Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe
Myself I prefer people to shoplift rather than break into my apartment, but still it should still be discouraged fairly vigorously. A slap on the wrist or a mild spanking just won't do it. I'm not advocating the guillotine here, but making the punishment equal or even close to paying what you would if you bought the item in the first place is not going to deter anyone. AS HarryT implied, if I could get out of paying on the transit by simply paying if caught, why pay at all.
Helen
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The transit analogy is faulty. I'm not going to catch 10,000 free rides in a day just because the cost of getting caught is paying the ticket price. A person's transportation habits are fairly fixed, his demand for transit highly inelastic.
With digital goods, people download much, much more than they ever actually consume because it is free. Thus, an effective deterrent, provided there is a reasonable probability of getting caught, wouldn't have to make them pay for every digital good downloaded, but only more than they are willing and able to pay for digital goods. Something like a $2,500 dollar fine would be effective whether a person illegally downloaded $10 worth of goods or $10,000,000 worth of goods(again, provided there is a reasonable probability of getting caught).