morningsentinel.mainetoday.com — In its running legal battle against unauthorized downloaders, five recording companies have sued an Augusta man in federal court claiming he illegally pirated and shared copyrighted music. Hinds faces a minimum civil penalty of $750 per song ... or $3,750 total. Is it even worth it (legal costs-wise) to go to court to fight this?
Feb 6, 2007 View in Crawl 4
travitherabbiFeb 7, 2007
I knew I should have kept my external LP drive. It's hard to find good ripping hardware/software for vinyl these days.
moosemancaFeb 7, 2007
by GawtMilk 10 hours ago[comment buried, show commenthide comment] + 31 diggs @forlornhopeI was going to use that quote, but it is too...campy. There is a HUGE difference between robbing a f**king bank and downloading five songs. It is like picking up a $5 you see on the ground at the bank, and putting it in your pocket. What next? Will you be slapped with $600 fines whenever you pick up "lucky pennies" in a couple of years?would you feel the same way if you owned that bank, and I came in and took the five dollars out of the drawer, went outside and placed it on the ground and said I found it? How about doing the same for those lucky pennies, but doing it for 600,000,000 of them? That's 6 million dollars. Sure one person ripping of a song may be 4.50, but is there only one really smart, yet unlucky guy who downloads music for free and was just unlucky enough to get caught? No!!! $4.50 multiplied by the amount of people who ILLEGALLY download music is no chump change. We shouldn't be focussing on the fact of who these people are and for how much they are getting sued for, but rather the fact the the RIAA is infringing on human rights, and using dirty tricks and extortion to "scare" us into paying for over priced records. Downloading shouldn't be for free no matter how much you think it should be. If the company decides to sell their PRODUCT (which it is), the price doesn't have to be free just because you are too cheap. Artists can more than freely release their art for free. Te internet is a wonderful series of tubes. Music can go through them. It shouldn't be 20$ for a 3 dollar CD however. Its about balance
Closed AccountFeb 8, 2007
snoopster...no matter how many times you want to talk about "depriving somoene of property" that does NOt make it the definition ofstealing. Stealing is taking something that you did not rightfully earn/pay for. And don't give me this "I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so they are not out any morney." Well, then you little piece ofs**t...then you don't get to HAVE it. If it is not good, then no big loss for you to not have a copy of it. But if you do want a copy of it, then you pay what the seller agrees to accept. PEriod.Otherwise, you are stealing it.
fordiFeb 8, 2007
BitTorrent is what I find most effective.Quickly followed by IRC (they're called fserves; type !list in a server channel and you'll see what I mean) for obscure stuff, and Usenet for just-came-out stuff.
fordiFeb 8, 2007
Well, first you have to stop using the word 'illegal'. It's not. It's considered 'actionable', hence the lawsuits.Meanwhile, we bash the RIAA for the same reason the RIAA got bashed in the late 70's when cassettes came out - or in the late 20's when FM radio came out. Because their concept of distribution is different from the technologically modified method of distribution, and they just can't seem to wrap their heads around it.By the way, any company or organization that sues its own customers is doomed to bury itself under legal fees.
fordiFeb 8, 2007
@broomett: You realize that, by extention, you'd be well within your legal rights to download music as well, do you not?
fordiFeb 8, 2007
Only applies for criminal cases I'm afraid. Torts, while they do have a cap (something in the millions of dollars), don't have a set damage v. punishment ratio.
domaivFeb 24, 2007
Most charity shops sell cd's that were donated to them, are they breaking the law? They are making a profit from copyrighted material. It would be very easy for someone from the RIAA to buy one of these cd's then sue them, but they don't, yet they choose to sue someone who has made no profit from re-distribution of music. Seems the RIAA are being selective and victimizing this person for he has done when others are openly making profit from the material.