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[Karlito]

Its a civil case, so I'm not sure the Constitution applies.

[PTTG??]

Its a civil case, so I'm not sure the Constitution applies.

"As penalty for failing to provide child support, he shall be charged to quarter troops in his home."

Note that the Constitution always applies.
Um, well, in the US.
Technically.

[Vucar Fikodastesh]

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

A fine is money paid usually to superior authority, usually governmental authority, as punishment for a crime or other offence.

The money in this case is neither bail, fine, nor punishment; It is Damages.

IMHO The eight amendment does not apply.

IANAL, but I do read a lot of John Grisham.

I think the amount is completely over the top, but that doesn't make the constitution apply.

[PTTG??]

Fair enough. Time for mob justice! Geeky, pale, asthmatic mob justice!

[sneakey pete]

This sentence offends the constitution.
Therefore its illegal.

Cause they were totally downloading illegal songs back when they made the constution. On their totally real computers with totally real internet...

[PTTG??]

Cause they were totally downloading illegal songs back when they made the constution. On their totally real computers with totally real internet...

It is true that the founding fathers could not expect the technological developments of the modern era; from the invention of machines that make slavery obsolete to the computer and communications revolution that would allow widespread education and more representative government.

However, they weren't prefect in many other ways; they where men, men who compromised and who had flaws. In fact, Washington himself embezzled quite a sum himself, and everyone here knows that Jefferson kept his slaves. The best we can do is neither to follow the original laws as they where written, nor to try to write new ones "as they would have", but instead to write our new laws as follows the highest idealistic standard that they set forward. We can make our laws to protect the rights and freedoms of as many as possible.

A little thing that I wanted to mention is a brief quote of Jefferson's:

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

I don't think this means that Jefferson would necessarily seeding some fat streams, yo, but that he may consider the fact that there was no actual loss to the music companies into the equation.

[Vucar Fikodastesh]

Woman Fined $1.9 Million for Downloading 24 Songs

Jammie Thomas was not brought to court for downloading songs.

She was sued for sharing 24 songs with Kazaa. According to Wikipedia she had shared over 1,702 songs online.

Sharing not downloading.

Note: I still think this whole thing is completely dumb-ass, but It really bugs me when people don't do some basic research before posting. Sometimes it feels like the entire internet is permeated with a fog of ignorance and misunderstanding.

[Okenido]

It is.

[Creamcorn]

While we are still on topic here, do any of us ever expect to be fined for such actions?

Or can be?

[Leafsnail]

Woman Fined $1.9 Million for Downloading 24 Songs

Jammie Thomas was not brought to court for downloading songs.

She was sued for sharing 24 songs with Kazaa. According to Wikipedia she had shared over 1,702 songs online.

Sharing not downloading.

Note: I still think this whole thing is completely dumb-ass, but It really bugs me when people don't do some basic research before posting. Sometimes it feels like the entire internet is permeated with a fog of ignorance and misunderstanding.

Seems unfair to blame the OP, cconsidering the title of the article he quotes is called:

Woman Fined $1.9 Million for Downloading 24 Songs

And later in the article:

At the trial's conclusion, Thomas-Rasset was found guilty of illegally downloading 24 songs and was fined $10,000 for each one, amounting to a total of $240,000 in damages

And then again, on CNN:

-- A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs.

And then in NY daily news:

The Recording Industry Association of America may not have won as big as you'd think when a Minnesota jury last week fined a divorced mother $1.92 million for illegally downloading 24 songs.

Funnily enough, the only newspaper I could find that used the term "Sharing" rather than "Downloading" is the, um, Daily Mail.  And if we listened to what they said, we would be deporting all black people.

A single mother fined nearly $2million for illegally file-sharing 24 songs on the internet is vowing not to hand over a penny to the record companies.

The wiki article does use the term "infringing" and "sharing" rather than "downloading".  But then look at some of their references:

"Woman to pay downloading award herself"
"Brainerd woman loses music download case"
"Music industry wins song-download case".

And, quite frankly, this element is appaling.

A hard drive containing the copyrighted songs was never presented at the trial. Thomas turned over to the RIAA attorneys a hard drive that contained neither Kazaa nor the infringing files.[6] Jury instruction number 15 instructed the jurors that merely "making available" sufficed to constitute an infringement of the plaintiffs' distribution rights, even without proof of any actual distribution.

Ie "We can't prove her guilty, but she probably is, so let's declare her guilty anyway".

This case is rather more complicated than it first appears.

[Vucar Fikodastesh]

This case is rather more complicated than it first appears.

Indeed it is, but I have been following this case since the beginning. I know what I am talking about.

The case started when MediaSentry downloaded 24 copyrighted songs from her Kazaa shared folder, logged her IP address, and sent the information to the RIAA. The RIAA then sent her a standard "We caught you" message, and demanded a small settlement.

This is a standard procedure they had been following for some time.

It really doesn't surprise me that mainstream newspapers got this wrong.

Check the Wikipedia page if you don't believe me, or check the best tech news site around.

[Neonivek]

It really doesn't surprise me that mainstream newspapers got this wrong

Should it surprise anyone anymore what mistakes Mainstream newspapers get wrong anymore?

Heck even History books. (American History is like 50% mythology at best and I don't even want to think about how much revisionist history got into Canadian History)

[Zangi]

I would have probably done the same thing just to show off how much legal power I have. To show the people who the REAL boss is.

Ah, so our justice system is corrupted by big business?  That's good to know...

[Leafsnail]

This case is rather more complicated than it first appears.

Indeed it is, but I have been following this case since the beginning. I know what I am talking about.

The case started when MediaSentry downloaded 24 copyrighted songs from her Kazaa shared folder, logged her IP address, and sent the information to the RIAA. The RIAA then sent her a standard "We caught you" message, and demanded a small settlement.

This is a standard procedure they had been following for some time.

It really doesn't surprise me that mainstream newspapers got this wrong.

Check the Wikipedia page if you don't believe me, or check the best tech news site around.

One of the quotes I pulled was from wikipedia.  You know, the one about her not actually being found guilty of file sharing.  Even Ars Technica refers to "Wilful copyright infringement" rather than file sharing (mainly because she wasn't found guilty of it).

[Vucar Fikodastesh]

This case is rather more complicated than it first appears.

Indeed it is, but I have been following this case since the beginning. I know what I am talking about.

The case started when MediaSentry downloaded 24 copyrighted songs from her Kazaa shared folder, logged her IP address, and sent the information to the RIAA. The RIAA then sent her a standard "We caught you" message, and demanded a small settlement.

This is a standard procedure they had been following for some time.

It really doesn't surprise me that mainstream newspapers got this wrong.

Check the Wikipedia page if you don't believe me, or check the best tech news site around.

One of the quotes I pulled was from wikipedia.  You know, the one about her not actually being found guilty of file sharing.  Even Ars Technica refers to "Wilful copyright infringement" rather than file sharing (mainly because she wasn't found guilty of it).

Um, if someone steals my Chevy, they are not going to be charged with "Stealing my Chevy". They will be charged with "Grand Theft Auto".

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say here.

Now that Jammie Thomas-Rasset owed $1.92 million to the recording industry for sharing 24 songs on KaZaA back in 2005, the case might seem to be closed. In reality, though, Thomas-Rasset still has numerous options for dealing with the verdict. Let's run them down.

For the RIAA, the issue is clear-cut. Jammie Thomas, a single mother living in Brainerd, Minnesota, was the Charter subscriber associated with the IP address 24.179.199.117 on February 21, 2005, which is when SafeNet discovered tereastarr@KaZaA logged onto KaZaA with over 1,700 recordings in a shared folder. According to the RIAA,

No, she was not, technically, found guilty of file-sharing; she was found guilty of Willful Copyright Infringement.

However, she was sued because she was caught file-sharing, not because she was caught downloading.