I agree in a perfect world you should just force them to pay.

Since it is easier to target one person making something available to 1,000′s of people than it is to target one person who steals it and then disappears, that is what makes sense.

Think of it as targeting drug dealers rather than jailing all drug users. The only solution is proper parenting and a world that makes sense, but you need to go after the dealers anyway, it isn’t a perfect world.

The irony is that they won’t sell it to people, they partner up with DRM distributors and crappy software.

I wonder if they should open a paypal account and start giving amnesty and receipts to people who pay for the music that they already have. (Then use this info to force the board to offer DRM free music)

@ross, thank you very much, I suppose if it bothers me so much I could change the style sheet. I just wanted to bitch about something I guess.

Thanks Shadyman, I was looking for the link that let me do that, couldn’t find it yesterday.

Actually, I don’t think the RIAA should fine anyone for anything. I think the *only* thing they should be allowed to do is require the “defendants” to legitimately purchase whatever it is they downloaded. Perhaps at the worst, require they purchase the actual CDs. That way, everybody (except the /suits/) wins. The artist will get their cut of the CD sales. The retailer will get their cut. All the other people who market/distribute will get their cut. The one who “illegally downloaded” the song will still get their songs, but they’ll have to be punished by having to posses the extremely crappy rest of the CDs. Unless they choose good artists, in which case it’s not a problem.

People would stop listening to crappy artists if they had to support them, and crappy artists would take a hit. At least in a perfect world ;)

Use this Greasemonkey script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/29068

It makes Hack A Day much more legible.

And quit your whining.

I have no problem with the “hack”, in fact I quite like the news story. It is good to hear that there is precedent against the RIAA for their ridiculous practices. However, at the most they should fine you the cost of whatever you are distributing, if that is 3,000 copies of a $50 product, you need to stop and pay up.

My problem was with the fact that if they were going to portland or than they should have put in 0regon so that we could read the damn thing.

If you have a problem with hack-a-day, then don’t read it. You not reading it causes an actual blow to site.

You rambling about what he does right or wrong get’s you no where.

So STFU.

Portland or seeks exactly that?

Come on, this is ridiculous, oregon are we to assume that you don’t use this font when you copy and paste news articles into hackaday.