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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"
What's a "government store"?
If you are using P2P software, you are not only downloading, but also uploading, which helps other users infrginge the copyright too. This is far more worrying to the copyright holders than one person stealing one copy. Also it is much easier to get away with downloading so a harsher penalty acts as more of a deterrent.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Maybe manipulating the magnetic charge of particles on a hard drive platter that I own, or changing the voltage of output pins on a computer that I own SHOULD BE LEGAL. How about that? Seems fair, what with it all being my property.
Oh, but there's this magic kind of "intellectual property" that's allows people to own ideas. Something absurd on its face. Nevermind that unlike real property, IP "rights" go away after a certain amount of time.
It takes a lot more time and effort in order to find and prosecute a P2P pirate than a shoplifter. As well, P2P piracy is a more pressing problem. And furthermore, when you use BT or some other programs, you're not only doing the equivalent of "shoplifting" the DVD, you're also distributing copies of the DVD illegally - which carries a much higher penalty than simple shoplifting in it's own right.
What's the solution? DON'T STEAL/PIRATE MOVIES/BOOKS/SOFTWARE/MUSIC/etc.! It's VERY simple to avoid being caught by these supposedly "unfair" laws!
I am the maverick of Slashdot
The only time quantity of punishment will affect the behavior of somebody breaking the law is when it is accompanied by certainty of punishment.
:-) are very small indeed, but the stiff penalty puts many people off, just in case they end up losing.
Not at all: that's the very reason people play the lottery: their chances of winning are nearly naught, but millions play everyday because they reckon the enormous bounty is worth the ridicule odds.
Likewise, that's the reason a big drop was observed at the height of **AA-instigated lawsuits last year: chances of losing at the P2P game (not winning this time
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Unfortunately their pricing model is flawed.
I think the problem is, if I steal a car from GM's factory, how much have I stolen, the retail or wholesale value of the vehicle?
How about intellectual property, have I stolen the costs that it took to make the CD, or the suggested MSRP? Why does the RIAA assume that the MSRP is what is stolen?
With the GM vehicle, we have a greater chance of market competition causing the price to drop down to the cost of the materials + cost of labor. It's not perfect by any means, and barriers to market entry screw things up, but real competition keeps them more honest than the record companies.
The problem with this logic, is that lack of competition with IP causes the price to be higher than it would be in a market where there is direct competition.(i.e. there is only one Windows, and it's made by microsoft, there is only one Radiohead, and only one record company I can get their CD from). Instead, each band, and product, is it's own monopoly, with no direct competition, which is why price fixing is so easy with music and movies.
So, the record company sets the price as high as it can, and since there is no direct competition, the profit margins stay high. What happens when someone "steals" music? They aren't charged for the costs of making the IP, instead they are stuck with fines that are based on artificially high prices.
I'm not sure if anyone dealing with economics has tried to come up with a way of measuring competition in an industry, but if they haven't, they should. The market distortions created by our IP rules are horribly unjust. Why should someone that makes a small amount of IP be rewarded handsomely, while someone that makes a really existing product, have comparatively low profit margins? Why should someone that steals maybe $100 from the real world profit of a record company, and even less than that from the true value of the good itself(if we assume that the value of the good is only as much as the amount paid to the artists and managers), be charged with millions in fines?
The **AA certainly could do this! In civil court, there is no law against entrapment. The **AA could put their stuff up for download, log the people downloading it, then sue them. And it would be totally legal. And the **AA would win. Ask any lawyer.
Which is also bullshit! That intent to distribute thing has always bugged me. Since when is the potential to commit a crime also a crime? Intent is important in a murder/manslaughter situation, but when we start differentiating in victimless crimes, I start to feel my rights getting stepped on.
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
If you're an honest person and you don't do the crime, then whatever penalties are irrelevant.
Is it possible to avoid doing the crime? There exists combinatoric evidence that it's next to impossible to create an original melody.
Actually, go after the big fish, and more big fish will appear to replace them. If there's a demand, someone will find a way to supply it. Period.
In Why Our Drug Laws have Failed and What We Can Do About It, Superior Court Judge James P. Gray quotes a letter from a fellow judge about arresting every drug dealer they could find in one city (Phoenix), to see how quickly the market filled the gap. They bought drugs from every single dealer they could find, and arrested all 76 they found on one night. Can you guess what happened?
Arresting the users won't work. Arresting the dealers won't work either. What's left?
The only rational option is legalization. Without an artificially constricted supply, drugs would no longer be insanely profitable, meaning gangs wouldn't be killing each other over drug distribution territories anymore and dealers wouldn't be trying to get people hooked. With drugs subject to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, manufacturers would have to label their products and say how much of what was in it, meaning accidental overdoses would virtually disappear. Drugs wouldn't have to be smuggled in compact, more addictive form anymore, so we'd go back to having cocaine be an ingredient in soft drinks rather than a powder you snort.
And before you reply that legalization would make more people addicts...
Before the early part of the 20th Century, a 12 year old girl could walk into a general store and walk out with as much heroine, cocaine and morphine as she could carry in one arm and a 12-gauge shotgun in the other. If drug legalization would cause widespread addiction now, why didn't it back then?
live(free) || die;
"The stigma and threat of being caught and spending jailtime is the demotivator in the former case. In the latter, if you can't change the opinions of these people that their actions aren't crimes, and its easy to not get caught, you have to severely up the penalties to keep the same level of demotivation."
You have a really strange notion of democracy.
When people think something is right, there should not be a law outlawing that thing. If copying and sharing are considered good values, the government should look into facilitating these actions. Instead, the government tries to make them harder. Something's wrong there.
It's a question of risk: if you shoplift, you face a much higher chance of getting caught
I don't think it's so much to do with risk, although that might be what lawmakers tell themselves so they can sleep at night.
The thing is, if you steal a DVD, you steal it from WalMart or Best Buy, not from ABC or Warner Brothers, because the retailer has already purchased it from their supplier, etc.... If you download it, you are stealing it 'directly' from ABC or WB, at least in their eyes. And it's the studios that have the lobbying power, not the retailers.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
>So therefore, the only way to instill fear in
>the mind of "internet shoplifters" is to up the
>possible penalty.
This doesn't bode well. Me, using a pencil and paper copying a poem from a book I have is next to impossible to find out. The chance of getting cought approchaes zero. So the penalty would approach infinity. At the very least the panlty should start in the billions of dollar.
On the other hand it bodes well for my planned bank robbery. I intend to call the police before hand, not use mask and stare into the cameras and so on. Sure, a huge chance of getting cought, but by your reasoning, the penalty would probably not be more than say $10 or so in fines.
Sounds like a good reasoning to me!