Well, if $222,000 wasn’t enough for the first trials damages, the second trial of Jammie Thomas-Rasset for illegally downloading songs takes the cake! The jury in Minnesota awarded the subsidiaries of all four major record labels a whopping 1.98 million award. About $80,000 per song. I’m sure that will really turn their companies around!
I am in no way supporting stealing, because that’s what it is, but is this really the right way to go about this problem for the major labels? (And anymore, its only a problem for the majors) So, is this woman really ever going to be able to pay this? She has four kids! What Jammie Thomas-Rasset did is wrong and she should pay something, even though there is no way to know for sure who did the downloading, but something reasonable. This whole case seems over the top.
So the RIAA was awarded about 2 million bucks. Big whoope! That isn’t going to change one thing for them. And besides, they won’t see this money anyway, and what did they spend in legal fees for the last three years fighting this case? Basically, they only continued to loose money by pressing this case! And another great question is, how many fans did they make through this debacle? And conversely, how many did they lose? It just doesn’t make any sense.
I understand copyrights and property, and folks should respect them, but in an atmosphere where the major labels are reeling from the drop in cd sales, why not spend a fraction of those dollars and work with the Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s of the world and build a relationship that will promote sales and respect. The problem is change, and that’s a difficult thing to do. But, on the fan side of it….stop stealing!
The majors are hanging on to the shrinking strings they have left, and meanwhile, indies are to busy being creative, making, recording, giving away and selling music. The world turns, but a fine of $80,000 per song isn’t going to turn it very far!
Ben
SevenHat
Here’s the link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tec_music_downloading
