Eighth amendment violation anyone ?

One CD stolen equals a fine of 500 dollars.
How is this different ? There is a set price of about 30 dollars total current market price for such songs.

And ofcourse, the money doesn't go to the artists.

Illegally sharing hundreds of songs and being unapologetic about it at trial too? I don't have a problem at all with the verdict.

Because it's not about the downloading, it's about the sharing...

I like how the article says he was unapologetic but at the end there's a quote from a recording company about how they're happy he acknowledged that they deserved to be paid. Um...contradiction anyone?

Simply acknowledging a fact is a far cry from showing remorse or regret. His actions had consequences and he knew it, he just chose to ignore that and take his chances.

Reading through the comments, they state that the 8th Amendment refers to cruel and unusual punishment from the Government, not private companies, so technically it doesn't apply (from the comments, don't blame me :P)

NSFW

Copying an original isn't theft. Recording TV and radio programs is illegal too. When VHS first came out the film companies made a big deal about making copies of video tapes. No one thinks twice about making copies of TV programs or recording radio shows do they?

If people choose to make a digital copy of some media and then share that for no profit with other's then I see no problem, morally or legally.

The problem with that is that people who receive free copies are no longer in the market to buy. Multiply that times a few thousand and..

Bullsh*t.

I personally have gone out and bought CDs ONLY because I liked what I heard on the downloaded songs (which were of course immediately deleted due to their having been accidentally downloaded). That is the ONLY reason I bought the CDs.

There are a few problems with this:

1.) Every year or so they pick out someone random and try to make an example out of them by fining them some ungodly sum. IT DOESN'T WORK! Nobody they fine can ever pay it. They just declare bankruptcy and move on with their lives.

I'm not going to stop downloading because once a year the recording industry forces one poor sap into bankruptcy.

2.) The small amount that they do collect never actually goes to the artists. The artists are the ones being hurt; don't they deserve the money won in court?

If they wanted to stop people from sharing music they would fine absolutely everybody $5,000 and (hopefully) give it to the artists. Their lawyers could certainly justify $5,000, and it wouldn't push most people into bankruptcy. If tomorrow everybody that I knew (including me) got hit with a $5,000 fine the downloading would pretty much stop.

Yup me too. Muse I discovered Illegally and bought 50 of their songs and plan to buy their new album. Same with a bunch of other songs I would never have heard of normally

You can hear previews on iTunes, why not do that instead and not have to worry about accidental downloads (and risk possible prosecution)?

Again, it's not the copying, it's the distribution.

If you copy a NFL game that you want to see, you're not in trouble. If you try to play that tape in a bar later that night, you're in trouble.

When a radio station plays a song (distributes) they pay the label a fee for that song. When YOU play that tape for others, you don't pay that fee. Guess who the label is going after?

As a writer I would have a problem if someone took the things I wrote and then tried to give them away for free. I'm trying to make a living through sales. Those people who get my work for free are getting all the benefit of my work without reimbursing me for it.

I challenge any of you to do some work for Your customers for free and then tell them it's perfectly OK for them to skip out on paying you because after all... the first guy you worked for paid you. No, it's not the same. It's hard to draw a similarity with someone in the service industry and someone in mass-distribution (music, writing, programming, movies).

Why is it legally or morally 'OK' to accept someone's services and then not pay someone for the work they are charging for?

Why and since when is it ok to make up and play by your own rules? Odds are, no, you won't get caught but if you are - as he was - then expect to be prosecuted. I don't have any sympathy for that.

By the same token, don't they deserve the money they would have received if not for free file-sharing?

The potential for prosecution and fines should be enough I'd think.

Presuming you are published I take it you'd be against a library having a copy of your book ,right? After all those people borrowing your book from the library aren't buying a copy of their own.

How about people who buy your book and then it gets passed round their circle of friends. This happens a lot to me, someone buys a book then lends it to me to read or visa versa. Once I've read a book I very rarely read it again therefore I don' buy an original copy of my own. There are exceptions and it this case I go out and buy a copy for my personal library.

How about a cd that gets bought and then sold maybe 3-4+ times to different people on ebay. Think of the thousands of second-hand/used cd's that get bought each day around the world. each of those cd's is one brand new cd less purchased and less money in the artists (more pertinently the record labels) pockets.

Those examples are legitimate but they are also unregulated, and that - agree or not - makes all the difference.

I was using something legitimate to prove my point. These things I mentioned like libraries and book sharing are legal and are extremely similar in concept to file sharing/downloading which is why I used the analogy.

Also, just because something is legal or illegal doesn't mean it's morally or ethically correct. It's just makes it legal or illegal.

Legality doesn't mean that we can't disagree with or debate the merit or correctness of a certain law.

With regards to libraries being unregulated, I'm not certain what you mean by that

News actually, some day I'll start on my great american novel that will sit in my desk but until then the AP gives away my stuff.

When a library BUYS a book and allows someone to read it, that's different than when a guy makes 10,000 copies of a book on his printer and gives away all those copies to his friends at college.

Could they each have got it from the library? Sure. That library would need quite a few copies (which they DO buy) to keep up with that demand though. They'll also BUY other copies of future works as the first ones were quite popular.

Once it's purchased you are allowed to give it away. You aren't allowed to mass redistribute. That's the difference.

This guy didn't buy the first cd. This guy didn't give away his one copy to a friend and then get it back to give to another friend. This guy made thousands of copies for complete strangers and then Those copies were potentially redistributed again.

He's not a library, or a circle of friends, he's a guy giving away free copies of other people's work.

I have no love of the labels, nor do I care whether the artists get Another porsche because their last one was burned up in that drunken driving incident, I DO care that people don't give away things for free which don't belong to them.

Honestly, I think public domain should be 20 years. It's not though. Their greed doesn't excuse His blatant abuse of their rights though.

You're an excellent and probably my favorite debater here, dl, so as usual the analogy was very clear and made perfect sense.

Like abortion, for example..I totally agree, and am arguing only the legality here.


For sure, but if you want to disagree to the point of breaking the law, expect that to have repercussions.


Just that libraries traditionally and legally operate that way, as tragluk said (and so well).

You can't stop the signal ... 'nuff said.