Copyright Law and Hypocrisy

I think that if the world treated copyright infringement much like we treat marijuana here in Australia, things would get a lot better.

A little bit of weed doesn't do a lot of damage and is kinda fun every now and then. A lot of weed is pretty bad, but as long as you're only using it yourself, eh... not a huge issue, but clearly you should pay a tax for it, or worst case, pay a small fine.

But deliberately growing warehouses full of weed, for the express purposes of selling it is pretty bad since it's usually tied to organized crime. Even worse, deliberately manufacturing cocaine, a much more damaging drug, is clearly bad and should be punished heavily.

So we understand that there are "less bad" and "more bad" scales on these things. But now, what if the cops (or vigilante groups with huge congressional power posing as cops) are mass-producing cocaine? Surely they should be fallen upon from a great height and made an example of, right?

So the MPAA would never violate copyright... right? ... right?

http://gizmodo.com/329648/mpaas-university-toolkit-taken-down-for-violating-copyright

http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-steals-code-violates-linkware-license/

That's just the top two results on a quick Google search for the MPAA's misbehaviour. Other examples exist, I'm sure of it.

Now, the MPAA in both cases didn't just download an illegal copy of Photoshop. They stripped out the licencing and branding, rebranded it as their own, and then used it an profit making enterprise as though they themselves wrote it. THAT is the kind of copyright infringement that should be punished- it's literally taking someone else's work, pretending it's yours, then making money from it. They didn't just shoplift a copy of Photoshop from a store, they claimed they wrote it themselves.

And yes, they should be punished far worse than any individual. They pretend to be the ultimate authority on copyright enforcement, and treat the subject matter extremely gravely -- Jamie was sued into bankruptcy for downloading mp3's for personal use. Surely the MPAA's own actions, however, which are so much more malicious in nature, and so much more damaging to a society as a whole (and again given their position as de-facto "copyright cops") should be treated far more harshly. An individual who is busted for speeding gets a fine, a police officer who is busted for speeding can lose their job.

And these particular police officers aren't even cops, more like shopping mall Rent-A-Cops arresting 13 year old kids for possessing a bit of weed while simultaneously running a commercial grade meth lab in their basement.

Yes, the MPAA's incidents are not nearly as numerous as the huge amount of copyright infringement that goes on everyday, but their actions are so much *worse* given their circumstances. They should be punished accordingly. If anyone should understand copyright infringement and copyright law, it should be the MPAA.

So, given this, I propose the MPAA and all its affiliatories, sister companies, shell companies, parent companies, CEOs (present, former and past) and anything to do with them should be purged utterly from the internet to make an example of them.

But everyone knows that'll never happen. Doesn't hurt to dream, though.