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RIAA Seeks Estimated $97.8 Billion From MTU Student
theodp writes "The Detroit Free Press does the math on the damages sought by the RIAA from the Michigan Technological University student. The total? About $97.8 trillion--yes, trillion with a T--or enough money to buy every CD sold in America last year over again for the next 120,000 years, according to RIAA statistics." Update: 04/05 21:58 GMT by M : The Free Press can do the math, but not very well: the numbers provided show the RIAA is seeking some $97 billion dollars, not trillion. I'm sure the student is *much* happier. Headline updated.
This person ran the network on which that many songs were shared. That is, shared BY OTHER PEOPLE. Fuck the RIAA.
I'm not from one of the affected colleges, but the internal filesharing network at my college has been temporarily shut down.
Read the Friggin Articles!!!!!!! The RIAA press release is telling. They are really smoking some hardcore crack! They want to make LANs illegal!?!
These guys made programs which allow you to search a network. The flatlan site seems to be down, but read this FAQ about Phynd. It is a program which indexes the files available on various protocols (like FTP and Windows Shares). The RIAA could even use it to help find copyright violations. Instead they want to punish anyone who makes networking software. If they knew about the internet 20 years ago, it wouldn't exist--except in their offices.
Repeat after me. "The RIAA is doing this for anticompetitive reasons. The RIAA are a bunch of facist pigs. The RIAA are the real thieves. They want to steal the internet and computers away from the public. They want to establish a DRM censorship system where they can block anything they want--especially independent competitors."
Yes, I'm quite aware that there's public funding for museums, symphonies, and other such public things. That's really quite different, and doesn't meet the criteria of what I said. If you take a look at, say, France who actually subsidizes movies and the like through taxes on the services you'll better understand.
Young people aren't usually interested in classical music or museums. Old people can afford to buy music themselves. Why shouldn't the old people pay taxes to support the young? They do it for education.
If you think increased Government involvement in art is a good thing, then I believe you should think for quite a long time. A second is far too little time for true reflection, or to find sufficient information to come to a rational conclusion.
Show me a survey proving that the majority of middle aged people prefer to avoid paying taxes on entertainment. Show some statistical evidence. You should never write a response without first doing your research. This is what you told me.
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Next we must sue Google, and then the internet itself.
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Wow you act like you've never been jobless before. I'm sure when you were in highschool those same people paid for your bill.
By the way, even if I had a job I'd be getting financial aid, you act like I could somehow many enough money to pay for college on my own!
Now, back to the subject, back up what you claim with some evidence, just because you are a republican doesnt mean the majority of people are. According to the last election, Al Gore had more votes than George Bush, people know Al Gore supports higher taxes at least in theory and they voted for him because they as in the working class has something to gain by higher taxes. The working class have families which without taxes would not be able to get an education, they working class pays taxes but the upper class is supposed to pay more as it distributes the wealth.
The wealth redistribution applies to schools, law enforcement and many other useful agencies. Music and Movies could be something the majority of young people want, young people happen to be the same people who cannot afford these things even with a job. Old people instead of having to pay for these things with their credit card will pay for it via taxes and no I dont think record companies and people like britney spears should the the money, there should be a democracy not a monopoly. Based on what people listen to most the government should give the money out.
Musicians would make more money this way than they do now as they currently dont make much anything from CD sales and make most of their money from touring.
Movies in the short term might have smaller budgets which mean slightly less special effects but newer actors will have a chance to get into the industry so its a tradeoff of talent for budget cuts.
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