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.