Quote:
Originally Posted by TGS
But if you come across the latest Stieg Larsson or the complete Barry Trotter witches and wizards nonsense on Rapidshare - or worse, use a search engine to actively find the latest Stieg Larsson or the complete Barry Trotter witches and wizards nonsense on Rapidshare - and then download it, what is your view of the legal and moral status of that action? Can your action be justified on the grounds that it just might be the case that the publisher has put the files on Rapidshare as some kind of viral marketing campaign?
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Yes.
Legally, there is no penalty for simply downloading a file. In fact, a lot of countries actively promote it. They have what is called a ‘blank media levy’ tax that adequately compensates the monopoly holders for such activity. It’s a tax whereby the copyright holders have given their permission to allow individuals to make copies (file-share) for their own personal use. After all, you cannot tax anybody if they get no benefit from paying that tax can you?
Morally, its the same as above really. The monopoly hoarders have won billions in statutory damages from companies, and forced other individual unloaders into paying out of court settlements amounting to millions. This of course, they say that they 'need' outrageously high profits from suing because one uploader is (theoretically) responsible for sharing millions of files. and they want ‘fair’ compensation given back to them.
Ipso facto. again, the monopoly hoarders have already been adequately compensated for file-sharing activity by virtue of their windfall awards and settlements of 'statutory damages' that so far outweigh the cost of any actual harm caused to them by their victims, that they have given implicitly given moral permission for others to share files to the value of their unearned profits.
You can’t REALLY expect copyright holders to be paid more than once can you?