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

I think something like 3-5 times the cost of the song/album would be alright.

I know it's illegal, but that's a rediculous penalty for 24 songs. I guess they want to be like the government and bankrupt people for life.

How about law enforcement spends time bringing down insider traders, drug dealers and murders?

I have to agree....

Now THAT would be a novel concept! Go after the REAL criminals!

The RIAA the FBI and other anti piracy organizations call piracy a crime of stealing and they continue to sue people for file sharing as they call it. The FBI Anti Piracy Warning says they investigate piracy. The FBI and the RIAA both encourage people to report piracy.

A few years ago a high ranking police officer was recording discussing downloading music for free. He named the name Kazaa and talked about how the songs were arranged in groups and you choose and just click and get the songs. He said it was the thing to do everybody was doing it. He bet his daughters had downloaded a THOUSAND SONGS on his computer. He said he had to get a new computer his old one FILLED UP WITH MEMORY. He laughed and said he hoped the federal governement did not come in and investigate him.

Shortly after this conversation we began reading news articles people were being sued and they were being called thieves and this was being called a crime. Believing what was being said about this being a crime we reported this officer's conversation to the RIAA and the FBI along with his name. The conversation was ignored. A few months ago we were still reading people being sue. Two stood out Jammie Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum who were both ordered to pay outragous monetary amounts. Feeling ignoring the officer's conversation was being unfair we reported it again to the RIAA the FBI the PD and other anti piracy organizations questioning them as to the fairness in this. It continues to be ignored as people continue to be sued. If piracy is a crime as the RIAA the FBI and others proclaim shouldn't this officer's conversation be investigate to see where the Thousand Songs he talks about came from, who the everybody is he speaks of and if he or his daughters possibly commited what the RIAA and the FBI call a crime. This is a law enforcement officer these are his words and they are recorded. Ignoring his conversations seems to be an injustice to all the people that have been sued and had to pay and to us in reporting it and it being ignored.