I don't understand why criminal copyright infringement exists. If there is no copyright holder to sue, then by all logic the works should be in the public domain, thus no copyright to begin with.
That might be a good reason for funding state-provided attorneys. It's a terrible reason for making it a crime.
Having for-profit copyright infringement be a misdemeanor is not without reason. But it should have to be for-profit, i.e. actual money is proved to go into their pockets, not assumed to be for-profit based on circumstantial nonsense, and the penalty should be very low for first time offenders and no more than a year in any case.
There is no flaw in this logic. </sarcasm>
This is the second post I've come across which equates the move from Civil Law to Criminal Law with some sort of logistics. I.e. "It's difficult for people to sue, therefore it should be a criminal offense." I can't understand why people aren't taking into account the change in punishment.
People don't go to jail in Civil Law, but they do in Criminal Law. Why should the punishment increase just for logistical reasons?
If there's will there's a way. If there's money to be made, there's will for it. After all, if we throw enough money at it there's enough will.
Some people rely their income on things like copyright. They have kids to raise, house to pay and so on. It would totally suck for them to be cut from the income.
The whole setting is just sad though.