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Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
No. But just like I don't want to ruin the lives of college student downloaders, I don't want to ruin the lives of people working at Warner Brothers or Penguin Random House. This should be a civil matter.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe
Not saying people should fileshare illegally, just that the current ways of dealing with it seem to be bullying and saying my lawyers are better than yours and I can afford a hell of a lot more of them.
Let the rights holders put their money where their mouth is and come up with a foolproof and inexpensive way of policing online content or do the actual policing themselves and be prepared to pay damages if they do it incorrectly.
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100% Agreed. Downloading should be a slap on the wrist, speeding ticket type of offense, I'm not opposed to some sort of fine. I don't think it's right, but people's lives should not be
ruined over it. The reprehensible behavior of the RIAA a decade ago has left a permanent bad taste in my mouth on this issue. Creators should of course be paid, but most of those who download would not have purchased the content anyhow, so in that sense it is a victimless crime. "The "every download = a lost sale" argument is a joke.
And clearly creators are getting paid by someone, since there seems to be more stuff available all the time. If downloaders were having a detrimental impact we'd see the content dry up. If those of us who pay for content are in a way subsidizing those who don't, I don't like it, it's not fair, but also I can't get really worked up about it.
And I certainly do not like the sound of "proactive filtering" of all files or other draconian measures. We do not need the internet to get all Orwellian (more than it already is) just to catch a few freeloaders. That would be a clear example of the cure being far, far worse than the disease.