Chrich70: There is one thing you are forgetting:
The epic lameness of some people.
I've seen people build a desktop computer costing €2000, and then running a cracked version of Windows 7 on it (€89 for a Home Premium OEM), having to re-install / re-crack each time the OS is updated. Couldn't they have built a computer costing €1911, and then buy Windows along with it?
Even worse. People buying a €1500 notebook, running Windows 8, and then using a cracked version of Stardock Start8 (€5), even though there are similar free alternatives such as classic shell.
Think you've hit rock bottom? Think again. I know some people who go to great lenghts, such as searching for 4 hours, to find a full version of an Android application they want, on the internet. The app costs like €1. Those people are "working" HOURS, to save €1.
Epic lameness trumps all. There are quite a lot of people who are of the opinion that if it is digital, it can be pirated and therefore SHOULD be pirated to save money, whatever the cost.
Saving €1, or even €5 or €10 if it takes me a day to do it, then that's a very bad deal, except if you have both no money whatsoever (and no income) and unlimited time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The issue is not the scale of punishments for copyright infringement, but the fact that the entire legal process is beyond the reach of all but the largest companies, and so unwieldy that it's effectively unenforcible. I don't know the details of what this BREIN group is proposing, but something really does need to be done to allow small content producers to take advantage of the protection that the law claims to offer them, but in reality doesn't.
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I agree, but it should not be done the way BREIN is trying to do it; by giving itself rights it does not have. If BREIN wants access to customer data and then use that data to investigate copyright infringement, they should first be authorized by the government to do so, and should be given investigative privileges. In short, they'd need to OFFICIALLY become part of the judicial system.
At this point they aren't, so this contract should be shot.
The problem is, as I've said: as soon as one writer or publisher is willing to say: "You may enforce my copyrights", then I can create my own BREIN. And, if BREIN can get customer data at their whim with such a contract, I can too. Of course I'd be to small to force vendors into a contract, like eBoekhuis can, offering just books of one writer or one publisher, but I'm talking purely theorethical here.
BREIN is a private organization (a Foundation), and anything they can get away with, *I*, or you or anyone could get away with. This would the door for everybody to just go and put stuff like that into their contracts and start collecting data whenever they see fit.