in brief Police have prosecuted a man for selling 200 pirated CDs and DVDs at a market in Sydney, resulting in a AU$22,000 fine.
The New South Wales Local Court charged and convicted Simeona Nise Tuaopepe of 11 criminal copyright offences after he was found selling the discs at a stall in Paddy's Markets Flemington.
The authorities conducted the raid on the stall with assistance from Music Industry Piracy Investigations, the anti-piracy arm of the Australian Recording Industry Association.
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If the same person had been downloading the same music from the Internet - incidentally uploading it as part of the program's operation - he'd have been done for a lot more.
A LOT more.
Here we have a clear-cut case of copyright infringement with the intent to profit by it (not "theft" but definitely "piracy" in the new sense). We don't know if it's fraud or not since they don't say whether or not he was passing the CDs off as legitimate.
If this had been some student downloading music for a party, they'd have been in much worse trouble for their non-profit copyright infringement. That, to me, suggests that something's wrong - and dare I be the first to suggest that *raising* the penalty for profit-driven copyright infringement might not be the best solution?