The writer actually seems to sympathize with th
e poor record companies on this one. Did you know that they’re actually supposed to get a few million from each person? just by, what I’d say, is an unsurprising amount of songs for a person to have? Yes. The record companies sometimes seek out the screen names to programs like Kazaa, Napster, or any file sharing program they could see, and obtain user names and figure out who people are.They usually scare the person who has taken part in free file sharing with big sums of money that have accumulated from all the songs they have downloaded and shared. From this particular article, one person, Jammie Thomas, who shared a wide range of music, had about 1700 songs for which the record company says she owes $1.2 million. How much do you owe?
Hah, I always find it funny how record companies are looking out for money, not so much for someone’s well being. Sure, a person should reap the benefits of his or her work, but I don’t know if Thomas really hit $1.2 million worth of damages, $750 to $30,000 for each copyright violation.
She will be the first of 26,000 people being sued by the record companies who are bringing their cases to trial. The companies usually just settle after scaring the person for a few thousand dollars in damages, outside of court. People don’t always take these matters to court because it takes time, and more importantly thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars in court fees.
The amount of people that have been targeted and so threatened is only around 26,000, while the number of file sharers is upwards of 7.8 million people. The attack isn’t really substantial enough to have an impact on everyone enough to stop. So I think, they are just getting these little bonuses every time they do this. If they tried to do a large scale action, they’d get less money in the long run and probably a much harder group to fight.
Her trial marks the event when both sides can argue in front of a jury. That is, how it hurts and how it helps. Her lawyer hopes to make the record company prove that they actually own all 1700 songs first.
Thomas told a lawyer she’d be willing to pay a retainer fee of what the record company would be willing to settle for, which made the lawyer, Toder believe she meant to fight this.
The court date is for Tuesday, and the outcome is expected the same day, but somehow I doubt that. I think these endeavors by the record companies have made some dent, but only in one area: the one where you download a program, and instantly you can start downloading anything you want, easy as pie.
Many have been encouraged to design their own file sharing techniques like torrent servers, and programs that only let you download so much based on how much other users have uploaded from you. On the whole, I’d say most people are not worried. I’m not, are you? While I used to be much more a busy downloader, now I mostly just turn on Pandora and do nothing, it’s great. But I still have my reserves waiting for me should I want them at any moment.
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**Since I have not been added to this blog, and have no idea how to do this...here is my blog for Wednesday**
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/04/business/pirate.php?page=1
This article outlines an event that I am sure most of the internet users around the world remember. On May 31, 2006, Swedish police took the founding members of ThePirateBay.org (TPB) along with the server farm responsible for the site into custody. The raid brought on its heels a massive backlash from the Swedish and worldwide community. There are many objections to the invasive action taken by the Swedish government. The first being that the .torrent storing website was not in violation of current Swedish law pertaining to file-sharing, second: the confiscation of unrelated servers (found in the same room) that had no connection with TPB’s business, and last but not least, the allegation that Swedish intervention came at the behest of the American entertainment industry. Although the Swedish government denies any involvement by the American government, the rumor took a strong hold among the populous. Robert Brannstrom, editor of idg,se sees the raid as a futile attempt on the part of the Entertainment business, stating that “…the battle against piracy was already lost.” This article seems to support Brannstrom’s statement. The Swedish are seen (and self-identified) as “sharers” and have some of the most lax file-sharing laws in the world. The phenomenon has taken hold, and it is clear that the Swedes are not prepared to be thrust back into the dark ages of litigation and copy write laws. Within a few days of the raid, TPB was back up and running on servers supposedly located in the Netherlands. Official sites for the Swedish police as well as the Swedish government were hacked and crashed in a retaliatory gesture on the part of unknown, disgruntled internet users. The two founders of The Pirate Bay, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm were released from custody and not only set up their website once again, but were delighted with the “free” press surrounding their enterprise, “Today, millions of additional people have heard about The Pirate Bay,” Neij said during an interview. "We will have huge numbers of new users.”
I chose this article to illustrate how file sharing is dealt with outside of the United States. Although I was not a .torrent user at the time of the Pirate Bay raid, I was aware of the situation and it’s immediate retaliation against official government websites. The fact is, Swedish officials had neither a legitimate reason for the raid, nor the means to charge Neij and Svartholm and shut down the site. With the general attempt around the world to shut down any file sharing, Sweden had become a comparative safe-haven and a model of a population taking a collective stance for the evolution of internet capabilities as well as legislation dealing with the protection of property.
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