Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
So if you sneak into a movie, is it OK unless it is proved beyond any reasonable doubt that you actually watched the film? This seems unreasonable to me.
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No. Sneaking into a movie theatre is more like breaking and entering. It is a completely different thing, and it's wrong on many levels.
And yes, I agree to assume that if someone sneaks into the theatre while one movie is being played he's actually watching it.
But, if someone downloads one of those torrents with 10.000 ebooks in it, to assume that he reads them all is totally another thing, given that it's almost 200 years of reading time. It's like to assume that if someone sneaks into a theatre he's watching all the movies being palyed a that time in the entire world...
To fine someone just because he saved a file that may or may not contain some copyrighted material is palinly unfair.
OTOH, to fine the one who actually reads that content without contributing to its creation (directly, like buying the book, or indirectly, like borrowing it from someone who paid) is for sure more fair.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
[snip]
However, I would compare uploading a copyrighted book to a web site to counterfeiting, since it dilutes the value of other copies of the book.
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That's another thing.
Here the big underlying mistake is trying to put a value to a single digital copy, which is intrinsecally zero.
And, alas, there is no way out, unless the industry learns to separate values and prices of the content from those of the container and starts to sell access to novels rather than copies of books.
It's not easy, but it's where the world is going, like it or not.