How is today's digital format different from recording a vinyl record onto a cassette?
Again the RIAA and the jury were simply out of touch with the reality.
I suggest that the movie, music and game companies have to make all their products available for purchase over the internet at a lesser price than in the stores. This way, people could buy NON-DRM'ed music, movie and games and the industry could stop screwing their customers over.
I have all the sympathy for the woman in this case because there were numerous problems with the judge’s instructions and the lawyer for her defense. He did not call any technical people to the stand to defend this woman and point out that there were numerous ways that someone could have been filesharing from her computer without her knowledge: trojans, worms, etc.
This ruling is outrageous and unconstitutional.
Up to $150,000 per willful act of infringement when the purchase price on download is 99cents?
The punishment doesn’t fit the crime; that sounds grossly out of proportion to it! And the RIAA just stayed there smiling.
After decades of beating the artists into submission in exchange for ONE PENNEY PER SONG SOLD (15 cents per CD), now the RIAA has turned its greedy attention to the hands that feed it and they're not stopping till they hit bone..!! They have run roughshod over those artists and now they want to play the "we're protecting" card. C’mon!
You are the same people who, for years, engaged in payola designed to keep deserving talent off of the air and now you are accusing an individual of ‘illicit conduct’? … again, c’mon!
If the industry wants war, remember, there are hundreds of thousands kids smart enough to beat them up. Two of them could decode the iPhone or the iPod protection devices in only weeks after the items went out on sale and they certainly ruined all those millions invested by Apple on their “exclusive engineers” to develop these devices.
The industry is NEVER GOING TO WIN THIS WAR unless groups like RIAA abandon these vicious attacks on their customers.
They should be going after the services, not the users. Of course the RIAA and others already know this won't work because even if they shut down an entire method of sharing another pops up in its place.
Striking and attacking the weakest, huh?
What they are also provoking is that just a few people buy the CD’s and those few will start spreading their CD’s to as many friends as possible. People will get high quality recordings from a full rip from the CD’s and the CDs will get passed around and around and around. Everybody will get a huge collection in no time flat.
I doubt the RIAA is going to be following (with "gumshoes") those millions of people handing off CDs to one another and what are you going to say? Why are you ripping copyrighted music? The answer will be only, “I was lending the CD to my friend to listen to it ... I didn't know that they were going to rip the entire CD!”.
This kind of punishment will not work. Don’t make them pay for your lack of technology knowledge when the filesharing behavior started to emerge.
Make products available for a reasonable price and end all this for once, otherwise, we will be watching the death throes of a dinosaur. Take your notes!
Emilio
southwing
