"A Minneapolis jury ruled on Thursday that a 32-year-old woman must pay $1.92 million to six record companies for illegally downloading songs released by those labels from the Internet, Agence France-Presse reported. The woman, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother of four from Brainerd, Minn., was found liable for violating the copyrights of major labels including Sony BMG, Warner Brothers and Universal by downloading 24 songs from Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file-sharing service." Source

Yes, it's illegal, depending on the country and whatnot, but is this really about artists? Do you buy the album you like after having downloaded it for free?

Should it be this big of a deal? Should it even be a deal at all?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_Canada: "Piracy for personal use is no longer targeted," Noël St-Hilaire, head of copyright theft investigations of the RCMP, said in an interview with Le Devoir. "It is too easy to copy these days and we do not know how to stop it," he added. St-Hilaire explained that they would rather focus on crimes that actually hurt consumers such as copyright violations related to medicine and electrical appliances, as well as ones that affect organized crime.

Also: "The two million dollar fine handed out to Jammie Thomas by a Minnesota jury this week hasn’t done the music industry’s image much good. While lawyers and high level managers at the major labels cracked open the Champagne, artists such as Moby and Radiohead shook their heads in shame at what the music world has become." Source

No matter how much copy protection you put on something it will be illegally downloaded. It really shouldn't be a deal at all. Those fuking record companies just ruined someone's life

Hahahaha, the most they should ever have to pay is $0.99 a song like they cost on iTunes (well between something like $0.79 and $1.29 now).

I'd have to pay like $2000 if they sued me, but that is better than millions.

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Queen's '10
Ryerson '11

My boss/prof told me it is not illegal to download music in Ontario...

As long as you don't try and sell it.

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Queen's '10
Ryerson '11

Apparently, the U.S. copyright law outlines that the penalty for illegally downloading a song can be anywhere between $750 and $150,000.

The woman's lawyer asked Sony's lawyer Gary Leak if, by his logic, the $150,000 fine per song would be appropriate. Leak replied, "Certainly!" (Source) Gotta love them.

- "The RIAA sued only people who shared at least 1,000 songs."

- "The RIAA sued only those who made their own files available to others, not those who only downloaded them."

- "According to CNet's News.com, the RIAA, in doing investigations for its round of lawsuits, used automated tools that scanned file sharers' folders for a short list of music files, and when it found one of those files, it targeted that user for further investigation. If you share popular music, you're more likely to be a target."
(Source)

Only p2p programs like Limewire and Kazaa, too, not really torrents. And, being in Canada, we're pretty safe.

Why this woman? "The prosecution said the 24 copyrighted files were made availabe to "millions" of users and logic dictates that many of them downloaded the songs." (Source)

You can appeal any court decision. Why should she?

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Carleton University
Bachelor of Arts in Law

Army downloads music.

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Queen's '10
Ryerson '11

piracy has probably helped as well as hurt the industry. it opens product up to a wider market and encourages artists to offer more material-wise to get you to buy it. many artists thank illegal downloading for bringing their music to fans who in turn buy concert tickets, etc.