Weekend tech reading: What's a fair penalty for piracy?

Why would you be sued $62,000 for every song you "digitally stole". If you steal a CD from Walmart they dont consider you to be a thief for $62,000 per track on the cd. That goes to tell ya its a bunch of courtroom management. Attorneys/Lawyers using words like the politicians do ' so well ' to skew what things really are and how they should be. Break it down.. wouldnt $200 per track be more than sufficient? So get sued for $2000 for a 10 track cd. That would deter people wouldnt it?

Someone should remind the Judge and jury about the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

3 times the cost of the music or about $3 per song. Seriously it really has no need to be over that.

But one of the tracks was "My love dont cost a thing" Jennifer Lopez you damn liar!

One song - Happy Birthday - generates 2 million dollars a year in copyright royalties. That is $547.95USD/day if one person sings it once a day for 365 days in a public setting (singing at home for family is free). http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp

I'm really surprised the RIAA hasn't stationed agents in restaurants waiting to sue unsuspecting food servers for singing Happy Birthday to customers. They would make a fortune

Yeah seriously its not like your printing off CDs on the curb either handing them out or getting paid for the tracks!

Copyright infringement is a crime. There has to be punishment for the crime, to deter further lawbreaking. Getting caught and having to pay what you would have normally had to pay to get it legitimately is not a deterrent. It gives little reason to purchase. Oh I could pay for this new CD or I could download it for free and if I get caught all I have to do Is pay for the CD. That does not work. I think a fine of about $500 per incident would be adequate. Now to define what qualifies as an incident... ... ZZZzzzz...

Isn't that why most restaurants have changed to singing something else?

Now thats some BS! Since when does plagiarism not exist? Sheesh does anyone get educated at school these days.... ?

A penatly for piracy hmmm, i would say lower prices on stuff and pirating would not be needed ofcourse the *****s who will pirate anyways, should be fined atleast double the amount of the original price that was pirated....

About Microsoft antivirus, it just works really well (tested by me and other people that work in the IT department) and other antivirus companies just can't accept another good product on the market.

It should be 3 times the value of the song, if and only if you make ANY profit off selling that song. Meaning that most of us would not get penalized at all. Seems fair to me also $62,500 per song I mean are they high? Almost anybody who downloads has at least 1000+ songs meaning $62million dollars in penalties...
If they do manage to cut down on pirating, which I highly doubt, they're best bet would be to make it something payable like a speeding ticket. People would then probably think twice, I know I would. Otherwise these people who were caught wouldn't be able to afford media and would have to steal it.

These high penalties make me want to start pirating. I mean, I certainly respect people's right to their materials, but these are obviously not worth of being considered human beings.

RIAA lawsuits are meaningless and cost too much. How do they expect somebody will pay that kind of amounts not to mention the trials are long...such a waste of resources and time.
What they have to learn is how to attract people with music, like buy one get one for free. Why should I buy a whole album when I like only 1 song?
DRM is just another bull....with new methods of anti-piracy will come new ways to crack them.
And artists (some of them) also should start to really sing.
Make the products accessible, give extra stuff to subscribers...I've bought this music cd and got a nice T-Shirt too and the list can go on.
In the end a short example of cost discrepancy: a game in U.S. costs 39.99USD in EU the same game costs 39.99EUR or even more, how fair is that? In both cases it is the digital version and should cost less than the boxed one!

True, the fine does seem a bit cruel. However, the court didn't exactly sentance Jamie to death by firing-squad, so the eight amendment is of no use to the family at this time. I guess the court already ruled that out back in 2005.

This whole piracy does not make sense for me. The next stage is to limit possibility to e.g. grow your own tomatoes and make spaghetti and they will force you to buy it from big malls only.

I think the cost of piracy should be the RRP price plus 20%. You shoulnd't have to pay hundreds for something that can be bought for $10.

just the cost of the product they were CAUGHT downloading and they own at the moment

The problem is the system here, the fact that this even goes to trial. It's not worth going to trial for tiny sums, so they inflate the costs. The RIAA typically offers to settle for a few thousand dollars, going into the millions only if the settlement is denied and this goes to court.

If personal copyright violation was put in the same category as speeding, with a system put in place to ticket those who download illegal content, then small fines could work. However that won't be possible unless people agree to measures for monitoring such downloads and that they're valid, which I think is unlikely to happen.

I agree.
The example is wrong. Way too much for those songs.