Justice Served? Woman Who Shared Music Online Fined $9,000 Per Track, $222,000 in Total
Is sharing stealing? If you purchase a song, can you freely share it with others? Or is that stealing? If you were still wondering, then wonder no longer, 
because the verdict is in.
RT.com reports:
An American woman from Minnesota accused of sharing songs online will have to pay for her passion for downloading. A Federal appeals court has ruled she owes record companies $222,000 for willful copyright infringement.
The industry presented evidence that Jammie Thomas-Rasset made available over 1,700 songs to other computer users via the file sharing service Kazaa, though the lawsuit targeted only 24 songs.
The woman’s case appears to be one of only two lawsuits to go to trial out of more than 30,000 filed by the recording industry, The Associated Press reported.
“We are pleased with the appellate court’s decision and look forward to putting this case behind us,” the Recording Industry Association of America said in a statement.
Sure they are. They’re back to forcing people to pay nearly $20.00 for a CD with only a couple of good tracks, or $1.00 per song on iTunes.
Either way, this is a win for the recording industry. The question, however, remains as to whether this woman should’ve been fined over $200,000 for file sharing? For comparison’s sake, consider that the bankers who engineered the greatest economic recession in our lifetimes were bailed out, and haven’t been charged with anything. Given that, you have to ask yourself whether the punishment outweighs the crime. What do you think? Was this the right decision?
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Like with cases like this the goal is to make this woman as a example and a deterrence for others. Of course a real deterrence will take a group of thousands of individuals getting caught and finned. Nobody who rips and shares music online is scared when it’s just one person getting caught. But if it’s a recurring sweep monthly of a lot of people across the country then you might see people thinking twice about sharing music. And how is it a crime exactly? Back when home audio was becoming more and more available to consumers you would buy a Lp,cassette or CD and let other people borrow it so they could and make a copy on a cassette for themselves and vice versa. So was that a crime too? Of course if they resell that copy its a crime but sharing to share with your friends? Exactly how many friends can you share with
does it make for a crime? 50,10,2? The people behind targeting the public who shares music haven’t really gone out there way to clearly define what is consider illegal downloading and sharing music online cause there really is no clear cut way to do it. Because if your going to get petty if one person shares their purchased album with just two other people then you might as well make it a crime when someone lets you literraly just “listen” to that entire album that they didn’t buy.
this is bull s**t how about charging the websites that allowed this to go on
if one legally purchases an item, whether it is a CD, DVD, Auto or whatever, is it a crime when they share the item with. i think not.
Actually, it is a crime when you share it. You don’t own the music, whether ii is a CD, DVD or whatever. You own the right to use the music. Now, when you give your CD away you are transferring your use right. It gets a little stiicky with the digital media, like mp3, and I think the law hasn’t kept pace with technology. The question is, why did the plaintiffs go so hard after this person? There is something missing out of this story.