On Nov 4, 2007, at 2:10 PM, Edward Martin wrote: > The young lady who was found guilty is a > single mother with 2 young children, and she earns $30,000 > annually. She > will never be in a position to pay off this hefty fine. If my > understanding is correct, she shared popular song downloads, > ripping off > the record companies. > > I really feel sorry for her, as although she is guilty, in my > opinion, the > punishment exceeds by far the nature of her crime.
There does seem to be widespread misunderstanding of what happened here, judging from web accounts. There was no "crime," no conviction, no "fine," and no "guilt." She was found liable in a civil case for $220,000 in damages, of which she may pay little or nothing, unless she owns a house or some other large asset that the plaintiff RIAA can get its hands on easily. While a fine, which is payable to the court, is an alternative to imprisonment and thus can result in the convict's being imprisoned if it isn't paid, a plaintiff awarded civil damages is left to its own devices to collect them, within the confines of state (and federal bankruptcy) laws that protect the debtor to some degree. The outstanding judgment will ruin her credit, of course. The RIAA chose this defendant out of all the potential ones it could have sued because the case was a particularly easy case to prove. The RIAA probably doesn't care if it collects a dime, and may never try, because the last thing it wants is a gaggle of news stories about how its efforts to collect have yielded little (a la the stories about the Goldmans going after their judgment against O.J. Simpson), because it would send the wrong message to all the 20-year- old pirates the RIAA wants to terrify. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
