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Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life * 1
    #16344205 -

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/feds-file-sharing-appeal/

So this woman downloads 24 songs from Kazaa...gets sued by the RIAA and hit with a $222,000 fine.  A mistrial is declared (for improper jury instructions), and the second time the fine comes out to be $1.92 MILLION dollars.  The judge says that's ridiculous, reduces the fine to $54,000 (which I think is pretty ridiculous anyway...how'd you like to lose a year+ of salary for stealing $24 worth of stuff?) and orders a retrial unless the RIAA agrees to the amount.  So of course there's a retrial and this time the award is $1.5 million, and the judge reduces it again to $54,000.  Said the judge:

Quote:
The jury’s award was “so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportionate to the offense and obviously unreasonable,” he wrote.


Right?  This woman wasn't distributing songs, she was downloading them for personal use.  Well, the Obama Administration thinks differently.  The jury awarded its gigantic fine on the basis of the Millenium Copyright Act, and here's what they have to say about that:

Quote:
The Copyright Act’s statutory damage provision is reasonably related to furthering the public interest in protecting original works of artistic, literary, and musical expression and its constitutionality must therefore be sustained under the applicable, highly deferential standards of judicial review,” the government wrote (.pdf) the Missouri-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.


Here's the 8th Amendment:

Quote:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.


I don't see a "Excessive fines and cruel punishments are totally cool if it's reasonably related to protecting public interests though" clause in there.  You don't get to lock a person away their entire life for stealing milk from the corner store just because that would make an example of the thief, I don't see how that sort of vindictive reasoning is valid to apply here either.  And make no mistake about it, this woman's entire life has been taken away from her.  $1.5 million dollars is about how much an ordinary person can be expected to make in their lifetime - she'll have to declare bankruptcy (if that's even possible - the RIAA will probably figure some way of making sure the judgment isn't lifted) and everything of value she owns will have a lien taken against it.

Fuck the world.  Society is a giant machine that doesn't care if it crushes a few of us in its cogs.


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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: sonamdrukpa]
    #16344214 -

ahahahaha, well. you know, they are stupid fucking tards, who don't know their head form their ass; to paraphrase...

fuck em. cheese knobs. they ruin life's cause it doesn't effect their own. lots of people would do the same thing, in any other circumstance too.

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: sonamdrukpa]
    #16344218 -

That's because we are fucking sheep to the goverment and rich.


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http://bunkpolice.com/basic-test-kit/
Vienna Declaration
Salvia Divinorum The Docudrahma

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: sonamdrukpa]
    #16344251 -

thats crazy..

to think how many people are upping and dling thousands of gigs a month with software that costs over a grand. they nab a chick that downloaded approx 72 minutes of music.


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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: rackem]
    #16344321 -

Pretty much all my media consumption since 2002 has been downloaded or streamed for free.
I went through a phase of collecting vinyl records for awhile, and a few DVDs I wanted to own, but that's pretty much it.
That would be fucked up to end up in court over all that.
The list of would be sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long
Like thousands of gigs, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of "stolen property".
Of course it's not like I would have consumed anywhere near that much material had it not been free. :shrug:


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:thumbup: :thumbdown:

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Great Scott]
    #16344327 -

damn you need therapy bro


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http://bunkpolice.com/basic-test-kit/
Vienna Declaration
Salvia Divinorum The Docudrahma

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Great Scott]
    #16344331 -

possession of weed fine = ~300 dollars


Possession of downloaded music fine = 1.5 million


you guys are fuckin' ballsy admitting to that shit on a public forum :paranoid:

I hope you're using a proxy


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:wizard::deemsters:

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Great Scott] * 1
    #16344344 -

IMHO the RIAA needs to just shut the fuck up and come to terms with the new technological landscape.
Adapt to it. Don't try to force everyone else to write on stone tablets just because that's how you used to make your money.


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:thumbup: :thumbdown:

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Great Scott] * 1
    #16344347 -

PeyoteZen said:
IMHO the RIAA needs to just shut the fuck up and come to terms with the new technological landscape.
Adapt to it. Don't try to force everyone else to write on stone tablets just because that's how you used to make your money.


it's one thing to say her fine is exorbitant... but downloading copyrighted material is definitely stealing.


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:wizard::deemsters:

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: NWlight]
    #16344463 -

I know it is. But what I'm saying is that the sheer volume of material that gets illegally downloaded is staggering and daunting to the point where they could never have the ability or the means to prosecute everyone.
And to target just a few individuals for doing what millions of other people are doing on an equal scale is just fucked up and lame.
It reeks of desperation. They got nothin'. Simple minded scare tactic at best and no less savage than mounting the head of your enemy on a pike.
To send a message?
What a petty way to do it.
The Internet has revolutionized the technological landscape.
It's not the 20th century anymore. Consumers don't have to depend on analogue hard copies supplied by the select few who's ballin' $$ enough to own the expensive recording/pressing facilities.
It's all obsolete now. There's no monopoly on supply anymore. Music can and does take the form of easily distributed digital information now.
It's really too bad for them.
If I spent a million dollars on a machine that could make unicorns, but then a few years later everybody learned how to just shit unicorns whenever they wanted, what use would I be to anyone?
Monopoly is crushed and the supplies become de-centralized.
I'm sorry RIAA, but it's time to start working on something else, like discs that project holograms, because right now you don't have anything unique or hard to obtain through other means.


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:thumbup: :thumbdown:

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: sonamdrukpa]
    #16345225 -

sonamdrukpa said:
Here's the 8th Amendment:

Quote:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.




it's not a fine. fines are something levied in criminal cases, the RIAA lawsuit
is a civil case and I'm still unaware how exactly a massive judgment of this
nature is destroying her life and given the nature of file sharing programs
like kazaa and even bit torrent, she wasnt just downloading, she was also
distributing


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California Has Legalized Child Prostitution

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Prisoner#1]
    #16345277 -

Prisoner#1 said:
sonamdrukpa said:
Here's the 8th Amendment:

Quote:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.




it's not a fine. fines are something levied in criminal cases, the RIAA lawsuit
is a civil case and I'm still unaware how exactly a massive judgment of this
nature is destroying her life and given the nature of file sharing programs
like kazaa and even bit torrent, she wasnt just downloading, she was also
distributing


It doesn't really matter if she was distributing (and it's entirely possible to download without distributing anyway) since she wasn't convicted of it.  How is a judgment of that size not going to destroy her life?  You know, I'm not a constitutional lawyer so I could definitely be wrong about the constitutionality of this, but if congress is allowed to get past the eighth amendment by simply handing over the power to prosecute the shit out of someone to private individuals, companies, and other vigilantes through civil cases, then that's fucked.


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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Prisoner#1]
    #16345278 -

Prisoner#1 said:
it's not a fine. fines are something levied in criminal cases, the RIAA lawsuit
is a civil case and I'm still unaware how exactly a massive judgment of this
nature is destroying her life and given the nature of file sharing programs
like kazaa and even bit torrent, she wasnt just downloading, she was also
distributing


QFT, AND $50k is a small price to pay...She committed at least 24 counts of a federal crime...she could have been sentenced consecutively for each count and spent the rest of her life in jail...$50k sounds like a bargain to me.
sonamdrukpa said:
if congress is allowed to get past the eighth amendment by simply handing over the power to prosecute the shit out of someone to private individuals, companies, and other vigilantes through civil cases, then that's fucked.


This isn't a criminal prosecution...She stole something...she may have distributed it...in any case, several juries found that she owed the RIAA money because of it.  Why is that so upsetting to you?

If someone came up and hit you in the face, you can sue them...even if you have no hospital bills, you can sue them for pain, suffering, and punitive damages...The whole point of that is to discourage OTHERS from doing the same thing.


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Censoring opposing views since 2014.



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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: sonamdrukpa] * 1
    #16345290 -

hmmm i dont understand how was she stealing ... she wasent gonna buy the songs either way so who lost money?

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Kinko]
    #16345293 -

Kinko said:
hmmm i dont understand how was she stealing ... she wasent gonna buy the songs either way so who lost money?


Money lost/gained isn't a factor in determining whether or not something was stolen.

Of course, this lawsuit wasn't for theft...It was for statutory damages for violating copyright laws...so it doesn't really matter what definition we use of stealing.


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Censoring opposing views since 2014.



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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: sonamdrukpa]
    #16345296 -

According to five minutes of google research, Ferris v. Kelco is the only case in which the constitutionality of excessive fines in civil cases was argued before the supreme court, and the fuckers punted - they simply decided the damages in that case were not excessive and left the issue for other courts to decide.


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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: sonamdrukpa]
    #16345308 -

The 8th amendment really isn't applicable, but there have been quite a few cases where the SCOTUS has looked at punitive damages awards under the due process clause..

Here, however, it's strictly statutory damages...I'm not aware of any SCOTUS decisions where they limited the amount of statutory damages allowed under the constitution.  I haven't researched it, however.


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Censoring opposing views since 2014.



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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Enlil]
    #16345309 -

Enlil said:
Prisoner#1 said:
it's not a fine. fines are something levied in criminal cases, the RIAA lawsuit
is a civil case and I'm still unaware how exactly a massive judgment of this
nature is destroying her life and given the nature of file sharing programs
like kazaa and even bit torrent, she wasnt just downloading, she was also
distributing


QFT, AND $50k is a small price to pay...She committed at least 24 counts of a federal crime...she could have been sentenced consecutively for each count and spent the rest of her life in jail...$50k sounds like a bargain to me.


50k, fine.  I don't like it, but fine.  But what's riled me up is the Obama Administration supporting the RIAA's appeal to have the earlier 1.5 million fine re-installed.

Quote:
sonamdrukpa said:
if congress is allowed to get past the eighth amendment by simply handing over the power to prosecute the shit out of someone to private individuals, companies, and other vigilantes through civil cases, then that's fucked.


This isn't a criminal prosecution...She stole something...she may have distributed it...in any case, several juries found that she owed the RIAA money because of it.  Why is that so upsetting to you?

If someone came up and hit you in the face, you can sue them...even if you have no hospital bills, you can sue them for pain, suffering, and punitive damages...The whole point of that is to discourage OTHERS from doing the same thing.


I didn't say discouragement of crime wasn't a relevant use for civil fines, only that we should apply the same standards of reasonable punishment that we do in criminal cases to civil suits.  If Bill Gates punches me and I get a bloody nose, I shouldn't be able to take a billion dollars from him.


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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: Enlil]
    #16345315 -

Enlil said:
Kinko said:
hmmm i dont understand how was she stealing ... she wasent gonna buy the songs either way so who lost money?


Money lost/gained isn't a factor in determining whether or not something was stolen.


so basicly in this country you can be put in jail for life for stealing something which you can get for free ( pandora ) further
Enlil said:
The 8th amendment really isn't applicable, but there have been quite a few cases where the SCOTUS has looked at punitive damages awards under the due process clause..

Here, however, it's strictly statutory damages...I'm not aware of any SCOTUS decisions where they limited the amount of statutory damages allowed under the constitution.  I haven't researched it, however.


small fish frying?? seriously ?? 24 songs it does not make any sense whatsoever.

thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people download much more than this particular person..

its like sentencing someone to life in prison for a joint while most of the country smokes weed and sells it openly.

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Re: Obama Administration agrees with RIAA destroying a woman's life [Re: sonamdrukpa]
    #16345323 -

sonamdrukpa said:
If Bill Gates punches me and I get a bloody nose, I shouldn't be able to take a billion dollars from him.


Why not?  Do you think he would miss $50,000?  If the most you could get from bill for hitting you in the nose is $50k, what's stopping him from doing it again?  He has just been given a price tag for a punch in the nose...so now he can choose to do it anytime he wants as long as it's worth the insignificant monetary cost to him...

A billion, he'll notice...that's enough to discourage him from future behavior...

Lets look at it differently...GM makes a car knowing that it will blow up one time in 10,000...you get injured by it...okay, so your actual damages were $100,000...to GM, that comes out to $10 a car...is it worth it to fix it or pay you?  The answer is easy...BUT, if GM is made to pay you your $100k PLUS another 200 million as punitive, then it becomes cheaper to fix the car...which is what public policy is trying to encourage.


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