This is fucking ridiculous

The Obama administration is once again plowing head-first into Bush regime waters in this horrible new bit of news. The Department of Justice has just agreed to impose an absolutely in-fucking-sane monetary fine on whoever gets caught downloading anything copyrighted from the Net. Trust me, you really need to see the sum to believe it.

Nearly two years ago, the Bush administration sided with the major record labels in their civil lawsuit against an alleged and briefly famous Kazaa user named Jammie Thomas. Now the Obama administration is doing so as well.

In a legal brief filed Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice said the whopping $1.92 million fine that the Recording Industry Association of America slapped on Thomas was perfectly constitutional.

Federal prosecutors argue the relevant law is "carefully crafted" and consistent with "due process" and part of a necessary "regime to protect intellectual property. Under current law, copyright holders can sue for up to $150,000 per work (such as an MP3 file, DVD, or book).

Their brief adds: "Congress took into account the need to deter the millions of users of new media from infringing copyrights in an environment where many violators believe that they will go unnoticed." It does not take a position on issues other than the constitutional ones.

Oh, RIAA. How my hate for you courses through my veins like boiling venom. Far worse than for PETA, even (and they're hard to beat).

I've said it before and I'll certainly say it again: anyone who agrees that a person deserves to be left broke and penniless just because they downloaded some music, or a movie or two, or anything else of the sort, is seriously fucked up in the head. Equating the horror of such prosecution and persecution, to the insignificance of pirating music or films ... That's not just wrong anymore, it's fucking inhumane.

This sort of crap is exactly why I choose to pirate to get what I want, rather than to actually go out and pay for it (most of the time, anyway). Believe it or not, it's not just because downloading from the Net is so much faster and free (which it is on both counts), but is especially in retaliation and defiance for all these horrible injustices being done to try and "protect artists' intellectual property". That's as large a steaming pile of bullshit as I've ever seen or heard.

Newsflash, legal fools: most of them just DON'T CARE. Ask around, and I can guarantee you, the majority of artists, small and major, will not be all that troubled about having their works pirated. Why? Because it means people take an interest in what they do. It means people actually care about their works, they like what they do, and are eagerly spreading it around. This creates name for them, a fanbase that just keeps growing. Which, in turn, directly leads to more and more profits for them, as has been demonstrated numerous times in polls and such. What sort of artist wouldn't be immensely gratified by that?

Overall, this travesty-of-a-law is just yet another large strike to put on my "reasons why the Obama administration is better than Bush & co." chart. And it's getting mighty red these days.

Speaking of filesharing pride: I've added a new icon to my sidebar. (Don't worry: it's explicitly common domain.)

Share it around. (Click the image for the original source.)