BIG NEWS: Record Companies Win a Music Sharing Trial, The End is Near
YA RIGHT. Tell me what is wrong with this headline, “The record industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury ordered a Minnesota woman to pay $222,000 for sharing copyrighted music online.”
I couldn’t help but to start laughing out loud when I read this just now from over at Yahoo Finance, which was the featured article on the finance homepage might I add. They say it as if this is a huge victory that is going to stop illegal downloading dead in its tracks, that the world as we know it is ending.
Does the music industry really think people are going to stop illegal downloading because one woman got sued and lost? Richard Gabriel thinks so.
The article goes on to say, “Richard Gabriel, the lead attorney for the music companies, said, ‘This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK.’”
Yes Richard, IT IS NOT OK. NO ONE IS EVER GOING TO ILLEGALLY SHARE MUSIC EVER AGAIN. Go give Britney Spears another few million when she can’t lip sing worth crap, pay off the rapper who says, “Booty call” 1,000 times over in a song and makes millions. We owe these celebrities their hard earned money. Give me a break.
The woman was named Jammie Thomas, she is 30 years old, got sued by the record companies for 24 songs, $9,250 per song with allegedly 1,702 songs being shared online. There have been 26,000 lawsuits filed since 2003 over file-sharing, with many just settling for a couple thousand dollars.
According to the stats, apparently the number of households that have used file-sharing programs to download music has risen from 6.9 million monthly in April 2003 to 7.8 million in March 2007. I am surprised these numbers aren’t higher. Someone must be counting wrong or something, because you go to any college university campus and EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE shares music through the universities. In fact, I think I recall even getting fliers in my mailbox telling me what software to use and how to do it.
I think I am on a rant here, but this is just way too funny. I think I have a good idea, I should start a facebook group to rally support for Jammie, raise $222,000 and pay off the suit for her. And ya know what money people would be donating? The thousands of dollars they have saved off getting music for free off the net, hahaha 
What a joke.
Discuss this post in the StockTradingToGo Forum.
Subscribe To StockTradingToGo.com
[...] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here [...]
I believe something like this happened a few years back when a teenage girl was sued a few thousand dollars by the recording industry. The local radio station raised all the money immediately so the girl didn’t pay any of her own money.
But wow, 222k sure is alot. Those guys are scum for trying to make an example of her. Maybe if music cds weren’t so expensive we would actually pay for them.
Well, she’s obviously in the wrong. Just because millions are doing it doesn’t make it right.
Serves her right though for getting caught. It’s not like the RIAA suing people for music sharing is something new. She should have used better risk management
I have no problem with her having to pay a penalty. She committed a crime. I speed and whenever I get a ticket I pay it. Just because I don’t like with the speed limit doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get in trouble when I’m caught.
Yea but when was the last time you received a $222,000 ticket for speeding?
I don’t drive THAT fast.
I drive just fast enough that I don’t mind paying the ticket.
As another example, taxes - I don’t like them, but I pay them because that’s the rules. It’d be easy enough to not disclose every trade I make for a profit, but I do.
The 222k is excessive but they have to make a example of someone. Like somebody mentioned a couple of thousand dollars isn’t going to affect anyone
“Go give Britney Spears another few million when she can’t lip sing worth crap, pay off the rapper who says, “Booty call†1,000 times over in a song and makes millions. We owe these celebrities their hard earned money. Give me a break.”
So they should work for free? We only “owe” celebrities if we want what they produce.
Whether or not pop singers and rappers are your cup of tea, stealing copyrighted material is a crime and should be punished. Without copyright protection, there would be little incentive to produce new music, art, entertainment or literature.