How much is a mp3 worth?

About $80,000 apparently in the USA.

I think the american justice system need to look closer at what distribution means in the P2P sense. In Scandinavia atleast this kind of petty crime is defined as such. The only one I'm aware of being delt harsher fines are people running big DC++ hubs.

I wonder of the music industy is happy with the magnitude of the fines. Seems like a thing that could backlash quickly.

Well…we always did make the best music.

Yeah, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Chaikovsky, Sibelius, Bruckner…

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
Yeah, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Chaikovsky, Sibelius, Bruckner…

So I guess I should have left out "always"?

I think it is pretty obvious that the whole piracy punishment thing is disproportionate … and I'm very strongly anti-piracy!

Well, you pinkos love love love ludicrous punitive judgments when it's the evil corporations getting hit, but now you're all squeamish. Make up yer damn minds.

Originally Posted by dteowner
Well, you pinkos love love love ludicrous punitive judgments when it's the evil corporations getting hit, but now you're all squeamish. Make up yer damn minds.

Nice troll.

I doubt that the mp3 market would ever have existed without file sharers.

Originally Posted by hishadow
Nice troll.

Certainly, but abusive politics aside, you're asking for inconsistent treatment.

Look up the word proportionate.

When you can show me that some of the more ridiculous judgments against corporations (which have been wildly cheered) have any proportionality to the actual loss, even with punitive considerations, then you can preach to me about how an mp3 file isn't worth $80k. Consistent application of your lefty vengence is all I'm talking about.

why you so mean

I don't remember cheering on any such thing tbh and no crappy lossy mp3 is worth anything imho. I'd rather just by the vinyl/cd and rip them myself for an ipod or whatever. I just got this e-mail from mobile entertainment:

But Rhapsody, like (legal) Napster, was ahead of its time. There wasn't enough broadband penetration, and the DRM got in the way. But recently, thanks to Spotify, PlayNow Plus, Comes With Music and MusicStation, there have been the first signs of a mass market change in attitudes. The announcement by Virgin Media and Universal Music can only speed that up. It will offer unlimited digital music without DRM for the first time.

The floodgates have opened – download as much as you like for a fixed fee and keep it. Carte blanche for the file sharers? Perhaps, but not if Virgin makes good on its promise to clamp down on illegal sites.

It was such dramatic news that I had to ask Nokia what it thought. After all, its Comes With Music service (which hides the subscription in the cost of the handset) would benefit massively from the removal of DRM. It told me that, subject to label approval, DRM would go in 2010. It has since made statements saying it has 'no plans', but that's not the impression I got.

Overall, you sense that the move away from DRM is unstoppable, and that the long-promised switch in consumer's heads from ownership to access is underway.

Fascinating times. You know what? You should come to our conference Mobile Music Now in July 9th to discuss it some more. But this is not open access. You have to own a ticket.

Got to be better than the current mess and bitching.

Originally Posted by DeepO
why you so mean

The arguments that defend blatant violation of copyright law are garbage, plain and simple. They're rife with hypocrisy and faulty logic. The same people crying about this case go to great lengths to applaud the ridiculous judgments levied against corporations. If it's mean to shine a light on the pirate BS, then I guess I'm just a mean person.

If someone wants to steal music/movies/games, that's fine with me. Walk into a store, stuff it down your pants, and take your chances. It's your decision. Hiding behind the anonymity of file sharing doesn't change what you're doing and shouldn't change the potential consequences. You break the law, you might get caught, and it might cost you $80k per song. Simple. Now you can make your own decision whether such theft is worth it, which is exactly how it should be.

I drive 5mph over the speed limit all the time. I'm breaking the law. I've made a risk/benefit decision, but if I ever get a ticket, I've got nobody to blame but myself.

Originally Posted by dteowner
The arguments that defend blatant violation of copyright law are garbage, plain and simple. They're rife with hypocrisy and faulty logic. The same people crying about this case go to great lengths to applaud the ridiculous judgments levied against corporations. If it's mean to shine a light on the pirate BS, then I guess I'm just a mean person.

I think I am pretty well known for my anti-piracy rants …

But if a landlord in the US refuses to refund the security deposit, the most you can get in civil court is 2x the deposit. For proven download and hosting of 24 songs, this women had to repay 80,000x the replacement value.

She is a scumbag - replaced the hard drive, and lied, lied, and lied some more … but that is why I'm talking about disproportionate.

What corporate things are you talking about? If it is Exxon or BP or one of the environmental ones, I'd argue with you that no amount was too much … but with the tobacco, escpecially post-settlement stuff, I'd agree.

http://www.atra.org/display/13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Liebeck (a well-known classic)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS…/thisistrue-20 (an entire book full of this sort of stupidity)

Many of those are compensatory rather than punitive, but the point stands.

And even though nobody likes Microsoft around here, it's pretty tough to say the insane penalties the EU quietly shuttled to their government coffers have any proportion to the actual damages.

OK, I agree with all of that.

I'm against extremely egregious damage payments - be it for random Woman or Super Evil Tyrannical Illuminati-aligned Military Industrial Complex Corporation. It strikes me as similar to that woman who got millions from McDonalds for spilling hot coffee in her lap while driving.

I think 80k per song is pretty ridiculous - if anything, I'd charge her the cost of each song - maybe double at the most. But in the perfect world, I wouldn't even bother going after people like her. What good does it do? It's like going after drug users. Doesn't stop anything. It's bad, it's annoying, and it may or may not hurt record sales (although the RIAA is a pretty dickish organization that tried to claim 'music sales were declining' because less people bought singles and casette tapes) but it's still way, way out of line.

Slightly different since this is music and not games or movies, but I'd just go after the groups that distribute these things. Go after the dealer, not the user, you'll have more luck that way, and you'll spend less money on court cases.

I don't really care for piracy, and *on some level* I think these companies are actually encouraging it, via DRM and "software as a license" policies - not that this excuses the act. I think iTunes moving to DRM-free music is a very good thing: knowing I will be able to carry my music to multiple devices and have the freedom to do with it what I will has actually made me purchase MP3s and buy an MP3 player: before, any music I bought would be a Vinyl record.

Sorry for the non-flowing nature of my post, heh.

Oh yeah, I remember personally cheering everyone of those lawsuits, and they are totally in proportion to fining a single mother of 4 $1.92 million (for a whopping 24 mp3s (---shocker---). Not to mention a lot of those silly cases are part of a certain countries sue culture. Judges that allow these types of compensation should be sacked and not allowed judicial positions again, the trials rerun.

Originally Posted by dteowner
The arguments that defend blatant violation of copyright law are garbage, plain and simple. They're rife with hypocrisy and faulty logic. The same people crying about this case go to great lengths to applaud the ridiculous judgments levied against corporations. If it's mean to shine a light on the pirate BS, then I guess I'm just a mean person.

Can't see anyone defending privacy in this thread. And i general there is little supoort for piracy in this thread.

If someone wants to steal music/movies/games, that's fine with me. Walk into a store, stuff it down your pants, and take your chances. It's your decision. Hiding behind the anonymity of file sharing doesn't change what you're doing and shouldn't change the potential consequences. You break the law, you might get caught, and it might cost you $80k per song. Simple. Now you can make your own decision whether such theft is worth it, which is exactly how it should be.
…

Here you compare piracy with shoplifting. I agree with that. As long as you don't upload, the crime is nothing better and nothing worse than shoplifting. You don't get sentenced to pay thousands of dollars for taking a CD from a shop.

Downloading lots of tracks is comparable to large scale theft, and should be punished as such.

As for the fines for large corporations, they should also be reasonable - compared to the income they make (and the seriousness (correct english?) of the offence). At least that's how fines in general are calculated in Norway.