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Originally Posted by Hellmark
The biggest thing is you're wanting to change it from a civil to a criminal case. Things are done in completely different courts, with different regulations. That is a major reason why content owners would fight your proposed scheme. As it stands, content owners sued infringers, presented their case, defendant could settle out of court or let the jury decide. If the jury decided the defendant was guilty they would establish the amount of restitution, up to the allowed maximum. The plaintiff would get any money they were awarded. Under your proposal, due to existing laws it would have to be a criminal misdemeanor, at which point any money from the fine would go to the government and not the content owners. Oh plus, you would also force it so civil action is not possible. For criminal offenses with a victim, the victim is allowed to sue civilly. You would have to make the argument that it is a victimless crime akin to non collision traffic offenses, or specifically state the victim is not allowed restitution which is legally dubious and would likely be thrown out (as potentially unconstitutional).
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This is an extremely interesting analysis of the legal aspect of my proposal, about which I know almost nothing...
For this reason the phrase "you're wanting to change it from a civil to a criminal case" is a bit obscure to me. Do you mean that this is the only way something like the scheme I propose becomes feasible? Or that some aspect of the scheme make the switch necessary? Why there is a difference with respect to the current type of fines?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellmark
To create one [a successful computer virus] from scratch. But most people who use botnets DO NOT do that. You have a handful of people create the viruses, and then rent the botnets to others to do with what ever they want. And yes, stealing info from infected computers is extremely common. How else do you think the Russian Mafia has millions of stolen credit cards to sell on the black market?
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Did they upload these data on the internet for free, afterwards?
I didn't say that these things are impossible; I said that they require (sophisticated technical knowledge and time or) money. And people who pay money to do criminal acts don't usually do that to give the results away for free to unknown people. So I'm pretty convinced that people who upload music or books won't use this kind of tools.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellmark
You're also totally neglecting the script kiddies that use the tools already made tools to screw with people.
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If your PC is so full of security holes that any script kiddie can steal your books, getting a $300 "warning" (read: fine) could be a good thing for you! Maybe the next kiddie will go after your credit card data instead.