More Music File-Sharing Lawsuits in Europe

rfunches writes "The New York Times is reporting that 20,000 cases in 10 countries were brought against file-sharers in Europe, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). '...Users targeted for legal action included a Finnish lumberjack, a British postman, a Czech IT manager and a German judge,' according to the article. More than 70 computers were seized in Italy by authorities investigating illegal file-sharing. IFPI targeted both those who 'illicitly downloaded music' as well as uploaders serving copyrighted material on file-sharing networks. Total music sales were down 3% in 2005 according to the IFPI, with the decline in physical media (e.g. CDs) countered by 'soaring' digital music sales."

Comments

The War On Drugs = The War on Downloading

[AudioEfex]

No one is ever going to win. Governments and private corporations are going to spend billions. The only people who are going to get hurt are those who missed last week's episode of "Vernoica Mars" and downloads it instead so they don't get behind.

If the assholes would just realize the problem is them charging $20 for a CD that 20 years ago they promised would eventually be cheaper than cassettes and vinyl ever were. If CD's cost something more commesurate with their value and production cost downloading wouldn't be an issue beyond the fringe.

AE

Re:The War On Drugs = The War on Downloading

[xtracto]

LOLOLOLOLOL LMAO (ponies if you want)

Come on fanboy that is the the most fanboist comment I have read in a while.

While you link to an illegal file (and I agree in that, downloading a copy of OSX that you do not own is Illegal), there is nothing illegal in patching your owned copy of OSX or whatever software I BUY. It is stupid, you know, I bought Windows XP, and I have notepad.exe and I cracked it to make it display the cursor line number.

I did it just for fun, not because I am a pira8ter. So what if people run OSX in their beige boxes? nothing wrong will happen to Apple, the PC is an unsopported platform, it is like running Internet Explorer on Linux with wine, Linux is not a supported platform so they [Microsoft] do not care if it breaks or if it fscks your computer.

Oh come on, really, wake up and stick that one button mouse out of your arse...

p.s. Mods, sorry for the inflammatory comment but this troll really pissed me off

Re:The War On Drugs = The War on Downloading

[Tom]

No one is ever going to win.

You assume "they" are interested in winning.

I propose that they aren't. Many more involved parties profit more from the ongoing conflict than from its resolution. That includes especially the lawyers, but also law enforcement, a large number of institutes, think-tanks, industry associations, etc. and of course the media which gets a fairly reliable source of news every now and then.

That's true for both, the war on drugs and the copyright war.

Re:The War On Drugs = The War on Downloading

[voice_of_all_reason]

+1 (Truthful)

War on drugs, war on terror, war on downloading -- it's just a boot, stomping on the face of humanity. Forever.

Re:The War On Drugs = The War on Downloading

[Mac Degger]

+1 (truthfull) to you too.

When are people going to real;ise that a war is something which will end, which has a resolution. Terrorism, copyright infringement, taxes...these are things which are ongoing states of affairs; the only way to mitigate them is to take away root causes instead of fighting the symptoms, and even then they won't stop.

Re:The War On Drugs = The War on Downloading

[shark72]

"If the assholes would just realize the problem is them charging $20 for a CD that 20 years ago they promised would eventually be cheaper than cassettes and vinyl ever were."

Do you have a citation for this promise? The only place I've ever heard it is on Slashdot.

Anyway:

Typical price for a CD in 1985: $18.99. That's $33.70 in 2005 dollars.

Average price of a new CD today in the USA: around $13.

Typical price of an LP in 1985: about $8.00. That's about $14.20 in 2005 dollars. I was often paying $9 or $10 in 1985, and as much as $11.99 for some releases, but I'll use $8.00 as a concession.

CD prices are in freefall. It looks like it's been years since they learned that $20 isn't a good price for new releases. Music is cheaper now than it's ever been. Your advice for them would have been timely about five or ten years ago.

Maybe the piracy is being committed by the people who have been afraid to go to a record store in 5 or 10 years and still think that new releases are twenty bucks?

Seriously...

[Onymous Hero]

When will this end?

Does file sharing stop? No.

Good, the more the better

[Baki]

As long as only a small minority is concerned, people in power won't care much. However as soon as they are themselves concerned, directly or indirectly through family, children, friends etc. they might start to think. And that might hopefully lead to a revolution in the thinking about copying, copyrights and the like.

So I am especially pleased when I read that judges and politicians are sued.

This is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright was not designed to handle file sharing networks. Most of it was based on the idea of criminals ripping off records and making large numbers of copies and selling them. Not ordinary people sharing for free. The sheer number of people doing this indicates that people simply don't see anything wrong with it. Laws that the vast majority disagree with are not usually a good thing.

Re:This is silly

[Ilex]

Laws that the vast majority disagree with are not usually a good thing.

And the act of passing such laws which criminalize a large section of the population is usually called "Oppression"

Re:This is silly

[gameforge]

Certainly, at least partly why people justify this to themselves is simply the quality of the content.

Ever since I can remember (I'm 23) almost every CD that's come out has at BEST five tracks I actually want to listen to; usually it's two or three. I'm not going to spend much for 10 or 12 minutes of music. Of course if it's an artist I really love, I might be willing to spend $7 or $8; I'd try to find the CD used.

But really, copying anything digital is easily justified if you think about it hard enough. If you take a CD from somebody else, or from a store (i.e. steal it) that's money lost somewhere. Somebody spent money to produce it and distribute it, but you did not return that money (or any profit) in exchange for it.

If I pirate something I would never buy in the first place such as a piece of horrendously expensive software, or an obscure one hit wonder single from the 80s, there's no money lost anywhere. I wouldn't have bought it anyway... I didn't steal it from somewhere, I cloned it. Obviously of course, this can't be true if you share it with other people, or even use it to make money (such as using 3D studio for your web design business when you didn't purchase it).

Ultimately, it's still wrong, simply because if you are benefiting from somebody else's work without their permission and without compensating them fairly, you're using them in a morally negative way. And I think many people know this; but it just isn't that big of a deal to them vs. stealing money (directly or indirectly). If you could clone a Bentley, even though you already own a perfectly good Toyota and would never dream of buying a Bentley, wouldn't you at least consider it?

Of course, there's always the truly wrong people who do pirate things they would go out and buy if they couldn't have it for free, such as MS Office or Windows (especially the only copy they own, let alone multiple PCs and networks).

Re:This is silly

[richie2000]

You cannot seriously be likening laws against leeching music off P2P against the wishes of the artists to oppression.

When the lobbying groups ask for up to four year prison terms for copyright infringement and the use of covert surveillance and wiretaps to catch infringers, you bet your ass we're calling it oppression.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Full Text (no login)

[Opportunist]

Careful there, you're about to get into trouble for copyright infringement. :(

Re:feh

[Pieroxy]

The real question is that most P2P programs force you to share whatever you download, so technically spaeking any downloader is also an uploader...

How does that work?

Careful now!

[PinkyDead]

The law is a dangerous tool to play with.

At the moment there is a lot of grey area with copyright and the internet (IANAL) - which is why 'legal' music sites like allofmp3.com have disclaimers regarding local laws rather than concrete advice. In my own local jurisdiction the law appears to be clear about importing copyrighted material (and it's quite similiar in most other places) - i.e it's ok for personal/domestic use.

When the rights organisations test these laws the outcome might not be the one they want - and it will send a message to the mainstream users, who up to this point have been terrorised into not downloading music, that it is actually safe to do so.

They are playing with fire - and their time would be far better served coming up with a better business model than trying to defend an outdated one.

Re:Sales down?

[voice_of_all_reason]

so why not the porno copyright holders?

Because there are enough people that Don't Like Porn that somewhere in the judicial process you'll get assigned Judge Michael Holywater and that'll be the end of your case.

More realistically, most porn webmasters are probably sensible people and not the mindless horde running the music/movie corporations. They may realize that a large part of the population can't/won't buy pornography and that it doesn't hurt their business model in the slighest for these people to get the product for free.