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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 2723499" data-attributes="member: 8835">As always, some good points made by all.I realize that Danny's a lawyer, who has an interest in copyright violation (my guess is he makes his money in court on these kinds of cases, he said he worked in the entertainment industry)It seems there's 3 kinds of things that you can sell: goods, services, and ideas.Ideas are more like services, in that they aren't physically tangible, but they are also like goods in that they are reproducible (copying).I think Danny's "what you owe the publisher" calculation is based on what you've been caught in possession with.  If you've got $10,000 in equivalent MP3 product, you've in effect stolen $10,000.  On the one hand, nobody would normally just buy all those.  On the other hand, having all that stolen material is equivalent to being a cleptomaniac in a WalMart.  You really did steal it.  It really is possible to steal more than you would normally buy.I think the difference is in how we apply that number.  What it's used for.  The record industry did not LOSE $10,000 from our example pirate.  They never would have gotten the sales.  They did lose some amount, basically whatever batch of files the pirate actually uses (or that other downloaders would have bought).  When they report the total pirate collective value as lost sales, they are misusing the data.  As I said, their real lost value is the amount of sales that normally would have occurred, had the piracy source not existed.  This number is really hard to estimate, so I can see why folks would like to shortcut.However, when it comes time to prosecute, the pirate really did steal $10,000.  That's different than lost sales, due to the intangible nature of the stolen item (data).  The pirate should be charged and punished based on the amount of illegal product he has.  It would be the same if a punk kid went down to the mall and jacked the nicest car in the lot.  It is very easy to steal more than you can pay for, that's kinda why people steal.Janx</blockquote>

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