[Spooky23]

The Constitution specifically gives congress the power to regulate copyright. It makes sense for it be that way, as allowing States to meddle with copyright would create chaos and barriers to commerce. Kidnapping is a Federal offense when there is a reasonable expectation that the criminal will cross state lines. Bank robbery is a Federal matter because the robber is defrauding the FDIC, who insures the deposits.

The law was originally written with printed material in mind. In those days, it's obvious that someone going to the trouble of setting up a printing press to duplicate a book or pamphlet was infringing copyright on a "commercial scale" -- which is where you cross the line from civil to criminal liability.

Digital media has been a grey area. RIAA/MPAA sits on one extreme, and the "information wants to be free" crowd is on the other. Today, I think that there is a consensus that a private citizen downloading a copy of a copyrighted work isn't a crime in most cases.

The grey area is around distribution. Is somebody seeding a torrent committing a crime? Most people would think no, if they think yes, not to the extent that it is worth prosecuting. Is someone sourcing and distributing unlicensed material at a reasonably high scale, branding it with a distintive mark (IMAGINE) committing a crime? The Feds think so.

[belorn]

Calling it a grey area between RIAA/MPAA and the "information wants to be free" crowd might do it a disservice. The goal of criminal law is to give out punishments and incapacitate those who violate a subset of laws, while civil law emphasis victim compensation.

If someone is redistributing information without a license in a not-for-profit manner, what is more important. Retribution and punishment, or victim compensation to the individual who produced the information?

Digital media, or someone printing out a pamphlet. Does the technology really matter when deciding what the goal of the law is? To me, it sound obvious that non-profit redistribution of information without a license is at most a civil law crime. That has nothing to do with "information wants to be free", and all to do with common sense in regard to the fundamental design of laws.

[Spooky23]

I gave those examples as polar extremes. RIAA's initial, extreme, position in 1997 was that you will pay $25 for a CD or $5 for a single (with selection limited by the publisher), period. Time passed, and now you have a broader array of choices (iTunes pay for a perpetual license, the Spotify-style subscription model, etc).

It depends on your point of view. If I paid a sports league millions of dollars for the right to broadcast a game, and you decided that you would take my broadcast and re-broadcast it for free, you are damaging me to the tune of millions of dollars -- dollars that you cannot possibly repay.

Technology is key here, because it lowered the barriers to reproducing content. Printing a pamphlet in 1850 was a big deal -- you needed a printing press and specialized workers. Today, you need 5 minutes and a $50 printer. Same story with vinyl records, or projector film.

At the end of the day, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. If I were King, I'd say that copyright holders are entitled to fair compensation, but in return for that compensation, society is entitled to have things enter the public domain in a reasonable period of time as well.

[Dylan16807]

No matter how many millions it should still be a civil matter unless there's some kind of fraud going on.

Also a single person rebroadcasting is probably only making a handful of copies. You can't say that they are personally damaging you for all those millions of dollars. Unless you want to exonerate everyone else in the swarm.

[belorn]

But that leaves my question unanswered; The question on whats is the goal. Is the goal that the copyright holders should be compensated, or that violators get punished? I law can only be in one of those two camps.