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Old 11-19-2012, 05:10 PM   #424
BoldlyDubious
what if...?
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Device: paper & electrophoretic
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellmark View Post
[...] So, yes, it would have to be a criminal case for there to be fines of some nature, and for the fine to be the only punishment, you would have to block civil suits, or else you could end up with the same craziness you have now with copyright infringement cases. The only other possible way for something to be similar, is to not have it be a fine per say, but have a minimum and maximum payout per infringement upon, and restrict thee infringement be limited to per file, or per title, rather than per instance of infringement. Even still that would require quite a bit of changes legally speaking.
Long story short, what you want isn't exactly legally compatible with our current judicial system.
Thank you Hellmark for this very clear and detailed explanation. Now I have a clearer view of the legal side of the issue. Actually, the word "fine" that I used in a naive way to signify "a reasonably low pecuniary penalty" can be changed as required, it's not at all a key issue. But I understand that even this would not be sufficient (without changes to the law) to get back to civil justice while avoiding the absurdly large sums that publishers are now asking for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellmark View Post
Problem is, as things stand, there is no major alternatives. You either have DRM, or you don't. You either have a jury decide if and how much should be paid out in cases of copyright infringement, or you don't. Even if there was an alternative, most major corporations would lobby against it, because things allow for millions of dollars of profit potentially from each case. The companies like it as a good way to make money all the while looking pitiful as they play the role of the victim, and the lawyers love it because it is a huge stream of revenue.
For what concerns lawyers, what you write doesn't surprise me at all. But I always thought that -given the negligibly low number of "pirates" that get actually brought to court- suing copyright infringers was only a symbolic/image issue to publishers, not a valuable source of revenue. If this is how things are, change is even more unlikely.
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