Re:Obama Supports $675,000 File Sharing Verdict
by tptacek on Wednesday January 20, 2010 @05:58PM
(#1066038)
I don't think the ease of downloading files is at all comparable to the ease of shoplifting.
Re:Obama Supports $675,000 File Sharing Verdict
by nitrogen on Wednesday January 20, 2010 @11:56PM
(#1066658)
You're right. Downloading is much easier. Shoplifting requires one to:
1. Get out of the house
2. Remove an actual product from a physical store, so the loss will be physically noticed
3. Defeat the RFID tags on the merchandise (most stuff worth shoplifting is tagged)
4. Walk past the store greeters without looking suspicious (something an average mostly-honest person would struggle with)
It seems much more likely to me that it provokes outrage to penalize highly because it's widespread and laws against it are mostly unenforced. And if that's the case, the analogy with computer hacking is invalid, because only a tiny minority of Americans would even know how to crack a computer.
Other widespread, generally unpenalized acts-for-which-you-might-be-penalized-by-the-courts (hereafter "acts")[1] provoke outrage when they are enforced with heavy penalties, Other easy-to-commit acts are heavily penalized and provoke no outrage. Therefore, it seems to me your analogy is suspect.
1) Better than "deeds"? You threw scare quotes on that word for some reason. I'd rather just call them crimes, but I don't want to provoke an argument over the word.