Members Mediterranean Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Debt for life.. As described in the article, that's a mind-blowing $80,000 per song. The mp3s would have cost her 99 cents each had she paid for the downloads. Do you think the damages she was ordered to pay are fair? http://www.switched.com/tag/jammiethomas http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/minnesota.music.download.fine/index.html Among other [interesting] things: a torrent site fined 3.54 million bucks and 1 year in slammer for its owners: Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members crazycarl Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 She wasn't fined for downloading. She was fined for fighting the charges. That's how the American justice system works.That said that's pretty insanely excessive. She must have pissed off the judge and/or jury at trial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MM420 Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Good. Stealing music is wrong. Copy right is very important. If you steal music, you should be fined heavily. If you host stolen music, it should be jail time. This is one of the laws I heavily agree with. In fact, I think they are too lax. It is no different than breaking into someone's house and stealing jewerly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members zzzxtreme Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 personally for me, if audio CDs are sold at most same price as cassettes, then I would agree. im glad to be a vinylphile though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnCap Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 The key to government is making sure nearly all people break the law on a regular basis. Downloaders are not the problem, the business model of trying to sell something with zero marginal cost of production is the problem. I say this as someone who works in a business that is almost 100% idea based. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MartinHines Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 That lady was an idiot. She was sharing hundreds of songs and got caught. She could have settled the case out of court for a few thousand dollars, but someone convinced her it was smarter to fight it out in court. The law is on the side of the copyright owners, and if you get caught you can be held liable to the "tune of" tens of thousands of dollars per song. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members McHale Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SoundwaveLove Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Good. Stealing music is wrong. Copy right is very important. If you steal music, you should be fined heavily. If you host stolen music, it should be jail time. This is one of the laws I heavily agree with. In fact, I think they are too lax. It is no different than breaking into someone's house and stealing jewerly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fuzzball24 Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Lol @ people who listen to mainstream artists that only care about money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Hamburglar Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 The punishment's ludicrous and she's an idiot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Real MC Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Good. Stealing music is wrong. Copy right is very important. If you steal music, you should be fined heavily. If you host stolen music, it should be jail time. This is one of the laws I heavily agree with. In fact, I think they are too lax. It is no different than breaking into someone's house and stealing jewerly. And this is the same industry that was convicted of price fixing in the CD market. This is the same industry that thrives on "copying" the latest style to jump on the "me-too" bandwagon. This is the same industry that engages in "hollywood accounting" to screw artists out of royalties. Same industry that screws customers by packaging garbage songs with the sole hit single on a CD and sells it for $18. Same industry that promised that prices would come down with mass production, which never happened since the introduction of the CD in 1985. Dear industry, When you point a finger at someone there are three more pointing back at you. Love, the disgruntled customer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BonsoWonderDog Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 The punishment's ludicrous and she's an idiot. This. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members McHale Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members evildragon Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 As per above three posts, +1. The fine is not fair at all. But she made a fool out of herself. The Real MC raises all great points I hate about music industry and why Internet is a great place to freely distribute music - it's the cheapest way to do it, and you can do it by yourself, without corporate weasels jumping at you and using you as their toy. That's why music labels are going down - they just don't accept this new form of music exchange and they're losing their money on it, because they won't adapt propertly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members soundwave106 Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 The Real MC raises all great points I hate about music industry and why Internet is a great place to freely distribute music - it's the cheapest way to do it, and you can do it by yourself, without corporate weasels jumping at you and using you as their toy. That's why music labels are going down - they just don't accept this new form of music exchange and they're losing their money on it, because they won't adapt propertly. In defense of the music industry, it's difficult to make a business model out of a bunch of hobbyists sharing things freely. Even the Interwebs is finding this out -- social networking, for all the business buzz, hasn't made money yet (in general), either. So, yeah, they are struggling. It's a great time to be a music hobbyist, though. I think that things are way less lucrative for the big pro musicians, but more hobbyists can have some fun. If I were a CD company, I'd ditch the printing presses and get into making music gear. It's funny contrasting the views here with the endless views on the business forum. The music industry's legendary shabby treatment of musicians and consumers definitely helped popularize file sharing, in my viewpoint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Goofball Jones Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 It is no different than breaking into someone's house and stealing jewerly. Actually, would be more like someone buying someone's jewelery, then making an exact copy of it thousands of times over and giving it all away to anyone that wanted it. No place was broken into....so that's a bad analogy. The property wasn't deprived from the person as it would be if you stole an actual object either. I know you're a troll, but try harder next time. I have no problems with this hurting the major record labels and the RIAA...as they've made billions and billions on the backs of musicians for decades, with many artists seeing only a VERY small percentage of those profits. Do some research on the old coal-mining "company store" scheme that kept people virtually enslaved...this is basically the same thing the record companies did to their artists. Downloading a song illegally mainly hurts the record executive trying to buy his third house in the Bahamas. Artists should try what Trent Reznor suggested in his blog a few months ago and just forgo all record companies. They're useless middle-men that over-promise and under-deliver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members evildragon Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Artists should try what Trent Reznor suggested in his blog a few months ago and just forgo all record companies. They're useless middle-men that over-promise and under-deliver. This. I don't listen much to NIN, but I admire Trent and his way of work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members evildragon Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Very good observation, xmlguy, sir! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Hamburglar Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 And let's not forget stuff you can't even really buy in stores. How would I have "Bo Diddley's Beach Party" without piracy! Wired had an interesting comment about piracy. They said that if you can purchase music or view a movie online, you should utilize that outlet. If you can't access it online, due to a failure of the copyright holder's failure to measure up to the times, then go for pirating it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 I buy most of my music on iTunes. I have no problem paying for it--the cost is such that if I exceed my money budget I am downloading music faster than I can listen to it, which is stupid. Why is stuff available on iTunes and not just as CDs in stores? Because online piracy gave Apple a lever for getting permission to take music retail online at all; the record companies were terrified of a change in their business model and would still be selling plasticware only given the chance. I don't support people consuming what they haven't compensated the creators for. But I'm more than content with the way the market is going and I suspect I can, in part, thank the free-downloaders for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Yoozer Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Here's something that grinds my gears. Companies, take a listen, or don't, and go down wailing. Perhaps people who make music because they love it will be left, and we'll be better off for it. You used to ship a bunch of vinyl or plastic to a country. At the other end of the shipping line someone had to wait for the stuff to come in, and then to transport it and re-sell it. This is what leads to distributors in every country. Since the internet is actually global and lots of people are perfectly OK with buying a file instead of a disc, you no longer need these guys when records are released. Why exactly does this mean I can't buy your music from Amazon if I want to? I mean, it's not like there's a guy waiting for plastic discs at the Amsterdam Internet Exchange. People, I've got money, and I'd love to give it to you. Why do you refuse to take it? Instead of 300 million customers you now have 6.7 billion customers, none of who care about that guy waiting for that plastic disc. Get this through your head. Read http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/competing-with-the-singleminded.html if you want to understand. There is no reason to allow expensive vinyl to be re-sold for insane amounts of money on eBay just because you can't be bothered to record the masters once again and republish them. It's not like you make any money off that, and it frustrates customers. Forget your remastering; it'll make it sound like {censored} anyway. Don't keep the back catalog locked away; publish it. Copyright was an agreement between The People and you set up in such a way that by granting you a limited right to monopoly the arts and sciences would profit. The keyword in this deal was "limited", and those times were originally based on the speed of distribution in a country that didn't have planes and cars. In other words, your 90-year copyright terms are utterly disgusting and not beneficial at all to whoever created it, because they signed their rights away. Dear ASCAP: you're a bunch of fools for demanding that 30 second previews have to be paid for. First, pull those artists off iTunes and see how much money they make then. Second: signing a better deal would benefit those artists far more than trying to squeeze money from those previews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Dear ASCAP: you're a bunch of fools for demanding that 30 second previews have to be paid for. First, pull those artists off iTunes and see how much money they make then. Second: signing a better deal would benefit those artists far more than trying to squeeze money from those previews. The 30 second preview is what makes iTunes (and Amazon etc.) worth going to. Of the past $100 I've spent on recorded music, $100-worth of it was as a result of following up on 30 second previews. No preview; no sale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SoundwaveLove Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 And this is the same industry that was convicted of price fixing in the CD market.This is the same industry that thrives on "copying" the latest style to jump on the "me-too" bandwagon.This is the same industry that engages in "hollywood accounting" to screw artists out of royalties.Same industry that screws customers by packaging garbage songs with the sole hit single on a CD and sells it for $18.Same industry that promised that prices would come down with mass production, which never happened since the introduction of the CD in 1985.Dear industry,When you point a finger at someone there are three more pointing back at you.Love, the disgruntled customer Don't forget it's the same industry that manufactures it's own bootlegs overseas to avoid having to pay royalties to the artist on foreign sales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Audacity Works Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Perhaps people who make music because they love it will be left, and we'll be better off for it.Even if you listen exclusively to decidedly anti-establishment artists, I can 100% guarantee you that the vast majority of your favorite records simply wouldn't have been made if the artist didn't get a paycheck. Like most people, artists aren't exclusively philanthropic, and if they have to work a day-job to pay for food and rent, they're certainly not focusing on making or playing music. And forget about touring. The big thing that irks (nay, frightens) me is how piracy has fostered this ridiculous "all art should be free" attitude. There are many kids who simply can't comprehend that if an artist wants to be compensated for his or her craft, the option should be forgoing the service, not forgoing the compensation. They place no value (and I'm not just talking monetary value) on the music. Art takes money to create. It takes time to create. Sometimes, it takes blood, sweat, and tears. And if the artist wants to give away the culmination of his efforts, more power to him. But to assume the same of every artist will simply mean there are way fewer great artists, and way less great music. Maybe there's a business model we haven't discovered yet (corporate sponsorship, ad revenue, patronage, etc.), but soon, it's going to be very difficult to make a living doing what you love if that thing involves art, ideas, design, concept, or media of any sort. And here's the trick: As technology advances, that simply means more professions will be undermined. Musicians were first, then the movie industry, then authors... If the intrinsic value of intellectual property declines enough, what everyone else offers society may be next. But, you know, if one flips burgers for a living, they'll be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Real MC Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 "Art takes money to create" You talking to us or to the RIAA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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