When it was really new, I doubt it was in libraries. And I’m pretty sure people didn’t want to borrow it to see if they’d want to buy it. I’m pretty sure they were looking for a free read.
sigh Fine. But what would I do with two extra copies?
OK Dopers, first come first serve. I’ll even pay the shipping cost.
Be sure you only give them to people who don’t actually want them. Otherwise you’ll be costing the artists another sale. 
Whether you should get to sample it is up to the person who owns the copyright. It’s not up to you to decide whether the author should let you make a copy for free and then decide whether you want to pay for it.
Libraries pay for their copies, by the way.
Bricker, sorry I’m a tad late getting back to this. I think my issues have already been covered, but to sum up:
As said before, there was no proof that anyone actually downloaded anything from her. As the first judge said, mearly making something available does not automatically translate into distributing the material.
Without any sort of license or oversite, if I as someone that is paid by RIAA a ton of money presents to a jury a log file called ‘bricker.log’ that shows that your IP address had some music files available for download from it, how the hell is that proof? It’s not the original log from whatever sniffer program they used because it has your name on it. Something I wouldn’t have known until after I contacted your ISP, which I may or may not have gotten an answer from before I filed a motion…(or whatever it’s called). So this already tampered with log file is the entire basis of my lawsuit. That’s just sloppy and it shouldn’t have flown. I’m not defending this particular defendant, but rather the idea that something of that questionable nature is accepted at face value.
You are, I think, mistaking criminal liability (which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt) with civil liability (which need only be proved by a preponderance of the evidence. Thus, one can use circumstantial evidence much more easily to “prove” the existence of a fact.
Thus this case is another example of innocent until proven guilty, unless rich corps want to ruin your life over a minor infraction.
To you, it’s a minor infraction. To them, it’s people’s livelihoods. She did something illegal and got busted - and even turned down an opportunity to get away with a slap on the wrist.
Well I am either the passport of the bankrupt is confiscated or they must get permission to travel. (not sure exactly when this happens though)
In the US? I kind of doubt that.
Really? You can’t see the injustice in this?
We have:
A) unfair trial, huge high priced legal team verses what ever she could cobble together.
B) Draconian fine, punishment worse then many murderers get, imposed with circumstantial evidence, at best.
Did her and the RIAA have equal representation in court? If not then this trial was inherently rigged in RIAA favor and a travesty of justice. Anyone who supports it is subhuman trash, and deserving of a sound, blood letting, kick to the sex organs.
Now tell me. Will the artists, who actually made the music, see any of this money? If not who the fuck cares about the livelihoods of buggy whip makers?
Hmmm, it seems this ladies attorney in this case is a guy who graduated summa cum laude from Harvard. Link1. Link 2. So it seems that she the legal team she *cobbled *together is a guy who is a partner in a major law firm. Link to his firm. He is also the youngest person to graduate from Harvard Law. Apparently he isn’t some guy she found in the local phone book.
About the fine: The jury could decide on any amount from $750 per infringement to to 150,000. The jury chose the amount. Link.
Next, the RIAA offered to settle. The chick didn’t take it. See previous link.
And last, the lady lied. Often and badly. For example, she claimed to not know what Kazaa is but had written a paper in college stating that Napsters original incarnation was legal under U.S. law. She also lied about replacing the hard drive in the P.C. Also note that the person who found that the hard drive in her P.C. had been replaced was on her side.
She had a chance to settle, didn’t, then lied in court and got a beat down which, IMHO, she totally brought upon herself. There is more stupidity on her behalf, for example, she brought in Best Buy receipts which showed tons of movies and games but only one C.D.
This lady is guilty, had the (mistaken) idea that file sharing is legal under U.S. law, replaced the drive in her P.C. after getting notice that she had been busted sharing files, lied to the jury and her own legal team (who are the ones who noticed that the hard drive had been replaced) and is the last person anyone should be holding up as a poor little lady being screwed by the big nasty RIAA.
Slee
*Side note, they had her mac addy from her cable modem *and *her network card. The odds of someone else having the same macs on both is so high it is silly. There are roughly 2^48th mac addresses. So it’d be one in (2^48)^2. That is a very big number.
If the author of this ArsTechnica article is correct, it’s still not quite clear whether Thomas-Rasset would be able to clear this award through bankruptcy:
It appears, from that article, that the RIAA might still be willing to accept 5 grand as a settlement. While i might have been inclined to fight them at the beginning, after losing two trials and being told to pay almost 2 million bucks, i think i’d jump at the offer right now, if i were her.
Just rip the songs and post them on a website for download. No shipping charges that way.
The one thing that gets my goat is the minimum/maximum fine per song. Let’s say I’ve got two songs available for upload. Some new hit by the Jonas Brothers and “Inky Dinky Duet” by Jimmy Durante and Mrs Miller.
The Jonas Brothers has a lot of people uploading, let’s say 20,000 for a month. (Of course, that would use up almost all of my allotted bandwidth on Comcast as 6.MB x 20,000 would be 120GBs approximately). So, I’d have to leave this up for at least 4 months to hit 80K assuming that there’d be a constant demand for the song and that I would be the main source for that song too.
Then we have the “Inky Dinky Duet” which no one wants. Let’s say in the course of it being available for upload, 4 people take the bait.
Using the industry standard pricing model of Rhapsody, iTunes, Amazon and Napster, the loss is less than $1 per song. So, I’ve now cost the revenue loss of $80,004.00. Of course, the jury could cut me a deal and only fine me $750 per song (and the plaintiffs would be out a lot more) or they could fine me $150K per song and the balance would be shifted the other way.
My point is, shouldn’t the award be for damages done? Shouldn’t the RIAA have to prove its losses by stating that since Q amount of uploads happened, they are entitled to Q x $0.99? The onus should be on the RIAA to prove what it’s out.
That’s right. The bankruptcy standard requires some additional proof. But from what I’ve seen of the cases, courts seem willing to make the necessary finding even in cases where there has been no previous jury finding of malice, as we have here. Still, it’s not automatic.
Done and done. They’ll thank me for the increased fanbase.
So you advocate extreme physical violence against those that don’t support lying thieves. Good to know.
What part are you not getting about the fact that this person was not being punished as a criminal for having committed a crime, but rather was being sued by the party entitled to establish a cause of action and damages under the law??? :smack:
Innocent until proven guilty applies to criminal trials. Get with the program here.
Again, the damages in this case apply only to willful violation of the law. It’s not intended as a remedy for actual economic damages. It’s intended to act as a deterrent (read: punishment) for willfully violating the law. The level at which said willful violation will be punished is variable, so that finders of fact can be harsher on those whos actions were more egregious. This case is a classic example: the first time around, she got bashed a little. The second time around, she was even more jerkish in her behavior during the trial, and got slapped down, hard.
I think I watch too much Marilyn Milan and other TV court judges and think that the judgment should be used to make the plaintiff “whole” again and not to punish as that should be the realm of the criminal, not the civil, courts. Of course, IANAL, and my legal knowledge falls along the daytime TV input. So, I won’t be starting any “I want to defend myself in court” type threads.