Apparently, a woman by the name of Jammie Thomas has recently been found guilty of illegal downloading, and was ordered by a judge to pay $220,000 in damages spread across 6 different companies (Original Story Found Here).

Now, what makes this interesting is, according to that article, its over a grand total of 24 songs. 24... *does some quick math* Thats $9166.66 per SONG?! Thats a wee bit much I think. Its kinda crazy. The lady is apparently going to appeal the decision, and this looks like its going to be a long legal battle.

Now, I will admit that I have downloaded things in the past for free. I think everyone has at some point. Now a days though I can if possible pay for it, like my recently purchased tracks by Tantric. Sometimes, its hard to find what you are after though. I think its time the record labels got with the times. People want to download music. What I would like to see personally is the ability to go online to the record label's websites, and purchase the songs for like 99 cents from them directly. Or the artists.

I dont want to see the artists not make any money but at the same token most songs can be found online. There is no real way to fully crush file sharing at this stage of the game.

What do you think?

Cause I don't. I know alot of people have thumbdrives. They are nice, for moving files around. Generally, if I want to move something from work to home, or from home to work, I am stuck either using my gmail account, or burning it to a disc. Its annoying. However, I recently found a file sharing system called, interestingly enough:
.

Its an interesting system, similar to Yousendit (although it appears to be easier to use and more fully featured then YouSendIt).

Firstly there are 2 ways you can go about using the system. You can either download and install a desktop plugin, or use the web based system. Using the plugin allows you to simply right click on the file or folders (up to 500 mb in size), and then choose Make Link which will upload it to the servers and provide you with a link to the file. This is handy as it makes uploading pretty hassel free. I mean come on, its easy to right click!

The web based system is pretty standard compared to most web based systems. You log into your Driveway account (which is free) and then upload your files, even adding descriptive text to them if needed. Its a nice website. It also boasts up to 2 gigs of storage space online, and has a strange widget system. I am not sure exactly WHAT widgets are, but they appear to bit itty bitty pictures that represent your file types.. Heck if I know :) Looks cool though. And apparently you can embed the widgets into things like your blogs and websites! So hey, screw LJ's small file stash. Just make a whole bunch of links on Driveway and BAM! Share away!

I think I am gonna use this to move some music over here to my work PC. I could use the Subway to Sally "Engelkrieger" LP over here. Nice German Metal FTW!



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