[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Now hang on a second........you chastised Bill when he linked to the FAQ page rather than the direct law. So why is it that I should accept something from the FAQ page now?

OK, directly from US copyright law:

(2) In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000. In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200.

Note, it says that if the infringer "had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement" it does NOT mean they are innocent. It merely reduces the penalties (The $200 is a minimum, not the max that they can still be liable for).

I know stolen property and copyright are not the same and have nothing to do with each other. That is why I made an "analogy" rather than stating it is exactly the same as.

And I stated explicity why the analogy is flawed. You are drawing a comparison between two things that are completely different in the exact sense of your comparison. Copyright is a "strict liability", stolen property is not. That means they have the exact opposite behavior in your anology. That's why, in your example, they have "nothing to do with each other".