Should the uploader or downloader be punished?

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If someone were to upload pirated software; should the uploader or downloader be punished?

[arronleeds]

both are doing illegal activity, did you know a torrent isnt illegal but whats actually in the torrent.

 

so you could torrent a film you made yourself, like maybe a family reunion.

[Bogica]

Neither. Yarrrr!

[,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,]

both are doing illegal activity, did you know a torrent isnt illegal but whats actually in the torrent.

 

I torrent legal stuff all ze time. Much faster.

[theninja35]

I think the uploader should take the primary fine, and maybe the downloader should receive a small fine. I chose uploader, however, as they'd receive a bigger fine than the downloader.

[arronleeds]

I torrent legal stuff all ze time. Much faster.

i do too, fuck da police. oh you said legal.... yes i do "legal stuff"

[,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,]

i do too, fuck da police. oh you said legal.... yes i do "legal stuff"

 

lol. read my profile

[arronleeds]

lol. read my profile

indeed good sir, indeed.

[EIijah]

No one :3 Oh wait no I care that Hollywood is only getting hundreds of millions and that music artists are only getting paid millions per song :'( :'( :'( breaks my heart to see the 1% have to suffer like this  

[FakezZ]

Nobody? I hate when people compare piracy to stealing. Stealing means physically removing something somebody owns and making it yours, so that the original owner is left with nothing. Piracy is the equivalent of learning a recipe in a cooking school, writing it on a piece of paper, scanning it and sending it to your friends. Completely different things. And like 90% of the people you sent it to probably wouldn't attend the cooking school anyway. That is a proper comparison. Do you think anyone should be punished in that example? I think not.

[Oshino Shinobu]

While it should technically be both that get punished, going after downloaders doesn't make sense. If there is a single uploader and thousands of downloaders, it's going to take a lot of time and money to track down the downloaders, prove their crimes and issue the fine through the correct channels. Tracking down the uploader would be a much more viable method, but even then, there are loads of uploaders, and even taking down one will not help, as others will still upload it. 

 

The copyright protection groups have tried to go after downloaders and uploaders, but it has proven to be kind of pointless. It doesn't really deter people, as they can't go after many people at once, so the chances of actually being fined are very slim, as well as the people trying to issue the fines and sentences having to attempt to charge stupid amounts ($350,000 for downloading a film kind of thing) in order to cover the legal, tracking and other costs. Of course these fines never stick, as it's ruled as not proportionate to their crime, and often they get away with no more than a slap on the wrists. 

 

The groups need to go after the sites that host the content if they want to make a real difference. It won't stop those who know what they're doing, as the taking down of TPB has proved, but it should stop those who are downloading pirated stuff because they are unaware of what they were doing and don't know they can just use proxies to get round it.