And what the hell do they hope to get out of them? This whole thing is just stupid, stupid stupid. Honestly, its all about money and they want more than the 100 million they are making on the songs. There is nothing wrong with making money, but suing a 14 16 or 17 years old (20 year old, they might get some money) is just plain ridiculous.

=-The Eagle-=

That's really nice of them, maybe next we can convince them to stop melting kittens and torching blind paraplegic people's houses.

y dont these people understand that if they lower their prices then more people will buy and less will download, for example:

windows XP cost £100 and there are 1000 computers in the world with XP on it

80% dont have a genuine copy so there total income is (20% of 1000) x £100 = 20,000

but if they sold it for like £30 then only like 10% wont have a genuine copy so their income will be like (90% of 1000) x £10 = 27,000

so they will be making more profit plus more people will be genuine

Only 1000 PCs have xp on?! wow

well i think more then 20% have less than genuine copies of xp

Depends on your definition of genuine, I suppose. I run Corporate Pro, that was given to me by the lead tech at my job. I do some work related things on my computer like twice a year, so he just wrote it off on the Corporate account. lol

They'll probably sue the kids to make a statement. (some statment tho). almost every single computer out there has some kind of pirated something

I'm no lawyer (thank God), but in many states parents can be held accountable for the crimes of their children who are under the age of 18/16. If this mother knew that her children were Pirating, then she should be held accountable as an accomplice. If she really didn't know, then just the children should be fined $10,000 per copy and imprisoned for a minimum of 5 years, plus pay all costs of prosecution and incarceration. And the same punishment should be applied to all Pirates.

Piracy is a crime and denial doesn't change the facts or law one bit.

I agree that piracy is a crime and should be punished, but I also believe that the penalties mentioned above are far too steep. Especially when you consider that the music isn't worth nearly that much. You should have to pay retail price for what you downloaded, plus some community service, and a flat fine of maybe $300-$500, perhaps. Shoplifters don't get hit with the kind of fines you mention, which, in my opinion, is the same crime.

a fair punishment for this would be a suspended fine, it is easy for me to say this but it it was my property being stolen id want blood if they couldnt pay.

v-zeroOnly 1000 PCs have xp on?! wow

it was an example to show profits it stuff was sold cheaper

It's mested up you can kill a person and get the same sentence

Wile EI agree that piracy is a crime and should be punished, but I also believe that the penalties mentioned above are far too steep. Especially when you consider that the music isn't worth nearly that much. You should have to pay retail price for what you downloaded, plus some community service, and a flat fine of maybe $300-$500, perhaps. Shoplifters don't get hit with the kind of fines you mention, which, in my opinion, is the same crime.

I like that idea :). In my opinion, pirates should be forced to pay retail price for everything they downloaded, and perhaps a small fine to remind them not to do it again (once again, the ballpark of $300-500 is nice). But seriously, piracy these days is really getting out of hand. You can rip a movie off of the internet faster then you can work for the retail version.

I used to pirate music all the time, back in the Napster days, but I quit when I started getting involved in the music scene. I realized that it doesn't really hurt the major labels or the bands that made their money. But it really does take a toll on the new artists and small labels. To the small labels, just having the pirated works paid for is usually all they want or need. The fine and community service idea is just to remind us that it is, in fact, theft. Should be treated like shop lifting, IMHO. The penalties should also increase for multiple offenders.

The internet works massively in the favour of new artists and labels, not against them... Look at bands such as the Arctic Monkeys...

v-zeroThe internet works massively in the favour of new artists and labels, not against them... Look at bands such as the Arctic Monkeys...

Getting their name out there with demos and sound bytes or a sanctioned download or 2 can help. Pirating their works, however, takes money out of their pockets. Most of these bands can't afford that. Most of them are still paying for their equipment, studio time, mixing time, travel expenses, etc., etc. Some labels will often front some of the costs, but the artist must pay it back. Face it, there's no justification for piracy, it does, in fact, hurt someone.

Was it last year that record sales went up and did we see a price decrease, no. For the XP example earlier, Micro$oft won't lower the price on Vista if all of a sudden the are no pirated copies, they are just happy to get a more sells on the same price. Rest will stick with XP or get Linux or start enjoying life without a PC :P

Every year price of everything goes up. Buss fairs for example have gone up 1 euro every year here and it's not like people are pirating busses xD It's just so convenient to blame high price of oil, gas, electricity or pirates for price increases.

Same goes for movie tickets, have an old ticket stub from end of 1997, cost is 5.88€=7.7$ and today it is 9€-11€=11,8$-14,4$. Have bought legit copies of records & movies, that I heard/saw from some other sources and those sales wouldn't have happened without. Music/movie industry is just getting greedy and have found a new income source of the baddest griminals on the planet "pirates". Not like we tell them to use most expencive producers and studio equipment or spend 100M$ or more on movies. If only bin Laden had listened a pirated mp3 or watched a pirated movie, he would have been in jail for years now.

Just my 2c, oh wait it's 4c now, but new year is coming so let's say 6c!

Happy Holidays for everyone in techpowerup :)

Wile EGetting their name out there with demos and sound bytes or a sanctioned download or 2 can help. Pirating their works, however, takes money out of their pockets. Most of these bands can't afford that. Most of them are still paying for their equipment, studio time, mixing time, travel expenses, etc., etc. Some labels will often front some of the costs, but the artist must pay it back. Face it, there's no justification for piracy, it does, in fact, hurt someone.

I didn't say piracy was good, I simply said that the internet has been such a huge blessing for the music business, and that maybe they should stop being uptight all the time...

@OnBoard - Your argument still doesn't take the "little guy" into consideration. Plus, it's still illegal, there is no justification. That's like saying you're justified in robbing a computer store, because their prices are too high.

@v-zero - I agree with the internet being a blessing, and I also agree that the major labels are too aggressive and demand too much from caught pirates.

Wile E: Yes, illegal and no justification, was just trying to say that price rice of products is not caused by pirates, prices just rise every year and we pay. Energy drinks & Cola is consumed daily by pirates too and somehow their price doesn't go down. Could be just so simple as there are too many products overall in the market and everyone wants a piece of that pie, but peeps can only eat that much on daily basis :)

Just feel sorry for the kids, their life is now ruined with lifetime of paying fines&interest to record industry (if the sue). They come up with these ridicular prices like 1 song is suddenly worth 100$. Order them to go and buy every record from sale that they pirated, would be more fair, cost fraction of the prices and actual artists would get money and not some record label CEO.

OnBoardWile E: Yes, illegal and no justification, was just trying to say that price rice of products is not caused by pirates, prices just rise every year and we pay. Energy drinks & Cola is consumed daily by pirates too and somehow their price doesn't go down. Could be just so simple as there are too many products overall in the market and everyone wan't a piece of that pie, but peeps can only eat that much on daily basis :)

Just feel sorry for the kids, their life is now ruined with lifetime of paying fines&interest to record industry (if the sue). They come up with these ridicular prices like 1 song is suddenly worth 100$. Order them to go and buy every record from sale that they pirated, would be more fair, cost fraction of the prices and actual artists would get money and not some record label CEO.

Yes, I agree. The major labels, in particular, are especially greedy. I wasn't even touching on the "high prices because of piracy" crap they try to shovel down our throats. I was focusing more on how piracy effects the liitle guy (who generally charges less for their product to begin with). Screw the major labels, I hate them.

russianboyeh...I like my beatles and im sticking with them, even if it means piracy. Cause to be honest....I dont care, esp. for the big companies, eg: all of my pcs have pirated windows software :p.

Well, if you get away with it, then more power to you. Just don't come crying to us when you get caught.

u all make good points! As for the downloading hurting the smaller labels.

Who the hell are Arctic Monkeys? would I download any of there songs probably not. do I download songs from bigger artist yes!