The punishment should fit the crime. Publishers always charge users with the potential lost revenues from potential lost sales of shared books, so I think the remedy should be award each victim with the value of their personal information multiplied by the potential buyers of that information PLUS the cost of any identify theft that might have been related to the sharing of the information PLUS the potential cost of damage to the victims' good name as a result of any potential identity theft PLUS punitive damages.
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Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic
Remember the news that a number of Dutch-speaking e-book vendors had agreed to share information of customers, ehm, suspected pirates, with the anti-piracy watchdog BREIN? Well, it caused quite the backlash. The Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice is now faced with a handful of unpleasant questions regarding the legality of this agreement. As MobileReader Katsunami reports, one of the questions is (translated):
There is no denying that e-book piracy on the Internet is rampant; yet the question remains: Should private organizations such as BREIN, who have no legal or investigative authority, be allowed to access private customer information in their attempt to identify the people alleged to be offering pirated content?
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