I hate the RIAA and believe they're woefully behind the times, and focusing on the wrong thing as being the cause for declining sales. I believe they're a dying beast and in their death throes they are flailing wildly trying to reinforce their dying position.

At the same time, *she illegally downloaded music*! There is no gray area here. Even if she didn't know it was wrong, ignorance of the law isn't an excuse. So stop whining cause you got caught, pay what you need to, and stop downloading illegally. Even if you don't agree with a law, you still have to abide by it, or at least run the risk of getting caught.

"Technically, I'm guilty." then STFU and pay the man. And next time, buy your crap on itunes or the 2000 other sites, rather then steal the songs.

Sorry, no excuse for doing something illegal, knowing it's illegal, and complaining when you get caught. Or, at least, do it on someone else's wireless.

@omerhi: "Even if she didn't know it was wrong," come on... who doesn't know that downloading music without paying is illegal?

Lord Toronaga says: If one is forced into a costly settlement over Spice Girls songs, one must commit seppuku to preserve family's honor.

MAFIAA strikes again. They're getting good at the extortion business if they're up to almost $8 a song. Can't get that much off iTunes or in the stores, and this is pure profit.

The industry realizes attitudes need changing, and money from the settlements is reinvested in educational programs schools and other groups can use to spread the word that song sharing can have severe consequences.

Some of the programs are tailored to start with third-graders.

And now they're brainwashing the kids?

Here's hoping for a few more fatal strokes.

"And those really are illegal".

So copyright laws don't exist anymore?? It'd be something if she was ripping CDs she had bought...but downloading someone else's music...I mean...come on.

Ares has been a hotbed to download music from lately; more likely than not, you'll get sued if you use it.

I stopped using it last year due to that and moved on to Soulseek/BearShare. Not that it matters anyway, I live in Canada.

@Froggy: Yeah, I hate it when people who are affected by laws speak out against them. I mean, it's so unfair to give them a voice!

Do you realize that women used to march in the streets with signs demanding that they be allowed to vote? At the time they were criticized for hurting the suffrage movement. Their radical stance was driving off the men who might have been sympathetic to the women's right to vote if only those women had known to stay in their proper place.

Ack! At the very least she should be fined for horrid taste.

Well, at least she's cute ;)

Since she's a college student, shouldn't she get a discounted fine? They have reduced prices for academic versions of software. :) I wonder what the fine would be for those who aren't college students.

Ahh, just more living proof of why the RIAA won the Worst Company of the Year award from The Consumerist.

Is there a way we can charge anybody who bought a spice girls album $3000 dollars too? Also anybody who bought the Fergie album.

Wow, there's a lot of people defending the RIAA here. I certainly don't condone downloading, but their tactics are just nuts.

How about this? Instead of buying the upcoming Sanjaya CD, write and tell him that you'd love to buy his CD but won't until the RIAA stops these stupid practices. That'll show 'em. Cheaper too.

I'm just wondering where all that money goes. Is it redistributed back to the RIAA members, or is it kept by the RIAA? If the latter is true than we have a self-feeding monster that doesn't rely on music studios anymore for its operations (other than having the permission to exploit their copyrights), and which uses its income to grow its operations. In such a case the RIAA will just get more aggressive over time as it needs to sustain itself and grow even further. I guess I should start saving up for the inevitable settlement offer for purchasing used CDs...

@Jozef: The money is used to pay the lawyers fees in order to finance more lawsuits.

@Jozef:
As I quoted in my previous post, at least part of it is used to brainwash the children.

they should change the law because what i want to do isn't legal!

True: The RIAA is nuts, and suing your customers instead of embracing and taking advantage of the technology is idiotic.

True: Downloading copyrighted music for free is illegal, and like it or not if you get caught, you will be forced to pay whether you knew it was a crime or not.

True: People who download Spice Girls songs (legally or otherwise) deserve whatever punishment is handed out to them.

True: A Pay Per View event I'd pay for would be the RIAA vs. the Spice Girls with pool cues.

Meet Sarah: She Paid $3,000 For Downloading Spice Girls Songs. Sarah is a bonehead.

Any "illegal music donwloader" worth their salt knows that "private" or "Closed" file sharing networks are the way to go.

Maybe a coffee date with one of the "geeks" in the computer lab would have gotten her a safer alternative.

I'm fairly certain that downloading songs is not illegal but instead unlawful. Hence she paid the RIAA some cash instead of getting jail/prison time.

If it is illegal then this needs to be stopped. Can you just imaging every musician who played stayway to heaven being jailed for not paying royalities?

@Smoking Pope: To their credit, the spice girls did breakup after a fashion thus we are no longer subjected to new music. The RIAA refuses to quit promoting their music.

Theirs is the far worse crime.

@strathmeyer: Please don't tell me you're putting illegal music downloads in the same category as the 19th amendment. Are you sure you didn't mean to play the Hitler card?

"We have to find a way to adjust our legal policy to take into account this new technology ..."

Translation: "I'm talking about the tray, the pennies for everybody. We're basically doing the same thing only we take it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple of million times."

Can't people just, you know, ignore these RIAA threats? How do they work, exactly? Do they have to send a high-priced lawyer out to Nebraska if the student doesn't settle? It seems like it would awfully hard to prove their case.

@levenhopper: they're trying to make an analogy about the punishment fitting the crime. at this rate, if the RIAA had its way, murder will be 25 to life and illegal music downloading will be a slow, tortured death (perhaps by playing $3,000 worth of spice girls =), your first born child, with a monetary fee equal to the GNP of France.

"Ahh, just more living proof of why the RIAA won the Worst Company of the Year award from The Consumerist."

how did the MTA not win that award?

I feel no sympathy for this girl. You broke the law and you're complaining because you got caught? Grow up.

P.S. If my parents had to fork over $3000 on my behalf, I wouldn't be nearly so smiley.

Spice girls? She should have got the electric chair.

Just to clear something up, under the NET Act, downloading is only criminal if it either:

(1) is for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) involves reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000.

(http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/17-18red.htm)

Anything less than that is still illegal, but it's not a "crime," nor is it "theft" or "stealing," and you can't go to jail for it. It's civil copyright infringement, nothing more, nothing less. That means the RIAA can sue you in civil court, but the police won't get involved.

Also, whenever you see those MPAA-sponsored movie trailers that claim that downloading is "stealing" or a "crime," that's not right either unless one of the above criteria is met. Contrary to what they say, it's just not the same thing, legally, as stealing a handbag or breaking into a car or even stealing a physical CD from a record shop.

the comparison is utterly retarded considering that the DUI is committed once and punished 500$, she has committed the illegal act 381 times punished 381 times..... so the actual comparison should be 8 bucks to 500 bucks.....

I am not saying RIAA is right all I am saying she did something illegal got caught now she is bitching about it... Dont download songs, dont even buy CD's and eventually record companies will come around....

The real question is why on Earth is the punishment for DUI so low! Jeez, if there's anything that I want to see people seriously punished for it's DUI.

This is the scare tactic the RIAA uses on marginal cases where they don't really want to spend the money to prosecute. Most college students who have parents with money would rather fork it over and sleep better at night. THAT is why they are targeting college students.

I've never understood how P2P/filesharing is illegal. Before the internet, people made mix tapes to give to friends or let people borrow their CDs to tape. Now, P2P simply allows folks to share music from other folks collections. How is this any different?

If she was downloading those songs from a music library site, like yahoo or napster, where people normally pay and she somehow hacked into the system to avoid payment, then yes, that's obviously illegal. But places like Ares simply let the user borrow songs from another person for personal use.

@cgmaetc: AFAIK, lending your CD to someone is not against the law. That person taping your CD is, but that's almost impossible to enforce.

Hey, apropos of nothing, here's a little sex ed quiz:

Q: Is it possible to get pregnant from anal sex?

A: Where do you think RIAA lawyers come from?

@Froggy: I happily and proudly download songs every single day. Shit, I haven't bought a CD since 1999! :oD

@cgmaetc: To clarify further, if you're just lending someone a CD, you're not making a copy of it so no copyright laws are broken.

Making a copy of a song for a mix tape is not legal, nor was it legal in the pre-internet age unless you were protected by the Fair Use exception (OK to copy if for educational, parody, etc. reasons). But back in the pre-internet age, the NET Act was not yet passed (the pre-NET Act definition of criminal infringement was more lenient) and casual copying is generally unenforceable anyway.

I say we let the free market decide, not the courts.

Yes, you heard me. The magical hand of the free market, like we do with so many other industries.

If an artist can't figure out how to make a living and at the same time be super popular, get a another job. If that means live shows and/or not being disgustingly rich, so be it.

If they manage to get loyal fans who buy their work, t-shirts, cd's, whatever, they will be successful. This MIGHT mean they have to make better music, and cater to their fans.

If they cannot sell $15 cd's, then maybe the market will force then to sell at $5 or less. Other distribution channels like iTunes might make the convenience worth the cost.

The only time the courts should get involved is to stop COMPANIES from profiting from artists. Let the fans share the music, but when somebody organizes it and starts to profit from it, it needs to be stopped.

You squares defending the RIAA make me sick. I wish I could mark you so that 20 years from now the kids could know who to blame.

.....These days, if you're going to download copyrighted stuff, you need a laptop that doesn't have your name as the machine name, and you don't check your email at the coffee shop or library or neighbor's wifi that you download the stuff from. And certainly don't use your trackable home or school connection!

.....And yeah, it's essentially shoplifting. I'd rather buy the CD. If any music stores stay in business around me. FYE is the last one near me still open. I just last week blew $125 in there for mother's day...

Talk about going crazy. Fining her 8$ for EACH illegal song downloaded?
It's as if the RIAA is trying to suck as many people down with it as possible. And I agree with what people have said. This is why sales are going down.

And... THIRD GRADERS.
Crosses the line for me.

Hate RIAA, but this is such old news. She and others getting sued by the RIAA have no excuse (and they need to learn how to cover their tracks if they want to get free music).

Can't we all just share a song?

For a great way to circumvent the RIAA and the risk of getting caught infringing copyrights... There's this marvelous service called LALA. Heard of it? You can trade your CD's which you legally bought with others, for only $1 per trade. Gotta love it.
www.lala.com
DEATH TO THE RIAA!!!

I find it highly hypcritical that the editors/owners of Lickhacker to be seemingly critical of the RIAA. I'll bet if someone started copying verbatim the Lifehacker site content and posted it on their own website with their own advertisers (with no money going to Lifehacker), then Lifehacker would see the issues in a completely different light. The same copyright law that makes stealing copyrighted music illegal also makes stealing someone's web content illegal. There is absolutely nothing different between music and web content, in principal or otherwise.

No, the way you keep using the word stealing, it's clear that you have no idea what you're talking about.

@Libelous1: Wow I never realized all those illegal downloaders were making money off the music they copied! Holy crap!

The primary issue with what happened to this girl is that the RIAA is extorting money. They are threatening legal expenses and fees to anyone they deem in violation of copyright laws. Essentially, you're guilty until proven innocent. Just because this one girl is guilty does not mean they are all guilty. If I received one of these letters when I was her age and I was completely innocent I'd still probably pay up, because students can't afford to take quarters/semesters off to appear in court (nonrefundable $2500 tuition every quarter--12 weeks--where I went), and cannot afford to adequately defend themselves against the charges. Guilt or innocence means nothing. They know that it's cheaper for students to settle than prove their innocence, so the RIAA keeps doing this with little or no evidence.

Further, many of the college campuses are cooperating with these scum by providing them with the student information. If the RIAA were a law enforcement agency then this would be perfectly acceptable (with the proper court orders). But the reason the RIAA and MPAA are able to get the IP addresses in the first place is through entrapment and other methods not available to LE. They're playing both LE agency and private entity. It's utter bullshit and needs to be squashed before it gets any further out of hand.

Anyone else got:
Sue me if you want, if you really, really want! Yeah, sue me if you want if you really, really want"
going through their heads? I hate discussions like this...unfortunately the RIAA is in the right here. We can disagree with the law all we want, but it's still the law. I hate that I was pulled over the other night because my license plate lamp was burned out, but it was in violation of city ordinance and I got a ticket for it. I didn't know the bulb was out, but it was and I w=got caught. Sarah got caught; my thing just wasn't as embarrassing.

@B: The money is used to pay the lawyers fees in order to finance more lawsuits. More likely than not you're correct.

@Smoking Pope: True: The RIAA is nuts, and suing your customers instead of embracing and taking advantage of the technology is idiotic.
True: Downloading copyrighted music for free is illegal, and like it or not if you get caught, you will be forced to pay whether you knew it was a crime or not. Well stated on both points.

@savigny: Just to clear something up, under the NET Act, downloading is only criminal if it either:
(1) is for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain I believe it would be interpreted as financial gain to not pay for something you receive.

@cgmaetc: I've never understood how P2P/filesharing is illegal. Before the internet, people made mix tapes to give to friends or let people borrow their CDs to tape. Now, P2P simply allows folks to share music from other folks collections. How is this any different? Volume, volume, volume. And pressure from sliding record sales (partially due to A&R folks dumbing down our music, but that's another discussion!)

That 3000 dollars is used to fund the marketing department of the RIAA. They have a product to sell and that product is an idea. The idea is that entertainment without payment is against the law and punishable.

Using the money received through suits such as these enables the marketing department to further educate the public on what is right and what is wrong seeing that perfectly sane adults still cannot figure out the difference.

This education campaign will be more effective if it targets our children in school because these same parents apparently cannot teach their children the difference between right and wrong. Therefore the music corporation -- benevolent souls that they are -- will take it upon themselves to educate the public.

Get 'em while they are young, right?

This includes paying dozens of people to post supportive statements across the blogosphere so those who sit on the fence can see that there are others who believe that these acts are "illegal" and the rest will follow.

Did I miss anything?

@Imhotep: that looks cool

@Triteon: I got a taillight ticket several years ago, on Friday night of a New Year's weekend. The City of Mountain Brook would void my ticket if I showed up at city hall within 72 hours with working taillights.

.....A Google search, a 20 mile trip to the local Toyota dealer who actually sells parts, a $200 module smaller than a cigarette lighter, and I got out of the ticket. And what I found out about Camry electrical systems made me worry....

someone should go patent the method that the riaa uses to obtain ip addresses & then sue their ass for patent infringement.

@Libelous1: I'll bet if someone started copying verbatim the Lifehacker site content and posted it on their own website with their own advertisers (with no money going to Lifehacker), then Lifehacker would see the issues in a completely different light.

See, that is profiting from another's work and completely different. Downloading music is more like listening to the radio. There are stations which are ad free and not on Sirius/XM.