On Sunday 04 November 2007 23:10, Edward Martin rattled on the keyboard: > Thanks for pointing this out, Art. As you know, I happen to live in Duluth > (Minnesota, not Georgia), as does Dan Larson. > > As I am a lutenist who does happen to have recordings, it bothers me when > my recordings are copied without consent. But, in this particular case, it > was tried in federal court in Duluth, and if I recall, the defendant > resides in Brainerd, which is about 100 miles from Duluth. The verdict > happened about 3 weeks ago. The young lady who was found guilty is a > single mother with 2 young children, and she earns $30,000 annually. She > will never be in a position to pay off this hefty fine. If my > understanding is correct, she shared popular song downloads, ripping off > the record companies. > > I really feel sorry for her, as although she is guilty, in my opinion, the > punishment exceeds by far the nature of her crime. In our times, it seems > to me that individual people who are plaintiffs in civil cases quite often > have their cases thrown out of court, even when they have a legitimate > case. On the other hand, if the plaintiff(s) are large corporations, the > courts seem to "beat up" the little guys (gals). > > Money talks. > > ed > You are absolutely right on this, ed and compared with other crimes this punishment is certainly wrong and imho typically for the US. The sharing of downloaded stuff is often not recognized by many people: one uses a torrent and downloads some music, text or software but already during the download and afterwards the sharing starts. After a complete download depending on the torrent client, the object is moved into a folder which is not always easy visible. It could very well be that this woman was not even aware of sharing song downloads, but that's difficult to prove and she certainly had not the money to get a good lawyer. Taco
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