Raikiri said:
While action being taken against people who download or upload huge amounts of things seems fair, the fact that people have been arrested for downloading maybe £50 worth of music and have been sued for thousands seems ridiculous. The penalty should be an out of court settlement for the cost of what you have downloaded.
Essentially, that is what happens.
The circumstances in which punitive damages are available to a court ot award in the UK are VERY limited indeed. So, any award against a file sharer will be based on the actual loss suffered by the copyright owner .... and possibly legal costs.
This is why any action is likely to be against uploaders, not downloaders, unless a downloader is operating on a grand scale.
Also, in each case I've seen so far, an out of court settlement has always been offered, and it only goes to court if the offender declines the settlement. And THAT is a gamble.
What'll probably happen is that the 'accused' get a letter saying "We've got you cold. Send a cheque for £x,000 by such-and-such a date, or we take legal action".
You then have a choice. You can send the cheque, or you can fight it. If you fight, you may win and get costs awarded, in which case all it'll cost you is the time, aggravation and stress of the case. Or you may lose, in which case it'll probably cost you more in damages than the out of court settlement costs would have been, and you pay your legal fees
and you might get to pay the other guys legal fees too. And THAT could get very expensive.
So most people fork over the few grand for the out of court option. It takes a fair degree of confidence, and some balls, to opt to fight.
Raikiri said:
Also, people are being fined for downloading programs that arent sold on DVDs but only shown on TV. Seems a bit daft really.
Not really. Suppose I produce a TV show, but opt not to put it on DVD. The reason might be that I want to be able to sell repeats in a year or two, or that I want to sell to other geographical locations. If you are downloading a program that's only been on TV and not DVD, the implication is that somebody else is uploading it, and THAT has the potential to affect my marketing and sales opportunities. So, I've invested time, effort and quite a bit of money in producing the program, and somebody screws that up by sticking it on the web.
In those circumstances, you can bet your sweet patootie you're gonna get sued if I get the evidence to do so.