You break the law, you have committed a crime. Whether you believe that law is just is irrelevant. Your disagreement does not give you a right to break the law.

Piracy is breaking the law. You are therefore guilty of a crime and rightly should be punished. Again your disagreement is irrelevant - you are a criminal.

Part of our responsibility as humans, is to realise all our actions have consequences. There is no opt out. If you break the law, the potential is there for punishment by the system. Sometimes that punishment can be severe. And again whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant. If you do not like the answer, you should not ask the question.

Laws are there for a reason. They are there to protect us from the wrong doings of others. So yes, I cheer loudly when someone gets caught, for that is the law protecting us in action.

It's strange, sitting here, not breaking the law. I'm perfectly happy and not missing anything... I do not understand this attitude of wanting something that is unavailable to you for free and taking any (illegal) action to get it, or the desire to 'get one over' on the system. The attitude is infantile at best and leads to anarchy at worst.

Ive also lived by a code of high moral standards, working hard, not stealing, lying or cheating my way. But since the financial crisis has struck, i feel that the banksters and rich people simply are laughing all the way while we, the rest work hard and pay for stuff we need.

The rich people, music industry, banksters, financieers etc are ripping us off daily, can have the cake and eat it, since we pay for it through government handouts. This woman is not even a crook compared to the above actors. The punishment for her is life changing, while the "punishment" for the banks, financieers, rich investors, and ultimately music industry is getting even more government handouts and printing more money, borrowing more, having the bear share of everything. They can continue exploiting us, and we, the stupid people are trying to have a high moral standard and occasionally expressing joy, reinforcing the high moral standard we have chosen to follow, as this poor woman got caught stealing crumbs. Exactly what the system needs, fools like us so that they can continue their large scale stealing (of our taxpayermoney = time on earth.

Im starting to doubt my high moral standards...i am being fooled here.

On a side note, check out this video, its 40 minutes well spent:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ECi6WJpbzE

Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis

There's a big difference between no-one owning anything, and no-one owning intellectual property. The issue of whether non-rival goods can be placed in the same category as goods that are decreased in availability as more people gain access to them is a big one.

Intellectual property laws are not fundamentally necessary. A lot of arguments can be made over whether humanity would be better or worse off if intellectual property was universally respected and obeyed, but that debate is largely beside the point. Intellectual property is not treated in a manner similar to physical property, and cannot be expected to be treated more like physical property in the future. As such, intellectual property is a pipe dream.

It's true that people like weaving realities that are convenient to themselves. Teachers try to take credit for everything their students come up with, politicians think the economy is entirely based on their actions, the military thinks they're the greatest people who ever lived, etc. Of course, people with less stake in the legal codes relating to intellectual property will be more opposed to intellectual property than those who have invested heavily in acquiring intellectual property. Thinking that human thought is unbiased is a dangerous misstep. However, for the same reasons, it's unreasonable to condemn those who see the world from different vantage points. Most of the wars America engages in are unnecessary, but America's military is one of the most important parts of the government. Politics is unimportant compared to science, but having good legal codes can make a huge difference in day to day welfare. Genius can succeed just fine without any education, but people still learn best from others. In summary, people glorify their own positions and condemn those who oppose them, but the truth tends to be much more calm, and often the most important things aren't whose right or wrong, but simply the question of what is practical.

Intellectual property is dying. Not only does every new technology make it harder to enforce, but the general public is unwilling to lose access to the conveniences they have obtained from bypassing intellectual property. The problem is that as intellectual property dies, the instruments that we have relied on to reward profits to our artists dies with them.

However, there comes a time when pondering about the problem is useless, and it is better to think about the solution. Namely, how to profitably produce high quality art in an environment wherein the art can't be owned. Investing in new ways to turn back the clock is a futile endeavor at best.

This is why I view "victories" in the war on piracy as sad events wherein only lawyers win. Pirates are just normal people, and are certainly not worse than say, the average teacher who doesn't deserve the job and is effectively living off government welfare. Randomly punishing pirates doesn't discourage piracy- and it can't be expected to do so when getting punished for piracy is much less likely than being hit by lightning while mountain climbing. Therefore, all that remains is that random normal people are hurt, while some of the smartest members of society waste their time redistributing wealth to themselves without producing anything. I don't want lawyers to make money, because that encourages people to become lawyers- smart people who could have become scientists, programmers or doctors. As such, it's best to eliminate anything that causes lawyers to make profits, whenever possible.

If I can't continue to own MY art then I will cease to create it.

The same will apply to ALL artists.

If I cannot OWN it then I cannot SELL it.

I am NOT going to do it for fun.  I am NOT going to do it for YOU to TAKE.

The day I can no longer control how my intellectual property is used, Is the day I stop sharing it with the masses. I will still continue to skin for my self and friends, but the "elitist net" can suffer the Losses they gained by pressing their Imaginary Rights to my creations. I know many other's will probably follow suit.

What a great way to kill off creativity, yup demand them to be ur slaves making you stuff for free, lets see how many want to keep the net going for with no freedom to decide what ,when or how their art is used. yeh lets protect the rights of the greedy over the rights of the artists who actually contribute..

I love to skin and share it with those who appreciate the work involved, but I'll be damned if some greedy punks will take away my right to deem how its used or controlled. When that time comes,they can make their own friggin skins.

Most epensive is very vague......

The death penalty cases are more expensive PER YEAR then life imprisonment cases.  Also the cost for trial & appeals is much more expensive (obviously because nobody wants to die).

However if the person is sentenced to death then in the long run it would be much cheaper since life imprisonment last so much longer... in theory anyway......

However if you try to sentence someone to the death penalty and fail.... they get life instead.... well my guess is that is the most expensive option.... that and add to the fact that more tha 50% of inmates exceed the 6 year death row time....

I don't know why people always try to polarize arguements.....  you can twist the numbers and be right with simple sentences like "death penalty is more expensive"

  D. THE COST OF LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE   VS   THE DEATH PENALTY

  Many opponents present, as fact, that the cost of the death penalty is so expensive (at least $2 million per case?), that we must choose life without parole ("LWOP") at a cost of $1 million for 50 years.  Predictably, these pronouncements may be entirely false. JFA estimates that LWOP cases will cost $1.2 million - $3.6 million more than equivalent death penalty cases.

http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/dp.html#D.Cost

my source... its extremely prodeath penalty bias.... I chose it because I am against the death penalty for non-financial reasons.   That way no one can seriously claim I am being biased.

Well the tone here went into a hand basket real quick. 

I was taught all through school that there are ways to repeal a law or get them changed if need be.   I don't remember braking that law as a means to do that.

Just saying. 

The Law is an ass.

The Law breaker is an idiot being an ass.

Laws are made for a purpose. When the purpose of a law is defeated, breaking that law is not a transgression. For example, crossing the road when the 'Don't Walk' light is on in the dead of night without sight or sound of traffic anywhere near the vicinity. The 'Don't Walk' light was put there for reasons of safety, and so generally speaking, it should be obeyed. In this example though, waiting until the 'Walk' light comes on is an entirely futile action, and any person would have the full right to cross without waiting. And so, if you happened to be caught and identified (say by camera) crossing the road in this situation, any kind of punishment would be wrong.

I agree with laws put in place for civil order. I don't expect perfect justice. However, where logic is apparent in a given situation, I expect it to overrule any written statute. If this becomes less and less the status quo, then anarchy you will have. Rules for the sake of rules is about as chaotic as you can get. Anything that is not sensible or fitting should be challenged, be it law or social order.

You sit there in the fortunate capacity of not having to break the law to live your life. Some others in this world are not so fortunate. You may have the means to legally acquire much of what you desire, some others do not. For example, if a person did not have the means to purchase a certain video game and still have basic necessities, and they freely acquired an illegitimate copy, what law has this person broken? If we say that the law regarding intellectual property has been put in place to protect the profits of the owners, then in this example, no loss has been suffered, as without the ability to acquire the illegitimate copy, there was no potential means for purchasing a legitimate one instead. And so in this particular instance, the purpose behind the law has been defeated.

I'll say again that I'm not against legal systems in general. The only point I'm trying to make here is that any legal system that is taken as sacrosanct verbatim will become stagnant and hence less and less relevant over time, until that threshold between civil order and disorder is reached.

It's amazing to me how many people seem to have missed this point.  24 songs worth $1 each results in owing $1.5 million.  Steal 24 songs worth of CDs from a store and it's petty theft, a misdemeanor.  People are always arguing against piracy by saying "Theft is theft" and that if that is true then why doesn't that apply when prosecuting?  Theft is theft and so 24 songs should be petty theft.  I do believe there is a pretty standard punishment for that, and a $1.5 million fine is not what is standard.

Before someone flames me for ignoring the copyright infringement part I want you to think about the purpose of copyright infringement laws.  To protect non-physical property that can be 'stolen' without any observable loss to the original owner.  In the case of music the files are duplicated and the owner loses nothing physical because something new (the copy) is created in the process of the theft.  So my point is simply 'Why is theft of physical property punishment more leniently than copyright infringement?'  This doesn't make any sense given the claim 'Theft is theft' which I agree with by the way.  If the crime is the 'same' the punishment should be the same.

Well I would just love to have islamic laws for banks and other financial institutions enforced in the whole world. The rest they can keep

I am sorry I used such words but I get angry each time I see people use word Anarchy like they have any clue what it means.

In a perfect or near perfect world Anarchy would be the only way to for the world to work.

As for complete moron, well I am not a native English speaker but I would say there can be more levels of moron and complete would the biggest one. But then my logic is flawed here as such a moron would not even be able to log into windows