Quote:
Originally Posted by spellbanisher
Repeating the same point over and over doesn't make it true. By this logic, someone could lose their home, their car, their retirement, all their discretionary income, but would be "profiting" if the value of the fine didn't exceed the retail value of the information illegally obtained.
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It bears repeating. The criminal doesn't get to determine the value of what he's taken, and hence the appropriate level of fine. If you download movies that retail at $1000, then you have obtained $1000 of property without paying for it. Saying "it's not worth $1000 to me" or "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" doesn't magically make it worth less than $1000, and hence a fine needs to be significantly more than $1000 to be any form of punishment at all. To suggest that fining someone $500 for downloading $1000 of goods is in any way a sensible punishment is ridiculous.