I'm not up-to-date with the laws and rules of this country. I never know what new changes are taking place until I see it on The Daily Show, but that's never a problem for me because, being the good citizen I am, I don't have to worry about breaking the law. I just do good for my fellow man and do what the bible tells me to (more or less) and I have no problems.
And that's a good thing, because it seems like everyone else in this country is getting seriously screwed-over.
I think it's a pretty good assumption that piracy is one of the most, if not THE most, committed "crime" in history. In the event that you indeed have eyes and indeed have at least enough observational skills to notice what color clothes are on your body, you'll probably have caught those quotation marks around "crime" (there they go again!) and get the impression that I don't consider piracy much of a crime. Well here's the thing about that:
Piracy is NOT stealing. BUT, piracy is still WRONG.
I can get why people do pirate things. Not only is it easier, but we're in a time-period where money is not flowing down the streets and most of us don't want to spend money on anything that isn't edible or able to be fashioned into clothing. You could say "Well we all have to make sacrifices" or "if you don't NEED it, then just deal with not having it". What I have to say to these people: YOU try living without any entertainment whatsoever. Life is very depressing without it. If someone wants to play a video game but put those $50+ toward the bills instead, then I can't hate them for it.
That being said, I don't get these brutal punishments for the people who release these things to the public. Distributing copyrighted material can land you up to 5 years in federal prison. Five. YEARS. I get wanting to punish these guys, I really do, and by all means, punish them. But five YEARS? We're talking about a nerd who is sitting in front of their computers sending these files to torrent websites from their basements so that people can have happier lives, and we're gonna send them to prison with his murderous next-door neighbor who drinks needles and has a sexual fetish for knife wounds.
I'll say again: I can get wanting to punish these guys. When a movie company makes something, they do it for money. Sure, there's those who make things purely for the sake of art, but even they need some money to pay for it. That money is what THEY live off of, and distributing THEIR material for FREE is making it MUCH harder for them to do that. Teach these people a lesson, by all means. But goodness, is it REALLY so very necessary to treat them like they are hardened criminals?
"Eddie, you pansy, it's only five years. That's not so bad."
Yes, five years. Five whole entire years that they'll never get back. Even ONE year is a year that they won't be able to spend having a LIFE. What does sending them to jail do, anyway? A child is one thing. You put them in time-out and that teaches that for the rest of their lives that what they did was not good. But these are grown people. They already KNOW that what they're doing is wrong. If you wanna send a killer to prison so that he, I don't know, DOESN'T KILL ANYMORE, then fine. But are you gonna send these distributors to jail to prevent them from pirating? This isn't the 1600's, people; the word pirate is only something to freak out about if a boat is involved, which is very rarely the case nowadays.
If you really wanna teach these guys a lesson, fine them. Fine their butts off and leave it at that. Just take out the prison part.
Hey, you know how you could really teach these guys a lesson? Make them USE the copyrighted material they're distributing over and over and over. I assure you that by the fifth time they watch Epic Movie they'll be begging for a prison cell next to Hannibal Lecter.
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