The first RIAA jury trial has ended and the single mom accused of sharing 24 songs has been ordered to pay $222,000 by a jury of her peers.
“This is what can happen if you don’t settle,” RIAA attorney Richard Gabriel told reporters outside the courthouse, according to Wired. “I think we have sent a message we are willing to go to trial.”
RIAA Jury Finds Minnesota Woman Liable for Piracy, Awards $222,000 [Wired Threat Level]
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@wring: We don’t have debtors prisons. It was a civil trial. Most they could probably do is garnish her wages. But I’m imagining this is the final word on the matter. Ray Beckerman doesn’t think it’s over either.
I can’t believe people are even siding with the women in this case. The fact that Consumerist is playing the single mom gags me. If anything this women should be ashamed for setting an absolutely horrible example for her children.
Illegally downloading music is the largest, faceless crime in America. Because of this, people accept it, which is in utter absolute crap. People have to remember that there are others in the music industry besides the ‘suits’ and the ‘greedy artists’. There are studios, studio owners, studio managers, session musicians, vocal coaches, recording engineers, assistant recording engineers, record producers, programmers, mixers, photographers, etc. Whenever ever ANYONE illegally downloads music, you are STEALING food off of my table. I AM a recording engineer, and since the introduction of wide-based file sharing, I have witnessed a vast decrease in overall business, and so has everyone else.
Do you have any idea what it’s like to have YOUR work, something you’ve put as much as you can into, STOLEN!? Do you know what it’s like to watch you friend struggle because of something as ‘harmless’ and illegally downloading music?
I can’t believe America, or even the world, feels like this. My parents brought me up to be fair to others and to have a core structure of values. I can’t believe others have not had this same sort of background. How can anyone, with any self respect, steal from others?
I, just like everyone else in the world (unless you live in a socialist society) can not work for free. I live a humble and modest life, just like the vast majority of people in the music industry. Not everyone has mansions on each coast and brushes their teeth with champagne. Most of us are just like everyone else, hard working, honest people trying to make ends meet.
I have a question to pose to EVERYONE who has, and will, post in defending illegal downloading.
How can you steal my work, steal my food, steal my health care and live with yourself?
I have to agree with Zaky and Javert on this one. Sharing music you haven’t paid for is stealing. You don’t have to like it, but trust me that it’s critical to ensure that the majority of people who work in the industry–engineers, songwriters, musicians–get paid. You stop paying artists, they stop doing what they do. First lawsuits that rest on any new legislation-or, as in this case, on any new interpretation of old legislation–are often harsh, as the $220,000 here. But if that’s what it takes to get folks to stop stealing intellectual property from artists because the consumers feel entitled to it….
@sslman: Easy, you never had it to begin with. I have never purchased a song you have edited, and probably never will. If I didn’t download the music, I would never have bought it either. You can’t steal what is not there in the first place.
@waldy: Every song that was brought up in the trial was Record Company IP, not artist IP. The artist NEVER owned it. Not even for one second.
@cde: The post I made was directed and ‘me’ being everyone in the music industry. So surely someone out there has worked on the music you download
@mechanismatic:
Dude, you can do whatever you want. But which part of “boycott” involves stealing???
As for the sweatshop labor… Vast majority of factories in the third world are what we would consider “swetashops” here in the West. Whoever boycotted Kathee Lee and caused those factories to close down did those poor people a disservice. What do you think the consequences were? What do you think happened to them after they closed down? All those people magically got good paying/non exploitive jobs elsewhere? If they could do that, they wouldn’t be working at a sweatshop in the first place.
People like you need to use their brain first before you get all emotional.
$222,000? For 24 songs? Shit you’d have a lesser punishment for just trying to sneak out the store with the cd under your shirt.
@Papa Midnight:
Totally different things you’re talking about. The store can prosecute you for stealing the physical disc. That’s larceny, which is a criminal act.
Illegally downloading music is a copyright violation, hence the civil penalty.
There should be a law banning the abuse of the judicial process with penalties between $7 billion and $7 trillion. And that includes RIAA and people like fancypants pearson.
@Stan LS: I never said I supported “stealing” music. You and I and everyone posting here didn’t hear all the evidence, so we can’t conclude that the woman actually did distribute the music (rather than “steal” it as everyone seems to think the case was about…). I’m not defending the woman’s supposed actions. I’m just condemning the injustice of the result of the trial. Even if the woman were guilty of doing what the RIAA accused her of, the penalty does not fit the violation.
So you’re saying it’s okay to exploit people as long as you’re improving their lives by some small percentage? What should have happened is that the sweatshops should have had their conditions improved, their workers’ wages brought to decent standards, or else never have set up shop there in the first place. The analogy is the same for the recording industry. If the artists, the actual creators of the work, got a larger portion of their labor, I might be more inclined to patronize the labels. If the industry spent less money on pushing crappy music, paying off radio stations to push crappy music, paying their suits more than they pay the people who actually create the music, and stop calling their own customers criminals, thieves, and pirates, much less stop treating them as such, it would be in a far better position.
But while we’re on the topic of “stealing,” music is not a physical object. You can’t steal it. You can steal a copy of a medium on which it is recorded, which would rightfully be called stealing. You can download a copy of a recording of music, which is copyright violation. But if you weren’t going to spend money on something in the first place, you can’t be stealing from the people who made it. Before filesharing was available, this was called listening to the radio. Do you also think it’s stealing if you read a book from the library that you would never purchase a copy of from a bookstore?
What’s next? Armed guards at Barnes & Noble to force people to buy every book that they read? I go to Borders pretty often to read (sometimes buy) books that I might not have bought had I not been able to sample it at the store.
This is all a slippery slope. And it needs to stop NOW.
@mechanismatic:
“You and I and everyone posting here didn’t hear all the evidence…”
Agreed. But the jury did and they made their decision based on that.
“Even if the woman were guilty of doing what the RIAA accused her of, the penalty does not fit the violation.”
Sure it did. We are a nation of laws and the law was applied here.
“What should have happened is that the sweatshops should have had their conditions improved, their workers’ wages brought to decent standards,”
Maybe the standards are decent. Not comparable to western standards, maybe, but decent for where they are. 20 cents an hour might not sound a lot to you, but these folks are not paying $3k a month rent for a small one bedroom in manhattan.
“…or else never have set up shop there in the first place.”
…and the workers would’ve either ended up prostituting or turning to crime to feed themselves. But you didn’t think of that, did you?
“If the artists, the actual creators of the work, got a larger portion of their labor, I might be more inclined to patronize the labels.”
Why do you care? The artists seemed satisfied enough to work with these labels. Nobody put a gun to their head to sign contracts.
“If the industry spent less money on pushing crappy music, paying off radio stations to push crappy music”
If you think certain music is crappy then don’t listen to it and definately don’t buy it. Again, nobody is putting a gun to anybody’s head to force them to listen to anything. If there weren’t a market for crappy music, it wouldn’t have been made, cause it wouldn’t have been profitable.
“paying their suits more than they pay the people who actually create the music,”
But these very suits are the ones who have made the industry where a succesful musician can ride around in $300k cars and live in a multimillion dollar mansion, etc. Surely, if the musicians thought they could do better then to deal with these suits they would have done so. Is their decision to make, and they are free not to sign up with labels.
“But while we’re on the topic of “stealing,” music is not a physical object. You can’t steal it”
Sure, and you can’t steal an idea, per se, but we still have patent law don’t we?
“But if you weren’t going to spend money on something in the first place,”
Ah, I see. So if some dude makes minimum wage and he steals a lamborghini, then its not really stealing, cause, obviously, at his salary he would’ve never bought a lamborghini in the first place, right? Solid logic right there.
RIAA does a lot of things they shouldn’t, attacking fair use in various ways etc. But sharing music with anyone who wants to grab it from your computer is clearly not fair use. It isn’t even a grey area. If she really did do that (and the linked article really doesn’t do a good job conveying what the evidence was) then she deserves to be found guilty, and she ought to pay the statutory penalties.
@Stan LS:
“Agreed. But the jury did and they made their decision based on that.”
Actually the jury made their decision based on the instructions the presiding judge gave them, which may have altered the decision they would have made otherwise. We’ll see if there’s a successful appeal.
“Sure it did. We are a nation of laws and the law was applied here.”
And Nazi Germany was a nation of laws and it was not against the law to kill Jews. Not all laws are just. Not all applications of law are just.
“Maybe the standards are decent. Not comparable to western standards, maybe, but decent for where they are. 20 cents an hour might not sound a lot to you, but these folks are not paying $3k a month rent for a small one bedroom in manhattan.”
Relative standards aren’t very comforting if you’re options are starving while making 20 cents an hour or starving while making nothing. They’re not paying $3k a month rent because they can’t afford that much, or anything close to it. If they were making decent wages they might be able to pay decent housing costs. Improving a group of people’s quality of living 1% while improving your company’s bottom line by 10% is not ethical. Exploitation of anyone is never ethical.
“…and the workers would’ve either ended up prostituting or turning to crime to feed themselves. But you didn’t think of that, did you?”
The white man brings the jobs that save the poor from having to prostitute themselves or turning to crime. Amen! Yeah right. The wages are low enough that the workers might end up doing all three of those things in order to make enough to not quite get by. You think the people running the sweatshops are that high-minded? If the owners of the companies have no qualms about exploiting poor workers, why do you think the managers at the sweatshops are going to look out for people? You don’t think there are other forms of exploitation going on as well? Child labor, prostitution, sexual exploitation, drug dealing…?
“Why do you care? The artists seemed satisfied enough to work with these labels. Nobody put a gun to their head to sign contracts.”
Doesn’t seem like the artists are satisfied enough. Many of them don’t seem to think they can make it without getting signed. Luckily this trend is changing with independent music being more accessible via the internet and recording being cheaper with technological developments. The labels themselves seem quite intent on perpetuating the idea that they are the only way to go. Maybe nobody put a gun to the artists’ heads to sign contracts, but even then, there’s an extensive history of artists getting ripped off by the labels. Look at the Bay City Rollers…
“If you think certain music is crappy then don’t listen to it and definately don’t buy it. Again, nobody is putting a gun to anybody’s head to force them to listen to anything. If there weren’t a market for crappy music, it wouldn’t have been made, cause it wouldn’t have been profitable.”
Crappy music is profitable because many music listeners are drones who will actually buy the popular album. But with Payola schemes, the recording industry influences the charts, influences the perception of what’s popular, and essentially buys airtime that otherwise might have been used to play less popular songs that could by all standards become popular if it got enough airtime. The place where this is happening is the internet. People are told what to listen to on the internet. They’re not told what to buy.
“But these very suits are the ones who have made the industry where a succesful musician can ride around in $300k cars and live in a multimillion dollar mansion, etc. Surely, if the musicians thought they could do better then to deal with these suits they would have done so. Is their decision to make, and they are free not to sign up with labels.”
The suits made the industry using unethical business practices such as payola schemes and price fixing. And only the very successful musicians are riding around in $300k cars and living in mansions. The rest are still touring because the labels charge them for advertising and everything else, eating into the artist’s profits. It is their decision to make, and more and more of them will make better decisions in the future.
“Sure, and you can’t steal an idea, per se, but we still have patent law don’t we?”
Are the songs that are being “stolen” being patented by someone else? Are these “pirates” claiming the music was their inventions? No. They’re violating copyright law.
“Ah, I see. So if some dude makes minimum wage and he steals a lamborghini, then its not really stealing, cause, obviously, at his salary he would’ve never bought a lamborghini in the first place, right? Solid logic right there. “
If you could duplicate a lamborghini without depriving the car dealership of the original car, no that wouldn’t really be stealing. That would be copying. And if the lamborghini were copyrighted, then that would be a copyright violation, not stealing.
@cde:
Regardless of who the song belongs to, the people who worked on it still make their living from its legal sales. Distributing or taking the music for free is stealing from those folks. I think SSLMAN said it quite eloquently.
While I don’t work in the music industry, I too am an artist, and want to make this point very, very clear: if you stop paying those who make art, they will eventually stop making the art. (Or, they’ll get day jobs, and the quality of their work will necessarily worsen.)
Do you do YOUR job for free? Well, we don’t want to, either.
@zaky: So if someone steals five bucks from me it would make sense for a jury to award me $500,000 in a civil trial?
Since when did all kinds of theft become equal?
While I am sympathetic on the high price she must pay (automatic copyright case loss means she has to pay other side’s legal fees), the ruling is fair. She was warned to stop by the RIAA in an IM and she continued. Copyright law protects artists, writers, musicians, painters, photographers, etc . . . Copyright laws were needed because, as evidenced by some of the posters here, people are willing to steal from them. When someone writes a song, hires musicians, rents a studio, pays a producer etc . . . then they own the song and can post it online for free. Until then, they do not own the song or have permission to post the song! Just as copying and posting a book online is violating that author’s copyright, so is posting a song online that one does not own.
Copyright violiation is stiff. The standard penalty for breaking the copyright law per song is between $750 and $30,000 per song. They do not have to prove actual and potential damages. If she had made a profit off of this, the fines could have been as high as $250,000 per song and she could’ve faced jail time. Copyright law is stiff but it’s made that way to prevent people from violating other people’s copyrights. It was clear she knew she was doing it (was warned), continued, and that is why the jury was probably unsympathetic with her.
zaky, she wasn’t penalized for stealing the songs. She was penalized for violating copyright. The penalties are not in correlation to the value of what she stole–those are standard statutory penalties–fines that are set the way speeding tickets are set. And there is currently legislation in Congress that would increase the statutory fines for violating copyright. My best advice for anyone sharing copyrighted music online, posting it or allowing others to download it, is to stop doing it!
@mechanismatic:
“Actually the jury made their decision based on the instructions the presiding judge gave them…”
…and that’s exactly how it works in every other case. The judge instructs the jury. Nothing different here.
“And Nazi Germany was a nation of laws and it was not against the law to kill Jews”
Comparing nazis killing Jews to the breaking of copyright could’ve been offensive if it wasn’t so laughable. Seriously, man, try that defense next time you try to get out of a speeding ticket.
“They’re not paying $3k a month rent because they can’t afford that much”
Uh, no, they are not paying that much because the cost of living over there is different. My brother went to Egypt in mid 90′s, and his hotel stay was a few bucks a night, a decent sandwich ran 25 cents, and a coke was something like 8 cents. And he was probably getting ripped off as a tourist.
“Exploitation of anyone is never ethical.”
Unless people are being forced to work, no one is exploiting anyone.
“The white man brings the jobs…”
Why does race have to do with anything? Most of factories in the third world (ran by “white man” or by a local) are what we would consider here a sweatshop.
“The wages are low enough…”
The wages are decided by the market. If the workers can get jobs that pay better, they would. Again, you don’t know how much food costs in the third world so you can’t really say if the wages are low or not. I live in NYC and here, if you are single and make $100k a year you are barely middle class, else where in the states you are upper middle class. So again, it all depends on the cost of living. 20 cents an hour might sound nothing to you, but that’s only because you are thinking in terms of US prices.
“Doesn’t seem like the artists are satisfied enough. Many of them don’t seem to think they can make it without getting signed.”
Ok, so here you admit that the “suits” provide a service that artist think they need. Services cost money.
“there’s an extensive history of artists getting ripped off by the labels. Look at the Bay City Rollers…”
…and there’s an extensive history of people gettingg ripped off by used car salesmen. i guess that makes it ok to go still cars out of their lots. Look if artists get ripped off, they should go to court and make their case there.
“The suits made the industry using unethical business practices such as payola schemes and price fixing.”
Sure, there’s has been a case of payola here and there, but it still doesn’t rpove that the whole industry has been made based on that. If you have proof otherwise you should take them to court.
“because the labels charge them for advertising and everything else, eating into the artist’s profits”
That’s a laugh. That’s like saying that Pepsi’s advertising/marketing department is eating into the company’s profits. Hah! Advertisement/marketing is done to promose revenue which has a direct impact on profit. If you suggest that marketing is not essential then you have very little business sense.
“No. They’re violating copyright law.”
Thanks for admitting that she broke the law.
“That would be copying. And if the lamborghini were copyrighted, then that would be a copyright violation, not stealing”
Which is stealing. If it wasn’t, then no one would bother copyright anything.