Music Pirate (12-year-old girl sued for downloading music)

NY Post ^ | September 9, 2003 -- | Lorena Mongelli

[dead]

The music industry has turned its big legal guns on Internet music-swappers - including a 12-year-old Upper West Side girl who thought downloading songs was fun.

Brianna LaHara said she was frightened to learn she was among the hundreds of people sued yesterday by giant music companies in federal courts around the country.

[kingu]

The RIAA is going to be hard pressed to prove the drop off in sales is due to downloading and not due to the fact that theyre trying to sell crappy music.

Actually, the harder case would be to prove that in a recessionary period a thirty percent drop in sales of something that is unarguably an 'extra.' The RIAA would be well served by their lawyers to ensure that the issues discussed in court go no where beyond the terms defined in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, because otherwise, they are fighting a lost cause.

[afz400]

"However, when the record industry was busted recently for price collusion, from my perspective they lost the moral high ground."
As punishment for the price collusion, the record industry should have been made to forfeit their rights to the music they control. If you get busted for drugs in this country, the government seizes all your property. Why not the same for price fixing?

[kingu]

Definitely there's a backlash that will only get worse. I'd love to see all the music lovers just stop buying any CDs for one week.

The music industry would point to the lack of sales and claim that with the return of students to college, the underground pirating has returned in force, and cause the lack of sales of music. Thus we must ban all computers from college campuses, since obviously they're there only to copy music.

Downloading songs is wrong, suing the downloaders is worse.

[Voltage]

Most of us have gone to piano recitals where little Bob or Judy, who couldn't even reach the peddles, violated copyright law by engaging in a public performance of a copyrighed song!

Where are the police when you need them!

[chaosagent]

So if I download a song or albumn that is no longer available for sale, isn't that the same thing.

[sharkhawk]

It's actually really simple. You bought the book, read it, and are passing on the book. You do not have current use of the book. The same thing happens with CD's, you can sell the CD itself, you cannot copy the book or the CD without breaking copyright laws.

[sharkhawk]

KaZaa does not "lend" out the music. It allows people to make copies of copyrighted material. Try copying a book from Clancy or King, making it available for anyone online to download, see if you get sued.

[scan59]

But I hardly consider my children theives just because they did it a few times.

Like just taking a few peanuts or grapes from the produce section isn't "really" stealing?

[Voltage]

True, but the penalties for copyright infringment are so draconian, they might as well include execution.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Well first King has sold some books directly off the internet. Second transfering a paperback or hardback book to the internet would be so time consuming (is will take at least half a day using a PC scanner for a short 100 plus page book) that it would not be worth it.

[webheart]

What hath God wrought?

God didn't wrought this.

[PaxMacian]

Those are the first words sent via electricity.

[Dog Gone]

But the cost of a CD compares very favorably with the cost of a movie or sports ticket - VERY favorably.

So does just about everything else.

[PaxMacian]

Not so slow these days, nor time consuming.
About 50 pages in 17 minutes to scan and about 30 more to OCR. Or about a page a minute without having to be there most of the time.
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=scanmaker+5950

[Dark Knight]

The cost of a CD really doesn't compare favorably with othe stuff. CD content has been generally bad with one or two songs on an album being acceptable product to the consumers. Compare that with DVD content of something like Lord of the Rings. People want to pay more for an expanded version.

The music industry stopped selling singles for the most part. Why? Albums sales suffered because the cuts left were doo doo.

DVD content of most popular movies, involves tens of millions of dollars of production costs (and sometimes hundreds of millions). What CD has a real production cost of over a million?

DVDs and CD's have about the same cost. DVD is a healthy market, and CD music is not.

The music industry made a conscious decision to forgo tech and use courts instead. RIAA has been doing it for years. The technology has overridden them.

In any case, and I cannot stress this enough, the RIAA gets a cut off any CD Writer or CD media you buy, just because of the copyright violation problem with the new media. In other words, we pay them in advance for the business lost WHETHER OR NOT THE MEDIA IS USED FOR COPYRIGHT VIOLATION.

The RIAA is trying to double dip, the file sharing is already paid for.

DK

[Dog Gone]

I've never downloaded a song, but my suggestion for anyone sued by RIAA is to make sure I'm on the jury. At worst, it will be a hung jury.

I have no sympathy for RIAA at all. They are trying to intimidate the population by filing suits and collecting damages far in excess of any possible purchase by the defendant. What they ought to be doing is creating downloadable CDs at cutrate prices, eliminating manufacturing and distribution costs, not to mention middleman profits.

[YankeeinOkieville]

You mean like Linkin Park?

[RobRoy]

>>Dozens of dorks and every other crook who posts here regularly will rush to defend her.<<

As well as a lot of honest citizens.

[RobRoy]

I've downloaded tons of stuff from Kazaa. I download it because I am a musician and I want to learn the particular songs. I have also downloaded stuff that I cannot find on CD or even in used record stores (old stuff).

Other than that, the only relatively new music I have ever bought and burned is Pink Floyd's Pulse. But then, I own a laser disk copy of the concert - so sue me.

I have downloaded hundreds of songs only to listen to a part of the song and delete it. It's a convenient way of creating your own in-home "listening station" I would like to see the RIAA try to sink their teeth into that legally.

[RobRoy]

>>I'm not going to defend the specific amounts asked for in the suit, but the RIAA probably knows they're not going to get anywhere near those huge amounts. They're probably trying to make a statement to scare people off.<<

They're using the old IRS ploy - sue ten to bring millions into submission. It aint going to happen because since nothing tangible is taken, it doesn't "feel" like it's illegal. To most, it is subconsciously the same as recording off the radio. That's why people do it - and will continue to do it.