On: Student Must Pay $675,000 in Downloading Case

[jacquesm]

To put this into perspective, here is a list of fines for various crimes:

http://www.cslib.org/finespenalt.htm

[chewbranca → jacquesm]

Wow, according to that link a "Class A felony (murder)" has a fine of up to $20,000, but he's getting fined $22,500 per song? That's disgusting. The tyranny of the RIAA has gone on long enough.

[wmf → chewbranca]

But he's not going to prison. For murder I think fines would be the least of your worries.

[jacquesm → wmf]

So, let's contrast it then with compensation to crime victims:

OJ Simpson had to pay 33.5 million to the relatives of the woman he murdered (but has only paid a fraction of that to date)

According to http://www.wrongful-death-network.com/news.shtml only 27 states even allow punitive damages in a wrongful death case.