Brainerd woman owes $1.92 million for illegally sharing 24 song...

[Unbelievable]

I see they are going to appeal. Her lawyers said the size of the monetary award will probably be the grounds. Two million dollars for 24 songs that cost less than a dollar apiece. And people on this thread defended the insane damage amount. More than Eighty-four thousand times the actual monetary loss. Do car accident victims get eighty-four thousand times actual damages, do malpractice victims, do assault victims, does any non large money big industry affiliated group get eighty-four thousand times damages that could be up to 150,000 thousand times? What a joke.

[Da Crusher_RIP]

the sheriff wrote:

Stealing from the rich is still stealing. & we all know from 3rd grade that "everyone does it" is no excuse.

The mistake she made was not in downloading the music. Her mistake was allowing her downloaded files to be uploaded by others. Most downloading sites such as the one she used has a control feature so it will not allow others to upload from your computer.
If it is available on the net to download people will download the music. I have searched images on Google and have copied and used them for my purpose, whatever it may be. Some images have a feature that does not allow it to be copied. The recording industry could add that feature to their music CD's that would preventing an individual from transferring them to the computer, so the only way would have to go through an Itunes type site.
The recording industry have made a fool of themselves and have now stopped attacking common ordinary folks such as this lady. Instead of going after the little people go after those who have these type of sites. They might as well as fined her a million dollars a song. The lawsuit was stupid and the jury's award amount even more ridiculous.

[Precedence]

What kind of precedent is it to award over 80,000 times actual damages? Has there ever been a "tortious" case where damages awarded were over 80,000 times actual monetary loss? If so, would someone point it out?

[oxboro]

i hope she can work some overtime

[Precedence]

Tony wrote:

<quoted text>It says in the article that they used MediaSentry to catch her.
I think this whole case is a bit exaggerated in terms of the punishment, but how else is the RIAA going to send a message to the millions of people who download music illegally and get away with it? I can't say I feel too much sympathy for her because they are ways to prevent yourself from becoming a target and she didn't take those steps. I'm not saying it makes downloading music any more legal because it doesn't by any means, but you can't play the ignorance card anymore. Many ISP's now are teaming up with the RIAA to block access to the Gnutella network and the RIAA has even stopped persecuting people for copyright infringement because there are simply too many cases to be dealt with. With all the technology today with the internet and such, there's ALWAYS going to be an issue with copyright infringement in all forms of media, not just music.

The RIAA has stopped filing charges because they know they have sweetheart laws to protect their big money big industry interests and are afraid of the political backlash when people find out big industry can be awarded 150,000 times actual damages. If someone runs a stopsign and broadsides me when I have the right of way and seriously injures me I guarantee you I would NOT have the right to be awarded 150,000 times actual damages.

[Catcher InTheRye]

How come the company did not sue the file sharing company?

[Bullshitake]

Linus Sweden wrote:

24 TeenyWeeny songs? For f... sake. Arn't drugdealers more important to catch?. Here in sweden, we must pay nearly 200 swedish kronor for a cd. No f.... way, when you can get that for free. If you want to talk about this, right to me on msn, [e-mail]. Have a nice day

24 songs is all they sued for. She likely had hundreds of songs. The funny thing is if she had just altered the songs just a little, they would be remixes which do not fall under the copywrite law.

[Bullshitake]

Catcher InTheRye wrote:

How come the company did not sue the file sharing company?

good question Catcher. They had a disclaimer on their site telling people it's against the law to trade copywrited material but did nothing to stop it.

[ken_more]

I agree that artists and people in that industry deserve to get paid for their work, but let's be real. To say that she would have bought all of the songs if there was no other choice is ludicrous. Part of the problem is too much emphasis has been put on artistry over the years. Actors and rock stars who are popular get huge bucks. I'm sick of those rap "artists" who can't even speak English making $20 mil for some crappy "song" while the average working man gets a meager living at best. That's why CDs and movies are so over-priced!$80,000 / song? Ridiculous!