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Old 10-04-2012, 02:33 PM   #84
Andrew H.
Grand Master of Flowers
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Posts: 2,201
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Naptown
Device: Kindle PW, Kindle 3 (aka Keyboard), iPhone, iPad 3 (not for reading)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellmark View Post
[snip]With copyright infringement, since the victim are not deprived of anything (potential profit aside), they could recover, where as that is more difficult to do with theft since they no longer have the thing, and so are out what ever resources they invested into that item. Both are bad, but one is worse.
I don't think you should put potential profit in parentheses; that is the actual loss. I'm not sure that there is really too much difference between downloading a song and shoplifting or other types of commercial theft: in both cases the real concern is over lost profits. I.e., the store doesn't care about the actual shirt (or whatever) you stole; they have lots of shirts, they're fungible, and they are only there to make a profit for the store. This is different from theft from an individual, where what's stolen may or may not be easily replaceable.

However, the situation is quite different for uploading, however, since you are enabling millions of people to potentially deprive the owner of money; when you fence a stolen shirt, the owner only loses money for the one shirt.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bittybye View Post
I had no idea that Japan had no murder, violent crimes, or any other type of crime because that's the only reason I can see that any government would waste their resources on a relatively minor crime (meaning that no one is physically hurt)
Well, crime is very very low in Japan. And it's not like we're talking about a crime with no victim (like drugs or prostitution). Having your car stolen, your computer stolen, or your money stolen are all property crimes where no one is physically hurt...but I wouldn't call enforcing these crimes a waste of resources.
Quote:

I honestly don't know how the crime should be punished, maybe the downloader has to actually pay the price they would have had to had they bought the book?
That's not really a punishment at all. Either you pay for the book, or you steal it. If you steal it and get caught, the worst thing that happens is that you have to pay for the book.

But prison time? No.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, prison is too harsh for downloading unless very unusual circumstances exist. And while people do get sent to prison in the US for theft, it takes a lot of small thefts or one big theft to get there.
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