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England has the concept of arrestable offences. There are criminal laws which go in front of a magistrate (or a judge & jury if severe enough).

Theft would be a criminal offence. Shop-lifting would be counted as theft.

Violating copyrights is illegal, but it's not a criminal offence. You're not going to be arrested for it. The Crown Prosecution Service won't do anything.

The rights holders can sue for loss of earnings - that's 79pence per track. They can try and sue for the stuff you've shared.

Copyright violation becomes criminal offence if done as part of trade - burning movies to DVD and selling them, for example.



I get the distinction he's making between civil and criminal liability, as I pointed out in my other comment (I just don't think it's useful to keep asserting). I was pointing out in that comment that he was making an unreasonable claim that someone could expect to go to prison for stealing a CD in Canada.

And unless the UK has draconian shoplifting laws I've never heard of, the same holds true there.


People get arrested for shoplifting. So they spend at least a couple of hours in police cells while they're getting booked.

People get fined for shoplifting. Sometimes they don't pay the fines. They go to prison for not paying fines.


It seems you in turn are having difficulty distinguishing "arrest" and "prison". The former involves being put in a jail (or "gaol") for a short period of time, while the latter involves being put in a prison for years on end.




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