3 ms·

24 tracks, how about $24 dollars? I'd even give them double, or $48. For the 1700 tracks (that she allegedly downloaded but was not tried for), $3400. The ext

by htsh 17y ago

24 tracks, how about $24 dollars? I'd even give them double, or $48. For the 1700 tracks (that she allegedly downloaded but was not tried for), $3400. The extra dollar for each song goes towards the administrative costs of tracking them down.

seertaak 17y ago
To be fair, I think the original settlement proposed was around USD 10,000 certainly more than your proposal, but a far cry from the USD 1.9MM the court awarded her. In any case, your arithmetic seems to me to measure the wrong thing. The problem is not that she downloaded the songs. The problem is that she made them available for downloading. If all she had done was burned 24 tracks from a friend's collection and listened to that in her car and gotten caught, then your calculation makes sense. But each time someone downloaded the songs she made available, that person no longer need to buy the album from the artist. That's why two dollars per track, IMHO, is far from being a fair figure from damages. It's the viral aspect which makes P2P different, from, say, copying cassettes like we did when we were kids.
- htsh 17y ago
  Again, if we're talking crime, you have to have an intent to commit that crime. If she wanted to listen, she gets punished for it. If she shares unintentionally (which is likely the case as most p2p applications share everything you download), then punish her a little more on top of it but don't treat her like she's some organized bootlegging ring.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - gambling8nt 17y ago
    Not every crime requires intent; criminal action can occur purely through negligence--you don't have to have or prove criminal intent to get a ticket for running a stop sign or in order to get a parking ticket.
    - htsh 17y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      - gambling8nt 17y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability_(criminal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability_(criminal) For most minor and petty crimes (such as my examples in another comment; parking violations, drunk driving, etc.), mens rea is unneeded (in the US, at any rate). The question of what degree of mens rea is relevant for intellectual property theft is both open and relevant; simply saying that, for example, it should should require mens rea because larceny (theft) does ignores the fundamental differences between the two. EDIT: Two clarifying points. First, there is legal language describing the mens rea necessary in intellectual property theft; however, there is not a significant body of case law interpreting exactly what it means. Second, the reason that you can't just copy the mens rea of larceny is that intent to commit larceny is the intent to deprive the rightful owner of the object, which is clearly not a factor in intellectual property theft.
        htsh 17y ago
        Agreed. I posted that hastily. I think your posts shed some light on the situation even further, in that usually when you don't need mens rea we're talking of minor or petty crimes.
rationalbeaver 17y ago
As I recall, the issue wasn't just that she downloaded the 24 songs, but that she made them available for download (shared). For that I would tack on an extra $7-$8 per song to account for the (likely) small number of people who downloaded from her.
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  And a fixed amount of around $100 to cover the principle of the thing in cases with 1-2 songs, plus all the hassle should be just about right.
- htsh 17y ago
  Isn't this the issue everytime someone downloads a song since every p2p & torrent client automatically shares the stuff you download? It seems silly to punish her for a systematic feature of the software she used to download the tracks. I dunno - it seems that if we're going to punish her for sharing as well, do we then not go after those 7-8 people that downloaded from her? Seems like there's a bit of double-dipping that's possible here (which again would lead to an Infinite amount of damages). But i'll give you that. We're now at $8-$10 a track. Which makes her fine somewhere between $200 and $17,000, still orders of magnitude less than the actual outcome.
TomOfTTB 17y ago
I'd add reasonable interest but other than that I think I agree with you. The biggest problem with this discussion in general is that the RIAA has blurred the line between criminal and civil acts. Therefore you have a justice system that is imposing crime level punishment instead of civil restitution. I'm against music piracy and I think those who get caught should be responsible for paying back what they took from the other party. But bankrupting a person serves no societal purpose and actually provides a disincentive because someone who owes more money than they could ever pay will probably end up paying nothing at all. While someone who owes a couple thousand will probably just take the hit and move on.

by htsh 17y ago

seertaak 17y ago

To be fair, I think the original settlement proposed was around USD 10,000 certainly more than your proposal, but a far cry from the USD 1.9MM the court awarded her. In any case, your arithmetic seems to me to measure the wrong thing. The problem is not that she downloaded the songs. The problem is that she made them available for downloading. If all she had done was burned 24 tracks from a friend's collection and listened to that in her car and gotten caught, then your calculation makes sense. But each time someone downloaded the songs she made available, that person no longer need to buy the album from the artist. That's why two dollars per track, IMHO, is far from being a fair figure from damages. It's the viral aspect which makes P2P different, from, say, copying cassettes like we did when we were kids.

htsh 17y ago
Again, if we're talking crime, you have to have an intent to commit that crime. If she wanted to listen, she gets punished for it. If she shares unintentionally (which is likely the case as most p2p applications share everything you download), then punish her a little more on top of it but don't treat her like she's some organized bootlegging ring.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- gambling8nt 17y ago
  Not every crime requires intent; criminal action can occur purely through negligence--you don't have to have or prove criminal intent to get a ticket for running a stop sign or in order to get a parking ticket.
  - htsh 17y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - gambling8nt 17y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability_(criminal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability_(criminal) For most minor and petty crimes (such as my examples in another comment; parking violations, drunk driving, etc.), mens rea is unneeded (in the US, at any rate). The question of what degree of mens rea is relevant for intellectual property theft is both open and relevant; simply saying that, for example, it should should require mens rea because larceny (theft) does ignores the fundamental differences between the two. EDIT: Two clarifying points. First, there is legal language describing the mens rea necessary in intellectual property theft; however, there is not a significant body of case law interpreting exactly what it means. Second, the reason that you can't just copy the mens rea of larceny is that intent to commit larceny is the intent to deprive the rightful owner of the object, which is clearly not a factor in intellectual property theft.
      - htsh 17y ago
        Agreed. I posted that hastily. I think your posts shed some light on the situation even further, in that usually when you don't need mens rea we're talking of minor or petty crimes.

rationalbeaver 17y ago

As I recall, the issue wasn't just that she downloaded the 24 songs, but that she made them available for download (shared). For that I would tack on an extra $7-$8 per song to account for the (likely) small number of people who downloaded from her.

radu_floricica 17y ago
And a fixed amount of around $100 to cover the principle of the thing in cases with 1-2 songs, plus all the hassle should be just about right.
htsh 17y ago
Isn't this the issue everytime someone downloads a song since every p2p & torrent client automatically shares the stuff you download? It seems silly to punish her for a systematic feature of the software she used to download the tracks. I dunno - it seems that if we're going to punish her for sharing as well, do we then not go after those 7-8 people that downloaded from her? Seems like there's a bit of double-dipping that's possible here (which again would lead to an Infinite amount of damages). But i'll give you that. We're now at $8-$10 a track. Which makes her fine somewhere between $200 and $17,000, still orders of magnitude less than the actual outcome.

TomOfTTB 17y ago

I'd add reasonable interest but other than that I think I agree with you. The biggest problem with this discussion in general is that the RIAA has blurred the line between criminal and civil acts. Therefore you have a justice system that is imposing crime level punishment instead of civil restitution. I'm against music piracy and I think those who get caught should be responsible for paying back what they took from the other party. But bankrupting a person serves no societal purpose and actually provides a disincentive because someone who owes more money than they could ever pay will probably end up paying nothing at all. While someone who owes a couple thousand will probably just take the hit and move on.