JR used to think so … but she doesn’t anymore.<\/p>\n
In June 2009, a federal jury ruled that JR, a 23-year-old woman, violated copyright law for illegally sharing 24 copyright-protected songs she downloaded on the Internet.<\/p>\n
The fine: $80,000 per song, for a total of $1.92 million.<\/p>\n
Now, I’m an old school guy who takes copyright protection of intellectual property very seriously — a position the younger generation does not share.<\/p>\n
But the punishment should be proportionate to the crime, and somewhat related to damages and intent — for instance, was it an innocent mistake, or did JR attempt to profit from the illegal file sharing?<\/p>\n
In JR’s case, no one was hurt, and I think a small fine is in order.<\/p>\n
That’s different than the case of the guy who posted a bootleg of the new Wolverine movie online before its theatrical release.<\/p>\n
Producers claimed it could potentially cost them millions in lost revenues.<\/p>\n
He could argue that it actually creates interest in the movie, but the problem is, whether to post the movie online is the studio’s decision — not his.<\/p>\n
I see illegal use of copyrighted material online all the time.<\/p>\n
One of my readers had cartoons posted on her blog. I asked if she obtained permission. She said NO and seemed never to have thought to do so.<\/p>\n
What’s YOUR viewpoint on illegal copying, posting, and sharing of copyrighted material — text, images, audio, video — without permission of the owner?<\/p>\n
A–It doesn’t matter. Distribution of their material will ultimately help their marketing.<\/p>\n
B–It’s wrong, but not really a big deal. So what?<\/p>\n
C–It’s a serious violation that imperils the ability of all creators of intellectual property — authors, recording artists, film studios — to realize a fair return on investment from their work<\/p>\n
D–Other.<\/p>\n
What do you think? <\/p>\n
Source: The Record, 7\/7\/09.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JR used to think so … but she doesn’t anymore. In June 2009, a federal jury ruled that JR, a 23-year-old woman, violated copyright law for illegally sharing 24 copyright-protected songs she downloaded on the Internet. The fine: $80,000 per song, for a total of $1.92 million. Now, I’m an old school guy who takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}