A mother of four children in Minnesota downloaded music illegally and was brought to court and found guilty. The fine that she was given was $1.92 MILLION DOLLARS which equaled $80,000 per song to 6 of the big record companies. The judge was outraged with this fine and he slashed it drastically to $54,000 and he felt that this fine was harsh enough and in his words the original fine was "monstrous and shocking" and "a gross injustice".
The case was filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has brought suit against thousands of people for illegally downloading and sharing music, with most agreeing to settlements of between 3,000 and 5,000 dollars. This group consists of major music labels including Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros. Records and UMG Recordings. The RIAA alone had managed to sue upwards of 35,000 people after their win against Napster, and when they had finally announced in late 2008 that they would stop filing lawsuits on a grand scale, they still reserved the right to sue particular offenders whom they deem to be the worst.
The behavior of the RIAA/MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) during the last decade has been nothing short of a schoolyard bully who has the teacher in his pocket. It’s not just the consumers who’ve had enough of the Industry’s nonsense, the ISP’s and even the actors and musicians who just ten years ago claimed they were being robbed are now standing up to call out the associations for their wonton disregard for their own customer-base. It’s important that it be stressed that it was not only the outlandish number of people that had been sued that brought this about, but several cases in which the RIAA, chiefly, managed to cross the line in such a way that the public could not help but demand action.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news183652712.html#jCp
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