So that leads to compare everything US against Canadian stuff, right? Okay, let's argue for the sake of it.

Quite simple in fact; If it ain't broke don't fix it... as it is the CURRENT situation with the US hybrid of Public_Private coverages for the ***MINORITY*** of the people in the US.

100% of the population in Canada receives extremely efficient care when & then, at reasonable costs to all.

The self-multiplying loop of US deficit(s) (that is the Federal and all individual states of the Union) proves that corporate america (that is; drug makers, hospital staff, Insurance, etc) has total control over insurable (or not) patients, decides which can afford treatments, spends just enough to file for PRIVATELY owned profits on any solution that cures anybody or nobody. The public sector must compete with investment into an alternate (but still illicit) way to obtain medical attention when & then.

Call it opportunism and greed where the club of wealthy drug addicts are sustaining life spans based on a single factor alone; money provides BETTER or FASTER treatment.

That's the reality, rational & truth. You can quote as many reports or statistics as you want, it's still biased to justify killing the poor and uninsured in the US daily.

Secondly, i know exactly what an ISP is... the virtual songs sued for were obtained on the Internet. Don't call us, we'll call you. They'll chase her for years and she'll NEVER, EVER refund back this absurdity... and even if she does by some weird strange oppression & repression & persecution gimmick of the Law voted by crooks (they might be wrong, btw) -- it would simply prove my point; the real criminal(s) are incorporated or publicly managed to abuse populations.

I have nothing else to say to you in this particular case. Don't insist, since you are failing to recognize facts & obvious principles such as Civil Rights to protect not only property but also victims of criminal acts and unless you realize that the RIIA is trying to gain from (yet again) innocent people, you'll be stuck in some logic favoring socially driven theft hidden by an INC trailer tag which, in turn, distributes cash to investors rather than paying the workforce.

double post

Well, I think the public outcry would be a lot less as I think a good amount of it is from the fact she will never be able to pay.

However, there is still the fact that the penalty was 80,000 times the value of what was pirated.  So my opinion would be the same: Very unfair even if in that case the pirate could pay for it.

I think that it might bring up a second major problem in the way the RIAA is conducting its lawsuits:  none of the money is going to the artists who made the pirated songs.  At least I have not heard about artists getting money from the RIAA's lawsuits, if anyone has evidence that the artists do get some of the money I would like a link.

The RIAA getting ~2 million and the artists of the pirated work not getting anything would probably cause a large outcry.

I think piracy should be handled by making a pirate, if found guilty, legally buy everything they pirated and then pay an amount not over 10-20 times the value of what they pirated.

I could claim a Chinese victory here but I won't.

The uninsured are a minority, not the majority. The latest number I found was 17%, which is still too high to be acceptable, but not by any stretch of imagination the majority. Educate yourself about what you are saying before you get in an argument.

By American standards, your system is not all that efficient. Patients often wait weeks for diagnostic tests available in a couple days in the US, and days for things that take hours here. Most Americans would jump on board for a national system IF it could guarrantee the same level of care they get now. A system of care that delivered the same level of care as the Canadian system would not be acceptable to most Americans (although the 17% uninsured would certainly appreciate it).

Only Vermont does NOT have a balanced-budget provision in state law. Most have it amended into their constitutions. The federal government is the only real problem - but that problem is bigger than all the state budgets combined.

So you consider giving ISPs the right, indeed the requirement, to monitor every move their customers do online to be a rational answer to piracy? Thank you, no - not even Canadians would agree to that.

I recognise this entire situation started when the defendant failed to respect the intellectual property rights of those she was stealing from, and that those people have the right to protect their property from the predations she was committing. While everyone agrees the award was excessively high (indeed far higher than what the RIAA was seeking), she was not by any means innocent. An excessive judgement does not erase the original offense.

Minority can afford FASTER & BETTER treatments, read the entire post before claiming i lack any sort of an education.

I'm not discussing any sort of standards with this, i haven't made any attempt to compare health care systems -- YOU did and got a single reply to straighten some facts & truths. From my perspective, brains drain caused more damages in Canada than in the US though since, after all, the US recruits our or any other countries' newly trained Doctors by offering them **MUCH** higher salaries and work conditions. For profits, i must add.

What's California (and any other states) cumulative debt? I'm not talking state Law, i'm talking Expenses that keep being higher than Revenues.

No, i'm saying that the ISPs ***allow*** Piracy to take place and that the only other corporations tapping into the Klondike of communications costs to the public are those who use the Internet to distribute or sell in partnership with ISPs. I do not give or take anything to/from both, *except* when i pay my invoices for a service.

The rational answer to Piracy is at the personal level of each one USING 1)ISP 2)Products. A thief fails both situations.

Directly proportional to what invaluable 24 songs exactly and for the exaggerated GAIN of money paid to who? Lawyers, RIIA?

The crime (by the original offense, as you interpret it) has turned into a scam, heist, robbery, abuse, opportunity, supplemental profits for OTHERS.

BECAUSE it is 1.92 millions worth of clear theft less the real value of 24 songs ***IF*** paid for.

I guess you'll never understand the logic in pure Honesty. It's constitutionally wrong to let institutions steal money from people as much as it absurd to get in a court of Law to abuse the consequences of commercial transactions that failed or not. At that stupid level of incompetence by jury decision(s) and nit-picking $24 of I-Tunes downloads by someone.

Sue me for being rational if you dare.

How does this penalty compare to the penalty of stealing somebody's financial data or identity?

It's theft of information that the person uses in their business, and thus that his or her livelihood comes from. If I made a downloadable flash game for 5 bucks, and people pirated it, I'd sure as hell be pissed. There goes the time that I spent coding for nothing. Same principal.

The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments be inflicted."

The crime, a few dollars saved infringing copyrights.  The punishment, nearly two million dollars.  You could use it as an example under the encycopedia entry for excessive fine.

Anyone that thinks it's not an unconstitutional ruling needs to see a doctor immediately.  Such rectal obstructions are a life threatening condition.

Edit:  Oh, and Zyx is nucking futs.

A pedofile can rape a little kid and go to jail for a few months, but when a mother downloads some music illegally like half of rest of the people in the world she has to pay 1.9 million dollars? what about her kids? ah, the wonderful united states justice system... 

Don't mind my impulsive reactions or completely incoherent paranoia demonstrations at times, psychoak. You of all people should know how emotional i can get on sensitive issues.

Still, our world is soooooo strange & weird. I'm just your usual fly_on_a_wall, i even stick & flip wings of speech to stir up controversy.

As anyone should, for opinions sake or contradiction rides. Hi, willy.

Humanity is failing. Do something NOW, or sing along 24 times for free.

There is so much of the Constitution being ignored these days. This is just another example.

If you have the money you can get around pretty much anything, even the Constitution. (Heck, Obama hasn't even had to prove his citizenship status, because he has the money for so many lawyers to keep all his records under lock and key.)

But if you don't have any money, it seems that not even the Constitution will guarantee your rights any longer.

This challenges my biases.

This case would never have been brought against a person with the resources to put up a proper defense.

The whole music industry needs to rework the way it does business.

Piracy is not the reason for the reduction in their sales, and suing poor people for millions of dollars isn't going to improve their sales.

I would be glad someone wanted to play it.  I would also not consider pirates to be customers.  They were never going to buy my game, chances are they don't have the resources to pay $5 for some crappy brick breaker clone...

If your game is REALLY worth $5 you will be able to find enough people to pay you $5 that you wouldn't notice the pirates.

They DID show the cert.

What does traveling with a foreign passport, true or not have to do with anything? He was born in Hawaii therefore a natural born American citizen...