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UK Gov't Asks: Is 10 Years In Jail the Answer To Online Pirates?
An anonymous reader writes with a link to this piece at TorrentFreak: Physical counterfeiters can receive up to 10 years in jail under UK copyright law but should online pirates receive the same maximum punishment? A new report commissioned by the government reveals that many major rightsholders believe they should, but will that have the desired effect? A new study commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) examines whether the criminal sanctions for copyright infringement available under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) are currently proportionate and correct, or whether they should be amended. While the Digital Economy Act 2010 increased financial penalties up to a maximum of £50,000, in broad terms the main 'offline' copyright offenses carry sentences of up to 10 years in jail while those carried out online carry a maximum of 'just' two.
the "property" holders won't mind paying taxes on the property? Right? Like you and me?
Oh, it's different for them.
Mostly random stuff.
10 years in jail for illegally watching a movie....No it is not ok!
The recently banned ( in India) BBC documentary constitute online piracy ?
Put 99% of the people in jail for 2 years then. Don't take one 'example' or two. No, if this is really as illegal as you're saying, put everyone in jail. Including yourself.
Oh right, you can't. Empty threats, only leading to more extreme 'examples'.
I don't know what an "appropriate" punishment is for illegally downloading or distributing someone's content, but ten years sounds incredibly excessive unless you're running a vast, far-reaching network, distributing content to a million people and charging them for the convenience or something like that.
Some Average Joe sitting at home, downloading a bootlegged copy of the latest Hollywood movie... I don't know, a $50 fine maybe?
The thing is, the Internet has, and will continue to change, how media can be distributed and consumed. The old model of ticket and physical media sales just doesn't seem viable anymore. I think the media companies are going to need to find other ways to pick up revenue. Advertising in the movie itself, of course, is an option, but I think we're missing part of a bigger picture somewhere.
Someone, someday, is going to figure it out and make a bazillion dollars.
Love sees no species.
Longer sentences don't matter. Never have, never will. Especially not for white collar crime. You could put the death penalty, or lifetime in prison, behind it and it wouldn't make a difference.
6 months in prison would be enough of a deterrent if it worked. Because the people who commit this ... erh ... "crime" are usually not the hardened criminals that need a revolving door in the jailhouse 'cause they spend more time going in and out that on either side.
Now, it doesn't work, does it? Nope, doesn't. Mostly for two reasons. First, it's a law that is not backed by popular consent. There is exactly ZERO chance that someone would turn someone he knows in for this. Or convince him that it's better to turn himself in. WAY different for laws that have popular support. Make this quick comparison: Imagine you know someone and you learn that he copies files. Do you turn him in? He's not a close friend, just someone you know. Would you? Probably not. You would probably not even ask him to not do it again. Now imagine him having stolen something from a shop. Does it get more likely that you at least ask him to stop doing it and "get clean"?
And that ties in with the second reason: Nobody thinks of getting caught when doing something. I'm not even going to cite the near zero chance to actually get caught because the sentence for armed robbery of a bank is already at 10 years around here and the chance to get caught is near 100%. Still, people do it. Why? Because that's not on their list when they commit that crime.
Now let's string it together: People not thinking of the consequences, a near zero chance of getting caught and no popular support for the law. Fuck, you could have public beheadings and it wouldn't change shit.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Guess where my tourist dollars are NOT going to be spent ?
Like a good muslim country.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
Is 10 years enough if you sell/buy bootleg cigarettes or booze? Instead of looking at the fundamental issue (cost) that creates the black markets, the "leaders" seek ever higher penalties that never seem to stop the undesired actions.
it is all about pricing and availability. If the media companies want to reduce piracy then make their products priced and available in a manner that people want - that need not equat to "free". If instead, they insist on maintaining prices and policies that encourage blackmarkets, they should treat it as a cost of doing business.
the only punishment that would actually work is one that is actually reasonable... how about, you get caught, you have to pay 5x the price of the item you pirated? people might actually stop pirating. the issue with these ridiculous punishments is that the only people you could reasonably go after for are the outliers who are the ones uploading tons and tons of content and profiting off them. if you attempted to put the average joe in jail for 10 years for piracy, first of all, there would be riots on your hands, second, you would have to put 9/10 of the US in jail... and we dont have enough prisons for that, we are already letting murderers loose because we dont have room for ppl who smoke pot.
"Offline" pirates who bootleg movies / music / software do it to make money. And so a higher sentence for them could be justified.
But someone torrenting a movie / music / software from someone else is not doing it for profit. He / she is "sharing" the movie / music /software to save money or out of ignorance and / or with an attitude to "screw the corporates". So ideally, the best way to punish these kind of "online pirates" is to just fine them double or triple the cost of the digital product they pirated. This would make the corporates also happy, and actually change the behaviour of most netizens to think twice before "pirating" something.
Will it include corporates such as newspapers who grab images, etc, from individuals' web sites and publish it on their web site and ignore any attempt by the copyright holder (individual) to get proper compensation ?
I doubt it - such laws do not seem to apply to corporates.
Don't want to deal with the real problems, right? Might get a bloody nose if you fight the big boys, right?
Since when is sharing a copyrighted material the same thing as counterfeiting a physical article? I don't get it. This analogy sounds bunk.
One wonders if decades of digital piracy is what leads to the inevitable oppression we are coming under.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
If the UK actually goes through with something this stupid, and thier track record indicates they probably will, I will simply geo block the UK.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
copyright infringement/counterfeiting is not very serious in the first place and essentially is the same as having a debtors jail, where the corporations try to enslave the poor by putting them in jail for merely sharing content of various kinds which in their mind creates a debt to them.
the interesting thing about criminal copyright infringement / counterfeiting is, the people doing the duplication actually do so by making the new content themselves. like a person who makes a pair of shoes that look like Nike's, you got to actually make the shoes and be capable of such, meaning the new shoe technically is just a shoe but they want to stop that because it has the Nike logo and all that on there and that impacts Nike profits..
the public doesn't benefit from criminalizing copyright infringement or counterfeit goods because they benefit from those items and most people actually violate copyright/buy counterfeit/third party stuff all the time just to save money.
obamasweapon.com
Offline pirates are usually pirates with a capital P. They do it for profit and make tons of money underselling legitimate rights holders of the work being sold. Online pirates are usually kids without jobs who think it's cool to share stuff. Perhaps online/offline shouldn't be the deciding point, but instead intent should determine whether someone should get a tougher sentence.
Here's an idea, how about we check all of Mike's families PC's and phones and cassettes first to see if there's any copyright infringements.
No?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Longer sentences don't do a damn thing to prevent anything other than removing the problem from society.
In fact, the longer the sentence, the considerably higher chance that person is going to just go straight back to criminal business BECAUSE they will end up blacklisted by a considerable number of companies for work. (which is retarded and only makes society worse for everyone due to it)
The only people that get screwed over in all of this is literally the lesser grunt-work people, very rarely do the higher-ups actually get caught.
The only way to deal with this problem is the media industry stop screwing over customers with region restrictions, overpriced goods and unwillingness to adapt to new technology.
They could be making a killing with online media, which some already are right now and the market is growing.
These companies are the ones that are going to profit most. These dinosaurs that only want to sue their way to a profit are going to die off sooner or later.
How much does it cost to put a person in minimum security prison for a year? If we jailed enough people to be a deterrent, the cost to society would be enormous. Certalnly higher than the cost of piracy.
How about 10 yrs in the slammer for execs guilty of corruption and bribery? Like creating retroactive changes to the laws, raiding the public domain, and making perpetuities out of basic, limited copyright in faster world of the internet. My contention is that copyright for ephermera, like news, TV and movies, should have been SHORTENED from 28 yrs to a lower number !
I welcome the next round of idiotic legislation that accomplishes nothing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
My main problem is with the jerks who put out fake booze made from industrial methanol, dangerous fake electrical products, fake brake parts, fake aircraft parts etc. Any of these can cause injury or death, so the perpetrators, when caught, need to be put away where they can do no harm for a damn sight longer than 10 years.
Yes. If the crime is comparable then the punishment should also be comparable.
Now the real question is are the crimes actually comparable? Typical cases of physical piracy involve people duplicating and selling software for personal profit. I see no problem with the same punishments being applied to people who do this online. Typical online piracy on the other hand is not done for profit. The most common case is actually for personal use with the side effect that sharing is part of the acquiring process and no money changes hand.
So while the answer is yes another question needs to be asked:
Would you lock up your friend for 10 years for giving you a mixed tape or photocopying a chapter out of a textbook?
Counterfeiters make and sell fake products. Is someone going around selling fake episodes of Game of Thrones? Copying something and sharing it for free is not the same as selling something and passing it off as the real thing.
The industry sponsored copyright legislation (I won't call it "law") being expnded with demands for "10 years" on thefts of the public domain is like a massive counterfeiter demanding execution of people that refuse its currency.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Did the debate about whether or not this is really theft get answered?
Is a kid watching a movie on some streaming site stealing? Is it the same as looking around and slipping a Blu-Ray in your pocket at the local store? I think we should finish that debate before we change the question to how much prison time is appropriate.
How about a 10-year sentence for maintaining a spiteful monopoly stranglehold on distribution?
There are 'pirates' who believe they are entitled to receive something for nothing because they simply feel entitled, and I don't have sympathy for anyone like that. But many people copy intellectual property illegally that they would gladly pay a reasonable price for if there was simply some reasonable means for doing so, rather than dealing with obnoxious monopolies and inconvenient delivery channels and being forced to pay for garbage programming that they don't want. I like the fact that the BBC makes Doctor Who and I want to encourage them to continue doing so - why do they make that hard?
Are the law enforcement contractors hired to help prevent that under recommendations by said employer to also get them to begin distributing copyrighted, pirated content for employer to them arrest said suspected pirates?
Hey, your politicians are taking money from media companies, too!
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
What about the people who download music then either buy it if its good or delete it if its rubbish?
Only last night I went to a gig for a band touring for a new album. I didn't buy the ticket or the cd until the album was released. You can work out the rest for yourself. That's ~£75 I spent (CD, ticket, travel, parking etc) only because I heard the album without paying for it first. If I hadn't heard it because it was impossible to get or the death penalty scared me too much then that's money that wouldn't have been spent on the music industry. It really is that simple.
If I get the chance to meet and speak with the musicians I see I often tell them that I'm only a fan and only here to see them because at some point I downloaded their music - and you know what, every single one of them has been cool with that and glad that I became a fan.
Over half the miles I do in my car are going to gigs - I need BP as a character witness.
What about stuff that you literally cannot buy? I know of several CDs (and TV series for that matter) that I would happily pay a sensible price for but it seems that nobody wants my money.
Too many believe there is no distinction when in fact there is a vast one.
If I make copies of a movie and charge for them, I am siphoning actual money away from the rights holders. It can be debated how much of this black market money would actually enter the legal system if the black market were eradicated but it is at least involving people who will part with some amount of money for the item.
If I download a copy of a movie to watch with friends using P2P, no money changes hands. Sure, some of these individuals would pay if given no other options, but a good chunk of them would not. Industry counts them all as lost sales when that is far from the truth.
Jail for commercial infringement. Community service at worst for non-commercial infringement. Reform copyright to be reasonable in the digital age when an idea can be transmitted across the planet in seconds at almost no cost.
If a pirate is caught downloading, charging them a fine that's a little higher than the price to legally see the content makes perfect sense. That's not even $50 most of the time, but after court costs are added in, $50 seems about right. Ten years is ridiculous. Hollywood really over-values itself to the point that we'd all be better off it the whole thing were put out of business. Do they really think that ninety minutes of one of their screenplays or three minutes of a song is worth ten years of anybody's life? That movie or song better damn well confer a PhD just by viewing/listening to it because that's what ten years is worth.
Prison should be used as a way of removing a dangerous person from society until they're no longer a danger. Even people who sell millions of pirated copies are not dangerous.
Not quite, prison is used to remove people who damage our society and to prevent them causing further damage. Someone who embezzles money or commits fraud can hardly be classed as "dangerous" but at the same time society should not have to put up with them.
Piracy, both online and offline, should have the same, long sentences for those who run commercial operations which make significant money from selling copies of films, music etc. Sharing a legal copy with friends and family should not be illegal because the vast majority of the people see nothing ethically wrong with it: the artist was paid for the copy and that copy is now being shared. So the dividing line should not be online vs offline but commercial vs. private and for private I would argue that it should not be a crime.
Watching a crappy movie to see if you want to watch it, is the same sentence as murder. Love the world.
Harsher penalties will simply drive people to hack into the LAN of those that they hate, or their bosses home network. Two problems solved and a possible promotion when the former bosses' position opens up.
One day people will have more than their fill of the entertainment cartels' BS, and after they day those smug little shits who buy their own laws and judges will get a big big surprise
There needs to be more-than-ten years of imprisonment for using DRM. One work sold with DRM makes multiple people need to pirate it in order to watch it. If you sell a DRMed work that results in six people pirating it, then you get 60 years.
That would probably deter the crime of DRM, and once you do that, you eliminate the chief motive for piracy.
Just deal with both sides of the problem, and you might have a pretty good solution. The only remaining problem is that the constants are messed up and have a clipping problem on one side. If a million people pirate Game of Thrones, you can't really imprison the responsible HBO exec for ten million years. So make his sentence, say, 50 years, and then imprison each pirate for 50/10M years.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
1) Piracy is robbery, kidnapping, and murder on the high seas.
2) Intellectual property is a generalized term which supposedly covers copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret law.
Do not allow corporations to frame arguements in these terms. When they say "piracy of intellectual property", respond with "copyright infringement". Then it may be possible to have a rational discussion.
How about people abandon proprietary software and start using gpl free open source. Gimp,blender, inkscape are not that bad of a product compared to their windows counterparts. The more ppl adopt gpl license software the more contributions($$$, source code) will take place. Not bad donating $5 - $20 towards gpl free open source projects compared to pissing thousands of $$$ on maya, adobe CS, etc... Yes, the professional spends money to make money, but, maya and photoshop to name a few still have plenty of bugs that have not been fixed for a long time and it gets very frustrating working with some of these products especially when you wasted $$$.
Look at windows 10, the menu will finally have transparency, wooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, and people were applauding stating Windows 10 will be the best OS, give me a fucking break. MS still has so much legacy crap(com, activex, win32, registry, etc...) and this is what you really pay(home, professional, ultimate) for which is the same old shit. You wan't WinRT apps(requires Hotmail Account) just use your web browser. I'm currently using Windows 7(no second taskbar, no panorama wallpaper, no free pdf, compression utility which is hidden sucks, paint and wordpad useless, just to name a few) and will dump it for linux in the near future.
I have been running ubuntu 14.10(ran previous versions on and off for the past 7 years) and no problems for me so far even installing newer software that is not in the repository, although, I had to use dpkg in terminal. But the amazing thing about ubuntu(thanks to gtk) is that it's cleaner looking and has crisper gui and font rendering compared to any Windows OS. I also have tried arch, gentoo, fedora, centos, opensuse and many more.
Yes, some linux and bsd out of the box might be for geeks, but, once something goes wrong with the friendly Windows 7/8/10 for the average joe you will either have to call someone(friends, or spend $$$) to fix the issue or become a geek yourself and fix it. Sorry, but troubleshooting Windows OS(cryptic error messages and their online solutions) is a pain in the ass. Linux is a lot easier to troubleshoot and solutions are all over the web with easy instructions.
wealthy and upper middle class will be given a free pass and go into treatment. The poor will be locked up and the middle class will just have their financial lives destroyed from the high cost of defense. Both UK & US justice systems have enough leeway built into them to protect the people who matter and the rest? Well, by definition they don't matter...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
there's no such thing. fuck off.
The only existing online pirates are in Eve Online. Good luck catching them.
That's the only thing this will accomplish, leading to anarchy and rebellion. But yes, let's give movie studies the right to send people to jail for 10 years.
for raping babies.
Google:
Jimmy Savile
BBC Coverup
Rotherham
Rochdale
Beechwood
Wood Nuck
Rampton
Elm Guest House
Dolphin Square
Haute de la Garenne
Haringey LB
Coventry
Doncaster
Leeds
Derby
North Wales
Great Ormond Street
St. James'
Alder Hey
Little Ted's
All massive scandals in the public eye, yet the only ones that have seen convictions are Little Ted's and... nope, that's it. The others are very well protected under colour of Law and Establishment protectionism.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
NT, there's no need to elaborate.
Liberty.
You can't stop idiots from voicing their opinions, so there will always be "debates" on subjects that aren't really debatable. The sun revolving around the earth, atheism being a religion, or copyright infringement being theft, whatever. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
A far worse punishment would be to stick them with dial-up.
For all those holding "billions in intellectual property", there is currently no tax. Why? If you buy property or own property, you are subject to a yearly tax, based on an annual yearly assessment. Don't want to pay the tax? Don't claim to own the property. If you claim to have exclusive rights to an idea, then you should be billed like *everyone else*! Don't want to be billed? Drop the claim. Want the federal government to protect your claim (much like police enforcing an area of land for a gold mine), then you will have to pay the tax *first*. Oh, and backtaxes, penalties and fines (and interest on the fines) are all what any prospector already knows about.
This is the same UK that made female ejaculation illegal, right?
Do we really want to hold them up as an example to the rest of the world?
they should all then join a bike gang where there harleys are there pcs instead.....make em all look like choppers or some such
have nude picks they get from hackers that also shoudl all joina bike club
yup i can see it going all this way ....
STUPID GOVT
Key differences between offline counterfeiting and online piracy that the copyright maximalist fascists are glossing over include:
1. counterfeitiing of physical goods is a for-profit activity, online piracy is, mostly, not. copyright laws already have higher penalties for commercial piracy (e.g. selling copied CDs or DVDs) than non-commercial piracy.
2. counterfeiting is trademark infringement, not copyright infringement. it's comparing chalk and cheese. copyright and trademarks are two completely different, unrelated things with completely different laws and rationales.
3. counterfeiting also affects the consumers and is often an act of deception against them. In some cases, that doesn't matter much (where the buyer knows they're buying a "fake" because, e.g., one t-shirt or handbag or gaudy watch is pretty much the same as any other), in other cases it matters a lot because the consumer can get an inferior, or at least wildly different, product to what they thought they were buying.
Physical counterfeiters can receive up to 10 years in jail under UK copyright law but should online pirates receive the same maximum punishment?
I suppose if you are talking about one of those people that produces counterfeit goods (i.e. you have a physical disk, case, jacket insert) that looks similar enough to the genuine artcle that most people would be casually fooled, I would tend to agree with this. HOWEVER, if we are talking about some phoney Hollywood accounting (or whatever the equivalent is called in Briton) BS where three of four "shared" songs can result in claims of millions of dollars in "losses" for some poor hard working executive middleman, I cry foul.
10 years is out of proportion, if the UK want to be this strict, then 10 year in jail should also apply to any member of the parlament that took any amount of money that in a corrupt or wrongly way. BTW, more than half of the current parlament would not pass this test.
If violating copyright by pirating a work is worth 10 years in jail, surely fraudulently claiming copyright and preventing the distribution of a work is worth an equal sentence.
What is the rationale for treating real property differently than other property?
Because you can't hide it. It is really easy to cheat on income tax. It is harder, but still pretty easy, to cheat on sales tax. It is far harder to cheat on real estate tax. Your title, the sales price, and the tax appraisal value, are all public information, available at the county courthouse, and very often on the county's website. I don't like paying taxes, but I dislike real estate tax the least, because I know that everyone is paying their fair share.
You've been bamboozled, real estate tax is about as easy to cheat on as sales tax.
Check this out https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130415/04461222709/lithuania-estonia-use-google-maps-street-view-to-catch-tax-cheats.shtml
You may as well do a break and enter of an establishment and steal their physical copies.
You get less for that. Hell, you'd get less if it was a home invasion and you clobered all the residents over the head with a 2x4.
Code of Hammaraubi .. like cutting off a hand for shoplifting...
Quite frankly, I would completely stop paying for any movies, and or going to the cinema, and or buying any music.
Why the fuck would I want to support people like that? I hope they do make it law, I always wanted to get more into book reading anyways.
No, in the US you pay taxes on Real Estate. Which is a type of property to be sure, but it's not ALL property.
Specifically, real estate (land, buildings, immovable fixtures) is classified as real property, which in common law is distinguished from the other classification of property, personal property. What about intellectual property? Just as a lot of people point out, it is something made out of thought: Intellectual Property is imaginary property. That which is imaginary isn't real.
Some commenters suggested that IP should be like real estate in that both may be used to make income. So what? That's also true of pretty much any type of personal property.
And ten years of prison? Let's break it down. The MAFIAA might want to suggest that anyone making a download get this penalty, but for one to be a counterfeiter is a whole 'nother category. Someone downloading a movie is probably not so interested in distributing it, much less doing so for money. If such a person does do such reselling, it would most likely be a case of "here's a copy of a movie I ripped" rather than "here's a genuine copy of this movie." It is only that last stage of the process--passing off as genuine with the intent to deceive--where one would cross the line into counterfeiting.
To be sure, there is a lot of counterfeiting going on in the world, but that would not seem to be work of the average movie downloader.
Then we come to the question of what is being counterfeited. The counterfeiting of money is an attack against all users of the currency being counterfeited as well as the government whose money is being counterfeited. That's what makes it the kind of counterfeiting that brings the Really Big penalties. The counterfeiting of most other things could put people at the risk of physical harm, so that's really bad too. What about the counterfeiting of movies? That won't make anybody lose a finger or get blood poisoning. What about just watching the movie? Well, I'm afraid that watching a counterfeited copy of a movie is exactly as harmful to one's soul as watching a legal copy.
Also, those who have served time for it should be compensated. Paid vacation for a time equal to the time they served. Surely the tax dollars can afford that, since we pay trillions to murder civilians in the middle east.
I seriously think everyone of the side of the DMCA are enemies of humanity. They're disgusting scabs and need to be torn off.
It has been PROVEN that if you do NOT want your stuff on the NET,, it is easily done
PRINCE~ said he does Not want his stuff on the net & it is Not easy to find any of his stuff on the Net
Are Sony, MGM, Fox etc saying that Princes Lawyers that much better than theirs ?
Also they should be ashamed that they can not keep their stuff where they want
Information has a greater value than physical material so therefore theft of information has a greater penalty.
Because it's supposed to be a matter of civil and not criminal law.
Did you already forget this? And did you also forget that copyright was NEVER about downloading, but always PUBLISHING?
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
everyone who has torrented 10 files, 100 years in jail, then there won't be anyone left who knows how to use a computer.
The industry will get what it wants, as always. We little people have no say in these matters.
in the uk, rightsholders have conned the government into mandatory filters and easy to request country-wide blocking of sites and services. so now, if something gets through the internet to uk resident that shouldn't.. it is rightsholders' and government's fault.. anyone smart enough to set up a way around those filters should get a free pass for being smarter than government officials that allow the filters and blocks in the first place.
Its an answer, kind of like an answer to "What is 3 plus 4" is 900.
Its an answer, its not correct, its not even useful, but, its words you can speak in response to a question....which is good enough for most politicians regardless of the system you put them in.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
NO
Next Question
In comparison for some one braking and entering someone's home and taking without consent (for which offenders seem to get a slap on the wrists and a few hours community service) it is a far worse crime than downloading a few films (for personal use)
Might as well be an insider trading as the risk / return ratio seems a hell of a lot better.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Seriously, it's better to be a white collar criminal and steal tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions of dollars at this point if you can. Spend it until you get caught.
Yet another prohibition, another war on an abstract construct, another excuse to fill prison cells. Anyone who proposes a law like this though -- jail THEM as a threat to society, and any lobbyist behind them.
And no, the shop owner metaphor doesn't work because if I clean out a cash register, the store doesn't get to still have the money. I download a movie, it's not like the studio masters evaporate and they no longer have it. It's actually time for the bullshit artifice of "intellectual property" law to catch up with reality.
...corrupt politicians and corporate CEOs face similar stiff penalties for breaking the law.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Like Marijuana, it does no one any harm and makes people feel better, so instead of any penalty it should be legalized. ,,,, -- A few extra, commas, for the grammar nazies.