Quote:
Originally Posted by zerospinboson
Of course. You can also threaten to cut off their dominant hands, or hang them on a repeat offense. You could even start stoning women again for adultery.
All of this is quite possible. The only problem is that the US claims to be different from countries like Saudi Arabia where corporal and excessive punishment for minor infractions is still the norm.
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Sure, but no need to go to that extreme, and I was exaggerating a bit by saying lock them up.
There just needs to be some real punishment for people who illegally distribute copyright material and those who obtain it. Make it a real punishment, and not some symbolic million dollar law suit that will never be collected--and would be a much more cruel and unusual punishment than say probation if it was to be collected in full, forced to work off etc.
I see no reason to treat it much differently that someone who steals physical property and sells it to pawn shops etc. Property is property, whether tangible or digital.
Thus if it's low value property, make it a misdemeanor like shoplifting stuff not worth very much. If it involves distributing thousands of copies of books, movies, albums etc. and costing the owners tons of money, then maybe it gets into felony territory.
But they key is to get a system in place so people don't feel compelled to pirate things. Make sure prices for digital versions are the same or less than the physical version. Don't use DRM schemes that don't allow people to use their digital product the same way they would a physical product in terms of resale, giving away, loaning out etc.