JfW: I generally agree with not using criminal laws against small-time private copying . . . and that was how most everyone saw it inside the IP community. Oh, you may find the zealots or read/hear about someone who "claims" to have been popped for one CD or what-have-you, but those cases aren't as prevalent as some activists have made it appear. And, I'd urge those who read/hear such stories to look for the REAL story behind them.
We (the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. - MPAA) always took a graduated approach to infringements brought to our attention. We used C&D letters, voluntary surrenders executed by our contracted investigators or staff (that would be me when I was working there) and when we failed to get their attention, it was only then that we escalated to civil suits, writs of seizures, and finally criminal enforcement.
Just because someone lodges a criminal complaint does not mean that any follow-up will happen. Most law enforcement agencies have thresholds for taking action. For instance, the FBI had a threshold and we had to show a continuing, felonious enterprise before they would open a case. Just to become a felony-level case, we had to show that X number of copyright infringements took place over a certain period of time and the value came to over $2500.00. That is in the federal criminal copyright laws. But even then, that wasn't enough to reach the threshold. A misdemeanor federal criminal complaint was not even considered.
Oh, they'd take the complaint but choose not to act on it if it didn't reach their level of interest. Same with local police and sheriff's departments. But they do the same thing with burglaries, thefts, and a host of lower level crimes.
All of us in Anti-Piracy were retired police or FBI. The L.A. office and the NY City office were staffed with retired officers and FBI. We knew the way things worked. So we did not even consider soliciting law enforcement unless we'd already gathered the evidence or evaluated the allegation for appropriate law enforcement action. We knew and they knew that when we came knocking, it was a good case, worthy of everyone's time.
And no, the MPAA (and most other IP owners I knew) didn't want to do this on someone's else's dime. We paid our own way.
I did a huge series of search warrants in Houston, TX a year before I retired. It was an FBI case and the suspects had been the subject of numerous civil suits and voluntary surrenders and C&D letters. In exasperation, we asked the FBI to take the case. Our investigators did most of the work and helped the FBI with the search warrants and affidavits, etc. The day before raid-day, the MPAA flew in a bunch of investigators and staff from all over the U.S. and we served something like 13 search warrants at locations all over metro-Houston. We seized thousands of pirated cassettes (feature films). The operation cost the MPAA way over $100K.
IP owners are not asking for the public money - they are asking for THEIR BADGE because IP owners don't have the criminal authority. In another case, one of my investigators (retired LAPD and a licensed P.I. contracted to the MPAA) made his own case, took it to a judge, got a signed search warrant, and only then did he solicit local law enforcement to serve the warrant. It didn't cost the public anything except for the officers' time and the subsequent prosecution - costs that were already budgeted like any organization's budget.
It isn't the cost (already budgeted) it is the choice of where the officers' spend their time, that's all. An agency may set out $2mil for a unit's work year. So it it can't be claimed that any one case cost X-dollars. What can be claimed is that the unit, which would cost the entity $2mil, did a certain number of cases.
We even paid for the storage lockers to secure the evidence. And, we always solicited law enforcement units whose duties included audi-video piracy cases, so we weren't detracting from other more serious investigations such as robbery and murder. The particular agencies' organizational designs are not subject to discussion. They recognize their obligation to enforce all criminal laws and audio-video piracy is among those crimes.
I hope this helps you understand the myriad of issues associated with IP enforcement. There is more to it than the general public realizes. DAVE