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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"
This means that you're also likely redistributing the material, which you probably aren't doing if your crime is shoplifting
what are you talking about? people have been stealing things for years for the sole purpose of redistributing (pawning) them to make money from it, or just feeding themselves.
a big difference is that the **AA has already been paid for stolen dvd's because the store bought them before they were ripped off- so they could care less about shoplifting.
on the other hand, p2p users really don't get or care that much about copyright infringement because they see it as *sharing* and don't consider it to be a crime- they are not trying to profit from the theft like the person breaking into homes, cars or storefronts.
these are two very different issues that really need to be looked at together for anyone to begin making any sense of what the proper punishments should be.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.