RIAA Sues Single Mom With 2 Kids for 220,000 For Downloads Songs Off the Internet
October 10, 2007
If you went to college or had a computer between the years 1998 and now, you have probably downloaded songs illegally. Why wouldn’t you - rather than driving to the store and buying a CD with three songs you love and ten you don’t care about, you can stay at home and download whatever songs you want in minutes (seconds when I was in college).
RIAA could have purchased Napster in the 90’s and turned it into a the greatest thing to happen to the music industry since James Brown, but instead they sued its creator, waited ten years, and had Steve Jobs make a much crappier version that takes longer to install, longer to download off of, has an inferior interface, and has much a smaller selection.
Gee, this is tough. There are two products I can use. The one that is free is superior to the one that costs money in almost every way. Oh, I’ll use the one that costs money because I’m stupid as hell.
Now RIAA (which hasn’t produced a decent artists in the last seven years and is watching profits drop because the best they can do is Akon. Really? “Smack that” passes for a hit record now?) has decided to sue some of the millions of regular people who have been downloading off of programs such as Kazaa, Napster, and Limewire. So far most people have been settling, and lost a few thousand dollars (that seems fair, charging broke college stuents several thousand dollars for downloading songs?!), but one woman decided this is ridiculous, and refused to settle.
In the case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, Thomas, a single mother of two, was sued for 220,000 thousand dollars. Does this seem fair to you? Capitol Records, a multi-billion dollar corporation, sues a single mom for more than 5 times her annual salary? And of course, President “Big Corporation” Bush came out today in favor of the verdict. Is this the society we want to live in, where massive corporations take hundreds of thousands of dollars away from single mothers, for doing something millions of people are doing. I sure as hell can tell you I’m not buying another CD again.
On an additional note, the Television Industry is doing the exact same thing. Currently, I (and millions of other people) have been streaming my favorite shows off the internet. Free and commerical-free. Why the hell doesn’t Fox put all it’s episode on the internet, embed ads, and let me watch them off the internet. Stoned college kids can put this stuff together, but massive corporations can’t figure out how to do it? I’ll pay for the stuff, I’ll watch the ads. Does Fox has some secret reason why I should only watch the Simpsons between 6:00 and 6:30?
You’re going to be appalled at my answer.
Honestly? They still don’t have the technology to track web and tivo viewers. That’s right, they still measure viewership by how many people actually change their TV channel at a particular time of day.
Oh, that’s not because the technology doesn’t exist - it’s because they’re so busy scrambling to sustain the status quo that they haven’t figured out that there’s a postential multi-billion dollar industry BEGGING THEM to take their money, and the industry is still trying to fight over the scraps. It’s pathetic.
For what it’s worth, I think the jury’s verdict in this case was correct. The damages they awarded were ridiculous however. They had a range from $18,000 to over $700,000 and they chose $220,000. They could have fined the woman $750 per song, which is the minimum the law allows, and which would have been fair, considering there’s no proof even one person downloaded a song from her.
Instead, the chose to punish her for all the people they couldn’t convict, and now she’s going to live off government support for the rest of her life because she’s bankrupt and won’t be able to even buy food. Smart.
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[...] Teresacentric writes: In the case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, Thomas, a single mother of two, was sued for 220,000 thousand dollars. Does this seem fair to you? [...]