Student Ordered to Pay RIAA $675,000

I don't think that these people are not guilty but I think that the punishment far out ways the crime.
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This sums it up completely. The punishment is not inline with the crime. Simple as that! This is a slap on the wrist crime not a "bashed you in the head, stole your money, burned down your house, and shot your dog" crime. This is simply the RIAA making a statement as someone else already said. I want to know who is on the jury! These people are either getting paid off, threatened, or absolute morons! Correction: They're morons any way you slice it.
 
What's the penalty for petty theft? Because that's exactly what this is.
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Umm...

If he had walked into a record store and stolen two CDs the penalty would have been a night in jail and a few hours of community service. Ironically, he would have been better off shoplifting.
 
Truckweb said:
I don't know how Bankruptcy works in the US, but here (Quebec) it leaves a mark in your credit report for 10 years before it disappear.

So yeah, this guy would not be able to get any kind of loan or credit for 10 years, but it's better than having to pay $675K....
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Not really, I filed BK a few years back (bad investments) and as soon a the court date happened I had cc offers coming my way left and right....I also got offered an auto loan for 30% interest.

niiiiice.
 
I don't know how many of you have followed the case much less read the article. It seems like the RIAA has shifted its strategy. The student in question here was targeted not for downloading music, but for sharing the music illegally. I haven't heard of a single case going to trial for months now for just illegal downloads.

Personally I think his lawyer Charles Nesson(AKA Harvard professor) is an idiot trying to argue the case based on fair use. It is already settled law that it is illegal to disseminate copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. He kept on calling his 25 year old client a "kid" to try to get sympathy from the jury, laughable. I don't know what kind of jury courtroom experience he has but I am guessing not vey much. His bio however shows a lot of apellate court and even 3 SCOTUS cases.

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/nesson_more.html

Mostly I wonder what kind of settlement offer they rejected from the RIAA. I think if you are guilty and they can prove it, the settlement offers they offer are more than fair.

There are those who argue the RIAA destroyed his life, but maybe people should take responsibility for their actions and learn maybe not to spit upon the settlements the RIAA offers. A copyright is only as good as the enforcement, if the RIAA did not choose to protect their copyrights, then copyrights would be worthless.
 
4saken said:
Hes lucky thats all that happened since he commited THEFT. he shoulda been sent to pound me in the ass prison too.
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Ok, I'll go along with it being theft. Now, what would have happened had he walked into a music store, grabbed 30CDs, and walked out (without paying)? That is also THEFT and yet the punishment would not have been nearly as severe. Even though there also would have been a physical loss, which is not the case with a download.

I seriously hope you get caught for something like tossing a paper cup on the ground (littering) and then get thrown in "pound me in the ass prison" for it.

Calm down and think about the severity of the crime vs. the punishment.
 
His lawyers were terrible. They should have screamed "OBJECTION!!!" at the top of their lungs in response to some of the questions.
 
agreed hurdler. these people are a joke. i bet they never smoked pot, underage drinked, downloaded a song, ran pirated windows, played a rom or anything else EVERY SINGLE COLLEGE STUDENT, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT AND PERSON UNDER AGE 30 I KNOW HAS.
 
dandirk said:
Yup they are going for headlines.... They know they won't get the money. They usually offer settlements for 3k (for the money). Now that is a shake down.

Some here just don't understand... people aren't getting sued and busted for downloading songs. They are getting busted for SHARING the songs they downloaded to others...

Sharing is essentially distribution, this is where these large fines come from (+ punitive/damages awards).

It's NOT the 1 song you have on your HDD that costs 20k... Its the 100s or 1000s of people you gave that 1 song to, that costs 20k.

I agree though these penalties seem out of wack, they seem to be more inline with company mass distribution and not tailored to the consumer offense.
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But the problem here is that there are no records at all of how many people downloaded the songs (I think).
 
unhappy_mage said:
Copyright infringement is not, and will never be, theft. If I steal a car, someone else is left carless. If I download a song, an additional copy of the song magically springs into existence and nobody is denied the use of the song. They're different legal concepts, and for good reason.

You wouldn't download a car :rolleyes:
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That's the same argument I've been using for years. It's not theft or stealing. Best Buy and the other retailers still have all their inventory.
 
Lamont Cranston said:
this goes right along with the laws that let an NFL player get off with 30 to 90 days in jail for killing a guy while driving drunk, while mike vick got 4 friggin years in federal pound you in the ass penn for friggin dog fighting.....
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Can we stop it with that metaphor, please? Since when does killing a guy driving drunk get you 30 to 90 days? Every murder trial I've ever heard of ended in life, death, or 100+ years.
 
Hurdler said:
That is also THEFT and yet the punishment would not have been nearly as severe.
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If he had made a couple thousand copies of those CD and started distributing them across state lines you can sure as hell bet the punishment would have been as severe, probably a few years in prison in addition to the fine.
 
hocp4me... ever watch the news when its

"state low on budget releasing prisoners" those are always fun.

in milwaukee you can rape your kid, shoot them up with heroine and beat their mother and get 0-2 years.

download an mp3, thats a real crime.
 
4saken said:
Hes lucky thats all that happened since he commited THEFT. he shoulda been sent to pound me in the ass prison too.
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Guess who's got eight keys and doesn't give a shit.


THIS GUY


I hope you get busted on some stupid, victimless crime and get sent to the "pound me in the ass prison."

By the way, I think it's *really* funny you said "pound me in the ass." Why wouldn't you say "get pounded in the ass" or "pound you in the ass"?
 
jroe52 said:
agreed hurdler. these people are a joke. i bet they never smoked pot, underage drinked, downloaded a song, ran pirated windows, played a rom or anything else EVERY SINGLE COLLEGE STUDENT, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT AND PERSON UNDER AGE 30 I KNOW HAS.
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You know what? You're probably right. Everyone involved in this case probably doesn't even know how to install windows, play a rom or download songs and are hatin' on those who do!

Every single one under 30 huh? Wow you are surrounded by some crazy mofos! hehehehe...
 
Powerage said:
By the way, I think it's *really* funny you said "pound me in the ass." Why wouldn't you say "get pounded in the ass" or "pound you in the ass"?
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Yeah Psych 101 says this is some kind of projection of what he probably wants but can't have. hahaha...
 
Hm. This guy seeds two CDs, and owes $675k.

TPB gets found guilty of piracy for tens of thousands of cds as well as everything else on the internet, and owes like 4 mil.




Hilarious.
 
22k per song is stupid. Compare it to shoplifting a cd.

If you steal a CD containing 12 songs from a store, you get charged with theft under $500 because it is only worth $12-15.

Get caught downloading 12 songs and it is $264k.

Where the fuck did $22,000 per song come from?
 
Jakalwarrior said:
Yep, penalty for downloading music is having your life destroyed. Consider manslaughter or drug dealing first, its safer.
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Guitarrasdeamor said:
It's not that people are complaining about getting caught. If I got caught, I wouldn't. But you know what I WOULD complain about? The ridiculous fucking fees and measures the people that ARE caught get put through. It's fucking ridiculous.
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Well, just don't do it. The risk is there, if you are willing to take the risk, then the consequences are yours to deal with.

It's not like music is that expensive and that you must have it to exist.
 
riot8ap said:
22k per song is stupid. Compare it to shoplifting a cd.

If you steal a CD containing 12 songs from a store, you get charged with theft under $500 because it is only worth $12-15.

Get caught downloading 12 songs and it is $264k.

Where the fuck did $22,000 per song come from?
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I am guessing that alot of people downloaded those songs from him, not the fact that he downloaded the songs himself.
 
Are there known cases of copyright infringement where the defendant was using a torrent client and NOT Kazaa?
 
Do people still use software such as limewire, bearshare and w.e else is out there? Pretty stupid
 
Thank God our righteous law and justice system has once again defended the God given rights of corporations at the expense of common citizens by using corporate and commercial punishments against personal use infringement in the name of Copyright, which was only invented in order to benefit society first and foremost.

God. Bless. The. USA. for showing we are by and for the People, once again.
 
No surprises here.

It is widely known that individuals violating intellectual property laws, such as copyrights, inherently put themselves at risk for criminal prosecution and /or civil action.
 
CIC2009B said:
No surprises here.

It is widely known that individuals violating intellectual property laws, such as copyrights, inherently put themselves at risk for criminal prosecution and /or civil action.
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No shit, Sherlock. And next time you want to make an account to do some PR for the music industry, try to have a little more than one post on the topic so you aren't so obvious.
 
It seems RIAA is trying to scare the shit out folks for downloading songs. No way in hell it´s fair that he has to pay 22k for each damn song. Even if it´s on the account of distributing shit, dammit, it´s not like it´s a company they are suing, it´s a friggin student, did they ever think they would get any money off the dude?

Download copyrighted stuff is wrong, okay, but I seriously hope RIAA burns for this.
 
All the States should sue the RIA for the sales tax on money they recovered from lost sales.:D
 
Okay so from this guys point of view his life is now screwed.

What about the rest of the public? All the RIAA has done is make MARTYR out of this guy. Just more reason for everyone to hate them.
 
Azhar said:
Not a fair comparison. Vick did the crime intentionally while the NFL DUI accident was just that: an accident - although we know not to drink and drive and that it increases our chance of accidents. But it's still an accident.
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What if he killed someone you knew, while driving drunk? Would you him to get 30 day in jail?
 
infamus said:
What if he killed someone you knew, while driving drunk? Would you him to get 30 day in jail?
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Emotions make for terrible judging. Of course I wouldn't be able to be objective when something happens to someone I know. That's a stupid question.
 
The legal system's complicity with the RIAA in exacting cruel and unusual punishment is abhorrent. In order to drum up sales of albums and tracks on itunes etc something's got to give and it's not just suing people. why not offer tracks authored at the highest level of fidelity like FLAC or otherwise lossless, since most of the bootleg tracks are compressed and inferior? Why not offer additional content which you can only have when payed for; one time use passwords to a site which delivers interactivity, and unlocks little 'easter eggs' and the such. Why not post the names of people who have bought tracks (if they wish) on a big bulletin board or facebook or on twitter so people can get credit for having paid for something? Why not declare part of the profit of a particular track/album to go to a charity which the user can choose?
 
Guitarrasdeamor said:
It's not that people are complaining about getting caught. If I got caught, I wouldn't. But you know what I WOULD complain about? The ridiculous fucking fees and measures the people that ARE caught get put through. It's fucking ridiculous.
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The accused should respond in physical ways beyond his hands. Make them fear to do the unjust things they do. I will not elaborate further though. Read between the lines.
 
hardware_failure said:
Okay so from this guys point of view his life is now screwed.

What about the rest of the public? All the RIAA has done is make MARTYR out of this guy. Just more reason for everyone to hate them.
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Hi life isn't necessarily over. Actually, if he wants to become a politician/activists on digital copyright and enforcement issues then his life is pretty well set...

What blows my mind is that his lawyer didn't pick up someone like Chris Anderson as a competing economist for the prof that the RIAA held up. While I have some very real concerns and issues with Anderson's economic models, he does have a convincing argument for why downloading and uploading data cannot be considered 'theft', and in fact has done enough research to back up claims like 'production of content is oftentimes beneficial for both 'hit' and 'niche' content'. Whether jury would buy that kind of argument is another matter, but at least another articulate talking head would have been put forward.
 
Thankfully in canada if you dont sell or distribute copyrighted material you are safe.
 
Kristofff said:
No shit, Sherlock. And next time you want to make an account to do some PR for the music industry, try to have a little more than one post on the topic so you aren't so obvious.
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My compliments on such an original and classy retort Sir! I am underwhelmed.

Sorry to disappoint you, but we don't have any relationship with the music industry.
 
When it comes to filtering out jurors, the Entertainment cartel probably sees to it that they get the most technologically brain-dead jurors they can find. Easy to fill their heads with the lies that even one sharer could possibly bring down the entire industry if not imprisoned.

My big question is where is the 8th ammendment?
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted"
It does not explicitly state if its limited to civil or criminal cases and a few judges are questioning the fines being imposed on people compared to the actual value of the content.
 
People keep comparing this to stealing a CD from a store. It is more like stealing a CD from a store and making free copies to anyone who hands him a blank CD-R.

I don't agree with the level of the fine. What I want to know is how many people did he distribute the songs to? How many total downloads from him were there? 50? 100? 1000? 500,000? (yeah, right) I seriously doubt it was enough to justify the fine. What was the average UPLOAD speed in 2004? Was his PC on and running KAZAA 24X7? How long did he distribute the songs in question? There needed to be valid measurable reasoning behind the fine, not just an arbitrary number.

I'm all for protecting copyrights. I have copyrighted material myself. I would want justice if someone copied my work. But just the proper amount for what was copied. Copy $700 worth of my work, give me $700 plus legal expenses/time, and I'm cool. Most people would settle out of court for that. Reasonable people don't need to sue for outrageous sums that just make them look like greedy bastards. No kidding about the 8th amendment NeghVar.

Unfortunately, all they can really do is go for high profile cases to make a point. They don't have the resources to sue thousands of people for reasonable amounts, not to mention clogging the courts to the point that it would just piss everyone off.
 
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