"A Chicago woman who downloaded songs for free from the Kazaa file-sharing network violated copyright law and must pay a $22,500 fine to the record labels, a federal appeals court has ruled.
In the first U.S. case of its kind, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected Cecilia Gonzalez' arguments that she was merely "sampling" downloaded music to see which CDs she might want to purchase--and that her sampling was protected under copyright law's "fair use" exception."
[Via: Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com]
So that is, what, 70 fines for like 2 billion users? Not bad odds...
ReplyDeleteTrue... this is just the first time someone actually tried to fight a file-sharing charge since a Supreme Court decision which "clearly established that "people who post or download music files are primary infringers" of copyright law."
ReplyDelete... these quotes are from the artcile. Also important to note that "The 7th Circuit's ruling only sets a formal precedent for the states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin."