I can't believe this cr*p!!!

[Jose]

Link
I don't deslike the USA but some stuff there is just completely insane.  :-o

[jj]

While I dont agree with tarrgetting students who have less money than most, they really have no excuse and have been caught out.  They should use bittorrents, much harder to be traced though still not impossible.

I really cant believe they dont have better people to target, though I assume its much easier to track students through the university IP's

[giZmo350]

"Obviously I knew it was illegal, but no one got in trouble for it," Barg said.

She even admits to it. What don't people understand about... STOP STEALING!!!   :crazy:

The guy that compares it to speeding cracks me up too....  what don't you understand about "LIMIT" in SPEED LIMIT!

Sheeeeeeeeeesh!  Here's you sign....

[RRunner]

As I understand it, a long time ago in Canada, a law was created that added a surtax to any recordable media that is sold. This includes cassette tapes, VHS, CD's and DVD's to name a few. The purpose of this surtax was to offset losses of artists due to piracy. This law was pushed through by the music industry back when cassette tapes first came out.

A few years ago, a case went to the supreme court over music piracy. The supreme court ruled that because ALL Canadians are forced to pay this surtax to pay for music they may or may not have pirated, they have the right to download music for their own use. Canadians cannot "share out" music but they can download it for their own use. From what I understand, this only applies to music. The courts ruled that the music industry couldn't have it both ways. If you are going to charge people to cover the costs of piracy then you are technically saying that piracy is expected and "ok".  So now the music industry is trying to get rid of this tax so that they can prevent music piracy.

Funny how the law came full circle like that and ended up causing them more of a headache in the end.

[Jose]

"I really cant believe they dont have better people to target,..."

Exactly, I'm not saying I agree with piracy but according to the law (and common sense ?!)itself the fine should be proportional to the actions made. How much is a song of those on the various sites selling music on the net, 2$ ? She was not even sharing it. Some of the guys on the RIAA simply deserve to be shot.

[stopthegop]

Thats nothing new.  That organization has been harassing teenagers and small business owners for 50 years.  They're actually harmless and will go away if you simply ignore them.  They'll do stuff like go into a small coffee shop where the radio is playing in the background.  Say, for example, there was tunes by Tom Petty, Chris Issaac, and Pink Floyd playing on the radio...  What'll happen is some awkward lawyer-ish looking dude whose purpose is clearly not to buy coffee will present the owner of the cafe with an "invoice" for "royalties" owed to the "owners" of copyrighted music.  The justification is that the music in question was "used" by the cafe to "make a profit".  The "invoice" will be for some totally absurd sum of money and, of course, the money is sent to these ACAP fl_lcks, not to Tom Petty, Chris Isaac or Roger Waters.  These people are frauds.  They only go after people who are unlikely or unable to fight back.  How much of the money they do collect do you think gets filtered back to "the artists" they claim to represent?  Hint: 4 letter word, it starts with "z" and ends with "o".

[giZmo350]

@stopthegop

It's actually legal to play the radio in a 'for-profit" commercial business in the states now.  

[jkirk]

gizmo350 wrote:
@stopthegop

It's actually legal to play the radio in a 'for-profit" commercial business in the states now.  

is it? when did this happen?

as far as i knew supermarkets run their own stations that play over the speakers to minimize the royalties they have to pay. not to mention advertise their sales.

[Roj]

Trent Reznor speaks out about music piracy

[swift240]

Well they target students because they are far easier to get at that most.
But lets face it theft is theft no matter how you look at it.
Look at it this way, would you take a chance and think you wont get caught, this just proves you CAN be.

Mike.

[giZmo350]

@jkirk

You know there are a zillion "rules" by ASCAP and others regarding playing "music" in a private business. I know you can't play a CD, record, cassette or the like from a recorded medium without paying individual rights fees. But, some years back, maybe 10, the "radio" vs MUZAC thing came up here in the states. Private business won the right to play the "radio". There may be a fee associated with doing so, but not all the hassel that goes with individual "rights" useage per artist. I tried to find on Google but can't seem to come up with the right search criteria.

[Tomas]

While I dont agree with tarrgetting students who have less money than most, they really have no excuse and have been caught out. They should use bittorrents, much harder to be traced though still not impossible.

Hard to track?? All ips are available to anyone! You can easily see the ips in a bittorrent program like azureus. Dont see how it can get easier than that.

[Oli_hd]

the fine should be proportional to the actions made. How much is a song of those on the various sites selling music on the net, 2$

well the fine probably includes the $2 per song (It doesnt say how many songs she downloaded, only the total songs from that building) plus the legal costs, I doubt the RIAA use a cheap legal team you know. ;-)
Plus all the research, writing letters to the ISP's etc.
It all adds up very fast.

The only thing I would say is there is an easy getout, if she did download spice girl songs (Wtf? ;-) ) then go and buy some second hand cd's from a car boot sale at 1$ a piece and say you had them all the time. it fixes everything.
Even people who hated the music business could do that as second hand goods dont get the music business any income :-)

As for going after school kids, I think if someone breaks the law, regardless of age, they should pay the price.
Kids of 5 and 6 know not to steal else they will get in to trouble, you cant say they dont know right from wrong.

[Tomas]

I am sadly one of these nasty criminals, even though i dont really download music. I myself download tv series, but this is not because i want to break the law, but it is because i am forced by the tv industry to get my tv series the illegal way.
I myself am a fan of science fiction, but sadly the only science fiction show on norwegian tv right now, is the first or second season of battlestar galactica. Firefly did never air, star trek enterprise did never air. star trek DS9 did never air, stargate sg1 or atlantis did never air and the list goes on.. There is also no legal movie/tv on demand service for us norwegians, due to the fact that the tv industry refuse to distribute these series to anyone outside of USA. Itunes video store is not available, bittorrent.com on demand service is not available, xbox 360 video marketplace has only a handfull of old movie trailers and not a single full tv show.

Downloading shows like buffy, firefly + more actually made me buy the dvd sets and even got me to buy the ticket at the theatre for serentiy the sequel of firefly show. If it was not for me downloading, then i would never have discovered these excellent shows and thus they would have actually lost money.

I would happily pay a few bucks to download a tv episode or pay a monthly subscription fee.
But i dont go buy a whole dvd set without having watched at least a few eps to judge whether or not the serie is for me. Not that the dvd sets are available before years after it ran on US television anyways..

[stopthegop]

Kids of 5 and 6 know not to steal else they will get in to trouble, you cant say they dont know right from wrong.

They know not to steal: this is true.  But what they might not know is what actions constitute stealing.  For example, kids are encouraged from a very young age to "use" or to cite the writings of other authors to strengthen their own argument, but with one catch:  they must credit the original author; failure to do so constitutes plaigerism or "stealing".   Kids aren't taught that also have to pay royalties to the original author's media rep and litigation team.  I see very little difference in a teenager's (properly credited) "use" of copyrighted print material such as books or magazine articles, and the personal "use" of ubiquitous music files.   The mere idea that ASCAP et al can regulate and control every single digital copy of any particular file is absurd beyond belief.  Add to that the fact that they can selectively punish people for merely opening a copy of such a file?  How is posessing a sound file any different than posessing a copy of some pdf file that happens to be copyrighted.  They're both 1s and 0s, thats it.   I see no problem with someone listening to "Voodoo Child", as long as they don't claim to have written it themselves.