Blog Marco

I can't get enough of these court cases dealing with the internet lately. Here's another one in regards to "Virtual Stealing" or better known as "sharing" online. This is the the first US trial to challenge the illegal downloading of music on the internet where a single mother from Minnesota was ordered to pay US$220,000 (AUD$247,549) for sharing 24 songs online. Thats US$9,166.67 per song! It's crazy how this giant corporate company is chasing after the small fry: the harmless individuals. Are they desperate? If they really want to eliminate the problem of sharing songs (i.e. their intellectual property) shouldn't they be chasing down the people behind the file sharing networks and shutting them down? Jammie Thomas, 30, was the first among more than 26,000 people sued by the Recording Industry of America and six major music labels after refusing a settlement. A jury took just five hours to decide that evidence provided by the music labels showed otherwise and found Thomas guilty of copyright infringement, court records showed. The fine could have reached $US150,000 ($168,700) a song if the jury had found "willful" copyright infringement. Had the record companies sued her for all 1702 songs found in the online folder the fine could have run in the millions. Virtual stealing is a no no.

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