Illegally Downloading Costs Money

The brother of a former classmate of a friend of Hipster Jew was attacked by the anti-pirating police a few years ago, and the charges have finally stuck. Avid music fan, Joel Tenenbaum was slapped with a $675,000 fine for downloading and sharing 30 songs. 30 SONGS.

If we work on a pricing scale for iTunes, that would cost $30 for 30 songs. But in this case, each song cost Joel $22,500, so each song must have been shared 22,500 times EACH.

I call bullshit. The music industry is being greedy and unnecessarily heavy handed. There is a 0% chance that any of the musicians that created and own the rights to the songs are getting a single penny of this money. There has never been a piracy case where the artist actually received money. Every penny goes to a bunch of asshole lawyers and company presidents who have another ten lawsuits against more poor schmucks.

Clearly the only pirate here is the Music Industry. Fight the fight Joel! You’re our hero! No matter how much the Music Industry tries to curb illegal music downloading, they will never be able to stop iPod and harddrive music swapping.

Eat that dirt bags.