Jury hands feds first guilty verdict for Web music piracy
For the first time ever, the federal government has successfully won a jury verdict against someone accused of illegally downloading music, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
A jury in Alexandria, Va, found Barry Gitarts, 25, allegedly a member of Internet music piracy group, Apocalypse Production Crew (APC), was found guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.
Gitarts faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and must make full restitution, according to a statement released by the DOJ.
The Recording Industry Assoc. of America (RIAA), which said it helped develop evidence against APC, applauded the jury verdict.
"For the first time ever, a criminal online music piracy case went to trial, and the jury rendered a swift and unanimous verdict," said Brad Buckles, executive vice president for the RIAA. "The crimes committed here -- as well as the harm to the music community -- are severe, and so are the consequences. We congratulate and thank the U.S. Attorney's office for its work on this case."
APC was among the pioneers in music piracy according to the blog TorrentFreak. The group is considered by many to be the first to coordinate pre-release uploading of MP3 files, TorrentFreak reported. Gitarts is accused of participating in the group for nearly a year, the DOJ alleged. The government has convicted 15 APC members so far.
What is different about Gitarts' case is that unlike any of the other APC members, he decided against striking a plea agreement and took his case to court.
What makes APC members different than average Lime Wire users is the group was sophisticated and specialized in releasing copyright music on the Web, according to the DOJ's statement. Gitarts operated a server where APC members stored hundreds of thousands of song files, the DOJ alleged.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
The pirate groups are the ones that rip CDs and DVDs (often before the actual release date), and crack software protections and then release the pirated content onto the Internet through various means.
They are the source of the files. They were the ones who put it out there in the first place. It's exactly these people RIAA/MPAA/BSA SHOULD go after.
What's really interesting about the penalty is that it's only $250K considering Jammie Thomas got $222K in penalties. APC has been releasing hundreds (thousands?) of CDs onto the Internet, MILLIONS of people have downloaded the pirated files APC put out there. Unlike with Jammie Thomas, who is "lucky" if a dozen people downloaded the files she was sharing via her P2P client.
Yet each person's penalties are about the same. That makes no sense. One is a large scale professional pirate who has been creating pirated material for years, and one is a single-mom sharing a dozen or so songs for a relatively brief period of time.
Craziness.
How do you figure? The fact is that most people who download from people like this won't pay for it anyway. Therefore the RIAA lost very little, if anything.
Of course there is the matter of the artists getting a 0% share of these types of judgments.
APC is the supplier. They supply to millions of people.
I'm very aware that most people who download pirated material would never buy the content anyway, but some percentage would.
Let's say a single CD/DVD/game pirated by APC is downloaded by 100,000 people. Let's say, for the sake of an argument, 10% of the people who downloaded it would have bought it, if it wasn't available for free.
That's 10,000 people on a SINGLE piece of pirated content. On a $14.99 CD, that's $150K right there. On a $40 PC game, that's $400K.
Now, multiply that by the number of releases by APC. It's in the hundreds if not thousands over the lifetime of the group. You're getting into some seriously large numbers.
Even if you change the 10% to 1%, and 100,000 downloads to 10,000, you're still going to end up with more than $250K in damages.
Of course it's impossible to prove, because nobody knows how many people downloaded the content with any amount of certainty and nobody knows how many people would've bought the content if it wasn't available pirated.
But you can certainly figure out that the actual damages, no matter what, are going to be more than $250K. And never mind that, if anyone, these pirate groups are the ones who are guilty of copyright violations being the primary sources for the content others download from the Internet.
I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no sympathy for this man or anyone running a pirate group. They absolutely know what they're doing is illegal. More so if they're actually selling the pirated content (most aren't, some are...I have no idea if APC did).
Gitarts faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and must make full restitution, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office.
"faces up to..." does not mean he will get that prison term and fine.
I think RIAA steps too far on some stuff, BUT, I think music downloaders step further. If the music is worth the time to download, listen to, and keep, then it is worth paying for. For the hours of enjoyment we get from music it is still a big bargain.
When I say I bought a CD, it amazes me some people look at me strange, as if buying music is abnormal.
In any event, the thing that I find so interesting about cases like this is the way that music fans and the RIAA have one completely incompatible idea about music that allows for no compromise or negotiation. It's a fundamental difference in worldview that likely can never be overcome.
The RIAA believes that artists should make only a tiny pittance from their music; they feel that artists should make only pennies while the music executives should make millions.
This outrages music fans, who believe that artists should make absolutely no money whatsoever, and that they should be able to have all the music they want for free.
In my experience, the people who scream most loudly that they deserve to have music fr free and they're entitled to download whatever they want without paying the folks who made it, are people who have never created anything in their lives.
I'm not sure that's absolutely true. I think it's closer to the truth to say that music fans believe the executives (RIAA) should make absolutely no money whatsoever because they really contributed nothing to the album. The artist made the music, recorded it and toured the album. The fans bought the tickets, bought concert shirts and the like, but now is expected to pay for the album, knowing full well that 99% of the proceeds will NEVER make it to the artist but instead goes to some fat cat executive that does nothing but makes a few connections for promotions. Aggravating the situation is the fact that the album IS available for free - most people believe it's plain stupid to pay for something that you can get for free. Either way the fact remains - the RIAA just made another $250K for the fat cat executive while claiming it's for the artists, who will again NEVER see one dime of this money. I have to admit though, this leaves less of a bad taste in my mouth than their previous "victories" have.
How do you figure? The fact is that most people who download from people like this won't pay for it anyway. Therefore the RIAA lost very little, if anything.
Of course there is the matter of the artists getting a 0% share of these types of judgments.
Develop = To hire professional hackers who utilize their vast knowledge of computers and the internet to funnel and steal information from targets illegally. Then bringing this stolen information and presenting it as legal documents in court without complying with state or federal laws.
Didn't the RIAA also endorse DRM in music? Look what happened to that. Amazon, Itunes, and Napster are going DRM-free. I call that a major victory on the downloader's side. RIAA may win once in a while but the consumers score more victories.
If, on the other hand, it was your own error and not their intent that you call it "downloading", might I suggest you get to know some people with experience on the subject so that you may be better equipped to avoid such errors in the future? ;]
If, on the other hand, it was your own error and not their intent that you call it "downloading", might I suggest you get to know some people with experience on the subject so that you may be better equipped to avoid such errors in the future? ;]
If, on the other hand, it was your own error and not their intent that you call it "downloading", might I suggest you get to know some people with experience on the subject so that you may be better equipped to avoid such errors in the future? ;]
- by Aaron.Walkhouse May 27, 2008 12:31 PM PDT
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