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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

#31

Post by joshAg »

wmf wrote: post #20

While that is just plain common sense, there are still problems. If the fine is no great hardship and your chance of getting caught is less than 1%, it's rational to always infringe rather than pay. Raising the rate of enforcement would be hard since $100 doesn't cover the court costs and thus the industry would be losing money on every case — even ones they win.

so then why not go after the people producing the infringing copies instad of the people using/buying them? weren't the original copyright laws created to prevent book publishers from printing a book that they didn't have a copyright to print and then selling them? producing infringing content, be it physical or digital, is a completely separate matter from using infringing content.

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

#32

Post by anigbrowl »

ugh wrote: post #17
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

Those darn social science majors and their worthless degrees. If only they would get real jobs! http://piracy.ssrc.org/the-copy-culture-survey-infringement-...

?

I am lampooning a widespread bias that exists on HN against 'soft' sciences.

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

#33

Post by wmf »

joshAg wrote: post #31
wmf wrote: post #20

While that is just plain common sense, there are still problems. If the fine is no great hardship and your chance of getting caught is less than 1%, it's rational to always infringe rather than pay. Raising the rate of enforcement would be hard since $100 doesn't cover the court costs and thus the industry would be losing money on every case — even ones they win.

so then why not go after the people producing the infringing copies instad of the people using/buying them? weren't the original copyright laws created to prevent book publishers from printing a book that they didn't have a copyright to print and then selling them? producing infringing content, be it physical or digital, is a completely separate matter from using infringing content.

I was thinking of P2P file sharing, where regular people are the ones making the infringing copies. In P2P I think downloaders should have some responsibility since they request that copies be made. But it goes without saying that professional infringers should also be punished.

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

#34

Post by rayiner »

masterzora wrote: post #14
MaxGabriel wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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. While I agree with your conclusions, the logic here is flawed. If everyone started shoplifting, for example, it wouldn't indicate a problem with the laws that people are now criminals. (Sidenote: Only a small number of people…

His logic is fine. You can work backwards from a result that seems suspect to question the conclusions from which that result stems.

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

#35

Post by masterzora »

rayiner wrote: post #34
masterzora wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. While I agree with your conclusions, the logic here is flawed. If everyone started shoplifting, for example, it wouldn't indicate a problem with the laws that people are now criminals. (Sidenote: Only a small number of people…

His logic is fine. You can work backwards from a result that seems suspect to question the conclusions from which that result stems.

I agree with your second statement but that does not imply the first. Your second sentence leads to a different conclusion: Such a situation indicates that causes should be examined. It does not indicate what the cause is.

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

#36

Post by marchdown »

darth_static wrote: post #16
pagekalisedown wrote: post #3

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

The fines for pirating music are ridiculous. I remember reading somewhere that the fines for pirating Prince's entire discography are more than Prince has made from those albums. Where's the sense in that?

These fines were never paid. It's like saying that all the popcorn in a movie theater would cost more than the theater itself. It doesn't make much sense to compare the two numbers.

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

#37

Post by jellicle »

wmf wrote: post #20

While that is just plain common sense, there are still problems. If the fine is no great hardship and your chance of getting caught is less than 1%, it's rational to always infringe rather than pay. Raising the rate of enforcement would be hard since $100 doesn't cover the court costs and thus the industry would be losing money on every case — even ones they win.

Which is fine. Lots of things in the world are uneconomic.

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

#38

Post by anigbrowl »

joshAg wrote: post #28
sliverstorm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way, you're still left with the choice: 1) Pay $20 to see movie 2) Pirate movie and maybe have to pay $20 sometime later. Maybe.

Sure but how is that different from now? aside from the cost of the fine, there really isn't, and I'd argue that the specter of a large fine is having little effect on piracy anyway.

A lot of the time, the size of the fine (or the prison sentence) is a function of the probability of being caught.

As an example, let's say the economic gain of a single instance of movie piracy is $25, only 1% of all pirates are caught, and the cost of prosecuting someone is $1,000. So you charge a $250,000 fine, and that gets people's attention. Economists talk about indifference curves in place of regular price curves.

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

#39

Post by wvenable »

masterzora wrote: post #26
nextparadigms wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement is not shoplifting.

Goddammit, I knew someone was going to trot that line out. You see, I never said copyright infringement was shoplifting, or related to shoplifting, in any way. Just because someone uses the words "copyright" and "shoplifting" in the same post doesn't mean that they are saying copyright infringement is shoplifting. In my above post shoplifting was only an example. My post makes just as much as sense if I replace shopl…

Your argument demands an obviously immoral crime in order to work. You used shoplifting because everyone agrees that is immoral. You are begging the question.

If you replaced shoplifting with cannabis possession then the line "If everyone started smoking pot, for example, it wouldn't indicate a problem with the laws that people are now criminals" isn't nearly true. In fact, you could argue that alcohol is legal, while cannabis is not, is entirely because everyone does it.

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

#40

Post by sehugg »

jacobolus wrote: post #24
masterzora wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. While I agree with your conclusions, the logic here is flawed. If everyone started shoplifting, for example, it wouldn't indicate a problem with the laws that people are now criminals. (Sidenote: Only a small number of people…

> If everyone started shoplifting, for example, it wouldn't indicate a problem with the laws that people are now criminals. Yes it would. Laws are not “good” or “bad” in a vacuum; they’re just the written-down versions of agreed-upon social relations – specifically, agreed upon by whoever in the society has enough social and economic power (and in a democracy, votes) to get a law enacted and enforced. At the point wh…

Or for a more concrete example, see the Volstead Act and Prohibition.
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