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Judge Lowers Jammie Thomas' Damages to $54,000
An anonymous reader writes "Judge Michael Davis has slashed the amount Jammie Thomas-Rassett is said to owe Big Music from almost $2,000,000 to $54,000. 'The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music. Moreover, although Plaintiffs were not required to prove their actual damages, statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages.' The full decision (PDF) is also available."
Can actually be paid by whom? $54,000 is still hundreds of times higher than is reasonable by any stretch of the imagination, even assuming damages for distributing unlicensed content.
Likewise, "infringement" holds little meaning to someone not steeped in intellectual property law while theft is comprehensible even to a child.
The problem with your apparently reasonable statement is that infringement is not theft. Theft doesn't mean "acquiring without permission", it means "taking without permission", and when you copy some media without permission you are not taking anything, yet you are still acquiring something. Thus, you should not say "stealing" when you talk about copyright violation, but "copying". Put in these correct and honest terms, a child might well wonder what the problem is when you perform the magic trick of cutting 1 thing in half and yet ending up with 2 whole things.
Calling copyright infringement "theft" is stupid at best, but most likely is disingenuous in the case of anyone who understands the technical issues. Are you a troll, shill, or idiot? Otherwise, there is no real defense for telling children the lie that copyright infringement is theft.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Learn the most basic concept of marketing. Or do you fail to grasp basic idea's.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
And I'm sick of you shits who equate copyright infringement with theft, who consider anyone who doesn't infringe but doesn't consider infringement to be theft "pirates", and who ask the fucking DEATH PENALTY (in the most horrible way) for copyright infringement. I'm sick of an industry that has STOLEN my generation's culture by bribing dishonest politicans with "campaign contributions"; nothing ever produced in my lifetime will ever reach the public domain, and that's why the founing fathers gave congress the power to make copyright law in the first place.
Yes, mr RIAA, we know who was behind that anonymous flamebait. FOAD, you and your entire dinasaur industry. I don't pirate but I do cheer the pirates on. The pirates won't kill your industry, but I wish they could.
You are disgusting, as is anybody who would wish rape and death on a fellow human. Your comment was as sick as your industry.
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