Single mum of 4 Fined $1.92 Million for downloading 24 Songs

renraw

Is it not true that the only way the likes of infact etc... can only prosecute if you allow people to upload tunes from your PC? If those kind of fines are being issued, god help half the irish population because everybody is doing it

Jay P

renraw wrote: »

Is it not true that the only way the likes of infact etc... can only prosecute if you allow people to upload tunes from your PC? If those kind of fines are being issued, god help half the irish population because everybody is doing it

You mean God help half the world. Practically anybody with a computer is doing it. Except me. :cool:

pyramuid man

renraw wrote: »

Is it not true that the only way the likes of infact etc... can only prosecute if you allow people to upload tunes from your PC? If those kind of fines are being issued, god help half the irish population because everybody is doing it

Not everyone.
Still a few of the high horse brigade around you know.

trustno1

Quazzie wrote: »

Lock 'er up and sell the kids to Madonna!

LOL... :pac::pac:

joey54

She'll probably never have to pay the fine. It just seems so ridiculous!

partyatmygaff

joey54 wrote: »

She'll probably never have to pay the fine. It just seems so ridiculous!

Technically no, but imagine she wins the lotto for $2 million then she HAS to pay.

xOxSinéadxOx

jesus 24 songs is nothing. I think a lot of us would be fined an infinite amount of money so if we were caught

robinph

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

One thing that jumps out at me is that she refused a settlement and instead went to court over it. As far as I remember the average sort of settlements were around the 1000 dollar mark, bet you she is regretting that now :P

Pobably not actually. As everyone says, there is no way she is going to have to pay any of that kind of fine, and the publicity around these repeated cases against her are doing far more harm to the record companies named in the case than to her.

She gains loads of sympathy for being the poor single mother, the record compaies continue to increase their bad image with the public. If one judge has already thrown out the $200,000 fine as being daft, then this ruling will soin be joining it in the shredder as well. All the talk about the "evil" record companies going after their customers isn't going anywhere though.

General Zod

pyramuid man wrote: »

A person cannot commit a crime willingly if they do not know its a crime.

incorrect. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

M5

General Zod wrote: »

incorrect. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

beat me to it :-(

joey54

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Technically no, but imagine she wins the lotto for $2 million then she HAS to pay.

So she'll probably have to be declared bankrupt o, which will have major future financial implications for her. Hope the songs were worth it!

Stabshauptmann

spoofilyj wrote: »

What a disgrace! Thats bang out of order! the fines should be proportional, maybe double the retail price of the songs downloaded! So possibly 100 dollars! Madness!

That would make no sense.

The Fine*Probability of being fined > retail price

The probability of being fined is so incredibly small that in order to scare people the fine must be rediculously large.

Red Alert

Something tells me Eamonn 'creep' Ryan will let the Music 'industry' walk over us over here in no time. This is precisely why they shouldn't be allowed do things like cut people's net access arbitrarily as they are soon to be allowed do in the UK.

artanevilla

cnocbui wrote: »

The article mentions a former husband being the father of the four children.

tl;dr

norwegianwood

Obviously a scare tactic anyway. They're coming down on this woman like a ton of bricks to discourage others from illegal downloading imo. but yeah, ridiculously over the top, and its probably not going to stop anyone.

phasers

Oh sweet Jesus I hope they never find me so, I probably owe them trillions

maameeo

phasers wrote: »

Oh sweet Jesus I hope they never find me so, I probably owe them trillions

they cant seriously expect her to pay that can they???!
how would a single mum of four have that much money? and what happens if she cant?
what arseholes, 24 songs is nothing! love to know what songs they wer!

scargill

maameeo wrote: »

love to know what songs they wer!

from cnn.com

Thomas-Rasset downloaded work by artists such as No Doubt, Linkin Park, Gloria Estefan and Sheryl Crow.

the shame....

maameeo

scargill wrote: »

from cnn.com



the shame....

the shame indeed! i wonder how all those rich 'stars' feel about it!

Pygmalion

I only owe $320,000,000 (roughly 4000 songs), I assume that's quite low compared to a lot of people here :P.

Pygmalion

maameeo wrote: »

they cant seriously expect her to pay that can they???!
how would a single mum of four have that much money? and what happens if she cant?

Not entirely sure but as far as I know she could file for bankruptcy, possibly lose her house/car/anything else worth more than a couple thousand and then after it's decided she can't possibly pay anymore the courts can order them to stop going after her for cash.

Or it may end up that she pays a fixed percentage of her income to them for the rest of her life or some ****.

As far as I know she can still appeal and get it reduced by a lot, but it'd still end up being in the hundreds of thousands.

joey54

I'd say she'll get away with not paying but this wont be made public. The record companies want to use her as an example into scaring people to stop downloading illegally. iTunes looks like a bargain compared to the prices she has to pay now!

Senna

Pygmalion wrote: »

Not entirely sure but as far as I know she could file for bankruptcy, possibly lose her house/car/anything else worth more than a couple thousand and then after it's decided she can't possibly pay anymore the courts can order them to stop going after her for cash.

She wont lose her house or car if she has 4 kids. At the very worst she will have to pay a nominal fee ($20 per week) or she could transfer everything she owns into someone else name, declare bankruptcy and after 12 years she owns them nothing.

amacachi

Sounds fair for the crime.

phantom_lord

title is a bit misleading imo

I take it this was what the exorbitant fine was for:

attorney Timothy Reynolds said Thomas-Rasset had made copyrighted music available to "millions on the Internet" through Kazaa.

not downloading the tracks in the first place.

Overheal

From my reading of the article I got that she was seeding like crazy.

Its not that she downloaded the songs, its that she allowed thousands of others to download the songs from her.

Wether that was actually the case, or her defense lawyer was shyte and knew nothing about the internet, and didnt ask for the RIAA to show proof of how many people she seeded to, remains to be seen - thepiratebay trial showcased how ignorant the legal system is of exactly what is involved.

Karlusss

"Seeding like crazy"

What does that even mean? If you're seeding a torrent/you have a file available to download, that's all it is. You can't be seeding super-hard. You're just seeding.

Millions on the internet make music available for millions on the internet. That's the whole idea of file-sharing. Very harsh on this woman that she got stung for it.

I think (hypothetically of course) I might owe the RIAA about 400 million dollars.

Reg'stoy

She was offered a chance to pay a smaller fine and refused so fcuk her, how many of her defenders would be slow in suing if they provided a service and weren't paid for it. Everyone knows that they take a chance no matter how small in getting done for downloading songs, movies etc so all that nonsense about greedy music companies justifying it is bollox.

BaconZombie

1 illegal download = 3 1/3 dead relatives:

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/9172/1245456677307.jpg

Tar.Aldarion

Guess she was charged so much due to teh nature of the songs downloaded. :pac: