Hefty fine for French downloader

[Beowulf]

Hefty fine for French downloader

A schoolteacher in France has been fined 10,200 euros (£7,033) for illegally swapping hundreds of music albums on the internet.
The 28-year-old man must pay the money to copyright companies, in a decision aimed at deterring others.

Officials said he was one of the worst offenders for sharing music online, making available up to 10,000 songs.

The fine was less than half the amount called for by the copyright companies who pay out money to artists.

The unnamed man was found guilty of transferring 30 gigabytes of music files - the equivalent of 614 albums.

'Absurd lawsuits'

He also had his computer confiscated and was ordered to take out newspaper advertisements announcing the verdict and punishment.

The maximum fine for prolific music swapping on the internet is 300,000 euros and a possible three-year jail term.

The court case came as 70 musicians, academics and politicians signed a petition calling for a halt to legal action against people who download music for their own use.

"Like at least eight million other French people, we have also downloaded music online and are thus part of a growing number of 'criminals'. We ask that these absurd lawsuits stop," the petition published in the Nouvel Observateur states.

Among those adding their name to calls to adapt copyright laws to embrace developments on the internet are Amelie composer Yann Tiersen, singer and political activist Manu Chao and campaigning politician Noel Mamere.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/4231973.stm

 

[ntdz]

~$13,000? Sounds about fair to me.

 

[aidanjm]

is it illegal to share music that you have actually purchased?

 

[imported_Aelius]

Originally posted by: aidanjm
is it illegal to share music that you have actually purchased?

If you read into what they want it's quite simple. Even if you own an album you cannot make backups of it or turn it into MP3s.

I don't recall if they changed their stance on this yet or not. Likely not. I know that chips were supposed to be installed into every new PC hardware distributed in the US that would monitor this activity and automatically report it.

I don't recall if they managed to get this going yet or not. It was supposed to have started end of last year but I don't recall any news about it since then. I think it's being stalled but I have no proof, just a guess.

I hope they haven't jacked the hardware yet. Apparently it's not just for albums but for everything including movies.

 

[Whaspe]

Demand from the market will decide the course of action in this situation. What bugs me is that every little service out there is so protectionally minded (a player will only support one type of music file). Respect does need to be made for the artists right. However the very essence of music is such that they are going to have to concede at some point. If this textual reply all of a sudden became the rage and people were willing to pay big bucks for copies of it on ebay of course I would want a piece of the action. But as far as getting all the profits or putting a copyright on it well and suing the pants off people who have printers; that's ridiculous. And I don't see alot of the music out there being of any better quality, creative or otherwise, than to what I just said.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: aidanjm
is it illegal to share music that you have actually purchased?

Yes! Emphatically, YES!

Remember as well that proving it is so very easy. Everything that you do online is recorded millions of times. Telephone conversations have a rather large and official audience too. And don't start on Bush, this was going on before even Clinton. Clinton just commanded the growth.

 

[miketheidiot]

Does anyone know if it's legal to even rip music/movies onto your harddrive anymore? I wouldn't be surprise if they made this illegal too someday.

Anyways, fvck the music companies.

 

[Train]

I'm pretty sure you can make personal copies, but sharing them is a big no no.

The sad part is this whole attack on file sharing isnt for the artists rights, its for the record companies. They want to hold on to thier ability to charge $16 for a CD. The artist on avg only gets about 50 cents out of that. Technology is slowly wiping out the Recording Industry, and they are just kicking and screaming to hold on. Eventually "on demand publishing" we be the artists first choice.

But we need to remove the RIAA as an artists only choice to become famous. If your not backed by a major record label, the radio stations only play songs they are told/paid to play by the labels.