I live on one of the "arms" of the NE Megalopolis. I pay just $15 a month. for broadband internet. That's almost as cheap as dialup. How is that not competitive?
>>>The FCC is going to try to reach the people still on dial-up (I don't know who that is).
I do. A friend of mine is stuck on dialup (about 45k digital connection). He has both cable and phonelines which could easily be upgraded to Broadband internet (just install a DOCSIS or DSLAM box for ~$100). But they don't. IMHO the Congress needs to mandate that the local phone company must provide that simple upgrade, the same way in the 1930s they mandated the phone company must hook every home to a phone line. The money can come out of the monthly USF we all pay.
>>>Norway and Sweden... spend more money on investing in infrastructure and less on maintaining an overseas empire and a police state.
Don't they also have tons of oil? So that makes them much richer countries than the US with its 13,200,000,000,000 dollar debt (approximately $130,000 debt per american home). They can afford to ripup old phones lines and laydown shiny-new fiber. We can't.
Oh and you can't blame all that on the military. The debt grew by ~1.5 trillion since Bush stepped down. The military only spent about 10% of it, so even if you eliminated the military entirely, the debt would still be +1.3 trillion higher than when Bush left office.
Since you gave me a smartass response, I will hold-up a mirror and echo that right back at you:
>>>What do you need a 3 GHz 6 core CPU for?
I don't. I watch HDTV on a 3 gigahertz single core Pentium
>>>What do you need 12G of RAM for?
I don't. I only have half-a-gig.
>>>What do you need a 3T hard drive for?
I don't. It's only 0.3 terabytes. I notice you keep asking these questions (and presuming a lot of false things about me) (AKA strawmen argument), but you're not answering MY question. The original guy says he needs 100 Mbit/s, and that it's a travesty that it's not available to him (as if his life will end if he doesn't get it) (and ignoring the fact that most of the world's humans don't even have a Home much less internet). I simply wondered why he needs it. If he can't think of a reason then he doesn't "need" it.
He merely wants it and that's not the same thing. It's like how I want a Porsche but don't really need one. I don't expect the government to setup a program and start handing-out free Porches so I can cruise I95 at 200 mile an hour. Why? Because it's not needed. It only takes 5 Mbit/s to watch HDTV, and most Cable ISPs already provide that level of service, so his claim that what he "needs" is not available is a false one.
Oh and in case you're wondering: I have 0.7 Mbit/s and I'm perfectly happy with it. It isn't HD but I can still stream youtube, syfy.com, and other video.
>>>There's no need to waste valuable terrestrial spectrum
I consider handing over Free TV to iPhones and other gadgets to be wasteful. It's no fun watching HDTV on a tiny 3 inch screen, or even a 20 inch laptop. From my viewpoint such a move would be going from Superior to inferior service. (see move below) .
>>>It could be FCC policy that the new owners of the spectrum subsidize cable or satellite services to offer an entirely free very basic tier.
I'd be okay with that but I bet in practice it won't match the ~40 free channels I get now. Most cable/satellite companies only offer the 6-7 local channels and nothing more. - But with my antenna I not only get those channels but also a Rerun channel (older shows like Star Trek, Dead Like Me, Xena, etc) plus a 24 hour Movie/Anime channel plus a RetroTV channel (60s/70s) plus an ESPN-like sports channel plus 24 hour News channel plus Foreign TV shows/movies channel plus Qubo for Kids plus Smile-of-a-Child channel plus 2 Spanish channels (great for telenovels and soccer) plus History/documentary channel plus.....
Well you get the point. I'd be downgrading from a great 40-channel Free TV service with lots of variety to the Comcast's Lifeline cable that barely has 6 stations.
Here's my broadband plan (note broadband means any service greater than telephone narrowband signals) (i.e. >>4000 hertz)
- Take a page out of the FDR years which mandated telephone companies must wire all homes with telephone lines - Update the law so it says telephone companies must provide DSL (or FiOS or equivalent service) to all homes by 1/1/2012 - Use the already-existing Universal Service Fund (USF) to cover the costs
Done. Since 99.9% of homes have telephone wires running into them, there's no digging required. No manual labor. More disruption. Simply install a ~$100 DSLAM in each neighborhood. Within a year's time, virtually everyone would have access to 1000 kbit/s or more service. That's 20+ times faster than what they had before (28k or 56k).
Over time those DSL would be phased-out and upgraded to fiber, but as of 2012 the US Congress could claim, "Not one single american citizen is still stuck on dialup."
>>>Even so, areas of the US with high population density should have better broadband. They don't
An urban legend that keeps getting propagated across slashdot. It's no more real than the "Betamax wouldn't allow porn and that's why it died" urban legend (holds up Playboy on batemax). Let's look at the actual average rates and compare them to our neighbors Europe and Canada:
Sweden 13 Mbit/s DE, Romania,Netherlands,Bulgaria 12 WA, RI 11 MA 10 NJ,VA,NH,NY 9 British Columbia,CO,CT,AZ, Slovakia 8 Mbit/s
Notice that out of these top 20 US, EU, and Canadian states over half of them are from the US. The only Canadian province that appears is British Columbia. And the EU states are mostly former communist states. Western states like France, germany, italy, or united kingdom don't even appear. Overall I'd say I debunked the urban legend as not sustained by the facts.
BTW why do you need 100 Mbit/s? It only takes 5 Mbit/s to carry a MPEG4-encoded HDTV stream; I suppose if you have 3 people in the same house but watching different channels, then you'd need 15 Mbit/s minimum. So what's the 100 Mbit/s line for? (just curious)
Plus this broadband plan will be for *wireless* internet and not the answer to your problem. I've never seen a wireless connection that fast. You should be contacting the FCC and saying this plan is unacceptable.
- And final thought. The US really isn't that far behind when compared to other continent-spanning federations: Russian Federation 8.3 Mbit/s U.S. 7.0 E.U. 6.6 Canada 5.7 Australia 5.1 China 3.0 Brazil 2.1 Mexico 1.1 Mbit/s
And if you prefer to look on a state-by-state basis of the EU, US, and Canada then you get: Sweden 13 Mbit/s Delaware, Romania,Netherlands,Bulgaria 12 Washington,Rhode Island 11 Massachusetts 10 New Jersey,Virginia,New Hampshire,New York 9 British Columbia,Colorado,Connecticut,Arizona, Slovakia 8 Mbit/s
Likewise it would be ridiculous if I lose my Free TV (via antenna) just because the FCC wants to sell-out to ATT, Verizon, and other megacorps. I can not take credit for these words, since they were written by someone else, but I agree with them wholeheartedly. SOURCE: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=18860552#post1886055
- "The irony is that if the Bush FCC had dared to push something like this, it would have been attacked by progressives -- and rightly so -- because there's absolutely nothing progressive about this particular proposal. It takes away a free service that is currently enjoyed in at least 15 million households [i.e. 15% of the population], including many who aren't especially well off [poor].
"And it does so for the purpose of turning that spectrum over to some very, very big telecom companies to either warehouse [i.e. not use and sit idle] or offer expensive subscription services to a mostly well-heeled customer base of Blackberry and iPhone users. [Plus] the stations most likely to lose their spectrum are also those stations that are least likely to be part of any of the big media conglomerates.
"Which means that ownership diversity also takes a hit if this FCC Plan comes to pass. It's hard for me to find the words to express the level of disgust that I feel for this misbegotten proposal. But I'll certainly cheer when FCC Chair Genachowski goes away (may that happen soon!) -- he's even worse than Michael Powell was, and Powell was pretty awful. Meanwhile, I really miss Kevin Martin, who was something of a loose cannon, but at least he didn't seem to be so totally in the pocket of any particular industry."
2
In other words: - it hurts the poor - it hurts rural residents - it add another expensive $1000-2000 annual bill - it serves to further consolidate the industry away from private local station, and into the hands of megacorps - stifles competition by monopolizing entertainment in even fewer hands (ATT, Verizon) than previously
Neither did Apple. I have old 80s-era games that use the same page-curl and flip animation to tell a story. It's prior art and can not be patented.
This reminds me of the story where some company tried to patent multiple screens/resolutions on a single desktop. A classic Commodore Amiga user drug his old 1985 machine into the courtroom and demonstrated that the idea existed as prior art, and therefore can not be patented.
FM costs nothing to hear in my car. You can not say the same of the shitty wireless internet, which would cost around $100 each month (subscription plus overage fees). Hell even satellite radio would be a cheaper option ($7/month) than wireless internet to put music in my car
Digital radio only costs ~$50 in the US. You can even buy an MP3 player with the digital radio built in. I don't know why DAB costs almost twice as much.
Adoption of Digital TV in the US was only ~50% after ten years. So the FCC announced the imminent death of analog and handed-out $40 coupons to get people to upgrade. When the Feb 2009 deadline arrived, the adoption was still only 85%. People are procrastinators and won't change until they have to (i.e. the tv goes dark). I suspect the EU will need to turnoff the analog FM if they want people to switch to Digital Audio Broadcast. This is what the FCC is planning to do with its own digital radio - one day the FM will simply disappear and the HD Radio will be in its place.
>>>FM is obsolete
I don't know why several posters have said this. I've heard music coming from my local station that sounds as good as CD. I was surprised. The actual specs are 50-15,000 hertz which is better than some of the shitty MP3s I've downloaded. Now I agree that *AM* is obsolete - even if you pickup a stereo station it still sounds rather bad.
2kw for a DAB tranmitter seems pretty low, especially since DAB's power is spread-out over 8 times the width of an FM transmitter. No wonder people have problems with reception. - Here in the US digital radio has a power of 10% the FM maximum. So if a station is 60kw then the digital radio is 6 kw, and covers about 50-60 miles range.
HD Radio's main strength over FM is the ability to send 7 channels per station, similar to how DTV has multiple channels per station. -Or- the station manager can choose to send 5.1 surround sound. I suspect the classical stations would use that mode for best quality.
>>>Which again would make their actions hypocrisy, especially when they in turn laugh and try to ridicule people who ask them to remove such info from the site.
You have any songs or movies or games recorded to CD, DVD, or hard drive that you never purchased? Then you are hypocrite too, so shut up. "Do not criticize your neighbor for the splinter in his eye, when you have a log in your own." - Buddha
>>>Didn't you even read the SUMMARY, for crying out loud?
I did read the summary but apparently you did not. Quote: "District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the usual statutory damages award in even more egregious commercial cases is from 2 to 6 times the actual damages." So since she awarded 2250 per song, she must be figuring the per song cost is 2250/2 == $1125 actual damages. Or 2250/6 == $375 actual damages. The latter makes more sense .
"Hello. I'm a lawyer, studied for 6 years inc ollege plus law school, and oh yeah I have a court record that forces me to pay $70,000."
"Ummmm.... that's... interesting. Well we'll go through the rest of this daylong interview since you're here, but to be honest I've already wrote Reject on your resume."
>>>the defendant willfully violated the law then lied under oath to try to escape it
When did this happen? If the actual damages are $1 or $2 per song, and the statutory minimum is $750, then I would have assigned that. If 4-6 times is the norm in civil cases, then paying 325-700 times the actual damages would already be punishment enough for perjury .
>>>completely disproportionate to the actual damages caused
It appears the judge determined actual damages to be $2250 / 6 == $375 per song (minimum). Maybe she's taking into account prosecution costs (lawyers, security specialists to track the downloader, programmers, et cetera) .
>>>Remember that the next time someone breaks the law and hurts you
And what about when I break the law by lighting-up this marijuana cigarette? There's nobody harmed except myself, so the poster was correct: "It isn't necessarily wrong to break the law." I am doing nothing wrong here.
Yes it does. It's why we commit the "wrong" of depriving thieves of freedom. It's why we commit the "wrong" of killing mass murderers. Two wrongs (the criminal steals/kills and we deprive them of liberty or life) will make a right. We call it justice. So: I don't consider stealing from thieves a crime. It never belonged to them in the first place. It was never their property.
>>>At which point is it socially acceptable to take up arms and execute said tyrants?
No idea because I've not reached that point. So far the government's only crime against me is ridiculously high taxes (about 25,000 a year) which is annoying but tolerable. However if the government started doing some of the things it has discussed, like spying on my internet connection and arresting me because I downloaded a naked photo of a teenager (ohnoes), then I'd probably be in the frame of mind to take-up arms and reclaim freedom.
Another example would be if I were Jamie Thomas. Rather than pay a million dollar fine (equivalent to a life sentence), I'd say "fuck it" and exact revenge against the RIAA CEO by putting a bullet through his head. And I'd shoot the next one too. Of course that case is not yet completed, so I'd still be patiently awaiting the outcome.
I'm surprised the people like JMS, Ronald Moore, Ira Behr, and others don't rally together and sue these companies. Or maybe complain to the IRS, and let the IRS open an audit.
I call this the "pull it out of your ass" expense. We have no idea where this number came from, and it's just large enough to wipe-out the profit. How convenient.
INVESTMENT Negative Costs and Advance - $315 billion
And why is the "interest" placed under expense? I've always thought of interest as income... very very odd accounting these Hollywood types have. "Arrogance and stupidity in the same package - how efficient of you."
".....and not pay our actors, writers, staff their share of the profit-sharing contract, but if you are dishonest and download a DVD, then you'll get the equivalent of a life sentence in fines! Seems perfectly fair to us." - Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) aka megacorp tyrants
Slashdot Mirror
I live on one of the "arms" of the NE Megalopolis. I pay just $15 a month. for broadband internet. That's almost as cheap as dialup. How is that not competitive?
>>>The FCC is going to try to reach the people still on dial-up (I don't know who that is).
I do. A friend of mine is stuck on dialup (about 45k digital connection). He has both cable and phonelines which could easily be upgraded to Broadband internet (just install a DOCSIS or DSLAM box for ~$100). But they don't. IMHO the Congress needs to mandate that the local phone company must provide that simple upgrade, the same way in the 1930s they mandated the phone company must hook every home to a phone line. The money can come out of the monthly USF we all pay.
>>>Norway and Sweden... spend more money on investing in infrastructure and less on maintaining an overseas empire and a police state.
Don't they also have tons of oil? So that makes them much richer countries than the US with its 13,200,000,000,000 dollar debt (approximately $130,000 debt per american home). They can afford to ripup old phones lines and laydown shiny-new fiber. We can't.
Oh and you can't blame all that on the military. The debt grew by ~1.5 trillion since Bush stepped down. The military only spent about 10% of it, so even if you eliminated the military entirely, the debt would still be +1.3 trillion higher than when Bush left office.
Since you gave me a smartass response, I will hold-up a mirror and echo that right back at you:
>>>What do you need a 3 GHz 6 core CPU for?
I don't. I watch HDTV on a 3 gigahertz single core Pentium
>>>What do you need 12G of RAM for?
I don't. I only have half-a-gig.
>>>What do you need a 3T hard drive for?
I don't. It's only 0.3 terabytes. I notice you keep asking these questions (and presuming a lot of false things about me) (AKA strawmen argument), but you're not answering MY question. The original guy says he needs 100 Mbit/s, and that it's a travesty that it's not available to him (as if his life will end if he doesn't get it) (and ignoring the fact that most of the world's humans don't even have a Home much less internet). I simply wondered why he needs it. If he can't think of a reason then he doesn't "need" it.
He merely wants it and that's not the same thing. It's like how I want a Porsche but don't really need one. I don't expect the government to setup a program and start handing-out free Porches so I can cruise I95 at 200 mile an hour. Why? Because it's not needed. It only takes 5 Mbit/s to watch HDTV, and most Cable ISPs already provide that level of service, so his claim that what he "needs" is not available is a false one.
Oh and in case you're wondering: I have 0.7 Mbit/s and I'm perfectly happy with it. It isn't HD but I can still stream youtube, syfy.com, and other video.
>>>There's no need to waste valuable terrestrial spectrum
I consider handing over Free TV to iPhones and other gadgets to be wasteful. It's no fun watching HDTV on a tiny 3 inch screen, or even a 20 inch laptop. From my viewpoint such a move would be going from Superior to inferior service. (see move below)
.
>>>It could be FCC policy that the new owners of the spectrum subsidize cable or satellite services to offer an entirely free very basic tier.
I'd be okay with that but I bet in practice it won't match the ~40 free channels I get now. Most cable/satellite companies only offer the 6-7 local channels and nothing more. - But with my antenna I not only get those channels but also a Rerun channel (older shows like Star Trek, Dead Like Me, Xena, etc) plus a 24 hour Movie/Anime channel plus a RetroTV channel (60s/70s) plus an ESPN-like sports channel plus 24 hour News channel plus Foreign TV shows/movies channel plus Qubo for Kids plus Smile-of-a-Child channel plus 2 Spanish channels (great for telenovels and soccer) plus History/documentary channel plus.....
Well you get the point. I'd be downgrading from a great 40-channel Free TV service with lots of variety to the Comcast's Lifeline cable that barely has 6 stations.
Here's my broadband plan (note broadband means any service greater than telephone narrowband signals) (i.e. >>4000 hertz)
- Take a page out of the FDR years which mandated telephone companies must wire all homes with telephone lines
- Update the law so it says telephone companies must provide DSL (or FiOS or equivalent service) to all homes by 1/1/2012
- Use the already-existing Universal Service Fund (USF) to cover the costs
Done. Since 99.9% of homes have telephone wires running into them, there's no digging required. No manual labor. More disruption. Simply install a ~$100 DSLAM in each neighborhood. Within a year's time, virtually everyone would have access to 1000 kbit/s or more service. That's 20+ times faster than what they had before (28k or 56k).
Over time those DSL would be phased-out and upgraded to fiber, but as of 2012 the US Congress could claim, "Not one single american citizen is still stuck on dialup."
>>>Even so, areas of the US with high population density should have better broadband. They don't
An urban legend that keeps getting propagated across slashdot. It's no more real than the "Betamax wouldn't allow porn and that's why it died" urban legend (holds up Playboy on batemax). Let's look at the actual average rates and compare them to our neighbors Europe and Canada:
Sweden 13 Mbit/s
DE, Romania,Netherlands,Bulgaria 12
WA, RI 11
MA 10
NJ,VA,NH,NY 9
British Columbia,CO,CT,AZ, Slovakia 8 Mbit/s
Notice that out of these top 20 US, EU, and Canadian states over half of them are from the US. The only Canadian province that appears is British Columbia. And the EU states are mostly former communist states. Western states like France, germany, italy, or united kingdom don't even appear. Overall I'd say I debunked the urban legend as not sustained by the facts.
>>>100Mbs
BTW why do you need 100 Mbit/s? It only takes 5 Mbit/s to carry a MPEG4-encoded HDTV stream; I suppose if you have 3 people in the same house but watching different channels, then you'd need 15 Mbit/s minimum. So what's the 100 Mbit/s line for? (just curious)
Plus this broadband plan will be for *wireless* internet and not the answer to your problem. I've never seen a wireless connection that fast. You should be contacting the FCC and saying this plan is unacceptable.
- And final thought. The US really isn't that far behind when compared to other continent-spanning federations:
Russian Federation 8.3 Mbit/s
U.S. 7.0
E.U. 6.6
Canada 5.7
Australia 5.1
China 3.0
Brazil 2.1
Mexico 1.1 Mbit/s
And if you prefer to look on a state-by-state basis of the EU, US, and Canada then you get:
Sweden 13 Mbit/s
Delaware, Romania,Netherlands,Bulgaria 12
Washington,Rhode Island 11
Massachusetts 10
New Jersey,Virginia,New Hampshire,New York 9
British Columbia,Colorado,Connecticut,Arizona, Slovakia 8 Mbit/s
Likewise it would be ridiculous if I lose my Free TV (via antenna) just because the FCC wants to sell-out to ATT, Verizon, and other megacorps. I can not take credit for these words, since they were written by someone else, but I agree with them wholeheartedly. SOURCE: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=18860552#post1886055
- "The irony is that if the Bush FCC had dared to push something like this, it would have been attacked by progressives -- and rightly so -- because there's absolutely nothing progressive about this particular proposal. It takes away a free service that is currently enjoyed in at least 15 million households [i.e. 15% of the population], including many who aren't especially well off [poor].
"And it does so for the purpose of turning that spectrum over to some very, very big telecom companies to either warehouse [i.e. not use and sit idle] or offer expensive subscription services to a mostly well-heeled customer base of Blackberry and iPhone users. [Plus] the stations most likely to lose their spectrum are also those stations that are least likely to be part of any of the big media conglomerates.
"Which means that ownership diversity also takes a hit if this FCC Plan comes to pass. It's hard for me to find the words to express the level of disgust that I feel for this misbegotten proposal. But I'll certainly cheer when FCC Chair Genachowski goes away (may that happen soon!) -- he's even worse than Michael Powell was, and Powell was pretty awful. Meanwhile, I really miss Kevin Martin, who was something of a loose cannon, but at least he didn't seem to be so totally in the pocket of any particular industry."
2
In other words:
- it hurts the poor
- it hurts rural residents
- it add another expensive $1000-2000 annual bill
- it serves to further consolidate the industry away from private local station, and into the hands of megacorps
- stifles competition by monopolizing entertainment in even fewer hands (ATT, Verizon) than previously
Neither did Apple. I have old 80s-era games that use the same page-curl and flip animation to tell a story. It's prior art and can not be patented.
This reminds me of the story where some company tried to patent multiple screens/resolutions on a single desktop. A classic Commodore Amiga user drug his old 1985 machine into the courtroom and demonstrated that the idea existed as prior art, and therefore can not be patented.
>>>the Internet will kill off FM
FM costs nothing to hear in my car. You can not say the same of the shitty wireless internet, which would cost around $100 each month (subscription plus overage fees). Hell even satellite radio would be a cheaper option ($7/month) than wireless internet to put music in my car
Digital radio only costs ~$50 in the US. You can even buy an MP3 player with the digital radio built in. I don't know why DAB costs almost twice as much.
Adoption of Digital TV in the US was only ~50% after ten years. So the FCC announced the imminent death of analog and handed-out $40 coupons to get people to upgrade. When the Feb 2009 deadline arrived, the adoption was still only 85%. People are procrastinators and won't change until they have to (i.e. the tv goes dark). I suspect the EU will need to turnoff the analog FM if they want people to switch to Digital Audio Broadcast. This is what the FCC is planning to do with its own digital radio - one day the FM will simply disappear and the HD Radio will be in its place.
>>>FM is obsolete
I don't know why several posters have said this. I've heard music coming from my local station that sounds as good as CD. I was surprised. The actual specs are 50-15,000 hertz which is better than some of the shitty MP3s I've downloaded. Now I agree that *AM* is obsolete - even if you pickup a stereo station it still sounds rather bad.
2kw for a DAB tranmitter seems pretty low, especially since DAB's power is spread-out over 8 times the width of an FM transmitter. No wonder people have problems with reception. - Here in the US digital radio has a power of 10% the FM maximum. So if a station is 60kw then the digital radio is 6 kw, and covers about 50-60 miles range.
Here's some more comparisons between US digital radio and EU digital radio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio#Comparison_to_other_digital_radio_standards
HD Radio's main strength over FM is the ability to send 7 channels per station, similar to how DTV has multiple channels per station. -Or- the station manager can choose to send 5.1 surround sound. I suspect the classical stations would use that mode for best quality.
>>>Which again would make their actions hypocrisy, especially when they in turn laugh and try to ridicule people who ask them to remove such info from the site.
You have any songs or movies or games recorded to CD, DVD, or hard drive that you never purchased?
Then you are hypocrite too, so shut up.
"Do not criticize your neighbor for the splinter in his eye, when you have a log in your own." - Buddha
>>>Didn't you even read the SUMMARY, for crying out loud?
I did read the summary but apparently you did not. Quote: "District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the usual statutory damages award in even more egregious commercial cases is from 2 to 6 times the actual damages." So since she awarded 2250 per song, she must be figuring the per song cost is 2250/2 == $1125 actual damages. Or 2250/6 == $375 actual damages. The latter makes more sense
.
If you own all the original CDs or AACs that the mix cd was created from, that is fair use..... or at least it should be.
Assuming he can find a job:
"Hello. I'm a lawyer, studied for 6 years inc ollege plus law school, and oh yeah I have a court record that forces me to pay $70,000."
"Ummmm.... that's... interesting. Well we'll go through the rest of this daylong interview since you're here, but to be honest I've already wrote Reject on your resume."
>>>the defendant willfully violated the law then lied under oath to try to escape it
When did this happen? If the actual damages are $1 or $2 per song, and the statutory minimum is $750, then I would have assigned that. If 4-6 times is the norm in civil cases, then paying 325-700 times the actual damages would already be punishment enough for perjury
.
>>>an amount the people who wrote the law might have expected
Not really. The lawmakers established a fine of $250,000 per song. They'd probably be disappointed to see it reduced to just over $2000
>>>completely disproportionate to the actual damages caused
It appears the judge determined actual damages to be $2250 / 6 == $375 per song (minimum). Maybe she's taking into account prosecution costs (lawyers, security specialists to track the downloader, programmers, et cetera)
.
>>>Remember that the next time someone breaks the law and hurts you
And what about when I break the law by lighting-up this marijuana cigarette? There's nobody harmed except myself, so the poster was correct: "It isn't necessarily wrong to break the law." I am doing nothing wrong here.
>>>Two wrongs do not make a right.
Yes it does. It's why we commit the "wrong" of depriving thieves of freedom. It's why we commit the "wrong" of killing mass murderers. Two wrongs (the criminal steals/kills and we deprive them of liberty or life) will make a right. We call it justice. So: I don't consider stealing from thieves a crime. It never belonged to them in the first place. It was never their property.
>>>At which point is it socially acceptable to take up arms and execute said tyrants?
No idea because I've not reached that point. So far the government's only crime against me is ridiculously high taxes (about 25,000 a year) which is annoying but tolerable. However if the government started doing some of the things it has discussed, like spying on my internet connection and arresting me because I downloaded a naked photo of a teenager (ohnoes), then I'd probably be in the frame of mind to take-up arms and reclaim freedom.
Another example would be if I were Jamie Thomas. Rather than pay a million dollar fine (equivalent to a life sentence), I'd say "fuck it" and exact revenge against the RIAA CEO by putting a bullet through his head. And I'd shoot the next one too. Of course that case is not yet completed, so I'd still be patiently awaiting the outcome.
I'm surprised the people like JMS, Ronald Moore, Ira Behr, and others don't rally together and sue these companies. Or maybe complain to the IRS, and let the IRS open an audit.
I call this the "pull it out of your ass" expense. We have no idea where this number came from, and it's just large enough to wipe-out the profit. How convenient.
INVESTMENT
Negative Costs and Advance - $315 billion
And why is the "interest" placed under expense? I've always thought of interest as income... very very odd accounting these Hollywood types have. "Arrogance and stupidity in the same package - how efficient of you."
".....and not pay our actors, writers, staff their share of the profit-sharing contract, but if you are dishonest and download a DVD, then you'll get the equivalent of a life sentence in fines! Seems perfectly fair to us." - Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) aka megacorp tyrants