The US Senator Norm Coleman claims that the current fines of between $ 750 and $ 150,000 per illegally downloaded song are excessive. These excessive fines would force anyone with a lawsuit to settle instead of fighting their case in court. Coleman has been questioning the RIAA's tactics for some time as a result of some outrageous lawsuits issued by the RIAA. Examples include a lawsuit against a 12-year-old facing a fine of several million dollars as well as a 66-year old innocent woman who had been faced with a $ 300 million lawsuit; which was later dropped.
Coleman has now called for legislation to reduce fines and require a judge to approve subpoenas that seek a file-sharer's identity. The DMCA law was introduced long before major file sharing was not originally intended to be used against illegal file sharing.
Coleman, applying a refreshing dose of sanity to the whole P2P affair, says that fines of between $ 750 and $ 150,000 per downloaded song are excessive. The high penalties could well force innocent people to settle with the pigopolist mob out of fear. "I can tell you that $ 150,000 per song is not reasonable, and that's technically what you can put in front of somebody," Coleman said in a conference call with reporters, the AP reports. "That forces people to settle when they may want to fight, but they're thinking, 'Goodness, gracious, what am I going to face?'" Coleman has been questioning the RIAA's tactics for some time and with good reason. The RIAA has flooded US courts with lawsuits that have, for example, 12-year-old girls facing millions of dollars in fines. The reckless approach applied by the music labels has also seen innocent people be hit with massive charges - $ 300 million in the case of 66-year old woman. Coleman notes that the RIAA's use of the DMCA to obtain subpoenas and set penalty levels may be outdated. "The range of penalties was put in when downloading wasn't even thought of," Coleman said, according to the AP. Coleman hopes to push forth legislation that will lower the fines and also require a judge - and not a lowly clerk - to approve subpoenas, seeking file-traders' information. The Republican out of Minnesota is calling for some much needed due process to be added to a situation that has spun out of control. |
Currently 64 of the 261 lawsuits issued by the RIAA have been settled out of court. Nobody would be willing to fight against a lawsuit with excessive fines unless they have plenty of good evidence to prove them innocent. Hopefully if this new law gets enforced, it will make the RIAA rethink about the tactics.
The only reason music file sharing has taken off so well is due to bloated music pricing. Unlike with other products, CD pricing has only gone up since the CD was invented. It now costs the music industry only several cents to develop and distribute CDs. This can also be seen with all the news papers that give away free music CDs and I have to say that even the music on these tend to be a lot better than most of the expensive modern albums in the shop! If the music industry really want to see that many consumers are willing to purchase CDs rather than download, the should try lowering some prices, even if its music from several years back as a trial.
Source: The Register
