[ben_w]

> The only people using those are people too scared or lacking in knowledge of how to download.

That's most people.

Also, most laws aren't perfectly enforced; part of the reason for disproportionately high penalties is to create that fear.

[ruthmarx]

Well, there's a lot of opinion on the subject but personally I'm er much against disproportionately high penalties as a deterrent because it's comes at the cost of justice to the individual.

That aside though, there isn't any chance of stopping piracy with the way the current internet is. SO all they do is spend disproportionate amounts of money, i.e. throw that money down the drain, just to take down a website here and there, and maybe, comparatively rarely, get a few people thrown in jail here and there.

That isn't deterring anything, not remotely, so it just seems like revenge.

[ben_w]

> personally I'm er much against disproportionately high penalties as a deterrent because it's comes at the cost of justice to the individual.

Likewise.

I think that as we've already developed the technological capacity for mere organised crime to build a surveillance system that would make the actual literal Stasi jealous, it's important for the legal system to catch up, and move to the combination (because neither would work in isolation) of (1) penalties that are much much smaller and directly match the offence with (2) so much surveillance that basically everything is caught.

Now, is there a way for this to avoid falling into a horrific dystopian nightmare? Because it's one thing for an internet pirate getting an illicit copy of one episode of Space 1999 getting dinged for $0.99, and quite another if the same capabilities are used to interfere with or supress political opponents a-la the Watergate scandal.

> That isn't deterring anything, not remotely, so it just seems like revenge

I know what you mean, I think that's also part of it, and that kind of attitude in parts of the legal system also interfere with the thing I've just suggested.