Oh, I'm unabashed in my disc copying shenanigans.
I've got 500GB of music on my RAID.
:D

If this is the damages for 24 songs then that is a rather brave confession.

Jasen didn't mention unscrambling any DRM to load up his RAID.

I guess I've just got a suspicious mind (or Jasen's got a pretty impressive music budget).

I guess his wife is a DJ so maybe he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I'm just saying you can be unabashed without making yourself a target.

Let's do the math.

500 GB = 500 * 1,073,741,824 bytes = 536,870,912,000 bytes.

If we assume that these music files are uncompressed (not a safe assumption), and that each CD that was ripped uses about 700 MB (not a safe assumption either), then

536,870,912,000 divided by (700 * 1,048,576, or 734,003,200) = 731.43 CDs. That's a lot of CDs, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that Jasen could have purchased or otherwise legally obtained all of them.

On the other hand, if the music files are compressed MP3s with a high bitrate for quality, then the average per CD is probably more like 60 - 100 MB. Let's assume 100 MB.

536,870,912,000 divided by (100 * 1,048,576, or 104,857,600) = 5120 CDs worth. I've never counted, but that seems to be more CDs than most brick-and-mortar CD stores carry.

And, of course, there's the possibility that these are all tracks purchased from iTunes or a similar online music store. An entire CD's worth of tracks in AAC at iTunes standard bitrate for DRM-encumbered tracks comes to about 40 MB of data.

536,870,912,000 divided by (40 * 1,048,576, or 41,943,040) = 12,800 CDs worth. Of course, there's no reason that one needs to buy an entire CDs worth of tracks at a time, so perhaps the number of tracks, rather than the number of CDs, would be a better estimate. Let's assume about 3.5 MB per track in DRM-encumbered AAC.

536,870,912,000 divided by (3.5 * 1,048,576 or 3,670,016) = 146,285.7 tracks. At a US price of $0.99 per track, that would cost $144,822.84. That's a fairly staggering amount to spend on music tracks. I'd say it's rather unlikely that anyone short of Bill Gates or another billionaire techy spends that much on buying compressed audio tracks. Maybe a Saudi prince with an interest in western music?

If they are indeed pirated, and the case goes to court and wins a judgment similar to the Jammie Thomas case linked-to above (she's on the hook for $222,000 for 24 tracks, or $9250 per track illegally shared), then 146,285 * $9250 = the liability would be something like $1,353,136,250, or 1.35 Billion US Dollars.

Trevor

Love the math trevor. What boggles my mind about it (let's assume that it's 150,000 tracks) is that that is about 7500 hours of continuous music if he never repeats one.

If a $US1.35 bn personal fine doesn't boggle your mind I guess uni lecturers get paid better than I thought :D.

No, I didn't mean that the amount of risk wasn't stupendous, but rather that I can't imagine why anyone would consider storing that much music. It has often been my suspicion that many illegal downloaders and file sharers get a bigger kick out of their collections (as collections) than they do from the music in them. I know folks who have tens of thousands of images as well; but no time to look at them.

LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law. - A. Bierce

you should go to law school; you have the knack... :rolleyes:

tw, I'm not sure of your objection. Backing up computer programs that we legitimately own (actually, I believe the legal term is making "archival" copies) is an important right given to us in Copyright law.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html

Trevor

Here's a link to the actual text of section 117 mentioned above:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#117

And, as a bonus, here's a link to the actual "Fair Use" law that gets discussed so often:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

Trevor

Trevor, the nature of this law (as with many other laws) is to make the act of copying media illegal 'except or unless...', where it is the obligation of the copier (if needed) to demonstrate that his acts satisfy the exceptions. i.e., you can make a copy of this media for 'archival' purposes, but if the copyright owner takes you to court it is your burden to prove that you only did it for archival purposes, not his burden to prove you didn't. technically speaking, you don't 'own' any of the media you purchase: you purchase the rights to use the media, which is still entirely the property of the copyright holder (even though it's on your hard-drive). any use of that media which is not approved by the the copyright holder is against the law.

for an analogy, consider purchasing a book (a real book, not an ebook). when you buy a book, you own the substantive elements of the book and can do what you like with them. i.e., you own the leather and the paper, and if you want to tear out pages and burn them that's your property and your business... you do not, however, own the content of the book: i.e., you can't reproduce the story and re-sell it as your own work, or some-such. digital media is all content and no substance - when you purchase digital media you're only 'purchasing' the parts that you cannot (by law) actually own.

The inconsistency of this is that (at least in Canada) the same is not true of a painting or sculpture, for example. When I buy a painting, I own it and I own its image too.

yes, but is that true if you buy a print of a painting, or a replica of a sculpture? sure, if you dig out your pocket change and buy Michelangelo's David you own the sculpture, but what that really means is that you own the provenance of the sculpture as well as the material: the ability to say that this is one and only and original version that M worked on as well as the marble itself. really, it's still Michelangelo's David, not your David, yah? now, if M were alive today, he could certainly contract with some company to produce replicas of his David, and would certainly sue companies that produced replicas of his David without his permission...

now if you really want a headache, consider that music is created in sound waves, not granite (what's really copyrighted is a score, a recording, or a particular production, not music), and that software is even less tangible (software is actually just an interface between human intent and mechanized functionality).

Not true if you buy a litho of a painting and only true of the original if explicitly stated to be a one and only. Lots of originals are for sale for which lithos already coexist.

yes, but I think you're arguing my point. one part of the purchase is the physical, material object (which you the purchaser own); another part of the purchase is the content (which is copyrighted by the author, though s/he may allow a greater or lesser number of one-offs, copies, lithos or what you will...). seriously, if you buy a litho, do you own an original? of course not.

Ahh -- I get your point now. You're equating a CD or DVD to a lithograph. But if I buy a lithograph of a painting, nothing prevents me from legally taking a photo of it, for example.

That's an interesting point, if true. Do you have any citations demonstrating that the defendant in a civil court where that defendant is accused of copyright violations has the burden of proof? It seems counter-intuitive. I've always expected that the plaintiff in a civil case has the burden of proof, but I don't really know if it's true or not. (If it's not already obvious) I am not an attorney.

That last statement has a lot of truth in it, as copyright holders do have a lot of control over what is done with their creations. But a copyright holder does not have complete free reign over approving everything that is done with their creations so it is not true as you've written it. For example, see Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.. In that case, the copyright owners, Universal City Studios being the first one listed, did not approve of time-shifting (recording a television show for later viewing), and brought a lawsuit against Sony, manufacturer of a popular VCR. They did not approve of the use to which people were putting their copyrighted material, and sued the company with deep pockets that was seen as enabling time-shifting. They lost.

Here's a link to the actual caselaw:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...l=464&page=417

Another example (perhaps not as good an example, because there is a distinction between a music publisher and the copyright holder of a recording) is the monetary charge that a music publisher (usually the songwriter) can demand for sales of a recording containing their song. The maximum charge is set by law (for example, see explanation of mechanical royalties and maximum statutory rates here). Lesser charges can be (and commonly are) negotiated, but if the publisher tries to demand a rate in excess of the rate set in law, the party that wants to sell recordings of that song can just pay the legally mandated rate. The song-writer cannot demand just anything that they want, there is a very real cap on the permissible monetary charges that go to a songwriter.

Trevor

Ah, huge difference here.
The defendant there was caught downloading and distributing those songs over kazaa.
I do not share my music collection on the internet.
I do frequently stream it to my Xbox/PS3, or other computers I'm on though using Orb.
It is not illegal to own MP3s. You cannot be (successfully) sued for having MP3s on your computer, no matter how many there are. It's a civil offense to distribute (and these are the people they're going after) or download. It's a criminal offense to make money from them. I'm sure as hell not doing that.

Fairly decent math there.
To be more specific, I rip at 320Kb CBR. The collection is at around 90,000 tracks at the moment, give or take (I actually haven't tried to count it in a while). It's hard to count how many actual albums that is, as it includes singles, demos, bonus disks, etc. I'm fairly anal retentive with my music and I have to have all the tags complete, the tracks BPM scanned, and organized by "_genre\artist\album name [year]\" folders; I can't stand not having a full album, and it even bugs me to not have a full discog of an artist in the collection.
I've been buying CD's since around 1990. My wife is a DJ, so she gets a decent amount of free stuff from some labels. I buy a lot of used music from half.com, ebay, or used-CD shops at cheap prices. I can't say I don't download anything, but I generally limit that to CD's I can't find. Stuff that's out of print, and not carried anymore. Here is another place my anal-retentiveness comes in--most of the stuff you find for download is a crappy bitrate, and I can't stand that.
I have a lot of obscure stuff, I concentrate on elektro, industrial, synthpop, ebm, etc. Hundreds of these bands are from Europe or S America.
So, if anyone would like to report me to a defunct German industrial label from the 1990's for downloading a one-off album from a band that's been disbanded for 10 years, go ahead. :)

I suspect you're probably right about many "big" downloaders. I'm a bit of an odd bird I guess. I am truly a music fanatic, I'm listening to stuff constantly. I store it on the computer for a multitude of reasons, convenience being a big one, and also so I can just file away the discs and never take the chance of scratching them, but still be able to listen to them.
Also to make it easy for the wife to burn or transfer them to her rig if she needs.
That being said, I do keep everything I come across. Even music I hate, and know I will never listen to again, I file it away. The way I see it, it is art, and some day many of these bands will be lost to time and obscurity. In my own way I'm trying to preserve them, and the art they contributed to us. At least for me, or whoever inherits my collection one day. That's a reason I have it on a RAID5... I would be devastated if I lost it all.

Don't be silly.
If somebody sues you and then cannot prove that you did what they claim you did, the case is thrown out for a lack of cause of action.
They cannot merely claim you infringed their copyrights and then force you to prove it didn't happen. To even bring the case, they need to have proof already to back this up.
For instance, I cannot just sue you for libel, under the sole evidence of "I think you did it", and then expect you to prove you did not. The judge would kick my butt out of court.