As you may already know, convicted digital pirate Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been ordered to pay $80,000 per illegally downloaded song for a total of 1.9 million dollars. This has become a landmark case because Jammie, a single mother from Minnesota, is not exactly a hardened criminal. See a news article here.

Clearly this case is setting the precedent for later digital piracy trials. But even clearer is the ridiculousness of this fine: 80,000 times higher than she would have paid for these songs on iTunes.

Now I’m definitely not arguing that digital piracy should be legal and I don’t wear Pirate Bay t-shirts. Stealing another’s intellectual property should be a crime because it violates the licensing of that property, it’s all very simple. However any fines for individuals who violate these licenses need to be more in line with … (more…)