don’t worry professor....soon all intellectual property will belong to the state.
The possible fines are not grossly excessive. They serve two purposes.
One is where a big business finds that someone has infringed on its copyrights, but doesn’t know how many unauthorized copies were distributed (often impossible to tell). You don’t know if that guy on the street sold 10 or 10,000 unauthorized copies of your DVD, and he’s certainly not going to tell the truth. The business can simply ask for a large statutory amount to recoup the loss.
The other is if you’re a small guy, say small-time musician or free or low-cost software developer. Big business decides to blatantly violate your copyright, and the damages you can get are small or non-existent. This lets the little guy take a big chunk out of the infringer as compensation and deterrent.
Stop the abuse if they’re being abused, but the concept is solid.
ping