Harm done?

            "The new Dell Inspiron Notebook...$629.00

            Speakers for your IPod that connect to the laptop...$200.00

            Spurred creativity.....$28,700 per file shared"

So comes the ultimate question; what is the real harm of copyright infringement? Some cases, are intrinsically more clear than others. Let us look then at a couple of more "close to home" examples.

Physical Copies: Busted!

In 1973, in conjuncture with the FBI, the RIAA busted a small ring of "dealers" for selling copied 8tracks in local truck stops for a whopping three dollars a pop. Owen Horton Sr. and four other menwere charged with copyright infringement, payable to Sony BMG and Columbia Records by ten million dollars.

The Horton family received profits of nearly $100,000 over the course of two years from the creative work of others. However, what is interesting here is that much of the music was that of one-hit-wonders such as old, deleted, Smith singles. Does "Baby it's you" ring a bell? Anyone?

Unpredictability in technology and the industry

The music was for years very difficult to recover, but now, with the help of the internet, can be attained "new&used" off of Amazon.com . Overall, there is simply too much variation, instability, and unpredictability in technology to decide what real, exact harm is, and is going to be in the future.

Peer to Peer Sharing as an Act of Digital Terrorism at ASU:

Currently, violations of the copyright act (17 U.S. Code, Section 504) involving file sharing are punishable by "a sum no less than $750 and no greater than $30,000."   (Watauga Democrat). This is a fine that compensates the so-called "harm" done to the artist, owner, and industry. Here at ASU, three students were charged in a case with the RIAA with copyright infringement involving file sharing. They settled out of court "with an average settlement of $12,500."

The students were described as "just the unlucky victims of a random selection of a nationwide campaign to make a point." (The Appalachian) So what was the point here? Did the $37, 000 even make a difference in compensation for "harm", or is there a current struggle between the idea of setting precedence and simply making an example out of a few? This seems more like a scare tactic than an act of justice.

Determining harm done is nearly impossible:

In Lessig's words, the "actual harm caused by sharing is controversial." (297). Measuring harm done is purely assumptive and hypothetical, quantifying a monetary influence as the effect of a qualitative problem. The music industry   alongside the legislative bodies have literally, put a price on not just a sound, but on the actual brain chemistry that results from hearing it. The description of "harm" is too abstract. Let us then move to a different description of the situation; simply a problem .