Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
But we are paying, in our higher taxes, to subsidise the large corporations who can easily afford to pay for their own prosecutions. We won't get the same protection for our files as they do because we're not big enough.
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This.
Look at what happens with the economic down turn in a lot of places. I live in a relatively affluent county in the US. Yet with the budget issues my county had, police budgets were cut. One of the results? Police don't investigate more minor crimes that they used to investigate.
I don't expect a full TV-esque CSI investigation of a minor crime, but the fact that police can barely be bothered to take a report of the crime to me is telling.
My neighbor had the wheels stolen off their car about 2 years back. The police refused to send a patrol officer to take a report or even look at it. The best they'd offer is to do a report for the person's insurance if they showed up to a police station.
I don't disagree that copyright "crime" is an issue and it does hurt people. However, I very much think that legal enforcement has to be weighed against economic cost and societal good.
What has more societal good? Extremely strict enforcement with limited or no privacy on the internet because absolutely everything is monitored to the n-th degree for any possible sign of copyright crimes?
What is the economic return on strict copyright enforcement if you spend millions of tax payer dollars for very limited tax payer return in increased tax revenues or criminal penalties? Weigh that along with any societal good garnered by increased intellectual property protection spurring more people to create intellectual property.
When it comes down to it there HAS to be a balancing act. One should not punish a person more severly by commiting a crime that has more direct impact on a person than one with less. Multiple years in jail and $150,000 per infringement in the US for copyright violations is a bit extreme when if I had shoplifted that DVD I might at most face a few hours of community service and a couple of hundred dollar fine.
Yes, most people don't face those kinds of penalties. However, the fact that they CAN be leverage to me is abhorant. There are still plenty of tools against copyright infringers, especially those peddling copyrighted materials.
So, what is the penalty is as severe as shoplifting? Say a maximum of 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine per offense? Those serial copyright infringers (Say, the Megaupload types) can still face hundres or thousands of counts. Those "little guys" who might simply download a movie could still face an actual penalty, yet not have the ridiculous "weight of the law" potentially choking the life out of them for a very minor crime.