On: What’s entering the public domain on January 1

[wholinator2]

I've had this (admittedly naive) idea for a while now: what if there were a way to declare fines for corporate offenses based on a percentage of the money earned from committing such an offense? This percentage could be greater than 100% to ensure it is never incentivized to break the law. The main issue is determining how much money a corporation made based on a decision. This would require statistics and analysts and the minimum possible fine should be the minimum possible fine currently imposed by law.

The whole shell corporation, off shore tax haven bullshit would probably make this infeasible but is there actually anything that can stop that? I don't have any good ideas, but I know corporations should not make money off breaking the law.

[jcranmer → wholinator2]

> what if there were a way to declare fines for corporate offenses based on a percentage of the money earned from committing such an offense?

That basically sounds like "actual damages", which is already the norm for calculating penalties in civil suits.

> This percentage could be greater than 100% to ensure it is never incentivized to break the law.

... and "actual damages" is by definition 100%, though you can get higher than 100% by adding on "statutory damages."

(You can see this as applied to copyright infringement in 17 USC §504: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/504).