Woman Ordered to Pay $222k for Downloading 24 Songs!?!?!?!?!?

I don't know if you guys are at all familiar with the comedian Louis CK, but he has recently decided to put out all of his media independently on his personal website. I think off of his first special he charged like $5 for a set over an hour in length and made close to $6 million off of it. If most bands did that I'm sure the music industry losses would be greatly reduced. I do agree that part of the problem is that there isn't a face to associate the theft with. Just a CEO somewhere.

And let's not act like these musicians are starving to death. Record sales are just a single facet of a musician's income. Concerts, merchandise, television appearances and radio royalties still make these people more money than we will see in our lifetimes.

racerboy71 said:

i love how everyone on here freaks out when a poster comes along and says they stole someones plants, omg, how dare they?? people call them pieces of shit, wish they die, etc, etc...
but it's fine and dandy for people to steal from a record company or a music company and people don't have the same attitude towards it, i don't get it... maybe it's because it's not them getting directly ripped off like what happens with a band..

yes, it's big industry, but why should they get ripped off and it be fine but when a plant thief pops up on this site they get their asses handed to them?? theft is theft imo, whether you steal from the person next door, or some multi-billion dollar nameless, faceless company..

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it reminds me of the scene in office space where he's explaining the "fractions of a penny" scam to his girlfriend, and she told him it was stealing. he countered by saying it wasn't stealing by reminding her it was mere fractions of a penny. she told him it was still stealing, so justified it by busting into a rant about innetech being a soulless corporation who would never miss the money. that's pretty much the attitude of a lot of people. "technically it's stealing but they're rich so fuck them."

still, the fine the chick got was way over the top. i'm all for enforcing the law, but deliberately making an example of someone by exaggerating their actual actions/intent is part of why "the system" is fucked up. foot-on-the-ground trafficking involves hands-on crime (storage, transport, weapons, etc.) that makes it potentially physically dangerous to the public, electronic piracy does not. making such an example of this woman when they have nowhere NEAR the capacity to bring these charges on every individual is just tacky. it was one thing to put up the fbi warning at the beginning of vhs tapes, but who the hell do they think they're kidding trying to pin this shit on a single individual in an age where a single mouse click can distribute content to millions within seconds?

Do you remember when Sony had to pay a very tiny settlement for overcharging people on cds? I think they overcharged in the Billions (back when that was alot of money) and their settlement was in the low doubel digit millions. People had to fill out paperwork and show receipts, etc to get their $.18 check. I'm in my 40's and I can tell you that I love music and have spent tens of thousands on music, vinyl, cassettes, cd's, itunes. Back in the day, you couldn't buy just the song you liked. It had to be the whole cd, cassette, etc. Many of the obscure bands I paid for probably ended up owing their labels. I was in "the industry" for a while, and know how sick and abusive those big labels are to artists.

Out of the $17 you pay for a cd (cost to make and distribute $.47) the artist gets about a nickel. So, it isn't about ripping the artist. I think most people feel like they are taking back a tiny portion of what has been taken from them. I don't think you can compare it to breaking into someone's property and stealing their plant(s).

I would gladly pay the artist directly for their music. Look at Ticketmaster. They charge up to $15 per ticket to sell it to you. Really? $15 for simply selling me a ticket? At a sold out 20,000 person arena, do the math. That is why bands like Pearl Jam refuse to do shows where they sell tickets.

"The day I tried to live, I stole a thousand begger's change and gave it to the rich..."

[video=youtube;ZB0plNqSl3k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB0plNqSl3k[/video]

Artist rely on touring now to make their money,bcuz as you know record sales aren't looking so great bcuz of downloads,wich I will continue to do.222k for 24 songs? well kiss my ass,since these songs are 99cent on itunes,I think they could have settled for 24$ payed with a 20 and a 5,keep the change you son of a bitch.