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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."
Let the convicted turn over the proceeds from their crime to the victim. Problem solved.
Thats not the way the justice system is supposed to work: the punishment must fit the crime. For example, one could mandate the death penalty for something like littering in order to deter even the rich from littering. This would certainly meeting the criteria of being equally unfair to everyone, but it isn't justice. Justice is about being fair to everyone - not the opposite.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
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!
I should point out that I am an American citizen and have served on juries before. My comments are specific to the US legal system and may not be applicable to that of Canada, the UK, and other countries.
Having served on a couple of US juries I can assure you all that juries can contain people who are technologically illiterate. The last time I served on a jury, which was 5 years ago, I was shocked when 3 or 4 guys on the jury basically got into a contest to see who could claim to be the stupidest when it came to technology. I have never seen anything like this in my life, but these guys took turns trying to top each other and convince everyone on the jury that they were the stupidest person there was when it came to technology. There were exactly 2 people out of 13 (1 was an alternate) who had an IT background and I was one of those.
So on top of having people with weak to non-existent technology skills you may run into these people who see the world in black and white and want to punish evil doers. We had one of those on my jury. They tend to always be biased against defendants and want to apply the harshest sentence possible. I've read about this woman's various trials and she has had very poor lawyers and on top of that, jurors reported that they were sure she had lied in court and was completely guilty of the charges. I think she's a nut job who thinks she can beat the charges. So considering all of that, I can't say I'm surprised she got screwed with a fine she can never pay. Her life will be ruined as even thought the RIAA knows they'll never get the full amount, they can garnish her wages forever.
not based on a per-song basis. charge what the songs cost on a retail (or equiv) basis. there shold NOT BE A MULTIPLIER EFFECT going on.
that's the problem people keep missing.
remove this multiplier crap. that does not work and there is no 'pay a higher pentalty' for having an album's worth of songs vs just 1.
if the act is wrong, punish the act.
they don't lock you up for shoplifting based on how many POUNDS of material you stole. or what its square yardage is. why are people so willing to accept the per-song penalty multiplier?
songs cost what they cost (lets save that for another debate). if I 'stole' 10 songs and they go for a dollar each, that's $100. and yes, for a regular person, that's a lot of money and will make them think twice about doing this again (or rather, getting caught). but it will NOT ruin them for life with lawyer bills and riaa bills.
no multiplier for songs. get that solved right off.
the actual penalty is a fixed amount. I don't care what that is, but at least its the same amount and one that can at least be rationally discussed.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
What if I make $100 per song selling your songs, and you lose $500 in sales because I undersold you? Still $50/song then?
So someone who accidentally shares their music library for a couple days...
Should not be in court at all, since there is no intent to commit a crime or violate copyright.
Is showing an explicit intent to both violate copyright by copying AND distributing, and since it is torrent, is probably profiting in some other way (getting files in exchange that he would otherwise have to pay for).
Because taking 10% from me is nothing like taking 10% from a minimum wage earner. I would put less in savings or go out less, he might not be able to eat.
Community service is far more fair.
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
Well, as our great founding father said on the topic of income tax: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Um, no, rich people are rich because their parents are rich, and their friends are rich, and they get lucky. Poor people are typically poor because they don't know any rich people they can get rich off of.
Like, say you live in a shanty town in Kenya. How are you supposed to get rich by "valuing your time" more than everyone else?
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
No monetary figure will be fair because it is sound. Sound is naturally free. The music industry has finally hit the wall of nature. Good!
Song is the reward you get for writing music.(Also natural) Performing music is work and should be rewarded fairly. This assures worthy musicians a chance to make a living.
No industry is required for this scenario. A parasite clinging to musicians and sucking the life and music out of them while holding the world hostage to the artificial taste of music derived by its ability to be sold by the current marketing dweebs is not natural.
Nature is killing the music industry. The only humane thing to do is to euthanize it by cutting off its flow of income. Carry on , as you were.
In any revolution, there are casualties. Perhaps organizing a little off the books fund to help this family get new identities and escape an undeserved fate by legalese.
Meanwhile others will suffer while we allow this monster to live.
Quit paying for music. Period.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
You're suggesting rich people should be penalised [sic] more on the abstract basis that they happen to be more wealthy?
Isn't there already a precedent in the United States Tax Code for this?
On first look, progressive and even flat-rate taxes can appear to punish the wealthy and award the poor.
However, wealth is generated from society. Those with the most wealth have not only benefited the most but consumed the most. If you own your business, you benefit from a good local state-ran school because your employees, customers and suppliers send their children there. If there were no state-ran schools your employees would demand greater remuneration, your suppliers greater profits and your customers would buy less because they would have the additional expense of schooling. The quality of the school in the past has also affected the quality of your workforce and the incomes of your customers.
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.
Justice is about being fair to everyone - not the opposite.
This isn't about justice.
Tort law is about activity that does harm to one party, but does not rise to the level of criminal activity. The law in these sorts of cases is not seeking "justice" in the Old Testament, evil-deeds-must-be-punished way. It's seeking redress for a harm that has been done, not assigning guilt. When Chemical Co. X dumps pollutants into the river in violation of state law and gets sued into making payments to the victims, unless the company was criminally negligent, the goal is to assign a dollar value to the harm and essentially fix the harm. Sometimes a harm is so massive (children born with birth defects, for example) that assigning a monetary value to it seems repugnant, but it's the only practical means of efficiently obtaining resolution.
Generally speaking, plaintiffs don't go after those who can't pay. That's why in an airplane crash or building structural failure or similar event you'll hear about plaintiffs suing everyone they can find. They do so so the harms done to them can be redressed by someone; they don't really care whom. Again, it's not about intent and affixing of moral blame. It's about distributing resources as efficiently as possible, so the aggrieved party can be compensated and future damage can be avoided.
The damages awarded to a successful plaintiff also serve a signaling function to other parties who might be contemplating the same noncriminal but harmful behavior. The goal is not necessarily to enrich the plaintiff (because, as in this case, the plaintiff will never collect the awarded damages), but to show those who might be tempted to follow in the defendant's footsteps that it's a bad idea to do so.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ