Wednesday, April 26, 2006

ten thousand days in the fire

so according to another article i saw on Digg, the proposed 10 year maximum penalty for piracy proposed in that new piece of legislation would make the penalty for copying a movie or downloading a cd worse than pedophilia or assault:

Although sentencing varies in the US, the new law does send a very strange message as to what the government considers 'bad' in the 21st century.

For example assaulting a police officer will get you five years, downloading child porn will get you seven years, assaulting without a weapon will get you ten years and aggravated assault six years.

So in other words if you copy a Disney CD and sell it you will be in the same league as a paedophile who is distributing pictures of sexual attacks on children.

If you copy Craig David's CD you get ten years, but if you punch him in the face and pummel him into a seven day coma you will only get six. You are more likely to get the respect of the prison population with your six year sentence as well.

yeah i would say that our priorities for punishing crime are slightly off-base.

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