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Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

arstechnica.com

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Re: Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

#4

In other news, bank robbers say bank robberies should be punished by fines under $100.

First, it does indicate a problem with the copyright system when such a large number of people (+50%, per Free Culture) are 'felons' under US law and liable for hundreds of thousands in damages.

Second, wouldn't it be reasonable for the bank robbers to request that they're not sentenced to death for robbing banks? Can't they argue the punishment doesn't match the crime?

Re: Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

#5

In other news, bank robbers say bank robberies should be punished by fines under $100.

The current laws allow huge fines per song. Download about $100 worth of music (~6 CDs), get hit with over $500,000 in fines. That's simply overkill. A fine of less than $100 (even on a per-song basis) would make the punishment fit the crime.

Re: Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

#7

In other news, bank robbers say bank robberies should be punished by fines under $100.

I am troubled by the fact that you consider the entirety of America to be copyright infringers when the study only indicated that 46% (plus/minus 2%) of americans actually did so. That leaves 53% of non-copyright infringers who think agree with the copyright infringers (assuming all copyright infringers agree that fines should be under $100).

Your statement also brings up the question of whether something that an entire population (according to you) is doing should even be illegal.

Re: Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

#8

In other news, bank robbers say bank robberies should be punished by fines under $100.

The survey didn't just ask Americans who download music; it asked Americans in general. The results from the article suggest that many Americans (48%) don't think this should count as a crime at all.

Re: Sweet sanity: 75% of Americans say infringement fines should be under $100

#9
personally, i think that anyone caught infringing should pay a fine equal to the cheapest retail price (over say, the past year) of the thing infringed(like for like, if you pirated the hd version of a movie, you have to buy the blu ray or hd dvd version. if you took a cam'ed version, you have to buy a movie ticket), iff they do not already own it.

yeah, there's a whole bunch of issues that would have to be ironed out and yes, there's no proof you would have even bought whatever you infringed on in the first place, but i feel like its a much saner starting point than what we have now.

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