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The thing is, I bet they don't want it to pass with the 10-year sentence intact. I bet that's just asking for the maximum possible so there's room to negotiate in the bill.
If the penalty for speeding is $100, the cops will pull you over. If the penalty is $10000, they won't. They would know that people charged with that hefty a fine would fight it with all due energy. At that point the speeder is no longer the easy taking, but a cornered snake. Pulling over a driver and not offering them a reduced fee becomes dangerous.
The RIAA has prosecuted plenty of 14-year-olds. The first one they address with a 10-year-sentence, it's all too obvious what's going on and the whole thing blows up large. It's Sony rootkit times a hundred and the business loses the trust of an entire generation.
Meanwhile, there is this perfect storm developing. Right now in 2006, we have cheap digital cameras and editing, itunes and video ipods, youtube, google video distributing for free, home theater and high-def TV entering the market. We have podcasting threatening all sorts of national audio and there is no reason it can't threaten video as well. Hey, let me go a step further: there is no reason it won't.
In 2000, we already had all the pieces in place for the beginning of the end of the newspaper business... but nobody could see it. Now they do, and are in a panic. Well, in 2006, we have in place all the pieces for the beginning of the end of all of LA.
They don't get it. This is the Internet, we can do whatever we want. Microsoft is starting to get it; if the customer doesn't trust us they will avoid us. I won't do business with someone who threatens to put me in jail... who would?
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