UN: Illegal Music Sharers Should Not Be Jailed

Reuters:

The heavy punishment of illegal file sharers on the web will be counter-productive in the global fight against Internet piracy and copyright infringement, the director-general of a United Nations agency said on Thursday.

Read the whole story: Reuters

Comments

[paulbikes]

The RIAA is a joke, bunch of clowns clinging to yesterday. The new model is online distribution, get over it.

[mick7191]

So, why don't the record companies go after China? I dare ya, freaking c()ward$.

[ask0]

lol - nobody goes against China nowdays.

China has adopted Bushs policy - "you are either with us or you are against us"

[joelaf]

The record companies want to maintain their right to screw the artists. If the average Joe/Jane on the street can screw artists too, where is their clout? I've seen some very talented artists ( Warren Zevon, Steve Forbert) play some tiny clubs, when they were between record contracts. They got the door take, and a fee. The club got concessions. In the venues I saw them, they probably made $3,000 to $ 5,000, nightly. They also sold CD's and tshirts. If downloading a song or vid from youtube brought a few more folks in, I bet their attitude was "download a few more".

[W i l l]

All the world is a file share. Once it leaves one person's mind...that's it...it's fair use for all.

The clowns at the RIAA ought to be shot out into space where they can pursue suing all the aliens that have been eavesdropping and file sharing our media for decades.

[blueknight41]

Btw the UN will never dictate what we do in america there will be a revolution and i will join it

[wolfmason]

In this case, that's kind of like saying "a cure for cancer discovered abroad will never dictate how we treat cancer in America". They're making a recommendation, and a good one at that.

That is, unless you like the idea of paying $40,000+ per year to jail someone for a $15 crime.

[aftershock]

"That is, unless you like the idea of paying $40,000+ per year to jail someone for a $15 crime."

Ummm... $15 crime? Generally those put in jail are the sharers, and they are generally sharing thousands upon thousands of songs. Let's estimate a CD costs $10. Now let's say you're a file sharer with 700 albums available. That's $7000 dollars in lost sales if just one person downloads your entire collection. Or let's say you only have one CD, a leaked version of let's say Adam Lambert's new CD. You get 500,000 hits in the first day. Low balling the new album price at $10 again, that's 5,000,000 in lost sales. Where in the world do you get $15 from? I agree with the premise of the article, but to say this is somehow just akin to petty shoplifting is naive at best.

[blueknight41]

it would be fine if the artist got there fair share of the price off a cd or download we know thats not happeing now there going after radio stations this tax will destroy terrestrial radio. and yes there are still pirated music going and will always will be, you cant stop 100 million people

[hellboundtrain]

But just think of all of the private for-profit prisons that could be built!
They could out-number cities!

[fratricide08]

The music industry needs to wise up. Make it a 50 dollar fine per incident (not file) and move on. People won't contest a small fine and they'll recover some money without turning themselves into bad guys. Then they can go after the folks who profit rather than fans who a few studies show actually buy more music than non-downloaders.

[jsgaetano]

I thought the UN was allowing Dethklok to imprison illegal music sharers beneath Mordhouse?

[changeself]

the world outside the US knows no such thing as "intellectual priperty right" or copy right as we the americans know it,

as they know nothing intellectual or artisitc under the sun is original enough to belong to one person or company.

[emily00011]

the us hopping on the copyright bandwagon was a relatively recent event too. It used to be pirate central.

[blueknight41]

it still isn't hmmmm

[wadenelson1]

The rest of the world is laughing at America. They get their satellite tv, movies, and music for free.

Americans subsidize the movie production, television and music industry for the rest of the world who feels no guilt whatsoever, at enjoying what we have created. Taxpayers in New Mexico, for example, subsidize the production of any movies made in that state to the tune of 50% of any of the "expenses" the production companies can claim (legitmately or otherwise) they made in the state.

We subsidize the record labels, RIAA, and industry executives, while generally screwing the artists is closer to the truth.

It's time Americans got these things for free, and allowed Bollywood, China, or whoever to finance the production of movies and music.

Then we can sit back and complain about "decadent Eastern values" the way they do about ours. Chinese music, that's pretty close to torture. Payback, I s'pose.

[tones]

I've never thought about that.

Either way i havn't bought a CD since commons finding forever and that cd is like 3 years old. BT is where its at.

I buy DVD's though xtras never work well on the DL'D versions