A federal judge has ordered a Bristol man to pay more than $4,000 for downloading five songs from the Internet.

Quote: U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall Wednesday directed William Martinez to pay the minimum statutory damages of $750 per song for infringing a copyright as well as $289 for the costs of bringing the lawsuit. The judge ruled because Martinez failed to answer a civil complaint brought against him or appear in court for the hearing. Martinez was the second Connecticut resident caught up in the lawsuits filed by the recording industry ordered to pay for illegally downloading music.

They are getting fined for downloading? WTF, I thought it was if they were sharing. Is that a typo error in that story, because the only way that they could know you are downloading music, is if you download from them. If the RIAA is putting songs out on P2P networks to try to get people to download them and then sue them, is not only entrapment, but fraud as well.

Shades of George Orwell. These scum are not only setting traps for unwary downloaders, they've hired hackers to create virii and data miners and such to clog peer-to-peer networks and spy on users. They dress like gestapo and raid homes and businesses without a police escort. They completely lie about monetary loses to justify their acts.

They don't want downloading to stop, they just want to profit from it. And control every aspect of it. They are worming their slimy selves into universities in a move tatamount to blackmail. Education costs will skyrocket. And once legal services like Napster and I-tunes have proven a viable option for milking the populace, prices will sky rocket. They are already talking about raising the price on I-tunes to as much as 3 dollars.

When CD's were introduced music prices nearly doubled. We were promised once the cost of producing CD's dropped so would music. Never happened. It wasn't even a justifiable increase at the time. Between Clear Channel and the big 5 music companies the industry has become a complete monopoly. People buy CD's to find there is only one or two decent songs. Struggling bands never have a chance to make it. And the one's who do make it don't make squat on record sales.

RIAA, Sony, BMG etc. are the slime that grows between the toes of pond scum. Capatalism at it worst. Call it what you will. It's government sanctioned extortion.

^^^totally agree

Of course they don't want to mention that the recording industry rips off artists more than P2P networks ever could.

Infact P2P networks can help you discover new artists. Not that the recording indusrty gives a f*ck, they just want your money.

P2P is for noobs...