Obama Supports $675,000 File Sharing Verdict | Hacker News Reader

Obama Supports $675,000 File Sharing Verdict

wired.com

49 pointsphsr99 comments

These methods aren't going to make people share music less -- it will simply make them find more secure ways of sharing. Lets all remember, that at the end of the day, if I burn a few gigs of MP3s to a dvd and pass it to a friend hand to hand, the music industry will never know.

Ultimately, sharing is something people want to do as a natural inclination. I like this band, so I want you to like this band, so here's their music. I personally have found the vast majority of the music I love in this fashion.

I love passing on my love of music to other people. I've run private MP3 servers before. It brings me much joy to share music and then talk about it.

I don't really know what these large verdicts do. They are still effectively like being hit by lightning, it's so unlikely it will happen to you.

This made me think of a quote which turns out to be from a Clay Shirky essay (http://www.shirky.com/writings/riaa_encryption.html)

"It may be time to dust off that old issue of Wired, because the RIAA is succeeding where 10 years of hectoring by the Cypherpunks failed. [...] Note that the broadening adoption of encryption is not because users have become libertarians, but because they have become criminals; to a first approximation, every PC owner under the age of 35 is now a felon."

On the other side of the ledger we find this famous quote from Tim O'Reilly:

> Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.

http://openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/11/piracy.html

Yeah. I've never seen any solid stats, and I hate using my gut as an information source, but my gut tells me that piracy has been a much larger help to artists. I've seen a few news articles that imply it. Piracy is a threat to labels, but really, when a musician can grab Garage Band and a few thousand bucks of hardware and publish his own music... do we need labels?

What I find amusing is this argument I've heard a few times coming from the labels that goes along the lines of that we need their expertise in order to produce and discern the "quality" music... Because they do such a good job of that usually.

From what I've seen, that's how sharing has been going since the extortion/lawsuit campaign started.

The average person doesn't hit TPB. They ask their friends. On the edges of the graph people are downloading, but it's a small minority of the actual sharing going on.

It's also much easier to find the songs on google. And if you're more dedicated, ripping the audio from YouTube.

See http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/07/harry-potter-and-digita... and search for "Recorder Identification Code". I don't know if there's a way to subvert this.

This makes me extremely angry. $675,000 verdict to the average person is basically going to ruin their life. Per-capita income is still only about $21,500 in the US, so you're asking for 30 years of their working life.

A $675,000 tort judgment is going to send you into Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which will take 3-5 years to resolve. It's bad, but it's not going to ruin your life.

I think there's cognitive dissonance here between the ease of committing torts on the Internet and the severity of the penalty.

If someone physically stole CDs out of a publisher's warehouse over a long period of time, the marginal cost of those CDs is so low that the damage would be roughly equivalent to what a filesharer does. But nobody would be up in arms about a six-figure judgement.

But on the Internet, we all know that the same tort is a couple clicks away, and that it's widely practiced. So there's outrage and surprise when the law works the same way against those filesharers.

I guess I see things a little differently because my career has been spent in close contact with other torts that, while far more damaging than file sharing, are often just as simple to commit. Nothing stops you from sharing files, and so you feel somewhat entitled to do so. But nothing stops you from crashing any number of important web applications, either.

The fact that it is widely practiced is a defense. For the same reason that people would rightly object to a $675,000 tort judgment for speeding, or jaywalking, or smoking marijuana.

Are they crimes? Certainly. But because they're widespread, generally unenforced, mostly "victimless", people are outraged that they'd have such high penalties. If you applied that judgment fairly you'd probably bankrupt 3/4s of America, if not more, which would be bad. Any law that you don't want enforced in the general case is a bad law that's going to generate outrage when it is enforced.

I think your last sentence is on the right track. To paraphrase Kant, if theoretically the RIAA could receive compensation to the tune of 150k/per infringement from every single U.S. citizen that has ever shared a copyrighted song, would that be just?

Torts and crimes aren't the same thing. There is, for instance, no such thing as a "victimless tort".

A listener not paying for something they weren't going to pay for anyway is a victimless tort when the record label doesn't actually lose any money.

Cory Doctorow puts it best in explaining why he Creative Commons licences his books:

> Most people who download the book don't end up buying it, but they wouldn't have bought it in any event, so I haven't lost any sales, I've just won an audience.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/cory-doctorow-copyright-tec...

Someone is harming the music industry, but it's not the listeners. It's the RIAA.

While we could argue the first sentence, it's not germane to the discussion. People are getting sued for distribution, not for personal use.

But it's mostly about distributing it to people who wouldn't buy it anyway. If they want to claim a file copied to 100 users prevented 100 sales, they must have a reasonable evidence indicating those 100 downloaders are capable and willing to buy every song they download, which is probably not the case.

Most downloaders I know of are more collectors and explorers than anything else. By making numerous copies of artistic works, some of them very obscure, they could as well be providing a valuable data preservation service for future generations.

Just imagine if a generation manages to completely DRM works of art just to discover they lost their keys and the programs required to reconstruct those works... Without proper context, they will look like random noise to future archeologists.

I agree artists deserve adequate rewards for their works. Perhaps a compromise should be reached. It seems copyright has been abused and extended far too much, to a point where it creates more harm than good.

The nature of peer-to-peer networks is that personal use is distribution. Treating file sharing as equivalent to mass-producing unlicensed DVDs contributes to the public's outrage.

Explain. If I burn a copy of a CD I own for shits, that is formally an act of copyright infringement. Who is victimized by this act?

I understand that tort by definition is compensation for injury, but if that injury as defined by the law does not actually harm a party, it fits my definition of "victimless".

Statutory damages for copyright infringement have historically been in lieu of actual damages when such were hard to prove, and IIRC earlier versions of the copyright act explicitly said that statutory awards are not to be construed as punitive. It's hard to argue that these awards are anything but punitive.

People aren't getting sued for burning a copy of CDs that they own just for shits. That may in fact be all they've done, but what's being claimed is that they're copying and distributing content.

I'm only arguing against the blanket statement that there is no such thing as victimless tort.

As for the distribution issue, unless there are actual damages I still don't think the copyright owner is a victim.

That's like saying that you are a victim if someone walks across your property without permission. They may not be legally able to do that (in the US), but if the act does not affect you in any way, you can not justifiably claim to be a victim.

sadly, the proof of distribution is almost always very circumstantial.

I'm not sure why you chose to pick on a single word in my comment above which is clearly not relevant to the main point. You have failed to address my main main point, which I'll restate here:

People are outraged by this for a perfectly good reason. The penalty seems too large for the deed. This is not simply a case of those-entitled-kids thinking that they deserve to be able to steal music for free; this is a reasonable response where someone is being bankrupted for the moral equivalent of speeding.

My point is that the penalty sounds large for the "deed" in large part because the "deed" is so incredibly easy to do.

People had almost exactly the same complaints about sentencing during the Sun Devil era of computer security; hackers were just exploring, hadn't intended any harm, and surely hadn't cost millions in damages. Public opinion settled in the other direction.

It's really easy to shoplift too - just like shopping without waiting in line. I don't see any reason to think the ease of doing something makes people forgive it. Maybe that's a small contributing factor? Seems unlikely to me, since there are so many "easy" crimes that are not forgiven.

It seems much more likely to me that it provokes outrage to penalize highly because it's widespread and laws against it are mostly unenforced. And if that's the case, the analogy with computer hacking is invalid, because only a tiny minority of Americans would even know how to crack a computer.

Other widespread, generally unpenalized acts-for-which-you-might-be-penalized-by-the-courts (hereafter "acts")[1] provoke outrage when they are enforced with heavy penalties, Other easy-to-commit acts are heavily penalized and provoke no outrage. Therefore, it seems to me your analogy is suspect.

1) Better than "deeds"? You threw scare quotes on that word for some reason. I'd rather just call them crimes, but I don't want to provoke an argument over the word.

I don't think the ease of downloading files is at all comparable to the ease of shoplifting.

You're right. Downloading is much easier. Shoplifting requires one to:

1. Get out of the house

2. Remove an actual product from a physical store, so the loss will be physically noticed

3. Defeat the RFID tags on the merchandise (most stuff worth shoplifting is tagged)

4. Walk past the store greeters without looking suspicious (something an average mostly-honest person would struggle with)

"Public opinion settled in the other direction."

And we all know public opinion is never wrong.

It's really easy to share copyrighted files. It's easier, in fact, than downloading them. Both are so easy people overconsume. They download more music than they will ever hear - music they would never buy if they had to incur the cost.

More interestingly, how do plaintifs prove the sharer allowed the copy of the whole file? It's easy to imagine any downloader got the files from a number of different sources, each effectively sharing a tiny part of the file.

Thinking about it... Couldn't the protocols not advertise the parts of the file the sharer has, but, instead, receive a list of wanted parts from the downloader and respond with some, but perhaps not every, part of the file? What would happen to these lawsuits if nobody ever shared the whole file with anyone?

This relates to an idea I had: create a "fair use" file sharing network, by posting carefully-chosen 10 to 30 second "review" clips of songs on various web sites, then distribute a tool (script, program, whatever) that can locate the pieces and reassemble them.

I think the "careful chooser of segments" tool risks defeating your defense based on fair use because it embodies an intention to deliver the complete work.

For that to work what you would need is an annotation protocol reviewers would adhere to (hash, start-end) that could allow a downloader to locate the missing pieces. The locator tool would also have to be designed in such a way not to ruin the fair-use defense too.

This is not a trivial problem and, I must add, we are talking about a tool designed to violate copyright laws and to get away with it.

It would be much wiser to direct our efforts towards a more rational copyright system instead of trying to break the law.

The idea was borne more of intellectual curiosity than an actual desire to implement a new way of breaking copyright. I agree that the best approach is a revamped copyright system that promotes the progress of science and the useful arts while accounting for the modern reality of near-zero-cost distribution.

I'm pretty sure that nobody would really care if someone stole CDs out of a publisher's warehouse. It's not even worth the legal costs to press charges. If some crackhead punches a hole in my window to take my CDs and I call the cops, they're going to say "sorry bud, shit happens." I highly doubt the Obama administration would support a $675k judgement against someone who stole 30 CDs from FYE. Just sayin. The guy would get a thousand dollar fine, a slap on the wrist, and a month of probation.

> If someone physically stole CDs out of a publisher's warehouse over a long period of time, the marginal cost of those CDs is so low that the damage would be roughly equivalent to what a filesharer does. But nobody would be up in arms about a six-figure judgement.

Actually, I think a $150,000 judgment for stealing a single CD would be outrageous.

I can see where you're coming from, but it seems to me that you are justifying making an example of people via massive financial penalties for causing no actual harm, only theoretical harm. If I make an unauthorized copy of an MP3, what is the actual harm? In what sense can an unobservable event be said to have happened? At best you can argue that it's a quality of life crime - if everyone did it, there would be reduced incentive to create and hence a lower standard of living. But if that's the case, why aren't other quality of life crimes punished as harshly? Drunk driving or speeding in a residential zone massively increase the chances that you will kill someone, and yet the punishment is nowhere near as harsh.

if everyone did it, there would be reduced incentive to create and hence a lower standard of living.

Let's not assume this either. Maybe this would result in more people who actually want to create, rather than doing it for the money, entering the industry. It would also avoid the middlemen who just skim off the top and don't add a lot of value.

In industries where copying is accepted, like with cooking and fashion, the level of creativity is very high. You could argue that a high fashion brand "loses money" when a low price retailer, like H&M or Zara, produces more or less the same design, but very few do.

I recommend reading "The Pirate's Dilemma" which is available from $0.00 upwards at http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book

Edit: The difference between the high fashion brand and the low price retailer clothes are quality, perceived quality, recognition/brand, legitimacy and cost. Which is more or less the same difference as between a pirated copy and an original one.

Cooking and fashion are much more labor intensive than copying files.

Not the infringement itself, and not for the consumer. My main point was that the relation between copying and copyright infringement is arbitrary(1). Someone who argues that people won't create things if there is widespread copying, needs to realize that copying already is widespread.

I do get your point though. fashion and files are not the exact same thing, but are more related than one thinks. There's also other effects of the consumer being the distributor. Even 10 years ago there where no scalable method to distribute out-of-copyright works in a non-profit way, and therefor a lifetime of copyright made more sense.

(1) Hopefully has the same meaning in English, what I mean is that it's constructed and not a prerequisite for the act of creating things. Copyright law is cultural, not 'natural', as demonstrated by the pressure of US companies and government on other nations regarding copyright law.

I upvoted you even though I disagree with you.

Ultimately, it's still not the same thing as one is a physical object that cost actual money for actual materials to produce, and the other is simply a computer process that duplicates bits.

I apologize for starting this conversation. That being said, I haven't seen it on HN before (though I'm sure it has happened). I'd be curious to see where the readership lands on this issue.

The marginal cost of a single compact disc is very low. It is clearly not the physical cost of goods sold that is driving the damage estimates.

At the same time, theft isn't wrong because of marginal costs. Theft and infringement are fundamentally different activities.

And why should it be? Nothing in tort law says that damages are limited to the physical cost of goods - all sorts of other damages exist.

Right. That's my point.

I have to agree with the gp on this one. It's still software theft (at least in my book) to copy a CD/DVD instead of shoplifting one from the store. I can't really find a logical distinction between that and stealing music.

The verdict amount, however, is ridiculous. But so far, it's just been debate. I'd love to see a study on how many actual copies of music are made through a given file share, and how many of the downloaders avoided a purchase they would've made otherwise.

In my consideration, theft and copyright infringement seem fundamentally different in every detail. What similarities lead you not to distinguish them?

Copyright infringement and kidnapping are also fundamentally different. The comparison to theft is an inept rhetorical device, nothing more and nothing less. It has no bearing on whether a publisher can claim damages.

The comparison to theft might be an inept rhetorical device, but it seems to influence perceptions of this issue very often.

So what is the claim of damages ultimately based on? In a case of theft, there is an objective loss that can be quantified and compensated; but in copyright infringement cases, it seems like publishers most often talk about unrealized revenues. Is it appropriate for the courts to award damages based on the plaintiff's predictions of the future?

What do you suppose Atari would have sued for if they discovered someone distributing unlicensed copies of the "ET" 2600 game back in the '80s - the same game they eventually buried thousands of unpurchased copies of in a landfill? Would they have based their damages claim on the same sales projections that made launching the game look like a good idea?

You're attacking a straw man. It doesn't matter how unlike theft coypright infringement actually is. What's being claimed is damages under tort law. However outrages you think those damages are, courts have repeatedly affirmed them.

You're attacking a straw man, too. The whole argument here is not whether the law and courts justifies the $600k judgment, that's a tautology, but whether that outcome is "just".

It's not a credible argument to argue that because the law is the law, it's right. For example:

"If a man strikes a pregnant woman, thereby causing her to miscarry and die, the assailant's daughter shall be put to death."

That's from the code of Hammurabi. According to your arguments, because the legal system of the time affirmed it, it must be right. I'd wager most people would assume you are clinically insane if you tried that argument.

Laws are attempts to codify what society thinks is right. But the attitudes of society shifts, and so do laws. This discussion is about whether society thinks the outcome of applying copyright law is just, not about whether those who interpret the law are doing so correctly.

the damage would be roughly equivalent to what a filesharer does.

Filesharers do no damage. Theft does damage, but filesharers create value.

This assertion is repeated often by defenders of file sharing, but it's been uniformly rejected by the legal systems of --- from what I can tell --- most of western civilization.

The RIAA makes over-the-top claims about the evils of file sharing, but district and appellate court judges in the US are not uniformly shills of the RIAA, and none of them adhere to your logic.

I wasn't suggesting it was legal, or non-infringing, only that referring to it as doing damage is incorrect. Whether something is actually damaging doesn't have perfect correlation with whether you can get legal damages in court.

Since people are losing tort cases, I'm pretty sure the legitimacy of the word "damage" is a settled issue.

This is the case only if you believe the law defines fact. Since some law is contradictory, it's clear that there is room to disagree with law, in at least some cases. But maybe you only meant to imply that legal damages were being awarded, which I can agree with.

But in a way, isn't there a precedent in mass torts and an effective change in practice? When video recorders came out, it was clearly forbidden to record programs off the air. Enough people did it that there wasn't any prosecution, and there was eventually a settlement that validated this practice?

The practice that was validated was time-shifting content that was provided for free over the public airwaves.

With a VHS you had to fast forward the ads and still be somewhat exposed to them, I think now TV networks are more worried by the fact you can easily skip them all together.

>> per-capita income in the US is still only about $21,500.

You're way off. It's $46,900.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

That's the US GDP divided by the US population, which is not the same as mean or median earned income.

I would have less problem with the size of this fine if, when the music industry breach copyright law, they had to pay bankrupting fines too. With no limitation of liability.

Conversely, it makes me happy. Yes, yes, downvote me, as supporting copyright holders is the unpopular opinion on the internet. But this notion that everyone can just take what they please and expect no repercussions needs to stop. It's trampling on the rights of people who create intellectual things. The very people that make all of this content possible in the first place. I still don't understand why they always get the short end of the stick.

Nobody is entitled to anything, not even your starving artist or starving authors. If the majority of the people don't want to support your career choice, you don't have the right do anything about it.

If that mean that the creation of arts and musics grind to halt, so be it. That's how a free society work.

Artists, programmers, and everybody else are supposed to die and live by their creation. It is their job to convince everyone else that their career is worth supporting.

Consumer sovereign are sovereigns for a reason, because they have the money. They are your lifeline, and they're alway right.

You can whine about how authors are being ripped off, or you can choose to look at reality and the economics of it. Your choice.

I like this reversal. Nobody is entitled to anything. Not artists. Not authors. Except for random people on the Internet. They're entitled to the works of those artists and authors.

Anxiously awaiting the 19 paragraph response that will clarify this for me further.

I think its the idea that copyright is considered by some to be actual property right, when it isn't. It is a creation by the government to encourage the development of goods. With the internet and the relentless extension of copyright many people no longer believe it is worth the trade off and think that copyright should no longer exist.

I didn't write the previous posts, but decided to chime in with what i thought.

The executive, legislative, and (most importantly) judicial branches of our government disagree with you, as do virtually all mainstream producers of copyrighted content.

I appreciate arguments that Congress is captive to the "copyright cartel", but it's harder for me to accept the notion that every judge that has ruled against a file sharer has done so because of lobbying. And, if you read the case material, they aren't primarily making those decisions based on the (bad) new laws we're getting about copyright protection --- in fact, I feel like the courts have a pretty decent track record on navigating the bullshit laws Congress is generating. Basic security and circumvention research, for instance, hasn't been shut down.

I understand the point you're making, but I think appeals to different theories and interpretations of the copyright act are ultimately destined to fail.

I'm not trying to excuse file sharing, it's currently illegal just as a lot of recreational drugs are illegal. The Eldridge case, copyright lasting forever (retroactively extending copyright) was a clear failure of the courts. Since the purpose of copyright is to encourage creation, retroactive copyright extension has no basis.

In my opinion there will be a time when drugs are legalized, and copyright will most likely no longer exist.

I do not agree with this premises of copyright because it violate actual property right.

I believe that deontological ethical principles(In this case, libertarianism) override any utilitarian scheme to improve the economy.

However, I also found no evidence to suggest copyright and patent improve the economic wellbeing of civilizations. In fact, I feel confident enough to argue that copyright and patents harm economic progress.

While I am open to evidence that copyright and patent can improve the economic condition of men, but I am closed to ethical justification. Unless you can prove why copyright does not violate property rights, my opposition to copyright will remain stern.

Nope. I will not argue anything further than that. Nobody mean nobody. Not me, not you, not filesharers. Nothing and nobody.

EDIT:

I made it very clear that if nobody wants to buy from the authors, artists, programmers, the incentive to produce will suffer.

If this is what the consumer sovereign truly intended, than it is an ethical outcome and an outcome that cannot be changed.

I think one of the reasons that nobody who "matters" in this debate agrees with points like this is that nobody is being forced to buy content. If you don't want to pay for Miley Cyrus, don't listen to it.

If copyright contracts naturally occur in a free market, than I am willing to concede that.

However, it seem to me that copyright has power to reach third-parties, not those who are originally involved in an transaction between authors and buyers.

I never said anyone was entitled to anything. Except I do say that someone is entitled to not have their work stolen from them. The only difference between stealing music and stealing groceries is the music is significantly easier to steal. The convenience and low likelihood of getting caught is the only reason its so rampant. But it's still stealing.

Accept the reality of it? Accept that things are just going to be stolen and that's that? What kind of society is that? I'd like to think we can rise above being selfish vigilantes who only choose to see things through their own eyes instead of work with society as a whole.

I don't accept the notion that copying is equivalent to stealing. Nor do I accept anybody to have the right to potential profits.

As such, you cannot derives ethical justification for it.

I support property right, and see copyright as a violation of such rights.

The laws do support the notion that copying is equivalent to stealing. Thus the $600k+ verdict that our current President's administration is apparently standing behind.

Does that mean it's right? Not necessarily. Maybe the laws do need to change. But in the meantime, they are the laws. Taking the laws into your own hand just because you don't agree with them is wrong. And if you're fine with that, then be fine with accepting the consequences when you get caught, too. We need to consider all sides of the story here. File sharers are very selfishly saying "well the law is wrong anyway, so who cares?" which is just their way of justifying stealing. File sharers don't care about what is right or what's wrong, they just want free stuff.

If copyright law needs to change either on a moral ground or a grounds that current infrastructure makes our laws unreasonable, fine. That's great. But let's do this the right way, which gives us the best chance of all parties maintaining their rights.

What file-sharers or the law say is irrelevant to the fact or non-fact that copying is stealing. Nor whether or not file-sharers want free stuff have anything to do with the non-fact and fact of copying and stealing being an equivalent. Authority and intention doesn't matter. What does matter if it logically make sense to make equivalent the crime of copying to stealing.

To steal is to deprive someone of their property.

To copy is to make duplicates of something. There is no deprivation of property occurring.

Therefore, copying is NOT stealing.

Has this conversation really fallen to the technicalities of a definition in 3 replies? That's not a good sign. Go ahead and define it anyway you want, I really don't care. They are acquiring something of which they did not pay for and do not have a legal right to have, that sure is stealing in my book. Ask the creators if they care what the difference is, I'm pretty sure they don't either.

Beyond that, I can pretty much copy and paste my last response to be used here. What you or anyone "feels" is correct or logical is completely irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is the law and how we as a society choose to create them and enforce them.

Relevant to who, by what standard, and who this "society" you speak of?

EDIT:

Are we're really even debating the same thing?

EDIT2: I feel that there has been some breakdown in communication.

Do you believe that a $675k judgement is reasonable for sharing 30 songs? I'm genuinely curious about the math behind this line of reasoning.

But what are the inherent rights of the creator of an intellectual work over his product?

Accepting the concept of copyright, do you consider $675,000 a proportionate penalty in this case?

"But what are the inherent rights of the creator of an intellectual work over his product?"

Inherent rights?

I want to agree with you that a person who thinks up something and makes it concrete in some form has some special claim on that, but I'm hard pressed to explain how that would be, other than other people all agreeing that is how it should be. That is, it's not a right, but a social convention.

At the very least, the idea that the owner of a copyrighted work can't at least control the distribution and price of that work reproduced in its entirety seems like an argument that is destined to fail.

If it's a digital work, the ability of the owner to control the distribution and price is an ability provided by social contract, social constructs, and law. It is impossible to physically limit the distribution of digital works, short of not releasing them at all, so any position that this control can exist in any absolute form is going against reality.

No. Fair use already supports that idea, as in the Betamax case.

No. Fair use does not cover reproduction and distribution of works in their entirety. The Betamax case validating time shifting. You've made an entirely faulty argument.

Time shifting is reproduction. Me scanning a book because I want to read it on my computer is reproduction. Both are prima facie copyright infringements that are justified by fair use. I'm not sure what the legal definition of distribution is, but copyright law primarily concerns making copies.

I find the headline very disturbing.

It says "Obama" supports the verdict, when really it is Obama's administration. I am not a Washington insider but something tells me more likely than not, Mr Obama was not personally involved in this decision at all. He has more important things on his mind right now, and other fires to put out.

I worry a lot about how so many people think "I voted for Obama, ok he's in office, my job is done!" and then they sit there and do nothing and wait for Obama to pull off some magic and make the world good again. In the meantime the other side has a whole army of crazies pushing their agenda.

Bait-y title. I read the article, perhaps a bit casually, and I'm left with doubts that Obama even knows about this verdict.

Yes I was a bit confused on that too.

It is, but thats what Threat Level used. I never edit the title other than to shorten it

"The Justice Department, where President Barack Obama has tapped five former RIAA lawyers to serve, said copyright infringement 'creates a public harm that Congress determined must be deterred.'"

I wonder how much campaign contribution money the RIAA had to spend to get those five lawyers (or lawyers with that resume) into those five positions?

This judgement is a travesty.

- Justice is only just if it is handed out evenly and in proportion to the crime. If ten million people share an mp3 and only one person is convicted for it, should that person have to pay for the alleged damages caused by the ten million? That's contrary to my sense of justice and to hundreds of years anglo-saxon jurisprudence.

- Stealing one CD from a store is clearly a more tortuous act than making one copy of the songs on a CD. If you steal a CD then the owner doesn't have it any more. If you make a copy of a CD then the copyright owner's potential sales may be diminished by some theoretical fraction of the original value of the CD.

Does anyone else have the same problem as me in this area? I am more than happy to pay for things, I just find it very hard to justify paying for some things that don't give any benefit over a one that I can get for free. So if they were to find a way to totally stamp out piracy or make it as likely to get punished for as taking goods from a store I'd be happy to pay for everything.

A good example is things like the WSJ, sure I probably don't read them enough to pay anyway, but the fact that you can just Google search things to not pay means that I would never see the value in paying.

I think when you feel that you are paying to support the content producer rather than to acquire the content something is wrong.

This is a list of some of the songs Joel is accused of sharing:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/files/2008/11/j-01-2.p...

Funny thing is if I type the names (e.g. Nirvana "Come as you are") into Google in a couple of seconds I can listen to all the songs on YouTube. I would have thought Google would be a better target than Joel. If the music industry are justified in their cause they could do at the very least do a better job of communicating why.

What kind of public image is the RIAA seeking for itself? Can't they see they're committing imago suicide? Maybe these lawsuits were meant to show unequivocally to the public that file sharing is not permissible and will be prosecuted, but these figures are getting ridiculous. They lost their sense of proportionality.

Please change title to Obama [administration] Supports $675,000 File Sharing Verdict

It’s what the article actually says and is far less link bait. The Obama administration is backing $675,000 in damages a Massachusetts student must pay the Recording Industry Association of America for file sharing 30 songs.

How is he not directly responsible for his administration's statements and positions?

Indeed, we held Bush responsible for things that we know his administration was deliberately keeping out of his immediate purview for deniability reasons.

Whatever this supposed "we" collectively did, it's still a linkbait title. Sure the buck stops at the president's office, but you can't say that person X supports some very specific activity unless they come right out and say it. However it is certainly fair comment to say that Obama, by appointing industry lawyers, has given tacit endorsement to the industry stance of harsh penalties.

So you're arguing that maybe he just doesn't care about the issue or the case?

That's the defense? "No no, he doesn't support it. He's merely so disinterested in the situation that he doesn't have any idea, or interest in, the position his administration is taking on his behalf."

The administration does not take positions "on behalf" of the president. Obama is not the administration nor is the administration some kind of perfect reflection in every detail of Obama's innermost thoughts and desires. And verily it is possible that a sparrow falls from heaven without Obama knowing about it.

it is certainly fair comment to say that Obama, by appointing industry lawyers, has given tacit endorsement to the industry stance of harsh penalties.

No, it isn't.

If I know that X laws need reform, I'll hire lawyers who are very familiar with X laws to review possible changes, their effects, and how they would use those laws, to try to avoid making a bad situation worse.

On the flip side, if I want X laws strengthened, I'd still hire lawyers who are familiar with X laws, to figure out how to make them stronger, and plug the holes.

As such, I'd contend that Obama's hiring of lawyers who specialized in IP tells us only that his administration is interested in gaining expertise in the application of IP law.

That said, I tend to be a lot less outraged about politics than other HN'ers.

There was a big scandal a few years ago for the administration interfering with federal prosecutors. Either they have independence or we have prosecution mixed with politics. An administration can publicly pardon people, but quietly squashing prosecution is a horrible precedent.

That said, there is some degree of guidance possible as to the overall tone. However, that mostly works to increase the number of prosecutions in some area not eliminate them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com