I mean, it's not crazy talk, you frame it as crazy but this difference in treatment is fairly normal. If punitive damages were limited to what an individual person could manage, they would hardly ever be "punitive" for corporate actors.

You're the second person I've talked to in this thread who thinks "The law is not applied with perfect consistency in practice!? Dear god why is it not like computer programs?".

It's just my personal take, but I don't think extreme rigidity and consistency in a "code is law" fashion would ever be desirable. look over to the crypto world to see how DAOs are faring.

150k per violation of copyright law by means of pirating a book is excessive even for the largest company in the world. I agree that punishment should be somewhat proportional so that "too big to fail" firms don't see it as just a fine to be accounted for as any expense, but among things that ought to be worth a a fine of that magnitude, downloading a book is not among them.