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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."
Really, there is the concept of damages and punitive damages in existing law. If all you got reimbursed for was the actual amount of damages, then people who commit the offences would, on average, profit, because they, on average, don't get caught all the time.
That's not saying that $1.5 mil is a good judgement, just that "proceeds" is a very poor way to levy fines or jury awards in civil cases.
When you sell something you created for $1, you are not expecting that single sale to be your income for the period of time it took you to produce the product. "To continue to reap money without doing much work is rather disgusting" unless you expect make the income prospectively, that is after you put the product of your labor on the market, rather than before. If it took you 1000 hours to write a book and you offer it for sale, you expect to make 1000 x $N, where $N is the hourly rate you hope to earn. Do you find that disgusting?
If I steal a car I will probably not be paying a fine, I'll be going to jail. Paying a fine: $1000. Not being raped in prison by Bubba: priceless.
Let see 1 song is $0.99 on itunes, and 5X damages, so $4.95 seems about fair.
That's assuming that the author is distributing his songs on iTunes and you're intervening to set what you think a fair price is for him. Might as well do away with copyright altogether, then, since my idea of a fair price for a lot of modern music is "I'll give you ten dollars to stop playing that crap."
It's a troll because you're on /. and you have a positive opinion of copyright. Duh.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
1. You gave it to them as a gift. Every one of those gifts is a copy you stole from me. Pay up.
2. Ibid.
3. So you want to cut yourself into my profits by keeping money that belongs to me? Fuck that.
I have no sympathy for thieves, but I also have no sympathy for people who have lobbyists who write laws so they can become legal thieves. The punishments specified in this law are outrageous, but so is the idea that people can just give away other people's property and not be at least proportionally punished for it.
Exactly. This is why I am for castration. And none of that sissy chemical castration stuff... we need the guillotine.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Easy there now, that`s some pinko commie socialism bullshit you`re spouting off.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.