Court Rules Against Mom in Download Suit

[NVMojo]

I just came across this article, day old, and I can't find a technology forum here on DU. I was found the action here a bit alarming. ow can they prove she was "distributing" the songs once she downloaded them??

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court late Friday upheld the music industry's $22,500 judgment against a Chicago mother caught illegally distributing songs over the Internet.

The court rejected her defense that she was innocently sampling music to find songs she might buy later and compared her downloading and distributing the songs to shoplifting.

The decision against Cecilia Gonzalez, 29, represents one of the earliest appeals court victories by the music industry in copyright lawsuits it has filed against thousands of computer users. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago threw out Gonzalez's arguments that her Internet activities were permitted under U.S. copyright laws.

Gonzalez had rejected a proposed settlement from music companies of about $3,500. A federal judge later filed a summary judgment against her and ordered her to pay $750 for each of 30 songs she was accused of illegally distributing over the Internet.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051210/ap_on_hi_te/downloading_music

[NJCher]

1. it would be wise

To read this site, all things considered:

http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/howto-notgetsued.php




Cher

[babylonsister]

2. Thanks for that link! nt

[bluestateguy]

3. If she moves to Brazil they can't touch her

Just an idea.

Seriously, though, it sounds like she didn't understand the technology. That with many of these sites, the music you d'load automatically goes into a shared folder, which is how others access the music. You have to elect to shut off the shared folder, or at least quickly move your songs our of the shared folder so they are not copied by others.

[bananas]

4. I think the Science Forum would be ok

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=228

There's also a Computer Help and Support Group, since you're a donor.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=242