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.
Sorry folks, I occasionally have to work. My elitist, evil, corporate ass-kissing, tyrant-in-training railings against the communist incursion (and Zyp's view comes damn close to actually being communism, not just the usual right-wing knee-jerk reaction to call all liberal policy communist) will continue when time allows. Now, some gas pumped into the fire to keep you guys going:
Is Bill Gates' doctor better than the one I visited last week? Probably. Would he need to sit and wait 20 minutes for the doctor to see him like I did? Probably not. Would he get an xray for an injured finger faster than I did? Not likely. While the super rich may be able to get slightly better care than me, it is highly unlikely the standard of care I would get under a Canadian-style system than is available to me now, and I hardly qualify as rich. Hell, if I had dependants I'd be under the poverty line - but high quality care is still available to me. About the only thing the rich can get that the poor can't is cosmetic work.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If your country is too stupid to realize what is happening and take corrective action (say, by actually paying your doctors what they are worth), you deserve it.
All states and most municipalities have capital project debt, which is most of what California has. That is entirely different from operating budget debt. California is an anomaly due to a few unfortunate constitutional issues, such as an inherent inability to raise taxes when necessary. Couple that with a tax base consisting mostly of a housing market that evaporated and they are having some severe short term problems - but without the long term debt accumulation that the federal government has achieved. Taken as a separate entity, California would be in a better debt position than most countries - and far better than the US.
I'm still calling shenanigans at this, unless you can propose a mechanism the ISPs can use to curb piracy that does not involve somehow inspecting every byte that goes through their servers. Until you can come up with that, your point is invalid.
Every time a celebrity gets caught shoplifting, driving drunk, or evading taxes, it shows how wrong this view is. The rich just have more money, they are not fundamentally more honest or rational than anyone else. There is little difference between someone making $50,000 and $50,000,000 if they both think they won't get caught for what they are doing.
Most people would see that as stealing, but as soon as you say the thing you are stealing belongs to a cortoration instead of a person, they get this insane view that the corporation is a faceless machine out to take their money. Guess what? I own stock in at least a few of the compaines the RIAA represents; depending on how your pension is set up, you might too - all through the magic of mutual funds. While a single song pirated may not cost enough to make a difference, if you take millions of dollars out those companies' sales you are diminishing the value of my (and probably your) retirement investments. Now I realize saying that made a few people want to pirate more just to stick it to me personally, realize they may be hurting their own investments as well. Piracy would be a lot easier to combat if we could legitimately make commercials that said"My name is Jim, and I lost my job to piracy."
Is that a quote from Engle, Marx, or Lenin? I'm pretty sure one of them said it, I just don't remember which.
So has the tax code. Just because it's a tradition at this point doesn't make it right, or legal.
What part of the tax code are you referring to in particular? Because the income tax was allowed by the 16th Amendment. Whether a progressive tax is constitutional is another matter - but that isn't challenged because the poor are the ones who would get the shaft if it was not.
More properly, this case never would have went to trial against someone with the wits to listen to a competent lawyer. From the evidence available publicly, they had her dead to rights - no plausable defense could have prevented some sort of penalty. All she could do was mitigate the damage.
lol your kidding right? DL 24 songs illeagaly and you beleive she deserves to pay 1.92 million dollars and burn in hell? i think that thats a bit...no majorly excessive. its 24 songs and the recond company would be at there kness and innocent? give me a fucking break
The problem is that piracy is becoming more and more common. As a smaller percentage of people pay for a song, it becomes more and more difficult to make money off of it. Eventually, one can expect that at some point too small a percentage of downloads will be legal (and thus paid for) for business to continue.
Furthermore, what inherant right do you have to the music in the first place, if you're not willing to put down the money for it? The logic behind theft of information is the same as that behind stealing from a warehouse "It's not like thye're losing anything noticeable".
Do you have proof that Clinton, Bush, Reagan, or any other president was born in the US beyond their birth certificate? It's absurd.
Wrong, your perception is biased from extreme considerations that splits up Capitalism as a *contrast* to Communism. Mine doesn't.
It simply states that profits can be owned rather than shared. Stop calculating for a minute and forget political ideology and you'll find that money is either spent or kept. And i've got financial degrees and solid experience in both banking & industrial settings to prove it. Payroll gives us accountants some tricky perspectives on liabilities beyond the scope of fiscal statements (be it personal or corporate, btw) or even, government intervention or control. I've witnessed tax evasion schemes so solidly criminal that Law couldn't catch up even if they tried (past tense). I've filed reports & statistical proofs that defined theft from legal assumptions.
I can't speak for what you have as a background or work... but, i've known systematic devices for years and i doubt economic rules (or situations, in fact) have changed much since.
What you need is a good dose of humility. A long hard look in a mirror to try figuring out that calling ANY country stupid will get you a revolt from doctors paid to save people lives with whatever amount of money they deem sufficient. But, that's a concept beyond your lack of respect for whomever happens to be challenging your opinion or misconceptions about reality - i guess.
Here, fight this; stupidity is a two edge sword.
You're provoquing the wind from now on. And everyone here reads you, too.
Might as well use ridicule to stress on such estimates...
Na, just some odd ball park figure 49,950,000$ to spend on silliness or risk after quick thoughts of an imbecile.
I insist, blow away.
Communism, almost by definition, contrasts itself to capitalism. Communism calls for the nationalization of all means of production, transportation, communication, and finance. What area does that leave for the capitalist overlap you see, sex workers?
Ironically, the US and nearly all of the western world, have achieved two of the ten conditions necessary to transition to communism - progressive income taxes and universal education, and we're working on the blending of town and country. I don't see things like abolishing private land ownership, stripping the right to inherit, or consolidating production under state control ever happening.
The same could be said to you. Didn't this start with your mocking and belittling the US legal system?
I admire doctors who work for any amount of money; I wouldn't have entered med school even with a gun to my head. There are plenty of American doctors who do much the same thing - work in a small town or in non-specialty fields that don't pay any better than your doctors do. Of course, doctors are hardly unique in that respect; lots of people work for less than they could make for a variety of reasons.
Ideally, all doctors should be people who care more about helping people than making money. Since there isn't enough people like that, slightly less altruistic people need to be incentivized into the field.
Regardless, the comment was directed at your complaint about brain drain:
You clearly recognise the problem (doctors leaving the country), the cause (they get paid more elsewhere), yet can't seem to wrap your brain around the obvious solution (pay them what they are worth, not the price the government arbitrarily decided to pay them). If you find objective commentary about your government policies offensive, address your complaints to the government, not the person pointing out the flaws.
The point is, $24 should be a trivial sum to both people - cost was probably not a factor in this woman's decision to pirate. And while I wasn't intending to call you an imbecile, I certainly won't disagree if you call yourself one.
MY INITIAL STATEMENT... Losing a home to banks for being unable to pay a loan (in order to acquire property with value) is one thing, purchasing (after the fact) 192,000,000$ of some music represented by 24 mp3 files another.
YOUR REPLY TO IT... As a Canadian, you should also be outraged by the loss of a home to medical bills. That IS the leading cause of bankrupcy in the US - and most of that is due to the effects of legal practice on the field. Absent actual negligence, there is no reason doctors can get sued for millions for damn near any reason. How about the drug companies made to pay billions of dollars for drugs that were certified safe by the FDA? Don't forget, even YOUR health care system is partially paid for by US consumers; most of the pharmaceutical research for the world is done in the US, as it is one of the only places where laws make it profitable to do so.Besides, she didn't get sued simply for downloading the songs, she was also uploading them for others to download.
Cope with both.
THAT's where i'm drawing another very thick line for forum moderators on a direct insult.
I gave up, earlier and i still do.
Who are you to point ANY flaws in any health care systems, be it privately or publicly (and all other combinations thereof -- since costs can overwhelmingly fail at real value or accessibility ratios based on wealth) managed?
Interesting conversation, isn't it?
The rational deduction is sooo simple; i don't invest (and never will) in accidental illness or death when my means of livings are sucked dry through inflationary devices such as insurance that don't deliver quality services or cures in hospitals + staff i already paid for with taxes.
If people can't generate enough money to feed since society doesn't provide it, which financial gimmick can stop famine. Charity, welfare, Law? Work? Government?
I'll tell you what... minimal limits that none has a right to profit or gain from to accumulate or steal MY revenu.
yep agree, the message Im recieving is they are <changedwordhere as dont want forum banned> holes backed by the misguided politically correct(If this keeps going the vast vast majoity are going to lose out bad), dont get me started on this stuff, I spend thousands on software and hardware that I otherwise wouldnt have spent had it not been for the free nature of the web when I started using it, furthermore I realise that artists need to be paid but they should also realise Im not going to pay for crap unless I know in advance I am going to get some mileage out the product and when you look at modern music lets see its easy to pirate but to me its utter garbage anyway so I dont pirate it nor buy it but the whole penalising customers is injustice to the highest degree and frankly any person I know in RL doesnt give a crap one way or another if they know someone P2Ps , it seems to me the only ones who are against it are those idiot directors, I thought law was for the good of the majority? What they also do not add to their calculations is that the majoity are non stereotypical of there stupid terrorist pirater corralation and actually if its someone of even little intellegence doing it they will buy when they can afford it, you cant expect people to do more than that and finally its a dam recession but the fat cats need there extortianate bonuses.
What angers me more is the judges etc, they need to show some common sense and throw those stupid album prices out of court. (Why I get so angry is if you look into it the RIAA and such people have lobbyists and people in politics now so it all goes there way, whoes speaking for the average joe computer user? Standard MPs with their noses also in the trough up to their eyes in expenses fraud so spare me the moral highground )
I already despise those RIAA , MPAA and alike parasites but to the OP, grats you have taken my hatred of those pieces of scum to a new level. (Its about time we started focussing on the things that really matter to the people in our countries instead of letting these dictators run amock; they have far to much power in my view and are I would be willing to bet a fair portion of the reason why stardock , indie and alike sized publishers are doing well as the silent majority are appauled by this continued stupidity and ludicracy by these idiots)
Overpeer, thats another thing that was illegal but nothing worth while got done about that, double standards, one rule fo the rich and another for the poorer
Finally in the past their figures based on what I have read have been obscure and have included people who download open source as pirates, to my knowledge they dont seem to be taking enough account of digital sales and people sick of big publshers who now buy indie stuff so its a sham in my opinion. There aim is going to be to get the law changed so they have the right to snoop on anyone anytime(Monitor packets with no reason), I see the web turning into what is analagous to a police state in the future. Just to finish up I agree with the guy that says they should be made to pay the retail cost of the 24cds end of story since anything else is just a way of making up revenue lost through their sub par development and other projects(According to them music would die, I say let it die , that way art and creativity is stifled no longer and we will get more indie stuff created which is good in my eyes)
At that ludicrace figure It wouldnt surprise me if they were bought over
I will have more faith when I see Judges, lawyers, MPs and Jurors sons and daughters getting done for doing it. Sorry about the double post that was unintentional but I will leave this thread be now Just feel strongly on this whole sorry state of affairs
Quote the whole thing.
Either you are calling your own thoughts those of an imbecile, or you are discussing mine. If that was intended to be read as referring to your thoughts, my agreement shouldn't offend you, seeing as you said it about yourself. If you were referring to my thoughts, it's the same direct insult you just bitched about. So what is it, do you have a double standard about you being allowed to say things that I am not allowed to agree with, or do you have a double standard about what you are allowed to say about me that I can't answer in kind? There is not a third choice available.
I have the same right you have, which is essentially zero according to you. Neither of us are doctors, so our opinions don't matter, right?
Besides, I'll freely admit tha the US health care system is in dire need of change, I just refuse to see the Canadian system of health care as the Utopian dream it is often portrayed as. For that matter, if you want to see the contry that gets the best life expectancy for the money spend, you'll have to look a bit south; about 90 miles south, to be exact. Cuba ranks just below the US in terms of life expectancy, yet spends FAR less on health care than either the US or Canada. Perhaps both our contries have something to learn from them.
My decoder ring failed on this one. Can you reword that to be more clearly understood, so I can give a reasonable response to it?
Nothing wrong with a double post, if there is a good reason for it. Right here I'm using one to make perfectly clear whose posts I'm quoting. Personally, I'd love to see someone prominant get sued. The list you gave would work fine (although jurors don't belong there, anyone can be a juror - hell they drafted me twice!) but what I'm really hoping for is a musician's kid. Not that I think it will change anything, but it will be great for a few laughs.
If you will notice earlier in the topic, I suggested that anyone disagreeing with this ruling (and the laws behind it, of course) get involved in the pirate party. The average joe is supposed to be looking after himself, but most people don't want to or don't know how. Its called voting; find a party that supports the same views you have and put some effort into getting one of their candidates elected. Most people would rather bitch about what is wrong than put any effort into changing it (I'm no different, I admit that).
There are lobbying and legal aid groups that support the view you are taking. Look into the EFF if you'd like to know more.
I beeive its called setting an example. Sorry if some people dont li,ke it but if you steal something then you should expect to get punished for it.
Punishment in this case doesnt quite match the crime but I dont really care, you steal you get punished and have no right to whine about it.
Yeah I agree lets punish all the people at the top for their scams, lets fine overpeer, lets hammer the biggest scammers, the people who do most damage(Not a single person on the street - sorry I cant believe anyone would remortely show any suppot for such a farse of a case, were partaking in destruction of internet freedom and I think unless the majoritys mentality on the web changes its going to get worse, I refer to a much more constrcutive post just after my own one, good points), if it wasnt double standards to the core I would be right with you, but when you cant do nothing on your PC in a few years time because of what the person who posted after me said then dont come crying because ladies and gents were heading for an Inet police state, evey packet monitored, 24/7 spying whilst you play games (Thats already getting there) yet I dont hear people in their doves highlighting the pure onesidedness of it all, also I am unhappy how companies use mainstream software to steal infomation from my PC but are the law makers worrying about that? No because it makes them money, the fact it infringes my rights is of no consequance, thats the problem this whole internet minefield is getting looked at in a closed minded corporate sided way, its a farse.
The whole problem with this is you can highlight hundreds of inconsistancies with this but because coporate border line police state says jump some say how high whilst they permit coporations to spy on them via their PCs daily, you couldnt make this up! (How many corporations get caught doing scams or borderline scams? yeah and they all get tried to the fullest extent of the law, dont they?) Fact is you are backing a system which means you and your family are going to get reemed in the future!
The irony is I probably have more purchased hardware & software than most but I still say its bull and it will backfire one day but when the politicians have had their way with the net it will be to late. (I can never understand , beyond a person having some vested interest why people would condone such stupidity as highlighted by this case)
Wait until your own family or outer family get affected and then I can believe you, the fact is piracy is just an excuse these days for anything that goes wrong with a product(Its funny how nothing is heard when corporations exploit the whole piacy and demo scene though? - they do what suits them so why are they imposing double standards? How many times have coporations stole code and that being used for universal systems? But sure dont consider that, be a good slave) but people ignore the points I have made, in addition there are hundreds of new means of selling products that have came from in some cases stealing ideas from demonized internet technologies so lets not paint a simplistic propoganda orientated view of this, in essence in the big picture we are saying tun a blind eye to lots of crimes thats fine because stealing is bad, my point if were gonna have laws lets have a harshness of law as applicable to both sides, anything else is farsical
Actually does anyone remember those stupid dont copy that floppy adverts and how that was supposed to dooom PCs, fact is floppies stopped getting used because they were crap, also the revenue now is astronomical now in comparison to then so I dont see what all the moaning is about other than greedy evil people and their money/lust for power
Fucking hell, Zyx would you slow down a little? You've bloody well gone off your rails again. Willy isn't even half as offensive as I am. Your sense of humor is your friend!
I'd prefer some RIAA board members get taken to the cleaners, not a generic musicians kid. I'm pretty sure most of the musicians hate the fucking bastards just as much as the rest of the world does, it's not like they actually see much of the profits of their own work. Either you own your own recording label, or your recording label owns you, not many people get big before they have to sell their soul for a recording contract.
Don't worry -- it's right here and cured.
I'll give you (or him) a darn resilient left elbow ligament troubles instead of hand amputation or possibly useless carpal tunnel disection if you promise to take sides on affordable timely treatment to the darn trigger finger. Trust me, it hurts.
Electromyogram (i'm still buzzing over the schocks and the needle holes drilled to the palm) results pending some surgeon analysis and decision as usual -- waiting.
No time to explain, so they said.
Hi, willy.
[e digicons]B)[/e] [e digicons]:banhammer:[/e]
I'd rather keep the burned hand since it's temporary, but I might be willing to trade my arthritis for your CTS. If it's this irritating in my late twenties it's going to be a royal bitch if I get unlucky and kick the bucket by old age.
This kind of self-righteousness is pathetic. If you have kids in spite of your attitude, how would you feel if one of them stole a candy bar and you were fined 120,000 dollars?
Gimme a break man. Just because you don't care about the constitution (eigth amendment btw.) doesn't mean it's fine.
This time I agree with Obscenitor, yes, she didn steal something and knew there might be consequences. But the punishment is insane and unreasonable. Thats like killing a man cos he stole some bread to feed his family.
Except that you need bread to survive.
DOWN WITH THE FED!
At 71, Bernard Madoff jail time = refunding 50 billions to plenty of international investors?
Strange isn't it... how Wall-Street (and many others, btw) operates when wisely hidden Ponzi schemes aren't discovered for some odd 30 years of recession-after-bubbles-after-recession-after-bailouts-after-bankruptcy-after-recession?
50,000,000,000,000 minus 1,920,000 worth of 24 songs downloaded -- kinda puts ambition (be it personal or corporately driven) in perspective, right?
That's okay, i got rid of the car in '96 and never invested in anything since or ever before bored that i was by Forbes' list and as much moguls (biggest, smaller & microscopically minimal) as you can lock in a vault to burry along skeletons that decay, eventually.
It piles up, they claimed.
Checked the price of food & shelter lately?
Yep, some endup behind bars.
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