Blah so many replies. lol idk if I'm going to read everything tonight. But I want to respond to this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Professor S
For clarity's sake, what if Jane broke into a record store and stole hundreds of dollars of CDs. Should Jane go to jail then, or just be fined?
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I wouldn't consider it the same because there's no enabler in the case of the store. Jane did all of the dirty work herself if she broke in and stole CDs.
A better example is, if John broke into and stole from the store and was handing out copies of the music he stole from the store for free to anyone who asks for them. And Jane, in the pursuit of not paying for what she wants, happens to take CDs of the hands of this guy.. no she shouldn't go to jail. But yes she should be fined for taking stolen goods and being aware of what she was doing. And if she contributes to shutting down John's scheme then she should get a break. John should go to jail.
This is how I view it, you used the jailbreak example I gave... The first and highest level of responsibility for this should be with the company who made the phone that enables this theft of digital content. Yes, I'm saying it's Apple's fault first and foremost. If they're not doing everything in their power to safeguard and counter against these 'jailbreaks' they should be just as prone to being sued by the companies that provide them with the content and fined by the government.
And the second highest responsibility would rest with the people who created and/or distributed the content that allows the phone to be jailbroken. These people should go to jail, and should be in part responsible for all of the damages and lost funds Apple had. But only up to a certain period of time, once it's discovered that they're hacking into the system and distributing this information, the company should get a small grace period to get it under control (2-3 months?) and any further activity after that is on Apple.
The absolute lowest priority of blame should be left with the users. Yes, it should be against the law. But don't bankrupt people and send them to prison over it.
To sum it up the problem with this law is they're going to rest too much of the issue on the users and individuals and not the companies or distributors.
Why do I think that is bad? Because when we start paying tax dollars to put people in jail for something it becomes our problem, and Apple would have less incentive to waste extra money to guard against this activity, instead they can just focus on finding who's doing it and let the tax payers pay the rest.
That's just my take on it.
To go back to the analogy.. If the store is blind sided and robbed by John and he's giving the CDs away, 100% on John. But if the store knows inventory is missing for months, and knows it's ending up in the hands of random people on the street... and they haven't found a way to stop it.. then it's the store's fault.