Everyone's replying in agreement to you, but that is not the reason why people are concerned.

The reason is that this guy wasn't an employee, he was CTO. As CTO, he had the power to influence decisions.

He didn't have to follow the company's lead, he was the one dictating what that was.
And he sucked at that.

That's not the issue. In countries where suicide is illegal, if you kill yourself the insurance companies can void your life insurance and your family doesn't see a penny.

(IANAL)

Sure, this set of crimes in particular doesn't justify life in prison. I meant to argue, for the OP, that accumulation of minor crimes should not have 'one murder or less' as the sentence cap. I believe that causing misery to substantial numbers of people should not see "oh well at least it wasn't murder" as an argument.

Regarding the definition of crime, this one in particular has intent, malice, and a direct impact on the lives of the affected.
What about uploading a million songs? Not really comparable, IMO.

I have to agree. Is it okay to say that ruining the lives of 350 women is not as bad as 1 murder? Perhaps.

How about a thousand women?
How about a million people?
Would ruining the lives of a million people still be less punishable than one murder?

It's not that we're trying to compare both crimes. If given the choice between taking one life or ruining a million lives, I don't think it'd be an easy choice for anyone. They're not comparable.

But let's not say that just because it wasn't murder, it doesn't deserve a harsher sentence than murder.

(we're talking serious crimes here, not the 'steal a thousand songs be a thousand times guilty' crap that record labels are pulling)

Example: PayPal lets you open an account with minimal information, and lets you send money to that account no limits.

Now suppose you're a European citizen. The second you receive more than 2500 euros in your account, they're going to lock it and ask you to provide extra information to prove who you are.

They do this *after* they let you open the account, and *after* the money is in said account.

Then, if you can't or won't provide the information they ask (passport, proof of address), they'll lock your account with your funds in it. They'll only allow you to get the funds after 180 days, and you must initiate the process, or they'll just keep the money.

A bank would never be allowed to do such a thing. They'd have to verify who you were *before* they gave you an account, and they would never be allowed to lock your funds for half a year _after_ you received said funds. Unless you were part of a criminal investigation, of course.

It's not because they lack money that Apple and Google don't do more development.
Consider that Apple spends 2% of their revenue on R&D. And that they have 100+ *billion* in the bank and are doing nothing with it.

Here's my experience maintaining a couple of friend's and family's Macs:

- .dmg files in the Applications folder.
- Apps in the dock that refer to the .app inside the .dmg, which is still inside the Downloads folder.
- "My application stopped working after I emptied the Downloads folder".
- People who actually opened the .dmg and then the app inside it every time they wanted to use it.
- Every single .dmg ever opened since last rebook still mounted, icon showing on the Desktop and in Finder.

Here, we're the 1%. Apple wants to make life easier to the 99%. Can't blame them.

In Treatment, good show from HBO, 43 episodes per season. http://www.hbo.com/in-treatment/ . Just saying that although unlikely, it is possible and we don't even have to go look for obscure shows outside the US.

Regarding price, I have to disagree, there is a psychological price perception, based on what you feel that you're getting. I would never buy a single tvshow season for $100, as I would never buy a music album for $50.

From the producer's point of view, producing a tvshow episode is expensive, therefore it must be priced accordingly.
From the consumer's point of view, watching an episode is an ephemeral experience that is rarely repeated.

So, in the consumer's mind, an episode shouldn't cost three times more than a $1 audio track, when the track will get tens of listens and the episode will get one or two viewings.

In the end, the consumers would be right, but producers are fighting very hard to defeat the "the customer is always right" theory.

Don't fool yourself, there is a market for quality at the right price (not talking about the GPS apps here). The App Store just re-defined the concept of 'right price' due to economies of scale, by getting your app in front of a much larger audience, and under much much tougher competition.

-- Neville Flynn