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Considering a Fair Penalty For Illegal File-sharing
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt, following up on yesterday's announcement of the 1.5 million dollar verdict against Jammie Thomas: "This week a federal jury handed down the verdict in the third file-sharing trial against a Minnesota mother of four who has been fighting against the charges brought by the RIAA since 2005. Understandably, a lot of people are outraged by this verdict and while reading through comments about the fine on some online forums, I saw some interesting opinions on how these fines should be assessed. The point that $62,500 per song is excessively high seems to be something that everyone can agree on, but what actually is fair seems to be a big point of contention."
The fairest penalty is no penalty. We need to end the war on sharing by legalizing noncommercial copyright infringement. I know this is not a popular view. But this stalemate can't last forever. One side has to win. Either piracy or anti-piracy will win.
Given a choice between the two, I choose piracy. Because if anti-piracy wins, the resultant changes to internet policy and enforcement would be something straight out of dystopian science fiction. All data transmitted across the internet would have to be monitored and checked for copyright violations. It would require aggressive internet filtering and surveillance on a scale that makes the Great Firewall of China look like child's play. 1984 was not supposed to be a guidebook...
Moreover, there's plenty of evidence that it's possible to run a content business on the internet without charging per digital download. Plenty of people do it. In short: yes, you can compete with free.
Legalize file sharing by legalizing noncommercial copyright infringement. It's the only way.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
The fine for DUI is less and that is with all the fess added together.
even hitting a road worker in a work zone is a MAX fine of like $10,000 so how can file sharing HAVE A FINE THIS HIGH?
Hell you can shop lift cd's and pay like a max fine of $500
You're suggesting rich people should be penalised more on the abstract basis that they happen to be more wealthy? Their wealth has no relevance to the act committed nor the damage done.
I agree, this does not apply to copyright infringement or other civil matters. If you caused me $100 of damage I want that $100 not less and not more.
However, some countries have implemented "% of income" fines for things like drunk driving. The idea is that a drunk rich driver is approximately as dangerous as a drunk poor driver, however, if you fine both $2000, it will be a huge fine for the poor driver and hopefully cause him to think next time before driving drunk. The same $2000 will be small change for the rich driver and he will be able to afford getting fines a lot of times and, as such, is likely to continue driving drunk. So, what can we do to make the rich guy stop driving drunk? Fine him so much that the fine will hut him just like the $2000 fine for the poor guy.
OTOH, fine for riding the bus without a ticket should be the same to everyone. It should be high enough (and inspections frequent enough) that, on average, the free-riders pay more than the honest people. If a rich guy likes paying the fine instead of buying the ticket - let him, as this does not cause any non-financial damage, unlike drunk driving.
P.S. I don't have a problem with drunk drivers (as long as they hit a tree or a lamp post instead of hitting me or my car), I just chose this as an example of an activity that does more damage than just money.