Meganomics:SOPA/PIPA,Misuse of legal resources

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http://torrentfreak.com/meganomics-the-future-of-follow-the-money-copyright-enforcement-120124/

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As usual when talking about piracy, there are lots of claims but very few hard numbers. The revenue estimates that do circulate in file sharing cases are notable, however, for their miniscule size compared to the 10s or, occasionally, 100s of billions in losses claimed by industry groups. Here are a few examples…

The Swedish trial of The Pirate Bay trial in 2009 became an occasion for all sorts of competing estimates of revenues. Record industry group IFPI estimated the site’s revenues at $3 million per year. The MPAA described $5 million in revenues. But prosecutors endorsed a much lower number: $170,000 from advertising (against what the defense characterized as $112,000/year in server/bandwidth costs and $100,000 per year in revenue). This is for a site that appears consistently among the top 100 visited sites in the world......

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@gungasnake,

I'n not any sort of an expert on this one but, somebody correct me if this is wrong, the basic factors appear to be that:

The business model which the RIAA and MPAA are trying to defend is fundamentally broken
The Obunga/Holder "justice" dept has just raided a business in another country somehow or other
They've handed all of the records on the computers they seized over to the RIAA and MPAA
Something like 30% of all internet users have used megaupload at one time or other
At something like $140K/download, the RIAA and MPAA are now in a position in theory at least to sue some significant fraction of the human race into slavery

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linked from drudge:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2099425/FBIs-Megaupload-bust-reduce-internet-piracy-says-study.html

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@gungasnake,

The amounts were not for $140K per download, it was $140K per file shared.

It is still copyright infringement to download a copyrighted work without permission; it's a different kind of copyright infringement, though, from knowingly contributing to other people downloading it.

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@DrewDad,

As that last item I posted notes, the raid on megaupload didn't make a dent in "piracy", and appears to have been motivated much more by fear of Kim Dotcom devising a new business model under which artists might actually have made some money prior to turning forty.

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@gungasnake,

I'm well aware that all of the takedowns have not resulted in reducing piracy, or increasing revenues for copyright holders (which should be the goal of the copyright holders).

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@DrewDad,

Turns out I was wrong regarding downloading:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120201/01172117619/how-does-penalty-content-theft-match-up-with-similar-crimes.shtml

Quote:

Copyright “theft” is a very different story. Copyright infringement statutory damages in civil litigation can be as high as $150,000 for infringement of a single work. Yes, a single work such as a single song with an iTunes download value of $1. A copyright holder can claim such statutory damages without needing to prove a single penny of damage or loss. Think such sky-high damages aren’t realistic? Think again. In the RIAA’s case against single mother Jammie Thomas, a jury awarded $1,500,000 for the download of 24 songs, with no proof that she had transmitted songs to others. The federal judge thought that was ridiculous and reduced the total award to $54,000 – and the RIAA and MPAA are now arguing strenuously on appeal that the jury verdict should return to the original figure, $62,500 per downloaded song.

What if we work backwards, and see how the law might punish those other, similar, infractions with a damages system similar to copyright:

If we take copyright law’s maximum-penalty-to-price ratio as applied to an illegal download, and apply that same penalty-to-price ratio to the New York subway, the maximum penalty for jumping that turnstile and avoiding the $2.50 fare would be $375,000 instead of $100. Copyright industries are on to a really good thing under current law. One could say it’s a steal.

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@DrewDad,

The real questions are how the hell does the US govt. arrest a citizen of New Zealand or coerce the govt. of New Zealand to arrest one of its own citizens, and what is the payoff scheme which would cause the US govt. to act on the behalf of the RIAA to the point of confiscating other people's computers and turning them over to the RIAA??

Could it be that the story might involve a rogue political party which is mainly financed by that sort of **** because it doesn't really represent anybody who could afford thirty or forty dollars for the cause every couple of months or so??

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Meganomics:SOPA/PIPA,Misuse of legal resources

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