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Copyright Infringement and Shoplifting Contrasted
awesomeO4001 wrote in to mention a post to Karl Wagenfuehr's blog where he compares and contrasts the penalties for copyright infringement vs. shoplifting. From the post: "...from what I can tell, the penalties laid out for downloading one season of a TV show with BitTorrent are much harsher than if you actually stole a DVD set of the same show from a government store...For stealing the DVD you could face no more than up to 1 year imprisonment and up to a $100,000 fine; for downloading the same material you could face statutory damages of up to $3,300,000, costs and attorney's fees"
Maybe downloading a movie means you own a P2P-friendly file to redistribute it in the future, while stealing a DVD means you're only going to watch it at home.
Obviously owning a physical DVD also allows you to turn it into P2P-friendly files, but that can't be fined yet since it hasn't happened, while the downloader already possesses the file.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
When you are downloading the movie via BitTorrent you are also farming it out to multiple other clients. So the anology is more like going into Best Buy with your DVD-burning laptop, sitting there and making copies and handing them to customers, then leaving with your own copy.
For stealing the DVD you could face no more than up to 1 year imprisonment and up to a $100,000 fine; for downloading the same material you could face statutory damages of up to $3,300,000, costs and attorney's fees
.torrent link?).
It's a question of risk: if you shoplift, you face a much higher chance of getting caught, thanks to CCTV, security guards at the exit, and the silly square bulge in your pants that doesn't look so natural to the cashier. If you download a movie, there isn't remotely as much risk (remember the last time you had an adrenalin rush when clicking on a
So therefore, the only way to instill fear in the mind of "internet shoplifters" is to up the possible penalty.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
1 year in jail and up to a $100,000 fine.
or no jail time and up to a $3 million fine.
I dunno... I think the latter is still a "lesser" punishment as the judge will probably still put the fine at about $100,000 depending upon the # of downloads.
the penalties are commensurate with the impact they want to make in the media.
If you publish a story about a guy who got caught shoplifting, nobody's going to care.
However, make a big splash about a 12 year old girl or a 80+ year old grand-mother and their dog being sued into oblivion, and the story gets everybody going "WTF".
They're obviously going for the shock-therapy/re-education treatment of the masses.
More proof that the entertainment industry has Congress in its pocket.
I'd love to see the RIAA and MPAA prosecuted under the RICO statute. (Wishful thininking, I know.)
Shopplifting: not a threat to said corporations.
P2P social revolution: threat.
From that perspective, its quite easy to see WHY the penalties are set up the way they are.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
This is just more evidence of the irrationality of copyright law, and particularly the DMCA. Copyright law is, at its roots, defined to create an artificial scarcity so people will continue producing creative works. I know this has been said to death, but no one seems to be listening: if copyright law is no longer serving its purpose (it isn't) then it should be done away with.
Compare...selling me low-quality cheesy ringer towns of songs I already own at twice the cost of the actual CD cost.
Then don't give me a license. And tell me that I'm SOL when my phone dies.
Then explain to me why i should give a crap about copyrights and theivery?
Nobody has intellectual property "rights". They have intellectual property privileges.
In the U.S. at least personal property rights-- you know, for "real" property-- are assumed to be a simple basic intrinsic right that exists outside of and regardless of the government, as codified by the fifth amendment's explicit observation that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
The execution and distribution rights to the non-property that go by the misnomer "intellectual property rights" are not intrinsic and in fact are granted by the government. This is a big deal. Unlike the intrinsic rights spoken of in the bill of rights-- which are not granted by the government and therefore cannot be limited or taken away by the government-- "IP" ownership is a privilege the government entrusts to certain people with the goal of benefiting the public, as part of Congress's empowerment "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
Just something to think about.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Who cares what the penalties are?
If you're an honest person and you don't do the crime, then whatever penalties are irrelevant. I think the real problem is that people are being tried, convicted and punished without due process. The RIAA is wielding power like the IRS, but they are NOT a judicial body or a government agency. As us chessplayers like to say," the threat can be more effective than the execution..." Many people are forced to settle out of court, and more than a few innocent people have been harrassed. In a democracy this shouldn't happen. So the real problem with the overblown penalties is that the threat of such draconian penalties leads to extortion by the RIAA. The penalties don't work that well as a deterrent, millions are still downloading copyrighted material, but they do give the RIAA leverage to pressure money out of people without having to actually prove their case in a court of law.
Punishments aren't meted out to fit crimes, they are created to compensate for enforceability. It is MUCH easier to enforce shoplifting at a retail store than it is to enforce filesharing copyrights.
The idea behind this is that while punishments are low for shoplifting, the chance of getting caught is high. In the filesharing situation, the chance of getting caught is low, so they try and jack up the punishment to make it that more serious if you do get caught.
Also, it is interesting to note ownership of property at time of theft for these crimes, as a comparison. In shoplifting, the retail chain has paid a distributor, record label, or movie production firm for the merchandise. The theft of a product still benefits those distributors. However the theft of a movie before a retail establishment purchases it means it hits the bottom line of the distributor directly. Personally, I bet the distributors couldn't give a rat's ass whether you shoplifted, since that copy was already paid for, and now the retail store has to buy another copy to replace the one you stole.
But copyright-infringement means that demand for the items on the shelf don't change. IE the retailer doesn't need to reorder another copy to fill the empty shelf.
PS don't take my observation as a support for copyright-infringement. I don't believe it to be right.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
If you shoplift a movie, the store pays for it. The store already bought the movie from a distributor, so the MPAA already has their cut of the pie and they don't care what happens to it. If you download a movie, the MPAA doesn't get the revenue that it feels it deserves.
While the net cost to society is probably about the same either way, people get punished more if they steal from organizations with large legal budgets.
or listen to their crap. Fair use is immaterial. If they could they'd wire your ears and eyes up directly to a meter and change you for every second of your life.
As it is, its hard enough to get away from the ads, promos and all the other schlock.
I'd rather think than be considered as a money pump. Hence, I don't listen, I don't watch... At least not what they'd want me to. I'm ann unplugged-in subversive.
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I think you're the only person I've noticed so far to point out the key to understanding the disjoint between penlaties for infringement and theft.
In the case of intellectual property violation, you're dealing with a very powerful industry that has not been subject to largescale "theft" of their product before a few years ago. They suddenly see their profits dropping and believe it to be the result of "theft" through filesharing. Their lobbyists go to work, and we get regressive penalties for filesharing.
In the case of theft of the physical DVD, the retailer has already bought the DVD, so the financial burden falls Not on the production house, but on the retailer... and here's the key... WHO DEALS WITH THEFT ALREADY AND HAS DEALT WITH IT FOREVER, AND WILL DEAL WITH IT INTO THE FUTURE. Shoplifting is a part of the overhead, particularly for large retailers, and while they act to decrease it (cameras, security tags, etc) they know that real steps to ERADICATE it would be silly and drive away patrons. (I'm imagining a wal-mart associate following each and every customer around to make sure that they dont steal... or locking ALL wares behind cases.... attack ferrets to chase and ravage children toying with the locks... etc)
Sorry, that was an extended parenthetical, but i think my point is clear. If store were as fanatical in preventing the shoplifting of CD's and DVD's as the RIAA and MPAA are trying to be regarding their intellectual property rights, nobody would shop there, cause nobody likes being treated like a criminal from the off.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
That is an interesting idea. Making the value of a crime negative, or "not worth-it" is something that I support. But what about the difference between criminal and civil? The copyright laws make it criminial to do certain things. But how negative should the penalty of a crime be so to stop the crime?
In the United States we generally agree that cutting the hand off of a theif is too negative. But fining someone into the ground is not. Fining a $1M is a nice idea in theory, but what good would it accomplish? The person that steals from Wal-mart, generally speaking, is not wealthy enough to buy the items in the first place, and therefore wouldn't have the means to pay in the first place. Placing a regressive fine on those who don't have the money to begin with would benefit society little (if the shoplifter only makes $25K a year, it would take 40 years for the shoplifter to pay the fine; meanwhile the shoplifter has to declare bankrupticy to get out of the judgment, thereby eliminating and circumventing the judgement and the debts of the offendar). $1M is too regressive, as it would ruin the offendar and the fine would never be paid. Rather, fining the offendar on a scale that would allow the offendar to pay, yet make it sufficent to hurt would be better. So in this example our $25K/year shoplifter pays $2,500. Enough to hurt, but not enough to ruin the guy.
But the huge problem that I see with the whole copyright situation is that the punishment is extreme and serves very little purpouse. Why would $3,300,000 be a just punishment? Is the value of the product worth that much? TV shows, movies and music are not valued at insane amounts. Stealing a TV set won't land you a $3M fine. What benefit does fining people into the ground serve the public?
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.