Noxiae poena par esto

"Cavendum est ne major poena quam culpa sit; et ne iisdem de causis alii plectantur, alii ne appellentur quidem."

"Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted."        

Cicero – De Officiis (44 BCE), I. 23.

BBC News US music file-sharer must pay damages 24 August 2012 Joel Tenenbaum must pay $675,000 in damages awarded to the major US music labels.

• Thirty-one songs should have a fair price of roughly $60, either as physical media or legal digital downloads. 
• Under Massachusetts law, petty theft of property valued at $250 or less is punishable by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than $300.
• Under the US Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999, the penalty for 31 counts of willful infringement ranges from a minimum of $23,250 to a maximum of $4,650,000.

Thus, US law evidently considers it worse, by several orders of magnitude, to illegally "not deprive" someone of virtual (non-rivalrous) property than to deprive someone of physical (rivalrous) property.

Thou shalt not copy thy neighbour's CD for post-Gutenberg law decrees it a far lesser evil to just steal it altogether.

Accidents of history

Wei Hong commented on ST’s link:

American Thinker The Soul-Crushing Scorched-Earth Battle for Gay Marriage 11 August 2012 “Most importantly, had civil unions been the focus, there would have been nowhere near as much resistance.”

A semantic imbroglio exists here. Homosexual "marriage" and "civil union" potentially denote the same concept, as is the case in some countries. However, in federations such as the USA (alas, the current dialectic epicentre) and Australia, "civil unions" tend to be recognised at the state level, while "marriage" is recognised at the federal level. Thus, along divisions between state and federal power, arguably contrived distinctions arise via accidents of history.

Entrapment

Wei Hong commented on CY’s link:

The Age Safety rule at railway crossing a step too far for one commuter 17 August 2012

Shall we also start fining people for walking through a green pedestrian light because a nearby vehicle traffic light is still red? Opening the gate before it is legal (by obtuse technicality) to cross is entrapment. Laws should serve people, rather than the reverse. These people give jurists a bad name and should be ashamed to call themselves such.