Warp wrote:
>   You mean robbery is not "willful infringement" unless the shop owner
> specifically tells the robber to not to do that?

"Infringement" isn't "robbery."  The same thing hold in patents, too.

>   I don't think that argument makes any sense. I have never heard that
> a fine is grown several orders of magnitude just because the property
> owner told the criminal to stop. I can't even believe there's such a law
> in the US or anywhere.

Usually not several orders of magnitude, but several-fold isn't uncommon. 
And it's usually for things wherein you're told you're doing something wrong 
that you might not have known was wrong. For example, distributing that 
music is only illegal if you know it's copyrighted. Infringing a patent is 
only wrong if you know it's patented.

Now, of course it's easy to guess that some modern music is copyrighted, but 
that isn't really the point. The legal system gives higher penalties for IP 
infringement if you know you're infringing than if you don't. If you don't, 
it's reasonable to charge lost income and no more.

>   And again, the punishment was in no way proportional to the crime, no
> matter how "willfully" the criminal did it.

I'm just sayin'. I agree with you.

The fines have a wide range, because copyright infringement can have a wide 
range of values. Distributing a copy of a song is a small thing compared to 
distributing a copy of (say) Windows 7 source code repository. It wouldn't 
seem unreasonable to attach a million-dollar fine to the latter, given its 
value.

So talk to the jury and ask them why they approved such a big fine?  And 
yes, it'll probably get reduced on appeal.

 > What do we need a sense of proportion in criminal law?

Well, it sounded like a civil case to me.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

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