Woman fined 1.9 million for downloading 24 songs

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Eniko

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Read all about it.

A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs.

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Thomas-Rasset is married with four children and works for an Indian tribe in Minnesota.
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Well, I feel pretty disgusted. How the bloody hell is this right, in any sense of the word?
 
Well, its not.
 
I have a feeling this is going to go to higher court, and those charges then edited. This is clearly bad law and judgement.

Truly, if they are going to fine her, they might as well fine the world. I would venture to guess around 90% of people who have an internet connection and listen to music, have at least one illegally downloaded song.
 
Yeah, you're right.
 
Welcome to america, Land of the free to abuse the legal system to seriously fuck people over.
 
I've read other stories like this. These cases are ridiculous. Do the record people really think they will send a message or make up for their losses by doing this to people?
 
IMO, the amounts are ridiculous and most likely will be changed. I think people should however realize that pirating music is a crime against the artists. And at the same time (being a musician myself) artists should release their music for donations. How can you put a price on creativity? Money always ruins the things that are most pure.
 
No. The real crime against the artists is the contracts that artists sign.

They get what? 2% of what they make?
To make it anything other than a crime against the corporations, it'd need to be in excess of 30% of all sales. Not profits, Sales.
 
Not all artists sign contracts and many small labels are actually good to their artists.
 
Shai Gar said:
Welcome to america, Land of the free to abuse the legal system to seriously fuck people over.
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lol I loved that. Excellent statement.
 
minority funk said:
Not all artists sign contracts and many small labels are actually good to their artists.
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That's where most bands are going now adays. Might not make them as popular, but that isn't what matters. People just need to take the time to dig for stuff.
 
IndigoSensor said:
That's where most bands are going now adays. Might not make them as popular, but that isn't what matters. People just need to take the time to dig for stuff.
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I agree with you completely. That's the way it should be
 
Which is why I listen to classical music, or bands that are decades old. I don't have to sift through anything, it's all already out there and famous in the right music circles.
 
I highly reccomend last.fm to everyone. It lets you find new music and discuss it. It is what would form if pandora and facebook had a child.
 
Far as I know most artists make most of their money from doing gigs, and you can't download the atmosphere of being at a live show. (well you can but it doesn't really work)

Either way ruining someone's life completely out of arbitrary millions who are engaging in this white-collar crime is still completely wrong and sick. It's one thing to say "think of the artists", but it's not the artists pulling shit like this, but the corporate moguls. Fortunately, really, because if the artists were the ones instigating stuff like this I'd say they were deserving what they were getting.

Especially wrong is that from what I can gather this isn't someone who's been mass downloading and sharing thousands of tracks or worse, selling bootlegged copies of CDs. It'd be sensible to go after those kinds of people, but it has less shock value and thus won't "scare people straight". Not that people would be scared straight, but ruining some average person's life as a scare tactic for the general public...

I am so glad I live in Europe where last I checked this shit didn't fly.
 
poor girl....:m192:
 
It's dumb.

If I really like an artist, I'm going to buy their CD.

I'm going to go to their concerts (cause I'm a junkie for them).

Occasionally I'll even splurge on a band t-shirt or something like that.

Really, prosecuting people like this and slamming them with outrageous fines is more likely to encourage me to download illegally, just to get back at the corporations pulling these stunts.
 
the record companies are losing monies to people illegally downloading THEIR songs...

... so she was made an example, which needs to be practiced everywhere...

if only she would have just went out and bought the cd, she wouldn't have to pay for her crimes...








... lol, i'm j/king... i love playing the advocate...

... seriously though, its outrageous... poor girl... i would take that BS up to higher court... seriously...
 
This is bullshit! Sure what she did was illegal, but she's a single mother of four! I'd image she'd be struggling enough as it is to provide for her children without having to pay this asinine fine. Is there no compassion left in the world?
 
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