I think it was more of a 'scare tactics' thing to the rest of the internet community. If they could track down and be willing to prosecute a single mother who only downloaded a handful of songs, they'd have no problems doing the same to others who have done worse.

I feel sorry for that lady though.

Someone should start a charity to support victims of the RIAA's warpath - I'm thinking specifically of her kids.

That jury must have been full of retards though. Nearly 10k in damages per song?

Yeah no shit, where'd they find the jury for that one?

It has something to do with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). From what I understand there is a minimum and maximum amount they could have charged her per song, the max being $150,000 and the minimum still being in the thousands. Even if the jury wanted to they could not make it $0.99 per song or whatever actually makes sense.

I had a bit of fun in another thread about this on a different forum. I'll quote the pot before, and then mine:

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Apparently the RIAA mentioned 1,702 songs uploaded, but chose to focus on just 24.

Double pounds to get dollars.

Hey, check it out. Someone is doing something.

http://www.freejammie.com/

Awesome quote.

It's not right, though. A public library doesn't copy books and hand them out to people for free. A public library allows you to borrow and then return a book.

Good example is if you let a friend borrow a CD and then they return it, rather than if you copy said CD and give it to your friend. They're both forms of sharing, in essence, but one of them is illegal.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is all very dumb. I also think flawed logic used to argue for or against something is dumb, especially if it's someone arguing for something I agree with, because they're just hurting our case.

Well true, the Publisher does the copying, but the information is still out there. It's not like ANYBODY is making money off of these downloaded songs, it's like having to pay for citing a book, same thing as downloading a single song off of a CD.

Copywright laws are so ridiculous and conspicuous to every specific argument that it's impossible to copy anything at all share put on your computer, etc, without having a loophole that could possibly land you in some sort of trouble.

One argument that could be brought up about this is say I bought a System of a Down cd, and it got lost, stolen, destroyed, etc. So I go online, and download the full album as a replacement for the CD, should that be considered wrong or immmoral? No, but according to the law it is.

I'm going to end this argument before it starts and simply tell you that you are wrong. Comparing a library to P2P file sharing is flawed logic. While I disagree with P2P file sharing being illegal, that logic does not work.

I didn't even say that was my logic, but an awesome quote. What they were saying is that the information is out there and is being shared, just because you have no basis and you have to quit, don't call me wrong.

I'm having a hard time phrasing this...

The difference between a public library and bootleg copies of something is that with a library, the artist is compensated and their work is able to be sampled, however the consumer would still have to pay for permanent access to the material in question.

Obviously, an illegal copy circumvents this by giving you permanent access to the material without having to pay for it.