Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer
If someone downloads my work without paying for it, and would never have paid for it, what do I care? I wouldn't be made better off in that transaction if they hadn't downloaded it at all.
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But, from a legal perspective, how can you possibly differentiate between those who would never have paid for it (so there is no financial harm to you) and those who would have bought it (so you lost a sale), if no "free" options existed.
I don't think you can. In order to be able to recover from the second group, you have to equally be able to recover from the first.
It is the second group you really want to eliminate (from a financial harm perspective). But the only way that happens is if the cost of getting caught is greater than the cost of purchasing legally.
Maybe you need to place caps on the total fees for multiple violation (e.g. $25,000) to "protect" those people who illegally download thousands of books at a time with no intention of reading them. But when the goal is really to convert the "would have bought" pirates into "did buy" consumers, it's never going to happen if the cost of illegal activity is lower than the cost of being a legitimate consumer.