4/18/12

People have been illegally downloading and sharing music online.  The war over Internet file swapping has raged from Silicon Valley to Washington.  There were an estimated 63 million people who download music over the internet. These people had little to worry about until now.  Entertainment companies have the right to get your name, address and phone number if they have evidence your using the internet to get their copy righted works. They have permission from the US District Court in Washington. There was a case where someone was sharing 600 music files. People who also download music for personal enjoyment can also be affected.  The initial focus is on super users, the 10% of people who offer 90% of the files. Not everyone will be warned before a lawsuit is filed. Fees can run as high as $150,000 per song.  The robots aren’t perfect though. One time the robot thought someone downloaded Harry Potter but it happened to be a report. I think people should get in trouble for doing it, I mean it’s illegal just like doing drugs, but if the person doesn’t know that they’re doing wrong, they don’t deserve to suffer all the consequences. I personally get music from iTunes or other music apps where you pay for the song on my iPod. If I was a musician I wouldn’t want my music illegally shared. If my music was being illegally shared, I would be getting no profit, which I wouldn’t like. Musicians make money at concerts, they make money by selling their products, and they make money through iTunes etc. I think it is over all wrong, but if the person honestly doesn’t know they are illegally downloading the music, they shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences.

There was a case against Whitney Harper, a Texas teenager who was fined for allegedly downloading 37 songs on her computer that she didn’t pay for.  She argued that she wasn’t aware that the file sharing program was illegal. She said she thought that songs could be downloaded for free. She was charged up to $750 for each song that she had downloaded. An association of record companies had sued her. Whitney said she should be charged $200 because she didn’t know she was illegally downloading the songs. The court said that she couldn’t claim she was an innocent infringer.  The court said her argument was of irrelevant reasons. The association hired investigators who sued and/or threatened to sue 40,000 people. A lot of the people who were sued or threatened to be sued were students who couldn’t afford the fees.  I believe that the fees that were charged to people will warn others of doing the same thing. A lot of people don’t have the money to pay the massive fines. If you just bought a song for 99 cents or 1.29, it would be cheaper than ending up having to pay the massive fines.