See Article Here: No Supreme Court Relief for Joel Tenenbaum’s $675K Piracy Fine
Just to be clear, I do not support intellectual piracy. I believe it's wrong to make electronic copies of books, movies, and music unless you own the item. Copying an item you own for the sake of convenience or to protect the original is OK. Enjoying the item without compensating the owner of the intellectual property, however, is never OK.
That said, charging a college kid over half a million dollars for pirating a few songs is not OK. Tenenbaum didn't set up a business competing with the music industry using stolen property. He was never a real threat to their profits. He needed to be shut down and his files erased, not financially beaten to death for the rest of his life. I'm praying the courts will come to their senses and reduce this penalty to something more reasonable.
I believe RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America) is tacking this problem all wrong. Yes they need to continue their current model and close down pirate rings. And I'm glad they've stopped prosecuting people like Tenenbaum, but what they really need to do is adapt.
It's become incredibly cheap and easy to distribute media. I say use that. Knock the price of music down to $0.10/song. Movies to $5.00 each, or less for less popular titles. Offer books for about a tenth of the hardcover price.
Cheap media will discourage black market piracy and encourage impulse and excessive purchase. Augment this through album and DVD (or better yet, USB drives with installed files) packages with collectable covers, inserts, posters, autographs, concert tickets, contests, etc.
I believe this will work far better than prosecuting teenagers and making them paupers for life.
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