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Draconian Copyright Laws are Draconian


jrrtoken

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In the second file-sharing copyright-infringement trial against Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a Minnesota jury ruled that the 32-year-old mother of four owes $1.92 million to the four major labels after downloading and sharing 24 songs, Billboard.biz reports. The staggering ruling comes out to a cost of $80,000 per track illegally shared, a massive amount that the RIAA hopes will finally convince people to stop downloading music illegally.

 

 

As Rock Daily reported in 2007, Thomas used peer-to-peer network Kazaa to download the files in question. Despite housing roughly 1,702 songs in her folder, Thomas’ trial only focused on 24 of them, including tracks by Green Day, Janet Jackson, Godsmack and Richard Marx. Following yesterday’s ruling, Thomas will essentially have to pay $80,000 for illegally downloading a Richard Marx song. That is, if the RIAA chooses to collect the $1.92 million Thomas doesn’t have.

Emphasis mine, with extreme prejudice.

 

I don't believe its necessary to explain my views on the matter...

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I have expressed my views on the RIAA in the past so I won't necessarily delve into that at the moment.

 

As far as copyright goes, I definitely agree that the copyright system that the United States currently uses is just about as screwed up as it can get. It needs to be severely reworked in my opinion. I'm not necessarily talking about legalizing piracy or anything like that but I would like to see copyright, espcially DMCA(Digital Millennium Copyright Act for those who may not know) reworked so they are less vague.

 

I would personally also like to see the RIAA, MPAA, and the other "associations" make much more of an effort to help develop effective ways to utilize P2P technology rather than conducting an unjust and at times illegal crusade against it.

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Anyone that owns a Richard Marx song should be required to pay $80,000 for each song.

 

In all seriousness the judgment is ridicules.

 

Have to love the American legal system where you can kill two people and get away with it. Human life is cheap, just don’t mess with property.

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Given that there is no way, that I'm aware of, for them to track how many people downloaded the songs there is no way to verify that jmac.

 

I'm not excusing her...far from it...but 1.92 million dollars is simply unreasonable. Even the the $3,000-$5,000 per song that the RIAA is willing to "settle" for is a load of crap.

 

Current copyright law allows the RIAA to use this woman as an example that basically says "see what happens if you screw with us." These are the same people that have tried to prosecute a grandmother...forgive me if I don't have any sympathy for them.

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Given that there is no way, that I'm aware of, for them to track how many people downloaded the songs there is no way to verify that jmac.

 

Amount of data uploaded should be accurate enough, unless she's got a friend with an OCD to download, delete and redownload the same song over and over.

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Looks like a blame-and-scathe-all on whoever gets caught scheme. While I am all about enforcing law on behalf of ethical behavior, this is hardly a demonstration of that. This is sharks out for blood. Money grab, pure and simple.

 

The lady should only be required to pay for her portion plus whatever applicable fines come with it--not everyone else's too.

 

If this isn't a case of extreme overkill, then round up the DA, the judge, the jury, the lawyers, and the plantiffs, bind them, hogtie them and gag them. I have a solid bar of stock iron that has all of their name's heads on it.

<whew!> Had to get that off my chest.

 

That's bull****. There's not letting people get away with it, then there is...this.

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Amount of data uploaded should be accurate enough, unless she's got a friend with an OCD to download, delete and redownload the same song over and over.

 

Unless she has one heck of a tracking system installed, there's no accurate way to tell if 100 people downloaded one of the specific 24 songs in question or one of the other 1,700+ songs she was sharing. Not to mention it would only show the amount uploaded, not the number of times a complete song was uploaded. And considering how many of these programs download from multiple sources, it is possible she could have never actually shared the entire song with anyone. And anyone who downloaded it "from her" could only have gotten 10% of the song actually from her data.

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I think that the $1.92mil judgement by the jury is another moment in stupid human tricks. So, how much will a judge whittle it down to in the end? I'm guessing this woman probably doesn't even have the 80Gs. The large sum is likely a "statement" to others, but even the McyD's lady only got ~$50K in the end for spilling her coffee on herself. And they've GOT $$.

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Unless she has one heck of a tracking system installed, there's no accurate way to tell if 100 people downloaded one of the specific 24 songs in question or one of the other 1,700+ songs she was sharing. Not to mention it would only show the amount uploaded, not the number of times a complete song was uploaded. And considering how many of these programs download from multiple sources, it is possible she could have never actually shared the entire song with anyone. And anyone who downloaded it "from her" could only have gotten 10% of the song actually from her data.

Maybe not, but even copying part of a song is a copyright violation, so sharing even that 10% is liable to get her busted. Technically speaking, a 500mb total upload for a 10mb file would mean that a 5000% part of that file has been shared, more than enough to get a 16-wheeler lawsuit on your tail.

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Maybe not, but even copying part of a song is a copyright violation, so sharing even that 10% is liable to get her busted. Technically speaking, a 500mb total upload for a 10mb file would mean that a 5000% part of that file has been shared, more than enough to get a 16-wheeler lawsuit on your tail.

 

 

Hence the reason copyright needs to be severely reexamined in the United States.

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savvy torrenters I think are probably already doing that Jae. I think like PastramiX that the changes need to be made to copyright, and DMCA in particular.

 

Unfortunately I'm also of the opinion that Washington is in bed with the RIAA and the MPAA and so copyright reform probably will not happen.

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savvy torrenters I think are probably already doing that Jae. I think like PastramiX that the changes need to be made to copyright, and DMCA in particular.
Yeah, that's definitely one place to start. The DMCA is so vague, to the point where both consumers and corporations can exploit loopholes to their advantage. Part of the reason why many download media is that either the prices are extravagant, or the DRM is massively draconian. The government needs to set regulations on legal digital download solutions, such as limited DRM or lower prices versus physical copies. For example, if a physical retail copy of a game, at debut, retails at $50, then the digital version should be priced $5 to $10 less.
Unfortunately I'm also of the opinion that Washington is in bed with the RIAA and the MPAA and so copyright reform probably will not happen.
QFT.
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Call me a lawbreaking DoB (daughter of a...) if you want, but I make YouTube machinima out of my computer games (come on, who hasn't made a KOTOR video yet and posted it there)? I also mix audio with it, because there is no greater art than to time your video game footage with the perfect song and have it be a masterpiece of epic proportions.

 

Then the video I spent 30+ hours making either gets disabled or muted forever, and in the meantime, I deleted the original storyboard on Sony Vegas Movie Studio 7. All because of stupid copyright crap, and I didn't even ask to get PAID FOR MAKING THE $!@! VIDEO (not that I would anyway). As Darth Zayne once said of his machinima piece--"The Beast" and "Zayne vs. Traya", "This is a video made by a fan for fans". HellooooOO!

 

The way I see it, good machinima, especially of computer games, MAKES YOU WANT TO BUY THE GAME AND PLAY IT. If combined with a great song, IT MAKES YOU WANT TO GET THE SONG. What company would turn down free publicity in favor of nailing anyone and everyone who makes a video of some cool computer game footage and doesn't try to pretend they wrote the song or created the game?

 

I mean, if I make a video in homage to MJ with "Beat It" as the audio clip, I would never be so dumb as to claim I wrote or sang "Beat It". However, my vid would get DELETED or muted all the same. Copyright laws suck, or at least the draconian ones on YouTube!!!

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Think of all the porn producers who can now claim they'd have been making millions if it wasn't for all this P2P business...

 

 

There are several vital issues being disregarded concerning internet file sharing as copyright infringement. And yes, what it is a clear example of is very wealthy companies chasing down every last penny they can convince a court to award for songs that nobody probably would've paid for anyway.

The only argument for lost sales really is new releases. Following a sales drop off (ie. a few months down the track) the argument over copyright infringement directly targeting lost profit becomes inherently fuzzy.

 

What's everyone going to do, police schoolkids passing songs between themselves as they've been doing since the sixties? Kill your own audience.

 

 

add. and this business of prosecuting people for breaking the law sake is pure totalitarianism, the bulk laws ought best be considered simply very detailed guidelines, ruling upon them is what courts are for and they're apparently beginning to do a poor job

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Think of all the porn producers who can now claim they'd have been making millions if it wasn't for all this P2P business...

 

:laughing::lol:

:rofl:

Say wut, man?

 

 

There are several vital issues being disregarded concerning internet file sharing as copyright infringement. And yes, what it is a clear example of is very wealthy companies chasing down every last penny they can convince a court to award for songs that nobody probably would've paid for anyway.

The only argument for lost sales really is new releases. Following a sales drop off (ie. a few months down the track) the argument over copyright infringement directly targeting lost profit becomes inherently fuzzy.

 

When you figure something is out of its prime for sales, this is very true. Nobody is buying it much anymore. If at all. The argument begins to strain and tenses out.

 

 

There is prosecuting for doing something wrong, or just making money off the top of it like speed traps.

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I do believe that piracy costs the music industry moeny, I won't dispute that, but at the same time I don't feel a whole lot of sympathy for them either.

 

The artists themselves, which the RIAA claims to represent,(*cough* bs *cough*) make very little off actual CD sales with most of their profit coming from tour tickets etc...

 

The laws are out of date, and the industry has no desire to see them changed because they can continue to exploit them for their own benefit.

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I know personally of a handful of successful artists who pirate their own music on the internet.

 

Their labels aren't real happy. Fans love it.

 

 

add. say...Powderfinger (Oz band, bit alternative, slightly pop, excellent sound), are um, just really good blokes as well as talented musos.

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This whole piracy crap is killing music. $1.92 MILLION is gigantic and absurd. $80,000 a song is completely idiotic. They talk about making a example of her, but the hundreds, if not thousands, of the unskippable anti-piracy ads in DVDs, and some of the anti-piracy spyware/malware they install on some music CDs is completely idiotic. i fI pirated this crap, I wouldn't have to watch these retarded ads making me feel like a criminal. It's just stupid, and the copyright laws need to be changed.

 

sony_microsoft_mpaa_riaa_apple.jpg

 

XKCD FTW

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