Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap

How often do you violate copyright without ever using P2P sharing for copyrighted works? John Tehranian, University of Utah, wrote a paper asking just this question. What he found is stunning. In America, just by going about your daily life - doing things we all do - from getting a tattoo to sending an email and uploading a picture, normal day-to-day things we all do every day, an average person would be liable for 4.544 BILLION dollars in damages under existing laws! Excerpt: "By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges).50 There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John's activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, he would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year. And, surprisingly, he has not even committed a single act of infringement through P2P file sharing." The gap between the law and societal norms is massive, and they are trying to make it even more restrictive, and have with things like the DMCA, Canada's proposed Bill C-61, and other legislation in the works or recently implemented around the world. This is backwards - laws are supposed to reflect society, not the other way around, at least in a democracy. In a dictatorship, the people are ruled by the law, in a democracy, the laws reflect the people's will. Did you know - you're probably a Copyright Criminal? This 15 Page essay exposes the gap between the norm and the law and is meticulously documented and academic, not idle speculation. Well worth reading. An eye-opener.

udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80
udp://open.demonii.com:1337
udp://tracker.coppersurfer.tk:6969
udp://exodus.desync.com:6969

keiron80 (2008-07-15)

It is also interesting, and of note, that the site where this was originally posted has taken the file down - it took some time to find a copy of the PDF.
Why something so influential, that exposes the gap between social norms, and the law would be censored, is a question worth asking.