Or just stop worrying about piracy altogether and start worrying about customer support and relations. There is no consequence of piracy. Absolutely none. Well, aspart from free marketing.

The consequences of piracy are lost sales, the consequences of making shitty games is piracy.

What if we called it something like Digital Good Siphoning? Piracy sounds so glamorous, it's bound to be attractive. ;)

What is this I don't even.
"Legal" is what (some dude says) the law is.
"Fair" is what you (or anyone else) is emotionally satisfied with.
"Effective" is what promotes the progress of science and useful arts.

Funny part is they really dont treat pirates bad/worse, they treat customers bad/worse and the pirates get the best form of the game, completely DRM free and without service problems that comes from whatever bullshit DRM they throw in their game. IE Ubisoft and Uplay.

Where in my post did I say 'equal to the value'? I said 'commensurate', meaning sure, the value of the DL + an extra fine on top. Maybe even a couple hundred bucks. But these judgments for thousands of dollars per song/game? Ridiculous.

But what I don't get in that argument is: So how is taking a cd not just taking a copy? If I walk into lets say fye and steal a cd they are actually set up to burn cds in store(did this once when I bought something they didn't have in stock. took 15 minutes) So they could just make another but they don't consider it just taking a blank cd and some printed coverart because thats all I physically deprived them of they consider it theft of the music too. "hypothetical I" didn't just steal a $.15 disk I stole a $15 cd. So fine with piracy when they total up the thefts to decide what legal "weight class"(don't know the word) the theft falls into make the cost of the stolen items $.15 less to cover not taking a physical cd with what you intended to steal.(completely hypothetical you for sentence structure) and then apply theft law as is from there.
Not seeing the difference everybody else seems to think is so huge is all.

I actually do agree with you, I was throwing those out for some food for thought. I agree with this especially on the classes.

I actually think pirates should also take courses to see how much work goes into making the products they consume. Like a programming course for software piracy. I don't think enough people actually understand just how much work goes into making the products. I know that this part isn't feasible but I think this could help

Now for repeat offenders I can see making the consequences more hefty (not thousands of dollars) or jail time.
Not giving their customers the finger would be a good thing, but lets focus on discussing this from a legal perspective.

no, if the shop has 100 cd's and pirate takes 1, then the shop has left 99 cd's - 1 item is taken. When a pirate copy something the original item is still there - 0 items are taken. This makes it a completely different ballgame. There is nothing hypothetically about it. Morally you may put these on the same level, but they are different things practically and legally.

Edit: Happy song and dance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 :)

edit 2 - and as people on this forum know - I am very against piracy, however piracy is not theft and to have a meaningful discussion on it this is one of the first things which must be clarified.

all of sudden we are heaving this serious conversation , did the sopa bill pass or something

I hope not, if you read my OP I decided to throw this question out there out of curiosity to see what other people think is a fair punishment for piracy from a legal perspective.

so if the difference is that the store paid to have those 100 copies and when I had them burn one to sell me they paid for it like they had 101....what if I stole my cd from a warehouse where nobody had paid for the lot yet just fresh from the company and left in its place the blank disk paper and ink to make another physical item of equal quality to replace it(and some $ to cover labor for doing so)? I'd still get charged with theft and probably littering because I left "garbage" behind.

you are to focused on the physical aspects. Piracy is dealing with intangibles - there are no physical items changing hands. No item is being taken from anywhere by anyone. The owner always have the same amounts of copies all the times.

(and I did a little ninja edit on my previous post to clarify a little, if it helps.)

There is no logical punishment, that is why publishers focus on prevention. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to come up with one though, I guess community service. Maybe 10 hours for every infraction up to a a certain maximum, like say 400 (10 work weeks).

The punishment cannot be financial because so much piracy is rooted in poverty.