Mother faces music over girl's downloading

[truthpusher]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=648510

Mother faces music over girl's downloading
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By Helen McCormack
21 June 2005
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A mother whose teenage daughter was caught illegally downloading thousands of music files to her computer is being sued after the family were targeted by lawyers acting for the music industry body, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Sylvia Price, 53, was incredulous when she got a letter from a law firm acting for the BPI demanding she pay a £2,500 settlement fee or face court proceedings. She says she had no idea her daughter, Emily, 14, had been downloading music, her confusion compounded by the fact that she is unfamiliar with computers.

(snip)

As in many families, the computer was primarily intended for her daughter's homework, meaning Mrs Price was unable to carry out continual supervision as to what Emily was using the computer for, she said.

After being made aware of the practice of filesharing through a television programme, Mrs Phillips confronted her daughter but she denied any knowledge. BPI's law firm, Wiggin & Co, said that Emily had been breaking the law for two years. Emily admits downloading 1,400 songs to her computer, including albums by her favourite bands Oasis and Coldplay. For her part, she insists she had no idea she what she was doing was illegal. She said: "Everyone I know at school does it. I download songs from other people's files but didn't know it was wrong".

complete story: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=648510

[FLBlueFaced]

1. lol

For a minute there i thought that said "the British Pornographic Industry."

I've always said that if the record companies lower the prices on CD's then maybe all this illegal file sharing will stop.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Of course it'll never happen

It's not like they make a lot of money now days anyways. I know everybody who's involved in the project has to be paid and that's why big names like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey etc. have fan clubs, sell their concert tickets at outrageous prices etc. But I mostly shop for music at Target since they're pretty cheap. But I remember reading once that it actually costs more to make cassette tape recordings but those are cheaper and it costs cheaper to make cd's. :shrug: With the cd's all you have to do is go to a store that sells them and buy them. Once at WalMart I found fifty in a case for twenty something bucks and then you just transfer everything onto the cd and make the cover for the disc and all that. The only time I ever found a cheap full album cd was when I waited a while and the cd had been out a couple of months at found it at FYE for ten bucks. Normally the cd's are around twenty and sometimes you only have a small handful of songs you like. Also how did they know she didn't download the songs off of an official website? Sometimes artist's have full songs up on their site that you can download.

[aresef]

6. Lol, same here!

[newyawker99]

23. Hi FLBlueFaced!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Catch22Dem]

2. Good thing I'm a computer geek

Of course that will mean my daughter will probably be a computer geek too. She already is to a degree.

[lenidog]

3. So the kid downloaded lets roughly 70 hours of music and the mother

never noticed.

[Horse with no Name]

24. When you can download and do other things at the same time

It can be unnoticeable.

[Deja Q]

4. As usual, the article makes it sound like the record labels are innocent.

The whole problem needs to be addressed; from children to parents to "suppliers". There are too many factors involved to scapegoat one group of people.

[FreedomAngel82]

7. Exactly

And as in my previous post how do they know which songs she downloaded illegally? Sometimes friends share cd's and they make private copies or transfer the songs onto an mp3/ipod player. On my ipod I take older cd's I have that I love and transfer the music onto there since I no longer have use for a cd when I'm out of the house and official sites have songs you can download sometime. Also on MTV sometimes they have this "leak" special where they'll play the whole album on the site and if you have a recorder on your computer you can record the song that way and burn them or transfer them onto an ipod or whatever. What's the difference between that and recording a song off the radio? Back in the 90's I used to listen to the radio all the time (back when it was good and had a wide variety) and I would record songs onto a blank tape so I could listen to it in the car or when I was out bike riding etc. So what's the difference?

[Deja Q]

8. None - the RIAA, et al, are being draconian. Instead of embracing, they

are shoving.

And mommy dearest there prefers to bend over and whine "How am i gonna pay" instead of shoving back. Or joining up with other people and shoving back.

If only a figurehead for the people can be found...

[WillowTree]

20. No difference.

It's just that filesharing on the Internet is far, far more prevalent than recording songs off the radio. Either way it's stealing someone else's product and it's illegal.

[progressivebydesign]

9. Umm.. we have no problem supervising use of computer in our home.

I'm not sure why parents are such wimps about this. For heaven's sake.. it's your house, it's your computer. Put a password on it and move it into an open space into the house. Duh.

[FreedomAngel82]

10. Even though my brother and I are adults

we keep the computer in the family room. AOL and the like also have parental controls. I think if a young teen is on the computer they should be and I think most computers (ours does anyway) have it to where you can check out the cookies and the history of where the kids have been. Of course my brother and I are both legal adults so it's in our hands and we were taught right from wrong etc.

[cynatnite]

11. MPAA sucks!

We have two computers in the house and only one is connected to the internet. No problem in monitoring what's being done.

The other thing is the file-sharing. These companies think they can tell someone what to do with the music they buy which I think is stupid. I used to record music off the radio all the time. I made tapes compiled with my favorite music all the time. I still have them. This didn't seem to be a problem with the music industry at the time.

Now, they decide they are going to get in a huff because people take their music, some does come off the radio, put it on their computers, burn it or whatever. I've heard even when a person goes and buy's the CDs, makes a copy or two to share with their friends, they are going to start suing for that as well.

These assholes want to keep as much control as they can to the point of alienating consumers. I think they are greedy corporate snobs with their noses up bush's ass who have no clue in how to think ahead.

[Endangered Specie]

17. Won't be long and they will demand you to stop singing or whistling to it.

"illegal copying" :crazy:

Fight back, I say. They cannot possibly catch even a small fraction of the total group of people who commit "crimes" in their view.

[Mnemosyne]

12. Hi truthpusher!

Is your sig pic- The Message in Water? Amazing study.

Thanks for sharing this post. I've never downloaded music and wouldn't know how. And I'm very glad my daughter is on her own now!

[realcountrymusic]

13. So much rationalization

<rant>

If they lower the price of CDs to 2 dollars, kids will still download it. Free is cheaper than $2.

It's theft, and everyone who does it knows it.

I just got out of a rather brutal thread here in which I found myself the only voice speaking out for the right of artists and record companies to make a living. So go ahead and pile on.

I repeat my challenge to anyone who rationalizes theft of intellectual property. You give away whatever you do for a living, and then we'll call it even. Heck, I'll come over and play at your house for free if you're a lawyer, a good mechanic, or an awesome cook and will do any of those services for me for free.

If the laws don't make sense, and in many respect the IP laws don't reflect the current media landscape and *are* biased in favor of corporations over not only fans but we who create "content," then we have to change them using a legal process. Downloading Coldplay records is not civil disobedience, and to call it that is to dishonor real political acts of conscience.

That girl, and no doubt many of you (and I have too) download "free" music because it is free and because other people do it and because, therefore, we think we can get away with it. Fi on all the open source culture art wants to be free justifications.

And if you truly are acting politically by scoring Oasis mp3s on Limewire, then like all conscientious objectors you should be fully prepared to suffer the legal penalties.

This issue should not get an ethical pass from the left, but it does. And it's hypocrisy unless you give away your labor to anyone who wants it, and don't pay attention to the copyrights of writers, artists, musicians, bloggers, and yes, even this website.

I'm as far left liberal as anyone on most issues, but this one does not compute as a "liberal" agenda, and it makes us look childish to claim it does.

</rant>

rcm

[realcountrymusic]

14. So much rationalization

<rant>

If they lower the price of CDs to 2 dollars, kids will still download it. Free is cheaper than $2.

It's theft, and everyone who does it knows it.

I just got out of a rather brutal thread here in which I found myself the only voice speaking out for the right of artists and record companies to make a living. So go ahead and pile on.

I repeat my challenge to anyone who rationalizes theft of intellectual property. You give away whatever you do for a living, and then we'll call it even. Heck, I'll come over and play at your house for free if you're a lawyer, a good mechanic, or an awesome cook and will do any of those services for me for free.

If the laws don't make sense, and in many respect the IP laws don't reflect the current media landscape and *are* biased in favor of corporations over not only fans but we who create "content," then we have to change them using a legal process. Downloading Coldplay records is not civil disobedience, and to call it that is to dishonor real political acts of conscience.

That girl, and no doubt many of you (and I have too) download "free" music because it is free and because other people do it and because, therefore, we think we can get away with it. Fi on all the open source culture art wants to be free justifications.

And if you truly are acting politically by scoring Oasis mp3s on Limewire, then like all conscientious objectors you should be fully prepared to suffer the legal penalties.

This issue should not get an ethical pass from the left, but it does. And it's hypocrisy unless you give away your labor to anyone who wants it, and don't pay attention to the copyrights of writers, artists, musicians, bloggers, and yes, even this website.

I'm as far left liberal as anyone on most issues, but this one does not compute as a "liberal" agenda, and it makes us look childish to claim it does.

</rant>

rcm

[FreedomAngel82]

15. Here's my opinion

If record companies still want people to buy music they should lower the prices. Why? Here's why. Sometimes I buy records and there's only a small handful of songs on the album that I like and listen to. The reason I've come to find out why people download is because they don't like the whole album so they'll download the songs they do like whether it's from a fan site or a share program or whatever. Twenty dollars is soo much money for an album where you only listen to maybe two/three of the songs. I think though on ITunes you can just pick and choose which songs and not necessarily the whole album if you don't like it all. :shrug: I don't know but that's why people download songs. I've read plenty of interviews since I'm a music major and like to keep up with all that stuff as intrest as well. But the number one compliant is that the half the album isn't that great and you pay twenty to twenty-five bucks for a cd. A cassette tape is a lot less then that with the same songs on there but who uses a cassette tape now days? They should make albums lower in cost. When making an album it actually cost LESS then it does to make a cassette tape but for some reason it's more to buy an album then a cassette tape. And sometimes friends share albums. They say "I'll buy this one and you buy that one and we can share." I had albums my friends had that I liked and so I copied it onto a cassette tape or borrowed it from them. Don't forget the record companies get tons of money from concerts, merchandise, fan clubs etc. It's best for the artist to write their own songs because that's where they'll make a lot of money from the royalties. If they don't write their songs I believe they split the money 50/50.

[realcountrymusic]

16. My reply

As I said, if a new CD cost $2 (less than its raw materials and distribution cost) people would still steal music by downloading it. This is a straw man argument. Yes, records should cost less. So should cars, food, and houses. I don't see too many people stealing cars in protest against Toyota's premium on the hybrid Prius, or squatting in houses in protest over California's real estate bubble.

Yes, on the major download services you can buy single songs. It is a great innovation, and whole albums cost only 10-12 bucks in most cases. So then, why are people still downloading music illegally when you can buy the songs for 99 cents on iTunes?

Where are you paying $25 for a single album CD?

If you believe artists deserve royalties for songs they write, then you agree with me that stealing music is wrong.

Good luck with that music major. I was a music major once, when I was young and full of hope too. If you're going into the pop biz (where I spent years) I recommend a business major instead. The music is the easy part. It's figuring out how to survive when both record companies AND your "fans" want to rob you blind.

RCM

[WillowTree]

21. Here's the way it works, FreedomAngel.

The artist and record company produce an collection of songs and release it on a CD and THEY get to decide how much they will charge for it. YOU get to decide if that collection of songs is worth the price of the CD to you. If so and you have the money to do so, you buy it and then you have the option of listening to however many of the songs on that CD you want. If not, you settle for listening to the songs from that CD that you like on the radio and/or MTV.

When you download the music off of the Internet or record it off the radio or make copies of CDs and share the copies with your friends, you're stealing the profits that the artists, writers, record companies (which pay all of the other people who are involved in the production of the CD) and retailer of the profits that they have a right to make from what they produce and offer for sale. It's called a copywright law, FreedomAngel, and stealing the intellectual property of others is no different than shoplifting. If you want something, you BUY IT.

[Endangered Specie]

18. In the hopes of not having this plunge into another...

p2p right/wrong debate... I think we should talk about whether or not its right to sue the parent because of the kids actions :shrug:

Personally, at 14 one should be responsible for ones own actions, especially if they involve electronics/computers

[realcountrymusic]

19. It's the same as shoplifting

Minors should receive lighter penalties, more chances, and be assumed to be rehabilitatable. But crimes should have penalties.

[WillowTree]

22. If the kid makes $5,000 worth of 1-900 phone calls...

....Mom and/or Dad are responsible for payment of the bill. No different.