Quote:
Originally Posted by pieter
Which brings me to a question I have for Steve Jordan. Since he really wants us to explore the way China handles the internet. What do you think would be a suitable punishment for somebody who has a digital copy of one of your books, which he didn't pay for.
And what would be a suitable punishment for somebody who sends that unpaid for file to three of his friends?
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Despite the fact that I'm not a court, a lawyer, or China, my answer is: A fine on each instance of possession of the illicit copy, including each instance of the illicit copy sent to their friends... in your example, it would be 4 instances, so the penalty would be 4 times the established fine. (Per the reasons described above, I will refrain from specifying a dollar amount.)
Most likely, a court system would need a backup plan for instances when they could not establish how many copies were actually transacted (re; the RIAA vs. Jammie Thomas case), would attempt to establish some number of "projected" transactions, and base their fine accordingly. This would be the best way to limit the number of illicit files turning up on P2P sites, because it would put the infringer at risk to having to pay a fine equal to a large number of potential P2P users... even a small single-instance fine could end up being quite large in that case (ask Jammie).
By the way: What, exactly, did China have to do with that question? China would just throw you in jail if they even
suspected you'd done anything.