Watch out readers, using Kazaa is like living in the wild west. If you need a music fix, you're probably better off streaming off Pandora or manually ripping vinyls into uncompressed audio like we've taught you to (though I'm sure there are some out there that will argue that's still illegal as it goes). Otherwise, you might end up like this poor mother from Minnesota who's been slapped with a whoppin' $1.92 million fine for illegally downloading 24 copyrighted songs off the downright dated still popular as ever file-sharing application.
Downloaders Beware: The RIAA's Still Watching, Fining Heavily
According to a recent article by Electronic House, each song amounted up to a hefty $80,000 each. Yeah, that new Lady Gaga single? Damages done by that song amount up to about four of those 103-inch plasma screens we were looking at the other day. Or about the combined annual income of the average married couple in the U.S.
The mother of four quoted: "There’s no way they’re ever going to get that. … I’m a mom, limited means, so I’m not going to worry about it now." We're not too sure how we'd react to a such a ridiculous amount ourselves, but we're pretty sure it'd be more or less along the same lines; sheer disbelief.
We all understand the RIAA means to embed the message that downloading hurts the artists (and we wholeheartedly agree), but suing the crap out of single mothers in an attempt to add more poster children to their anti-piracy campaign simply cannot continue for much longer given the ubiquitous and expansive nature of the Internet. We think the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) attorney Corryne McSherry said it best, "This case could end up being the tail end of a frankly shameful and certainly failed campaign to go after users."
Did this mother deserve such a large fine? Is there any grounds for charging so much for sharing a song? Let us know what you think in the comments.
(Image: Cavutto)
(Via: Electronic House)
Comments (5)
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view juice's profile
ripping from records is probably not illegal under the fair use act. but i could be wrong and don't need to start a big controversy.
view mf1192's profile
There's a difference between downloading and sharing. If you download a song for yourself (i.e. no sharing, profiting, blah-blah, the end), you should absolutely NOT BE CHARGE $80,000 per song. That's just asinine.
But if you're seeding/sharing/burning CDs and selling them (do people still do that?), then yeah... ok... you can't do that, you're gonna get a lawsuit slapped on you.
But from what I've read, it only seems like they're suing this mom for downloading 24 songs. And that's it.
Last time I checked, a legal download purchase of 24 individual songs would cost you a grand total of $48, max. Clearly the RIAA has absolutely no idea what they're doing (or that it's 2009 and people have this thing called the internet... I guess that just snuck up on them).
I really wish the Supreme Court would hurry up and just slap them in the face, tell them to be a big girl/boy and learn how to deal with this "challenge."
I know peer-to-peer sharing is rather debilitating to the entertainment industry, but seriously? You can't just go around suing everyone. FIGURE OUT A WAY TO DEAL WITH IT. Counter it. Maybe you'll learn something (about the internet. GASP!).
view sparkle's profile
Yeah. Not a fan of the RIAA. But the MPAA is just about as bad IMHO, just not so blatant about it.
view ekoshyun's profile
They really seem to be cracking down on this. I admit that I've downloaded a few obscure albums in the past. Usually stuff that's near impossible to find anywhere else, or movies that they simply don't make on DVD. My husband turned on uTorrent yesterday, and almost immediately got an email from our internet provider warning him that they had traced illegal activity on through our IP address, and even listed the company associated with the particular album that was seeding.
I guess our downloading days are officially over. Utorrent has been uninstalled. =/ Blah.
view Speakaboo's profile