xilddx Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 (edited) [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19370862"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-19370862[/url] Bloody hell. I expect a lot of that was court costs from his unsuccessful appeal. Edited August 25, 2012 by silddx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalMan Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 The article says it's a max of 150K per infringment and he was done for 31 (out of 800 he says he did) so he's probably got costs to go ontop of that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_5 Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 [attachment=116606:Mstupid_boy.jpg] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelk27 Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 [quote name='silddx' timestamp='1345912581' post='1783089']Bloody hell. I expect a lot of that was court costs from his unsuccessful appeal.[/quote] It would be unusual, with court reporting, for the sum in damages and the sum for costs to be talked about in a global sense. Mostly, when reporting, it's the sum in damages that is highlighted. Assuming that each count was liablled as a separate charge, and given that each count can attract a maximum fine of $150,000 (and it would appear, without limit) then, at the upper range of assessment of damage for each count, he could have been facing an award in damages of $4,650,000, before costs. At less than $21,800 on each count, it seems to me he got off somewhat lightly to be left facing an award of $675,000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesparky Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Look out, big brother is watching! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19474829 The authorities seem to be clamping down on all of the file sharing and piracy which is out there at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyfisher Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I can't see that the actual 'damage' to the copyright holder can be very much ($10 for the CD perhaps?), which is probably why the courts/jury has the $150k fine at their disposal.. Thing is, they have to make such examples of people and hope it puts everyone else off because, let's face it, the legal system couldn't really cope with the mass disobedience of millions of people around the world downloading stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spinynorman Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I understand the rights ownership issues, but I never have understood how this is a good way of defending them. There's no evidence that it's any significant deterent and there is evidence that it's less effective than providing comprehensive, convenient, reasonably priced legal download services. The scale of the damages look like state-enabled corporate bullying and they can't be collectable, unless it's over a very, very long period of time. I guess that's American business for you, fight the losing battle till the last breath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingBollock Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I'm starting to get worried now. All but one of the Torrent sites that I use has been closed down now and I worry that they have my details. The thing is that I only really download TV programs, TV programs that we actually pay for and get on the Sky box, but, me being me, I don't record them on the TV and watch them downstairs. On the occasions that I do actually sit and watch the TV, it's to watch stuff that my wife likes. I never use the TV or even go downstairs when she's not in the house (due to health issues, so telling me to just go downstairs and watch them isn't an option), so I would never get to see those programs. It's far easier for me to download them from EZTV and watch them on my PC. EZTV has been having problems lately and I have a feeling it's not going to last much longer, what the hell am I going to do then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelk27 Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 (edited) [quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1346794854' post='1793480']I can't see that the actual 'damage' to the copyright holder can be very much ($10 for the CD perhaps?)[/quote] Well, there are a number of categories in damages, but, generally speaking, the assessment would have been for compensatory (actual) damages and punitive (exemplary) damages. The compensatory assessment would have been based on the legal download fees lost to the copyright holder. Taking the number of files (31) the legal download fee (say, $1) would have been multiplied for the first loss (the original illegal download: $1 x 31) and, as the files were posted to a website and subsequently accesses/downloaded by others, the legal download fee multiplied by the number of subsequent downloads (if 5,000 downloads per file: $1 x 5,000 x 31, so $155,000). The punitive assessment is intended as a form of punishment, and it is for the jury to determine what it considers reasonable in the circumstances, but a factor of two or three could be considered unduly lenient. Personally, having admitted liability, but then taking issue with quantum, the guy is lucky he got off as lightly, as it's entirely within its competence for the appeal court to revise the award of damages upwards, if it considers the appellant’s cause frivolous. Edited September 5, 2012 by noelk27 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyfisher Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I guess it's a bit of legal jargon but 'punitive damages' sounds more like a fine to me and plain 'damages' to relate to the actual loss. Fair point about hosting a downloaded file for subsequent copying by others. I can see that could significantly increase the copyright holder's losses, though I read the article as being only concerned with the downloads of the person concerned. It's interesting to ponder how this sort of thing is ever going to be sorted out though. Historically mass copyright fraud was never a big problem because of the difficulty and cost of doing the copying. Photocopying a book,mfor example, was almost as much trouble and cost as just buying the thing in the first place, but digital content and a world wide web has changed all that. I can understand these legal actions but I can't see it really being the answer to the basic problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spinynorman Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 The case goes back to 2003, and though the RIAA pursued existing cases, they gave up new lawsuits in 2008, as it just wasn't working, and they were getting some really bad PR going after the unemployed, children, dead people and the occasional pensioner who didn't own a computer. Fortunately their reach only extends within the US. The legal calculation of damages is all very well, but what the RIAA did was to go after often vulnerable people in a very aggressive way, demanding large out of court payments from the start, without any kind of warning. Victims were frightened into admitting guilt, without finding out what actual evidence there was against them. The RIAA generally had next to no evidence that would stand up in court, their discovery methods were suspect and they lost cases that were properly tested. It also cost them much more to bring the lawsuits than they recovered. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122966038836021137.html http://news.portalit.net/fullnews_riaa-loses-lawsuit-has-to-pay-up_764.html http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/07/7257-2/ http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-riaa-paid-its-lawyers.html There's still a massive industry lobby working on governments everywhere, not just in the US, and that's behind some of the changes to legislation here which would put the onus on ISPs to identify and shut down serial sharers and downloaders. The ISPs aren't too happy about that, for obvious reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingBollock Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 Just read an interesting article about piracy. Anyone who has watched a DVD since 2006 has seen that advert/warning about piracy being a crime. You know, the one that says "You wouldn't steal a Car..." etc. The man who made the music for it was told it was for a one off job for a music festival and was paid a token sum for it. Apparently the composer (Melchior Rietveldt) doesn't watch many DVDs because it wasn't until a few years later that he actually saw the ad and realised that they had used his music. He sent a collection agency to the company to get the $1.2 million that they actually owed him. He was contacted by one of the company's board members, who offered to help him get his money, as long as he paid him 33%! Rietveldt had had enough and went to court instead. It finally looks, after all this time, that he might actually get some compensation for his effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Foxen Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 That's about as slick as sueing your customer base. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gust0o Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 I'd check back over the Beeb this week, as I'm sure there was an article relating to the monitoring of traffic in the UK - in that there are firms, operating now, collecting data on who is downloading what. Seemed pretty ominous, albeit not being utilised yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobodysprefect Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 (edited) Yeah, so I'm writing my master's thesis #1 on this very issue. Basically, the theoretical economics literature is divided on the effects of filesharing: depending on the model, filesharing can either harm, help or be neutral for music sales. Robust empirical studies show no statistical correlation between supply of files and music purchases. The theoretical models explaining the lack of correlation posit that there are two factors going into this: first, the quality of the good obtained through filesharing is inferior. Secondly, filesharing enables consumers to sample the music before making a purchasing decision, which lowers the risk of the album turning out to be 80% filler, which lessens the uncertainty inherent in the purchase, which increases the disposition to buy. I'm not touching punitive damages; according to McGregor (McGregor on Damages) the English way of calculating damages is a 'but for' -test, and, as such, a European jurist doesn't have to live in a world with punitive damages. Taking into account the fact that even for records that did not get bought, the persons buying music generally buy other albums that they have, by sampling, found to be a better match for their preferences. From my discussions with my professors, the facts are not simple, and the arguments are convoluted, and judges are asses who can't be bothered to listen to a convoluted probabilistic argument; as such, filesharers lose often. As the US consumption of games and DVDs has grown far more than the sales of music have declined, the apparent explanation for declining music sales is that, firstly, other forms of entertainment have passed listening to new music as a pastime, secondly, the replacement of LPs with CDs is more or less complete, and thirdly, with digital distribution and the ability to buy a single piece instead of an album, the value of the average sale has plummeted. There is preliminary evidence that iTunes, Spotify and others have been able to 'crowd out' filesharing, as people who are not abjectly cash poor but time rich prefer to spend 10e/month for a superior good rather than perform illegal acts. The crux of my thesis, and it's title, is the difficulty of justifying damages in a filesharing case. Disregarding IP romanticism, western societies extend monopoly privileges (to paraphrase Jefferson) to stimulate creation of inventions, science and art. Since damages awarded in a filesharing caseare NOT music sales, the artists who create the music in the first places receive not a single cent in royalties. The legal system, then, creates a simulation of a sale between the infringer and the rights holder, but not between the rights holder and the creator of music. Of course, the creator/artist was not a party to the case, BUT there is always the option to make a law mandating a percentage of such damages going to the artist. Since there is no such law, it must be the will of the legislator that the artist receives nothing. It could be argued that the damages incentivise the publishing of new music, but, since there is effectively an illegal purchasing cartel of record companies who are no longer necessary to produce or distribute music, the economic justification for allowing damages in a filesharing case are weaker than ever. To summarize: the society does not need recording companies in order to have new music available for consumption, yet their illegal purchasing cartel is left untouched, the artist does not receive a single penny of the damages awarded in filesharing cases, and the citizen is punished (hey, speculative and vacuous damages is close enough to a criminal fine - doesn't matter much to his wallet which it's called, anyways) without the amount of damages or even the causation being supported by good evidence. Edited September 8, 2012 by nobody's prefect Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spinynorman Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Thanks for posting that, very interesting and good luck with your thesis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesparky Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19572817 Blimey, they're certainly making a point of clamping down on this.... The common factor does indeed seem to be the use of bit torrents, (i.e. the subsequent sharing of any illegally downloaded material) and the US courts. Good luck in your thesis mate! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spinynorman Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 [quote name='bluesparky' timestamp='1347512103' post='1801804'] [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19572817"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-19572817[/url] Blimey, they're certainly making a point of clamping down on this.... The common factor does indeed seem to be the use of bit torrents, (i.e. the subsequent sharing of any illegally downloaded material) and the US courts. Good luck in your thesis mate! [/quote] That case has been going for years, another one that's just been left to run. Or in this case extended either by a very obstinate defendent or over optimistic lawyers. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/04/jammie_thomas_third_time_unlucky/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesparky Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19597429 These court cases are like busses - Three at once! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spinynorman Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 At least 150 Euros is a more reasonable fine. In the US it would be more like 150K $. Rihanna in that photo looks like a shop dummy to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobodysprefect Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 (edited) [quote name='spinynorman' timestamp='1347101370' post='1796929'] Thanks for posting that, very interesting and good luck with your thesis. [/quote] You're welcome and thank you! I find the law to be JUST what I've been looking for all my life... Provides for some challenging - and by challenging I mean 'insurmountable by humanity at this stage of evolution' - questions to tackle if I feel philosophical, yet there's the old-fashioned, diligent scholarly kind of research of case law provides to provide a nice counter point. Practice? What's THAT? Joking aside, I always found music to leave me extremely bored, intellectually speaking. Apart from acoustics* or perhaps gendered performance cultures**, there's no room for intellectual pursuits in music. * you can get up to very hard maths if you want to, I hear. ** the methodological problems alone constitute entire fields of study! Edited September 14, 2012 by nobody's prefect Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesparky Posted December 2, 2012 Share Posted December 2, 2012 Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I thought I'd add this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20554442 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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