...but many people pirate movies off of the internet and the punishment for being caught is pretty low.
"A federal jury on Thursday found Jammie Thomas-Rasset liable in the nations only Recording Industry Association of America file-sharing case to go to trial, dinging her $1.92 million for infringing 24 songs.
Thomas-Rasset (then just Jammie Thomas) went to trial two years ago, and was ordered to pay $222,000 by a different jury for the same songs. The judge in the first case declared a mistrial. Thomas-Rasset opted for a new trial instead of settling like the 30,000-plus others the RIAA has sued or threatened to sue for copyright infringement.
Thomas-Rasset, fined $80,000 a track, told our sister publication, Ars Technica, she wouldnt pay."
That is true but these cases are few and far between and are merely meant to be used as a scare tactic, these methods clearly do not scale. But p2p downloading has grown exponentially despite all the "dangers", the truth is, if it's easy to use people don't care, they don't feel like they are hurting anyone, they don't notice any risk (there is risk but it is relatively small, just like there is a risk you will die every time you leave home).