Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
With his mention of deterrence, Gabriel wants to set a serious example here. I think he does want to ruin her, and the RIAA is making clear that they will continue to sue others. The implication is clear: "If we catch you, you are so screwed."
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See, I really think this isn't what the civil courts are for. They get misused this way, especially in the US, but if they can't prove any damages, I really don't think they ought to be able to fine her anything. (Though she could get whacked with their court expenses, which would be bad enough.)
If the RIAA thinks file sharing is bad enough to be treated as a criminal offense, they need to lobby for the laws to read that way. Then they can ask for people to be charged by the state with crimes and put in jail or whatever. But I doubt they'd ever get such a law passed, because they'd have to show that filesharing is actually harming the community, which so far no one has been able to demonstrate.
Just to be clear, I am all in favor of creators being fully compensated for their work. I disagree with some over whether they deserve to be compensated multiple times per work per customer due to format changes or whatever, but I do believe strongly in paying authors and musicians (and editors and sound engineers, for that matter), and I've been putting my money toward the cause for two score years now. I just don't think this litigation approach is going to work any better than the other nonsense that's been tried toward getting money from customers to creators. One person will be financially ruined (and unable to ever pay any artist for any work for years, likely). Other folks who want to share files will just switch to tools with better anonymity. Nothing else will change.