The RIAA and major record labels are rejoicing over a major file sharing federal jury verdict against a woman from Minnesota who must pay a $220,000 fine for making available 24 songs on a peer to peer file sharing network (Kazaa). More cases are likely to follow, now that this precedant has been set.

The fine averages $9,250 for each of the 24 songs the RIAA was challenging her on.

This was low, compared the the statutory fine of $150,000 per infringment (song) that could have been levied by the court or jury...

Article here: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9791383-7.html

This case goes to show that all people should buy their music legally or else the RIAA may sue you for potentially hundred of thousands or even millions in infringement penalties!

Update: Four reasons why the RIAA won a jury verdict of $220,000

$9,250 for each song!

Just imagine what happens when someone is convicted with thousands of songs shared. Just do the math!

I wonder how much of that money is going back to the artists she "stole" from.

If anyone has issues with such matters in the UK then contact the very nice & helpful people from 'The Open Rights Group': http://www.openrightsgroup.org/

Is that a threat? The only thing this shows is that Riaa nor jury have a sense of reality. Music is a cultural thing, people have been sharing it since the first cavemen began to make music. People want to share and theyll do it, no stopping that. Only the last 100 has a group stood up who though they could slap a coin out of this need/habbit, by creating 'music', advertising it (on the radio), engraining it so that we eventually buy it. Only stupid people have no problem with that.

Ridiculous verdicts like these are the exception however, most of the time Riaa loses bigtime.

No threat. Just a statement of fact. It is normally against the law to steal music or distribute copies of music (it is called copyright infringement in the U.S. and most other countries). Why put yourself up for possible exposure to millions of dollars in fines, when you can pay 99 cents a track (or less) from many online music stores: iTunes, eMusic, Zune marketplace, Amazon MP3 store, etc.) or you can legally buy the CDs?

It is very "cheap insurance" from a multi-million dollar lawsuit where you could potentially lose your house, business, etc. After all, we buy homeowner's insurance, car insurance and medical insurance to protect ourselves from major lawsuits or major expenses, why not some low cost "music insurance" by buying all our music legally?

The original accusation was of sharing 1,702 tracks, but they chose to concentrate on 24 of them.

Are you by any chance a propaganda-agent of the RIAA? You forgot the most important aspect in your above flawed reasoning: probability. As it stands now, being struck by lightning is more probable.

A logically more valid reasoning would be, to say: either you accept the behaviour of the RIAA and legally buy their stuff - or you disagree with their behaviour and boycott them. Anything else would be inconsistent.

It's against the law, but do you really think there was any harm even close to a thousandth of that fine from sharing, essentially, two audio CDs? I think these punishments for copyright infringement are WAY out of proportion. And please don't call it stealing, that's like saying I'm stealing your face if I take a photograph of it.

No, I don't have any association with the RIAA or major record labels... I am a Christian indie music publisher who sells 8 album titles (I own the rights to about 160 songs total), and I don't understand why people would think they can steal the music I own all copyrights to without paying for it legally. It is no different than shoplifting CDs or any other kind of stealing. It's wrong, both legally and morally.

Laws and morals do not necessarily have anything to do with truth and logic.

The way you put it, this sounds more like paying protection money than paying for "music insurance" which in itself is a brain-dead concept. A more correct term would be music usage fees.

I meant more "peace of mind" insurance that you can rest peacefully at night knowing that you "did the right thing" and paid for all your music legally. Also, that no one would come trying to sue you to take away your stuff.

Why does this logic remind me about expensive audiophile gear? And why does it remind me about the method, how morals and typical right-wing propaganda works: doing things out of fear ?

See the interesting update below by News.com detailing:

Four reasons why the RIAA won a jury verdict of $220,000

Note the following 3 Jury instructions quoted below which were important in this case (and might apply to other similar cases):

"JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 14: The act of downloading copyrighted sound recordings on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners' exclusive reproduction right.

JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 15: The act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners' exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.

JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 22: In this case, each plaintiff has elected to recover "statutory damages" instead of its actual damages and profits. Under the Copyright Act, each plaintiff is entitled to a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 per act of infringement (that is, per sound recording downloaded or distributed without license), as you consider just. If, however, you find that the defendant's conduct was willful, then each plaintiff is entitled to a sum of up to $150,000 per act of infringement (that is, per sound recording downloaded or distributed without license), as you consider just.

In determining the just amount of statutory damages for an infringing defendant, you may consider the willfulness of the defendant's conduct, the defendant's innocence, the defendant's continuation of infringement after notice or knowledge of the copyright or in reckless disregard of the copyright, effect of the defendant's prior or concurrent copyright infringement activity, and whether profit or gain was established."

Ah...the RIAA gets stronger. It is really not a good thing for the consumer who will now be treated more and more as the scum they are. Not to mention the fact that the loudness war, repetitive artists, rampant song "sampling", and a myriad of other problems are contributing to poor CD sales not music piracy BUT anyway for the RIAA to make more money is an option they will take even if the person they burn is innocent.

A sad day for the consumer makes a happy day for the RIAA.

Also, comparing downloading music to actual theft is a stretch as actual theft is harming somebody...what stars have been hurt financially due to this music piracy? As compared to bootlegging?

Do we think that the actual size of the music pirate population is larger than the CD buying population?

You think piracy doesn't hurt people? What do you think piracy does to someone who barely makes a living out of selling something? If you think that's irrelevant, do you think stealing from the rich instead is ok?

This thread is scary. It's clearly apparent that copyright is starting to look like a lost cause in the eyes of many people, and they clearly don't give a fuck about who is hurt by their attitude.

Garf,

I agree with you that the pro-piracy attitudes expressed in this thread are scary. This is another example of the moral threads of our society (at least in the U.S.A.) coming undone. If people say it isn't stealing, and they are just taking from the "rich guys", what next for these modern day Robin Hoods? Wal-mart is rich, so is Target and Best Buy. If their theory holds, then why don't they go in and rob these stores? See how long it will be until they are caught and prosecuted if they did that.

Instead they pick on artists and labels, even small indie artists who don't have big warchests to go after them. This idea is akin to communism ideals where they think everything in society should belong to and be given to them. Thank God we have private property rights here. Maybe these people should move to Russia and get all their music from allofmp3.com (or if closed, another similar Russia MP3 download site).

Back to reality... We that live in the U.S. are under the laws, and must obey them, even if we don't like them. Up to $150,000 penalty for each copy of a song that is willfully illegally copied or distributed is a stiff penalty, but was placed there to prevent piracy. If people want to play "Russian roulette" and hope they don't ever get caught, they are playing with fire in my opinion. Why lose you home, business, cars, personal belongings, investments and other assets over some pirated music? It's not worth it.

No, it doesn't. It means the RIAA are scum, and I refuse to do business with people like this. I am boycotting the music-industry, I haven't bought a single release for the last 3 years. And I will never buy one again if the lawsuits don't come to an end.

Copyright is a lost cause, because it is no longer true. I mean this literarily. The asumptions on which copyright are built, are no longer true. It is a system which is totally out of touch with the truth on the ground.

As for hurting and piracy. In the case of indie-artists, your remarks may be true. In the case of RIAA-artists however, it is not, because the RIAA doesnt give a fuck about its artists - it just cares about itself. And it is the artists own fault, that they became the whore of the biggest abuser in the music world. And: Piracy or not, it doesnt make much of a difference to an RIAA-Artist anyways, because as already mentioned, the RIAA is not the saviour of its artists, but instead their abusive slavemaster.

All this has nothing to do with the question, if piracy is okay or not in the case o the RIAA. It is just plain and simply facts, which are twisted again and again by RIAA-Believers. As for "what to do?" - well, i adressed that already in an earlier post: Support them, or boycott them. Consuming them via piracy is inconsistent.

And as for laws - if one MUST obey laws, completly ignoring if they make sense - then we should also eat shit, if a laws says so.

This part I don't really buy. The way to stop transgression of a law is not stiff penalties. Nobody will quit stealing music because some random unknown person has to pay a house in penalties. The more effective way is to get the chance up of being caught. What you describe is winning the lottery the inverse way. I don't believe in the lottery, because the odds are better for the one organizing the lottery. Right now the odds are better for the downloaders. So this "victory" will do nothing.

It's clear to me that copyright as we know it, a legal insurance that you can directly sell music, software, movies, etc... is a dead-end, and basing a business on it is not future-proof. Musicians (and software companies) relying on it will face tough times. Just look at what the big boys are doing. Microsoft is looking like a lone holdout, but remember that they "bundle" more than they "sell". So again, relying on copyright or "victories" like this is hopeless, and if you do, I feel sorry for you.

But to claim nobody is hurt by this change (nobody is hurt by stealing music) is just plain silly.

Um, maybe I'm just claiming infringement isn't stealing because, umm, it isn't?

To put it differently: Theft directly harms someone else, copyright infringement only indirectly (lost sales). The big difference is that theft undeniably harms someone, while copyright infringement in many cases even helped people get more sales. There just isn't such an easy direct connection. If a band is popular enough that so many people care about sharing or downloading their music, then a lot of people are going to buy it, too. It's a two-way thing.

I'm not saying piracy is good or right. It isn't. It's against the law, and it's not unfair to rights holders. But claiming that (non-commercial) music piracy=losses isn't quite correct imo, and infringement=stealing is just factually wrong.

I agree with this, as stated in my previous post.

Copyright at this very moment relies on the honesty of people. That doesn't work, both because people are not by nature honest and also because the moral stop against pirating music is wearing away. It used to rely on technological restrictions. Those were a hell of a lot more effective.

One way to enforce the honesty of people (effectively reintroduce technological restrictions again) is to use things like DRM. That doesn't work, both for technological reasons as well as pain/gain reasons.

So other ways will have to be found to make money off copyrightable things.

The point I want to make is, claiming that it hurts noone is just wrong. If you don't buy that it hurts the artists (because of the usual RIAA bruhaha), then at the the very least you probably agree that it hurt the customers, because we are now saddled up with DRM as a replacement for honesty.

dude. how can you be a greedy CHRISTIAN

why do you strive for wealth? or to own material belongings?

you make no sense.

with your oblivious opinions you better boycott the BIBLE then, it's most likely that most of those people didn't give consent to have their works republished for profit!

LOL

people arguing copyright are HILARIOUS. when the music industry crashes and y'all are crying like little babies about everything it's going to be FANTASTIC.

LOL

Like Metallica is starving? What artist is hurt? Can we get a list of a couple *hurt* artists please, for reference. Maybe we can help support them, I for one am always on the lookout for new artists.

Though, to condemn without proof to back up that logic that it hurts people is slightly disturbing...

Starving artists tend to use mp3s to get their music out so people will buy into them. Friend of mine had me host a song for him in mp3 format for people to download to get his music out there, I am sure my friend is not the only one who has done this.

I would wager that the actual songs she was charged with were probably songs from pop music (i.e. big bands/artists). Examples: Kayne West, 50 Cent, Korn, so on and so forth. This is where my previous argument stems from.

Also, if we think the RIAA cares about the low end of the music industry...all power to you people...but in reality they (RIAA) only care about their multi-million/billion dollar record companies who are pushing them. If their motivation was spawned from the true intention of supporting the artists I would back them fully but it is not. It however is motivated to assume all people are pirates until never proven otherwise.

I do think the fine was excessive and that the court system still needs serious Tort Reform.

Now just because I stated that please do not slap me into whatever category you like because I support independent artists by buying their CDs off of CDbaby.com, which funnels the money directly to the people who barely make a living. Of course, I do buy CDs off of Amazon but only if the artists does not offer the CD on their website OR if it is not a website such as CDBaby that gives the money to the artists. Lastly, if that artist is a big name on a big record label.

The RIAA will probably take me to court for buying music from artists instead of iTunes, Best Buy, et cetera, because I am not giving them their cut by doing so.

Though all of this comes down to morals. We expect all individuals to have consistent morals with us. This may be the source of where all anger in relation to this topic stems from for both sides of the argument. We are angered by those who share not a similar moral or ethical code and lash out in varying ways. It would be impossible for us to truly have identical moral codes because of environmental, social, familial differences that exist.

Let alone if you think my comments are terrifying you should take a look on other forums. Some are chalking this up to a *Only in America* phenomenon. Is this right? Is it wrong? Why only in America if this case was right? Are Europeans wrong?

A consensus of morals may be the key to finally solving this problem but first it will require looking at a logical and factual standpoint free from morals to generate the criteria of the moral consensus (Sextus Empiricus).

"The fallacies of humanity are perpetuated by the inconsistency of morality." - Myself 24SEP05

To reach that consistency that would eliminate the fallacy it would require a removal of morals to reach a logical and philosophical ground to establish the criteria. Though removing the morals will be against the establishing the criteria that are dependent on morals.

Of course, trying to establish a consistent moral base maybe a futile attempt as humanity will always find a reason to bypass them, albeit for something small or large. Like lying? little white lie, big black lie.

i think people (consumers) have just lost interest or respect in the mainstream industry. how much of the price of a cd will get to an artist? yes i've heard the reasoning and who requires $$$ to make "it happen" but that is their problem - people don't support their methods and now have a choice to do whatever they want whether it is legal or not (which, by the way differs greatly from country to country - which morally makes no sense and is thus easy to validate).

it's the opposite with bands i like and i can pay them directly. in doing so i know they receive 100% of the funds and can pay THEIR costs rather than getting some ridiculous royalty.

people don't like paying the middle-man.


EDIT: i'm interested to see how radiohead's IN RAINBOWS release will turn out. i think this will be a good indication of fans supporting their artists.

I'd kindly ask you to stop turning this into a religious war. Christians have to work for their living like everyone else, thank you very much. Now please let us forget about this post.

I've seen this argument over and over, but without strong data to support either position, the discussion will go nowhere.

What I do know is that if the moral restriction against downloading instead of buying is totally gone, the hypothethical gain from gaining more popularity because of filesharing will be worthless because "more" times "nothing" still equals "nothing".

So in the end, you're making a distiction based on the fact that one thing is sure to hurt, and another thing maybe doesn't hurt, based on some very dubious gain.

I hope you're not surprised this doesn't sound very convincing?

I do think it is convincing to say that the one thing does not equal the other, which is the point I'm trying to make here. I never said either was better, just that they're not the same.

Sure, Metallica is hurt.

You think it's fine if a poor person breaks & enters your house?

Most of the current societies (at the very least US & Western Europe) don't seem to think so. I think you'll have a hard time convincing people that the above would be acceptable. Yet for stealing music the same link is not made.

It may be due to the fact that it doesn't effect artist directly but effects the company that makes the CD who make more money off the CD than the artist. On a big record label how much money does an artist make off one CD? What are the numbers behind piracy's direct effect on the income of the artist?

I would still like to know what struggling artists I could support. Also, poor people are invited to my home all the time, not mention community work I do. I am willing to help where help is needed.

It mostly hurts people who don't contribute to society: the labels. They're just what I call box-mover: a facilitator (or should be, that fact that they actively market and create music is appaling IMHO). So that doesn't concern me a bit, as I don't see why they should take 50% of every euro/dollar we spend on music.

Then there's another thing: If you're barely making a buck out of it as an artist, then you've made the wrong carreermove. It's attractive to be able to live off of your artistic expression (please note that most music isnt, just a way to maximize profits for labels), but I don't see why that should be 'right'. I'd like to make a buck out of sitting on my ass my whole life but it doesn't, so I get a real job. That's the way a market works: we the buyers don't owe you a living.
As I said before, this so-called morality you speak of is only a hundred years old. Before that nobody thought of making a buck out of music. Before that, sharing music was 'the way to go', that was how it was done. No, I don't care much for opportunistic businesses trying to make a buck of what is essentially a basic cultural need.
Downloading is not stealing, downloading is copying. You've potentially lost a sale, not definitly. In many cases the music downloaded would have otherwise NOT been bought. Sometimes it has the opposite effect, because you've downloaded a tune you liked you decided to buy more and more of that artist. You see that this is a very fuzzy area and certainly not as clearcut as stealing.

Also, the richer a person/business is, the smaller a problem I have with that inequality being leveled. You call it stealing, I call it fairness. I'm so glad I'm in Europe, where fortunaly most think this way.
If you care about the artist, download all their tunes and visit a concert. How many artists, even big ones have stated that the labels are leeches? Hell, send 'em a cheque of 10 bucks and youll support them more by buying CD's.

There's fundamentally nothing wrong with communism (only if you're an indoctrinated American perhaps). The sad part of the story is actual communism has never took place on this planet. The soviets were dictators using communism as a way to legitimize it to the people. Equality and sharing the way the ideology describes has rarely happened in Russia.

Sharing is a very basic human activity and trying to counter that is a) wrong b) futile.

Move over to Europe and don't worry, be happy! $150k for a song is ridiculus, no matter how you look at it. The way you blindly accept that as a reality is shoking, it's clear that you accept you're being ruled by institution and it is not you who rules, the way it should be in a democracy.

Put things in perspective for a moment: the music-industry (appaling that such a thing exists if you think about the word industry) is making billions of dollars and is one of the biggest on the face of the Earth. The image that artists are on the verge of extinction is just not true. At most the labels will have to give up a part of their cut and frankly, that's a healthy development in a capitalist economy where efficiency is of high importance. Walmart is cutting the margins, because their just box-movers, just like the labels. If you care about smalltime artists, visit their concerts, send them money, but make sure your dollars/euros arent shaved by the leeches.

And we even have not mentioned the whole DRM-aspects of the problem, which is morally and ethically so incredibily wrong, that's we'll need to start a new topic if we're going into that.

Stand up for your rights, or what should be your rights.

Good that I'm not into Big Five music. It'd be a bad, bad feeling, shelling out $$ for a CD knowing that quite a share of it is used to pay lawyers and lobbyism and DRM and the like. The RIAA really give their best as to drag their public image down to new lows. Perhaps, one day, mainstream CDs will be sold in brown bags.

Seems like this thread is heading towards the good old 'piracy' debate, including "theft=copyright infringement". So it's theft if you get music without the 'copyright exploiters' seeing money? In that case, prohibit the 2nd hand CD market immediately...

It's a good thing to support the artist and the people involved in creating the music one likes, maybe one should rather focus on this (positive) point instead of ruining peoples' lives with lawsuits such as this one. Sympathy goes to DRM-free indie labels or even artists who market themselves, all without treating paying customers as criminals.

Concerning this verdict, I'm having trouble in understanding that running a certain program on your computer for some time can cost you a quarter million... just does not seem real in a way. I've also heard that there wasn't much die-hard evidence involved in this ruling, the jury didn't seem to be all that tech-savy, and that the losing party will probably file an appeal. Let's see how this continues.

I can't understand the huge amount awarded. The only damage that really took place would be the cost of those 24 songs. So the amount should have been no more than $40. In other words the price of 2 expensive CD's.

No. What we have here, is the same as how the mafia works: you create a problem, and then offer yourself as the solution.

If you tell people starting from their birth, that they are THE DEVIL, unless they get disciplined by the RULE OF GOD - and they obey.... for a while...... then what do you expect to happen, then the rule is no longer enforcable?

As you can see, this is a general concept and effect, not just limited to copyright. Reliance on inflated external disciplination, will create desire for inflated excess and greed. And inflated excess and greed will in turn re-justify the inflated disciplination. This is why strict adherance to copyright, laws and stuff, is no contradiction to christian belief - it is the same corrupt mentality.

In other words: problem and "solution" are one and the same.

Selling a CD second hand still implies that the person selling it won't be able to hear the music anymore.



A computer with an internet connection is a powerful device. If you're not able to control it, maybe you shouldn't own one to begin with.
Where do you think all the botnets causing DDos attacks come from? From those poor innocent people who just ran a certain program on their computer for some time.

I buy my music, I personally own about 3200 CD. The issue I have is , as much as the go after who “steal “ music, the treat legitimate music buyers like dirt. They put root kit software on CDs, they make it so it’s hard for me just to rip the damn think so I can enjoy it on my Squeezebox. Here in Canada if the CD is not in the top 40 I end up paying up to 5 bucks extra, and God forbid its an “Import”, then I’m looking at about 10 -20 bucks more. Most people I know love music and want to buy more, but it’s just too expensive. And let’s not mention the shit they try to pass as music. They need to deal with the root cause, not go after people so they can try to set these rediculas examples. Also buying tracks online is more stealing buy the record companies, than those downloading. 99 cents for a track, so if I but a whole CD, as if there are some I would actually buy the entire, I could pay up to 24 bucks. I get no physical CD, no insert, and if I lose my drive, no music. That’s stealing

NH

Christian rock but clearly no Christian attitude.
Stealing?
But you justify profitting from spreading the word?
Cast out the money lenders from the temple seems apt.
160 songs? Any of them derived from hymns? Or do they quote the bible?
Stealing . . .

Nonsense. Rubbish.

Untill the downloader is fined - all these fines are absolutely useless. As you see the spreader is fined. Let's assume RIAH stopps all spreaders in USA and many other countries. But what will they do with spreaders in Zambia, Russia, Ukraine, Congo and other countries where piracy is a usual?
But it is much more difficult to sue the downloader.

Strange times came.

Long time ago 99% of all people didn't commit a murder and those 99% of people decided that murder is crime. And they punished murderers. And we do it now the same way.

Today more than 50% of people have downloaded a book or a song (or duplicated) at least one time. And 0,0000000001% of people (which name is RIAA) count this crime.

It's time to change rules. As most people would like them to be.

Can you tell me how many percents gets artist and how many percents of total goes to you? Maybe then I will tell you why people share music.
Most of times all these legal proceedings are initiated by recording studios and producers. And not by artists.

The thing is: what he does is only natural. I think he should use text/whatever from the bible if he wants to and use it in his songs. The same way that I should be allowed to copy his songs if I want to. Sharing and music are engrained into humanity and cant be removed and shouldnt be. Crosstalk like this is great imho. What's not great is that some seem to think this crosstalk is one-way, the way of their personal wallets. Sorry, it's not. To think so is stupid and adding insult to injury he's just hypocritical when he thinks he can produce "christian" music and use a very large set of available tunes/texts/melodies/rhythms and call us stealers when we copy one of his songs.

@de Mon: hear hear. It's we the people who decide whats moral, not a select few. I like to think that such a period in history is behind us.

Showing your appreciation in coin to an artist is not discouraged by anyone. The idea that people can live off making music is fairly new (~100yrs or so, apart from a few genuises like Bach), not to mention a HUGE industry that is only skimming and inventing ways to limit our freedoms and producing exactly nothing in society. Anyone who thinks that's a businessmodel we should want is anti-capitalistic, because it's genuine capital-destruction. People are getting rich by doing nothing. That's old and should end asap.

Both sides here have a point, but we need to step back a bit.

As far as I remember, the whole point of copyright was to allow 'art' a period of time to flourish, and for the 'artist' to profit from this. This period was short, after which the copyright expired in recognition of the fact that the art was now a recognised part of popular culture.

Due to the RIAA and similar 'rights holders', the copyright period has continually been extended to a point where it goes beyond the original intentions.

A good example of this is 'Happy Birthday', which is still a copyrighted work, despite for all intents and purposes being uncollectable financially. Another is Cliff Richard, who complains from his million dollar holiday home in a foreign tax haven that he cannot collect royalties from something he did... 50 years ago.

I don't think any rational person can complain about the concept of copyright, even licenses like the GPL are built on top of it. What annoys the shit out of me and others is the continual increase in the period involved, to a point where it actually encourages artists to stop creating new work. If Cliff Richard makes money off 50 year old tunes, then why should he make any effort with his new ones? This is possibly one of the reasons why he's done nothing decent in the last 20 years.

Also the crusade against file sharing is led by lobbying groups like the RIAA, who collect massive payments for *their* benefit, not that of the actual artists.

The Radiohead thing is great. Distribution costs nothing these days, all a record label adds of value is promotion, and any P.R. company can do this for fixed cost.

In a world where I can get tunes on tap from the internet, we need to move to a model where we buy music direct from the artist. Paypal is trivial to setup, as is hosting. Making a direct connection between the artist and buyer means the latter is more likely to pay, knowing they've benefitted the creator directly instead of the bank balances of a chain of middlemen.

Thank Allah for the internet. It's scared the crap out of the major labels, and all these arguments are just the signs of a dying industry. The industry that comes afterwards will be much better.

Honestly, I think there are as many sides to this thread as there are contributors.

I agree with you about the copyright terms, remember when the british music industry tried to extend the period even further (50 to 95 years), and the government said no? I think they were actually complaining that the musicians' children would have to work like everyone else...

Fair point, but the discussion does seem to be polarised between people who expect everything free, and those who call it theft.

On your second point - yes, Cliff Richard was one of the main protagonists with that. Very Christian attitudes, right there.

It seems to me that Jury Instruction No. 15 is the significant one. Instruction No. 14 is merely a restatement of the holding of the Napster decision from 2001. Instruction No. 22 is a statement of Section 504© of the Copyright Act. Instruction 15, however, says that there can be infringement under the Copyright Act even when there has been no actually copy made by the allegedly infringing party.

I wouldn't count myself to either of those groups.

Some people would like it if everything was free. But this isn't Happyland. Musicians have to earn money too.
Musicians would like it if noone ripped them off by downloading their music instead of buying. But this isn't Happyland. When illegal filesharing is so easy, some people will do it.
The recording industry would like to make a lot of money of some people they won't have to share with the musicians. Currently, they are in Happyland.

Note: This is my uninformed impression. Facts my vary.

I didn't say you were in either group. My, badly made, point was that the polarised views are how the discussion is presented in the media.

Regarding the point about illegal file sharing being easy - that's a good one. Legal file buying should be just as easy, but it artificially isn't. The only decent one i've ever used is allofmp3.com - say what you like about them, but their store is fantastic with the choice of codecs and suchlike. Corporate interests such as vendor lock in (hence the DRM fetish) and cartels like the RIAA have artificially ruined something that should be trivial. Music is just a computer file, people, how hard is it to distribute files over the internet?

Let's see here...multiply by two......carry the one, divide by nine...ah, I have it! Zero!


It is different, actually. There's quite a clear distinction.


Perhaps we should be hurting the artists. After all, aren't the artists the ones subjecting themselves, and their products, to such a damaged, restrictive anti-consumer production and distribution system?

I think certain artists take care to heed certain signs that their industry is changing, and certain artists don't. If they wish for the RIAA to be their representative, then should we be so concerned about their welfare?


It's possible his label is a not-for-profit venture. It might very well be a for-profit business, but I don't think he's made it clear that he's actually seeking to profit, rather than just seeking to recoup (which I'd assume is reasonable from the Christian perspective).

It's funny, but I edited an audiobook about the values of what might be called the "Christian economy", and I think it was fairly clear that the religion doesn't consider profit, or the seeking of profits, as greed. Of course, I'm not sure why he posted what he did where he did (the OP), as he's attempting to enlighten us in ways we're surely already enlightened, and even going so far as to preach to us about the dangers of copyright infringement, so I suppose a hostile response is a valid response.

To goodman: Last I checked, this ain't Sunday service.

I, for one, have no sympathy for the 'Industry'. As many people have pointed out, we have been ripped off for years. Consumers can now download an album from the torrent site of their choice in far less time than it would take to sign up, provide billing info, credit card etc. at a 'legal' site. Who are the idiots here? Ever since Napster, the Industry has behaved like a great, spoilt buffoon. Good riddance to it. The times have changed, forever.

I support every single sentence of your post.