touché

It's not just the DoJ of course. There's a reason business lobbyists are running around D.C. like crazy, trying to get everything finalized before January 2009.

That system is completely crazy. Whatever happened to 'the punishment fits the crime?'. You'd get less of a fine for breaking the speed limit by a thousand miles per hour than downloading one album, based on those 'maximum penalty laws'. Idiocy.

I like the metaphor of the gavel (The Government) crushing the action figurine (the little man).

222,000 is ridiculous. I'd flee the country

Screw the DOJ, I'd be interested to hear what the supreme court has to say about it.

IMHO, this level of damages certainly breaks Constitutional restrictions against "cruel and unusual punishment".

i wonder what songs she downloaded?

The way the government's been working for us, this lady ought to take $120 and buy 100 Canadian dollars. Wait 5 years, then exchange back for American currency -- she'll probably get $220,000 for it by then.

If that doesn't work, then I wonder if the 220,000 doll-hairs trick would work?

@chopstickhero: She uploaded Appetite For Destructino if I'm not mistaken.

@EQC: Just as we do not barter in bits of string, we do not barter in doll hair.

@chopstickhero: If it was 50 Cent, the fine may just be fitting.

I do think that $9000 a song is excessive, but making the argument that she should only be fined as much as the record companies normally charge for the song is BS. If you stole a car, do you think the criminal justice system would let you off the hook if you paid them back for the Kelly Blue Book value of the car?

Wouldn't "not unconstitutionally excessive." be the same as "Constitutionally excessive"? I think there might be too many negatives there.

@SecretAsianMan: Actually, that sounds reasonable to me. If you steal something, but then offer to pay the actual retail cost of said item when caught, I don't see the harm.

A reasonable fine in this case would be the cost of the song * number of confirmed downloads. But there's very little reasonable about this case, or situation.

@SecretAsianMan: Considering the quality of some of the music that is most downloaded, paying the retail price should be punishment enough.

Does the RIAA only go after people who share domestically-released music? What about artists who do not release music in the US?

@SecretAsianMan: In the sense that downloading music is a civil issue, and stealing an automobile is a criminal offense, they are not on the same plane of legality.

You could compare uploading the music to hitting someone with your car and having to recompense them for medical bills, time off of work, pain & suffering (maybe), etc. However, would there be egregiously large fees that seemingly have no connection to reality or feasible reasoning? The short answer is no.

@klew: [www.riaa.org]

"Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public, or downloading a sound recording from an Internet site, even if the recording isn't resold. Online piracy can now also include certain uses of "streaming" technologies from the Internet. Because of the nature of the theft, the damage is not always easy to calculate but not hard to envision. Millions of dollars are at stake - not to mention our ability to invest in the next generation of music. "

They only cover the members of the RIAA (obviously), but "fight to maintain worldwide copyright". So, if the label is under the RIAA's umbrella, you best believe they'll go after you. If the label isn't, they don't hold the copyright to it and thusly won't (and can't) go after you.

I say if the RIAA can determine that you are distributing songs, and take you to court for it, then they should be responsible for accurately quantifying exactly how many times you distributed each song. For each time you upload a song, then add 70 cents to the cost of damages.

I use legitimate music services like Rhapsody and eMusic in order to listen to and download the different kinds of music I enjoy. This ruling motivated me to go out and download a few albums just to say "f*uck you RIAA- and double-f*uck you DoJ (Jackboots). Corporate amerika owns this govenment.

so if I leave a knife on the table and you kill someone with it, then I am responsible because I made it available.

BS.

@gokor: If it had been Appetite for Destruction maybe she would have blended in with the background and not got caught.

The ruling was perfectly legal and right. We need to prosecute more pirates.

Wait...wasn't she offered a settlement? She would have had to pay $4000 if she admitted guilt and settled. I'm sorry, but I am so sick and tired of people not accepting responsibility for their actions. She broke the law and got caught. Then she got offered a 'get out of jail free' card and chose to fight when she was guilty. I think she deserves it. She broke the law and then was stupid when she got caught. Why do people feel sorry for her?

Even if you buy the theory that the record companies' actual damages are difficult to quantify, and that a statutory penalty is necessary as a "deterrence to those inclined to commit a public wrong," why should the record companies get to keep the money collected as a penalty? If the wrong is a "public wrong," shouldn't the penalty go to the public (i.e., the government)? Allowing the record companies to recover and keep an amount that bears no relation to their actual damages seems to me to be a unjust windfall. And it's fucking ridiculous.

I just think the the RIAA are a bunch of assholes. I hope the music industry collapses. Music sucks anyway.

@CSCHANNER: probably because a lot of people have downloaded illegal music off the internet and to hold her accountable would require admitting they too did something wrong.

The argument is not whether she was guilty or not, but whether the punishment was excessive. I'm sure the RIAA looks at it is when she put a song out on the internet for others to copy she basically set in motion the possibility that no one would ever have to legitimately buy that song again. So is $9,000 an unreasonable amount of money to expect a song to ever earn?

wow, batman is not doing a very good job.

@EQC:
Except Canada's currency isn't doing so hot either with their progressive onslaught of socialism. But yes, you make a good point.

@Roggin: "Wouldn't "not unconstitutionally excessive." be the same as "Constitutionally excessive"?"

The "not" applies to the whole of "unconstitutionally excessive", not just "unconstitutionally".

( $222,000 verdict == !( unconstitutionally excessive ) ) = true

Not that I agree with the result, of course.

The Justice Department sucks RIAA's dong.

How about that? Isn't it obviously reasonable?

@KNAPPOLEAN:

Sadly, that's exactly what can happen given some of our country's twisted laws.

See NYT article from today (account req'd):
[www.nytimes.com]

I hope the RIAA gets aids.

I wonder what's on the DOJ's computers?

Fact is, everyone does this. So, why should one person be punished? It's completely unfair, just like speeding tickets issued to random motorists in areas with artificially low speed limits. Have you contributed to her fund? Come on, all it takes is $1 from 220,000 people and the RIAA can go fuck itself.

We have gotten more than $1 of free music off the web. Let's beat the RIAA at their own game. Collectively, we are more powerful. First, let's pay off the fine. Then, let's render them powerless by changing the laws. Then, let's put them out of business by new and innovative business models that cut the douchebags out of the picture.

@cschanner: Actually, that would be a "get out of jail for $4000 card." It's considerably more expensive than free (approx $4000 more), but I know you were using an expression.

Still, that would seem like incentive enough for not taking responsibility for her actions as the $4000 fine in itself is relatively excessive for what she had downloaded.

There is a bit of a difference between being accountable for certain actions and being exploited for them.

The RIAA appears to be exploiting people here for what they suggest is deterrence (after their clients exploit people by gouging them for the cost of music, but that is another argument altogether).

Arguments like these can justify other absurd actions like the US's in Guantanamo or lashing a British woman for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Mohammad (how many people are going to do that in Sudan now?).

So, like Gillian Gibbons, who should accept responsibility for her actions and take the beating, and like the Gitmo prisoners (actually, we cannot prove many of them have even done anything wrong...interestingly, the poor British woman actually does something illegal in her host country and Americans are up in arms about her being held accountable, but in that US democracy, Americans just waterboard people for fitting a demographic)...deterrence

Right, so as a person who believes that the extreme actions of the RIAA are acceptable, you would probably also believe that Gillian Gibbons should be whipped. If she does not accept the 40 lashings offer, by continuing to involve international arbiters, perhaps she should be whipped, oh, about 1,000 times. After all, she, like our downloader, should have known about the severity of actions, and should just accept her mistake rather than "stupidly" fight against a punishment that can be justified in the name of deterrence.

Mr. Schanner: you are a sadist (and a conformist). I hope you get arrested for being a moron. If you don't just admit your stupidity, and try to stupidly argue the fact that you are a complete idiot, then I hope that your punishment will be the repeated claim that you are moron 220,000 more times, all within the confines of a cell on a small Cuban island...while you are drowning on a recessed bench--on dry land.

K, so I don't really wish that upon you. Just make sure to just accept whatever punishment they offer you in a settlement when you are arrested for being intellectually disabled.

@HeartBurnKid: The Supreme Court will say it's valid in a 5-4 decision. Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy will be in the majority.

Bottom line: the best source of dubious music is the piracy party in RL. Everyone brings their little external drive of music. I hate to say it but iTunes does a pretty good job of listing everything in a neat little package for duplication. This way, you stay off the radar.

@gee2: My thoughts exactly, if only there is a centralized place where the money donated (anonymously) could be managed with transparency I'm sure the grassroots movement could pick momentum..along with the artists who love freedom for music lovers as well (Reznor/PJ/Radiohead etc); naturally they would match like 10k for every 1k or something raised by the community..
Someone really should start something on a wiki page or something about this.

@shiftyeyedgoat: thank you. terrible analogies make me cry.

@jermjerm: the law only says you have to estimate potential damage. you don't have to be dead on unfortunately, just reasonable.

@HeartBurnKid: perhaps. i don't see the supreme court taking this case though. with all due respect, there have to better ones to hear.

What I didn't see anyone bring up (but you might have) in the midst of all the bickering back and forth was this:

They offered to let her pay 4000 dollars and be off the hook. That would lead someone to believe that 4000 dollars was acceptable and a proper restitution for the alleged infringement. Wouldn't it then make sense that 4000 dollars would be the fair amount for the punishment?

I know what they're allowed but still how can anyone look at the situation and not say it's all bogus? I mean seriously, who goes from saying "Ok, the stuff you downloaded was worth 4000 dollars to us, pay up." to "Ok, the stuff you downloaded was worth 222,000 dollars, pay us now." ?

@solareclipse2: Two words: Litigation fees

@shiftyeyedgoat: Even if you compare it to getting hit by a car it's a little outrageous. If you win a case like that you're likely not to get as much money as this woman is forced to pay in fines. How is sharing 22 songs worse than hitting someone with a car? (My ex-girlfriend's sister got hit and only got around $40k - $50k).

I do agree that she should have to pay a fine, otherwise no one is learning a lesson, but $222,000 for 22 songs is outrageous.

The real crime is that you face a much more harsh punishment for non-violent crimes than you do for most violent crimes. This shows how our government really only cares about what money they can get, and what's being kept from them. They could care less about someone getting gunned down in the street.

@solareclipse2: If that's the case, I see nothing wrong with the penalty of $4,000. Yes, it's still a lot for what little she took, but it's called a penalty, you shouldn't be allowed to just give them the money for what it originally cost in the store.

I would like to remind you all that this is the same Department of Justice who said to just "trust [them]" in relation to Network Neutrality.

I say we find out all the employees names of the DoJ and all the names of the RIAA, and all the children of those people....go through there computers for "illegal downloads" then see if they still want to be as stiff with the fines as they are being with this poor woman, may be next time they should just confiscate her computer, but $220,000 or $4000...cmon man; ffs, no way a normal consumer can pay this. She didn't kill anyone did she, was she downloading and dogfighting too?

I mean lets get real here people, the punishment obviously does not fit the crime, there are way worse people out there (cough* George bush ***Dik Cheney*** lobbyist's *** etc) that should be punished for the shit they are pulling, and they are actually making money off of doing illegal things. This lady just wanted to listen to some tunes...

@CAPITALASS: You are an idiot. What does Gauntanamo Bay have to do with the RIAA or this case? Nothing. Not to mention if you even had a clue you would realize she was UPLOADING not downloading. That makes it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to steal music.

You don't agree with me, fine. Don't personally attack me when you don't even know what the case is about. Oh, and I should be arrested for being a moron? Yeah...I'm an out of touch sadist and conformist.

Find something better to do with your time than trolling. Or at least make a valid point without propagandizing your narrow views.

IMHO what really gets me about this case is not that she got busted or that she has to pay, it's the arbitrary "values" of these files. It just seems that when they're "protecting" copyrights the music is VERY valuable, but when they're in contract negotiations with the artist the music has little value. Just like the MPAA with their net streaming is hugely valuable when protecting against piracy, but zero value when it comes to paying the writers. Doesn't it seem like the 'middlemen' are controlling both sides? There's just too much "business" in "art" nowadays. just my .02

@cschanner: Actually, I discounted the whole Gitmo thing mid-post. What's wrong with being arrested for being a moron? I mean if one is going to be harshly critical...

I think she deserves it. She broke the law and then was stupid when she got caught. Why do people feel sorry for her?

Anyways, why would you argue my point. You suggest that one should be pushed around and accept it without expecting anyones sympathy. Isn't that what you advocate? Let large industries extract exorbitant penalties from individuals who download and passively upload. If my response seemed over the top, well, whatever, just stop feeling sorry for yourself.

You know, it amazes me how the same people who say, "$222,000 for sharing music? Ain't nothing wrong with that!" are the same people who are always griping about the frivolous lawsuits in this country.

Guess it's only frivolous if a big corporation is the defendant, huh?

@HeartBurnKid: seconded.
@Bokusatsu_Tenshi: i agree.
@Krondonian: well said.
@Stacky Botrus: yup. this is me not buying new records any more, and going to used places instead, or favoring direct from band purchases.
The record industry has had every chance to be consumer-friendly and offer affordable digital content, and they've failed.
I guess they just don't care who hates them, because $222k+ for what's involved IS preposterous, doj ruling or not.