Are you serious?

First of all, lets say I downloaded a song. To get that song I would have to pay $20 or so for the CD, and assuming that I only wanted that song. Seems to me that the maximum actual damages would be $20. Now lets just say that as a punishment they tripple that. Sounds “fair” right? I don’t think you can really say that the damages the record company / artist saw is in excess of 7500 times the cost of the CD.

The RIAA and others who are seeking to prosecute those who steal are (I believe) justified in doing so. Theft is theft. No bones about it. However asking for ridiculous sums of money in “damages”? You are just being silly.  You don’t deserve to get rich from it. Chances are, that you are actually suffering ZERO damanges from the “theft”. If I was to start downloading music today no record company would be losing money from my “theft”. Why? I wouldn’t have bought the CD anyway. I just don’t. I have satallite radio that gives me all the music I could want.

Be reasonable and realisitc and maybe, just maybe, you won’t look like a collective of asshats.

Yesterday I more or less went off about a couple of items from December Issue of PCWORLD. I re-read the article last night. I was hoping that my initial impression would be softened a bit. Alas, I was disappointed.

PCWORLD’s article comparing mini-dv high definition video cameras to their tapeless counterparts was “sound” as far as reviews are concerned. I don’t have it in front of me right now and I wish that I did. I really should read it again before I dish out too much criticism. However, I have a serious problem with some of their findings. I think they missed the mark and didn’t emphasize the clear advantages for the pro-sumer and tape-less media.