Comments on: RIAA: the Walrus and the Carpenter

By: Quartz

Quartz — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:42:44 +0000

Is it just me that is seeing the propaganda in the chronicle article?

The law quite clearly states copyright infringement can only occur on a p2p network if you UPLOAD there is no downloading offence, lets not let these corporate morons mislead people, clean up this point wherever you see it or these extortioists win, Downloading is legal, uploading violates the owners right of copy, its all rather simple.

By: Ethereal

Ethereal — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:43:37 +0000

Taken from: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/20/1513224

A game costs roughly $60.00. For each act of infringement, Activision wants, at the very least, 50000% of the initial price, or at the most, 250000% of the initial price. How is it even legal to demand that much? I truly don’t understand our legal system. If he had stolen the game 5 times, he’d probably be fined $500 – $1000, but for distributing 5 copies, he now has to pay (if activision gets their way) $150k?

The penalties for copyright violations were actually written for cases like this. The assumption is that someone selling a pirate game/movie/book/CD has sold many of them, and they’re doing it to make a personal profit. The only way to stop the crime is to take the profit out of it – if he sold them for $20 each, and the fine was only 500 bucks, he’d only have to sell about 25 to make up for each time he was caught. He probably sold a hell of a lot more than that, if he’s like many of the pirated goods dealers I’ve seen.

I had to post this simply because it exposes the fundamental flaw in the RIAA’s payment scheme, which is that the average Judge/Lawyer cannot see (or simply chooses not to see) the difference between downloading something for ones personal use and reselling it for profit. Now I for one do not condone ANY form of piracy, but it seems that people are using a loophole in logic to justify sueing people for insanley large ammounts of money for crimes which hardly justify the amount.

By: chronoss

chronoss — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:49:12 +0000

all your students are belong to us

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:34:23 +0000

In a way, these lawsuits do teach a valuable lesson. It would be “Watch your back!” because the creeps that do this stuff are not all working for the RIAA. Graduating students will find them in the workplace, renting them apartments, selling them cars and they will be their new neighbors, maybe even their potential spouses. Kids: open your eyes. This is what the world is; nasty people looking for legal ways to rip you off. As the for music thing….well 3 grand won’t seem like much in a few years, as long as you DO graduate. Just keep in mind that the next ripoff artist may be looking for a lot more than that!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:22:20 +0000

Shame on her to give $4000 to these parasites!

We have to cost them $400,000 in retalation now!

Fortunatly soemone is working on it right now as I write this.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:20:25 +0000

We will sitll need to teach a lesson to the parasites at the RIAA beside just puting them out of business, task that will be completed soon.

By: Comeoncomcast

Comeoncomcast — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:24:11 +0000

Jon, did it or them (your news sources) mention how or what evidence the RIAA to serve these notices?

Data Mining is illegal and an IP are private information and the way they harvested that information in my opinion probably isnt legal

Id Advise those Students Class Action Suits Privacy, Fraud. Emotional Distress you name it and recommend the judge strip the RIAA title and bar business in the US for life