Metal Reviews

THIS IS AMERICA!! FREEDOM ISN'T FREE!!!

I bet those were Metallica songs...

How the hell do they track these downloaders anyway?

If this is the case, I guess bands themselves should start suing downloaders. They'll definitely earn a lot more even if their albums do sell.

Freedom isn't free
It costs folks like you and me
And if we don't all chip in
We'll never pay that bill

Freedom isn't free
No there's a hefty fuckin' fee
And if you don't chip in your buck o' five
Who will... oh, buck o' five...

Freedom costs a buck o' five...

That's why college is free too. For us poor students.

Oh, that's right - it isn't.

It's called the game of life. Life is not fair. It's a sucky thing, but instead of settling (she clearly violated it here) she fought it.

She could've been charged for 1,702 songs. But they did not

That would've been over 15 million dollars. I say she got off lucky

That's a scary verdict, but I think she was hit hard because she was trying to lie her way through being caught red-handed. What was her argument? She did it, but felt she could fight it and make history. She was wrong.

Exactly, it almost just seemed like she was trying to with with the appearance of a 'victim' for the jury. *Like how all of you view her here*

From what I read about it, she had no real defense. Yet she fought it.

They say the same thing with the IRS and other law bodies. If you try some crappy argument or waste their time and money prosecuting you, the penalty is not going to be light.

I remember when I took one of my CRJU classes, the teacher (who worked in law enforcment) said there was this 18 year old who had paniced and ran from the cops chasing him. It was some minor violation, but it turned into a major manhunt. However, they knew he had paniced and were going to work with him and settle (a light sentence)

However, he backed out at last second and tried throwing everything for his defense. At the end, he was found guilty. The judge told him, "Since you tried throwing everything you could to defend yourself - instead of admitting you clearly did it which the evidence showed, I'm now going to throw everything at you"

He got 20 years in jail.

Fair, hell no. But I'm surprised so many people are shocked by this ruling. If you haven't realized that society is not fair to people, wake up.

It only goes to show that the ignorant are the ones that suffer most. Fact is, they're not suing her for having downloaded the songs, they're getting her for having uploaded music, something a person with some computer knowledge can easily deactivate on programs like Kazaa.

I've actually had an encounter with the RIAA. I was sent an e-mail just the other day through MIT telling me that if I didn't delete one of the movies I had downloaded the day before they would take action and sue. Thankfully they took notice I'm a college student and just gave me a slap on the wrist. There's no way my parents or I would be able to afford a lawsuit like that.

HAHA!! America FUCK YEAH!!!

Wow, that's a close call you had there. Were you the only one who got pinched, or were they others in your college as well?

I certainly understand why she was taken to court and prosecuted. I don't contest what she's gone through or her penalty. My question is that if you were to download music wouldn't it make sense to cover yourself and not make those files available for upload? Why didn't she delete them from her Kazaa data base?

This case gets filed under "Dumb Criminals"

I file it under things that shouldn't be done at all. Since of that money, not a single penny will go to the artists. It will go into the big shit pile that they distribute between the top 10 or 20 sellers at the end of the year.

There's an easy solution for all of this: DON'T STEAL!

Even little kids know that if it's not yours, you shouldn't take it. If you do, it's stealing. If you steal something and get caught, don't whine about how severe the penalty is. If you don't want the penalty, DON'T STEAL!

It's really, really simple.

Of course, avoiding stealing because you are an honest person rather than because you don't want to get caught is the ideal, but these days integrity doesn't seem to be that popular, though being a low-life slimeball thief is.

Taking so much as compensation for so little is an extortion equivalent to something I'd expect from the mafia, but in this case it is backed by the government, rather worryingly. This woman has done something that in terms of illegality and immorality is roughly equivalent of overstaying a parking permit by half an hour. It is lame that people try to justify the treatment she has received with moralising about "stealing".

That's a fair point.

Don't misunderstand me. I totally agree with you. One, downloading is stealing. Two, the money ( if any is recovered) should go to the artists that this woman downloaded and allowed people to upload. I'msure that GNR and others won't see a dime and that's the real shame about this entire thing. The way the RIAA is conducting this "witch-hunt" is deplorable.

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR.

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG.

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A DVD.

PIRACYYYYYYYY- IS WRONG.

To which I reply, that if stealing ships and drinking rum is wrong, who the fuck knows what is right?

(Nice black and white view of morality, though).

You have those adverts in Canada?

We mainly get them in movie theatres and on DVDs- though unfortunately they do come on when I watch American channels.

tbh I'd steal a car if I could just press a button and suddenly a Ferrari would appear.



Actually I'd imagine it'll go to suing more people and lawyers >.<

I don't really care that the artists aren't seeing any money (I'd imagine most of the recordings belong to the record companies anyways)... what annoys me is that the fraction of people who get caught for sharing music are basically used as scapegoats. The RIAA gets life-ruining amounts of money out of them in an attempt to scare everyone else out of file sharing. And on top of that it can't be accomplishing much since more and more people are downloading more and more music every year.