Over-criminalizing copyright

I'm giving yet another link to the amazingly-verbose-yet-worth-reading Patry Copyright Blog. This one to a post entitled "over-criminalizing copyright".

Short version goes like this:

He, and an English judge and copyright scholar, agree on the following: Copyright infringement is being treated as a crime, and therefore prosecuted using taxpayer dollars. This is unnecesary, since adequate civil remedies exist. Criminal proceedings should be reserved for large commercial piracy enterprises and the like.

In short, if the RIAA wants to sue teens, they should do it on their dime. Just because it's rampant and difficult for them to sue them all doesn't mean their mom and dads should have to foot the bill for it with their tax dollars.

He closes citing NBC/Universal's general counsel on their efforts to lobby the gov't for stricter IP enforcement and prosecution as an example.

It's interesting that many of these straightforward arguments get lost in the rhetoric that the special interest groups and their lobbyists throw around.