and she was ordered to pay $9,250 per song, or $222,000.

But Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ordered a new trial, deciding he had erred in giving jury instructions. The case went back to court. Last year, another jury also found that Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights and ordered her to pay $1.92 million in damages, or $80,000 per song.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40030700/ns/technology_and_science-security/?GT1=43001

[ixion]

1. talk about frivolous lawsuits

Somebody needs to put a muzzle on RIAA.

[ArcticFox]

2. What ever happened to the 10x rule?

For corporations at least, punitive damages cannot exceed about 10 times actual damages. I'd say the record companies lost something like 20 cents per song. at 24 songs, that makes $5.80. Thus, punitive damages should be in the range of $58.00. Even at $1.00 per song (isn't that what itunes charges?), you'd have only $24 in actual damages, max of $240 in punitives.

[Tesha]

5. She probably wasn't just personally consuming the songs but rather sharing them out.

So the actual losses were much higher than $0.20/song.

BTW, songs typically sell for $0.99, not $0.20.

Tesha

[ArcticFox]

7. I don't know the case, but were there findings of actual damages?

Like I said, even at a dollar, you'd have a max of $24 in actual damages assuming she was just using them for personal use. I would think for finding punitives, they'd need a finding of actual damages.

[Tesha]

11. You don't seem to understand the concept.

If you start giving away illegal copies of an artist's work,
you are depriving the artist of the sales price of their work
*FOR EACH AND EVERY COPY YOU GIVE AWAY*.

So if, through file sharing, you give away 100,000 copies
of a work, you have deprived the artist of (say) $99,000.

It's in this way that we get to such huge numbers. You
may not like it, but that's the law.

Tesha

[Ken Burch]

13. There's no way the actual recording artists would support persecuting this woman

They'd maybe want a couple hundred at most, they wouldn't want to ruin her financially for life.

(note:the above statement does not apply to Lars "We're Not a People's Band" Ulrich and the rest of the soulless bastards in Metallica).

The only people who'd want that are "the suits" in the recording industry, the ones who don't actually give a shit ABOUT music or musicians but are concerned only with "product" and profit.

[AngryAmish]

68. Gene Simmons disagrees with you.

[tabasco]

74. Gene Simmons is a dickshit and not an artist. n/t

[Ken Burch]

94. Not surprised. Gene Simmons has always been an asshole.

Oh, and I said "musicians"...not "right-wing jerks with reptilian tongues"

[NashVegas]

146. Yes. And At The Same Time, So Are ISPs and Internet "Entrepreneurs" Like Tim Westergren

Who are telling musicians that the days when they could make their living by selling albums are over.

It's a tragedy that people who use the internet to share the work of artists, photographers, and writers they admire are making it ever more impossible for those artists to make a living through that work.

[uncle ray]

83. metallica has actually changed their tune.

they realized supporting their fans is better for business than suing them.

[Ken Burch]

95. It's good that they did that.

I've always wondered if Ulrich's "we're not a 'People's Band'" quote derived from his having been raised in East Germany, a place that seems to have designed for the express purpose of making everyone who lives there hate anything that sounds even remotely like "socialism".

[provis99]

99. Ulrich is from Denmark, not East Germany.

[Ken Burch]

100. Really? I'd always heard he was from East Berlin.

So the guy had NO excuse for being a right-wing schmuck.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wickerwoman]

16. But the artist is likely only making a small fraction of the .99.

If it's anything like book royalties, it's something like 3-4% of the purchase price. (So $3-4,000 off 100,000 copies). That strikes me as a reasonable penalty.

The other $95,000 is mostly profit for the record company. And I'm not sure "damaging" their obscene profit margin is a good enough reason to bankrupt a single mom for doing something she didn't personally profit from.

And also, how many of those 100,000 would actually have bought the single? You would have to establish that before fixing damages.

[joshcryer]

41. Nah, digital distribution does give the artist some 70% or so of the profit.

But most modern independent artists are realizing that music cannot be bought if it is not known, and if cannot be known if it is not shared, so they understand that music copying and sharing is one of the single biggest ways to make their music popular.

This is one of those things Metallica failed to understand in the early days of P2P sharing.

[AllHereTruth]

26. It will never stop

Everyone i know has, at least once, downloaded or viewed something illegally. For the Record industry to single out one person is ludicrous and malicious.

They do not care about the $1.5 million. They do not expect to see a single solitary penny, it is about scare tactics. You may hate file sharing 'Tesha' but understand it is not going anywhere, and from what i understand about this case the lady involved did not have a full understanding of what she was doing. They did not go after the college student with a full hard drive of music and pirated movies, they went after a mom for a reason. To prove a point.

It may be illegal. It may be wrong. But it will never stop. To bring lawsuits of this level against one individual, yet ignore everyone else will never work.

[Tesha]

63. I'm always amused by all the DUers who feel that they can freely violate one law or another.

For many (most DUers?), it's the copyright laws.

For others, it's the marijuana laws.

Meanwhile, we complain about Republicans, who choose
to violate tax laws, or election laws; how *DARE* they?

If you don't like a law, work to change it. But we're either
a nation of laws or we're not. We're not supposed to be a
nation of all the laws I like but not the ones I don't.

Tesha

[JonLP24]

77. I like to jaywalk sometimes n/t

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

79. CRIMINAL! THROW THE BOOK AT HIM! IF YOU CAN'T DO THE TIME DON'T DO THE CRIME!

IF YOU DID NOTHING WRONG THERE'S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!

Etc.

[fasttense]

81. We are no longer a nation of laws.

Maybe sometime ago Americans followed the law but no more.

Ever since the dancing supremes violate our Constitution and picked the bushes as our president, most people only abide by laws that don't inconvenience them. Corporations violate the law routinely from murder to money laundering. The executive branch and the Attorney General ignore blatant war crimes and commit crimes on their own citizens, KKKarl Rove ignores subpoenas from congress, congress passes Bills of Attainders or ex post facto Laws (ACORN), banks forge documents and run ponzi schemes, Supreme Court Justices accept bribe money form corporations through their spouses and speaking fees.

Why do you expect average Americans to honor the law when their political, financial and business leaders ignore them? Today the only people who get prosecuted for crimes are the poor, those unlucky enough to get caught and a handy scapegoat is required, those who can't get a good attorney, and liberal activists.(Conservative activist always get a pass unless they murder someone.)

There is no honor anymore in following the law. You are considered a sucker if you do.

[Tesha]

91. Ahh, so because the Republicans stole an election it's okay for folks to steal music?

Is that the equivalency you're really trying to draw here?

Tesha

[Romulox]

156. A copyright violation isn't "stealing"--it's copyright infringement.

"Is that the equivalency you're really trying to draw here?"

You've drawn the first "equivalency" here--i.e., between copyright infringement and "stealing". :hi:

[CreekDog]

128. Does the $1.5 million fine has anything to do with the Rule of Law?

did you support all those 10-20 year sentences handed out to black people for stealing things like a loaf of bread?

[Romulox]

155. A very sensible post! nt

[joshcryer]

38. Utter nonsense.

As a software developer I would NEVER CONSIDER COPIED WORKS A LOST SALE.

The initial assumption is THAT THE INFRINGERS WOULD HAVE NEVER PAID TO BEGIN WITH.

I copy software in the same vein.

[Tesha]

66. You act as if it's a binary effect.

There isn't a binary division between those who would buy your
software and those who would only use it if they can get it for
free.

Software, just like any other product in the marketplace, has some
amount of "price elasticity" associated with it. If AutoCAD were, say,
$50, I might buy it for casual use. But if it's $500 or $5,000, I'll only
buy it if I seriously need it and can use it to make money.

The same thing is true for music, as the Apple iTunes Music Store
quite thoroughly proved. At $0.99/song, many people *ARE*
willing to pay for music rather than steal it: I'm one of them.
If you're not, that's okay. But if you then decide it's okay to
steal the music (or the software, as you seem to have admitted
above) instead, then that's an ethical choice you've made that
I can't and won't support.

Tesha

[joshcryer]

107. You didn't establish that an infringer equates a lost sale.

All you've established at most is that some people are easily duped into paying for digital media which can be effectively free. Effectively free means the internet or electric bill doesn't count, since you're paying for that anyway. And it also means the time spent searching for these free items is considered free time and not time that could be spent doing something more productive.

iPods are in fact geared toward people who infringe on copyright. It is impossible to affordably fill up ones iPod with typical music. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars of music (you might invoke full quality audio like ALAC that takes up hundreds of megabytes but you and I both know that the majority of consumers don't use those formats). I know dozens of people who have utterly full iPods with so much music it would take them weeks if not months to listen to it all on a once through playlist.

That's the real joke here. That people think that the commercial interests are not in fact benefiting from infringement. Musicians benefit from infringement because their music becomes more widespread. Companies benefit from infringement because it allows them to sell consumer goods that otherwise wouldn't be able to be utilized.

I'm not willing to pay crap for digital media. I haven't paid for digital media since Windows 3.11. Likewise, I expect no one to pay crap for digital media. That is, if they chose to be intelligent and pirate the software I make, I will not be upset. If anything I will admire them for their intelligence.

[Tesha]

119. I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

> It is impossible to affordably fill up ones iPod with typical music.

All of our iPods and iPhones are chock-full of music compressed
at typical MP3/AAC data rates and *ALL OF IT LEGALLY PURCHASED*.
Then again, Mr. Tesha and I have always made our living because
people are willing to pay for the software we write, so we're sensitive
to the idea that a crook might come along and destroy the value in
all of our work.

Tesha

[joshcryer]

122. Apple claims in their very FAQ that iPods can hold thousands if not tens of thousands of tracks.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA44535?viewlocale=en_US#faq11

Please spare me the nonsense. I know damn well what people use iPods for and it ain't "legally downloaded music." Apple knows what people use iPods for, which is why they end their FAQ with "Don't steal music."

If they cared about people stealing music they would not have removed DRM from music on the iTunes store. They even had the audacity to force users to upgrade to iTunes-plus to convert their DRM'd music to non-DRM'd music. A clear example of Apple profiting from a lack of copyright diligence. They're enablers.

At least we're both consistent. I write software, I don't care if it's "stolen" (infringement is not theft). You write software and you a perfect person who would never ever infringe.

Once you can put an exabyte in your pocket, and it will happen, people will be hard pressed to fill their devices with anything but illegal content. We'll have people walking around with all media ever made, and there's nothing you or anyone can do about it.

Times, they are a changin'.

[Tesha]

130. Why don't you just call me a liar to my face?

Mt iPods/iPhones/iEtc. have Apple's promised "tens of thousands
of tracks" on them. Every one of those tracks is legally acquired.

And when an Exabyte fits in my pocket, then my iDevice will be
full of video that I legally acquired.

Tesha

[joshcryer]

134. An exabyte will hold all media ever made, you won't be able to fill it up entirely.

I'm not calling you a liar. I know one person (one) who has a thousand CDs and she put them all in iTunes. But even she was not immune from infringement. Tonight I'll be sending this wonderful person The Walking Dead because times are tough and she can't afford to pay for cable. Is she an evil person who should be punished for copyright infringement? Bah.

[Tesha]

139. An Exabyte isn't as big as you think.

> An exabyte will hold all media ever made, you won't be able to fill it up entirely.

Let's test that idea, shall we?

A Blu-ray movie is about 25 GB using its typical lossy compression.
That means that 40 Blu-ray movies fit in a terabyte. 40,000 movies
fit in a Petabyte. 40,000,000 Blu-ray movies fit in an Exabyte. Okay,
that's more movies have ever been made (Wikipedia reports slightly
over 500,000), but the 12.5 Petabytes or so that those movies represent
is already a pretty significant fraction of an Exabyte, and we are, of
course, talking about significantly-compressed video; as raw,
uncompressed video, we're probably talking in the range of that
exabyte right now.

Tesha

[joshcryer]

142. Oh yes, the "raw uncompressed" argument.

Everyone uses FLAC and ALAC and it's ideal, didn't you know?

[Tesha]

143. Everyone also knows that FLAC and ALAC are audio, and we've switched to talking about Video.

And the lossless codecs only manage about a 50% compression
ratio anyway; good, but not enough to offset your sneering at
"the raw uncompressed" argument.

But nice try to divert the argument.

Tesha

[joshcryer]

144. Oh, not intended, was just giving examples. Add "RAW" AVI into there.

Yes I'm sneering at the argument because the fact remains that people are moving to more and more compressed formats. Already HD video is using H264 which results in higher quality files for only a doubling in file size. Indeed, many of those Blu-Rays you talk about can have a 5 time size reduction without any noticeable quality drop for the vast, overwhelming majority of users.

[Occulus]

73. Did she share 100,000 whole, usable files?

Or are we counting incomplete, unplayable files as well? Because if we are, that's just unbelievably unfair; it's like calling a pot seed as a whole plant.

Further, I just cannot bring myself to believe she shared full files to 100,000 people. That's way too much data, and since she probably had a consumer internet provider, her upload and download speeds were almost certainly not in parity. She might have had 10Mb down, but she probably had something like 500Kb up.

They do this to prevent exactly the sort of action we're being sold on here, by the way. If they're counting partials as complete violations (and a partial file can be mere kilobytes), they're only trying to make an example out of her and expect the penalty to be reduced substantially on appeal.

The law really ought to be changed. The retail landscape has undergone a complete paradigm shift (as all us geek out there knew would happen). We can now buy music directly from our phones. We don't need- and do not want- brick-and-mortar outlets selling physical copies any more; they're closing up shop across the country as I type. The physical copy itself is quickly on its own way to being a dinosaur.

Artists, but in a very much sterner and more offensive sense publishers and studios, need to understand that they cannot expect multimillion-dollar lifestyles and international-star-level concert tours, aka, "perks". Your creations are worth exactly $.99 to $2.99 per, and you're just going to have to learn to live with that. If you can't sell it directly to tens, dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people at that price, then frankly, it doesn't deserve to be paid for in the first place.

If you sell your music to millions directly- as we now can- you'll make bank.

Music sharing is borne from a frustration with being served crap on a disc. That activity literally forced the paradigm shift I spoke of. I saw it coming long and long- I haven't bought a CD since about 1995 or so- and these lawsuits and jury awards have always been nothing more than the final, pain-wracked, flailing death throes of an industry that refused to change, refused to adapt, refused to do anything but shoot itself in the foot.

Many good artists today "get it" and deliver their works online, some via iTunes, some via other services, some via their own websites. That's where the pain the studios are feeling is coming from, not 'illegal' sharing. The generation of people who aren't yet wearing (or are refusing to wear) suits as armor and wielding stacks of paper as swords realize that. The People in Charge are on their way out, know it, and are only trying to keep it from happening until they are gone, done with their working life.

That's where this shite comes from. Nobody is actually losing a dime but the suits behind the glitz, and they know it.

The complaint is a scam.

[Tesha]

90. 500 Kb/s can share files.

Let's take 5 MBytes as the average size of a pretty-good
quality MP3/AAC/etc. That's 40 Mbits. A 500 Kb/s link
will move that file in 80 seconds. There are 86,400 seconds
in a day so in round numbers, you can share out over a
thousand songs a day, in full. In about three months,
you can share out 100,000 songs.

But since you're not personally losing any money over
this, it's all okay, right? A lot of DUers have very flexible
ethics.

Tesha

[BillH76]

145. The artist gets a nickel a song and the writer gets a penny.

This is not about protecting artists or writers. It's about protecting record company profits.

[joshcryer]

39. She likely just left the program that shared on in the background.

Back in those days we'd use IRC DCC servers, community building and all, but we didn't do it because we thought that we'd get sued for it. Yaknow, sharing is a cool thing.

[Tesha]

67. That's a choice she made. (NT)

[joshcryer]

108. Actually, the software in question defaulted to running in the background.

A novice user may have overlooked something that simple, and indeed, may not have even been aware that it was sharing music. A novice user may have even believed that they were simply accessing a legitimate service where music was available.

Of course, I advocate willful infringement of copyright, but what can I say, it's quite possible for someone to be ignorant of their actions (which is why in this case I am against copyright).

[Occulus]

112. Not only that, but more often than not, there's a minimum speed the uploads can be set to

Many Bittorrent clients, for example, make an upload speed of 0Kb/sec mean "unlimited". Set it to zero, and it actually uploads as fast as your connection can handle.

That is something that does confuse the novice.

"A novice user may have even believed that they were simply accessing a legitimate service where music was available."

For a lot of content, torrents and other sharing sites really are legitimate sources, which is one reason they cannot be gotten rid of completely.

[joshcryer]

115. You can't really get rid of them because consumers would just ditch the commercial internet...

...providers and emancipate the spectrum for themselves.

Basically every internet service provider knows that a good huge portion of their bandwidth is used for copyright infringement. Hell, there's YouTube, a site that makes boatloads of money off of copyright infringement. Google itself is the greatest piracy engine known to man. Don't believe me? Think of a movie you want, type the name of it, and end it with ".avi" or ".torrent" or for even more hilarity, end it with "megaupload" or "hotfile" or "rapidshare."

You can directly download almost any movie known to man.

Netflix? I remember when that service came out and the pirates were giddy beyond expectations. For a one month fee you could get as many movies sent to you that you could rip. I know several people who built massive movie collections in this way.

The markets realized that this was crazy, that bittorrent and other sites were providing a solution to people who wanted digital media. In some respects it worked itself out, as there are dozens of sites now who provide movies and TV shows direct to your computer or Home Theater PC or gaming console.

But the poor people? Those people who can't afford the $50 a month subscriptions? The people who can't afford to download a show they like to the tune of $20 a month? They're not going to care and they're going to infringe anyway. And maybe they'll be ignorant and think what they're doing is legal, but in the end it's not.

Copyright law from my POV is meant to hurt those who cannot afford to enjoy digital media, and that is precisely why I am against it.

[Tesha]

120. Did her PC come equipped from the factory with music-stealing software?

Or did she choose to load it onto the PC herself?

Tesha

[joshcryer]

123. The software was never advertized as "music-stealing software."

[Tesha]

131. No, just "file sharing (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) software". (NT)

[joshcryer]

138. Yeah, because sharing is a bad thing.

:rolleyes:

[Tesha]

140. Well, as applied by most folks, it is illegal. (NT)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

75. So the 1.5 mil fine is just swell, huh?

No way, let me guess: "If you don't want to do the time don't do the crime." :eyes:

[Tesha]

92. Maybe we need the concept of "Day Fines" in this country?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine

Tesha

[joshcryer]

109. Maybe instead we need to abolish copyright, since it is arguably the biggest crime...

...committed on a daily basis.

[Chan790]

113. As a writer, artist and creator of IP...

f**k everybody who feels I do not have a legal right to the fruits of my labor.

Next time I can't meet the rent or want to buy an Encore lasagna or a frozen pizza, I'm going to hitchhike to your place of employment and steal shit to sell on the internet. If I get caught, I'll tell them you gave me permission.

(Fucking useless anarchists!)

[joshcryer]

114. Physical theft is highly distinct from copyright and copyright terms keep increasing:

As an artist, myself, I appreciate people enjoying my works more than I would ever want them to suffer for enjoying my works.

Copyright is an archaic concept that will die in due course (one can argue that it is already mostly dead in the information age).

[Tesha]

121. Intellectual property is still property and theft of it is still theft. (NT)

[joshcryer]

124. "Intellectual property" is a capitalist invention that requires draconian laws to enforce.

You cannot enforce "intellectual property" in the information age, which is why infringement is rampant.

[joeglow3]

129. I bet you are a consumer and not a producer

Translation: "I want free shit and those who create it are greedy."

[joshcryer]

135. You would be wrong, I make music, I have written novels, and I write software.

You haven't been following my comments in this thread.

[joeglow3]

148. I am saying you would love China

Someone invests a ton of time and money making something, the government reverse engineers it, steals the prints and puts you out of business.

[joshcryer]

151. If my business relies on the authoritarian enforcement of draconian laws...

...then I don't want it.

[joeglow3]

153. You can use whatever buzzwords you want. It is stealing.

What are your thoughts on the movie "Flash of Genius?"

[Tesha]

133. You're from the Richard Stallman school of IP; thankfully, not everyone is. (NT)

[joshcryer]

136. Unfortunately a few still aren't, but most people are coming around.

I hope you live to see the day copyright is simply ignored, but that's still a few decades out.

[Tesha]

118. Copyright isn't a crime, even though many folks here would like...

...to believe it is in order to justify their outright theft of
the work of many artists.

Tesha

[joshcryer]

125. Theft = taking something you own. Copyright infringement = making a copy of something you claim...

You have a pencil in your hand, I take it from you without your permission, I have deprived you of the pencil, you no longer have the pencil, I have stolen it from you.

You have a music file on your computer and you left the public share folder open on your open wifi access point. I make a copy of it. You may not even know I have made a copy of it because you are not deprived of the file.

I am not surprised by the lack of progressive ideas on DU, but I am surprised that I'm not being very convincing. That only happens when I'm talking to diehard Austrian-school conservatives.

http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part1/

http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/

Times, they are a changin'.

[Tesha]

132. No, I'm only deprived of some portion of my monetary rights to the file.

In other words, you stole something from me by taking it without
compensating me for it, the same compensation that others willing
provide in trade for my product.

Tesha

[joshcryer]

137. Only on DU are there "progressives" who believe in Austrian-school economics.

[Riftaxe]

149. If you really think like that, surely

giving us a "copy" of your credit card numbers should be no problem then?

[joshcryer]

152. Don't have credit, but I do have debit. Are you planning to deprive me of actual money?

If not there's no philosophical harm in giving you the card number, but the implication from your post is to use my card number to deprive me of funds.

This is akin to my copying the pin number down to your safe. The act of copying the pin number down has deprived you of absolutely nothing. It's the act of using that pin number to steal your physical property that does so.

[virgogal]

3. If I got fined $10,000.00 I'd be very upset,if I got fined $1.92 million I'd just laugh

and hold my arms out for the cuffs,

[DBoon]

4. she should have just shoplifted them from Best Buy

much lighter penalty for stealing merchandise than stealing "intellectual property"

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. can she pick up a part time job?

Just kidding

[Kolesar]

8. John Fogarty of Creedence Clearwater Revival got screwed by his record company

He could not get out of his record company contract and they were paying him about nothing.

Most artists get poor contracts from their record companies.

[liberation]

15. Wasn't he sued by his former record company when he got solo?

The lawsuit was centered around the fact that his solo stuff sounded too similar to his Credence work, you know... he being the singer and using his own voice and all. Apparently the record company felt they owned his voice and was expecting him to conduct his solo career in falsetto or something...

[Ken Burch]

17. Fogerty did a song about that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dqvHYvpyr4&feature=related

(note: The title was changed to "VANZ CANT DANZ" a few months after original release when Fogerty was threatened with a crippling lawsuit by Fantasy Records scumbag Saul Zaentz, for whom the song was originally and deservedly named).

[newscott]

20. Sad part for Fogerty was....

He actually got sold out by his band members. He set up the band where they each had a 25% voting right on all decisions. The other 3 members voted to sell the rights off. John, who did all the writing, most of the playing and recording got screwed. He didn't even talk to his brother when his brother was sick and dying in the hospital from cancer.

[Ken Burch]

21. I think Zaentz took advantage ot Tom's lack fo self-confidence.

Tom assumed that his career as a musician was over when the band broke up, and Zaentz probably told him that he'd take care of him better than John would.

(Actually, John DID go visit his brother near the end, and when he did, the last thing Tom said to him was "Saul Zaentz is my friend". Sad how a weak person can be turned like that.)

[newscott]

29. Thanks for refreshing my memory

I read that a long time ago. I'm sure the guys in the band was taken advantage of. It's part and parcel of the music industry.

[underpants]

64. I think I still have the tape with "Zaentz can't Dance" as the title of the song

It was the album with "Centerfield" on it

[Ken Burch]

102. I think "Centerfield" was the name of the album, IIRC.

n/t.

[Control-Z]

28. Yes. And this is all about protecting

the profits of the recording companies, not the artists as the article claims.

[joshcryer]

40. Exactly, most real artists couldn't care less about downloads.

[hankthecrank]

9. her trial was up in Duluth

when it started I was sure little people on jury would tell record asshats to go pound san

[Confusious]

10. As the saying goes

"The law, in all it's majesty, keeps the poor and rich alike from sleeping under a bridge"

[Mosaic]

12. Just

Dismiss the case.

[ZombieHorde]

18. Is DU anti copyright? I may have to do a poll. nt

[Ken Burch]

22. You can enforce copyright without imposing insanely large fines.

And those fines were ONLY going to go to the record labels, if they were ever paid. We can assume the bands wouldn't see a penny of them.

There's no good reason to defend the RIAA on this. It doesn't give a shit about musicians.

[Heywood J]

23. I don't know about DU,

but I'm not anti-copyright (provided it's reasonable), I'm just anti-RIAA and anti-MPAA.

They treat customers like thieves and trash, then wonder why sales are down and people are out to screw them.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

32. It's the usual fallacy of "tough on crime" types.

You: Punishment X for crime Y? That's too much!
Idiot: Oh, so you think doing Y is all right, huh?

[ArcticFox]

35. Copyright has gone too far

It used to protect a work for something like 20 years. Now its protecting something like 100 years. And, literally, every time Mickey Mouse got to be about as old as he could be protected, the protection has been extended. It's the Mickey Mouse law.

I am anti-copyright for any time longer than a patent enjoys protection. It's all intellectual property. One should not be protected longer than the other.

[brentspeak]

19. She should have started an illegal war n/t

[ManiacJoe]

24. How does one illegally share over 1700 songs

and not expect to get caught?!?!?!?

[boppers]

34. It was the heady days of Napster/Limewire/KaZaa

Since people were never prosecuted, nobody thought much about consequences.... she's the first to go to trial, and that's been going back and forth since 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas

[joshcryer]

37. That assumes that people running a piece of software expect to get in trouble...

...for running it. You leave Bittorrent open long enough you'll get sued in quick order.

[alp227]

25. I think that Justin Bieber should be fined that much for making %^* music.

Why oh why do the feds enforce the copyright laws in such a shitty way to target poorer people and let untalented hacks like Justin Bieber and Taio Cruz get away with their abuses of the First Amendment?

[Ken Burch]

96. Screw that. He should be fined for that hairstyle.

He even kept the "Bieber-do" when he played a teenage crime suspect on "CSI".

[jmowreader]

27. I'm scratching my head here, folks. Help me out

According to the MSNBC piece, Ms. Thomas-Rasset shared 1700-plus songs. How did they pick the 24 they wanted to go after her for?

[angstlessk]

30. they checked their bank accounts first??? n/t

[jmm]

31. She gets fined with more money than she'll ever make but BP is already making a profit again?

It's easy to be tough on crime when a single mother is involved but the resources used to make an example of here would be better used going after companies committing bigger crimes.

[divineorder]

89. One thing I find ironic

Is that the record companies have probably spent way more in prosecuting this woman than they are asking for. If that's the case, they have lost even if they eventually win their case.

I think the whole thing is overkill and unjust. If they wanted to make a point, they should have fined her say $1000, and called it a day. At least they would have collected the thousand and made their point.

I bet real music pirates (of the bootleg CD kind) don't get as much attention from the RIAA. Maybe it's because taking on the MOB might mean some folks have to run from bullets. A single mother who downloaded a thousand songs is not so threatening to them personally.

[Dogmudgeon]

33. The RIAA and MPAA strategy: ALWAYS attack the weak

Single moms. Teenagers. Old folks. Minorities.

Do you think they'd go after a 40-year-old professional who knows his or her rights, had friends in the legal world, and was itching to kick the RIAA's ass?

They haven't yet.

I'm also pissed off at the musicians. (I except Courtney Love and a few others for speaking out against Rock and Roll Barratry.) Musicians are a class of artists who have profitably styled themselves as rebels, reformers, and revolutionaries for 50 years or more; bourgeois millionaires posing as workingmen. It is time for them to live up to their "street rep". The music world DESPERATELY needs a new rights organization that only pursues reasonable remedies, and pursues infringement without prejudice. Long ago, such artists' revolts happened with the creation of ASCAP and United Artists. It's time for another.

--d!

[underpants]

65. and do you know who the leading voice (hired gun) for the RIAA used to be?

Congressman...... Sonny Bono

He was the champion of intellectual property and anti-public domain laws

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

71. I like trees. -nt

[underpants]

80. OUCH!

The beat goes on

[Odin2005]

36. I HATE these fuckers!

:grr:

[24601]

70. Who? People who steal from others or the juries that convict

them? Certainly you don't mean creative artists who are the victims? And what percent of proper royalties find their way into progressive campaigns. I don't think the single parent contributions would keep anybody viable for long.

Seriously, it's sad when people have an entitlement mentality that they don't want to pay for the work of others so that they can just take it for free. We aren't talking about food or medicine here but fucking entertainment - not a necessity. And this is the closest that creative artists have to a union protecting their rights. They are the working people of this industry.

[JonLP24]

76. AFAIK

it wasn't creative artists that sued but the record labels. Record labels already make a ton of money off of album sales, the creative artists really don't get much off of that. They make money off of going on the road, playing concerts. So if I were to guess, is that he hates record labels.

Right or wrong, $1.5 million is bullshit.

[Bo]

42. Single mom can't pay $1.5M song-sharing fine

Source: msnbc

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota woman ordered to pay a recording industry trade group $1.5 million for illegally sharing music online doesn't plan to pay those damages as her attorneys continue to argue the amount is unconstitutional, she said Thursday.

A federal jury found Wednesday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, of Brainerd, must pay $62,500 per song — for a total of $1.5 million — for illegally violating copyrights on 24 songs. This was the third jury to consider damages in her case, and each has found that she must pay — though different amounts.

And after each time, the single mother of four has said she can't pay.

"I can't afford to pay any amount. It's not a matter of won't, it's a matter of 'I can't,'" Thomas-Rasset said Thursday. "Any amount that I pay to them is money that I could use to feed my children. Any amount that I pay to them is money I could use to clothe my kids, and pay my mortgage so my kids have a place to sleep."



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40030700/ns/technology_and_science-security/?GT1=43001

[sakabatou]

43. And people wonder why we hate these copyright folk

[comtec]

44. and yet even here the RIAA will be defended

disgusting!
it's not like the artists actually get any of that money anyway.
it all goes to executives.
what utter bullshit.

[Bo]

45. Single mom can't pay $1.5M song-sharing fine

Source: msnbc

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota woman ordered to pay a recording industry trade group $1.5 million for illegally sharing music online doesn't plan to pay those damages as her attorneys continue to argue the amount is unconstitutional, she said Thursday.

A federal jury found Wednesday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, of Brainerd, must pay $62,500 per song — for a total of $1.5 million — for illegally violating copyrights on 24 songs. This was the third jury to consider damages in her case, and each has found that she must pay — though different amounts.

And after each time, the single mother of four has said she can't pay.

"I can't afford to pay any amount. It's not a matter of won't, it's a matter of 'I can't,'" Thomas-Rasset said Thursday. "Any amount that I pay to them is money that I could use to feed my children. Any amount that I pay to them is money I could use to clothe my kids, and pay my mortgage so my kids have a place to sleep."



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40030700/ns/technology_and_science-security/?GT1=43001

[FiveGoodMen]

46. The RIAA must be stopped

And the whole IP rights issue needs to be revisited.

[Umbral]

60. And who is going to do it? Legislation empowering the RIAA and MPAA comes straight from Democrats

Not Blue Dogs, New Way or Third Way Democrats either. It's Dems like Waxman, Leahy, Conyers and others, all of whom support and are supported by the RIAA and MPAA. I don't imagine Republicans being sympathetic (especially Orrin Hatch) - except as a possible way to damage industries friendly to Democrats. Face it, the people are fucked in this situation, you can see it in the way these organizations, even here at DU, are supported by Democrats.

[Demonaut]

47. theft is theft

can't pay the fine don't do the crime



thank god I did all my downloads in late late 90's ....no watchdogs then

[Merlot]

48. Can they prove the artist lost $62K in sales from her download?

Did she profit off the downloads?

[onenote]

58. don't have to

that's what the concept of statutory damages is all about.

[camio]

49. Pathetic. NT.

[Systematic Chaos]

50. So when there are no "watchdogs" it's okay?

Stay classy.

[joshcryer]

54. Wow, I don't know what's worse.

You thinking that this is tantamount to theft.

Or you admonishing someone for doing something you did yourself, and apparently bragging that you had no repercussions for it.

Wow.

[Pavulon]

56. wow class act.(nt)

[LanternWaste]

84. I have few doubts your strict adherenc

I have few doubts your strict adherence to your personal interpretation of consequences applies to doing 65 on a zoned 60 highway also.

[Cleobulus]

111. No it is not theft, if it was it would have had a maximum fine of 5,000 dollars or so...

I really hate fucking ignorant jackasses abuse the language this way, copyright infringement is a different crime altogether, one that carries a hell of a lot of heftier fines.

[skepticscott]

51. So why exactly is this unconstitutional?

Excessive, perhaps, but what does a jury award in a civil case have to do with the Constitution?

[TheMadMonk]

57. I believe it would come under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment.

Her per song fine is roughly on a par with the sort of fine handed out for a workplace death.

That makes it just a little bit more than excessive.

If the recording industry were equally compensated for every single "bootleg recording" that exists on computers, iPods, etc. their cash reserves would rise to some ludicrous multiple of the Global Domestic Product.

[onenote]

59. no. the constitutional bar on cruel and unusual punishment is limited to criminal cases

This is a civil case. The issue would be whether the damages award is so excessive that it violates due process.

BTW, the defendant reportedly was offered the opportunity to settle for $25K with the money donated to a musicians charity, but turned that down, which may turn out to be a major mistakke.

[skepticscott]

62. It would if this were a real fine

imposed for criminal punishment (which is covered by the 8th Amendment). But despite the headline, it doesn't sound from the story as if that's what this is. This is a jury award for damages in a civil suit for copyright infringement, which makes the argument of unconstitutionality a bit of a stretch.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

72. So excessive punishment is OK for civil cases?

They can fine you Graham's Number dollars for illegal parking?

[skepticscott]

78. I never said the amount she had to pay was "OK"

But this is not a fine, as covered by the 8th Amendment, it is an award for damages, by a jury, in a civil lawsuit (which is NOT the same thing as a civil violation enforced by the government). The question of constitutionality under the 8th Amendment doesn't apply.

[Romulox]

157. The SCOTUS has held that excessive punitive damages may constitute a violation of due process

"few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process." State Farm v Campbell, 548 U.S. 408 (2003).

[RKP5637]

52. We need to get that federal jury after wall street, bankers and the real crooks. n/t

[and-justice-for-all]

53. Well of course she can't...nt

[joshcryer]

55. MODS, dupe:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4603194&mesg_id=4603194

[agincourt]

61. terrible press for the music industry

news like this just drives people away from buying music. These lawsuits look ridiculous, executives killing an industry, like they do so often in America.

[jerseyjack]

69. Again, Jury Nullification ---

learn about it.

[AmandaMae]

82. They shouldn't be allowed to try to make an example of her like this.

I don't agree with illegally downloading music, but come on, $80,000 per song? Obviously they know they can't persecute every single person who shares music files so they think if they go overboard on charging a few people it will discourage others.

[mainer]

85. I think the issue is really the defendant's attitude in court

Isn't this the woman who got caught lying on the stand and showing contempt for the proceedings? That may be why they threw the book at her.

[Xithras]

86. Meh. File BK. Clear it.

Should be trivial for a single working mom to prove that she can't possibly pay a $1.5 million dollar fine.

The recording industry would have been better off pursuing smaller fines. A violator will feel real pain if they're forced to pay out thousands of dollars in fines, but when you get into the six figure range you're simply inviting bankruptcy. Her "punishment" will be a few years of bad credit.

Per the EFF: "Debts arising from copyright infringement judgments are generally dischargeable
in personal bankruptcy proceedings unless the creditor (i.e., the copyright owner) can
prove that the judgment constitutes a debt for a “willful and malicious injury” within the
meaning of 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6). Moreover, because the legal standards for “willful and
malicious injury” differ from those governing “willful infringement” under the Copyright
Act, even a willful infringement judgment may be dischargeable in bankruptcy."

[Beaverhausen]

87. Record companies employ real, actual people who are paid salaries

Not all record company employees are high paid executives. Most record companies employ thousands of people who just want to keep their jobs. So did Tower Records and the other record stores who are no longer around.

Keep this in mind when you talk about how happy you are that record companies are being screwed.

Disclaimer- I'm a real, actual person who works at a film studio and is pissed when people are so cavalier about downloading movies illegally.

[Withywindle]

93. This is a very good point.

(Lived with a Tower employee who was laid off after many years - it was awful.) The thing is, it's ALWAYS the "little people" who get screwed. The record-store workers. The record-company staff. The artists themselves. The fans who just want music but face exorbitant prices. ($20 for a CD? Really? REALLY?)

BUT...I have a lot of sympathy for resentment against the vampires at the very top. I'll start to think about crying for them when they actually start paying so many great recording artists the billions and billions they're collectively owed.

How many times have you read recently about a great musician living in a shack/working as a bus driver/dying because of no health insurance? I have seen all too many of these.

[Blandocyte]

105. Sorry it costs so much to make the product

that is not worth nearly as much to the people who consume it.

[joshcryer]

110. I have hundreds of gigs of movies I will likely never ever watch.

I mean we're talking half a lifetime worth of movies. I will never watch the vast majority of them. But I have them. Why? Because I can. Because it comes at almost no cost to myself. At this point what should I "pay" to the executives who make these films? Well, that's tricky. Simply having access to the data could be no different from having access to a library. Indeed, libraries are granted, by copyright code in the United States, ability to freely copy things at will. Indeed, libraries now are producing whole works in e-book form, so that card holders may have access to a time bombed pdf file (it stops being readable after a certain period of time).

Eventually film studios are going to have to adapt, just as music artists are slowly adapting. Music artists are realizing that free distribution gets their works more widespread, and that microtransactions are actually quite livable. Filmmaking is going to increasingly move to the digital side of things, until we don't even have human actors anymore, and that'll be an interesting thing to see, to be honest.

[BolivarianHero]

127. And that's why we need a guaranteed minimum income...

Changes in technological and distribution models will often make the only knowledge and skillset that many people develop obsolete. But that should never be grounds for allowing industry elites to blackmail the rest of us.

[herostarlette]

88. I wouldn't pay it either

Those prices are simply ludicrous for songs.

[Canuckistanian]

97. What kind of a jury would impose such a fine?

What was their motivation for increasing the damage amount by that much?

Is this such a horrendous crime that it merits a $1.5 mil punishment?

WTF is wrong with people?

[skepticscott]

101. This was not a crime

and the 1.5 million was not punishment. This was a civil suit for copyright infringement, and the 1.5 million was a jury award for damages. You might try understanding that before you weigh in on this debate.

[Name removed]

104. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[laconicsax]

106. Assessed penalty in civil suit. Not a crime. n/t

[skepticscott]

117. Spare me the bluster

Typical of you to try to paint me as the bad guy to cover your own lack of understanding of the facts in this case. But the facts remain that this was not a criminal fine, or even a civil one.

[dogknob]

98. It's funny to watch

...the RIAA. They are totally irrelevant and dying and trying to prolong their existence through litigation. Just another example of untalented, cynical people trying to regulate the rest of us because they can't do anything cool on their own.

[Blandocyte]

103. I haven't heard much commercial music that's worth paying for

Why doesn't the RIAA sue radio-- radio plays the shit and anyone can record it. RIAA realizes radio promotes the shit, tho. So, hey, just consider this lady promoting the shit, too. There, I fixed it. Just because it takes so much to produce Lady Gaga or Far East Movement doesn't mean it's worth the money the record company spent. Fuck 'em. A free download of that crap is about what it should cost.

[Evasporque]

116. she cant ever pay that amount...life in prison...GOP law...nt

[Honeycombe8]

126. That sounds like waaaaay too much. But when you steal other people's work....

I guess you can expect to have to answer for it.

It didn't have to go to Court. If she had simply paid for the songs she stole in the first place. But she chose to go to Court? Just how stupid IS this woman?

[JackRiddler]

141. Cruel and unusual. But it's only a natural person, not a corporation.

[Prometheus Bound]

147. $1.5 mil's a nice number.

This should be standard for jaywalking, littering, car honking, forgetting to feed the parking meter, looking at a person in authority in the wrong way, and other similar nasty crimes.

[Skittles]

150. scheduling Prometheus Bound for ass kicking

if he had his way, I'd be fined billions each year for car honking :mad:

[durkermaker]

154. I first saw a heavy handed RIAA warning on a Rush 2112 album

and i felt like using it for a frisbee

[Romulox]

158. Rush = Ayn Rand devotees. Also, their music is awful. nt

[durkermaker]

159. ......

\