RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) gets $220,000 from Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minnesota who was sued for illegally downloading music. RIAA formerly originally offered the woman to have her illegal downloading settled with a standard “low cost” fine of only a few hundred or thousand dollar, but she refused and went to court instead. She lost! RIAA wins!
Now, I’m in no way advocating illegal downloading – it’s bad and I encourage everyone to buy legal music, however there is something not quite right about this case. The woman was found guilty of illegal downloading based on the IP address that was used to download. Not even her hard drive was presented as the evidence. In the year 2007, when hacking to unprotected wireless networks happens on day to day basis, in the age when Trojans hijack people’s computers, in an age like that a woman is found guilty illegal downloading of music based on her IP address? No other evidence that the woman was in fact doing it… nothing but her IP address!
Anyway, it’s about time illegal downloaders start getting busted. Maybe it will help send clear message to those who are still doing it…
Another interesting finding is, that she wasn’t sued because she was downloading music, it was because Jammie Thomas made music available for others to download. So it looks like it’s not even illegal downloading that’s an issue here, it’s offering the music for others to download without paying royalties to the artist.
That however makes some sense to the point:
If there were no people who share copyrighted music, there would be no people downloading it illegally – that makes sense. Furthermore – from the prosecutor’s point of view – it’s easier to bust the ass of someone who shared the music 2500 times, than go after the 2500 people who illegally downloaded it from them. It also sends clear message to the others who offer files for illegal downloads and might contribute to making them stop.
What RIAA needs to do right now is to invest extra money and time to giving this case more exposure. That would improve their settlement conversion rate significantly and would become great source of income for RIAA. Even by sending out letters to small offenders and collecting as little as $1000 from them would boost their bank to fight serious sharers and downloaders, or organized groups.
Back to the court ordered fine – $220 000. Damn… That’s a pretty high fine. Granted, Jammie Thomas should have taken on the offer she got from the RIAA to settle it without court, but still… $220 000 is a lot. I’m glad it set strong precedence, but how did they get to such high figure? Well, let’s see:
It seems to be based on the premise form the recording industry which assumes that everyone who downloads a file would have bought the CD but they didn’t because they were able to get the music illegally. So in other words they assume that every illegal download translates as a lost sale. That is what pumps the price of your fine up this high and if you ask me… it’s a bit of a bald statement right there and not a very good premise to build your court conclusion upon.
On the other hand – court decisions are made as punishments to those who broke the law as well as deterrents to those considering breaking the law. If the punishments were reasonable, people would weigh the punishment against the crime and many might realize that they can “afford” to do the crime. If the judgment is lofty, the deterrent is greater.
Russia says: “We were first” – and rightly so. Today marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik satellite.
Big Congratulations to the first time parents! Anthony Kiedis, the singer of Red Hot Chili Peppers and his girlfriend Heather Christie became parents after Heather Christie gave birth to a son at Los Angeles Cedars Sinai Hospital on Tuesday. Congratulations to both of you 
Dear old soon to be leaving the white house president of the US George W Bush vetoed a bill passed by congress to expand the health care system and provide more health insurance for children of the USA. To help the children and provide them with better health care, the bill would have cost $30 billion, but George Bush vetoed it, after the bill was passed by the congress.“30 billion to take care of USA children? No, sorry… ain’t gonna happen!” George Bush says…
…and then he asks for $195 billion for his war!
Verizon has just released few pretty cool cell phones to the wide audiences out there and LG Voyager seems to be the most kicks ass of all. The Voyager comes equipped with full QWERTY keyboard; it runs on faster Verizon network with much superior wireless web connection speed to that of iPhones so this latest release from LG is expected to shake the ground under Apple’s iPhones. Voyager also known as LG VX10000 will be cheaper than iPhone and Verizon do not seem to hide the excitement and came with bold statements such as that that LG Voyager phone will kill Apple’s iPhone. Lack of a traditional keyboard on iPhones is definitely something that plays in favor of a Voyager plus the latter has a second screen.
Courtney Love has settled a lawsuit brought against her by the attorneys who represented her in legal battles with the surviving members of Nirvana. Katherine Hendricks and O. Yale Lewis claimed that Courtney Love owed them more than $340,000, plus interest, for their work on a 2002 suit that Courtney Love filed against Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl. Courtney Love, controller of the share of Nirvana’s business that had belonged to her late husband, Kurt Cobain, allegedly did not fully pay her lawyers, even though she eventually earned at least $9 million as a result of that suit. Courtney Love settled with Hendricks and Lewis for an undisclosed sum, and the settlement went into effect on September 17. According to court records, Courtney Love paid the Seattle attorneys more than $1 million for their work on the Nirvana suit, but they claim she still owed them $341,000, plus as much as $200,000 in interest.
The Monopoly game is very popular McDonald’s promotion that offers the fast foos chain customers to win millions of dollars in cash and prizes. The 2007 installation of McDonald’s Monopoly game starts today in participating restaurants. This is the fifth year for the Monopoly game and previous four years proved this was a very successful promotion on behalf of McDonald’s. The sales in participating restaurants increase by an average of 8.2% during the Monopoly.
Taylor Bradford was a student and a defensive lineman at the University of Memphis. Last night (Sunday) Taylor Bradford was shot to death in his own car by a bullet to the chest. There hasn’t been any arrests yet but the University of Memphis has been on lock down and all classes have been cancelled.
Taylor Bradford went out to get something form his car, the reports say, but has never returned so his friends went looking for him only to find him dead with the bullet wounds. It appears as if Taylor Bradford tried to drive himself to the hospital after being shot, but crashed into a nearby tree before he was found and taken to a nearby Regional Medical Center in Memphis where he eventually died. It looks like his death wasn’t random, but rather a targetted attack against him personally, aka murder.
Taylor Bradford died at the age of 21. His friends and family nicke named him “Booger”.
This is an important reminder – all US based cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies tomorrow – October 1st 2007 and it is likely that you will start to receive sale calls from telemarketers unless you take measures to stop this. You can also expect to be charged for these phone calls.
To prevent this and add your phone number to “Do Not Call” database, you must call the following number from your cell phone:
888-382-1222.
This phone number is the National DO NOT CALL centre. It doesn’t take too long and it will save you lots of time in the future, time you would otherwise spend on the phone dealing with telemarketers. By calling the national Do-Not-Call line, you will block your number from receiving telemarketing phone call for the period of five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot block your number by calling from a different phone.
As an alternative, you can visit the Do-Not-Call website to block your call phone number from being released to telemarketers on following URL:
https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx
You can have up to 3 phone numbers blocked that way. It only takes half a minute. Save yourself from obnoxious telemarketing phone calls. Add your number to a national Do-Not-Call list.
Halo 3 is without doubt the most anticipated computer game of all time. Halo 3 predecessor (shockingly named Halo 2) made an estimated $125 million in sales within the first 24 hours of its release in the United States and Halo 3 is expected to beat any computer game sales numbers ever achieved. Halo 3 has been pre ordered by more than 1.5 million people and additional 300k copies have been sold without pre orders.
Considering Halo 3 pricing – standard edition for $60, limited edition for $70 and “legendary” edition for $130 – Microsoft is looking at a nice bank out of this game and rightly so. The sales of Microsoft XBox 360 consoles have been way behind other gaming consoles and failed to make any profits for Microsoft. With the coming of Halo 3, Microsoft could easily sell more than 3 million copies within first two weeks and it is likely that many people who buy the game, also end up buying the console… Good times for Microsoft.
