RIAA and record company lawsuits

[gryphon]

The RIAA/record company lawsuits against pirating music has been talked about here before on a number of occasions. The lawsuits were always for a ridiculously large amount of money, and seemed disproportionate to the real damages. One of the hallmarks of our legal system is supposed to be retributive justice where the penalty for the wrongdoing should be reasonable and proportionate to the severity of the infraction.

 

IMO the judges never seemed to worry about that when mothers were being prosecuted for hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars because of something their 12 year old kid did on the family computer.

 

However, last month the courts changed their mind when the record companies, using the same formula, sued Limewire for $75 trillion dollars, an amount more than five times the entire national debt! Now all of a sudden they realize the formula is unreasonable and disproportionate.

 

Unbelievable.

[The Real MC]

The wheels of justice turn slowly.

[iLaw]

Another hallmark of our legal system is that Congress writes the laws, in this case, 17 U.S.C. § 504, where Congress provided for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work for willful infringement.

 

Another conclusion that one might come to is that in this case Limewire proved once again that to err is human, but to really screw up big time it helps to use a computer.

 

Larry.

 

[Seannn]

The legal system here in Canada is different. I don't know too much about all of the legal jargon (I should, but don't feel like quoting), but can tell you that I'm a huge advocate for file and information sharing. I've found out about some of my favourite musicians and instruments through the Internet and various songs. Since then, I've purchased many CD's, a ton of digital music, made donations to fan forums, bought marimba EP's, lots of t-shirts, and instruments that I probably would have never heard about had it not been for some of those shared tracks. LimeWire used to be the culprit in the PC days, now I just torrent.

 

So I'm not sure what all of that means - legally - but it's a ten thousand dollar (and counting) investment in software, hardware, music, etc., that would not have happened otherwise. Your debt down south its crazy, and yet there are actually parties who sue for these crazy amounts, for such ridiculous causes sometimes (though the grounds for lawsuits against LimeWire may be generally justified). It baffles me. It completely baffles me.