It seems that the first litigation settlement in favor of music conglomerates was handed down last week. I guess you could have guessed this was coming, or at least should have since many college students have been issued warnings about sharing music online. I know a close relative of mine who shall remain nameless, got a threatening email mentioning something about illegal sharing of music. This turned out to be bogus, but was upsetting to say the least.
What I can't help musing about (OK maybe angry about) is that the "first" person who was successfully sued is a single mother with two children who is a Native American. Having lived on a reservation for two years, this "cracking down" on illegal activities by multiple giant corporations (look at the end of the article for the listing of record companies) continues a pattern of pathetic "punishments" to send out "the message". Who better to make an example out of than a single Ojibwe mother who now is saddled with a settlement of $222,000.
Now I am not one to take copyright lightly but I am afraid the well privileged person in our culture would have been a more imposing person to sue by these multi-national corporations than the one they chose to follow through with on this trial. Not much is done by accident, particularly by high powered corporate lawyers. To me this is a sad day in a line of many sad days that evidence continuing oppression on the powerless by the "powerful". (read the the powerful are feeling threatened by the digital music age and so need to make a statement)
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3 comments:
There's still going to be an appeal. Here's hoping that a higher court has some sense.
While I do not agree with the person they went after, it was great timing for me in my classroom. I had just went a rant about copyright issues and copying music and the very next day this hit the news. I had my students read the article and right a reaction. I was impressed that many of them did state that it was wrong to copy music. Now I have to decide if they meant that or were just looking for extra points.
I address file sharing in my Internet Safety presentations. I used this story in my recent presentations at a high school. Some kids are shocked - they figured since they were paying a fee, they were downloading legal copies ... others had no trouble telling me they've downloaded over a thousand songs and haven't been in trouble yet, so they're not going to stop. I cautioned them all that it is their responsibility to know exactly how they are obtaining their music. As always, it's a lesson that sunk in with some and fell on deaf ears with others.
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