TPW 33: File Sharing Verdict

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Tim Lee

Earlier this month, a Minnesota jury found a Duluth-area single mother guilty of illicit file-sharing and ordered her to pay a six-figure fine. The evidence against the defendant seemed pretty airtight, but the fine struck me as unreasonably harsh—you’d never get a $222,000 fine for your first conviction of shoplifting physical CDs.

In this week’s podcast, we’re joined by two individuals who have been following this issue closely. Eric Bangeman is the managing editor of Ars Technica. He spent a week in Minnesota covering the trial, and he gives us a first-hand account of the proceedings Debbie Rose is an IP fellow at the Association for Competitive Technology, and she gives us her perspective on the broader legal and ethical issues.

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October 15, 2007 | Comments |

eric

Some thoughts (before I listen to the podcast). If you want to make an analogy to shoplifting, then the analogy would be downloading.

However, part of the case also involved hypothetical or potential uploading (making available) which would be analogous (only very roughly analogous) in the world of physical goods to stealing stuff and giving it away -- i.e. being Robin Hood. Whatever law under which one might be convicted, what would be the penalty for such an offense? Also, there remains the possibility that the defendant was unaware of what was going on -- that at worst she may have been an unintentional Robin Hood. Which is a very strange concept.

eric

After listening... I am puzzled sometimes at the inconsistency of the response of the RIAA toward unauthorized distribution.

All over the blogosphere, music blogs are offering mp3s, singly or bunched in downloadable podcasts, of RIAA owned music, every day of the week. This is blantant, open, deliberate. But the way the RIAA handles this is with DMCA takedown notices. Not lawsuits.

It seems inconsistent to track down and sue this woman in Minnesota for perhaps distributing songs (perhaps not, since no proof that anyone downloaded them was offered) and at the same time to generally leave the music bloggers alone, except for the occasional request to remove a tune from a website.

Is there a different legal theory involved? Although the logistics are slightly different, downloading from a music blog or a gal from Duluth on KaZaa is the same, unless there is some subtlety I am missing.

Tech Policy Weekly is the popular talk show about tech policy featuring the leading thinkers in the field. You can listen on your computer from this page or you can subscribe for free to the podcast. Subscribe with your favorite service:

TPW 33: File Sharing Verdict

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