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I must be misunderstanding your proposal, because on the face of it that seems to be so colossally ridiculous that I can't believe it is what you intended. Did you misstate your proposal?

There would be virtually no disincentive to infringement under that proposal. Why not just propose eliminating copyright?



The disincentive is having to pay for the thing you pirated. Not to mention attorney fees if you decide to fight the charge.


Case 1: you decide not to pirate. You pay retail price.

Case 2: you decide to pirate. You pay 0 with above a 99% chance. If you do get caught, you can pay the minimal retail price over the last year.

What exactly do you see as a disincentive for choosing #2, since case 2 beats case 1 in all cases?


Not that I agree with his proposal, but youre assuming that someone wouldn't pirate something that they weren't willing to pay money for. That almost certainly isn't true for a significant population.


Not having to deal with court, which could be a significant time and/or money drain. I agree that that isn't a huge disincentive, though. I think that money and effort would be better spent going after producers of infringing content instead of users or distributors.

I think that making it harder to come by the infringing content by going after the people who produce it is a better way to fight this problem than going after everyone who wants to use it.




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