2007 October 05 archive at RunawayJim.org

A jury decided that a Minnesota woman had pirated 24 copyrighted songs and forced her to pay $222,000. I won’t repeat all the facts of the case, they’re all over the ‘net. This was the first trial that went to the jury regarding a copyright infringement lawsuit, and it was a win for the RIAA. Now, I am normally anti-RIAA, but the facts of this case, at least those presented in court, seem to point very much so at the defendant.

First, the KaZaA account that was used to share the songs in question was the same or similar as several other accounts owned by this woman. While that might be purely coincidental, there’s more. She stated in court that after a relationship she had, she went and changed all her passwords, including to her computer. She said that she was the only one who had access to her computer. She did not have an open, or any, wireless access point setup in her home, meaning no one could have “borrowed” her connection to download some tunes. Her only defense it seemed was that until this case was brought against her, she had never heard of KaZaA.

Here are some other facts that I have seen argued, trying to make it sound like the RIAA had it stacked against her. I’ve heard it said that had they brought up criminal charges rather than a civil suit, they would have sustained more burden of proof. They went the civil route because it would be easier for them to win. Now regardless of whether or not they could have more easily won the civil case, the state would have had to bring the charges against her for a criminal case to take place. I have a feeling that the RIAA would have had a hard time getting the state to do such a thing for an otherwise law abiding citizen. I heard that the RIAA had the jury stacked with technologically impaired (to put it nicely) people. That argument doesn’t hold because the defense has the same ability to question potential jurors as the plaintiff and they are able to remove the same number of jurors, one juror at a time.

Unfortunately, based on what I’ve read about this case, it sounds to me like the woman in question was either simply trying to play dumb or that perhaps one of her children wanted KaZaA to get free music and asked her to install it and create an account (both being under the age of 13). While you might say “then she lied”, she may not have remembered KaZaA other than as some program she installed for her kids. Regardless of how it went down, it really sounds to me like she was actually guilty. There are too many facts going against this woman that I just can’t see it any other way. On the bright side, she could have been forced to pay a whole lot more. The law allows for up to $150,000 per song. If you do the math, that comes out to $3.6 million. She was only forced to pay $9,250 per song.

I have not been happy with the way the RIAA and their affiliated record companies have been treating their customers through the settlements, the lawsuits, and the DRM. I have decided to boycott the RIAA and have stopped buying music from major record labels (with the exception of bands I have a great deal of interest in that have yet to drop their major labels). I recommend you do the same. The only way to get them to listen is with your wallet. If enough people boycott the RIAA, they will either cease to exist or need to rethink their ways.

As usual, there’s a discussion at Slashdot.

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I recently came across a “sting” piece from the CBC about the various computer repair people over-charging and giving wrong diagnoses of the issues with computers. While I don’t necessarily agree with using a sting operation to determine just how bad the problem is (they could’ve just gotten the worst techs the various companies have), this isn’t the first time I’ve seen something like this.

Slashdot has some good discussion and some of the comments to the original story are pretty good. Here’s my take on the issue:

When I was growing up, computers were an investment. If you have one, you were lucky. They have grown to be a more necessary part of our daily lives and, as such, we rely on them and their ability to store and preserve our data. In some cases, they have become so prevalent that for people with enough disposable income, computers are just a commodity. If one breaks, you buy a new one without worrying about fixing the other one. I see that regularly at work. It’s very unfortunate. Computer viruses are usually pretty easy to clean and prevent. I like to think of computers as a car. Most people don’t think twice about performing regular preventative maintenance on their cars. Oil gets changed every 3,000 miles or every 3 months, whichever comes first. The minute something sounds funny or starts acting weird, the car is taken to a mechanic to look at. Diagnosis fees are normal for your car, but people expect them to be free for computers.

Computer technicians can’t tell exactly what is wrong with the computer or what the solution might be simply by looking at the computer. That’s just not how it works. It’s very similar to auto mechanics. They aren’t able to tell what’s wrong with your car simply by hearing a sound or by you trying to tell them what it sounds like. They might have an idea, but it could be a number of things. The same goes for computers. That being said, computer technicians should be trained to diagnose problems correctly. You wouldn’t trust just any guy that calls himself a car guy with your car. Most people bring them to certified mechanics. Unfortunately, while there are professional certifications for certain aspects of computer support, there’s no good measure of how good a tech is. If he can memorize things and take a test well, he gets certified. There’s no hands on aspect to it.

The video from the CBC shows several techs completely failing to properly diagnose the issue. In fact, many of them seem to just be going through the motions and then taking a completely wild guess at what’s wrong. I take offense to what most of them did, being a computer technician myself. One of them went so far as to tell the woman her hard drive was dead and she’d have to take it to a special data recovery place for about $2,000, but then he started copying her data to his laptop without a problem (and without asking permission). I’d say that’s a pretty bad mis-diagnosis if you ask me. I also find it extremely unprofessional the way he left the data on his laptop saying “I’ll delete it later”. Under no circumstances should a tech be copying anyone’s data to their own device unless specifically asked by the client to backup their data.

The moral of the story is if you are looking for computer tech support, get referrals from friends. Chances are, the local hole in the wall independent computer store knows more than the big box, make as much money as we can place. The local stores are all about customer retention. The big boxes are about the bottom line. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out which one will offer you the best service for the best price.

The one other thing I want to point out is buying hardware from the techs. If you have something wrong with your car and need a part installed, that part is going to cost more coming from the mechanic than if you went out to buy it on your own. The same holds true for a computer technician. If they give you the parts, you’re probably going to pay more (after all, they do have to acquire them somehow, whether it’s keeping a stock, going out and buying them for you, or ordering them online for you). Their determination that the techs were giving them ridiculous prices for the parts is just wrong. First of all, the parts bought at a big box store are going to cost more than buying them online anyways. Then there’s the markup for buying the part from the tech. For example, the battery in my car died. I considered going to an auto parts store to buy a new one myself. However, it was about 8:00 pm on a dark cold January night. I decided to just let AAA come and install the battery. They came and the batter cost about $30 more than if I had bought it myself, but I didn’t have to leave the comfort of my home and install the battery in the below freezing weather.

So I guess the real moral of the story is that while some of what those techs did was unprofessional, the sting operation on them didn’t prove much more than the fact that there are some bad apples out there.

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