CD Music Online

Why does pirating music or movies online have heftier penalties than just stealing the CD?

Basically, what i'm wondering is how come you hear about people getting fined a ridiculous amount of money for pirating and file-sharing music and movies yet if you get caught just flat out stealing the CD or DVD in the store, you have to pay a fine of around $2,000 or so?

Public Comments

1. one is copy write infringement and the other is petty theft
2. I think downloading doesn't technically have a penalty, but if you're sharing your downloads, which means you're basically stealing and distributing, then you're basically stealing multiple times. Big companies lose more money when the product is stolen like that. Whereas if you steal one CD from a store, the store already owns that CD and you basically stole from that particular store.