I'm a little tired of this 'file sharing is theft' argument. It's not a physical item, and it doesn't compare to taking such a thing from a store.
What's being taken is the opportunity to make a transaction. It's more like blocking the entrance to a store. The problem with that analogy is that we don't have some traditional method for accounting that loss. If you did that in real life, you'd be prosecuted for trespassing or something similar.
Which is the point -- there isn't a traditional method for accounting of that loss, and any analogy that enables one is wrong. In the case of file sharing, the prevention of sales is the only crime being committed, and people hate doing the math/research on something like that.
I'm tired of the 'it's not a physical item' argument.
What about services? Can services be effectively stolen? They are not a tangible good, yet people pay a lot for services alone (see management consultants). So if I have someone perform a service for me and I don't pay, have I committed theft?
And in essence, isn't that what we're paying for when we buy music/games/video? The services of those who made the thing, because without their work and effort it would not exist. You are using these services (the playing of music in this case) without paying for it, you are stealing their services. And in that case, it could be argued that 17k downloads equals 17k counts of theft.
"You are using these services (the playing of music in this case) without paying for it, you are stealing their services. And in that case, it could be argued that 17k downloads equals 17k counts of theft."
Following that logic, I've just robbed Beethoven's corpse by listening to Moonlight Sonata.
This line of argument fails because using information doesn't prevent others from doing the same.
Beethoven was compensated during his time for composing Moonlight Sonata through patronage. Artists today do not have patrons anymore. Or you can consider the public at large the patrons of artists.
Completely offtopic, but anyone else notice all the alliteration that was going on with names?
Judge James Jones & Daniel Dove
I felt like I was reading some kind of silly comic book, where the RIAA was the villainous organisation (You know, like how evil organisations generally have acronym names)
Well, that's true, but the same is true of televisions. Most people who steal a TV weren't going to otherwise buy one. Nonetheless if someone stole 100 TVs, you'd sue them to recoup the sale price of 100 TVs, not the one they might actually purchase.
Granted the RIAA suits are ridiculous anyway, but either pirating is stealing or it isn't. If it's stealing, it doesn't matter what the markup was or how much they would have paid. If it's not stealing, then let's dismiss the whole case and move on.
Right, so there should be no restitution at all, only punitive damages. Court-determined fractional restitution is scary. Our legal system has better uses of time and money than trying to figure out how many of those 17,000 people would have purchased the album, especially since the answer is zero if you count other avenues of piracy.
what kind of fine [...] $.99 per file or something like that?
17,281 album downloads x $7.22 per download = $124,769.
At the time, Judge Jones sentenced Dove to 18 months in prison for each count, plus a special assessment of $200 and a $20,000 fine ($10,000 per count).
However, the RIAA and Lionsgate Entertainment had both submitted requests for restitution—they had argued that each individual copy of content downloaded through Elite Torrents was the equivalent of a lost sale. For example, the RIAA said that 183 albums were transferred through Dove's server 17,281 times, then multiplied that by the wholesale price of a digital album in 2005 ($7.22) to conclude that its member companies were owed almost $124,769 in restitution, or $47,000 if Dove agreed to be part of an RIAA "public service announcement" about piracy. Similarly, Lionsgate said that it owned copyrights to 28 of the 700 or so movies that Dove served up—Lionsgate argued that Dove caused the movie industry to lose some $22 million, and since Lionsgate owned copyrights to about 4 percent of the available movies, it was owed $880,000.
I wonder how this judge would value the damage of stealing fruit from a grocery store considering wholesale price, retail price, spoilage of inventory, that the thief might not have bought the fruit if he hadn't stolen it, etc.
I don't really want to argue about this all over again but I would be remiss to not mention that property and data are not easily equated. To answer your supposition, he probably would value the damage of stealing fruit as the market value of the fruit and possibly the loss of sales from not having the inventory. It's pretty clear that the second consideration does not apply to music.
I'm not interested in that argument either. I am specifically asking what this judge would take into account besides the retail value of the fruit. The grocer obviously doesn't sell all his inventory. Would the damage calculation take that into account? What if the thief chose pieces of fruit which other customers were not likely to buy?
If the grocer was suing the thief in civil court for restitution, that's exactly the kind of calculation the court would have to do.
However, in our court system, thieves are generally tried in criminal court, not sued for restitution. That's why copyright cases (usually civil) are so different from real theft cases (usually criminal).
In criminal law restitution is a regular feature in the sentences of criminal defendants. Restitution in the criminal arena refers to an affirmative performance by the defendant that benefits either the victim of the crime or the general public. If a victim can be identified, a judge will order the defendant to make restitution to the victim. For example, if a defendant is convicted of stealing a person's stereo, the defendant may be sentenced to reimburse the victim for the value of the stereo, in addition to punishment such as jail time and monetary fines.
Restitution can indeed be part of a criminal suit. However, copyright cases are generally not tried as criminal suits; they're RIAA vs. Joe Schmoe. Thievery cases are tried as criminal cases. Different standards are applied in each case.
Keep in mind that market value is defined as the price the market puts on something when an exchange takes place, not the dollar value printed on the price tag. When I first tried to sell my house, no one would buy it because we set the asking price too high, the asking price was not the market value. Interestingly enough, doesn't the scarcity of the good factor into the market value (or at least the perception of scarcity)? Can something with an infinite supply even have a market value?
What's being taken is the opportunity to make a transaction. It's more like blocking the entrance to a store. The problem with that analogy is that we don't have some traditional method for accounting that loss. If you did that in real life, you'd be prosecuted for trespassing or something similar.
Which is the point -- there isn't a traditional method for accounting of that loss, and any analogy that enables one is wrong. In the case of file sharing, the prevention of sales is the only crime being committed, and people hate doing the math/research on something like that.