Shoplifting is safer than downloading

Cory Doctorow 12:24 am Thu Feb 10, 2005

Karl Wagenfuehr, who is not a lawyer, researched the penalties for shoplifting a DVD as compared to the penalties for downloading one. His conclusion:

	Stealing	Infringing
Absolute Minimum	$0 no jail	$4,400
Absolute Maximum	$100,000 1 year jail	$3,400,000 1 year jail lawyer fees and costs
Real World Example	Winona Ryder*: $2,700 fine $6,355 restitution $1,000 court cost 3 years probation	An Average RIAA settlement**: $14,875

Legal punishment is a kind of social policy. When our laws have terrible punishments for some action, we're saying, "This is very bad, and those who do it are just as bad." The worse the punishment, the worse the crime. The punishment should suit the crime — if we instituted the death-penalty for public spitting, and didn't ratchet up murder to at least the same penalty, it would be as though we were saying, as a society, "Murder is trivial when compared to gobbing on the sidewalk." One has to wonder, then, what kind of crazy society we live in given the relative penalties for infringing a copyright using a computer as compared to stealing an object from a store? Why kind of fool lawmaker lets himself get talked into making this social policy?

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