File sharing fines

[Matabele]

A US court has ruled file-sharing on Kazaa illegal and a woman hit with $10,000 per song fines.

Interesting precedent case:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/fined-247000-for-sharing-24-songs/2007/10/05/1191091325005.html

 

[Dan]

meh, kazaa was already illegal in Australia, so no big deal

 

[Guest]

I wonder if the fact that she is an empoyee of an indian tribe had anything to do with the fact that she was targetted by the record companies?

They close down kazza but other music sharing ones like Limeware are still going.

 

[fLIP]

What a dumb ass.

Sure the fines are way over the top but I would definatly settle out of court in that one.

 

[Narcissus]

The point wasn't just about filesharing... it was about the flimsy evidence they use to convict you AND the fact that the recording industry is pushing this "you had it there for people to download, therefore you must be treated as if you had uploaded it" mentality.

The jury was wrong. The RIAA couldn't prove that any uploading had taken place. They used things like IP addresses and MAC addresses that can be spoofed as evidence then turned and showed screenshots as that proof (FYI, there have been 'proof screenshot generators' for years).

 

[fLIP]

I was always under the impression that when claiming compensation in court that you need to justify that your compensation is accurate and worth the crime.

Break a back in a car accident ect and you get X amount for each thing.

How can a record company justify loss of sales to the tune of $220,000 for 24 songs?

 

[Narcissus]

In theory they say something along the lines of "each song is worth x, and they probably uploaded y times, therefore the damage is x times y".

In reality the US government has been bent over so far that there are laws that state how much you can be fined for uploading a song (and those numbers are unbelievable ridiculous).