[Noelnada]

A single mother fined nearly $2million for illegally file-sharing 24 songs on the internet is vowing not to hand over a penny to the record companies.

A court in Minneapolis ruled mother-of-four Jammie Thomas-Rasset's must pay $1.92million (£1.15m) for willful infringement of the recording industry's copyrights by posting the music on the file-sharing site Kazaa.

After the hearing Thomas-Rasset, 32, blasted: 'There's no way they're ever going to get that. You can't get blood out of a turnip.'

Kiwi Camara, one of Thomas-Rasset's attorneys, said that she planned to appeal against the ruling.

'There really is a problem,' he said. 'She's been fined $1.9million for stealing 24 songs that went for about $1.99 on iTunes,' slightly overstating the cost of songs on the site. 'There's no way that can be the correct result.'

Link

Lol Wtf ? I found it ridiculous when she got condemned to pay nearly 200000$ in the first trial but now...2 millions, that's fucking crazy

[Igor Antunov]

A very pointless outcome. It just sows new seeds of piracy. I just shared 100 songs in her honour.

[dudekebm]

It seems to be par for the music industry. Don't change your outdated business model to fit the market. Sue to recoup losses and try to change the market to fit your outdated business model.

[Dr House]

Wouldn't happen if they didn't have a recourse of law. Copyright laws should be ended.

[Nets]

Copyright laws should be ended.

Indeed, nobody should have rights to their own creations.

[Zyx]

And what do rights mean to you, Nets? The ability to sue mothers of four two million dollars for a cheesy song list?

[Dr House]

Indeed, nobody should have rights to their own creations.

Ideas aren't legitimate property. Only tangible objects are. Copyright laws are just a method for a record label to enforce a distribution monopoly, and artists to get fat on royalties being paid to them decades after they stopped producing anything.

That said, I believe anti-plagiarism laws should be enforced in art. Artists deserve to have their work recognized as theirs whenever someone else uses or distributes it.

[Donna]

Copyright laws also discourage touring.

[SpecialOlympian]

Wow! $2 million! I can't believe this heartless bitch caused two million dollars worth of damage to the people who, while not capable of creating art, make it available to the public for mass consumption in the form of compact disks. I mean, art is art, but I don't know about it until someone markets it to me. If the record companies go bankrupt, then who will promote good music in popular culture?

Man, I really wish I could meet this mathematical genius who can convert the harm of giving away a bunch of zeros and ones into an objectively quantifiable dollar amount. I bet he was really amazed that it rounded out to exactly $2,000,000.00. What are the odds!? I bet he could could tell me what the odds are, being a mathematical genius and all.

Intellectual property rights are cool.

[Nets]

Ideas aren't legitimate property.

I disagree, I think it is the most legitimate kind. It is completely the product of the creator, he should have sole rights to it.

Copyright laws are just a method for a record label to enforce a distribution monopoly, and artists to get fat on royalties being paid to them decades after they stopped producing anything.

So? That's their right. I can't think of a more fundamental right than to own the products of your own mind.

That said, I believe anti-plagiarism laws should be enforced in art. Artists deserve to have their work recognized as theirs whenever someone else uses or distributes it.

You have got to be kidding me. How would you even begin to enforce that? So much of music is borrowing between artists.

[Dr House]

I disagree, I think it is the most legitimate kind. It is completely the product of the creator, he should have sole rights to it.

So? That's their right. I can't think of a more fundamental right than to own the products of your own mind.

If you're gonna defend anything based on natural rights, you gotta know your natural rights theory first.

Some advocates of copyright and other forms if IP try to justify IP with natural law type arguments. For example, some say that the author "creates" a work, and "thus" is entitled to own it. However, this argument begs the question by assuming that the authored work is property in the first place; once this is granted, it seems natural that the "creator" of this piece of property is the natural and proper owner of it.

But "creation" does not justify ownership in things. If I homestead a farm, there need be no "creativity" involved, in the copyright sense; I need only be the first possessor of the land. On the other hand, if I carve a statue into your block of marble, I do not thereby own the resulting statue. In fact, I may owe you damages for trespass or conversion. Thus, creation is neither necessary nor sufficient for ownership.

It is scarcity that is the hallmark of ownable property, and it is by first possession that one comes to own such ownable property. This can be seen by examining the purpose and nature of property rights. Were things in infinite abundance, there would be no need for property rights. But in the real world, there are scarce resources. These things can be used and controlled by only a single person.

Because of this fact of scarcity, there is always the possibility of interpersonal conflict over scarce resources. If I take your lawnmower, you no longer have it. If I take over your house and your land, you lose control of it. These tangible goods are scarce. Property rights exist to allocate ownership in scarce resources to a specified owner, thereby permitting conflicts over the use of these scarce resources to be avoided (and resolved). Thus, it is only things that are scarce, in the economic sense, that can be property. This is why, for example, there can be ownership of tangible, scarce resources such as land, cars, printing press, paper, and ink. Moreover, in the libertarian and conservative view, these property rights in scarce resources are allocated in accordance the Lockean homesteading rule, in which unowned scarce resources are homesteaded by the first possessor.(9)

The intangible "things" covered by copyright are simply not scarce, in this sense. An idea or pattern of words, for example, can be copied by others an infinite amount of times, without "taking" the idea from its originator. Unlike tangible property, several persons can use the idea at the same time, independently. If you copy my novel, I still "have" the novel, and you have it, now, too. Ideas are not scarce and are not property. As Thomas Jefferson, himself an inventor and the United States' first Patent Examiner, wrote, "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." For this reason, copyrightable works should not be viewed as property, and copyrights should not be granted.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/kinsella2.html

[Captain Sam]

I at first thought this story was in Australia.

[Zyx]

Captain Sam, stay there while I go get my cookie jar.

[hannigaholic]

I'm with House, intellectual 'property' is not property at all, and should be free to disseminate in whatever manner people deem fit. Plus the laws just aren't necessary these days. I download video, then buy the DVDs of the ones I want to see more of. Without downloading I wouldn't own half the TV show DVDs that I do. Same with books. Paulo Coelho is the obvious example, who freely distributed his book online and saw it result in his sales increasing 1,000-fold.

Copyright law can harm the artists, and the only people who benefit from them are the distributors.