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0 pointsicebraining8y ago0 comments

If the defendant isn't wealthy after distributing all that content, is the content worth millions? Or is the government-enforced business model worth millions?

I don't think he should go to jail, but this is an odd rebuttal. If I steal your car and sell it for $300, because I don't really need more money, will you claim just that amount as your loss?

Obviously copyright law pushes up the price, by introducing scarcity, but that doesn't really have anything to do with how much he made.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

humanrebar8y ago· 1 in thread

> If I steal your car and sell it for $300,

If you steal my car, I no longer have a car. I would need to go out and buy another car to replace it.

If you copy my data (a photo, a song, a film), I haven't lost the original. Only my business model has been affected, which was based on scarcity of the data.

icebrainingOP8y ago

But why does that mean the loss is bounded by how much money he happens to have made running the site? I'm not seeing the link.

pbhjpbhj8y ago· 1 in thread

Isn't the corollary to your position here that as I can only afford about £6 per month on media that any claim for a greater amount in a copyright infringement case is thus wrong.

Yes in the analogy the person will claim for the cost of replacing the vehicle.

But a company claiming they lost media revenue to me of anything greater than what I can afford is also wrong. In a world of perfect copyright infringement prevention I'd just miss out on most of the mainstream social culture.

icebrainingOP8y ago

Usually these companies attack uploaders (even if just due to regular p2p seeding) or, as in this case, people who run systems that "facilitate" infringement. The claim is not based on what you should have paid, but on all the money that the people who got a copy from you would have paid.

In a fair system they'd have to prove those damages, but alas, copyright laws often include "statutory damage" provisions to help them avoid that requirement.

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