British Government Considers Tenfold Increase To Copyright Penalty

Out-Law is reporting that the British government is planning to increase the maximum fine that can be awarded for online copyright infringement tenfold. "The Government and the Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) are consulting on the plans, which would allow Magistrates' Courts in England and Wales to issue summary fines of £50,000 for online copyright infringement. The larger fine is proposed for commercial scale infringements, where the person involved profits from the infringement. The plan would implement another of the recommendations of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, the 2006 report by former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers which has been the foundation of intellectual property policy since its publication."

Comments

Re:Ouch

[betterunixthanunix]

I see a reason to hate it. It takes the UK that much closer to imposing higher fines on ordinary, not-profit-seeking citizens who download movies and music. It also opens up yet another channel of abuse, where a person's actions can be construed as profit-seeking even if they really weren't, to levy a higher fine against them.

Don't take it for the face value

[burnitdown]

If you take society at face value, you assume that institutions and rules actually control this place.

In reality, values and economics and demographics do.

They can increase penalties all they want, but that's not addressing the economic role of piracy and the new demographic that sees it as normal.

In my view, record labels, software firms and book publishers all had it easy with record profits on super-popular hits, and so they ignored the rest as "niche topics."

Now that everyone can publish, the market is flooded with material, reducing its value. Labels and publishers need to compete more aggressively, not spend money lobbying for laws.

All IMHO.

Re:Don't take it for the face value

[CRCulver]

They can increase penalties all they want, but that's not addressing the economic role of piracy and the new demographic that sees it as normal.

On the other hand, the fact that for a few decades now a huge percentage of young people in various countries has considered smoking marijuana completely fine has not resulted in the total decriminalization of it. There may very well remain a disconnect between the attitudes of the people and the severity of the law in the "intellectual property" issue as well.

Those damn commoners.

[RyanFenton]

<satire style="Stephen Colbert" >
I mean, the nerve of those commoners - copying data without a whim of care towards the strict control of information. Taking good sales pounds from BMI and other sacred institutions. It's downright madness - thinking they could just download and copy what isn't rightfully theirs, and think they could get away with it.

I say, no more - they must be punished further - £500,000, no $5,000,000 per... bit of data copied. By god, they shall learn what it means to write data that isn't theirs.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to yell at squirrels for taking nuts from my trees - I do believe they now owe me twelve trillion fully grown oak trees - damn selfish squirrels, they will learn, oh yes, all of them will learn what it means to take my precious acorns - potential trees, all of them, stolen from me!
</satire>

Re:Ouch

[bigstrat2003]

A bad law which turns out to have good uses does not become a good law.

Dear recording industry

[DI Rebus]

As is common in other areas of industry, the value of your inventory has changed. Please adjust your expectations.