[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I don't think you should put potential profit in parentheses; that is the actual loss. I'm not sure that there is really too much difference between downloading a song and shoplifting or other types of commercial theft: in both cases the real concern is over lost profits.

The difference is, when someone shop lifts, even if that person would never have bought the item in the first place, there's still a clearly identifiable financial loss. Namely, you now have one less shirt to sell to another customer.

With digital downloads, there's no clear loss. You still have an infinite amount of copies to continue to sell to anyone and everyone. The only loss is the _potential_ sale you lost to the person who pirated it instead of buying it. It's potential as it's not clear if that person would have bought it had it not been illegally available for free. Some would, some wouldn't.

Well, crime is very very low in Japan. And it's not like we're talking about a crime with no victim (like drugs or prostitution). Having your car stolen, your computer stolen, or your money stolen are all property crimes where no one is physically hurt...but I wouldn't call enforcing these crimes a waste of resources.

Physically no, emotionally, very much so. People can and do feel physically violated when someone has broken into their home to steal items, or threatened them personally during a mugging.

Physical item loss is far from a victimless crime.

Digital loss, well I often have my _digital_ apps stolen. Annoying yes, possible loss of income yes, anything like when we were broken into, definitely not.

That's not really a punishment at all. Either you pay for the book, or you steal it. If you steal it and get caught, the worst thing that happens is that you have to pay for the book.

That wouldn't work very well. Why would anyone bother to ever buy anything if the worst that could happen when they get caught is having to pay for that item. We'd all be way ahead of the game in stolen items before getting caught for one. That's why there has to be fines that outweigh the value of the item by a fairly significant amount, but not into the ridiculous.

Edit: Just read more of the thread and realised you were saying what I've just said in response to an earlier poster, in that case, consider the last paragraph above an additional agreement