While it looks like she may be guilty, $80,000 per song is unfair. I honestly want to know what the jury was thinking by awarding 80,000 times the cost to buy the songs online.
All the music industry is doing with cases like this is causing more and more people to hate it.
So that leads to compare everything US against Canadian stuff, right? Okay, let's argue for the sake of it.
Quite simple in fact; If it ain't broke don't fix it... as it is the CURRENT situation with the US hybrid of Public_Private coverages for the ***MINORITY*** of the people in the US.
100% of the population in Canada receives extremely efficient care when & then, at reasonable costs to all.
The self-multiplying loop of US deficit(s) (that is the Federal and all individual states of the Union) proves that corporate america (that is; drug makers, hospital staff, Insurance, etc) has total control over insurable (or not) patients, decides which can afford treatments, spends just enough to file for PRIVATELY owned profits on any solution that cures anybody or nobody. The public sector must compete with investment into an alternate (but still illicit) way to obtain medical attention when & then.
Call it opportunism and greed where the club of wealthy drug addicts are sustaining life spans based on a single factor alone; money provides BETTER or FASTER treatment.
That's the reality, rational & truth. You can quote as many reports or statistics as you want, it's still biased to justify killing the poor and uninsured in the US daily.
Secondly, i know exactly what an ISP is... the virtual songs sued for were obtained on the Internet. Don't call us, we'll call you. They'll chase her for years and she'll NEVER, EVER refund back this absurdity... and even if she does by some weird strange oppression & repression & persecution gimmick of the Law voted by crooks (they might be wrong, btw) -- it would simply prove my point; the real criminal(s) are incorporated or publicly managed to abuse populations.
I have nothing else to say to you in this particular case. Don't insist, since you are failing to recognize facts & obvious principles such as Civil Rights to protect not only property but also victims of criminal acts and unless you realize that the RIIA is trying to gain from (yet again) innocent people, you'll be stuck in some logic favoring socially driven theft hidden by an INC trailer tag which, in turn, distributes cash to investors rather than paying the workforce.
I'm curious what the reaction would be if the defendant had been a billionaire - i.e. someone who could easily afford the damages.
double post
That being said I personally wouldn't have made that call if I were on the jury and I'm sure a good argument could be made about how the wealthy shouldn't be punished for being rich... but let's be honest, the rich in general are the ones who are least likely to be in this kind of situation, which partly why it's frustrating in the first place. Your juxtoposition is an interesting idea, but it's kind of too absurd to address, as anyone with a billion bucks would have more than a lawyer or two and said pack of lawyers would clearly have accepted the 5k'ish settlement before it ever went to trial.
Regardless I think it's a good indicator of just how dated the legislation on this stuff is. There doesn't seem to be a distinction between firing up kazaa and running a bootlegging project when it comes to potential distribution, and I'd like to think I would see that absurdity no matter how wealthy the victim were.
Well, I think the public outcry would be a lot less as I think a good amount of it is from the fact she will never be able to pay.
However, there is still the fact that the penalty was 80,000 times the value of what was pirated. So my opinion would be the same: Very unfair even if in that case the pirate could pay for it.
I think that it might bring up a second major problem in the way the RIAA is conducting its lawsuits: none of the money is going to the artists who made the pirated songs. At least I have not heard about artists getting money from the RIAA's lawsuits, if anyone has evidence that the artists do get some of the money I would like a link.
The RIAA getting ~2 million and the artists of the pirated work not getting anything would probably cause a large outcry.
I think piracy should be handled by making a pirate, if found guilty, legally buy everything they pirated and then pay an amount not over 10-20 times the value of what they pirated.
Three options, ranked by probability:
Option 1: Lots of Letterman/O'brien jokes and general laughter at the guy's expense.
Option 2: Outrage that the judgement wasn't even higher; this guy is a crook anyway (because no one gets rich without being a crook, right?), take everything from him!
Option 3: The same public outrage occurs as in this case, along with biblical plagues, sun going dark, Michael Jackson being elected President, Apple admitting Windows is the better OS, things like that.
Edit: Another interesting hypothetical would be what the reaction would be if the actual artists had been the ones suing her, rather than the industry representatives.
I could claim a Chinese victory here but I won't.
The uninsured are a minority, not the majority. The latest number I found was 17%, which is still too high to be acceptable, but not by any stretch of imagination the majority. Educate yourself about what you are saying before you get in an argument.
By American standards, your system is not all that efficient. Patients often wait weeks for diagnostic tests available in a couple days in the US, and days for things that take hours here. Most Americans would jump on board for a national system IF it could guarrantee the same level of care they get now. A system of care that delivered the same level of care as the Canadian system would not be acceptable to most Americans (although the 17% uninsured would certainly appreciate it).
Only Vermont does NOT have a balanced-budget provision in state law. Most have it amended into their constitutions. The federal government is the only real problem - but that problem is bigger than all the state budgets combined.
So you consider giving ISPs the right, indeed the requirement, to monitor every move their customers do online to be a rational answer to piracy? Thank you, no - not even Canadians would agree to that.
I recognise this entire situation started when the defendant failed to respect the intellectual property rights of those she was stealing from, and that those people have the right to protect their property from the predations she was committing. While everyone agrees the award was excessively high (indeed far higher than what the RIAA was seeking), she was not by any means innocent. An excessive judgement does not erase the original offense.
I might feel (somewhat) okay with this, IF the person had downloaded upwards of 20.000 songs and had proceeded to distribute them to everyone they knew. And as for the billionaire, I think that they should be sued for roughly the same amount as a regular person that got a reasonable fine. They definitely should not have to pay less, and at the same time, there's absolutely no reason why they should have to pay more than the average person.
Minority can afford FASTER & BETTER treatments, read the entire post before claiming i lack any sort of an education.
I'm not discussing any sort of standards with this, i haven't made any attempt to compare health care systems -- YOU did and got a single reply to straighten some facts & truths. From my perspective, brains drain caused more damages in Canada than in the US though since, after all, the US recruits our or any other countries' newly trained Doctors by offering them **MUCH** higher salaries and work conditions. For profits, i must add.
What's California (and any other states) cumulative debt? I'm not talking state Law, i'm talking Expenses that keep being higher than Revenues.
No, i'm saying that the ISPs ***allow*** Piracy to take place and that the only other corporations tapping into the Klondike of communications costs to the public are those who use the Internet to distribute or sell in partnership with ISPs. I do not give or take anything to/from both, *except* when i pay my invoices for a service.
The rational answer to Piracy is at the personal level of each one USING 1)ISP 2)Products. A thief fails both situations.
Directly proportional to what invaluable 24 songs exactly and for the exaggerated GAIN of money paid to who? Lawyers, RIIA?
The crime (by the original offense, as you interpret it) has turned into a scam, heist, robbery, abuse, opportunity, supplemental profits for OTHERS.
BECAUSE it is 1.92 millions worth of clear theft less the real value of 24 songs ***IF*** paid for.
I guess you'll never understand the logic in pure Honesty. It's constitutionally wrong to let institutions steal money from people as much as it absurd to get in a court of Law to abuse the consequences of commercial transactions that failed or not. At that stupid level of incompetence by jury decision(s) and nit-picking $24 of I-Tunes downloads by someone.
Sue me for being rational if you dare.
You seriously believe such a person would bother downloading 24 songs online illegally or rather would have simply sent one of his lemo drivers to pick up the bunch of CDs (possibly two or more copies, just in case) at the local music store or something?
And a week later asked the very well-paid employee; "Hey, Johnny-Be-Good, did you get these 24 songs i have paid you for already at 100$ a pop?"
-- Yep right under the seat as usual, boss. Can i keep the bonus, please?
But certainly not 1.92 millions worth for their own kids at home.
US Law has been ridiculed, AFAIC.
How does this penalty compare to the penalty of stealing somebody's financial data or identity?
A better question is whether a rich person would go through the effort of using a p2p or torrent client to find and download songs they could easily buy on itunes or several other services.
It's theft of information that the person uses in their business, and thus that his or her livelihood comes from. If I made a downloadable flash game for 5 bucks, and people pirated it, I'd sure as hell be pissed. There goes the time that I spent coding for nothing. Same principal.
Still, a billionnaire (and possibly even a "rich" person -- but, that has much more to do with how or why THEY spend their cash on such luxuries or not, right?) would pay upfront and center whatever reasonable prices suggested by intermediate (such as the lemo driver exampled above) or by themselves (while bringing out the kids at the shopping mall for a ride).
Question_S diluted or expressed differently in as many circumstances or situations as you wish, the fact remains -- people are honest or they aren't by choice.
What i think is happening here is that i'm calling the capitalism bluff of using some tricky Laws to gain economic advantages over consumers; and those who benefit from this abuse are feeling guilty for supporting such a system. They are beginning to realize how their methods CREATED poverty of the masses and that their predictable sales of products (progressively lowering since prices are too high for most if not a vast majority in the workclass) will plunge their businesses into failure.
However, the fundamental principle of supplies/demands still plays a role... drag your inventories of junk to the car lots & parkings, hurry -- cuz, sooner or later mass-production will stop supporting free-market competition for a very simple reason; customers' priorities in life are changing by the recession minutes & days of a global collapse to international depression.
Why? We already spent the next three generations worth of energy & means of living in less than a decade.
Rich you say.
Lemme be clear; Pollution, urban garbage, financial markets, vegetation depleting, extinction of species, space conquest, highways worth of smog -- the list is centuries long.
Modern ways, the future is ours, technology will save us. Crap. Look around, show me a tree on that boardwalk so i can still breath like the crow who just flew by to get sucked in by a plane engine or crushed under a car tire.
Humanity is failing.
It will die from starvation as i will.
Got that.... 24 songs?
The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments be inflicted."
The crime, a few dollars saved infringing copyrights. The punishment, nearly two million dollars. You could use it as an example under the encycopedia entry for excessive fine.
Anyone that thinks it's not an unconstitutional ruling needs to see a doctor immediately. Such rectal obstructions are a life threatening condition.
Edit: Oh, and Zyx is nucking futs.
So has the tax code. Just because it's a tradition at this point doesn't make it right, or legal.Dr.Gonzo
A pedofile can rape a little kid and go to jail for a few months, but when a mother downloads some music illegally like half of rest of the people in the world she has to pay 1.9 million dollars? what about her kids? ah, the wonderful united states justice system...
About the only decent argument against the case I've heard on this thread yet, once you remove the personal attacks
The problem, of course, is that so few people can be caught and fined in this particular illegal act that most assume there are no penalties. Thus, until more can be charged at a time, we can expect to see rediculously harsh punishments against illegal downloaders. That doesn't mean it's right, but neither is stealing.
Don't mind my impulsive reactions or completely incoherent paranoia demonstrations at times, psychoak. You of all people should know how emotional i can get on sensitive issues.
Still, our world is soooooo strange & weird. I'm just your usual fly_on_a_wall, i even stick & flip wings of speech to stir up controversy.
As anyone should, for opinions sake or contradiction rides. Hi, willy.
Humanity is failing. Do something NOW, or sing along 24 times for free.
[e digicons]:grin:[/e]
Agreeeedd!
The rule of Law has its inherently right limits - 24 hours a day. Year round.
Sink & destroy - injustice for all.
There is so much of the Constitution being ignored these days. This is just another example.
If you have the money you can get around pretty much anything, even the Constitution. (Heck, Obama hasn't even had to prove his citizenship status, because he has the money for so many lawyers to keep all his records under lock and key.)
But if you don't have any money, it seems that not even the Constitution will guarantee your rights any longer.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
Enough with the right wing talking points.
This challenges my biases.
This case would never have been brought against a person with the resources to put up a proper defense.
The whole music industry needs to rework the way it does business.
Piracy is not the reason for the reduction in their sales, and suing poor people for millions of dollars isn't going to improve their sales.
I would be glad someone wanted to play it. I would also not consider pirates to be customers. They were never going to buy my game, chances are they don't have the resources to pay $5 for some crappy brick breaker clone...
If your game is REALLY worth $5 you will be able to find enough people to pay you $5 that you wouldn't notice the pirates.
Doesn't say a god damned thing about his travelling on a foreign passport. Also, why wasn't this produced at the beginning of the campaign, since it was a simple matter of fact? Also, 2/3s of the [relevant] citations of that article don't exist anymore. Also, define: wikiality.
Dr.Gozno
They DID show the cert.
What does traveling with a foreign passport, true or not have to do with anything? He was born in Hawaii therefore a natural born American citizen...
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