Posted on 07/04/2006 7:00:49 AM PDT by Fawn
Louise: "No these are not my songs." They are however downloaded right onto her computer.
Louise:"I was embarrassed when they gave me a print out of these songs."
She got this printout because of lawyers. She also got this letter telling her she was being sued for copyright infringement.
Parents, there are other popular file sharing programs you need to know about:
Morpheus: morpheus.com
Kazaa: www.kazaa.com
Bearshare: www.bearshare.com
Limewire: www.limewire.com
Louise: "I was in shock..I was stunned."
The letter is part of a music industry crackdown.Singers, songwriters and music companies tired of people downloading and burning copies of music without paying.
The letter to Louise says: "Copyright theft is not a victimless crime. Not just recording artists and songwriters but session players, sound engineers, cd plant workers, wharehouse personnel, record store clerks...that depend on sale of recordings to earn a living."
Louise: "I didn't intentionally try to take money from these people...I didn't know what was going on!"
Louise says it was her 16 year old doing the downloading. But that doesn't matter--these lawyers are offering to settle for a price.
Louise: "3700....I dont have 3700."
But Louise has to pay even though she had no idea, this music has been hanging around on her harddrive. Louise says her son didn't know that downloading the songs was illegal either but because she didn't take the music industry's first settlement offer the price has now gone up: 4500 or they will take her to court.
Interestingly enough, during our investigating today, we found the country of Austrailia has banned the use of Kazaa. And guess where Kazaa's parent company is located?
You guessed it! Sydney, Australia.
I heard they are sending alot of these out lately.
apparently the music industry does not know how to spell.
I have lots of songs also. But I turned off "sharing" so nobody can get them from me.
It seems they go after the ones who have lots of songs that are available to others.
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
One word: BitTorrent.
Interesting story. But the reporting and misspelled words leave a lot to be desired.
I used Limewire to get about 20 songs this year. I just blocked it on Norton and Zonealarm and after reading a previous post, I'll turn off sharing.... if I can find it.
This is Palm Beach County....what did you expect? Seriously on the news story last night, they mentioned that other people are getting the same letters...if you don't pay up in a few days, they keep raising the extortion...
This is a legitimate candidate for stupidest BS in the American business world. In business math 102 or simple calculus they teach that there is a price for anything which maximizes profits and that price is NOT the highest price you could ever get for one copy. The whole world seems to know that EXCEPT for the RIAA which went in a single day from selling LPs for $7 to selling CDs which were cheaper to produce for $16 - $18 and they've never dropped the price a dime since then and they wonder why people share files over the internet.
Somebody needs to sue the RIAA into tommorrow-morrow land, this thing they're doing is harassment pure and simple and it amounts to the same thing as cops pulling an individual car here and there out of a line of traffic for speeding, which also will not hold up in court on a permanent basis.
I find it interesting that they mention the cd plant worker and the and the record store clerks. It looks like to me like the record compaines would have no problem making all they sell digital downloads. Also, if somboady ordered an actual prerecorded cd on-line aren't they putting some record store clerk out of work?
I am willing to bet that more people are working at plants making CDs now than before downloading became common.
If you're going to do this stuff, best do it on a linux system and use gtk-gnutella.
Yeah.... It's spelled "whorehouse."
These folks will also randomly select businesses...restaurants, gyms, retail stores - and see if they are playing the radio throughout the business.
If they are, then the extortion of the business owner begins.
"Somebody needs to sue the RIAA into tommorrow-morrow land..."
Absolutely. You also mentioned their illegal price fixing. How the corporate mother can get away with this defies the imagination. CD's literally cost pennies to make, yet the prices remain fixed......probably forever.
Bogus morality works both ways......let the downloads continue until the RIAA and the record industry in general gets called to task for their own sins.
Kazaa: www.kazaa.com
Bearshare: www.bearshare.com
Limewire: www.limewire.com
Brilliant! I wonder what Pepsi's website is? Or Free Republic?
I had a business destroyed by Napster. While the music business was foolish to drag its feet regarding digital distribution, that has been corrected over the last 6 years.
Yes these people know they are stealing.
A business which could be "destroyed by Napster" wasn't much of a business.
I never did turn on the sharing command. Hope you are right. I only downloaded about 50 old song before all the flap started and haven't done it since.
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