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Why is Piracy Always Fined so Much

First up, this isn't about piracy. It's about copyright violations. It's also not about theft. Copyright is a type of monopoly and what is so often erroneously called "piracy" is the violation of this monopoly in some way or another.

Now, back on topic.

Andy Maxwell:

This week an Irish man was handed a four-year sentence for running a pirate linking site. The Court accepted that he led no lavish lifestyle. In contrast, a man who stole almost Ā£9m from a bank and bought homes worth Ā£1.4m, three Bentleys, three Aston Martins, a Porsche 911 and a Rolls Royce, was also jailed. He received just 3.5 years. Fair?

According to figures provided by the prosecution, Mahoney ā€˜couldā€™ have cost the movie industry Ā£120m in lost revenue. Ultimately, however, the claims of a film industry out for blood ended up somewhat watered down.

In the cold light of day the court accepted a figure closer to Ā£12m ā€“ quite an ā€˜achievementā€™ for a ā€œpartially blind recluseā€ who lived in a bedroom in his parentsā€™ particularly modest home.

This leaves me with two questions.

Why is it that incidents like this always have such strong sentences and high fines? When it comes to monetary fines, there's no way to truly know what the lost revenue amount is so they just come up with some arbitrary amount and justify it by saying they're making an example of the person. Does that happen with other types of crime?

When it comes to the sentence, I suppose it's hard to tell how reasonable it is, which is why it's nice to compare it to another infraction of a somewhat similar scale. The comparison between the amount of potential loss and the amount of actual loss in the example case makes it look ridiculous how Mahoney was punished.

Also, Mahoney wasn't even punished for violating copyright, but for setting up a place to make it easier for others to. If one had a way to make it easier for someone to steal books from a bookstore, but didn't actually do any stealing himself, you'd think he wouldn't get such a crazy sentence. 

Copyright isn't perfect by any means, but that's beside the point. Copyright enforcement is completely broken.

I am: Levi, a dude named ben living north of most Canadians
This is: my digital garden where everything is a working draft

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