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A 26-year-old man from Sweden will only have to pay a court ordered fine of 2000 kronor ($311 in U.S. currency) for sharing 44 songs over the Internet, TorrentFreak.com reports. Compared to Jammie Thomas-Rasset, who in 2010 was ordered to pay $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages for illegally sharing 24 songs (that works out to $62,500 per song), the un-named Swedish man should pay his fine and thank his legal team.
The 26-year-old had been tracked by the IFPI for sharing 44 songs on the Internet, and originally the judge wanted to punish him with a $45-per-track fine. Even that would have amounted to 'only' $1,980, a far cry from Thomas-Rassett's million-and-a-half dollar fine.
"Swedish courts may be slowing coming to their senses regarding non-commercial violations of the copyright monopoly," said Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge. "The verdict is in stark contrast to the political verdict in the Pirate Bay trial, where four people were sentenced to long prison sentences and paying €3,500,000 (US$4.78 million) for merely aiding in possibly sharing 33 works."
Do you think the fine was just, too low, or still too high?
Image Credit: Flickr Stephen Poff
Comments are closed on this article
whathuhitwasntme
February 22, 2011 at 4:35pm
Its insane to think that million dollar fines help anybody.
They will NEVER be paid. If you had millions of dollars, you wouldn't have been downloading
in the first place.
I believe the most fair suggestion was that the fine should be the exact value of the track to download legally.
I believe itunes currently charges .99c US currency for most tracks. X number of tracks times .99c= your fine
you would save fortunes in legal fee's and court battle's with a reasonable fine system. As well, it would be more likely to be paid if it was a reasonable amount.
Eoraptor
February 22, 2011 at 9:01am
It's about damned time... THere is no reason to go after any person and asses on them fines that equate to "everything is ruined forever because you made a copy!" remember at one time RIAA claimed that pirate music, if everyone who shared files was fined according to what the corpocracy wanted, equated to more money that exists on all of Earth.
This seemes perfectly rational to asses as a fine for an illegal act. it's not like this guy, or 99.999% of file sharers, have unveiled corporate trade secrets or invalidated millions of dollars in investments through file sharing. now if they are leaking material that is pre-release (musically or theatricall) or linked to a companies desgn process (industry) that's different, but treating grandma like a somali pirate for downloading bob dylan is just obscene.
alexw1234
February 22, 2011 at 8:31am
If he shared with only a few people that's an appropriate fine. If he shared with hundreds or thousands of people that is way to low.
