Canada puts a cap on filesharing penalty: $5,000

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6710/125/

This particular topic was discussed in another thread of which I do not remember the title.

However, I stated that the cap should be set and all punitive damages removed from the court systems so we do not end up with $1.4 million punitive damage fines (Capitol vs. Thomas...but was later overturned).

I stated that it should be capped and should mostly be awarded "Compensatory Damages".

If the song was downloaded 10,000 times, the value of the song itself should be determined as a single consumption. Most likely, the cost for file sharing it 10,000 times would be $10,000...or less.

Canada is taking it a step further and limiting it to $5,000.

Go Canada.

What are your thoughts: am I wrong in my sentiments?

Full disclosure: I never file share. But I do think the system needs revision in the UK and the US.

Go Canada, but it should be no fines. It's just bytes of data arranged in a specific matter. Lars can still go **** himself.

back when the whole napster thing first broke, our federal police basically said they had better things to do than try to chase down copyrights.

that being said, I know it was the Canadian recording agency that shut down demonoid a few years back, so it's not like nothin happens in that regard here.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the decision, however, and maybe it is just the lack of famous cases, but I don't think we even had issues of people getting nailed for copyright infringement.

Originally posted by Robtard
Go Canada, but it should be no fines. It's just bytes of data arranged in a specific matter. Lars can still go **** himself.

lol

But...but...sometimes, what I make, I want to be mine. If I spent thousands of hours putting together a software program that was quite useful, I'd expect to be compensated. Maybe enough for me to buy a Tesla Model S or Roadster?

As far as the music industry is concerned, it's pretty much adapted to file sharing, and most artists seem to accept it as necessary losses--they can still make huge amounts of money from selling merchandise, from royalties when their music is played at events/in movies/TV shows, and from live shows.

Originally posted by dadudemon
lol

But...but...sometimes, what I make, I want to be mine. If I spent thousands of hours putting together a software program that was quite useful, I'd expect to be compensated. Maybe enough for me to buy a Tesla Model S or Roadster?

Yes, you should be allowed to sell it and make a profit. But if I buy it and want to share if for free with someone else, where is the illegal action?

Tell me, if I bought and paid for a Double Whopper with cheese hold the pickle, is there something illegal with me sharing it with you? Does Burger King have grounds to stop be from giving you a few bites and fine me cos by sharing said Double Whopper with cheese hold the pickle you may or may not buy one later from them?

/boom

How about my copy of a book, I am not allowed to share it with a friend after I finished reading it?

/boom boom

Originally posted by Robtard
Yes, you should be allowed to sell it and make a profit. But if I buy it and want to share if for free with someone else, where is the illegal action?

Tell me, if I bought and paid for a Double Whopper with cheese hold the pickle, is there something illegal with me sharing it with you? Does Burger King have grounds to stop be from giving you a few bites and fine me cos by sharing said Double Whopper with cheese hold the pickle you may or may not buy one later from them?

/boom

How about my copy of a book, I am not allowed to share it with a friend after I finished reading it?

/boom boom

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I don't think that's a fair comparison. For it to be comparable it would have to be you getting a printing press and printing out new copies of the book after you're done reading it.

So it's a matter of how many times I eShared something and not the act of sharing itself? Cos I'm fairly certain you can get fined for sharing even once.

Originally posted by Robtard
So it's a matter of how many times I eShared something and not the act of sharing itself? Cos I'm fairly certain you can get fined for sharing even once.

You could share a book with more people and economically hurt the author/publisher more if you printed out copies and distributed them rather than just passing a single copy around to a few friends.

I don't think any author seriously thinks that when someone buys their book they'll either burn it after reading or keep it in a safe so that no one else can read their copy. It's understood that some sharing will occur. But no author/publisher (well, maybe some extreme non-commercial authors who are in it just for the art) is going to allow you to print out unlicensed copies of the book in your basement.

And as I said, as far as the law is concerned you can be fined for sharing something once*. So why is it okay for me to share a physical copy of a book, dvd, cd etc., but not a digital?

*Unless I'm wrong and you need to hit 'X' amount of shares before you've committed a crime? If so, what's the number between legal and illegal sharing?

The issue (at least with people being somewhat reasonable) is that your sharing more then what you purchased. So say you bought two and gave one that'd be fine, but say you bought 1 and printed out a second copy for someone else, would be the crime.

I think people take punishing file sharing too far, but I do understand the concern.

Originally posted by Robtard
Yes, you should be allowed to sell it and make a profit. But if I buy it and want to share if for free with someone else, where is the illegal action?

The contract you agreed to when you installed the software said you would not violate the copyright. Since that isn't an unreasonable requirement it should (and does) stand up in court.

Originally posted by dadudemon
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6710/125/

This particular topic was discussed in another thread of which I do not remember the title.

However, I stated that the cap should be set and all punitive damages removed from the court systems so we do not end up with $1.4 million punitive damage fines (Capitol vs. Thomas...but was later overturned).

I stated that it should be capped and should mostly be awarded "Compensatory Damages".

If the song was downloaded 10,000 times, the value of the song itself should be determined as a single consumption. Most likely, the cost for file sharing it 10,000 times would be $10,000...or less.

Canada is taking it a step further and limiting it to $5,000.

Go Canada.

What are your thoughts: am I wrong in my sentiments?

Full disclosure: I never file share. But I do think the system needs revision in the UK and the US.

I have mixed feelings on this issue. $5,000 really isn't much of a deterrent whan you think about it though anything in six figures or more is indeed excessive. It isn't just the music industry but also movie, television, and even the porn industry is effected detrimentally by file sharing.

Originally posted by Robtard
And as I said, as far as the law is concerned you can be fined for sharing something once*. So why is it okay for me to share a physical copy of a book, dvd, cd etc., but not a digital?

*Unless I'm wrong and you need to hit 'X' amount of shares before you've committed a crime? If so, what's the number between legal and illegal sharing?

Originally posted by Lek Kuen
The issue (at least with people being somewhat reasonable) is that your sharing more then what you purchased. So say you bought two and gave one that'd be fine, but say you bought 1 and printed out a second copy for someone else, would be the crime.

I think people take punishing file sharing too far, but I do understand the concern.

edit - but on the bright side, it does sometimes lead me to purchase things which i most likely wouldn't have otherwise given a chance.

Originally posted by red g jacks
i can definitely see the argument for why it's wrong. unfortunately, getting what i want for free is more important to me than being a morally upstanding internet subscriber.

Originally posted by Robtard
Yes, you should be allowed to sell it and make a profit. But if I buy it and want to share if for free with someone else, where is the illegal action?

Tell me, if I bought and paid for a Double Whopper with cheese hold the pickle, is there something illegal with me sharing it with you? Does Burger King have grounds to stop be from giving you a few bites and fine me cos by sharing said Double Whopper with cheese hold the pickle you may or may not buy one later from them?

/boom

How about my copy of a book, I am not allowed to share it with a friend after I finished reading it?

/boom boom

Others have pointed out the flaw in your logic. I almost agree with you but the proper comparison really is a printing press.

Originally posted by Archaeopteryx
I have mixed feelings on this issue. $5,000 really isn't much of a deterrent whan you think about it though anything in six figures or more is indeed excessive. It isn't just the music industry but also movie, television, and even the porn industry is effected detrimentally by file sharing.

That is definitely reasonable and I cannot argue with that. What do you think about my suggestion of making it purely compensatory and eliminating all punitive "fines"?

Originally posted by red g jacks
i can definitely see the argument for why it's wrong. unfortunately, getting what i want for free is more important to me than being a morally upstanding internet subscriber.

edit - but on the bright side, it does sometimes lead me to purchase things which i most likely wouldn't have otherwise given a chance.

I read an article on Gizmodo that was a post on a study that said something like:

Those who fileshare are much more likely to have purchased products. Meaning, their "real" dvd and music library is larger than those that do not fileshare. That clearly indicates that the median filesharer approaches this topic with a specific philosophy that IS conducive to the various "digital" markets.

I believe the scientists attributed it to something like "test before you drive".

Punitive damages are there to discourage others from doing it in the future, it makes breaking the law financially worse than obeying it. Obviously $1.5 million for a bunch of songs is absurd but I don't think they should be done away with. IMO it makes more sense to cap punitive damages as a percentage of the compensatory damages.

The real problem is that you need punitive damages in other parts of the legal system to prevent individuals or groups with tremendous amount of money from buying their way through the law.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Punitive damages are there to discourage others from doing it in the future, it makes breaking the law financially worse than obeying it. Obviously $1.5 million for a bunch of songs is absurd but I don't think they should be done away with. IMO it makes more sense to cap punitive damages as a percentage of the compensatory damages.

The real problem is that you need punitive damages in other parts of the legal system to prevent individuals or groups with tremendous amount of money from buying their way through the law.

I think a $10,000 fine for sharing a song 10,000 times is devastating to 80%+ of Americans. My annual income is comfortably above the US Median income and I can assure you, a $10,000 fine would be life-shattering to my family. I don't know how I would cope with that fine. I guess I could collect money from my family members or get another job?

But a bigger business that may have made money off of the distribution? Say, megaupload? Well, they shared thousands of movies and thousands of songs millions of times. Their fine would be in the hundreds of millions if not billions. That covers both ends of the spectrum while still remaining useful as a deterrent. Know what I mean?

In other words, you don't have stupid high damage fines for a single person sharing with P2P networking (1.4 million for a single mom is just stupid: I believe compensatory damages would have amounted to less than $500...which would still have been difficult for her to pay, but not impossible) but you will have those damages for a professional run operation like megaupload.

If it is impossible to come up with an objective dollar amount to ascribe to the copyright infringement associated with filesharing, doesn't that draw the whole concept of "damages" into question?

For instance, in the Canadian legal system, suing for damages in any other case requires actual, objective damage to be presented. As far as I understand it, it is one of the major differences between our and the American civil courts.