A New York 12 year old sued for file swapping

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

WASHINGTON - A 12-year-old girl in New York who was among the first to be sued by the record industry for sharing music over the Internet is off the hook after her mother agreed Tuesday to pay $2,000 to settle the lawsuit, apologizing and admitting that her daughter's actions violated U.S. copyright laws.

 

 

The hurried settlement involving Brianna LaHara, an honors student, was the first announced one day after the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) filed 261 such lawsuits across the country. Lawyers for the RIAA said Brianna's mother, Sylvia Torres, contacted them early Tuesday to negotiate.

 

 

"We understand now that file-sharing the music was illegal," Torres said in a statement distributed by the recording industry. "You can be sure Brianna won't be doing it anymore."

 

 

Brianna added: "I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love."

 

Yeah, well when I was 12, if something like this would have happened to me, my parents would have told me to rot in hell before they would pay up $2k. Lucky kid.

[Guest Smell the ratings!!!]

Brianna added: "I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love."

Brianna closed by saying "Why did the lawyer make me read this card mommy?"

 

I never thought I'd say this, but I dropped out of college at the best possible time.

[NYU 0]

Brianna added: "I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love."

Can't you imagine an RIAA representative on the sideline going:

 

"That's right, Brianna. Read the cue card. We wouldn't want this Britney Spears CD to go smashie-smashie. Otherwise, you'll HAVE to buy a new one. Mwahahaha ! Mwahahahah ! *holds pinky to mouth*"

 

-Jeez, the fact that the music industry just got a $2000 settlement that will NOT make a tiny dent in their profits is sickening.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

lol @ above

 

Theres also a 71 year old guy in Texas by the name Dagwood Pickle who got sued, although predictably he blamed his grandchildren for messin with his computer.

[NoCalMike 0]

I am not sure why downloading mp3s is any different then making duplicate tapes for your friends was basically the same fucking thing. When tapes first came out, the RIAA told the same story about how cassette tapes would spell the end of the industry, however the end of the industry has more to do with shitty music than anything else.

 

I also want them to justify and a judge actually going through with suing $150,000 PER DOWNLOADED FILE, what the fuck? If anything you should just sue for what it would cost for the person to buy the single cd, which on the average is $4-6 dollars.

[Downhome 0]

*STILL awaiting the mass-boycott of the music industry in full*

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

The mother said she signed up for KaZaA, paying a $29.95 fee. "If you're paying for it, you're not stealing it, so what is this all about?" she asked.

 

No, you dumb bitch, unless your daughter was busted for pirating Kazaa to her friends, she doesn't get away from "stealing" charges because she paid for the program used to "steal" those songs.

 

Who thinks that there may be more than meets the eye here? The kid couldn't have been one of the 260 most notorious people if she was just downloading Full House crap. Unless she did alot of that at the wrong time. Are we sure she didn't download some Slayer? Come on people!

 

Oh yeah.. fuck the RIAA

[Jobber of the Week 0]

If you cancel service then you have somehow climbed the pole

Climbed a pole? I don't remember any damn pole climbing when.........

 

 

 

 

 

Nevermind.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

For those that care, the lawsuit has been taken care of:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid...ic_11&printer=1

 

WASHINGTON - A 12-year-old girl in New York who was among the first to be sued by the record industry for sharing music over the Internet is off the hook after her mother agreed Tuesday to pay $2,000 to settle the lawsuit, apologizing and admitting that her daughter's actions violated U.S. copyright laws.

 

The hurried settlement involving Brianna LaHara, an honors student, was the first announced one day after the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) filed 261 such lawsuits across the country. Lawyers for the RIAA said Brianna's mother, Sylvia Torres, contacted them early Tuesday to negotiate.

 

"We understand now that file-sharing the music was illegal," Torres said in a statement distributed by the recording industry. "You can be sure Brianna won't be doing it anymore."

 

Brianna added: "I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love."

 

The case against Brianna was a potential minefield for the music industry from a public relations standpoint. The family lives in a city housing project on New York's Upper West Side, and they said they mistakenly believed they were entitled to download music over the Internet because they had paid $29.99 for software that gives them access to online file-sharing services.

 

Even in the hours before the settlement was announced, Brianna was emerging as an example of what critics said was overzealous enforcement by the powerful music industry.

 

The top lawyer for Verizon Communications Inc. charged earlier Tuesday during a Senate hearing that music lawyers had resorted to a "campaign against 12-year-old girls" rather than trying to help consumers turn to legal sources for songs online. Verizon's Internet subsidiary is engaged in a protracted legal fight against the RIAA over copyright subpoenas sent Verizon customers.

 

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also alluded to Brianna's case.

 

"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Durbin asked RIAA President Cary Sherman during a Senate Judiciary hearing.

 

Durbin said he appreciated the piracy threat to the recording industry, but added, "I think you have a tough public relations campaign to go after the offenders without appearing heavy-handed in the process."

 

Sherman responded that most people don't shoplift because they fear they'll be arrested.

 

"We're trying to let people know they may get caught, therefore they should not engage in this behavior," Sherman said. "Yes, there are going to be some kids caught in this, but you'd be surprised at how many adults are engaged in this activity."

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Fuck the RIAA.

[notJames 0]

Fuck the RIAA.

Amen.

[Guest TheGame2705]

They went after the 12 year old but aren't they getting that SHE PAID $30 TO DOWNLOAD THE SONGS OFF KAZAA? Hello, why the fuck aren't they going after Kazaa now who's making money off people downloading illegally?

[Guest Choken One]

Just buy up Kaaza and all the other ones and close them.

[NoCalMike 0]

ye I am not sure why the RIAA is not going after Kazaa. I mean if you are using a service that is legal then what the fuck. If the service is legal, don't you think it would be shut down or changed the way Napster was? Why is the RIAA not fighting to shut down Kazaa like they were napster?

 

Oh well, fuck those greedy assholes. I am sure suing people will help record sales PLENTY....

[Ripper 0]

I'm convinced that the RIAA owns Kazaa. They just needed away to get all of the criminal masterminds in one place before they destoryed america with their downloading.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Why is the RIAA not fighting to shut down Kazaa like they were napster?

They tried, but it's not that easy. An article on the whole attempt is at:

 

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/kazaa.html

 

That's because on a January morning three months after the suit was filed, Amsterdam-based Kazaa.com went dark and Zennström vanished. Days later, the company was reborn with a structure as decentralized as Kazaa's peer-to-peer service itself. Zennström, a Swedish citizen, transferred control of the software's code to Blastoise, a strangely crafted company with operations off the coast of Britain - on a remote island renowned as a tax haven - and in Estonia, a notorious safe harbor for intellectual property pirates. And that was just the start.

 

Ownership of the Kazaa interface went to Sharman Networks, a business formed days earlier in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, another tax haven. Sharman, which runs its servers in Denmark, obtained a license for Zennström's technology, FastTrack. The Kazaa.com domain, on the other hand, was registered to an Australian firm called LEF Interactive - for the French revolutionary slogan, liberté, égalité, fraternité.

 

Confused? So were the copyright cops. "It's hard to know which one to sue," complains Michael Speck, an investigator with the Australian Record Industry Association. Hollywood lawyers figured the best way to bring Kazaa to justice was to squeeze Sharman. Trouble was, Sharman, which operates out of Sydney, had no employees. All its workers, including CEO Nikki Hemming, are contracted through LEF. The names of Sharman's investors and board members are locked away in Vanuatu, a republic that bills itself as an asylum whose "strict code of secrecy" is "useful in any number of circumstances where the confidentiality of ownership, or control, want to be preserved."

 

Kazaa is all over the fucking globe, including a few microscopic countries that simply don't listen to claims of US copyright violations. It's simply easier to make a few examples out of Average Joes and hope the rest bend eventually.

[Styles 0]

Brianna added: "I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love."

Anyone else imagning the girl reading this off of a paper as men in suits and dark glasses holding large guns stand behind her?

[Guest MikeSC]

ye I am not sure why the RIAA is not going after Kazaa. I mean if you are using a service that is legal then what the fuck. If the service is legal, don't you think it would be shut down or changed the way Napster was? Why is the RIAA not fighting to shut down Kazaa like they were napster?

 

Oh well, fuck those greedy assholes. I am sure suing people will help record sales PLENTY....

No offense, but what are they supposed to do?

 

We have HUGE problems with China because they allow piracy.

 

We have to stop it here.

-=Mike

[Guest MikeSC]

I am not sure why downloading mp3s is any different then making duplicate tapes for your friends was basically the same fucking thing. When tapes first came out, the RIAA told the same story about how cassette tapes would spell the end of the industry, however the end of the industry has more to do with shitty music than anything else.

 

I also want them to justify and a judge actually going through with suing $150,000 PER DOWNLOADED FILE, what the fuck? If anything you should just sue for what it would cost for the person to buy the single cd, which on the average is $4-6 dollars.

It is no different --- both are actually quite illegal. The reason with file swapping is that it's so much more prevalent than tape trading was.

 

You know the risks. If you get caught and punished, don't bitch.

-=Mike

[Guest Retro Rob]

I'm not sure if it was in the article posted here, but that girl downloaded a total of 1,000 songs. The media is making it seem like she just wanted nursey rhymes and TV themes, but I doubt that she had 1,000 of them.

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

I'm not sure if it was in the article posted here, but that girl downloaded a total of 1,000 songs.  The media is making it seem like she just wanted nursey rhymes and TV themes, but I doubt that she had 1,000 of them.

Let me say that I find it difficult to go out and download 1,000 songs. I can't think of a thousand songs that I want.

 

I will say that no matter how evil the RIAA is, the article was totally spun to make the RIAA seem heartless and cruel, when the girl had to have known that she was doing something that, under our laws, is wrong

[NYU 0]

To an extent, the RIAA IS cruel. This girl comes from the projects, which probably means she and her family don't have TOO much money or TOO many luxuries. But here comes the RIAA, and now her mother is being forced to pay them $2000. $2000 that she probably needed for food, clothing, or something equally important. But now that money is going into the pockets of the RIAA, and you can damn sure bet it won't make a BIT of difference in their total earnings.

 

And, as for the girl knowing that she was doing something wrong, she's 12 years old. I doubt she knows the whole copyright law and everything there is to know about piracy. I'm sure she knew that it wasn't right, but not that she would wind up getting sued for it.

 

The RIAA is going at this the wrong way and, when they are trying to get $150,000 per song and forcing poor families to pay them $2000, they should be rightfully portrayed as heartless and cruel. Their punishment right now isn't justifying the crime and I guarantee, the result will be that CD sales will go down even further than they are right now.

[Guest MikeSC]

To an extent, the RIAA IS cruel. This girl comes from the projects, which probably means she and her family don't have TOO much money or TOO many luxuries. But here comes the RIAA, and now her mother is being forced to pay them $2000. $2000 that she probably needed for food, clothing, or something equally important. But now that money is going into the pockets of the RIAA, and you can damn sure bet it won't make a BIT of difference in their total earnings.

 

And, as for the girl knowing that she was doing something wrong, she's 12 years old. I doubt she knows the whole copyright law and everything there is to know about piracy. I'm sure she knew that it wasn't right, but not that she would wind up getting sued for it.

 

The RIAA is going at this the wrong way and, when they are trying to get $150,000 per song and forcing poor families to pay them $2000, they should be rightfully portrayed as heartless and cruel. Their punishment right now isn't justifying the crime and I guarantee, the result will be that CD sales will go down even further than they are right now.

Oh, so because she is poor, she should be allowed to download 1,000 songs? Heck, screw theft and piracy laws if she were poor, huh?

 

Her mom has to pay $2,000 --- I love that, somehow, this is RIAA's fault. I guess it's also the bank's fault when a robber steals from them because the bank has the money and the thief does not.

 

The money is paid for punishment --- and well it should be.

 

The poor girl doesn't know right and wrong at age 12? And letting her get away with this will TEACH her a lesson? Umm, interesting theory. I know at age 12 that stealing was wrong --- I guess my parents didn't suck like hers, though.

 

Sometimes, doing the right thing isn't popular. Doesn't make it wrong.

-=Mike

[Guest JMA]

The RIAA can huff and puff all it wants. It isn't going to stop people from using P2P programs. There will always be some loophole that the internet community can get around. Hopefully, the RIAA will get its comeuppance in the end. Ditto for the RIAA apologists.

[NYU 0]

Theft and piracy are two different things. Keep that in mind. You act like what the hell this girl did. She didn't go out and steal a car. She didn't break into a bank, and rob 10 million dollars. She downloaded songs. That was it. Stop with this "She's a criminal. She shouldn't steal." All she did was download songs - including TV Themes. Tell me where she can buy the theme to Family Matters and Full House. Surely not at her local Sam Goody.

 

And yes, since she's poor, sympathy should be shown for her. I am SURE she doesn't have the money to go out and buy any CD she wants. She doesn't work. She probably gets a $5 allowance, if that. Keep in mind - she is 12 years old ! And not to sound out-of-bounds here but, she does live in the projects. She could be doing a lot worse. She could be buying drugs, holding people up at gunpoint, the works. But no - she's downloading music. My god, what a criminal. WHAT A MENACE TO SOCIETY !!

 

Nobody ever said anything about her knowing right from wrong, but there are definitely different shades of it. I'm sure she knows that she shouldn't kill anybody. She shouldn't steal. She shouldn't cheat. But then, you come to downloading music and all of a sudden, she's a rebel and she'll never be no good. She downloaded music. She didn't shove jewels into a sack. Two highly different degrees of stealing - and I hardly even consider downloading stealing.

 

And, by the way, I also disagree with you on the RIAA doing the right thing. If I want to hear a song, I will not put down $14 to get 12 other mediocre songs. It's a waste of my hard-earned money. If the RIAA would put out their own sharing program, where you have to pay a certain fee per month, everyone would be better off. People would get the song THEY want, without all the other additional crap - and the RIAA would still be getting money, which is what they want. But no, instead we resort to scare tactics and suing people. I can see that, in this day and age of wars in the Middle East, fear of terrorism, and a plummeting economy - the perils of downloading music is really our problem.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

The RIAA can sue all they want, they don't scare me, I'm gonna continue to support the use of P2P and I'd still them to kiss my ass!

 

Cartoon of the day:

 

[JHawk 0]

That cartoon made my fucking day! Thank you!

[Guest MikeSC]

The RIAA can huff and puff all it wants. It isn't going to stop people from using P2P programs. There will always be some loophole that the internet community can get around. Hopefully, the RIAA will get its comeuppance in the end. Ditto for the RIAA apologists.

How 'bout this --- you come up for an original idea.

 

Somebody steals it.

 

See how much you like it.

-=Mike

[NYU 0]

Mike, all you keep doing is adding the same remarks. "You're stealing. Stealing is bad." or "You wouldn't like it if somebody stole it from you." In my view, downloading is NOT stealing. It's piracy - and obviously piracy isn't good - but it's not stealing.

 

If I am a thief, I go up to you and take your CD. Now I have your CD and you do not. If I'm a "pirate", I make a copy of your CD. I now have the CD and so do you. So let's stop pretending that this is stealing. It obviously isn't. It doesn't rank up with Grand Theft Auto, or breaking into a jewelry store.

 

Downloading music is more like sneaking into a movie for free.The theater isn't actually "losing" money in the sense that nothing has been stolen from them, but I think everyone would agree that sneaking into a theater without paying is certainly wrong. However, it's not the kind of offense that you should be SUED for. You shouldn't have to pay $200,000 for every movie that you've ever snuck into, or had a friend let you see for free. Same thing here. You shouldn't have to pay $150,000 for every song you've ever downloaded, or had a friend let you borrow. The whole idea is absurd, and the RIAA is going to pay for it in the long run.

 

Is piracy right ? No. But it's not the only thing hurting the music industry right now. Not nearly as many people download music as one might think, yet CD sales continue to plummet. Lower the prices, perhaps add a few extras on the CDs (booklets on the band, interesting stories, etc), and business should start to improve. But taking $2000 from a 12 year old girl does nothing in the end except hurt their image. The last time I bought a CD was the Eminem Show sometime earlier in this year, and now I would NEVER give the RIAA another dime. Let them fix the problem instead of making it worse, and then we're talking.

[Guest Choken One]

I've been Dling for 3 1/2 years and still only got 743 songs... How did a 12 year old rack up 1000?

 

30% are Wrestling themes.