RIAA wins first lawsuit, defendant to pay $9250 per song

Jesus Christ. It's not like the defendant was a big company or something, either. It's a single mother in Minnesota.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ict-is-in.html

its over 9000!!

It is over 100,000, actually.

Wow. That's fairly insane.

Jury by Metallica & Friends?

$220,000

Oi, I was reading about the trial earlier, thinking to myself "there's no way the RIAA is going to win this one, the jury is going to think they're nuts"

Failed jury, IMO.

Wow. That's fairly insane. Jury by Metallica & Friends?

Lmfao.

That is horrible, screw RIAA.

So why'd they target her, out of all people?

Also, what the fuck was the jury thinking? They've never downloaded songs? I call bullshit.

She downloads 24 songs, and is taken to court?! That's just petty.

I think the main reason she was taken to court was because she SHARED 24 songs. Downloading itself it's the bad part, it's the fact that other people downloaded from her that they get you. She potentially gave copywritten material to millions of people.

Still a bullshit case, though. Fuck the RIAA.

OK then, shared. Still, it's only 24 songs. There are people who upload thousands of songs, pieces of software worth thousands of dollars, films, video games... yet how many of them have been taken to court and fined?

This looks like a case of the RIAA not seeing the forest for a tree.

If they cared about their image at all, they'd be targeting that geek who sits in his parents basement has is currently sharing 10,000 songs with a million other people. Not a single mother who shared 24 songs.

The RIAA is not the brightest bunch.

And the sad truth is, there's a high probability that the reason they've sued her is to 'improve their image' in a way - if they show they can come down hard on someone who only shares 24 songs, then it might deter others from doing it. Paying so much for such a little offence?

Well it most definitely will scare people out of sharing music. They might have just used her as an example. It's just sad that they had to pick a single mother and ruin her life because she shared 24 songs.

I will go as far as to admit that sharing songs is immoral, though I've done it myself. However, I do not think the punishment fits the crime, in this case. Her downloading and sharing 24 songs could very well have cost the music industry $220,000, though it's unlikely. We will assume, for argument's sake, that it did. The music industry does not get it's life ruined because it's out $220,000. However, that's going to absolutely ruin this lady. She's going to end up filing bankrupcy, her credit will be ruined. She probably wont be able to send her kids to college because she will have horrible credit. They will have to do it on their own, which is entirely possible, but a lot harder.

There needs to be some sort of proportional punishment, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. If the music industry has billions of dollars, and this lady prevented $220,000 from going to them, they need to proportionally make her pay for it. A few thousand, maybe. $220,000, no.

Well it most definitely will scare people out of sharing music. They might have just used her as an example. It's just sad that they had to pick a single mother and ruin her life because she shared 24 songs.

Maybe the RIAA is paying her some money under the table so they can use this case/trial as a deterrent so other people will think twice before they share music.

Well it most definitely will scare people out of sharing music. They might have just used her as an example.

Na. It's only going to hit people once it happens to them. Just like the Earth going down the shitter. If it's not effecting people in real time, they don't care or even notice.

Ya Thantos. They probably arn't doing that but that would be a good idea.

Well lets see.

For example, my computer has roughly 800 songs downloaded, FOR EXAMPLE:

If they used the same 9250 per song I'd be looking at a hefy bill, $7,400,000

Wowza.. they should maybe consider just making the people pay for ALL of the CDs from Artists they stole from or something, that'd seem to be more reasonable to me.

Well the jury came up with that figure. So maybe for your 800 songs they'd only charged you around 280.00 each

Even still i'd just claim somebody else downloaded them.

That's what she claimed.