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Comment by Aloisius | Hacker News Reader

> Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”?

Prohibited by 8th Amendment's ban on excessive fines.

1. where's the case law that makes it apply to corporations?

2. how is 100x the crime excessive, but $150,000 per pirated song isn't? That's a lot more than 100x the cost of a song.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_Unit...

Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U.S. 86 (1909)

> Where a state antitrust law fixed penalties at $5,000 a day, and, after the verdict is guilty for over 300 days, a defendant corporation was fined over $1,600,000, this Court will not hold that the fine is so excessive as to amount to a deprivation of property without due process of law where it appears that the business was extensive and profitable during the period of violation and that the corporation has over $40,000,000 of assets and has declared dividends amounting to several hundred percent

Seems like it would be acceptable to fine Amazon 100x more then

The $150K/song isn't a government fine, but rather statutory damages awarded to the plaintiff (the copyright holder), so it isn't limited by the prohibition on Excessive Fines.

It was also never awarded - it's a made-up number.

99x then and call it a day.

(J/k)

If we (America) can find a way to send someone who shoplifted three golf clubs to prison for 25 years to life and have it not be “cruel and unusual punishments” we are certainly clever enough to find a way to charge companies who view fines as “the cost of doing business” enough so they will at least thing twice about it and have it not be “excessive”.

Jail time is the answer (instead of fines only).

In case anyone doesn’t want to look up said amendment, here is its text in full:

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.“

A fine is meant to discourage a behavior. A fine isn't excessive unless (and until) it -effectively- discourages the wrongful behavior.

Or at least that’s what my argument would be in court.

Test your theory in your new profession as lawyer, or judge if that's your prerogative, sometime soon in court.

Personally, if I was in power I would disbar you immediately and pray that you never offer legal advice again.

No wonder half the comments in your comment history are downvoted!

Instead of attacking me, why don't you share some sources that prove my thinking wrong?

Please don't respond to a bad comment with an attack of your own. Your reply would have been fine with just the second sentence, and better still with just the second clause of the second sentence.

It's also fine to simply not react. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls

Can you please not cross into personal attack or post in the flamewar style? We're trying for something different here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

These fines DO discourage these behaviors. As some who handled fines at a very large bank, a fine would ALWAYS change the bank's procedures. ...and not only fines against us, but fines against ANY bank would alter procedures.

What's excessive here?

Fines have to serve as a deterrent to be a useful punishment, and if corporations aren't being deterred then clearly the fines aren't high enough yet.

That’s not a compelling argument. You have to justify that.

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