12 year old girl getting sued

[Vladimir Lenin]

This lawsuit and the lil girl smell like sh!t, and I'll tell you why

How could a 12 year old sign up for internet, specifically internet fast enough to enable the alleged thief to download massive amounts of songs that triggered the lawsuit? Usually, it is DSL or cable connections that offer speeds needed to amass the number of songs that pegs the scales of RIAA. Even if it was a simple AOL account, parental consent had to have been required, and thus her mother should be sued as the rightful operator.
Second of all, Kazaa is free to anyone who wishes to download it, so the entire bit about the little girl and her mother paying 29 or so dollars to download it is a total wash. Had it been a pay for fee service like that apple.com, there would not have been a lawsuit.
And thirdly, songs aren't "listened" to on Kazaa, they are downloaded and kept on a harddrive of a PC, usually in a place that is easily shared with other Kazaa users (unless the operator chooses to locate the files elsewhere, thus protecting him/herself, but degrading the data flow across the network).
So far it sounds like a wash, but both the defense and the plaintiffs have a lot of material on their hands to make it work.

A word for file sharers, keep your songs in a separate folder, i.e. not the shared one.

 

[jarhead]

BigD

Understood!

Now, I rarely by CDs, and when I do, it is usually Mozart or Bethoveen stuff for the SUV. Lots cheaper than living artists. (Bethoven doesn't get much of a royalty now that he's dead!)

That said, I still like music. It was announced today that Simon and Garfunkel are having a reunion tour to several cities this fall. One for them is in St Paul, MN, near where I live. Tickets for good seats are expected to run $250 each, My wife and I are going to that concert, and will purchase tickets on line on Monday, when they go up for sale on TicketMaster. Now, that's $500 bucks for a 90 minute to two hour concert. I'll go for it, but if they were $1,000 for a pair of tickets, I'd pass. This really is about what the market will bear. Same with CDs. Too high a price. don't buy them. Same with a live concert. I do not "blame" Simon & Garfunkel for charging "too much" That is not what free enterprise is about.

 

[ALASKAN AVIATOR]

I'll tell you abotu the RIAA...

They can kiss my a$$ and I'll yell that up and down the street. The only reason this 12 year old got caught is because her mother signed up for that service and the RIAA got a hold of that list and called her up. What she should have done is use one the anonymous peer to peer file sharing services like I use to download my music. The RIAA are the ones who are stealing by charging over 20 bucks for a CD when it costs the $1 to make. The RIAA will never stop anyone using P2P software and I'll keep using it till the cows come home!

 

[surfnole]

I download songs, but most of the songs I have downloaded are LPs that I once had years ago. Does that make me a criminal for downloading music I already purchased in a different format?

The RIAA went after a 12 years old honor student living in a housing project. Really bad PR. If a 12 year old was caught stealing a tape from Walmart, she might be forced to make restitution. A $2,000 settlement plus all the lawyer fees is extreme and overkill.

I agree that the behavior is illegal and the RIAA has the right to stop it, but their methods of enforcement are too much.

 

[Crabtree]

Cd's

After reading this thread I thought some of you might find it interesting that I worked for a very competitive company for awhile that made cds. When they shipped from the factory the cds were sealed with stickers on them and ready to be set on the store shelf. The recording companies paid .68 cents a cd. The cassettes where closer to 30 something cents. What a mark up!!!

 

[cl-65link]

Ask any techno-geek and they will tell you that the highest quality MP3 is still no where near CD quality sound. This is what you are getting for free by file sharing.

 

[bigD]

Is it the same quality? Nope. But "nowhere near" is an exaggeration. Unless you're listening on an extremely good home (or car) stereo at a high volume, or with good headphones, the difference is not noticable. Especially at bit rates around 192Kb/sec.

The bottom line is that it's good enough for just about everyone, as evidenced by their popularity. The problem is that many mp3's are encoded improperly, and sometimes you get songs with skips, or poor levelling, or whatever. Downloading free songs does require a level of patience.

But that's also why I love pay per song sites like Apple's. I pay 99 cents per song, have a guaranteed high quality mp3, and the download rate is always close to 300KB/sec, which allows the song to download in a manner of seconds. In this case, everyone wins.

 

[Salty Dog]

Tailwind, you're misguided.

"The law is not clear on copying music.

My girlfriend makes mix tapes for me and now she makes mix CDs
from music that she either bought or borrowed.
The law did not have a problem with that because:

MONEY WAS NOT EXCHANGED FOR THE MUSIC

That is a BIG point that many of you on BOTH sides are missing.
If I own a CD, I can copy it a 1000 times. Make one for my brother or a friend AS LONG AS I don't receive money for the copies."

That would be nice. But the truth is, you're not even allowed to sing well-known American folk songs at summer camp with these copyright nazis suing you. Lookie here:

http://www.s-t.com/daily/08-96/08-23-96/b02li056.htm

"No more 'This land is your land'"?!?!?

O.K., now THAT's Bullsh!t.

However, I happen to believe that for a certain period of time the artists and the companies that promote them deserve to reap fair reward, more like patents (which are limited) and less like royalties (which extend into perpetuity). Regardless of age. But either way, I haven't figured that fancy internet music stuff out and buy a CD maybe 3 times a year max.

New ZZ Top? I'm there.

Cheers and three turret broadsides,

NaCl Mutt.

 

[bigD]

http://www.s-t.com/daily/08-96/08-23-96/b02li056.htm

You're f*cking kidding me. Someone PLEASE tell me this is a joke.

Holy crap.

 

[CE402]

. If the beer industry priced beer out of my grasp.... -- A Squared

Flightinfo.com could not handle the amount of messages required if that were to happen. The host computer would surely ionize.

Anyway, however one chooses to show displeasure toward the recording industry (not buying records, swapping files, etc.), the result is the same: several groups of "innocent bystanders" are harmed. The manager at the Strawberries/Wherehouse/Tower, his/her employees, the truck driver who delivers the CDs, and yes, even the artist. It is unfortunate, because most of these folks are trying to simply make a living. They are not deserving of the collective contempt of a group of people who believe that they are subverting a greedy, collusive enclave of executive types. Truth be told, the "recording industry" is too varied to paint with the same brush. There are record companies out there who are generally interested in putting out quality art at the expense of large profits, and there are more publicized entities which care little about the sound coming off the CD, as long as they can market it and sell it for maximum profit. The market should decide which of these entities last, and which fail. The only fly in the ointment lies in the area of distribution. For many years (and it may or may not still be the case, it's been a while since I read "Hit Men" --good book about the industry), several of the largest recording companies held a relative stranglehold on distribution rights -- the ability to take a recording and distribute it out to the many large retailers. You could choose to record with a smaller label, but you would have an awfully hard time getting your recording into the chain stores. So that meant driving around the country selling to independent stores out of the back of your Scooby Doo van. Now with the internet in the picture, hopefully artists can direct market their recordings via their own websites, and allow people to download albums directly from the website, while paying a more LP like price for a full length CD recording. The artists could then take home a significantly higher percentage of their CD royalties than they do in the present system, and people could gripe about certain artists' practices instead of lambasting the whole industry. Then we'd only have to find a job for the record store people and the truck driver -- burgeoning blank CD industry, perhaps? (Yeah, Memorex makes a comeback!)

Now that I've carried on and on about God knows what....I have a question for BigD: Does your Apple service give you consistently good levels from song to song, artist to artist? I have the Lycos subscription service, which is ok, but they still need to sign up a lot more artists, and the levels vary subsantially from album to album -- makes for some interesting mix CDs.

 

[bigD]

I have a question for BigD: Does your Apple service give you consistently good levels from song to song, artist to artist? I have the Lycos subscription service, which is ok, but they still need to sign up a lot more artists, and the levels vary subsantially from album to album -- makes for some interesting mix CDs.

I have noticed some slight changes in levels, but nothing that's caused me to jump while listening to a mix CD. I've downloaded maybe 25 songs over the last few months over Apple's site, so perhaps my sampling isn't big enough. I've never really considered it a problem, though.

 

[fr0g]

You can adjust individual song volumes in itunes (command-i)

 

[Dominicinco]

All you guys who think dl'ing music is a crime are tools. I didnt read all the posts since you guys are idiots anyways but get with the times.. 2003!!
**CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** THE RECORD INDUSTRY **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** THE LAWMAKERS, nothing wrong with listening to music off your computer that you borrow from some other person who borrowed it from some other person who borrowed it from a CD, no ones making money in this..(unless if you go down to Canal Street and buy a bootleg CD, then MR. HIP HOP or MISS LEE is )

 

[Dominicinco]

Another thing i noticed on my 'music supplier' is that they're (the RIAA im sure) flooding the application with bogus music and movies, so if you dl something it won't turn up and be just silence or a blank screen.. pretty ^&^$$^#&* bull%^*& if you ask me..idiots!!

 

[46Driver]

Speaking of downloading, the Senator leading the charge - not only to stop downloading but also for the RIAA to invade your computer and destroy your entire hard drive - was found to have downloaded software on his public website........... How ironic......(Orrin Hatch, Republican, Utah)