If You Think The Cost Of 'Piracy' Is High, What About The Cost Of Enforcement?

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Hadopi and the Digital Economy Act are two examples.

Both acts require that the rights holder make a complaint that must satisfy the administrative agency before any action is taken. Both acts have notice requirements allowing the target multiple chances to respond and show that the complaint is without merit.
Both acts allow for judicial review by the courts at the blocking stage.
Notably, the defendants targeted have never sought to defend themselves before either the agencies or the courts (indicating, most likely, that they have no defence).
Do you really think that TPB has a realistic defence to the claim of copyright infringement. If so, by all means, present it. This ought to be enlightening.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Megaupload had plans to pay creators for each download of their creation, they announced it a few weeks before they were closed down. Spottify would be another example.

This is a joke, no?

However, I do think it almost as ridiculous to send Dotcom to prison as it would be to send the Spotify executives. Megaupload was shut down. That's the big thing. If we can get Dotcom, if fairly convicted, to pay a fine, that would be positive. But to take tax money to make him an all expense paid guest of the United States, receiving the world's most expensive medical care year after year, is a ridiculous waste of money. All it will do is make future Dotcom's put more effort into not getting caught. The 1,185,458 nonviolent offenders we currently lock up represents five times the number of people held in India's entire prison system . . .

And in the US, unlike India, One Year of Prison Costs More Than One Year at Princeton

Deterring some of the piracy is fine, but not if you are going to do it vengefully or at great expense.

[plib]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

And in the US, unlike India, One Year of Prison Costs More Than One Year at Princeton

Well, judging by the Wall Street shenanigans in the last few years, some of the graduates of each system seem to be pretty similar.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Both acts require that the rights holder make a complaint that must satisfy the administrative agency before any action is taken. Both acts have notice requirements allowing the target multiple chances to respond and show that the complaint is without merit.
Both acts allow for judicial review by the courts at the blocking stage.
Notably, the defendants targeted have never sought to defend themselves before either the agencies or the courts (indicating, most likely, that they have no defence).
Do you really think that TPB has a realistic defence to the claim of copyright infringement. If so, by all means, present it. This ought to be enlightening.

Neither requires proof--just evidence. Penalties are levied based on accusations, and the accused has to pay to prove themselves innocent. The fewer resources the accused has, the more likely they are to have to just take the penalties. Inability to file the appropriate papers on time and pay to challenge an accusation is not the same as admission of built.
---

TPB can claim the same defense to the claim of copyright infringement that Google has... it hosts a search engine, not files. Google, too, directs people to copyrighted materials, which they are supposed to not use if they don't have the rights to.

With the recent ruling in the GSU lawsuit, "de minimis" copies can include those made available but not downloaded; someone filing claims against a torrent site would have to show not only that files were listed, but that they were accessed.

The ruling also has a number of features that lean toward "if there's no legit digital copy available for sale, there's no infringement." Providing torrents to out-of-print books and songs, and movies not available for sale, may require publishers to show that they're somehow being damaged by the use of files they've decided not to sell.

I don't believe those are complete defenses, but they are viable approaches for defense, at least in the US. What kind of defense TPB will mount depends rather strongly on what country charges them with what crimes.

[roymezger]

I think piracy is occurring now when ebooks are being sold at the regular soft cover price of a hard copy book. The pirates are pretending that their costs are the same for ebooks when they do not incur most of the costs of putting a book out when it flows straight from the author's computer to the "publisher's" servor to your reader without touching a printer, distributer, wholesaler, or retailer.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by roymezger

I think piracy is occurring now when ebooks are being sold at the regular soft cover price of a hard copy book. The pirates are pretending that their costs are the same for ebooks when they do not incur most of the costs of putting a book out when it flows straight from the author's computer to the "publisher's" servor to your reader without touching a printer, distributer, wholesaler, or retailer.

Since when is there a direct correlation between cost and selling price? I won't buy overpriced books, but they can try to sell an ebook for $1000.- and the pbook for $2.-. I will just read something else.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

TPB can claim the same defense to the claim of copyright infringement that Google has... it hosts a search engine, not files. Google, too, directs people to copyrighted materials, which they are supposed to not use if they don't have the rights to.

TPB actively encourages copyright infringement. Google does not. Google respects and promptly acts on requests to remove search results which point at copyright infringing material; TPB's search results contain nothing BUT copyright-infringing material, and they totally ignore requests to remove them.

The same? I think not.

[stonetools]

Neither requires proof--just evidence. Penalties are levied based on accusations, and the accused has to pay to prove themselves innocent. The fewer resources the accused has, the more likely they are to have to just take the penalties. Inability to file the appropriate papers on time and pay to challenge an accusation is not the same as admission of built.

Er, that's how the law works. Someone files a claim or makes a charge, and the defendant gets a chance to oppose it. The defendant gets a right to due process,not freedom from having to defend themselves. TPB COULD have defended themselves: but they don't because they have NO DEFENSE.(iIt's not because they don't have money either; they get big income from ads).

Harry T dealt with one of the suggested defenses: the others are equally weak.
In effect, TPB and other sites flourish because they are beyond the reach of courts and LE agencies. Once the law changes so as to bring them under the rule of law, they will inevitably fail because they engage in activity that's clearly illegal.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Er, that's how the law works. Someone files a claim or makes a charge, and the defendant gets a chance to oppose it. The defendant gets a right to due process,not freedom from having to defend themselves.

Yeah, well... but normally it's innocent unless proven guilty, not guilty upon accusation until proven otherwise.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Yeah, well... but normally it's innocent unless proven guilty, not guilty upon accusation until proven otherwise.

Even innocent until proven guilty, you are arrested, charged, held on bail and summonsed to defend yourself in a court of law. It doesn't mean "LE cannot even charge you or take any action against you until presented proof of guilt . That's what EW's purported standard would be .

[markbot]

The cost of enforcement is high, which is why there needs to be a very large fine to deter people from breaking the piracy law. If they only fined you the amount of economic harm you caused by stealing then everyone would pirate music...since the probability of getting caught is so low and if you do get caught you only get charged $1 per song. Thus they have to make the fines very steep to deter people from even thinking about pirating.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Even innocent until proven guilty, you are arrested, charged, held on bail and summonsed to defend yourself in a court of law. It doesn't mean "LE cannot even charge you or take any action against you until presented proof of guilt . That's what EW's purported standard would be .

Yes, but they have to prove that you are guilty. Of course you should do all you can to defend yourself, but in most cases it's not enough that there is someone who says you are guilty. I don't know how it works where you are, but where I am you will not be convicted if there is even the shadow of a doubt.

What they are trying to do (at least over here, again) is that if they can link the account to you, then you are guilty, even if you didn't download anything illegally. You will have to prove that you have been hacked, for example, which is nearly impossible.

Normally it's "you're accused of" and not "you've been found guilty (and now prove otherwise, though were 99% sure you can't and even if you can, you may still have to pay if you can't prove that you did everything you could to hinder people from hijacking your network)" - something like that did happen over here. Some lawyer writes a notice "you downloaded XY, now pay sum AZ or we will sue you". And if you don't have solid proof that you didn't do it, couldn't have done it and did all you could to prevent it in that case (which is nearly impossible to do for most people), you'd better pay - because if they sue you it will cost so much more.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by markbot

The cost of enforcement is high, which is why there needs to be a very large fine to deter people from breaking the piracy law. If they only fined you the amount of economic harm you caused by stealing then everyone would pirate music...since the probability of getting caught is so low and if you do get caught you only get charged $1 per song. Thus they have to make the fines very steep to deter people from even thinking about pirating.

But where's the relation? Using public transport without paying is quite similar - risk of being caught is about the same. But they will charge you 40 Euro (even if the ticket would have been 2 Euro) and if you are caught about 3 times in one year, you will be taken to court.

Of course you will have to be fined more than the cost of one song. But not several thousand times the cost of that song.

If you download a chart sampler and get fined 2000 Euro for each of the 18 songs, that might ruin you. And I guess in many cases, if they really wanted to deter people from piracy, making them doing social work for about 20 hours for each of the 18 songs would teach people and would help society. But of course that would not help the music industry in the short run, but maybe in the long run. (Then again, maybe not...)

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Er, that's how the law works. Someone files a claim or makes a charge, and the defendant gets a chance to oppose it. The defendant gets a right to due process,not freedom from having to defend themselves. .

Assuming they can afford to pay the fee to contest the accusation, and they are sufficiently educated in computer matters to do so. Look at how many innocent people paid money to ACS Law because they didn't know what else to do. That is what moving the burden of proof onto the accused does.

[BenBanned]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

The same generation that doesn't perceive copying as wrong, has also no problem downloading music, movies, and games without paying. They don't feel the least bit guilty about what they do. Educating that generation is also important. They have no respect for intellectual property.

Being of this generation, I agree 100%.
If it truly is an entire generation then say goodbye to the current system.
I have zero patience for anyone or anything that comes between me and knowledge. And good luck "educating" the youth, we know that our actions have a negative effect on the way things work.
"Crisis precipitates change"


Anyone steaming from the ears yet?