Quote:
Originally Posted by doctorow
Your argument is based on the premise that the real value of the downloaded item is its face value. That, I believe, is wrong. The typical downloader is not the person who would spend $1,000 on a piece of software. If he gets caught breaking the law, even if the fine is not a multiple of the face value of the software he downloaded, in no way would he profit from his actions.
It is the usual fallacy of RIAA and others who throw around imaginatively high numbers of supposed damage, while completely ignoring the fact that those who commited the criminal act of downloading something are often not the ones who would have purchased the item to begin with.
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I'm on the fence with this one. Most criminal punishments for theft do not have anything to do with the amount of the theft except for some arbitrary things like theft under $200.
And what a person would spend should really have nothing to do with anything. if someone steals a car should they be punished less if they would not have bought that car? I've never bought a car or a diamond tiara, does that mean I can just go and steal a few and get a slap on the wrist?
The sad thing is that a lot of content is downloaded for frivolous reasons.
I had two roommates who both downloaded a lot of TV shows. One would come home from work and see if any of his favorite shows had new episode almost immediately. The other would watch her TV shows on the TV or on the various streaming channels such as CTV perfectly legally and would occasionally download a show that was unavailable. (mostly the Romanian news shows that were often offline for some reason, they were both Romanian)
Still both did it, and actually legally then as it was not illegal in Canada to download most things at the time. Both do the same now in Romania
where it may or may not be illegal.
My point I guess is theft is theft, and to quantify it totally by the amount stolen would not work. I could go to a different busy restaurant every day and walk out on my bill if the fine was less than 10 times my bill and probably come out ahead. I could perform a lot of minor thefts where the chances of being caught are less than one in ten. Embarrassment would be a bigger deterrent.
But if the fine is 40 times the amount stolen, perhaps most thieves would be unable to pay. Junkies stealing a pension check of $1500 for which they would receive typically about $300 could not afford to pay $600 never mind $60,000. Sure lock em up. But there is no room, which is why there are still junkies stealing pension checks.
To me there s no answer. For twenty years people have been fining people with little success, threatening ISP's and users with dire penalties, and being unable to enforce most of them. Overall I don't think it is working.
The only thing in my opinion that will really work is to make it more convenient for people to buy. Many of us will actually pay more for convenience. The roommate who downloaded the most could afford to buy and would probably pay more than the commercial revenue to have the content that he was looking for sent to him legally ASAP.
Helen.