How RIAA Case Should Have Played Out

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "If a regular 'country lawyer' like myself had taken a case like the RIAA's in Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset to court, he or she would have been laughed out of the courthouse. But when it's the RIAA suing, the plaintiffs are awarded a $1.92 million verdict for the infringement of $23.76 worth of song files. That's because RIAA litigation proceeds in a parallel universe, which on its face looks like litigation, but isn't. On my blog I fantasize as to how the trial would have ended had it taken place not in the 'parallel universe,' but in the real world of litigation. In that world, the case would have been dismissed. And if the Judge had submitted it to the jury instead of dismissing, and the jury had ruled in favor of the RIAA, the 'statutory damages' awarded would have been less than $18,000."

Comments

That's odd

[Anonymous Coward]

In my parallel universe, the trial would have ended when the Kool-Aid man came running through the wall and yelled "OH YEAH!"

Makes sense

[Opportunist]

The RIAA represent imaginary goods, so their cases take place in an imaginary land.

Re:Makes sense

[Kjella]

Now if only I could use the imaginary money from my monopoly set to pay them off too, all would be well...

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take being able to sink their battleship.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

You would still need to buy over 120 monopoly games to get that much monopoly money. Much more reasonable but even that is probably excessive.

Re:Makes sense

[arizwebfoot]

Unless of course you pirate it and make your own monopoly money.

Re:Makes sense

[jedidiah]

I've started to wonder what the real value of "Jamie's playlist" really is.

If she would have had the option of "buying these works outright" what would
their appraised value be based on actual current revenue? What might the
asking price for those works be when compared to something like commercial
real estate?

I suspect that the RIAA made out like bandits and they got a payday for these
works that dwarfs their actually real value by far.

Really. How many copies of "Pour Some Sugar On Me" were moved in 2004 or even
today? This could be relevant Album sales, singles sales or tracks on iTunes.
This is information that seems to be sorely lacking from this discussion.

What is the actual value of a 25 year old Journey song?

How does this jury award compare to the actual annual revenue recieved from these works?

Re:Makes sense

[Thinboy00]

You would still need to buy over 120 monopoly games to get that much monopoly money. Much more reasonable but even that is probably excessive.

Wrong! (using Google's cache b/c the normal link is dead)

Re:Makes sense

[Kjella]

You would still need to buy over 120 monopoly games to get that much monopoly money. Much more reasonable but even that is probably excessive.

Hmm I wonder that the penalty is for counterfeiting monopoly money. I imagine it's something like "Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200."

Re:Makes sense

[bertoelcon]

No, you don't, the monopoly rules state the banker can make more money if there is not enough. So one set would suffice with like a pad of sticky note bills.

Re:Makes sense

[gnasher719]

I've started to wonder what the real value of "Jamie's playlist" really is.

Maybe some interested investigative journalist can find out how much money a British newspaper typically pays for the right to add a CD with say twenty similar songs to each single copy of their newspaper. Distribution of about one million. That is one million real copies, not one million imaginary copies.

Now I would say that if some newspaper made such a CD without permission, then we could take the customary rate, maybe double it, and that would be a fitting punishment for making a million copies. Now adjust that for the best estimate of the number of copies that were actually made of "Jamie's playlist".

Re:Makes sense

[32771]

So she will now pay sqrt(-1)*$1920000 ?

Re:Makes sense

[Hurricane78]

Well, you are not thinking far enough. Of course you could also buy those games with the monopoly money from the first monopoly game. And you could by the first one with a magic invisible pink $100 bill.

Now we start to get onto the track to RIAA world... ;)

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

what if she purchased the music at a used music store, then the riaa would have gotten nothing.

Re:Makes sense

[SimonInOz]

This sounds good - let's pay them in imaginary money. Hmm, what is the square root of -1.92 million dollars?

Actually, I get the impression the entire legal system operates in an imaginary world. One where language has not changed since the 18th century, clothing much the same, and nobody else's time matters.

Re:Makes sense

[greyhueofdoubt]

Funny joke; but you can go to the monopoly website to get PDFs of monopoly money for personal printing in the even that you lose some.

http://www.hasbro.com/games/kid-games/monopoly/default.cfm?page=StrategyGuide/gametools

-b

Re:Makes sense

[Nullan Voyd]

Sadly, true. The rules of a civil case prevail. As a crimninal case, the penalties might have been much less, at least as far as the $$ is concerned. Did she make any money? Maybe, but enough to make it a felony? I doubt it.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this jury award compare to the actual annual revenue recieved from these works?

The jury award would be much, much higher. That's why they're called punitive damages.

Re:Makes sense

[jedidiah]

Someone find this person and bludgeon them with a copy of the USC.

Re:Makes sense

[jedidiah]

...except for that little Kazaa thing.

My 1000+ collection of legitmately purchased DVDs won't mean much
really if I decide do start running a sloppy P2P program and
effectively put a big "kick me" sign on my forehead.

This woman got hit for 2 million dollars.

Wrap your little pea brain around that.

Def Leppard might not have even netted 2M after all of their
studio costs were paid off after Hysteria sold all of it's
millions and that was when they were still relavant.

Today, that song may not even be worth 80K to own outright.

What's a 20 year old pop song really worth?

Re:Makes sense

[lightversusdark]

Mod it up. Get it to +6. This is the most Insightful post for a long time.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I get the impression the entire legal system operates in an imaginary world.

That's pretty much true, it's a world constructed out of words.

One where language has not changed since the 18th century, clothing much the same, and nobody else's time matters.

Hmm, not sure that "filesharing" was much in use in the C18th. You need to read more law cases involving derrivatives markets, you would realise what a silly statement that was. Which is not to say that it isn't on occasion important to know what the meaning of a particular word was in C18th (say when you are trying to cite an C18th case).

However, particularly in the case of IP we are dealing with legal concepts which would have been strange to lawyers at the beginning of C20th, they only knew about copyright, patents, trademarks and the like, not the bastard children thereof with which we now have to contend. Or to put it another way, not only has legal language changed since C18th, but the very meaning of terms such as 'copyright' has dramatically shifted in the last 25 years.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that be Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8?

Re:Makes sense

[scottFuz]

You use to be able to buy replacement money as a stand-alone product.
Is Parker Brother's still doing this?
Wasn't there some story about PB's printing more money than the US Treasury?

Re:Makes sense

[CountBrass]

The square root of -1.92 million dollars is the product of the square root of -1 (i) and the square root of 1.92 million dollars or ~1385.5i

Re:Makes sense

[SimonInOz]

Nonsense. Every engineer will tell you the square root of minus one is j, not i.

I think you have it backwards

[artor3]

The trial took place in the real universe, whether you agree with the outcome or not. Your fantasy-land in which intellectual property has no value, and clearly guilty people have the cases against them dismissed... that's the imaginary one.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[langelgjm]

Your fantasy-land in which intellectual property has no value, and clearly guilty people have the cases against them dismissed... that's the imaginary one.

Did you even bother to read Ray's post? I'm guessing not.

Ray points out some extremely simple things that were overlooked. Here's one example:

The jury should have been required to make findings as to (a) the date defendant commenced using an âoeonline media distribution systemâ (Kazaa) and (b) the copyright registration effective date of each work they find was infringed. The jury could have been instructed that no statutory damages could be awarded as to any work whose copyright registration effective date was subsequent to the date of defendant's commencement of use of Kazaa [or the Court could itself have made that determination based on the answers to the verdict form].

I don't recall the exact details off the top of my head, but basically if you want to bring a lawsuit over copyright in the U.S., you need to have registered that copyright. Under Berne, copyright attaches at the moment of creation (fixation), but the U.S. requires registration of works if there's going to be a case about it (at least for domestic works). This is a simple technical detail, but if the works were registered after any copying or distribution happened, it is an important fact.

Also, Ray is not saying IP has no value.... sounds like you have an axe to grind and are just looking for a place to do it.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[artor3]

No, see, you think of Ray as some sort of amazing lawyer, because he's popular around here. But he was wrong about this. Plain and simple. Lawyers from both sides, and judges, and juries, all looked at this case, and the conclusion was that she was in the wrong and had to pay. For him to claim that all those people did it wrong, and his conclusion must be the best... it's the height of arrogance (or maybe just a play for more views for his blog).

Re:I think you have it backwards

[eldavojohn]

No, see, you think of Ray as some sort of amazing lawyer, because he's popular around here. But he was wrong about this. Plain and simple. Lawyers from both sides, and judges, and juries, all looked at this case, and the conclusion was that she was in the wrong and had to pay. For him to claim that all those people did it wrong, and his conclusion must be the best... it's the height of arrogance (or maybe just a play for more views for his blog).

Ray's not an amazing lawyer but he's a good guy and has helped inform us on Slashdot more than once. What he did in this article is point out some rudimentary laws and facts that he thinks should have not only influenced the trial but changed the outcome drastically. I think this interesting and shows one of two things: 1) the RIAA is definitely in bed with the judicial system on many levels and/or 2) the emergence of a new technology can often have differing effects on certified lawyers and lawmakers upon its advent. In our case, we have the amazing thing that is the internet and while some people are using one set of archaic laws to deal with it and keep it under control, other peoples might use other archaic laws. Some might even go so far as to posit that no archaic laws have been made that fairly address the internet.

I think if you read Ray's posts, he may not be an amazing lawyer but he is a certified lawyer who is offering you a different professional view of the current state of things. I gotta admit, what he says makes a whole lot more than what I read about in the papers. $80,000 a song as an award in the latest trial? What?

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Ichoran]

You're not doing a very convincing job of constructing an argument. So far you have
    - ad hominem: You only think Ray's good cause he's popular on Slashdot
    - argument from authority: lawyers, judges, and juries must be right
    - another ad hominem: for Ray to claim those guys are wrong, wow, what arrogance!

Ray's blog, on the other hand, contains actual substantive arguments pertaining to proper procedures (who should be allowed to testify and with what caveats or warnings) and prior case history (what is the relationship between award of damages and monetary harm). He might be wrong, but then so might be the jury.

In fact, if the jury thinks the way you've presented your arguments, they'll just think, "Wow, all these really masterful lawyers on one side, they can't be wrong--I'll just trust whatever they say and not think about it!" The judge, if he or she shares the approach you took in this post, is liable to be similarly swayed.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Keyper7]

Yes, Ray is claiming that all those people did it wrong and I have no idea if he's right. But he is giving a list of arguments to support his point.

So if you want to claim that he is wrong, you should show that those arguments are wrong.

So far, all you are saying is "a lot of judges and lawyers agreed on this, therefore the decision is correct", like there's never been a wrong judgement in the history of mankind.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

Your fantasy-land in which intellectual property has no value, and clearly guilty people have the cases against them dismissed... that's the imaginary one.

True. But it's not an unachievable one. Give the politics time to catch up.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[jvillain]

It is a shame this post got modded down as I am sure mine will be as well. But the truth is that the law on the books is fully against the defended in this case. As for defendants it would be hard to pick a worse one. If the jury believed this defendant destroyed evidence then it makes the defendant look guilty and scheming. This case was never going to get won by this defendant based on the existing law.

I'm not saying I agree with the law. But it is the law and it doesn't appear to be going any where. US consumers don't seem to care either as the politicians haven't gotten the message that this is some thing they could be voted out of power over. "Home of the free"? Humbug.

I wouldn't care about this case at all if it wasn't for the fact that big US media and US politicians are tripping over them selves to try and force Canada to abandon it's Constitution and Charter of Rights.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Zencyde]

Okay, but are you willing to agree that 2 million dollars (AKA financial ruin of a mother assuming Chapter 13 bankruptcy doesn't work, and for 3 years if it does) is fair? Especially for an act that has been performed billions upon billions of times?

Re:I think you have it backwards

[jedidiah]

Given the rest of the case, ultimately the best they could do is argue for more limited damages.

I suspect that the 2nd jury award was an amount greater than the revenue recieved on these songs in a year.

The rationale given for these "stautory damage" law is the difficulty
in computing the harm done to a plaintiff by copyright infringement.
I propose that such harm is not hard to compute at all and that such
harm should be easy to relate to actual revenue generated.

IOW, damages for copyright (even commercial infringement) should not
be much greater than what can be computed from actual sales, actual
demonstrated file transfers or actual revenue.

The fairy land damages theory needs to put to bed.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Runaway1956]

There are several issues that need to be determined.

First - suppose you run a store, and some kid comes in, steals a candy bar, and eats it. You call the law, you call the parents, everyone shows up. Most definitely, someone owes you SOMETHING. The candy bar has a street value of about a dollar. (Oddly, that's pretty close to the street value of a single soundtrack.) What do you demand as recompense? Most store owners don't want the dollar, because they are pissed off. Most store owners don't demand a million dollar payoff, either. Among other reasons, neither the parents, nor the cops, nor a judge, nor any jury is going to go along with such a thing.

So - what is reasonable? Personally, I make the KID pay for his candy bar, by working it off. Tell the parents that he can work in the store for a week, cleaning, mopping, or whatever, OR, you'll take the matter to court.

Compare that to RIAA. They want THOUSANDS of dollars for a ripped off song which has a similar street value to my candy bar. Do you not think that is preposterous? Do you not think that there are issues that need to be resolved here?

In my most honest opinion, Jammie owes the record companies a couple dollars to pay for her downloaded songs. She owes something in the way of punitive damages. 24 songs, at a buck apiece, is 24 bucks. Drawing on ancient tort law, let's treble the damages, so she now owes 72 bucks. If she had been offered this deal from the get-go, her conscience might have convinced her that 72 bucks was a good deal, and paid it.

Even if it goes to court, and a hard fought case goes to RIAA, no sane judge is going to award a million bucks. I invite you to check out your own court system in your own home town. First time offenders convicted of petty theft generally pay restitution, a small fine, court costs, and community service. If there is no lawyer involved, total cost is maybe $1500 bucks. Paying a lawyer in my home town would add 500 bucks to the bill, your mileage may differ.

Personally, as I've said, Jammy probably is guilty of something. But, guilty or not, the penalty has to be something within the realms of reason.

HOWEVER!!! Illegal evidence has never been admissable in a criminal court, nor should it be encouraged in a civil court. RIAA has a lot to answer for, regarding their "investigative" techniques. MediaSentry, among other things, has been shot so full of holes, it resembles the Titanic. Forensic evidence is never properly obtained, documented, or presented. The courts don't even seem to understand what all this evidence is SUPPOSED to mean, let alone examine it to determine if it's legal, and technically correct.

Bottom line, RIAA are a bunch of parasites who manage to get by because they shout "THIEF" more loudly than their victims can.

Let's put RIAA out of everyone's misery, then we might all get together to come up with some sane laws. Note, I don't even say "fair laws". For the sake of this argument, I only require "sane".

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Klistvud]

I'm not arguing for Ray or against him, it just makes me think: if the rule of law has been overridden in specific cases (such as possibly in the said trial, or in certain interrogations of terrorist suspects that have supposedly taken place, or, more prominently, in the case of the Guantanamo prisoners) -- can it still be called "rule of law" at all? Or, to put it the other way round: how many such exceptions to "due process" must occur before the "rule of law" should stop being called that? It's a lot like those girls who take it in the mouth and in the ass and elsewhere -- but never in the pussy, so that they can go on calling themselves technically "virgins".

Re:I think you have it backwards

[fishbowl]

>financial ruin of a mother assuming Chapter 13 bankruptcy doesn't work, and for 3 years if it does

Ask again, once you can show that any amount of money has been collected from her.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[shark72]

"In my most honest opinion, Jammie owes the record companies a couple dollars to pay for her downloaded songs. She owes something in the way of punitive damages. 24 songs, at a buck apiece, is 24 bucks. Drawing on ancient tort law, let's treble the damages, so she now owes 72 bucks. If she had been offered this deal from the get-go, her conscience might have convinced her that 72 bucks was a good deal, and paid it."

It's important to keep in mind that she was nailed for distributing, not downloading. When you use the word "damages" here I think you may be thinking in terms of downloading. For instance, if I found a way to get free songs from the iTunes or Amazon store and managed to download 24 tracks before caught but did not distribute them, then it would fit the framework you've described. But that's not what she did -- she was making them available. In this case it did not matter how the tracks got into her share directory.

The issue here is that the limits for statutory damages are a remnant of the days when large-scale distribution required one person to have a lot of resources, and thus was almost always for profit. Given the new reality of sharing a track with thousands or millions of people with just a few clicks and at very low cost, the limits for statutory damages should be scaled back immensely (less than $1,000 per work), or at the very least, a separate set of limits should apply to commercial vs. non-commercial infringement, so that the courts can still wreak serious financial harm to the folks churning out fake Windows CDs by the pallet.

I should also point out that while she was taken to court for sharing 24 songs, she had something like 1,500 tracks in her share directory. This is fitting with the RIAA's usual tactic of going after the "whales" of file sharing; if you have just a few dozen tracks in your share directory you're less liable to be caught. To use an ugly analogy, Timonthy McVeigh killed 168 people but was charged only for the murder of 11 federal agents (in addition to some other charges not relating to particular victoms). I take it that this is relatively common in the legal system; only charge them for enough to get the punishment you want.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Presto Vivace]

I had the same reaction. I think the size of the fine is monstrous. But it is all too real. A real court reached that verdict and the fine stands. It should not, but it does. But the RIAA has pyrrhic victory. They have delegitimized themselves in the eyes of the general public. As I have said before, the entertainment industry is going about this all wrong.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Asclepius99]

I don't think saying that an act "has been performed billions upon billions of times" is really an excuse. If that argument holds true is it okay if I murder someone? How many times has that happened since the dawn of time? And it sure seems to be a more natural act than file sharing.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Yes, Ray is claiming that all those people did it wrong and I have no idea if he's right. But he is giving a list of arguments to support his point. So if you want to claim that he is wrong, you should show that those arguments are wrong.

My blog post was written specifically to an audience of experienced lawyers. Any regular litigator knows that the procedural errors I pointed out are correct. And any regular copyright lawyer, litigator or not, knows that the substantive legal errors I pointed out are also correct. By saying that you "have no idea if he's right" you are demonstrating intellectual integrity, something in short supply these days. So thank you.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[dgatwood]

On the contrary. It's a very good argument. If we were in the middle of a violent revolution, a nuclear holocaust, the aftermath of an asteroid impact, etc. in the U.S. and people were killing each other just to stay alive, it would be difficult to argue that one particular shooting deserved murder charges unless it involved killing some famous public official or something. It's not a question of how many times it has happened over time, but rather a question of whether the people committing the crime are a small enough minority that punishing them all is practical. If even a quarter of the population does something illegal, prosecuting them all is impractical, and prosecuting a few to "set an example" is unlikely to be effective. Thus, unless the goal is to make revenue (speeding tickets, catching tax cheats, etc.), it just doesn't make sense.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Esteanil]

If even a quarter of the population does something illegal, prosecuting them all is impractical, and prosecuting a few to "set an example" is unlikely to be effective. Thus, unless the goal is to make revenue (speeding tickets, catching tax cheats, etc.), it just doesn't make sense.

A recent questionnaire revealed that 1/3 of South African males have committed rape. Think rape should be legalized there?

Note: I'm *not* comparing file sharing/copyright infringement with rape, only that part of your argument seems to fall through in this particular scenario...

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Runaway1956]

I covered the "distributing", I believe. Apparently, you skipped over it. Copyright infringement was meant to apply to people using copyrighted material for commercial gain. Copyright never was meant to prevent an individual from making copies for himself, or for friends, for which he is not paid. In today's world, friends might be located all around the globe, and you may not even know their real names - but being a member of the filesharing community makes them your friend.

RIAA makes little if any distinction between people distributing for financial gain, and people who are just sharing. The law needs to address that little oversight. At most, it's an aggravating circumstance to a petty theft when a private individual is involved.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[pbhj]

[...], if I found a way to get free songs from the iTunes or Amazon store and managed to download 24 tracks before caught but did not distribute them, then it would fit the framework you've described. But that's not what she did -- she was making them available.

Did she distribute them? Making narcotics available (intent to distribute) is rightly a lesser offence than actual distribution, the same should be true here. Was there proof that she distributed the tracks, that anyone got the tracks from her _alone_ (not just contributory copyright infringement). Did she intend to distribute them?

From what I can tell she thoroughly intended to download them but not to distribute them. Nor does there appear to be any evidence of actual distribution. In which case the punishment is absurd.

I've not followed this too closely, please correct me if necessary.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

So if due to a copyright infringement you cannot make any sales at all you are not entitled to any compensation? Double plus plus uncrazy for mentioning "fairy land" in this post.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[dgatwood]

No, I don't think rape should be legalized, nor did I say that mass downloading/uploading of music should be legalized. However, that's a great example. It is a broad societal problem, and thus can't be solved by jailing the individual offenders. It can only usefully be solved through education to rid people of the ridiculous notion that raping a virgin will cure AIDS. You have to fix the underlying problem---the lack of education---not the symptom.

In the case of mass music downloading/uploading, education is the only way that it might realistically be reduced, and if that doesn't work, no number of arrests is going to make a dent. The war on drugs is another example of this sort of broad problem. I'm sure we could name at least a dozen other examples. The question of whether it should or should not be a crime is a separate question---a question whose answer does tend to have an impact on whether education campaigns are effective or not....

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Voyager529]

My blog post was written specifically to an audience of experienced lawyers.

No wonder my understanding of it went like a call on a cell phone!

Under ....MediaSentry ...testimony barred ...failure ...expert witness ..satisfy...[NO CARRIER]

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Culture20]

In my most honest opinion, Jammie owes the record companies a couple dollars to pay for her downloaded songs. She owes something in the way of punitive damages. 24 songs, at a buck apiece, is 24 bucks. Drawing on ancient tort law, let's treble the damages, so she now owes 72 bucks. If she had been offered this deal from the get-go, her conscience might have convinced her that 72 bucks was a good deal, and paid it.

This got me wondering... If everyone in the world distributed every mp3 file in existence to everyone else, would the RIAA still demand thousands per song per person? There's a limit to what the possible damages could be (if everyone has the files to distribute, then they'd never buy them). It seems like the RIAA is not happy with getting $1 per song per person.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[shark72]

"Copyright infringement was meant to apply to people using copyrighted material for commercial gain. Copyright never was meant to prevent an individual from making copies for himself, or for friends, for which he is not paid."

We should be careful of over-generalizing here. Copyright law is there to protect the rights of the creators; it's the real-world dynamics of infringement that had historically made it a for-profit activity. Non-commercial infringement has always been cause for civil action (S501 hasn't addressed intent or gain -- just the actions); non-commercial infringement above a certain threshold was made eligible for criminal prosecution in 1997.

"In today's world, friends might be located all around the globe, and you may not even know their real names - but being a member of the filesharing community makes them your friend."

I think this is recognized by even the most hard-core pirates as being a slippery slope. The argument goes that fair use doctrine generally excepts copies for friends (it does not, but that's outside scope here) so there should be no legal difference between sharing with a few friends at school vs. sharing with a million of your closest friends on BitTorrent. I believe that this defense was even tried in the original Napster case. It wasn't successful.

"RIAA makes little if any distinction between people distributing for financial gain, and people who are just sharing. The law needs to address that little oversight."

Agreed 100%, the law should be changed. More to the point, juries have the option to extract huge damages against non-commerical file-sharers. In this particular case, I believe the RIAA originally approached her to settle for their usual $3500 -- or about two bucks per song they found in her share directory. The RIAA wanted two bucks a song, the jury wanted $80K. In this crazy world, it's not the copyright holders we should be scared of... it's our peers!

Re:I think you have it backwards

[jedidiah]

If NO ONE is willing to pay for your work then clearly it has no real value.

One singular person should not be made to suffer just because you can't
convince anyone to buy your work. If you are are really so lame (like
swedish death metal bands) that you can't give your stuff away then
you shouldn't get to extra 150K per song out of poor working class
schmucks.

Think about it. There were supposed to be 1700 songs on that Kazaa
share but only 24 were really mentioned. Why is that? Is it perhaps
because most were so lame and obscure that they would have offered
no "sympathy value" for a jury of mundanes?

Or put another way: if "society in general" has made the collective
value judgement and given you a collective "fuck you" by only pirating
your work then you shouldn't have any standing to extract egregious
statutory damages from random individuals.

This might be a back door method to reinstate sensible copyright terms.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

If NO ONE is willing to pay for your work then clearly it has no real value.

Really? So if no one is willing to pay for public roads they have no real value? If no one is willing to pay for public libraries they too have no real value? Amazing.

As for why only 24 songs were mentioned, let's apply your "logic" to the Oklahoma bombing, out of 168 McVeigh was charged only with 11 deaths. Is it because other stiffs were so lame and obscure that they would have offered no "sympathy value" for a jury of mundanes or could it be because you are just clueless?

Re:I think you have it backwards

[darthvader100]

Don't you know that thousands of dollars is the cost of a week's child labor.

Or is that the cost of buying the kid?

Re:I think you have it backwards

[wvmarle]

Ray points out some extremely simple things that were overlooked. Here's one example:

The jury could have been instructed that no statutory damages could be awarded as to any work whose copyright registration effective date was subsequent to the date of defendant's commencement of use of Kazaa [or the Court could itself have made that determination based on the answers to the verdict form].

It was here that I got lost.

As I read it, Ray says that if she started using Kazaa at a certain date, that she is free to distribute any works with copyrights registered after that date. And that of course can't be right. If she offers a song on Kazaa after the copyright of that song is registered, it's potentially infringing. Starting to use Kazaa before that copyright registration should be moot. Indeed if she would use Kazaa and distribute works with then unregistered copyrights (something that I highly doubt: I would assume the RIAA members would register their copyrights before commencing distribution).

Now Ray is the lawyer here and I'm not even an American, so I presume to have misunderstand things.

Also I understand that the RIAA may be overlawyered, it is a bit scary to me that a Court can have the wool pulled over their eyes so easily, and accept cases that according to Ray should have been laughed out of court. Knowing court cases are often highly complex I strongly suspect a huge oversimplification here from Ray's side.

Also I don't agree with his opinion that a single song is not a work, but that only a whole album is a work. I see a single song as a work, and an album as a separate (derivative?) work based on those songs. Or a collection of works, the collection in itself being a work.

But in the end it seems his "dream" boils down to a much-discussed point: is offering for distribution the same as distribution? And aren't the statutory damages on the high side?

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Calydor]

I came up with a possibly workable solution to what damages should be paid for distributing.

Figure out how many times the song has been downloaded, divide by how many people are offering it for download on pirate networks, multiply that result by the iTunes cost of 99 cents, multiply THAT by three for the tort as mentioned in the GP, and voilá.

Why this weird math?

It's simple. As it stands, millions of people are sharing the same songs. Why should ONE person pay for the 'damages' caused by millions who they have no contact with or knowledge of whatsoever? If five people commit a bank robbery, but you only ever catch one of them, does he go to jail for all five? No, of course not, and so downloaders and uploaders shouldn't be made to pay for what other downloaders and uploaders do, either.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[BlueStrat]

Copyright law is there to protect the rights of the creators;[snip]

Incorrect by way of ommision. Copyright is intended "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings ..."-U.S. Constitution

It seems that the judicial, legislative, and executive branches have all completely skipped over the entire first part, and only acknowledge the existence of the second part, as do many individuals.

The "securing...exclusive rights..." part is simply a method devised to, and derives from, the desire to accomplish the "To promote the progress of science and useful arts..." part. It doesn't stand on it's own, and that's one of the biggest problems with modern copyright law interpretation and enforcement as well as the laws written concerning copyright in recent times IMHO.

Strat

Re:I think you have it backwards

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

These weren't personal opinions of mine; they are caselaw. Where an "ongoing course of action", rather than specific acts of infringement, is alleged, the operative date relates back to commencement of the ongoing course of action. And the courts have held that the "work" infringed is the album, not the individual songs.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Zencyde]

Thank you for spelling it out. I wasn't aware that some people wouldn't get it right off. :(

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Theoboley]

people pay for public roads... They're called called Gas taxes, or Toll booths.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[cliffski]

you are correct, it should have been about $1500 max. Which is what the RIAA originally wanted to settle for.

And she refused

And she refused again

And again

And every time she has done so, she has made things way worse for herself, to the point where now a JURY choose to award the maximum possible fine just to shut this woman up. Even the RIAA admitted they did not expect to get, or want the maximum award.

The reason this court case has got so ridiculous is because she is either stupid, or advised by stupid people who want to use her to whine at the record companies.

Any sane individual would have settled out of court for the initial amount. She has nobody to blame at any point for this saga than herself.

Re:I think you have it backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

It's important to keep in mind that she was nailed for distributing, not downloading.

You don't know that. The judge told the jury to find copyright infringement if either the distribution right (for "distributing" to other P2P users) or reproduction right (for downloading via P2P) had been infringed. The jury found infringement for all 24 songs. They weren't required to specify whether it was one right or the other, or both. The RIAA had apparently argued that metadata in the files indicated they had been ripped by a 'crew', and their location in the Kazaa shared folder points to the likelihood that she got them without license via Kazaa, so I'd say it's pretty darn likely she got nailed for downloading, if not also distributing, even though neither could really be proven.

Real world?

[SailorSpork]

While it may be depressing about the RIAA getting away with it's imaginary world crap, it is good to see that, for everyone else, ridiculous claims are generally seen as such in the court of law. It's good to get some of that perspective back on /.; now all we need to do is figure out a way to snap the RIAA and it's litigation machine back into the real world.

Re:Real world?

[easyTree]

Everyone tells everyone they know what the RIAA is doing and asks them to pass the information on in the same way.... Public ignorance allows the ghouls to keep profiting.

NYCL

[arizwebfoot]

Thanks for the post, we here at /. don't always get to see the inside workings of what should have, could have, been the logical outcome.

I'm going to get modded down for this, but I don't care the RIAA is nothing better than being served up as crow bait

Re:NYCL

[notarockstar1979]

You're not going to get modded down for that. You're not even doing a good job pretending to believe it. Since that seems to be the prevailing thought here on /. you will probably end up +5 I Agree....er...Insightful.

Disclaimer: I don't like or agree with the RIAA, but believe the problem is with the broken judicial system. The RIAA is just doing anything they can to stay in business, like any good capitalist business should.

Re:NYCL

[eldavojohn]

The RIAA is just doing anything they can to stay in business, like any good capitalist business should.

Now that's funny. A "good" capitalist business should roll with the changes, should cater to their customer, should work with their customer, should take advantage of technology, etc. The RIAA is not a business. It is a lobbying group. It is comprised of businesses. A good business would sue someone who stole their property for the amount of losses they experienced. We do not have that going on here. We have a hilarious trial that stinks to high hell where you are fined $80,000 per song you downloaded in copyright violations.

The businesses that support the RIAA are past due on realizing that the RIAA has outlived itself. Now it's just a monster run amok and the consumers are the victims.

You are without help if you believe the RIAA is just another capitalist business trying to get by in tough times.

Re:NYCL

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I don't like or agree with the RIAA, but believe the problem is with the broken judicial system. The RIAA is just doing anything they can to stay in business, like any good capitalist business should.

Should a capitalist business exploit any and all legal loopholes to make extra profit? And if the answer to that is yes, tell me again why capitalism is a good thing?

Re:NYCL

[CarpetShark]

The RIAA is just doing anything they can to stay in business, like any good capitalist business should.

There's a company that makes blow-up car passengers to help scare off rapists. Do you really believe that they should rape people to make sure their product sells well, or do you think you might have forgotten about ethics somewhere along the line? ;)

Re:NYCL

[tsa]

Nonsense. A good capitalist is someone who makes a lot of money. How that money is made is of no concern whatsoever. The morals of capitalists have to be imposed by the government.

Re:NYCL

[easyTree]

..tell me again why capitalism is a good thing?

Umm, because its proponents get to live like intergalactic royalty whilst everyone else lives in the gutter?

Did I win?

Re:NYCL

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand which is probably because I explained it so badly in the first place. I said doing anything they can to stay in business when what I meant is staying in the the most profitable business for them. The people at the top know things are changing (there was an article here on Slashdot about it recently, but I can't find it right this second), so they're squeezing out the last bit of dough from this model before they're forced to move on. Since they believe (and so do I honestly) this model makes them more money than the next one will, they want to ride this pony out. It isn't their fault the judicial system is broken, but they're sure as hell going to use that to their advantage. I don't agree with it or like it, but it's the truth.

The RIAAA is a is a business made of other businesses. Its goal is profit. The method they use (lobbying, lawsuits) doesn't mean they aren't in it to make money. Hit men are for profit businesses too (independent contractor/sole proprietor). Just because their business model is despicable doesn't mean they aren't a for profit organization.

Re:NYCL

[notarockstar1979]

Crap. Apparently I accidentally posted anonymously. I hate it when that happens.

Re:NYCL

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap. Apparently I accidentally posted anonymously. I hate it when that happens.

I know what you mean.

Re:NYCL

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too

Re:NYCL

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse, they try to sabotage and/or sue any smaller companies who do embrace the modern way of thinking.

Re:NYCL

[nemsis21]

Actually a "Good Capitalist" is one who can hire LOTS of lobbyists.

Re:NYCL

[ScentCone]

A "good" capitalist business should ... cater to their customer

People who rip off a business are not "customers."

should work with their customer

Which most do. The people who are their actual customers are the ones they work with. A retail store really doesn't need to "work with" a shoplifter.

should take advantage of technology, etc

You mean, find a way to avoid having their wares ripped off by people using technology ... like, by using technology to find out who is ripping them off?

A good business would sue someone who stole their property for the amount of losses they experienced.

Or they might even sue for what it costs them to deal with the fact that they were ripped off (as in, the legal costs of having to actually get into a civil court in the first place to make someone stop ripping them off). Losses include what it costs to deal with the fact that there are losses - the costs of dealing with the person you've just caught causing those losses. Or are you saying that a business should pass the true costs of theft on to a real, paying customers, even when they know who is ripping them off?

the consumers are the victims

When you rip somebody off, you don't get to decide later to just pay what the goods would have cost, then - having made that "offer" (which you, being the sort of person who was happy to rip them off in the first place, would never have made unless caught ripping them off in the first place) - get to call yourself a "customer" and demand warm and fuzzy treatment, and complain that the people you were ripping off were mean for having caught you in the act, and then getting testy when you stamp your feet and insist that it's unfair that you can't dictate the terms under which you rip things off.

A "good" capitalist is one that doesn't rip off stuff they're not in the mood to pay for. A good capitalist takes their business to another record label and artist and either buys their entertainment there, or finds someone who wants to work for free, and says so. The people who rip off stuff they're too cheap to pay for, but don't have the intellectual integrity to simply walk away from, are the only ones who are in a position to drive or stop this sort of thing.

If a trade association does sue someone for ripping off one of their members, and there isn't any actual evidence that it happened, then not only is a judge going to laugh it out of court, but that trade association is a legitimate sitting duck for a suit from the person who was baselessly sued. But that doesn't really matter, does it, when the person in question actually was ripping them off, and obviously felt so entitled to do so that even when confronted by the people she ripped off, she just assumed that nothing bad could really happen to her - and poured gasoline on the fire she started.

Re:NYCL

[ScentCone]

the modern way of thinking

Which is... what? That when an artist offers something for sale, it's no OK and "modern" to just rip them off and not pay, rather than go somewhere else for your entertainment? So modern! "Of course I just ripped off music that my favorite artist offered for sale! I'm modern, and everybody else is doing it!"

sabotage and/or sue

Ah, so you've got some case studies of record labels that sue other record labels who give away signed artists' work? Please, do tell.

Re:NYCL

[fishbowl]

>There's a company that makes blow-up car passengers to help scare off rapists.

The real purpose is to avoid tickets for using carpool lanes, especially the ones that use cameras for enforcement.

Re:NYCL

[Anonymous Coward]

So bank robbers and pickpockets are just capitalists, then? When you start using - or at least recognizing - the definitions the rest of the world uses, maybe someone will engage you in actual discussion. From Wikipedia:

"Capitalism is an economic and social system in which trade and industry are privately controlled for profit rather than by the state. The means of production, which is otherwise known as capital and includes land are owned, operated, and traded for the purpose of generating profits, without force or fraud, by private individuals either singly or jointly."

And technically the state is just a particular group of individuals anyway, albeit one that can use force and fraud, so I don't know why anyone with morals would want them to be controlling production and trade...

Re:NYCL

[VGPowerlord]

As a side note, it's not the RIAA suing Jamie Thomas, but Capitol Records.

We just call them the RIAA so we can refer to all cases of this type using a common name.

Re:NYCL

[Stormwatch]

The morals of capitalists have to be imposed by the government.

What to do when it's the other way around... they lobbied their wishes into law?

Re:NYCL

[Anonymous Coward]

First, an amusing comment: aren't those blow-up passengers for the rapists (lame inflatable doll joke).

Second: Do you rape women, or have you presented a false dichotomy? Which is it?

Re:NYCL

[tsa]

Then you get the mess that is America.

Re:NYCL

[Opportunist]

They shouldn't cater to the people that copy. They're not their customers. The people that buy music are their customers (or rather, the customers of the companies they work for), but these customers get a worse deal than their not-customers.

When you buy music, it is almost invariably broken by DRM. You possibly can't use it in certain players, you can't put it onto devices other than what is intended by the seller, and more and more often it doesn't even work on the device it was designed for. A non-customers faces no such limitation.

Care to explain why people who don't buy but copy get a better deal? It's like a shoplifter getting warranty, but a legit customer doesn't. Where's the logic in that?

Re:NYCL

[shark72]

"A "good" capitalist business should roll with the changes, should cater to their customer, should work with their customer, should take advantage of technology, etc."

Compare the music industry of today vs. 5 or 10 years ago. CDs cost half as much now as they did then; music at the (no coincidence) top two online stores is DRM-free, and selection is getting really, really good. This is why iTunes is the #1 music retailer: they give customers what they want. They could not have done it if the record labels hadn't come around.

Now, I acknowledge that $0.99 a track or $10 a CD still isn't low enough for you, and you won't give up your merry pirating ways until tracks are $0.25, CDs are $4.00, and musicians get 50% of the selling price. That's certainly a valid stance, but it's not accurate to say that the record labels haven't tried to meet the pirates halfway.

Lots of pirates state that they pirate because of DRM or pricing or selection; the record labels seem to have taken that at face value and given the pirates what they are asking for. Piracy is bigger than ever because, of course, some people simply want things for free. This is a fact of life; when you look at the state of the music industry, they're actually not doing that badly given the economy and the fact that the new model allows customers to buy just one or two tracks at a time when before they had to buy entire CDs.

Again, if the record labels haven't lowered prices enough for you to switch from pirate to purchasers, that's fine -- but it's not accurate to state that the labels aren't catering to customers. One of those b-school 101 lessons is that you must recognize that some people just aren't going to be your customer no matter how hard you try, and you must scale your efforts accordingly.

"We have a hilarious trial that stinks to high hell where you are fined $80,000 per song you downloaded in copyright violations."

Was it established that she downloaded the tracks in question, rather than ripping them from her CDs? In either case, it's not germane, as she was nailed for distribution, not downloading.

Re:NYCL

[Naturalis Philosopho]

The RIAA is just doing anything they can to stay in business, like any good capitalist business should.*

*For some definitions of "good".

Re:NYCL

[Bigjeff5]

That's why everybody needs to be a proponent of capitalism. ;)

Come to the dark side! We have cookies!

Srsly though, it's better than anything else. Russia and China are both shining examples that socialism can't survive without some measure of capitalism (Communist China survived by scaling back Communism in time, the USSR did not). Europe is more socialistic than the US in most ways, but is still quite heavy with capitalism. It's capitalism with social constraints.

Re:NYCL

[vivaelamor]

Which is... what? That when an artist offers something for sale, it's no OK and "modern" to just rip them off and not pay, rather than go somewhere else for your entertainment? So modern! "Of course I just ripped off music that my favorite artist offered for sale! I'm modern, and everybody else is doing it!"

You seem to have read a lot into that post that wasn't there. Don't let the limitations of speculation get in the way of a good rant of course.

Ah, so you've got some case studies of record labels that sue other record labels who give away signed artists' work? Please, do tell.

Let me sidestep that common yet often misattributed fallacy and give you some possible examples of what was actually meant: Pandora UK closes due to increased royalty rates, Russian music site closes due to pressure from US and RIAA sues radio company for providing users with the ability to record from the radio.

Please try harder next time, especially when using selective quoting in responding to an AC.. it would be unfortunate for someone to read your post without reading the parents.

Re:NYCL

[vivaelamor]

A "good" capitalist is one that doesn't rip off stuff they're not in the mood to pay for. A good capitalist takes their business to another record label and artist and either buys their entertainment there, or finds someone who wants to work for free, and says so. The people who rip off stuff they're too cheap to pay for, but don't have the intellectual integrity to simply walk away from, are the only ones who are in a position to drive or stop this sort of thing.

An interesting reality you describe, is there an opt-out button somewhere?

Re:NYCL

[paazin]

A "good" capitalist business should roll with the changes, should cater to their customer, should work with their customer, should take advantage of technology, etc.

A "good" capitalist, or the capitalist that actually wins? As it's certainly not the latter - there's a vast gulf of difference between the two.

Re:NYCL

[vivaelamor]

Compare the music industry of today vs. 5 or 10 years ago. CDs cost half as much now as they did then; music at the (no coincidence) top two on-line stores is DRM-free, and selection is getting really, really good. This is why iTunes is the #1 music retailer: they give customers what they want. They could not have done it if the record labels hadn't come around.

The examples you give look to me more like the frantic struggling of something about to die and just realising the extent of its predicament. They lack ANY credibility in the good faith department, there hasn't been a time in my life when they weren't doing something significant to stop progress.

Now, I acknowledge that $0.99 a track or $10 a CD still isn't low enough for you, and you won't give up your merry pirating ways until tracks are $0.25, CDs are $4.00, and musicians get 50% of the selling price. That's certainly a valid stance, but it's not accurate to say that the record labels haven't tried to meet the pirates halfway.

Wouldn't that depend on your perspective of where halfway is? Personally, the record industry have nothing I want, they started becoming redundant 30 odd years ago. The record industry cannot do anything to change the fact that copying information does not constitute an agreement to pay them money. By the way, the parent poster said "should cater to their customer, should work with their customer, should take advantage of technology" which is nothing like the opinion you attribute to them.

Lots of pirates state that they pirate because of DRM or pricing or selection; the record labels seem to have taken that at face value and given the pirates what they are asking for. Piracy is bigger than ever because, of course, some people simply want things for free. This is a fact of life; when you look at the state of the music industry, they're actually not doing that badly given the economy and the fact that the new model allows customers to buy just one or two tracks at a time when before they had to buy entire CDs.

'Pirates' aren't an organisation, they are individuals. The only thing you can really attribute to them as a group is that they copy songs without permission. I do it because there isn't a justified reason not to, it need not get any more complicated than that in terms of justification. Anything I might ask for is not exclusive of that fact, after all.. the examples you give are things that normally paying customers probably consider an issue more than file-sharers. However much I want to support artists, why would I pay money to someone who is likely to sue me for doing something that I don't believe is any of their business?

Again, if the record labels haven't lowered prices enough for you to switch from pirate to purchasers, that's fine -- but it's not accurate to state that the labels aren't catering to customers.

Firstly, you seem to imply they are catering for customers which seems no more accurate. As well, you seem to describe 'piracy' as mutually exclusive to being a customer.. which is inaccurate.

One of those b-school 101 lessons is that you must recognize that some people just aren't going to be your customer no matter how hard you try, and you must scale your efforts accordingly.

Apart from the bit about 101 lessons which I have to admit ignorance to (being English), I can say I agree with this entire statement. I would add however that I don't believe the RIAA capable of recognising a customer if one bit them on the ass. Not offering a product is one thing, claiming that your industry is dying and going out of your way to kill off any attempts to meet that demand is another.

Was it established that she downloaded the tracks in question, rather than ripping them from her CDs? In either case, it's not germane, as she was nailed for distribution, not downloading.

What I don't get

Re:NYCL

[ScentCone]

is there an opt-out button somewhere?

Of course. Slashdot is always full of comments mentioning all of the fabulous entertainment being made by people who hate The Man and are producing and distributing their work without the baggage of a major label or the DRM or other things so frequently railed against. The way to "opt out" is to patronize the artists who don't want money, instead of the ones that do want money. That's what everyone here preaches, so they must be speaking from experience and have lots of no-money-needed-to-live artists to choose from. That way they can opt out of ripping off the artists who are asking for money inexchange for providing entertainment.

Just ask around. This site is full of people who are sure that there's no need to pay artists. They must have a great list of volunteers who make great films, novels, and sophisticated studio recordings that they're happy to give away. Because, that's what we keep hearing, right? That the artists hate that they are forced to sign contracts with publishers, right? So, now the internet is magic, and nobody needs to charge anything any more. What a great time to want entertainment! Yay! The quality of entertainment will only go up, now that there's no need to think of composers or authors or photographers or musicians as professionals. Passionate, penniless amateurs who produce their art part time while working landscaping jobs during the day are a much better model.

Re:NYCL

[vivaelamor]

More accurately, it is better than anything you understand to be available. I don't mean that as a jibe.. just an observation. Most people spend all their time thinking about systems that could replace the current one instead of systems that go above and beyond the current one. Socialism and communism are put forward as alternatives or compliments to capitalism.. while none of the three may work perfectly and there possibly aren't any systems that could take their place, that isn't to say there isn't a better way of doing things.

Re:NYCL

[vivaelamor]

To be honest, I was expecting the first reply to involve suicide. I can't say I was pleasantly surprised though.

Just ask around. This site is full of people who are sure that there's no need to pay artists. They must have a great list of volunteers who make great films, novels, and sophisticated studio recordings that they're happy to give away. Because, that's what we keep hearing, right? That the artists hate that they are forced to sign contracts with publishers, right? So, now the internet is magic, and nobody needs to charge anything any more. What a great time to want entertainment! Yay! The quality of entertainment will only go up, now that there's no need to think of composers or authors or photographers or musicians as professionals. Passionate, penniless amateurs who produce their art part time while working landscaping jobs during the day are a much better model.

I apologise for skipping your first paragraph but it seemed largely pointless. So, who told you that we don't need to pay artists? It wasn't me, it wasn't anyone I've seen who file shares either. I certainly agree that we shouldn't be forced to pay artists for sharing their work but that is distinct from saying they shouldn't be paid.

Re:NYCL

[vivaelamor]

Only one of the 24 songs she is being sued for is licensed to Capitol Records though.

Re:NYCL

[Voyager529]

In Soviet Russia...

Re:NYCL

[andy_t_roo]

"So bank robbers and pickpockets are just capitalists, then?"
Bank robbers are just people who consider the return on investment, or risk vs reward (whichever way they do it) of bank vault monies vs jail time to fall on the side of the bank vault. Most people disagree, and consider the damage to society that the theft would represent to be more than the financial gain of that individual and so a social system of punitive damages (called "the law") was organised along with enforcement measures (police).

Anything can be though of in terms of return on investment. Thats the entire point of having these punitive damages (admittedly, charging someone their entire lifes earnings should discourage people, but that doesn't appear to be working) -- to make the return on stealing a $1 cd to be negative.

Re:NYCL

[Anonymous Coward]

a good capitalist business works ONLY in such a way that will sustain its growth and ensure their survival as well as the destruction of others DESPITE the laws, morals, or whatever else.
This "hilarious" trial is just another way this company is being a good capitalist. They make money off the trial, ie they profit. What was their investment? hypothetical $24 for the songs, wait, no, less than that, a lot less than that.
So first, they gain money off the trial. Second, they get PR (good or bad, it doesn't matter), RIAA WILL get noticed for this trial. Third, they ward off potential other infringers, none of us die-hard HxC downloaders who don't give a fuck about what RIAA thinks or will do, but the regular users.

and as you say, it may be a lobbyist group, but it still represents a capitalist (ie immoral, ruthless) business.

Re:NYCL

[CarpetShark]

First: thanks for the humor; I've just worked my butt off for a deadline, and needed it :)

Second: I illustrated the GP's fallacy. Big difference.

Re:NYCL

[JasterBobaMereel]

The RIAA is a business - they have four customers (the Big four record companies) and four investors (the same big four record companies)

Do not make the mistake of assuming the the record buying public are a customer?

Re:NYCL

[rtb61]

The worst thing about this case is not the RIAA or the lawyers it is the jurists and their blind acceptance of farcical evidence in light of a 1.94 million dollar penalty. No evidence at all was submitted of the persons direct involvement. The jury selection process must have been interesting and very one sided.

Reverse Precedents

[bobbagum]

What's stopping EFF or other entities like this 'country lawyer' to find somebody infringing on someone who's willing to participate and try taking this case to court and see how much damages the court awards. or even better, set up the exact circumstance as per the case, but use different music, ie performed by artists who support the cause. Are there any law stopping people defendant/plaintiff conspiring to go to court to make precedents?

Re:Reverse Precedents

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there are laws against frivolous and phony cases, which can be used against the sort of circumstances you're implying.

Just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save *BSD from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes,

*BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dying

Should have?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean, should have? You state, "Copyright Act holds that statutory damages should bear a reasonable relationship to actual damages". And yet the statute also states damages can can range from $750 per infringement up to $150,000.

It seems to me that the jury followed the law, they just didn't follow it in a way you would like.

Re:Should have?

[Runaway1956]

Another ridiculous statement. The law was written with commercial applications in mind. Making copies of another man's work FOR SALE is what the law was meant to address. If I copy your work, and make $100 bucks, the judge can reasonably take $750 from me, and give it to the copyright holder. If I made a few thousand dollars before I was busted, the judge might reasonably make me pay $150,000.

Since file sharers don't make any money with uTorrent or any other file sharing scheme, those fines simply don't apply. It takes one twisted sense of spite to apply those punitive damages to people sharing stuff among themselves.

Re:Should have?

[Darkness404]

In relationship to actual damages is the key part. How do you figure a song is worth $80,000? What, do you go on iTunes and buy songs for that much? No, the value of a song is at most $1.29 because that is the highest priced digital song available (and if you use Amazon its still $.99). This is as stupid as saying that you lost $300 an hour when you were sick because occasionally the boss has been known to give bonuses, never mind the fact that no bonuses were given out when you were sick and your normal wage is $10 an hour and even bonuses are usually $200 a piece. The RIAA effectively committed fraud.

Re:Should have?

[91degrees]

Try andget a licence to distribute a song to an unspecified number of people. They'll probably want more than $80000.

Re:Should have?

[Darkness404]

The problem with unspecified is that its effectively 0. When you walk into a courtroom, they need evidence to convict you, sure, you could argue that she was guilty but they don't have any evidence to prove she really distributed the song, what if she only sent part of the file? Does that mean that the RIAA are claiming copyright on random bits that could be found in almost any digital item? So with no evidence, you can only say that she might have possibly gave the song to a few people and our justice system is designed to give the benefit of the doubt especially in cases with absolutely 0 hard evidence.

RIAA

[bbroerman]

Personally, I have not purchased a CD in almost 10 years, and I will not purchase another CD from an RIAA label EVER. That is the only way we can make our voices heard... DO NOT BUY FROM THEM.

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Me neither. I steal all my music online. Like the defendant. Acquittal for me, baby!

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I have not purchased a CD in almost 10 years, and I will not purchase another CD from an RIAA label EVER. That is the only way we can make our voices heard... DO NOT BUY FROM THEM.

... to which the RIAA assumes they lost the sale due to piracy, not by any other means. These people are not rational; boycotts do not work with them.

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant idea! We stop buying, they lose their main sources of income, and they will have no choice but to blame downloading and sue more people!

Re:RIAA

[bertoelcon]

Maybe a boycott would work if no one would play the music at all, try talking a radio station into playing non-RIAA music so a "mass" audience would hear it. You will probably have to pay the fee that those stations get to play that stuff in the first place, but it might be worth it in the long run.

Re:RIAA

[evilviper]

Personally, I have not purchased a CD in almost 10 years, and I will not purchase another CD from an RIAA label EVER.

Ditto. And yet the RIAA stubbornly refuses to cease to exist...

Re:RIAA

[Opportunist]

Doesn't work. I've been trying for longer than you do. All that happens is that they look at the declining sales and claim that you must be copying since you bought before and now you don't. It can't be that the crap ain't worth your money. It can't be that you refuse to buy DRMified content. It can't be that you are fed up with their behaviour. It must be that you're copying.

So clearly we need tougher DRM, more privacy invasion, and capital punishment for copyright offenders. THAT will teach you to buy again... erh... or something like that.

Re:RIAA

[PottedMeat]

I'm with you there. This is one issue where it's very easy vote with your dollars. I won't support an industry that behaves like this.

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck finding a station that isn't owned by Clear Channel, Citadel, or Cumulus. Very few stations have any say in what they can actually play.

Re:RIAA

[Nefarious Wheel]

... to which the RIAA assumes they lost the sale due to piracy, not by any other means. These people are not rational; boycotts do not work with them.

Eventually it will, if enough people boycott them. They'll have to live off their fat. Never a pleasant experience for people used to all those calories, eh?

Re:RIAA

[ozydingo]

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
http://www.riaaradar.com/

[files]:
[pdf]: http://downhillbattle.org/riaa/sticker.pdf
[MS Publisher]: http://downhillbattle.org/riaa/sticker.pub
^^ the above are formatted for Avery 5160 labels, but I in no way suggest you to do anything specific with those stickers. For educational purposes only, view what others have done here http://downhillbattle.org/riaa/

Re:RIAA

[ozydingo]

Yet I've heard folks whose positions are that it's unrealistic to stop buying music from the major labels. It's disheartening that the consumer has lost so much power that we, in general, apparently feel we need to continue buying these products.

You don't need to own any music, much less RIAA-affiliated music. Don't buy it.
Hell, encourage the music industry to develop a more small-artist based marketplace, driven by affordability-motivated competition between not only artists; but studios, audio hardware & software producers, etc. This could easily be a reality if we (the general public) could just get over our silly manufactured desires for these mass-produced, mass-marketed, practically shoved-down-our-throat stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's all bad, I in fact love some of the music by certain artists who have unfortunately signed with an RIAA-affiliated label. But I don't need it.

Re:RIAA

[Turiko]

Honestly, what would this achieve? Then the RIAA would either just sue more people and get their money or ask for a lot more money per person they sue. Neither of them are good. With the millions they can get in a single lawsuit, i think they realised how much money they can get from their ways.

Re:RIAA

[Acaeris]

A boycott seems like a great idea in principle, but the big 4 have enough support from other forms of revenue that they can shrug off those who do boycott and lump you with the pirates.

Want to boycott RIAA music? Ok, that means never buying an RIAA CD, never playing a video game containing RIAA music, never watching a TV show that contains RIAA music, never listen to a radio station, never watching a film that contains RIAA music. In some countries it also means, never buying writeable media of various kinds, never paying for a taxi that has the radio turned on and possibly soon, not using the internet.

They've got their fingers in so many pies it is no longer feasible for most to just take the boycott route. Probably THE most effective thing we could actually do is organise a protest march passed the head offices of the big four stating that we will not support their abuse of the legal system, DRM and their treatment of customers or their dying business model. It's certainly not going to come from people sitting on their backsides hoping the next president will be that big of a change.

* This message was sent from the UK and I personally feel Obama is a good choice for you, even if he's not quite what everyone was dreaming of.

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing about that is that if they spend more money into finding pirates, they will likely find grandma who downloaded 50 songs (or rather, her grandson did) through KaZaa as opposed to the real pirates who are downloading full albums 20 at a time. Long-story-short, chasing after pirates is a losing battle... they can't get blood from a stone and at some point the money has to come from somewhere. If you don't like their methods, don't purchase their products. It's really that simple; I haven't purchased a song in ~15 years... that's what YouTube is for (that and a decent stereo mixer and recording software).

Re:RIAA

[sabt-pestnu]

That is the only way we can make our voices heard... DO NOT BUY FROM THEM loudly.

There, fixed it for ya. A boycott only works if both the general public and the boycott target know that you're doing it. If it doesn't significantly impact their sales (and the 30 albums you aren't buying this year ain't gonna cut it), it won't change their behavior.

A Ford Pinto blowing up is not news. A Ford Pinto blowing up with a kitten inside is.

Are the songs really worth that much?

[VinylRecords]

I purchased the full albums (and a few singles) of the songs that she downloaded and put them on eBay in one single auction. I put the listing at $1.92 million for the starting bid. However, eBay took my listing down, thinking it was a fraudulent listing. I tried explaining to them on the phone that these 19 CDs worth of music were worth $1.92 million, I even linked them THREE DOZEN news articles reporting the value.

Here's a list of the songs she downloaded.

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/23534

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, she uploaded them, not downloaded. Not that I'm defending the RIAA, but let's at least keep the facts straight.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[santax]

A spokesman for the RIAA also didn't understand this. He said they are still willing to settle for less. Didn't mention how much less though. But it's absurd that this verdict ever got spoken out. Really absurd. I don't life in the States, so we don't have a jury here but actual capable people with a degree in law to handle this kind of things, but I feel sorry for the people who do have a jury based trial. And what's the point in taking someone life's away for a couple of songs. We are outraged when people are trialed for being homosexual in Iran and yet - we the sophisticated Western World will hang you by the balls if you dare to listen to a song before you buy the album.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading the list and seeing her awful taste, I think she should be fined 1.92 million USD twice, one time for uploading the songs, and one for listening to it.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing, I don't know about $1.92 mil, but you'd have to pay me at least $192 to LISTEN to that shitty playlist.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Outside of an actual transaction, the value of anything is nebulous. Obviously, some things such as commodities that are actively traded can be more accurately estimated in the short-term. However, if you change the trading space, the price can go anywhere. The RIAA arguments are based on one trading space (where a song is on a CD that retails for ~$10), a defense lawyer might argue for an online trading space where most songs are free or at most a dollar. For something with tangible intrinsic value, such as a baseball, this might be a sound basis. But for intellectual property that can either be "downloaded and deleted" like song on the radio, or "downloaded and distributed" like iTunes, the 'potential' value could range from zero to infinity.

This is actually a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" problem. If there were no RIAA, then artists might realize little from the digital distribution of their work. If this happened, and it could, then the news would be full of stories about artists who are victims of a society that exploits their efforts. The press would hype this up in a feeding frenzy -- "artist XXX starves to death while her songs 'top the charts'." If that sounds crazy, then you obviously have never seen Fox News or even CNN.

So, what can be done about it? This falls into the same conundrum category as abortion, Palestine, and anything else where two side can be right about the wrong thing. I suspect that Dante couldn't muster the courage to write about it.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[masmullin]

What a deal... I can get those songs without lawyer fees now!!!
Thanks!

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[hitmark]

Cant say i followed the case that closely, but was it ever proven that her computer had ever uploaded said songs to someone?

Iirc, the program used was kazaa. And like bittorrent, its able to download the same file from many sources at ones, favoring those with high upload capacity. So it may well be that at most there was a upload of 1% of a whole song...

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[Celeste R]

Kudos, you're fighting the fight the right way.

You're not doing vigilantism (we have enough of that), you're telling the truth to counter misinformation.

We need more of that!

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[Bigjeff5]

If there were no RIAA, then artists might realize little from the digital distribution of their work.

It is because of the RIAA and its member companies that artists realize little to no profit from album sales, especially new artists.

From an article explaining record contracts:

A band can expect an average of $1.00 in royalties for each full-priced ($16.98) CD sold through normal retail channels... Did I say the band was going to actually receive royalties? Not so fast. The other major concept involved in record contracts is the term "recoupment". Recoupment is a fancy word for pay back. Record companies expend a lot of money on bands. They pay for all the studio time, give the band an advance, promote the band, etc. All of this money is a loan to the band which the band must pay back. This is recoupment.

The rate on a retail sale is the highest rate you'll get, anything outside retail is at a further reduced rate. Also, essentially all costs to produce, promote, and publish the album are paid by the artist out of the $1 per album. Labels pull in $15 per retail album in almost pure profit off of the artist. All this for a chance to become popular enough to make it big. I can't say for sure, but I'd wager iTunes $10 albums are not considered part of traditional retail, and so have a reduced royalty rate.

Top selling artists don't make much of anything on retail sales. They make money by packing stadiums and selling 10,000 tickets at $80 a pop. For all intents and purposes, albums are nothing more than a promotional tool for concerts. If artists could live well off royalties concerts would be much less common. Only a few can do this, and they usually have very large catalogues of well-selling music, i.e. they have paid their recoupments and get to keep their $1 per album.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[Asclepius99]

Not defending the Capitol Records here but that could be because being homosexual isn't a choice and breaking the law is. Not really a good example.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[santax]

The homosexuals ARE breaking the law in Iran. Both laws are flawed. Bigtime.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[nEoN nOoDlE]

I put the listing at $1.92 million for the starting bid.

That's your problem right there. You have to put the starting bid a little lower and have people work their way up to $1.92 million. Try starting at $1.5 mil.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[vivaelamor]

AFAIK they only provided evidence that she made the songs available. They could not have provided evidence that anyone but themselves downloaded even part of a song. The whole thing is one big fail if you introduce logic, reasoning and previous interpretations of law.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

AFAIK they only provided evidence that she made the songs available. They could not have provided evidence that anyone but themselves downloaded even part of a song. The whole thing is one big fail if you introduce logic, reasoning and previous interpretations of law.

"logic, reasoning and previous interpretations of law"?

Nah, it'll never work. If you use those, then the RIAA might actually lose.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[hitmark]

That makes one tempted to ask, if i try to sell dvd-r's of the latest movies on a street corner, and noone is buying, have i then broken the law?

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[vivaelamor]

Off the top of my head, no. That is based off representations of such a situation in popular media and the like though so I hope someone weighs in with a more informed opinion.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[Asclepius99]

You're right, I should have phrased that better. Being homosexual isn't a choice but illegally downloading music is. You can argue that the law that says you can download music is flawed, but you're supposed to fight that in court and/or take it up with the government not just do it anyway since you don't agree.

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[Shagg]

was it ever proven that her computer had ever uploaded said songs to someone?

Nope. That's what baffles me about this. The jury found that she committed copyright infringement, but there was absolutely no evidence presented by the RIAA that showed she ever uploaded to anyone except MediaSentry. It makes no sense.

The RIAA proved that she did lots of things which are completely legal, but had no proof that she actually broke copyright law (other than with their own agents).

Re:Are the songs really worth that much?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Nope. That's what baffles me about this. The jury found that she committed copyright infringement, but there was absolutely no evidence presented by the RIAA that showed she ever uploaded to anyone except MediaSentry. It makes no sense.

Actually, there was no showing that she uploaded anything to anyone, and their expert witness admitted as much under cross-examination.

Justifying piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Fellow pirates,

I implore you to continue your campaign on Slashdot to make me feel less guilty. I know that not paying someone for their work is wrong, but if Slashdot posts enough articles bashing the RIAA/MPAA/copyright law/whatever, it's easier for me to accept what I'm doing emotionally by visualizing someone else as the bad guy. Once on the forefront of relevant IT news, Slashdot is now a lame repository of mainstream pseudoscience links and pro-piracy articles to appease a dwindling readership. I am overjoyed.

Even though the open source community is about giving back as much as it is taking, I'm just going to take. I'm a human leech with self-serving beliefs and an inability to empathize with content creators who are trying to make a living.

I don't believe John Carmack should be paid for his work. I'm going to sit on my ass while he spends years coding the next advanced 3D engine from id Software. When their game comes out, I'm going to pirate it without giving a second thought about paying John Carmack for his work. I'm just so used to pirating things now that I take it for granted. If anyone mentions John Carmack to make me feel guilty, I'll look for Slashdot articles that bolster my viewpoint, such as this one [slashdot.org], amusingly posted in the Your Rights Online section even though none of my rights are being violated.

According to that study, it's okay to not pay people for their work because there's some vague hope that they'll make up the difference in income through "concerts and speaking tours." Artists are now forced to take time out of doing what they want to do. John Carmack must stop programming in order to make money from programming. It's genius. The study does exactly what I need it to--make me feel less guilty when I pirate. We've managed to stretch the truth so far that we're actually telling ourselves that we're helping artists by not paying them for their work. Excellent job.

I look forward to Slashdot telling me everyday who the bad guys are. Even though Slashdot has sued websites in the past for copyright infringement, and they've pretended to care about plagiarism, we're supposed to go along with Slashdot's anti-copyright agenda. I'm okay with that hypocrisy because it serves me. It makes me feel less guilty when I pirate something. Remember, I'm not the bad guy--the RIAA/MPAA/whatever is. That makes it okay for me to not pay people for their work.

EULAs and copyright licenses are wrong, yet the GPL is good. Piracy isn't theft, yet GPL violations are referred to as "stolen GPL code." I accept all of these double-standards because it serves me. I pretend not to notice when someone points out that the GPL relies on copyright law, and if I want to get rid of copyright, my beloved open source code will no longer be protected by the GPL. I don't care, because I'm too busy concerning myself with what I want for free, not about the consequences. I want to get rid of copyrights because I've been told that copyrights are the bad guy, and they are an obstacle to my rampant piracy.

Fellow pirates, let us continue our selfish leeching. Let us paint others as the bad guys to absolve us of our emotional guilt. Our goal is to convince people that piracy is something the good guys are doing in a fight with the evil corporations. Making money is wrong, even though Slashdot displays ads, and it cost me money to buy the computer I'm using to pirate stuff.

Yours truly,
A fellow Slashbot

Re:Justifying piracy

[youarelying]

Straw man arguments are lies.

Re:Justifying piracy

[easyTree]

I'm a human leech with self-serving beliefs and an inability to empathize with content creators who are trying to make a living.

Yah; it's terrible the way you RIAA ghouls abuse those whose interests you purport to serve.

Slashdot Tag Racism

[anagama]

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu187/weirdslashjunk/tagracism.png?t=1245608323

Re:Slashdot Tag Racism

[anagama]

I should have put some text in the body and not just the title. I find it sad that even nerds aren't immune to racism.

Re:Slashdot Tag Racism

[bami]

You ever even heard of 4chan?

Re:Slashdot Tag Racism

[whiledo]

I take it you've never read many comments with score < 0.

Re:Slashdot Tag Racism

[funkatron]

That's religious discrimination not racism. You cant choose your race, you can choose your religion. Still doesn't make it right tho.

Re:Slashdot Tag Racism

[KingArthur10]

Jews are both a religion and a race, hence killing relatives of religiously Jewish people during WWII. Being Jewish is hereditary passed from the mother, so technically a lineage with daughters in every generation born from the daughters will perpetuate the race for as many generations as they keep it up.

One hell of a monopoly set

[Mathinker]

From Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge:

> The newer (September 2008) editions have a total of $20,580

That wouldn't go far to pay off $1.9M. Perhaps if you had the most valuable set ever:

> The Guinness Book of World Records states that a set worth $2,000,000 and made of
> 23-carat gold, with rubies and sapphires atop the chimneys of the houses and hotels,
> is the most expensive Monopoly set ever produced.

but just barely!

"Work" is an Album

[WizardOfFoo]

As much as I would like to hold that infringing multiple songs off an album constitutes a single infringement, I don't see how that can be reconciled with the fact that each song may have different lyricists, composers, singers, etc - each of which have their own part of the bundle of sticks that constitute the copyrights in a song (god save you if it is a sound recording). Even if one were to take that the band (and by extension the RIAA) has assignments of copyright from all the various people who have a stick in the combined work, that still leaves the problem of multiple copyrights, works, and infringements.

At least from a damages perspective though, we should treat all of those infringements as having a net total worth of that song's fraction of the album's value. Everyone might not be particularly happy with their fraction of a sale but in theory everyone agreed to the contracts that setup the whole divvying scheme (bargaining power is a discussion for another day).

I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[AmigaHeretic]

...Just go into Wal-Mart and steal the damn CDs!

I mean seriously don't do that, but if you go into Wal-Mart and steal a CD most likely nothing is going to happen to you if you get caught with one CD on you. Maybe they'll call the cops to come scare you, and that's a maybe.

Just getting a copy off the internet though (not even depriving another person or store of the actual CD even) will cost you MILLIONS. I mean really, 1.92 million? I mean if she gave 100% of every paycheck she ever makes, even at a decent wage, she probably won't make that much money in her LIFE. So destroying someones entire existance because they downloaded some songs? Does that seem just?

In Lane County, Oregon (google about our Jail situation, where they have a comuter program to determine who gets released early based on certain criteria) a guy was sentenced to 1 year in jail by a judge for rape. The jails are so over crowded that they (the computer program) let him out after 3 hours!! 2 weeks later he raped and murdered some other lady. (We're all hoping they keep this guy in next time for at least a week :rolls eyes:)

So a rapist gets 3 hours of Jail time, and someone who DL'ed Kazaa to her computer gets their life ruined?

The RIAA are pulling some strings behind the scene I think it's obvious to say.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[selven]

This case is about uploading, not downloading. Downloading is harmless - the effect is the same as not downloading. Uploading causes damages, because it's unfair competition. Stop spreading this misinformation so we can discuss the actual issues, not some arguments founded on faulty premises.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[zippthorne]

Dammit. I had mods in this thread, but this typo is too funny to ignore:

google about our Jail situation, where they have a comuter program...

That is a bad overcrowding problem, indeed, if measures like that need to be taken.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[MaskedSlacker]

Speaking of misinformation, you're full of shit.

She was only uploading BECAUSE she downloaded the song, and the software defaulted to uploading it for her without intervention. Technically you are right that the case is about uploading, but there was never any intent to upload on the defendant's part.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[Achromatic1978]

LMAO. Yeah. Because Kazaa didn't tell you at the start of the install that files on your computer will be shared with other users unless disabled. Oh wait, it does.

You know, this is a civil case. I find the preponderence of belief that she didn't have any intention to do any such thing really quite high. You know, what with the perjury she committed, the fact that she replaced the hard drive after being caught, and lied about that, etc, etc.

Let's be honest here. Whatever you think or don't think of the RIAA's actions, Jammie Thomas was quite possibly one of the worst defendants that anyone could have chosen to take up the cause. We're not talking the grandmother whose kids come over once every week and play on the PC, etc. We're talking a woman who was logged onto filesharing sites using her email account and username she'd used on dozens of sites over the last decade, when she found out she'd been caught, she immediately went to Best Buy, had them replace her hard drive, then LIED ABOUT IT IN COURT, for a start.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[hitmark]

how many users have you seen that keeps hitting next without looking at info presented?

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[mdwh2]

If only that were true - downloading would be legal.

The problem is that the RIAA try to have it both ways. If you download, it's "theft". But if you upload, you're suddenly hit with something far worse than a theft conviction would get you. Well, is copyright infringement theft, or not?

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[selven]

Lack of intent doesn't mean you don't pay damages - it restricts punitive damages, but that's it.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[Opportunist]

I'm honestly waiting for the first to follow this train of thought:

1) My life is ruined.
2) I have a gun.
3) I know where that company that ruined my life has its headquarters.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's full of shit because...?

She WAS uploading, right?

Who said anything about intent?

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[Bigjeff5]

Copyright infringement is copyright infringement, that's why they call it copyright infringement. It is not theft.

Also, there is criminal copyright infringement which carries stiff penalties (loss of assets, major fines, jail time), but they require someone profiting financially off of copyright infringement - a commercial level copying operation. Since digital copying is almost never a commercial operation, the record companies must settle for civil court.

It's also a hell of a lot easier to prove their case in civil court than criminal, so they aren't even looking for criminal copyright infringement unless it is a major operation. I don't think they could get a bigger judgement than this in a criminal case anyway.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[AmigaHeretic]

Re-read what I read. I said she 'Downloaded' Kazaa. She wanted to download some songs not upload them. Most people with those file sharing programs (many of our Moms included) don't realize that you are sharing their downloads. She got 'caught' or should I say the RIAA found it better to charge her with uploading, but the point still stands she wanted to DL a few songs not upload them.

So the point was, and is, the lesson learned was, steal CDs from Wal-Mart not download them from the internet.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[AmigaHeretic]

But the point of my original post really had nothing to do with her accidentally sharing. A person downloads Kazaa to 'get' music. I know of know when that siad, "Hey I'm going to install Kazaa to share these 24 files I have. Har har har!!"

She had every intent of 'stealing' the music. She didn't want to get her lazy but to the store or get a job to pay for the music. Maybe she even went to her friends and said, "I STOLE music today!! HA HA HA!!! Screw the System!!!!!"

My point still stands though. A person would be $1.92 million better off just going into Wal-Mart and stealing the CDs.

I mean if we are talking risk vs. reward, well, the Reward is better stealing from Wal-Mart, as you get an actually CD with better sound quality, and the Risk is better as I don't think there would ever be a case where I person walks into Wal-Mart, puts a CD in her purse and gets fined $1,920,000.00

I'm saying the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Yeah, maybe she's scum bag pile of crap, I don't know, but destroying a person life over what most people here do everyday is a little odd.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever you think or don't think of the RIAA's actions, Jammie Thomas was quite possibly one of the worst defendants that anyone could have chosen to take up the cause.

More like the best defendant. And by that I mean most representative. Because she's most similar to all of us slobs and how we might react in the face of a $1.92m fine. If there should be one case to create all this hype, I'd rather it was one with all kinds of real-life quirks, because in real life little old ladies accused of file sharing are the exceptions.

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[PinkyDead]

Can't wait for the headline:
"Defendant in RIAA case goes Musical"

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of intent doesn't mean you don't pay damages - it restricts punitive damages, but that's it.

thank god the punitive damages were restricted!

Re:I guess we've all learned a lesson...

[jgostling]

LMAO. Yeah. Because Kazaa didn't tell you at the start of the install that files on your computer will be shared with other users unless disabled. Oh wait, it does.

Yeah. Because everyone reads all the crap at the start of the install, especially since most installers have those friendly and easy to understand EULA things that even a 6 year old kid could make sense out of.

Cheers!

Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[brit74]

Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer, In the "real world", the case would not have been dismissed. It would've ended with a guilty verdict in small claims court.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[selven]

Someone should just shove this into the RIAA's face.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[winwar]

Maybe you should have at least read the summary before commenting. As there is no mod for illiteracy or lack of reading comprehension, I'll summarize instead:

In the "real world", if the case had not been dismissed then damages (in the low five figures) would have been awarded.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[ratboy666]

Well...

You shouldn't concentrate so much on that verdict, but as to what that verdict does to foreign perception of the US. I live but two hours from the US border, and what Jamie did doesn't even qualify as a civil issue, let alone a crime, where I live. Unfortunately, US lobbyists are trying to change the law here, but, so far, with little success (except for the typical lip service; love to see politicos at work sucking hard!).

Tough luck on the verdict, USA. I am laughing at you.

Now, for a practical matter. If a friend from the US comes and visits, and makes copies (or downloads) of music, is she liable for copyright infringement when she returns to the US? Now, further, if she downloads exclusively from me, and yet is resident in the US, is she guilty?

Tough questions, but these SHOULD be resolved in a hurry. After all, the difference between $0 and $1.92 million is, well, $1.92 million! Comparisons to cocaine smuggling are welcome... You can get 500 songs on the cheapest mp3 player these days, which is 400 times what Jamie is accused of, with a potential fine of 1/2 billion dollars now -- Say this out loud, and try not to break out laughing. "a $20 investment can result in $500 million in fines".

Nope, couldn't keep a straight face, sorry.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[Runaway1956]

Hooray. Someone with some much needed sanity. People aren't executed in the modern world for petty theft. Someone mod this guy up - hell, give him 50 points. (Yeah, I know, the mod system is as broken as the legal system, lol)

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[VGPowerlord]

Now, for a practical matter. If a friend from the US comes and visits, and makes copies (or downloads) of music, is she liable for copyright infringement when she returns to the US? Now, further, if she downloads exclusively from me, and yet is resident in the US, is she guilty?

I don't know. Assuming you're referring to Canada, the easiest way to get around that would be to put them on recordable media. After all, you guys pay a tax on those for precisely this use, which makes it nice and legal!

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

"Tough luck on the verdict, USA. I am laughing at you."

quoth wiki on private_copying_levy : Canada's current levies are as follows: $0.24 per unit for Audio Cassette tape (40min or longer); $0.21 per unit for CD-R Audio, CD-RW-Audio & MiniDisc; $0.21 per unit for CD-R, CD-RW (non audio). In 2009 the levy on CDs and MiniDiscs will rise to $0.29

You guys pay far more per year than we do.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[westlake]

Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer, In the "real world", the case would not have been dismissed. It would've ended with a guilty verdict in small claims court.

In the real world, this defendant settles out of court.

Copyrights are anchored in the federal constitution and statutes.

But - most importantly - file sharing is treated as an unlicensed wholesale distribution. That is why why you end up in the federal system.

You are talking real money here.

There is no such thing as a federal small claims court outside of "territorial" jurisdictions like Washington D.C.

Because the extent of the distribution is difficult to determine, statutory damages become an option.

That is a dangerous, dangerous thing for a defendant whose case is factually weak or who can be expected to perform poorly on the stand.

The defense has all but conceded that Thomas lied on the stand.

That she tampered with evidence.

Thomas is the iceberg.

The geek is the Titanic and it's time to man the boats.
 

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Tough luck on the verdict, USA. I am laughing at you.

You and everyone else in the world who knows about this.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[Bigjeff5]

I don't think the framers of the Constitution could have fathomed a $1.9 million award for a case that was not, and could never be, criminal copyright infringement.

That was the primary purpose of the copyright provision in the constitution - to prevent other people from profiting off of your work by copying it and then selling it.

To make a comparison to what the RIAA is doing, it's like getting hit with an $80,000 fine for taking a picture of a painting in a museum, or even photo-copying a picture of a painting from a book. It is insanity.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[tkw954]

Now, for a practical matter. If a friend from the US comes and visits, and makes copies (or downloads) of music, is she liable for copyright infringement when she returns to the US? Now, further, if she downloads exclusively from me, and yet is resident in the US, is she guilty?

I think another good question is whether it is legal to visit the States as a Canadian with music on your ipod which you legally copied in Canada.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[Asclepius99]

Rather then reading the summary you could read the actual blog post in which he first states that the there was no iota of evidence for either reproduction or distribution. NYCL says they should have had a directed verdict (the judge throws out the plaintiffs case when they finished instead of having the defense present). So the original suggestion is that in the "real world" the case is dismissed.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Rather then reading the summary you could read the actual blog post

You must be new here.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[vivaelamor]

As a Brit, I'm in no position to be laughing. Perhaps you haven't kept up to date on what happens over the pond, here are some examples: Digital Britain report to combat piracy as well as a forum for the report, here is some focus on the piracy aspect of the report. This is shortly after our IP minister says government will not legislate against piracy. Sneaky ISP cuts a deal with label while promising to be harder on piracy most likely to preempt the Digital Britain report.

Ironically I think our court system would have done better with the sort of case you had to deal with.. but our government makes up for that by being ready to impose new legislation at the drop of a hat.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[JakartaDean]

I'm kinda confused about a few things from this, and other articles, about copyright infringement trials and what I also see elsewhere. I've got a few questions:

Why do I get that warning from the FBI on my DVDs talking about five years in jail, or whatever it is, for illegally copying the contents? Why isn't that a purely civil matter?

Why do you allow damages beyond actual damages? I imagine the answer is probably based on the need to prevent future violations, but this seems the wrong way to do this to me, as well as unfair, especially if the FBI is also after my ass for a criminal conviction. You've expanded civil litigation beyond what it was originally designed for, it seems to me.

Juries for civil trials????? You gotta be kidding me. That's about the dumbest thing anyone's ever done in a legal context. My dad was an expert witness for many years, and I've even worked where I was required to testify in a civil trial, where the judge was simply brilliant, IMO.

Obviously I'm not an American, although I do admire many things about your constitution. (I'm Canadian, but have lived overseas for years, and I don't know if any of my objections also apply to Canadian, or other, civil regimes.)

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a purely civil matter because copyright is a contract between an author and the society, when you break this contract the society can prosecute you if it deems you caused enough damage to this contract.

The damages may or may not be beyond actual damages, these are statutory damages, which awarded when the actual damages are unknown. You are talking about punitive damages and you are also being wrong about them - they make sense even in presence of a criminal case parallel to the civil one because the criminal one may not stick. See OJ Simpson's murder case, where the the criminal case did not stick yet he still payed damages through the civil one.

I cannot help you with juries for civil trials because I don't see how them being the dumbest thing anyone's ever done in a legal context follows from your dad being an expert witness for many years.

Re:Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

You are assuming that we buy our media here. I buy it in the US when possible.

Date of commencment is flawed logic

[rxan]

no statutory damages could be awarded as to any work whose copyright registration effective date was subsequent to the date of defendant's commencement of use of Kazaa

I'm sorry but this logic is laughable. Say I started using Kazaa in 2005. In 2006 I take a newly produced and copywritten album and share it, no problem! The effective date of the copyright (2006) is subsequent to when I started using Kazaa (2005), so I'm in the clear. The earlier you start file sharing, the better!

Re:Date of commencment is flawed logic

[langelgjm]

That's not what is being said. Rather, I think the point is that if registration of copyright occurs after the infringement occurs, this has an effect on the calculation of damages.

Re:Date of commencment is flawed logic

[MaskedSlacker]

It may be flawed logic, but that IS the way the law is written.

Re:Date of commencment is flawed logic

[Asclepius99]

That's not the way the law is written. That's like committing mail fraud and saying "But I've been using the USPS since the 90s!" Using a service that can be used for an illegal purpose before using it illegally is not a get out of jail free card. The real flaw in the logic here is that any record company may have put out a song before registering the copyright. Unless someone made a big mistake I doubt any company puts songs out into the media without already having the secured copyright, so it's probably very rare that you could file share a song without it being copyrighted (assuming it's not free to begin with).

Re:Date of commencment is flawed logic

[Nefarious Wheel]

That's not what is being said. Rather, I think the point is that if registration of copyright occurs after the infringement occurs, this has an effect on the calculation of damages.

I understand the US does not permit claims of retrospective infractions? If you do something before it's illegal, you can't be done for the infraction? That would be like the bad old days of the UK prior to the American Revolution.

Re:Date of commencment is flawed logic

[Anonymous Coward]

No. There simply is a difference with the amount of damages you can collect. If the registration occurs after infringement, you are limited to actual damages.

Re:Date of commencment is flawed logic

[LandruBek]

That is true; what you describe is known as the prohibition on ex post facto laws: new legislation cannot put you in jeopardy for something that is over and done with, and that was not illegal when you did it. But in this case we are not talking about new legislation, just registration of copyrights, i.e., a bit of important paperwork. IANAL, but as I understand US copyright law, you cannot get monetary damages unless and until you register your copyright, and you can only get damages for infringement that occurs after registration. So the RIAA has no legal right to collect damages for works if they were unregistered at the time of the infringement.

Yeah, the no-retroactive-liability issue is similar. So I guess there is a parallel there.

If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIFY.

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

If you're ever on a jury in the United States, the legal system will wrongly try to convince you that they're either guilty or not guilty, but there is a third way: nullification or veto powers.

This is when you think the law is bad, or you otherwise cannot convict them under it by your conscience. It still exists to this day, but simply remains mostly unknown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

In this case, I would have absolutely nullified a potential $2 million fine. Did she do it? Sure. But it's a bad law resulting in excessive fines.

It only takes one juror who knows his or her rights to stop this kind of crap. For more information as your rights at a juror, see the Fully Informed Jury Association.

http://fija.org/

-SKO

Blame the system

[homer_s]

The judicial system deserves more blame the RIAA for this. The judicial system is setup, guided and managed purely to serve the interests of the lawyers.
And they do everything to make it complicated, slow and expensive. They make the laws and they get paid to fight for/against it as well.

Monday morning quarterbacking

[Grond]

The blog post ignores the fact that a trial is a dynamic process. Had he made the arguments he lists, then RIAA lawyers would quite likely have countered them with appropriate arguments and evidence. For example:

Liability-Reproduction right
Plaintiffs failed to introduce an iota of evidence that Jammie Thomas-Rasset had made a single copy using Kazaa.
Result: directed verdict on reproduction right.

If he made that argument at trial, the RIAA would almost certainly have introduced evidence that bit-for-bit identical copies of the songs in question are available on Kazaa, that such an identical copy is unlikely to have occurred if she ripped the song herself, and that she didn't own the albums in question. Circumstantial evidence, perhaps, but probably enough to get the issue to the jury instead of a directed verdict.

Some of his statements are questionable as a matter of law:

The jury should have been instructed that a "work" is an album, and that multiple mp3's from one album constitutes a single "work".

There is not particularly strong precedent on this issue. Some courts have held that this is the case, it's true, but as best I can find they were only district courts and not in the same circuit as Minnesota (where the Thomas case was held), further diminishing their already merely persuasive authority. I do not believe there is any mandatory authority on this point for the District of Minnesota, which means that the RIAA lawyers may well have been successful in persuading the judge to adopt a one song, one work basis for calculating statutory damages.

Some of his statements sound impressive but wouldn't have made a difference:

The jury could have been instructed that no statutory damages could be awarded as to any work whose copyright registration effective date was subsequent to the date of defendant's commencement of use of Kazaa

A quick check at the US Copyright Registry of a random selection of the songs that Ms. Thomas infringed shows that they were registered many years ago, in some cases over a decade ago, and easily predated any infringement by Ms. Thomas.

Ultimately, this is about drumming up interest in his law firm and ad revenue from his blog, which Slashdot happily hands him about once a week or so. It also does a lot to poison the potential jury pool for future copyright litigation, which is of great interest to a lawyer who works those kinds of cases on the side of the defense. One should take everything Mr. Beckerman says about these issues with a grain of salt appropriate to the magnitude of his self-interest.

In short, this is nothing but Monday morning quarterbacking, and not particularly good quarterbacking at that. It should also tell one something that most of his legal arguments are not backed up by citations to relevant authorities.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[jeffliott]

I think your analysis is fair, but I also think it totally disregards one of the most important points which IMHO is the unrealistic ratio of the judgment to actual proven damages. However, since anyone with a fair bit of knowledge of the case and the issue in general could have told you that, I can't help but agree that it is at best gratuitous and at worst, advertising.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[GuloGulo2]

I've been saying this for years, and you can see the result in my karma.

Funny, the trolls seem to have let you off fairly easily...

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Anonymous Coward]

Boo hoo hoo. Your karma is in the pits because you're a fucking twat, not because you're some messenger of uncomfortable truths.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Moryath]

Bullshit.

If he made that argument at trial, the RIAA would almost certainly have introduced evidence that bit-for-bit identical copies of the songs in question are available on Kazaa, that such an identical copy is unlikely to have occurred if she ripped the song herself

Digital technology is digital technology. Rip the same track, compress with the same software algorithm and bitrate, and you will get the same output every time. If there's one thing digital tech is good at, it's being consistent.

I do not believe there is any mandatory authority on this point for the District of Minnesota, which means that the RIAA lawyers may well have been successful in persuading the judge to adopt a one song, one work basis for calculating statutory damages.

If the "single" even still existed, I'd be tempted to give you benefit of the doubt. The MafiAA has been doing their best to sell "album only" setups for over three decades now.

Hell, part of the reason I can't stand Guitar Hero: World Tour is that their download system is primarily set up for "albums", rather than a la carte.

It also does a lot to poison the potential jury pool for future copyright litigation, which is of great interest to a lawyer who works those kinds of cases on the side of the defense.

One of the crappiest thing about the modern legal system is that if you have any clue about the law (read: you're not a retard from the boonies or the projects who will believe whatever they heard John Stewart/Steven Colbert spouting last night without a filter) you're not likely to be part of the jury pool.

Know what the most likely ways to get yourself kicked of a jury are?
- Be an Eagle Scout (or Gold Award Girl Scout).
- Be an ethnic nonminority.
- Have over a 75 IQ.
- Show any indication that you are capable of understanding the law independently. People have actually been kicked off of juries for requesting a written copy of the relevant law in the jury room.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Rogerborg]

Yup, NewYorkCountryLawyer is a real expert at calling the shots three days after they've been made. We need a new "IANASL" tag: I Am Not A Significant Lawyer.

If NYCL were a lawyer of substance then he'd be too busy laywering, rather than taking the time (and apparently having the need) to promote himself on Slashdot. Those who can, do. Those who can't, well, they either teach, or focus on their marketing.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[mr_matticus]

Bullshit.

Reactionist.

Digital technology is digital technology. Rip the same track, compress with the same software algorithm and bitrate, and you will get the same output every time. If there's one thing digital tech is good at, it's being consistent.

Try it yourself. Rip a song several times. You will see that in fact, the copies will not be bit-for-bit identical. Consistently very close, but not identical.

If the "single" even still existed, I'd be tempted to give you benefit of the doubt. The MafiAA has been doing their best to sell "album only" setups for over three decades now.

He actually overstated the support the other way. No one who actually litigates in this area would be so downright dishonest as to claim that an individual song does not constitute a work. It's not an either/or situation. Both the individual tracks and the album are creative works. Even if you were to consider the record label copyright solely on the album, in this context, taking of complete songs would have a fair probability of being considered substantially more than de minimus use.

One of the crappiest thing about the modern legal system is that if you have any clue about the law

One of the crappiest things about Slashdot is the popular misconception that you know more about the law than you do, or that "the system" is the fictionalized construction you've built in your head to berate.

Show any indication that you are capable of understanding the law independently. People have actually been kicked off of juries for requesting a written copy of the relevant law in the jury room.

The jury isn't there to deliberate the law. They're there to establish factual findings as requested by the court. That's all. You're neither counselors nor judges; neither litigators nor legislators. Your role in the process isn't as grand editor; jury nullification (a) rarely works and (b) has never changed the law. It's a fast way to a mistrial, though. The fact that you don't understand what the jury is there for is proof enough that you're not qualified to make the legal judgments you want to make in the first place. Notice that judges, attorneys, and paralegals almost never serve on juries, either.

If you want to deal with the substantive law in question, take it to the legislature that has the power to do something about it.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[eison]

Google "AccurateRip". Exact Audio Copy plugin that compares checksums of your rips against other rip checksums so that you can re-rip if you have an error.
CD audio is digital, different rips *should* be bit for bit identical, if not there was an error.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Moryath]

Try it yourself. Rip a song several times. You will see that in fact, the copies will not be bit-for-bit identical. Consistently very close, but not identical.

Have done. They turn out identical. If yours aren't, you're using archaic software.

Both the individual tracks and the album are creative works. Even if you were to consider the record label copyright solely on the album, in this context, taking of complete songs would have a fair probability of being considered substantially more than de minimus use.

Hm. As opposed to an entire chapter of a book... hey, wait, if you distribute a chapter of a book, or multiple chapters, or all of it, you're still only liable for one work, e.g. the book itself.

They're there to establish factual findings as requested by the court. That's all. You're neither counselors nor judges; neither litigators nor legislators. Your role in the process isn't as grand editor; jury nullification (a) rarely works and (b) has never changed the law. It's a fast way to a mistrial, though. The fact that you don't understand what the jury is there for is proof enough that you're not qualified to make the legal judgments you want to make in the first place. Notice that judges, attorneys, and paralegals almost never serve on juries, either.

How clueless can you be?

The job of a jury is to determine (in criminal court) "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" and in a civil case, "liability based on a preponderance of evidence."

If I'm tasked with finding someone guilt/liable under law X, then as a reasonable, honest, and fair citizen I ought to be able to get and read a copy of law X, to verify that one of the parties in the courtroom (yes, entirely likely including a paid-off judge) hasn't just lied to me about what it says.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Anonymous Coward]

So where did you get your law degree Grond?

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Bigjeff5]

I wish I had mod points, that post deserves a +5 insightful.

The defense has just as much right to exclude a juror as the plaintiff, which means the plaintiff can't "stack" the jury unless the defendant is incompetant.

Also, I have been on a jury, you don't get a copy of the law in question, that would be foolish. The judge explains the criteria for violation of the law, and the jury's job is determine guilt based on the key points of the law. It's usually something along the lines of "If you determine X, Y, and Z are true, find the defendant guilty." Lawyers have to go to school for years to BEGIN to make heads or tails of the law, do you realy want ignorant citizens arguing the finer points of the law in the deliberation room? I don't. And 99% of non lawyers, including the GP, are quite ignorant of the law.

I definitely don't agree with the verdict in this case, and I have a lot of respect for NewYorkCountryLawyer, but armchair lawyers are worse than armchair quarterbacks. The GP has definitely fallen for this, and I think NYCL has as well in this case.

BTW, in case the GP didn't know, thanks to iTunes and Amazon et all, the "single" is more popular than ever.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Grond]

I got my JD from Washington University in St. Louis. I also have both Bachelor's and Master's degrees in computer science. I know whereof I speak.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Grond]

Rips from CDs should be identical, but not mp3 encodings. Different mp3 encoders will often produce at least slightly different output.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[gmhowell]

How clueless can you be?

The job of a jury is to determine (in criminal court) "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" and in a civil case, "liability based on a preponderance of evidence."

If I'm tasked with finding someone guilt/liable under law X, then as a reasonable, honest, and fair citizen I ought to be able to get and read a copy of law X, to verify that one of the parties in the courtroom (yes, entirely likely including a paid-off judge) hasn't just lied to me about what it says.

Sounds like he's a shill belonging to a particular class of citizenry who doesn't quite understand that the jury was envisioned as having much greater strength than afforded today.

"Oh, tut tut my little laypeople, we'll let the man in the black robe condense all of this difficult to understand stuff into bite sized chunks for you." That's only necessary because the system has been gamed for a few centuries by those jurists making work for themselves by making it too complex for us proles.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[mr_matticus]

Have done. They turn out identical. If yours aren't, you're using archaic software.

No, they don't. Lossy rips are simply not bit-for-bit identical, and you're being completely disingenuous (no shock, based on the remainder of your reply) if you claim that they are. We're not talking FLAC here.

Hm. As opposed to an entire chapter of a book... hey, wait, if you distribute a chapter of a book

If the chapter is independently registered as a copyrighted work, then yes. Individual songs are copyrighted works, and not just the entire album. The songwriter of track 3 isn't necessarily the songwriter of track 7; the sound recording of each individual song is typically registered separately as a consequence of radio release--they don't play the whole album on the radio, they play a song. It has a set of copyrights that stand alone.

Clueless indeed.

The job of a jury is to determine (in criminal court) "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" and in a civil case, "liability based on a preponderance of evidence."

No, the job of a jury is to answer questions of fact. Questions of law are resolved by the judge during the trial process, through the process of oral arguments and testimony.

If I'm tasked with finding someone guilt/liable under law X, then as a reasonable, honest, and fair citizen I ought to be able to get and read a copy of law X,

You're not. You're tasked with finding whether specific acts or circumstances are true or false. If you find the prerequisites to be true, then guilt or liability is established. There are tidy little forms to help you with this process.

o verify that one of the parties in the courtroom (yes, entirely likely including a paid-off judge) hasn't just lied to me about what it says.

Incorrect statements of the law are resolved on appeal or on objection of counsel, not by the jury. Your fantasy-land reality notwithstanding, the role of the jury is not the role of the judge, nor is the role of counselor, litigator, or legislator. The legal system has a separation of powers just like the government. These procedural rules exist for a reason, and that reason is due process.

Again, if you have a problem with the law, talk to the legislature. If you have a problem with a judge, vote them out when they come up for reelection.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[mr_matticus]

the jury was envisioned as having much greater strength than afforded today

Envisioned by whom? Greater strength than what? This is both ignorant and baseless.

The Anglo-Saxon jury has always been a finder of fact, not of law. The law came either from the sovereign or, later, from Parliament. Juries have never been involved in that process.

They did indeed have greater strength in the past, when the jurors were also the witnesses testifying. That practice was terminated for obvious reasons.

That's only necessary because the system has been gamed for a few centuries by those jurists

Oh, another ignorant and unsubstantiated claim. Jurists aren't the active participants. If anyone is gaming anything, it's the litigators, and by design.

making work for themselves by making it too complex for us proles.

Any attorney would gladly thank you for inventing a simplified system of codification or for reigning in the legislature's schizoid drafting. The idea that there is an all-encompassing "lawyer conspiracy" to make things harder for themselves is patently absurd to anyone who even begins to know what they're talking about.

There are so many competing groups that such an apparatus could never accomplish that. Complexity of laws is a natural result of caselaw-based jurisprudence and simple human nature. You can pretend otherwise if you like. It's not like this place is known for being in touch with reality.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[Arathrael]

No, they don't. Lossy rips are simply not bit-for-bit identical, and you're being completely disingenuous (no shock, based on the remainder of your reply) if you claim that they are. We're not talking FLAC here.

No. Lossy rips may not be bit-for-bit identical, and if they're encoded differently they certainly won't be. But if they're ripped with decent software/hardware (so you get identical wavs) and encoded with the same software and the same settings they will be identical. I have identical mp3s right here (identical md5sums) that were ripped at different times on different PCs but encoded with the same software and settings.

I'm not really clear on why you think lossy rips would be 'simply not bit-for-bit identical'. If you take an identical source and apply an algorithm to it, unless there's some random or other variable element to the algorithm, you're going to get the same result every time. The only variation here is going to come from errors reading the source CD (resulting in different wavs) and the use of different encoders. That's still a lot of potentially identical MP3s though.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[greed]

If a lossy encode, via the same codec with the same settings, does not come out the same way every single time then there is an input that you do not know about.

This could be something obvious, like the encoder adding a "time-of-encode" ID4 tag.

But, most likely, there's a random number generator being used in the codec that starts with a different seed each time you run it.

There can't be any other outcome: same inputs must equal same outputs. If what you think are the same inputs results in different outputs, then there's something you don't know about providing an input. (We'll include state -- like saving the last value of the PRNG seed -- as a hidden output that becomes a hidden input on the next run. Time-of-day clock is an input. So are working directory, user ID codes, and so on.)

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[mr_matticus]

If a lossy encode, via the same codec with the same settings, does not come out the same way every single time then there is an input that you do not know about.

Correct, with the minor qualification being an input that is not being considered, unless those other posters truly don't know or are totally discounting the information in the file other than the encoded sounds.

The only issue is that bit-for-bit identical copies found on filesharing networks are almost always from the same source. They will have identical MD5 sums, and thus identical metadata, and algorithm choice in encoding and compression will offer slight differences. This effect is amplified by the lack of need for multiple sources of the same data. Even FLAC files may be slightly different, given metadata, timestamps, and so on.

The only point is that bit-for-bit identical files as those on P2P networks are indeed evidence of P2P acquisition. What it's not is proof of P2P acquisition. That should be fairly obvious to all involved, except that most people can't seem to understand even basic legal concepts.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[gmhowell]

Yeah, whatever. Most things are trivial to solve. And until legislatures are comprised of something other than 99% lawyers, I'll continue to figure that law is a game, invented by lawyers, for lawyers.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[mr_matticus]

Time's up. The US Congress currently has 188 lawyers, or 35%. Thanks for playing.

The world awaits your trivially easy solutions.

Re:Monday morning quarterbacking

[gmhowell]

Way to miss the point douchenozzle. It's the reason asshats like you will be second against the wall, after the marketers of the Encyclopedia Galactica.

"Wrong about this"? How, exactly?

[Mathinker]

> But he was wrong about this. Plain and simple

How could he be "wrong" about this? He predicted the outcome?

All he claims is that in his opinion the law reads in a certain way; he's much too smart to assume that the court system is going to agree with him.

You, on the other hand, seem to have a knee-jerk between your ears. Get over it, and start to tolerate other people's opinions.

I imagine a parallel universe sometimes, too

[whiledo]

I'm sad to see this judgment turn out the way it did. But I can't help but wish Ray had reported with a little bit less spin. Every time he had a story submission, it was like it was a guaranteed fact that the RIAA was on the ropes and there was no way Thomas would lose. I understand the PR world and how you want to leave the overwhelming impression that there's no way you can lose because sometimes that actually helps you win. But I don't think the slashdot crowd was very well served. I would have liked a more neutral point of view where from time to time they said things like, "yes, this bit DOES suck but it's likely it will apply based on other court judgments."

I know Ray pointed out several things that he thought were just plain wrong, but I start feeling like I'm not sure if I'm reading the neutral factual opinion or the press release version. As it stands, the laws are pretty stacked against the way most of on slashdot wish it was. Until we get those changed, I see little hope for courtroom victories.

Re:I imagine a parallel universe sometimes, too

[dissy]

But I don't think the slashdot crowd was very well served.

I am very sorry you are unhappy with what you have gotten for free.

Re:I imagine a parallel universe sometimes, too

[whiledo]

I am very sorry you are unhappy with what you have gotten for free.

Actually, I'm a subscriber. Thanks for the free attitude, though.

Re:I imagine a parallel universe sometimes, too

[dissy]

Actually, I'm a subscriber. Thanks for the free attitude, though.

My mistake. I didn't realize Ray was involved with that.

I guess I don't know what financials for all involved are going on, so I'm going to back out now.

PS, my services for free attitude are always available! (Except holidays and standard blackout dates)

Re:I imagine a parallel universe sometimes, too

[phantomfive]

I think NYCLawyer was caught by surprise as well. The trial ended quickly and it was almost as if the defense didn't put up a fight. His blog is really like a rebuke of the poor showing of the defense lawyers at the trial, worded in a way that avoids directly insulting someone who is offering their services for free, and probably doing the best they can. The closest he got to a direct condemnation was, " the plaintiffs are overlawyered, the defendants underlawyered, and the Courts misled by both" but a careful reading shows he is unhappy with how the defense proceeded, he thought they could have done a lot better.

The major roadblock that I see is the RIAA has no evidence that she actually shared the files with anyone, other than mediasentry. Furthermore, it is extremely unlikely she knew that she was actually offering to share those files with anyone. Is she guilty of illegally copying music? Yes, probably so (but the RIAA should be required to show that!). Is she guilty of purposely distributing millions of songs? Probably not. Did she actually distribute those songs? Probably, since that's how Kazaa works (besides being something of malware), but probably not millions of copies, and she probably wasn't aware of what Kazaa was doing. She probably wasn't aware of the other bad things Kazaa was doing, either.

Re:I imagine a parallel universe sometimes, too

[Asclepius99]

As someone else pointed out Kazaa makes it pretty clear that people can download from you what you download from other people unless you make the appropriate changes. And her trying to cover the thing up and lying about isn't going to scream innocent to a jury either. As a civil matter there's definitely enough evidence to suggest she knew she was distributing, though the millions of copies is a whole other ball game.

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the Wikipedia article. It specifically says that nullifcation is a de facto right in *criminal* trials. Isn't this case a tort?

Advertise

[Son of Byrne]

Hey NYCL, maybe you'd be interested in heading up a campaign to collect some funds from those of us in the know to educate the masses. I know from experience that the biggest problem with these court cases is ignorance. The judges sound like they're catching up, but I believe the persons on jury panels are still ignorant of the real dollar values involved and the facts surrounding the RIAA's abuses of the judicial system.

The first thing that comes to mind is that there are scads of advertisements from the MPAA and the RIAA that go to great lengths to equate copyright infringement with criminal theft (a very successful campaign I might point out based upon ignorant comments on this very website). What the world needs right now is not love, but balance. We're lacking *any* kind of counterpoint regarding consumer digital rights. I'd be thrilled to pieces to see one shred of advertisement (a billboard ad, paid ad time on network TV, etc.) that presented the opposition to the RIAA and the MPAA.

In short, if someone were to take the lead and head up a group that took funds from the public that were then used in a campaign of this sort, then I would be the first person in line to donate some cash.

I know, the EFF is *supposed* to be leading the charge on this, but I've seen not one physical manifestation of their efforts. Advertising on the Internet is cheap...but obviously not as effective as a commercial that equates stealing a car with downloading a song.

Anyone?

Re:Advertise

[rtfa-troll]

You will find that it's more effective to work together with others. Even if you do want to start a separate organisation, get in touch with the EFF; start working with them and see if they can give you advice and help. See what you can do for them. Maybe they want to do what you want to do but just don't have a volunteer who is able to do it or get the money together?

Re:Advertise

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Hey NYCL, maybe you'd be interested in heading up a campaign to collect some funds from those of us in the know to educate the masses. I know from experience that the biggest problem with these court cases is ignorance. The judges sound like they're catching up, but I believe the persons on jury panels are still ignorant of the real dollar values involved and the facts surrounding the RIAA's abuses of the judicial system. The first thing that comes to mind is that there are scads of advertisements from the MPAA and the RIAA that go to great lengths to equate copyright infringement with criminal theft (a very successful campaign I might point out based upon ignorant comments on this very website). What the world needs right now is not love, but balance. We're lacking *any* kind of counterpoint regarding consumer digital rights. I'd be thrilled to pieces to see one shred of advertisement (a billboard ad, paid ad time on network TV, etc.) that presented the opposition to the RIAA and the MPAA. In short, if someone were to take the lead and head up a group that took funds from the public that were then used in a campaign of this sort, then I would be the first person in line to donate some cash. I know, the EFF is *supposed* to be leading the charge on this, but I've seen not one physical manifestation of their efforts. Advertising on the Internet is cheap...but obviously not as effective as a commercial that equates stealing a car with downloading a song. Anyone?

Everything you say is right, except for the part about me being the one to do it. I'm a lawyer. That's all I am.

Re:Advertise

[Son of Byrne]

You indeed have a good point. I realize that I made the assumption that your popularity on slashdot translates to recognition in real life.

Then again, anyone who is relatively well recognized in real life is probably also well-connected to the media conglomerates (who frown upon anyone suggesting that their Imaginary Property is worth less than they want everyone to think).

Re:Advertise

[Anonymous Coward]

You call what the RIAA puts out on television effective advertising?

Parents know their kids download, do you think they're willingly going to let the RIAA tell them that their kids are evil? Kids know their friends aren't evil because their friends don't go around doing "other" evil things.

Also, I think it at least logically registers that nobody feels a song to be equivalent in value to a $20,000+ car.

I'd call the RIAA's advertising downright retarded, but that would be quite an insult to my mentally handicapped friends. The best sort of advertising you can do is talk to people yourself and inform them about what's happening.

You have the power. Ray has quite a bit of power to do so because a lot of people care what he has to say. "Just a guy" doesn't matter. It might be a bit slower to do it yourself, but look at it this way: Any movement toward having a more educated populace is a positive one. Whether or not you talk is fairly irrelevant, all you can do is speed up the process.

Why don't you want to speed up the process?

Re:Advertise

[Anonymous Coward]

As an aside, Could you possibly do your audience a favor and taking soulskill's advice next time and actually involve a clown or two.

Re:Advertise

[Son of Byrne]

Hey, I'd love to. I would. It just comes down to a matter of time (that I don't have). Unfortunately, I only have a few minutes here and there to "do my part" (just as Ray probably only has a few minutes here and there). I do spread "the good word" to my sphere of influence as much as I can, but I'm nowhere near popular and even if I were, I'm still not influencing as many as a national ad campaign would.

I guess I was hoping that someone else who had some time on their hands and some connections in the right places could put together a campaign that would be a start in educating people.
My involvement would be from a financial standpoint as would, I'm sure, several other people's, if they knew about it.

Its a pipe dream, I know, but that doesn't preclude it from ever happening...

It isn't a parallel universe, sadly

[Kupfernigk]

It's the same problem in the US legal system that now is starting to infest other legal systems: the idea that the rights of a corporation take precedence over the rights of an individual, and that the scale of litigation and punishment should be related to the turnover of the corporation rather than that of the individual.

As a Brit, I'm aware that my own country's legal system has gone rather downhill over the last 30 years. But the thing that strikes a European most about the US legal system is its cruelty. Punitive damages. Unconvicted defendants for white collar crimes going into court with wire ties binding their wrists. Three strikes and you're out for even a trivial third offense. "Humane" systems of execution where executioners spin out the proceedings for hours. Obviously practice varies greatly across the US States, just as some EU countries (ahem, Greece, ahem) have crap legal systems and others like Germany have good ones. But you only have to look at the outcome of the Pirate Bay case in Sweden, and this one, to see the disproportion involved. The effect of the Pirate Bay case on the European elections (and now a German MEP has defected to the Pirate Party) also shows the different levels of popular tolerance involved.

US citizens need to start growing a backbone. You do not have to support criminal activity to demand that corporations not be allowed to take over and distort the legal system.

Re:It isn't a parallel universe, sadly

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany does NOT have a good legal system.
You can be jailed for "thought" crimes and your lawyer can be prosecuted for defending you against those charges.
See Ernst Zundel.

Re:It isn't a parallel universe, sadly

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the country is run by lawyers.

They make the rules. They enforce the rules. They twist the rules to their own ends.

Really, the whole system is corrupt, does not work and should be replaced.

Will never happen.

Re:It isn't a parallel universe, sadly

[Alan R Light]

I agree about the cruelty inherent in the U.S. legal system, and in fact in U.S. culture. Unfortunately, telling Americans to grow a backbone will not help, as many Americans are convinced that it is only because they have backbones and love God that they can be sufficiently cruel to those whom they suspect of doing wrong, or at least of having done something they don't quite understand so it must have been very bad.

Trying to reason with these people is pointless, because after all they have been educated in American schools, which for the last 100 years have been actively involved in retarding intellectual growth. (This is absolutely true - the people who set up the system even wrote books about how they were going to prevent the children of the lower classes from becoming doctors and lawyers because there were already plenty of those.) Any reasoned argument is met with furrowed eyebrows and looks of suspicion, and the more "righteous" they are, the quicker you'd best walk away.

This is good

[macemoneta]

When your friend starts eating his toast with the buttered side down, he's just a little quirky.

When he packages his hair and nail clippings and burns them on a toy boat in the backyard pool, he's eccentric.

When he kills the neighbor's cat and wears the skin on his head proclaiming himself the beast master, he's bat-shit insane.

We've reached stage three with the RIAA, and now everyone can see it. It's time for treatment.

NYCL? Why not take up the cause directly?

[erroneus]

I am sure I am not alone in wondering why NYCL hasn't taken up the cause directly. It is a problem of venue or being licensed somewhere specific? If the case could be won "easily" then I have to wonder why it isn't being done?

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure this has been posted a million times.

"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man,
by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

--Thomas Jefferson

the perjury factor

[fishbowl]

Did this country lawyer's client create the impression that he or she was lying to a jury? I think we shouldn't ignore that element, because it is probably the most significant single factor that lead to the large judgment.

Re:the perjury factor

[mr_matticus]

Yes. Not once, but twice. The first result saw the jury react in a punitive way with the $200,000 award. It was atypical then, and it was based on her lying to the jury and basically the Slashdot legal effect: treat the jury as simpletons and morons and try to pull a "clever" fast one based on a ficitionalized fantasy version of the legal system. It didn't work then, and it certainly didn't work the second time.

Not only was there the knowledge that the first jury found her dishonest, but she continued with the same basic tactics this time. The jury reacted very much in the same way, and frankly, this case was a terrible test balloon with an unsurprising result. The only thing notable about the outcome here was the scale of the jury's contempt for the defendant. It was always apparent to everyone actually involved in the real world issues of this case that NYCL's analysis was deeply flawed and biased. It doesn't matter, though, given the massive echo chamber here.

What this case calls into question is not the concept of copyright or even the mechanics of its operation. It highlights the ongoing and deeply problematic lack of a second set of statutory damages keyed more to the P2P-style infringement that has become an issue in the past decade. The statutory damages are perfectly fine the way they are for the kinds of infringement they were written to stop. They're not fine for more casual users. The damages are intentionally not tied to the retail cost of a single copy, which makes the nonsense $24 claim just as egregious as the RIAA's "lost sales" figures. They are meant to be harsh and punitive, because enforcement is so spotty. The double standard here is irrelevant though when it's the popular side.

But Slashdot is full of petulant children and the same set of people who actively unravel every proposed change to copyright law that isn't a purely fantastical complete abolition. The US economy could not handle such a thing. IP is by far our most valuable export, and the only thing supporting our international trading. We don't manufacture anything of particular noteworthiness, and a service economy is dependent on non-tangible goods and attendant legal protection. Copyright is not going anywhere.

Re:the perjury factor

[cliffski]

Excellent post. Nice to see not everyone here is waving a flag for NYCL and the abolition of copyright.
And also good to see someone else realises that the only countries who will benefit from abolishing copyright are those like China with a decent manufacturing base.
If IP is devalued, the USA is fucked, and the current generation of college kids are more fucked than anyone else.

how to fix the system?

[bugi]

If we take as a given that this farce got as far as it has because the system is broken, then we must consider how to fix the system.

So, how can this system be fixed, and what can I personally do to help?

Dred Scott

[bzipitidoo]

Outcomes like this $1.92 million in damages for nothing hurt and weaken our system. Whatever a person's stand on copyright and Thomas' guilt, I'm seeing agreement that the amount is excessive and unfair. It reinforces cynical ideas that the whole system is corrupt, shot full of bribery and payoffs. It's also, as everyone realizes, complete bull. The fine is uncollectable. She'll never have the money. She's stuck now for years more litigation, trying to appeal all this. If this fine is ultimately upheld or she feels that the agonies of further fighting are worse than giving up, she is stuck having her wages garnished for the rest of her life, or going through bankruptcy, or maybe fleeing to another nation and asking for asylum.

Dred Scott was another unjust decision. That one lead to Civil War. Other issues have lead to civil unrest. The courts and lawmakers should think about such things when they do their work.

Well, yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because you're a shitty lawyer.

the good news about the verdict is..

[Anonymous Coward]

I now have several billion dollars worth of cds sitting at home that I can sell at the new going rate and retire off of.

your blog......

[AnAdventurer]

And I'll read your blog if I remember at the end of the day since there is nothing on TV tonight. Please read mine in return: AnAdventurer.com

Thanks!

A fix for the world economy

[Mal-2]

First, note that a single download is worth 3 and a third dead people. Obviously something is a bit out of kilter here, but let's assume at this point that it is the valuation of dead people.

At $80,000 per song, I estimate the value of my hard drive at $1.8 BILLION dollars. Yes, billion with a B. By that logic, I should be able to copy my collection onto cheap external hard drives (Seagate's outlet store was just selling them for $25) and mail them out to five people. Those people would then pass on the billions of free dollars to five others, and so on, and so on, and so on... Just think about it, no more foreclosed homes, no more poverty, no more hunger!

What you say? It's imaginary money? But the judicial system just ruled it real!

ALL YOUR BASS ARE BELONG TO US.

Mal-2

Re:A fix for the world economy

[AceofSpades19]

Well my harddrive is worth $16.88B , so there!

Re:A fix for the world economy

[Idiomatick]

Taking anime into account (I started fansubbing groups which have sent out millions of copies of episodes). I had caused over 500billion dollars in copyright infringement by age 16. By my 30th birthday I think i'll be nearing 10trillion in damages. If you compare this to gdp it puts me around 16th place (by country) ... except all negative values. I bet if I worked really hard at it like a full time job I could overtake the entire planets income in damages. Hell if you want to charge TPB for 8,0000$ of the things transferred on their trackers you reach an amazing 45quadrillion dollars in damages per year. (10x the worlds combined gdp).

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports

[mister_playboy]

(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)

Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]

Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]

Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]

- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]

- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organization known as IRGUN who is obsessed with gun control and compulsory service to the country in a capacity which he has yet to define. (Think brown-shirts.) Barack is intimately connected to disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (Rahm inherited Rod's federal-congress seat). Barack Obama is also connected to William Ayers (who ghost-wrote his books); Ayers is a man who promotes the concept that civilian collateral damage is ok in a war against freedom. Saul Alinsky, a man who made the quote as follows, "From all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer," is a man who had much influence on the young Barack Obama. A man who admired Lucifer for gaining his own kingdom in an act of rebellion. Barack also subscribed to Preacher Jeremiah Wright, who is himself a Afro-elitist who wants all the people who largely "pay the freight" to suffer at the hands of angry African-American mobs. There are over 30 million Americans on food stamps, and more blacks are in prison and on food-stamps per capita than anyone else. The problem with Wright is simply this: the facts are "racist." There is no conspiracy against African Americans here by citizens.
- Obama - AIPAC-bootlicker, corrupted to the bone Chicago-style and a traitor to the US Constitution and a liar whose real "legal" name could very well be Barry Sotero and an Indonesian citizen (The US does not allow plural citizenship) (If you care, not that it matters anymore under a lawless authoritarian totalitarian regime such as Barack Obama's, you can see more here at an aggregator; obamacrimes.info [obamacrimes.info] )
- Raytheon lobbyist in Pentagon, many lobbyists getting exemptions even though Obama promi

Re:Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Report

[Bigjeff5]

WTF?

I'm not happy with Obama either, but WTF does this have to do with the RIAA v. Thomas case?

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[Kyaphas]

If you know enough to nullify it, odds are extremely good that you'll be dismissed during the selection process. As much as we here on slashdot love to poke fun at lawyers, they're usually pretty smart, and will pick a jury they feel will get them the verdict they desire.

Re:RIAA ....Amen

[Bob_Who]

That's right! No more soup for you RIAA!! I sure as hell won't pay them if they're just gonna sue consumers instead. What a great marketing plan for lawyers that want backstage passes....and lobby sex.

Let's be a little more honest about this.

[westlake]

Speaking of misinformation, you're full of shit.

Please.

Kazaa is a file-sharing program.

Downloads default to your "shared files" folder. Shared files default to "share."

Which to a jury means exactly what you think it does.

There is neat little progress graph which shows which files are on the move and which are waiting in line.

You have a nickname.

You can chat with other users.

There is an option to scan the shared files of other users - and scoop up all you can eat.

There are options to set limits on your upstream and downstream traffic. When you try to close the program, you will warned if files are still in transit.

What Kazaa does and how it works is perfectly transparent.

In civil law, you are responsible for the consequences which can be reasonably be expected to follow from your actions.

That you shut your eyes to the truth is not a defense.

Stupid is not a defense.

But being too clever by half will sink you.

The geek is Wile E. Coyote - Super Genius - in court. He expects the system to roll over and play dead just because he says so.

Re:Let's be a little more honest about this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid is not a defense.

Well to be fair: in most countries in the Western world, stupid IS a defence. Hence why we have such crazy warning labels on products these days.

Its not fraud if you "force" them to pay $1.92 M

[Bob_Who]

....bidding voluntarily to the $1.92 Million price tag on Ebay is way too fair, and therefore, should be considered "fraud".

There won't be much left to steal soon.

[sn00pers]

Not to worry. Pretty soon there will be no more record labels and no more music to buy as the piracy puts everyone out of business. And I hope everyone that cheers on piracy remembers this. I also hope that when they complain that there's no good music being put out, that one of the primary reasons is that you're stealing the stuff that you consider good, so they can only support the stuff that makes money. The stuff you don't steal. If someone steals from a store, the police come and put them in jail. If we don't afford IP businesses the same protection from theft, then how can we expect to keep IP? It's true these people should not be sued. But they should go to jail just as if they were to steal anything else. It affects us all because the billions a year lost from music piracy affects the entire economy. Only when someone steal music and puts it on an online file sharing, they aren't simply doing the damage of one unit, they are redistributing it and causing the loss of much greater sales. Maybe suing people isn't the greatest thing to do. But until the law decides to help out by enforcing the law and throwing thieves in jail, there is nothing else the labels can do to protect themselves from being stolen out of business. Luckily a lot of courts seem to understand this. They know that the case of the RIAA is not the same as other issues that would be laughed out of court.

Re:There won't be much left to steal soon.

[Travelsonic]

Mot to worry. Pretty soon there will be no more record labels and no more music to buy as the piracy puts everyone out of business.

Not to worry, this pipe-nightmare will NEVER happen. Piracy has not put anybody out of business (by that I mean piracy alone), people will always find a way to / will profit off of content and/or create content.

And I hope everyone that cheers on piracy remembers this.

Says somebody sipping the doom-aide? sure, I'll believe you *wink wink nudge nudge*

If someone steals from a store, the police come and put them in jail.

Actually, they get fined OR they go to jail (or both) - they don't get bankrupted like what happens if sued by the record industry. (BTW: Comparing copying data illegally to actually stealing from a store = legally and logically inaccurate for many a reason.

If we don't afford IP businesses the same protection from theft, then how can we expect to keep IP?

1) IP rights don't cover theft - theft requires deprival of property from somebody, copying a copyrighted file without permission violates the creator's exclusive rights. You should, when talking facts, keep note to this important factual difference. 2) IP will still be created, IP will still be profited off of. Stop drinking the doom-aide.

But they should go to jail just as if they were to steal anything else.

Good luck, since they aren't stealing anything to behin with, that won't happen.

...because the billions a year lost from music piracy affects the entire economy.

Did you ever think for a minute as to twhether or not those statistics you defend are accurate?

...law decides to help out by enforcing the law and throwing thieves in jail,

Again, ironic you talk about the law since it is obvious you haven't a clue as to what you are talking about.

My suggestions: Look up the laws you are talking about, stop drinking the doom-aide, and get some sleep.

Re:There won't be much left to steal soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your formatting sucks. how about original

rebuttal

...

Re:There won't be much left to steal soon.

[Travelsonic]

/. fucked up my formatting. I did something similar.

It's not $24

[harlows_monkeys]

$24 is the price they charge for 24 licenses for consumer use of songs. Licenses to make and distribute an unlimited, untracked, number copies generally go for a few orders of magnitude more than $1 per license.

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[Anonymous Coward]

they should have found her guilty and fined her one dollar

typo: de minimis, not de minimus

[mr_matticus]

No text.

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[Bigjeff5]

Lawyers only get a limited number of "rejections" in a court case, they don't get to go through and reject anyone they don't like - that would violate the right to trial by a jury of your peers. They have to be careful about who they pick, and if they have a concern about someone they generally all go into a back room - sometimes with the proposed juror - and discuss the issue before deciding.

So no, the odds are not extremely good, I am very surprised that there was apparently nobody on the jury who had a clue, or who thought such fines were outrageous. The jury actually RAISED the fines - the RIAA was not asking for $80,000 per song.

Frankly, I don't understand it, she must have done something to piss off the entire jury.

Does this defense work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I am an AC, but I do have a very genuine question which I am hoping somebody with both technical and law knowledge can answer.

If a good is degraded while being attempted to re-produce, does the original copyright still apply?

For example, I have seen live amateur musicians playing famous "copyrighted" songs where they tell before performance that they would change the lyrics a word or to two to avoid the "infringement" issue. Because it is not the same thing, the copyright does not apply.

I am sure that if I hear a tune playing in FM radio, and I record it from the radio, then even though it is a copy, I have not infringed anything. Two possible reasons for this infringement waiver could be 1) because the audio quality is much degraded, or 2) this is fair use, I am just capturing what I am hearing, and my hearing was legal.

If the degradation in quality is reason, then suppose if person A uses a DVD ripper that degrades the quality to 50% (say to fit a 8.5GB disk into a 4.7GB) disk, but still good enough for viewing, is it still the same thing? Every damn bits are different, so how is this a "copy"?

If this quality degradation is not an issue, then even someone repeating a movie line would be copyright infringement since he has made a copy of a part of the movie audio (though very poor in quality though) using a reproduction machine that consists of human memory cells and human vocal chords.

The point I am trying to make is that, upto what degradation level it is considered a copy, and beyond which it is not a copy and hence not infringed?

On the other hand, if hearing the song and recording it was "fair use", would it also be fair use if I play a copyrighted song on my computer and then capture the audio stream using a recorder?

You Bet Your Life

[westlake]

If you're ever on a jury in the United States, the legal system will wrongly try to convince you that they're either guilty or not guilty, but there is a third way: nullification or veto powers.

God.

This is dumb.

In a civil trial the jury makes a simple finding of fact for the plaintiff or defendant.

The entire process of a modern jury trial is intended to strip a case of its emotion. It doesn't always work that way, of course.

But Hearts and Flowers it ain't.

The juror will be typically be middle aged, middle class, small-C conservative.

In the federal system, the panel will more or less be a creation of the judge - and a judge almost by definition is a middle aged small-C conservative. He is looking for men and women who have come to do a job and not to play the system.

The size of the federal jury pool and the element of randomness in its selection does not favor the lone nullifier.

He probably won't get a case he gives a damn about. He almost certainly won't give a damn about you.

Nullification - of course - has always cut both ways.

The black American through almost the whole of our history could tell you that much.

But I have always been a little bit puzzled about why the geek thinks a jury will be any way inclined to throw a lifeline out to him.

The geek builds castles in the air. He whines. He wheedles. He lies like a rug. He could have settled this business quickly and cheaply and saved everyone a lot of trouble.

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[Joe Jay Bee]

She lied in court and destroyed evidence, plus she was quite simply undeniably guilty of what she was accused of. That tends to piss juries off, as far as I can tell.

Re:Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Report

[SCPRedMage]

YHBT.

Bot.NET(tm) to the aRes-que?

[ae1294]

$2 Million for 24 songs? Well OK if you wanna fight dirty then the time has come for the Bot.NET lords of Cobol to unite!

Step 1. Take existing bot.net code and add $p2pflavor$ modded to start in das hidden mode.
Step 2. Have it set to automatically download mp3s, kiddie porn, $threatoftheweek$ via RSS feed from the $piratebay$.
Step 3. Distribute to the pleebs via normal bot.net methods, all of hem damn methods.
Step 4. Pleebs now automatically download da goods and become evil seed servers.
Step 5. Watch RIAA sue all of the earths pleebs in a massive stoke off.
Step 6. Watch all governments outlaw the internet.
Step 7. Watch all of the earths pleebs get really pissed off.
Step 8. Watch pleebs with guns run a muck in the great pleeb revolt of 2012.
Step 9. Self invented new defense, My system had that damn virus your Honor.
Step 0. No Profit for dem guys!

I now leave you to move into my underground lair so I can work on those sharks with freaking lasers baby!

Re:Bot.NET(tm) to the aRes-que?

[L4t3r4lu5]

You should probably fit your house with a carbon monoxide detector. You seem to be delirious.

Re:Bot.NET(tm) to the aRes-que?

[ae1294]

You should probably fit your house with a carbon monoxide detector. You seem to be delirious.

With the current state of the US legal system and economy maybe I prefer to remain delirious...

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[Draek]

We at Slashdot don't poke fun at lawyers for being idiots, we poke fun at them for being unethical, corrupt scumbags who'll do anything so long as they get paid for it (with NYCL being a rare exception). And dismissing juries because they know too much about the law fits *precisely* within that conception.

Re:RIAA Amen Brother

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen Brother! The ongoing obscenity of our so called 'entertainment industry', and the way that our government is prostituting itself to these scumbags is worse than corruption and speaks of a government that has lost its way entirely. It is no longer a government of our people, but a cabal of criminals feeding at the public trough and at numerous private troughs as well. Do not buy! Boycott! All of them. What does it take to bring justice to the American people? We in our house really do not like music at all, and despise the recent movie offerings, especially those comic book 'superheeeroes' crap that some try to call science fiction when it clearly is not. Comic book characters are not of any cultural or redeeming social value. Sounds like the legal definition of porn doesn't it?
    Maybe that lady and her family will become like an American 'taliban'. Maybe they will never pay a cent of that illegal 'judgement', but rather slyly 'download' all kinds of things from the anonymity of drive by hotspots and upload them where all the legaleeez in 'licence documents' say they should not go...like trade secrets to Cuba....chem formulae to Somalia.... noook science to that nut Kim Chunk Ill. Hey if the people no longer have a stake in their government, then that government no longer has any stake in the people. Hell maybe they will really start to be criminals and go into the dumps and tear all the labels off of old pillows and cushions and mattresses......

Boycott the music industry

[cdn-programmer]

For what its worth, I'm boycotting them.

This is pretty easy for me anyways. I own about 5 CD's. I have never had a working CD player hooked up to my stereo. Now I know I will never install one.

I have also decided I do not like the Chrysler and GM bail out. As a Canadian I feel we are looking at decades of abuse by special interest groups with too much power. Accordingly I will _never_ own a GM or Chrysler product again as long as I live.

Now you see - pollies think they can manipulate people.

However if we the people get mad enough then maybe they will start to learn.

Now I can assure people there are MANY alternatives.

1) buy from the musicians. If they sign with a label, shun them. Tell your friends. Refuse to listen to any CD's produced by organized crime (RIAA? Is that organized crime? I know some artists think they are)

2) Don't drive a GM. Drive an Audi or VW (Diesel gets 60+ MPG). Drive a Toyota. Just say NO.

Criticize people who do buy these products. Tell them they must like HUGE tax payer subsidies and high oil prices.

What we need to do is put people back to work. I fail to see how propping up an industry which is as sick as our auto industry is going to keep people gainfully employed. Just consider the SUV mileage figures. While North America focused on the putting tons of steel on the road with pathetic mileage, Japan was bringing out hybrids. Note also that North America consumes about 1/4 of the world's oil. Yup. The world produces about 83 million Barrels of oil per day (BOPD) and North America consumes over 20 million BOPD. Its in the BP statistical review if anyone wants to look it up.

Funny, but strife inn the Auto Industry happened in 1973 as well. Back then, Chrysler needed a bail out. What did they learn?

When the oil embargo of the early 1970's hit, Japan was ready with high mileage cars. Detroit looked stupid.

Deja Vue

My point is that if people, and especially young people, want change - then they are going to have to find ways to make it happen. Young people in the 1960s forced change. It looks like history is going to have to repeat itself.

A good place to start is for people to buy ONLY from the original artists. They deserve the money anyways. Next if commercial downloading services aren't properly compensating the artists, then perhaps we need a grass roots way to compete with them. Its not reasonable for the artists to be expected for instance to set up servers. However I am confident there are MANY in the slashdot crowd who are up to speed in the are of server admin.

As I see it, the RIAA might think they won this battle. In doing so perhaps they lose the war.

But it should not be

[Kupfernigk]

The penalty for perjury should in no way be connected to the penalty for the actual case. One is a criminal offense, the other is civil. If the defendant is shown to have lied under oath, there should be a separate trial.

Having said this, in the UK a judge in a civil trial would be more likely just to rule that as the defendant had lied under oath, the weight of the other evidence for the defendant should be largely discounted.

It's the American concept of punitive damages that is wrong. It's a kind of lynch law. The question should be, why do the US courts and juries have this demented desire to punish in civil trials, rather than award what is just? Did the US judicial system (which is based in English common law) fail to adopt the bit about justice and equity?

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[toQDuj]

So then she should be judged for contempt of court. It should not affect the weight of the fine for the distributing charge.

Did the RIAA prove its case?

[scottFuz]

I followed the story on ARS and I still have questions about this case.
The biggest is the ex-boyfriend's involvement. It may have been Thomas-Rasset's computer, but could the RIAA prove she actually installed KaZaa? Sure, the original HDD was toasted and this may be a mute point. However,...the question lingers in my mind.

One of the defence arguments was that the original CD-files were in wma-format while the "infringed" files were mp3. I've known other software that will "scan" a drive looking for similar/same files so as to make them available when the user runs the program. Does/Did KaZaa scan for wma files? Could it be conceivable that Thomas-Rasset had "ripped" CD's for her personal use (an argument made by some game users wanting to protect their purchase of the CD from loss), yet when KaZaa was installed, these files were then infringed?

I would like to read some discussion on this point.

Re:Did the RIAA prove its case?

[DaveV1.0]

It may have been Thomas-Rasset's computer, but could the RIAA prove she actually installed KaZaa?

They don't have to. They only have to convince the jury that she is responsible. Their argument is that the program was install on her computer, under a user ID which is the same ID she uses in many other computer systems, and that she was savy enough to set up multiple accounts for other users.

Sure, the original HDD was toasted and this may be a mute point.

It is not a moot point because she lied about when the drive was replaced. That goes to credibility and shows an attempt to distort evidence.

Re:Did the RIAA prove its case?

[scottFuz]

Sure, the original HDD was toasted and this may be a mute point.

It is not a moot point because she lied about when the drive was replaced. That goes to credibility and shows an attempt to distort evidence.

I wouldn't go THAT far to say she lied. I would at least like to give her the benefit of the doubt before attaching labels. The practice of law, in my understanding, is a complicated mire. To expect the average person to be conversant with its intricacies I feel is expecting too much. I would like to believe that people can make honest mistakes. Granted, her credibility is rather tarnished because of the issue of dates in question. However, to say she blatantly lied? Not comfortable with that label being applied.

Again...what was the involvement of a third party? Call it the baby-sitter defence, if you will, but I have a hard time accepting that a person is responsible for the actions of another on their computer. That means every Mom/Pop/Grama/Grandpa with a computer are liable, even if they do not understand the technology, if someone else with access downloads something questionable? This would put a crimp in how people support each other with "new technology". My "nightmare" scenario is a legal-based IT support industry bent solely on high-priced, self-preservating help for exorbitant costs. Not good! And so not worth it!

There was another story this last week about someone going to jail for making an unauthorized copy of the movie "The Love Guru" and passing this same onto a relative. Something is amiss here in the legalese forest...$US1.92M for 24 songs, jailed for "distributing" a lousy movie (shame alone should be punishment)...what next?

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time --
To let the punishment fit the crime --
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado(1885)

Re:Did the RIAA prove its case?

[DaveV1.0]

I wouldn't go THAT far to say she lied. I would at least like to give her the benefit of the doubt before attaching labels.

In other words, you do not want to believe that she lied because it makes her look bad. She misstated the date of when the drive was replaced by more than a year. That was a lie, pure and simple.

The babysitter did it? On her computer, under her password protected user ID? I know it is hard for you to accept, but you have at least some responsibility for what other people do on your equipment when you allow them access. Just like when you lend someone your car.

There was another story this last week about someone going to jail for making an unauthorized copy of the movie "The Love Guru" and passing this same onto a relative. Something is amiss here in the legalese forest...$US1.92M for 24 songs, jailed for "distributing" a lousy movie (shame alone should be punishment)...what next?

Really? Let's look at the actual facts of that "Love Guru" case (emphasis added):

Jack Yates, 28, was sentenced to six months in prison today for making an unauthorized pre-release copy of "The Love Guru," the Mike Myers comedy that Paramount Pictures released last summer. Yates made the illegal DVD when he worked at a Burbank-based tape duplication company that Paramount hired last May to make a promotional DVD copy of the film to show on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Soon after, a high-quality version of the movie popped up on the Internet -- and was subsequently downloaded more than 85,000 times (sadly, the film made less of an impact on audiences when it debuted in theaters on June 20th, receiving dismal reviews and grossing a paltry $13.9 million its opening weekend).

When confronted, Yates accused co-workers and Paramount employees of putting the contraband copy on the Internet. But videotaped footage showed Yates making the unauthorized copy of "The Love Guru" at work before leaving the building and then going into his car, Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik M. Silber said. Yates subsequently blamed his grandmother, saying that he showed the movie at her birthday party and she then gave it away to a cousin who gave it to a friend who was the former roommate of the man who is believed to have uploaded the movie, but has not yet been charged. In his plea agreement, Yates confessed to making a copy of the comedy and later distributing it to others.

Oh, yes, poor Mr. Yates obviously didn't know he was violating his employer's trust, making an unauthorized copy of a movie on stolen material, sneaking it out of the building, and then blaming everyone else. He is just a victim of MPAA and these pesky copyright laws he was completely ignorant of even though he works in the legal copying industry. /sarcasm

I do not feel sorry for either of these people. Neither should have infringed on the copyrights of others. Neither would have gotten in trouble if they had not infringed. Moral of the story: Don't infringe on the copyrights of others. That is what you, in your infinite self-centered selfishness, miss. Every single person your little heart bleeds for and for whom you cry tears is in the wrong.

And, just to hoist you on your own petard, why is it that so many slashdotters only thinks copyright is OK when it works for FLOSS?

Re:Did the RIAA prove its case?

[scottFuz]

Agreed, Yates did violate the trust of his employer. Bad humour on my part. Sarcasm doesn't always translate well in print.

Rather than users being subject to the vagarious actions of a nameless, faceless board of directors who base decisions on profits without consideration to best-practises, agreed upon standards and users' needs, thus directing developers on these assumptions, people who use FLOSS do so because they want to share to improve the quality of the software, not to profit from its development. The only expectation I perceive is that all (both developers and users) share in the failure and success of the end result. No "spin" or "stroking the press" is necessitated to placate faceless investors/shareholders as none exist, only users. If the software fails, go back to drawing board. If it works, great! Build on this success to continue. In short, WE (royal pural) CHOOSE to use the software. IMHO, music copyright has no bearing on FLOSS. I have to reject your generalization about FLOSS and that music copyrights = FLOSS. These are two separate issues in my mind. Do feel free to direct the discussion to other works if this is not the case.

The detail that Thomas-Rasset's computer was password protected was missed on my part. This only highlights the need to not share passwords, as well as the failings/absence of file-level security in the FAT/FAT16/FAT32/NTFS file systems (the Microsoft default). It does leave open my original question about KaZaa software. I don't use the software and I'm developing a less-than-exemplary view of the product. What does this software do upon installation? Can it be installed and circumvent user-level security? Does it scan a drive and make available non-DRM'd data originally intended for personal use? Can you answer those question directly, please? If any of these questions bear out discussion, they would be examples of worst-practices for software that developers should educated themselves about. Otherwise, these would be matters about the case that may have been glossed over in the reporting and would be used to sway opinion.

Honestly, there was an aspect of the RIAA case that left a bad impression. There was very little mention of actions of 3rd parties in the news items. My view (and it didn't involve a bleeding heart) to the RIAA trial was an overwhelming sense of railroading. To have an army of lawyers go after a middle-aged, single mother over $24 of songs seems the lawyer-equivalent to killing a misqueto with a 155mm Howitzer. Yes, shock waves were sent out to the world, but did this help the cause to educate readers? What was the collateral damage? It would be naive to think there wasn't any because of this trial. Your assertion of my so called "bleeding heart" a case in point in how this issue polarizes people's opinions.

Obviously, I have tromped with both feet upon your cynicism. I "get it" that you have vested, albeit legal, interest in these cases to the point you have armed yourself with details of these cases. Does it make me a bleeding heart to have some faith in peoples', sure. But this is not a "bleeding heart issue" (your words, IMHO, are a rather rude personal attack). If my sarcasm got on your nerves, please say so directly. Apologies would be forthcoming promptly.

Did the news agencies do "justice" to this news item? Did they paint an uncomplimentary view of the legal profession, the RIAA, and US copyright laws? If I subscribed to your views, the answers would be yes. Balance of reporting is a matter of perspective. Individual news websites cater to categories of user types. So, if Ars Technica did some injustice to the story, this should be a matter for their editorial board. If I misread that story or got the facts wrong - point it out. But making generalizations doesn't seem to be appropriate course of action.

I had a take/opinion on a news story. Not being in the court room, nor with access to the documents involved, you could have easily directed me to web pages pointing out the inaccuracies of my opinions. OR, yo

Re:Did the RIAA prove its case?

[DaveV1.0]

Copyright is copyright, and you are a hypocrite. "You" choose to listen to the music, buy the CD, and/or make unauthorized, illegal copies.

It does not matter what the software does on start up. She is responsible for it regardless.

Try to get that through your "everyone is a poor, helpless victim" mentality. She is responsible for what happened on her computer, under her ID. She is the perpetrator, not the victim.

Re:Did the RIAA prove its case?

[scottFuz]

I had originally posted to get clarification on some questions after reading the related news stories. I had taken some care to remain on topic and try to be open minded without reducing myself to a level of histrionics. I see that effort on my part was in vain. Some simple questions and I incur the wrath of a web troll.

Thank you for your replys; however, I found them less than helpful due to a rather narrow viewpoint. I wanted some insightful answers to my questions. Something you failed to provide as your overwhelming opinion of Thomas-Rasset's guilt precludes any/all discussions of hypotheticals and/or larger-picture issues.

I would direct you to the other posts on Slashdot regarding this case. Feel free to attempt to spread your viewpoints there.

• Analysis of MediaSentry Wins Music-Download Suit
• $1.9 Million Award In Thomas Case Raises Constitutional Questions

You strike me as a very angry legal professional. Hopefully you will find some peace of mind...somewhere...somehow...

It may be best that you NOT reply any further to this thread.

Regards

What is the minimum and maximum damages?

[DaveV1.0]

Last I checked the minimum damages for willfully infringing copyright is US$750 per incident.

The maximum is US$150,000.

She got off with about half-way between the two.

Re:If you're on a jury for cases like this, NULLIF

[david_thornley]

FWIW, I've been empaneled twice (i.e., sat in the jury box, sworn to answer truthfully, asked questions), and neither time has jury nullification been mentioned. I was a peremptory strike both times (i.e., one of the attorneys decided to remove me), but for other reasons. I think I probably influenced the jury in one case, where it was clear I was removed for knowing something about statistics.

Re:NYCL? Why not take up the cause directly?

[Anonymous Coward]

there's more money in bulking up ad views to his blog.

Sorry. did you think he really gave a fuck about this woman?

Copywrite != copyright

[jonaskoelker]

I take a newly produced and copywritten album

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copywriting

Copywriting is the use of words to promote a person, business, opinion or idea.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

Copyright gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain.

I hope this clears up the misunderstanding :)

contract to exclude riaa lawyers from music

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't musicians create contracts that legally exclude RIAA lawyers and their families from being able to legally own their music? If you're a lawyer for the RIAA or the wife/husband or dependent of such a person you may not legally download, reproduce or purchase this music.. etc. etc. etc.

It seems like contracts can say whatever they want to say. RIAA lawyers and coke snorting whoring animals are NOT a special protected class of people.

Done.