DRM: Porn industry's take

[famousringo]

Killiana1a said:

sethnintendo said:

Killiana1a said:

I am surprised that for how long online piracy has been around there is a paucity of state and federal laws handling it as a criminal matter. We all know through examples of the music industry suing individuals, that they would love to find a way, DRM or not, to discourage piracy to the extent where the college student downloading movies off of Bit Torrent will fear that he/she will be caught, gets expelled out of college, faces a 1 to 5 year prison sentence, and comes out as an ex con with a felony on their record.

Hopefully, with DRM this may raise the issue to the level of the US Supreme Court where they rule that onlne piracy is a violation of interstate commerce, thus putting it within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government and the Feds from there can enact a US law that classifies online piracy in the same veins of organized crime trafficking contraband across state lines.

Personally, I do not believe DRM will stop anybody. What will stop individuals is the fear of serious jail time and a felony on their record making them damn near unemployable in the United States. Furthermore, a law in this spirit would discourage online pirates in other countries because they would face extradition and prison time in the US.

Fear from burning dvds don't stop tons of people from doing it even though the warning is on every single dvd....  Nor does it stop people from downloading it from a site.

The US criminal justice system has not made examples out of enough individuals. All it will take is about 10 to 20 cases of individuals getting a 1 to 5 year felony sentence and the public will start to take heed.

I am a fan of dissuasion coupled with example making out of individuals as advocated by Nicolo Macchiavelli in The Prince.

This reminds me a lot of the War on Drugs. Do you think the US justice system just needs to make more examples of drug users?

I'm not sure that the US can afford to fight a War on Piracy in the current economic climate. You yourself talk about how you want each convict's education and employment prospects to suffer. There goes more tax base while all the myriad costs of justice go up.