Rapidshare loses court battle against German booksellers

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

Copyright infringement is not about what you take, it's about what you make. The problem with basing compensation on sale value, at least in the context of an illicit download, is that the infringement is not wrongful appropriation of quantifiable property.

It's not a matter of what the owner has lost, but of what you have gained.

If you ride on a bus without paying the fare, or you sneak into the cinema and watch a film without buying a ticket, you could argue that the bus operator or the cinema owner hasn't "lost" anything as a consequence, but it's clear that you have gained something - a trip on the bus, or watching the film - and that something has a definite value. The only meaningful way to assign a value is to base it on what a legitimate purchaser would have paid for that same product or service.

[SleepyBob]

Originally Posted by tompe

Why is it not reasonable?

Because of what happens when you turn the issue around from the point of the consumer.

As others have pointed out, copyright infringement is not generally a criminal offense. So for practical purposes, the cost of the illegal behavior is exactly the payment of the fines specified by law.

If I park on the street and and don't pay the meter, I may get a ticket. The cost to me only extends to paying the fine, and then I can go on my merry way, from a legal perspective. I knew someone who never paid meters, and every month he would write a check for $100 or so to pay the fines. And he happily did so, knowing that he was saving about 25% on his meter fees.

So, now, as a consumer, suppose I buy two books a week at Amazon.com for $15 each (about $1500/year). Or I can torrent them for free, and risk a fine of (say) 25% of the MSRP.

From a financial standpoint, why would I ever choose to pay for books again? If I don't get caught, they are free. If I do get caught, it's still cheaper. And since it isn't a criminal offense, payment of the fine puts me right in the eyes of the law.

The only reason not to is "copyright infringement is wrong/illegal". And for people who are willing to infringe copyright to start with, that argument has zero weight.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Neither of those actions change the act of copyright infringement, but if the person being accused can convince the court that they do, then let them try.



I do have sympathy with that situation, but I'm not sure that it legally changes anything.

That was not the issue. What I asked what was the fine should be according to your principles of calculating the fine. I cannot see haow you principle can cover these cases. The first case was that the value for the person downloading was zero. The second was that the price was zero.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's not a matter of what the owner has lost, but of what you have gained.

If you throw the file away directly you have not gained anything. So no fine in that case according to you or?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

Because of what happens when you turn the issue around from the point of the consumer.

As others have pointed out, copyright infringement is not generally a criminal offense. So for practical purposes, the cost of the illegal behavior is exactly the payment of the fines specified by law.

If I park on the street and and don't pay the meter, I may get a ticket. The cost to me only extends to paying the fine, and then I can go on my merry way, from a legal perspective. I knew someone who never paid meters, and every month he would write a check for $100 or so to pay the fines. And he happily did so, knowing that he was saving about 25% on his meter fees.

So, now, as a consumer, suppose I buy two books a week at Amazon.com for $15 each (about $1500/year). Or I can torrent them for free, and risk a fine of (say) 25% of the MSRP.

From a financial standpoint, why would I ever choose to pay for books again? If I don't get caught, they are free. If I do get caught, it's still cheaper. And since it isn't a criminal offense, payment of the fine puts me right in the eyes of the law.

The only reason not to is "copyright infringement is wrong/illegal". And for people who are willing to infringe copyright to start with, that argument has zero weight.

Yes, but this is dependent on the risk to get caught and for the discussion in this thread it was assumed that the risk was "reasonable". Nobody have said that the fine should depend on the risk. Instead people have claimed it should anly depend on price or on value or depend on both price and value. For me this is a to simplistic view.

[SleepyBob]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, but this is dependent on the risk to get caught and for the discussion in this thread it was assumed that the risk was "reasonable". Nobody have said that the fine should depend on the risk. Instead people have claimed it should anly depend on price or on value or depend on both price and value. For me this is a to simplistic view.

Even if I am 100% guaranteed to be caught and fined, it's still cheaper for me to pirate my books, if the fine is only a fraction of the purchase price. That kind of fine gives no incentive for people not to pirate as a matter of course.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

Even if I am 100% guaranteed to be caught and fined, it's still cheaper for me to pirate my books, if the fine is only a fraction of the purchase price. That kind of fine gives no incentive for people not to pirate as a matter of course.

That is precisely my point: if the fine is lower than the retail value of the goods it will be cheaper to pirate than to legitimately purchase. This is an amazingly obvious point that some people in this thread seem to have tremendous difficulty in grasping.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

Even if I am 100% guaranteed to be caught and fined, it's still cheaper for me to pirate my books, if the fine is only a fraction of the purchase price. That kind of fine gives no incentive for people not to pirate as a matter of course.

Not if you loose the copy. And when you fix a new copy you have to pay a new fine.

It will also be very much trouble and loss of time to get caught all the time.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is precisely my point: if the fine is lower than the retail value of the goods it will be cheaper to pirate than to legitimately purchase. This is an amazingly obvious point that some people in this thread seem to have tremendous difficulty in grasping.

And what you do not get is that you are still loosing money if the fine is for something you would not have bought.

And I really believe that people are fundamentally honest and if they would have bought the book then they will do it.

What is also missed is that you really do not download one book at a time. You download a collection with maybe 100000 books.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

And I really believe that people are fundamentally honest and if they would have bought the book then they will do it.

I agree with you to a certain extent. The majority of people are honest. But I don't accept the blanket statement that everybody who pirates books does so because they are unable to buy them. There will always be a dishonest minority who take stuff rather than pay for it even if they're perfectly capable of buying it.

What is also missed is that you really do not download one book at a time. You download a collection with maybe 100000 books.

That's because they assume (rightly, unfortunately) that even if they are caught they will be fined less than the retail cost of those books. ie it's a win-win situation for them. No matter what happens they're ahead. And that's why fines should reflect the retail value.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's because they assume (rightly, unfortunately) that even if they are caught they will be fined less than the retail cost of those books. ie it's a win-win situation for them. No matter what happens they're ahead. And that's why fines should reflect the retail value.

No, that is not the reason. The reason is that you want the collection to maybe select 10 books per year to read.

And in most cases the retail value is 0 since the books are not available or at least that used to be the case.

With your principle we will get the business idea of selling books for absurd high price like $1000000. Then if it gets pirated you get the fine for a book that nobody would have bought. And this is absurd and shows that your principle cannot work in the simplistic terms you present it.

[SleepyBob]

How did it get pirated if nobody ever bought it?

[SleepyBob]

And while I agree that many people are fundamentally honest, there is a very big population of people who will willingly do dishonest/illegal things, especially if it is convenient or they can convince themselves that it is victimless (e.g. "I wouldn't have bought it otherwise", even though they certainly would have bought something, if there weren't any pirate options available).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

How did it get pirated if nobody ever bought it?

A laptop with the book on got stolen.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

How did it get pirated if nobody ever bought it?

Or there was review copies sent to reviewers.