Quick guide to crime in Minnesota
So, you’ve been thinking about breaking the law, eh? Well, here’s a handy pocket guide to help you decide what fine you’re comfortable paying.
| Jaywalking | $100 |
| Fishing without a license | $120 |
| speeding 30 miles over the limit | $282 |
| DUI | Possible jail + $1000 |
| Shoplifing | up to $5000 |
| Possession of Firearm by Convicted Violent Offender | $30,000 |
| Fleeing a police officer resulting in death | Jail + $80,000 |
| Sharing some songs you like with others | $220,000 |
4 Comments
Lovely comparison.
Copyright violation is a crime, and glossing it over as “sharing some songs you like” is a bit disingenuous.
However, this penalty is completely out of whack — $220k is a life-upending, bankrupting, crushing sum, completely inappropriate to the magnitude of the crime. It had darned well better be struck down on appeal.
The penalty ought to be on a par with shoplifting, a crime of comparable magnitude.
“The penalty ought to be on a par with shoplifting, a crime of comparable magnitude.”
That’s just it. Crime-wise, if you want some music, you’re better off walking into Best Buy with a bulky jacket and stashing CDs in it. As a bonus, it’s higher quality music with no DRM!
An infinitely smaller penalty for actually stealing physical property. Crazy.
I’d really like to hear how the RIAA convinced the jury that each song she shared ACTUALLY COST the industry 9 grand. Those were either very slick lawyers or really stupid jurors.
You seem to be confused between criminal charges and civil charges. The latter involve commercial losses - and in effect there no real compensation limitations other than what can be proved in court and accepted by the judge or jury.
It is very easy to see how the RIAA choose $9000 per song recording, if fact they could easily have selected a much higher value and claimed damages for many more songs. If you assumed the value of each song was worth 50 cents (iTunes cost 99 cents) you would only need to determine that at least 18000 copies of a song were freely downloaded or shared.
The RIAA knows it isn’t likely going to ever collect this full amount from this individual (and they well may privately negotiate a smaller settlement) but it is the publicity of the court case and the charges that count.
Having said all of the above I still think that the RIAA is ultimately fighting a losing battle but from their perspective the deterrent of law suits is keeping more people from freely downloading music and they are probably right.
While one could argue whether or not file sharing should even be illegal, if it remains illegal, let’s at least get some perspective on the whole thing.
How can we allow the RIAA to get away with those contrived numbers? A) have they proved there were actually X number of downloads for each song? B) Have they proven that each download was from a person who consciously chose to download the song INSTEAD of paying? C) Have they proven that exposure to the music actually didn’t BENEFIT the label via word of mouth marketing?
Of course not. It’s a virtual product being shared for no monetary gain by anyone, yet we as a legal system have decided the RIAA can get away with these purely made up damages. It doesn’t say much good about our legal system to let a corporate behemoth come up with their own laws to support purely fictionalized damage amounts.
Someone remind me again what the RIAA had to pay out when they were caught price fixing? Oh yea. $15. ;o)
“but it is the publicity of the court case and the charges that count.”
It boggles the mind that they still believe their lawsuits have any positive effect on their botto line.
Here’s hoping the Kleptones release a remix album of all 24 songs. They could release it as donation-ware to help raise money to pay this girls’ fines. ;o)
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[...] Friday, October 5th, 2007 in Minnesota by Angela From MN Interactive [...]
RIAA Lawsuit Roundup…
This is a short roundup of some of the coverage of the RIAA lawsuit this week in Duluth, Minnesota where a woman was found guilty and fined $220,000 for illegally downloading and sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa network. Jon……