A New York 12 year old sued for file swapping

[Firestarter 0]

I agree absolutely that there's no legal justification for violating copyright law, and the correct course of action is not "civil disobedience" (which is a horrible misnomer, because the point of real civil disobedience is to demonstrate strength in numbers, willpower, and conviction, not to hide in anonymity. Dr King would not have been a file-swapper) but boycotts. If someone considers cheap new music so essential to his life that he's willing to risk jail time to break (admittedly unfair) laws, but can't be bothered to work within the system to change those very same laws, it demonstrates his shallowness more than his principles.

Edited September 15, 2003 by Cancer Marney

[Guest KJ Brackish]

OMFG, the RIAA is just on a "HHH-like" power trip. They didn't decide to even "attempt" to freak out at people back in the 80's and 90's that used to record a song off of the radio onto tapes (wow those are ol' skool!). Guess what....that's PIRACY.... and guess what...... they didn't care THEN! I'm only defending this because I DL for one fact ONLY!;

 

I downloaded the St. Anger CD to preview it before going out and buying it. I don't wanna spend 14.95 on a CD that sucks my ass! I want to spend it on something worth while. Thus.... RIAA can go to hell for their power trip!

 

DFA

[Guest MikeSC]

OMFG, the RIAA is just on a "HHH-like" power trip. They didn't decide to even "attempt" to freak out at people back in the 80's and 90's that used to record a song off of the radio onto tapes (wow those are ol' skool!). Guess what....that's PIRACY.... and guess what...... they didn't care THEN! I'm only defending this because I DL for one fact ONLY!;

 

I downloaded the St. Anger CD to preview it before going out and buying it. I don't wanna spend 14.95 on a CD that sucks my ass! I want to spend it on something worth while. Thus.... RIAA can go to hell for their power trip!

 

DFA

I'm sure they didn't like taping off the radio, either --- but a) taping off the radio isn't exatly convenient (you don't know, for certain, when the song you're looking for will be played), b) it was not as wide-spread as current file-swapping, c) only a few songs GET radio airplay, and d) they got some money from the stations (which are not permitted to play music without paying a licensing fee).

 

Your justification for downloading the CD is still an attempt to justify crime. Why not wait for somebody else to get the CD? Why not go on-line and find somebody who has the CD and see what they have to say about it?

 

What you did was wrong.

-=Mike

[JHawk 0]

OMFG, the RIAA is just on a "HHH-like" power trip. They didn't decide to even "attempt" to freak out at people back in the 80's and 90's that used to record a song off of the radio onto tapes (wow those are ol' skool!). Guess what....that's PIRACY.... and guess what...... they didn't care THEN! I'm only defending this because I DL for one fact ONLY!;

 

I downloaded the St. Anger CD to preview it before going out and buying it. I don't wanna spend 14.95 on a CD that sucks my ass! I want to spend it on something worth while. Thus.... RIAA can go to hell for their power trip!

 

DFA

I'm sure they didn't like taping off the radio, either --- but a) taping off the radio isn't exatly convenient (you don't know, for certain, when the song you're looking for will be played), b) it was not as wide-spread as current file-swapping, c) only a few songs GET radio airplay, and d) they got some money from the stations (which are not permitted to play music without paying a licensing fee).

 

Your justification for downloading the CD is still an attempt to justify crime. Why not wait for somebody else to get the CD? Why not go on-line and find somebody who has the CD and see what they have to say about it?

 

What you did was wrong.

-=Mike

While I am not necessarily disagreeing with your viewpoint Mike, I still think there's too much of a grey area here.

 

What's the closest thing to a CD on the market? Probably DVDs and/or video games, right? With those products, you can rent them and decide for yourself whether to purchase them or not, because you've got an opportunity to use the entire product.

 

But with music CDs, it's not like you can go to Blockbuster and rent "St. Anger". The RIAA is essentially saying "You'll get to hear a third of this CD over the next year--if you're lucky--so buy it and then hear what you're missing." If we're relying on radio airplay alone, half the bands that make really good stuff would never see a dime from record sales because nobody would realize they even have albums out, and yet we're supposed to use that as a means of saying "I've GOT to buy this CD."

 

Why should I trust some review in a newspaper or online? Hell, some people don't agree with my reviews of SmackDown, and I'm sure some people wonder how some entertainment reporter can like a CD that 85% of the public thinks sucks ass. Maybe my friends don't listen to Metallica and prefer Phil Collins or Kenny G, so I can't listen to the CD to make the judgment. Something like that could hurt sales as much as people downloading them for free off of KaZaA or Napster.

 

The RIAA could use filesharing technology to their advantage and make their money, but instead they're pissing everybody off because they think they'll lose money otherwise. They won't. I work at Circuit City, and we sell more CDs of shitty artists than we do of anything else in the store. And why is that? Because they downloaded all or part of it and said "This is pretty cool, I'm gonna go get it."

[Guest MikeSC]

I'm sure they didn't like taping off the radio, either --- but a) taping off the radio isn't exatly convenient (you don't know, for certain, when the song you're looking for will be played), b) it was not as wide-spread as current file-swapping, c) only a few songs GET radio airplay, and d) they got some money from the stations (which are not permitted to play music without paying a licensing fee).

 

Your justification for downloading the CD is still an attempt to justify crime. Why not wait for somebody else to get the CD? Why not go on-line and find somebody who has the CD and see what they have to say about it?

 

What you did was wrong.

-=Mike

While I am not necessarily disagreeing with your viewpoint Mike, I still think there's too much of a grey area here.

 

What's the closest thing to a CD on the market? Probably DVDs and/or video games, right? With those products, you can rent them and decide for yourself whether to purchase them or not, because you've got an opportunity to use the entire product.

 

But with music CDs, it's not like you can go to Blockbuster and rent "St. Anger". The RIAA is essentially saying "You'll get to hear a third of this CD over the next year--if you're lucky--so buy it and then hear what you're missing." If we're relying on radio airplay alone, half the bands that make really good stuff would never see a dime from record sales because nobody would realize they even have albums out, and yet we're supposed to use that as a means of saying "I've GOT to buy this CD."

 

Why should I trust some review in a newspaper or online? Hell, some people don't agree with my reviews of SmackDown, and I'm sure some people wonder how some entertainment reporter can like a CD that 85% of the public thinks sucks ass. Maybe my friends don't listen to Metallica and prefer Phil Collins or Kenny G, so I can't listen to the CD to make the judgment. Something like that could hurt sales as much as people downloading them for free off of KaZaA or Napster.

 

The RIAA could use filesharing technology to their advantage and make their money, but instead they're pissing everybody off because they think they'll lose money otherwise. They won't. I work at Circuit City, and we sell more CDs of shitty artists than we do of anything else in the store. And why is that? Because they downloaded all or part of it and said "This is pretty cool, I'm gonna go get it."

And let's say enough customers bug Blockbuster about renting CD's.

 

Do you think that if Blockbuster demanded that RIAA give them the right to rent (and, also, sell) CD's, they'd say no?

 

There is WAY too much money to be made for them to say no to that.

 

The RIAA has a horrid business model.

 

That won't be changed via theft.

-=Mike