DoD Warez Leader Faces 10 Years in Jail

An anonymous reader writes "After spending nearly 3 years in a detention center fighting his extradition from Australia, a leader of notorious warez group 'DrinkorDie' was yesterday arraigned before a U.S. District Court to face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement. If found guilty he faces 10 years in jail & a $500,000 fine."

Comments

Proportionate punishment?

[Nesgar]

One of the functions of imprisonment is to be a deterrent for others. Since the crime is so hard to police, and convictions extremely rare in proportion to its occurrence, the punishment must be relatively harsh to outweigh the small chance of being caught. Not saying that it's just (the relative penalties for murder etc do seem absurdly light by comparison), but there _is_ an argument for imprisonment. Civil litigation and possible bankruptcy is not a significant deterrent for many.