30 But Why Isn'T Copyright Actually Enforced?
Description
This article is from the Anime Music FAQ, by Ru Igarashi with numerous contributions by others.
30 But Why Isn'T Copyright Actually Enforced?
Copyright laws are mostly civil laws rather than criminal laws (though there are criminal sections in many copyright laws). Accordingly those kinds of laws are typically pursued by lawsuit rather than actively by some agency like police or customs departments. That means the copyright holder must file a suit in order for action to take place against a violator. The onus is probably also on the plaintiff to somehow show infringement (e.g. some sort of damage) occured. This method of enforcement is probably necessary to protect the general public from degrees of enforcement that were not intended for rights holders against the general public.
One should keep in mind that copyright laws are intended to foster scientific and creative progress by giving creators confidence that they can sustain their work (and themselves pursuant to that work). Activities that are restricted to an individual have a much smaller impact on that confidence. Large scale activities will have a larger impact, and at some point a noticeable impact. As such, copyright laws seem geared more towards large scale activities rather than the activities restricted to an individual. Therefore the copyright laws allows for a fair bit of discretion or flexibility when it comes to determining violation.
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