MR

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What a crock of shit... I agree with what alot of the blabbies are saying... If the record companies weren't so fucking greedy, charging $16.99+ for a cd and putting out a half-assed product, more people would buy.


24 Illegal Song Downloads Cost U.S. Woman 220,000 Dollars


DULUTH, Minn. (AP) -- The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music online and levied $220,000 in damages against her.


The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs in all. Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, declined comment as they left the courthouse.

In the first such lawsuit to go to trial, the record companies accused Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas denied wrongdoing and testified that she didn't have a Kazaa account.

Record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits since 2003 over file-sharing, which has hurt sales because it allows people to get music for free instead of paying for recordings in stores. Many other defendants have settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars.

During the three-day trial, the record companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name "tereastarr." Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet provider and a security firm, testified that the Internet address used by "tereastarr" belonged to Thomas.

Toder said in his closing that the companies never proved "Jammie Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things."

"We don't know what happened," Toder told jurors. "All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn't do this." Richard Gabriel, the companies' lead attorney, called that defense "misdirection, red herrings, smoke and mirrors." He told jurors a verdict against Thomas would send a message to other illegal downloaders.

"I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is great," he said.

Copyright law sets a damage range of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, or up to $150,000 if the violation was "willful." Jurors ruled that Thomas' infringement was willful but awarded damages in a middle range.

Before the verdict, an official with an industry trade group said he was surprised it had taken so long for one of the industry's lawsuits against individual downloaders to come to trial.

Illegal downloads have "become business as usual, nobody really thinks about it," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which coordinates the lawsuits. "This case has put it back in the news. Win or lose, people will understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights."

Thomas's her testimony was complicated by the fact that she had replaced her computer's hard drive after the sharing was alleged to have taken place -- and later than she said in a deposition before trial. The hard drive in question was not presented at trial by either party, though Thomas used her new one to show the jury how fast it copies songs from CDs. That was an effort to counter an industry witness's assertion that the songs on the old drive got there too fast to have come from CDs she owned -- and therefore must have been downloaded illegally.

Record companies said Thomas was sent an instant message in February 2005, warning her that she was violating copyright law. Her hard drive was replaced the following month, not in 2004, as she said in the deposition.

The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

She's definitely guilty but, at the most and in my opinion, she should only have to pay twice what each song would be worth if she had bought the CDs at the store or payed for each song on a pay-per-track web site. Then, for sharing the songs online, a smaller fine of maybe $10,000 or something like that. The $220,000 is ridiculous. She would be losing less money by going drunk driving and killing someone.

They won't see a dime.

If I were her, I'd be calling a bankruptcy lawyer the second the verdict was read.

Going after someone who downloaded only 24 songs shows how desparate these record company assholes are.

Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

And when was the last time any of those companies put out something truly worth buying? 1995?

WalrusOct9 wrote:

Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

And when was the last time any of those companies put out something truly worth buying? 1995?

Excellent point. The only reason their doing this is becuase they can't make money any other way.

Actually, the RIAA has admitted they've LOST money on these lawsuits...it costs more in legal fees than the couple grand they've made per settlement.

Real geniuses.


I don't disagree that it's "wrong" and "stealing" and all that, but if the calendar says its 2007 and you're running your business like it's 1995, you deserve to be put out of business.

ebake02 wrote:Going after someone who downloaded only 24 songs shows how desparate these record company assholes are.

The article said she downloaded over 1700 songs, but was only sued over 24 of them. If the RIAA is losing so much money on these suits, I don't see why they bother. People are still going to do this, because new music costs so much and most of it is crap, anyway.

Reading it closely, you'll see that they "ALLEGED" that she shared 1702 songs in total. They haven't proven anything yet. Anyone with a laptop knows that you can steal anyones bandwidth from a wireless router and thus, use their IP addy as well.




More people would be inclined to "buy" if prices were cheaper. I can't tell you how many times I used to just BUY a cd based on recommendations, reviews and other hype, only to get it home and like 1-2 tunes out of 10+ on the cd. HARDLY worth the price for me when I paid $16+ for it. On top of that, they release SINGLES for a few of the tunes and add remixes and B Sides to get the consumer to pay ANOTHER $7 for and now they've made about $25+ off the consumer. Those prices are what drive many people to download.

Back in the 80's and early 90's when I was still buying cassettes, I used to get them for $8-10. There was no downloading. We were careful with what we bought because we didn't make alot of money. Out of a 10 track cassette, I usually found 2 tunes I didn't like, but for $8-10 bucks, I didn't worry about it because I was above 70% with the songs I DID like. Many of the CD's I buy on a whim these days, I'm lucky to get 50/50.

I do understand the industry's stand on illegal downloading and I DO understand that when a band doesn't make money, they don't make more music down the road. If they lowered their prices a little on the CD's they'd make up for that price loss by selling MORE product.

On the positive side, thanks to the internet, bands have websites, MySpace, and other sites where the consumer can hear their new music played and decide to buy or not. Yes... there are cheapskates out there that will never spend a dime on buying something when they can get it for free, and those jackasses ruin it for everyone. I'm not scared to admit that I've downloaded things to see if I like them. I have a huge rack of CD's downstairs (used to be 1500+) to prove that I support the artists when I like what I hear. I also delete the stuff I don't like. I'm not interested on basing a CD's worthiness based on the 1-2 tracks they release as singles on the radio. I check out the other ones that'll never be heard on the radio. If I like those, I DO buy the full CD.



A friend from another board asked this:

She illegaly downloaded 24 songs......Fine her three hundred bucks and give 15 hours community service.
What would the fine be for shoplifting three albums from the mall record shop?
Certainly not $220,000.00.
That's just ridiculous.

My response: 24 friggin tunes! That is approx 2-3 full CD's these days. In theory, it would be easier for a consumer to run to the local Walmart and shoplift the 2-3 cd's they want versus downloading them. If they're caught, then they'd get a small fine and some community service. If they're not caught, they'd end up with a better product than if they just downloaded. The $220,000 was WAY too excessive.

I know that they say they want to send a message to other downloaders, but if they get away with that amount of a fine, they've also just set a precedent and will want to get that amount for EVERY person they catch or prosecute.

What they also fail to see is that so many bands are also getting their name out there and their music heard thanks to the internet. I don't know how many times I've heard someone say or tell me that band X sounds alot like band Y and you should chck them out. Similarities are sometimes subjective and I'm all too hesitant to spend $16+ to find out for myself, so I've looked up and downloaded some tunes by band X to see for myself. If I disagreed, I deleted them because I didn't like them, BUT... if I agreed, I'd go out and buy many of band X's releases, thus, supporting the artist (actually, the record company)

Does anybody know how much the artist gets from the price of the CD.

My friend is the bass player for the Canadian metal band Exciter and this is what he said about it:

Lemme tell you something about record labels. They don't "give" the bands anything. Every dime the record company advances the band, be it for recording, merchandise, touring, etc... is recouped by the label. At the same time, the royalty rates are ridiculous. Out of the $16.99 that the CD costs, the band is lucky if they're getting $3.00. And the label recoups all their money from royalties before the band sees a dime.

So let's go with some hypothetical numbers:

Band signs with Record Company A. A advances the band $10,000.00 to record a CD. The royaly rate is 17% (a true average rate) of wholesale - 15% packaging fee (also a true average). Let's say wholesale is $10.00 (another true average). So the band's royalty rate is 17% of ($10.00 - $1.50 pkging fee) $8.50 = $1.45 per CD. So in order to recoup the $10,000.00 advance, the band has to sell ($10,000/$1.45) 6897 CDs. At $10.00 wholesale, the label makes $68,970.00 before the band has seen a penny, and from that point on, the label makes $8.55 for every $1.45 the band makes, all the while recouping any money the label fronts the band. Now, obviously, I know there are expenses for the label, and they're taking the risk that the band won't sell enough to recoup, but you can't tell me that isn't greedy.

The industry has to adapt. The RIAA suing people won't stop, or even put a tiny dent, in downloading. It's slowly adapting with pay per download sites, etc... but the high cost of CDs and the dubious quality of music out there discourages people from buying CDs, and promotes illegal downloading. Personally, I always buy CDs. I want to support the bands that I like, but I also see it from the perspective of someone in the industry, whereas most people who download never think that the bands need to sell product to make a living, and not get sumped by their labels. And bands DO make FAR more money from touring than record sales, with the possible exception of major artists that sell millions of CDs.

So... it looks like they don't make hardly anything at all....