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"What we are seeing here, as any military person in the audience can tell you, is nothing more than a repetition of weapons systems that goes back to the beginning of time. An offensive weapons system is developed, and it takes time to develop the defense. And then another offensive weapon is developed that overcomes that defense, and then another defense is built up -- as surely as castles and moats held off people with spears and bows and arrows and riding horses, and the catapult was developed to overcome the castle and the moat." -- President Clinton http://www.cybercrime.gov/nas9901.htm

I agree with you on this, but it is not yet illegal to "Profit from Piracy".

That will come as a surprise to quite a number of guests currently registered at Club Fed.

Two Top Adminstratorsof NINJAVIDEO website plead guilty to criminal copyright indringement
NINJAVIDEO founder pleads guilty in Virginia to criminal copyright conspiracy

I agree with you on this, but it is not yet illegal to "Profit from Piracy".

That will come as a surprise to quite a number of guests currently registered at Club Fed.

Two Top Adminstratorsof NINJAVIDEO website plead guilty to criminal copyright indringement
NINJAVIDEO founder pleads guilty in Virginia to criminal copyright conspiracy

In almost no other case does the US government get involved in protecting private property to the extent they rush in and protect the music and film industry. Have your patent ripped off, or your house broken into, they won't even listen to you. Its up to you to defend your patent at your own expense, and you can file a police report about the burglary, but you will likely never see your property again.

Civics 101.

In the American federal system, almost all crimes are defined and prosecuted under state law.

Crimes with an interstate or foreign dimension and crimes with a federal Constitutional dimension tend to become a federal responsibility.

CHINESE NATIONAL PLEADS GUILTY TO ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE AND THEFT OF TRADE SECRETS

The federal government defends copyrights as a federally granted property right.

In a sense, all property can be defined as a set of rights and privileges the state is willing to defend. Take your patent case into court and win and the federal government will enforce the judgment.

The Secret Service was organized to fight counterfeiting.

Surprising, isn't it, that the federal government should give a damn about such mundane things as the value of the currency, economic development, and a favorable balance of trade?

The animated feature from Pixar or Dreamworks will cost about $200 million to produce and if succesful may lead to a billion-dollar global franchise like "Shrek."

Clean industry. Skilled labor. High tech.

There is the potential political bonus of a viable cultural export. The US has for generations has been a net exporter of culture.

All of which implies that the entertainment industry will continue to get a hearing whether the geek likes it or not.

The Guardian is being accused of unauthorized access to Wikileaks' computer systems.

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 47 > 1030

(a) Whoever (2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains (C) information from any protected computer;

The Guardian could be in some hot water soon. If these alligations are true then this is a clear case of illegal conduct.

You can say Wikileaks is breaking the law in what they do but their conduct is another matter and should be treated as such. It is not legal to have unauthorized access to a computer system of alleged criminals (unless you are the CIA/FBI/NSA/DHS/DOD/Spanish Inquisition).

Now that *everyone* has a computer, computer crimes are no longer treated as a serious thing.

This is nonsense.

Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section

Sentencing for Oliveras is scheduled Oct. 28, 2011, at 9:00 a.m. EDT. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $1,541,349 on the wire fraud charge, and two years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the identity theft charge.

BROOKLYN MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO ONLINE IDENTITY THEFT INVOLVING MORE THAN $700,000 IN REPORTED FRAUD [August 10]

I found this the other day when perusing the feds cybercrime resources. http://www.cybercrime.gov/crypto.html#IVa It's their agenda to push "key recoverable" encryption products that only they could recover plaintext from. This and the article mentioned above is their two pronged attack against the major irritant that encryption is proving to be. Just watch as they slowly tighten the net both from a legal and technical standpoint.

Here, I found this on the Department of Justice's own cybercrime website.

This broad definition addresses the original concerns regarding intrastate "phone phreakers" (i.e., hackers who penetrate telecommunications computers). It also specifically includes those computers used in "foreign" communications. With the continually expanding global information infrastructure, with numerous instances of international hacking, and with the growing possibility of increased global industrial espionage, it is important that the United States have jurisdiction over international computer crime cases. Arguably, the old definition of "federal interest computer" contained in 18 U.S.C. 1030(e)(2) conferred such jurisdiction because the requirement that the computers used in committing the offense not all be located in the same state might be satisfied if one computer were located overseas. As a general rule, however, Congress's laws have been presumed to be domestic in scope only, absent a specific grant of extraterritorial jurisdiction. E.E.O.C. v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U.S. 244 (1991). To ensure clarity, the statute was amended to reference international communications explicitly.

I don't see how it can be any more clear than that. They weren't 100% sure that the law as it existed would allow them to prosecute for instances of hacking that crossed international boundaries but included US computers or persons located in the US, so they amended it specifically to allow them to do so!

source: http://www.cybercrime.gov/1030analysis.html
Subsection 1030(a)(5)

Hacking a computer you do not have authorization to access is a crime in the United States. period. Once you get in, it just gets worse for you depending on what you do.

So they sit on there arses while billions of pounds of financial cybercrimes are committed, trillions of spam sent, and then arrest some 15 year old for hurling a few packets in the name of free speech - fucking lame.

Cops can multi-task.

Computer Crime News Releases - 2010

Here is the smallest of samplings:

E-mail threats to the Vice-President.
Five of sixteen U.S. defendants plead guilty for their role in "Lost Boy" child pornography ring
Theft of trade secrets from Goldman-Sachs
Operator of luxury eyeware website charged with cyberstalking, threats and fraud
Extradited hacker gets 10 years for first-ever hack into Internet phone networks.
Orange County man arrested on federal charges related to demands for sexually explicit videos from women and teenage girls. (Hacking into computers for purposes of extortion)

What I don't understand is why they think this is even necessary in the new world we just entered a month or so ago.

Why should they have to buy up domain names?

Why not just have their friends at Visa/Mastercard deny the ability of anyone to buy a domain name which could (potentially) be used to engage in "illegal activities"?

Or have their friends in Obama's office of imaginary rights enforcement seize the domains for trafficking in stolen property?

Or have the host (Amazon or whoever) drop the websites? Paypal refuse service? EveryDNS drop the domain records?

Similar to how the Constructicons combined to form Devastator, imaginary property lawyers are combining with the mob^H^H^H RIAA, and Obama's Intellectual Property Rights Task Force to form $0.

Yeah, since manslaughter doesn't get you more than two years these days. And a hit and run might not even be something a DA wants to pursue vigorously.

The charges in this case went beyond denial of service and were prosecuted under federal law.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert W. Kern, Cybercrime Coordinator for the Cleveland U.S. Attorney's Office, following an investigation by the Akron Office of the United States Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the University of Akron Police Department. Former Student Gets 30 Months in Prison for DDoSing Conservative Figures and Using Botnets, 30-Month Sentence For Bot Nets Used To Obtain Information From Other Computer Systems

In the American federal system, crimes of violence are almost always prosecuted under state law. If you have any complaints about sentencing, take them to your state assemblyman or senator.

The consequences for conviction on a charge of vehicular homicide vary wildly from state to state.

In Iowa, there is no probation and the mandatory sentence is twenty five years. In Tennessee the average jail time is 29 days. Vehicular Manslaughter

Failing to pursue the felony charge can make very big headlines in unexpected places: Morgan Stanley financial adviser escapes felony charges for hit-and-run 'because it could jeopardies his job', Alleged hit-and-run driver may not face felony

Copyrights were never really meant to target individual citizens; copyright is a regulation on businesses, and should only be applied to businesses. The way the RIAA is suing individuals is a disgrace, and their lawyers should be reprimanded for abusing the court system

The U.S. Constitution makes no such distinction.

It grants the author of a copyrighted work exclusive control over its use and distribution.

The NET - No Electronic Theft Act - of 1997 explicitly removed the profit motive as an element of the crime of copyright infringement.

In August 2010 a Texan - known as "iced" on the warez stage - pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. He'll be sentenced next year. TEXAS MAN ADMITS INVOLVEMENT IN SOFTWARE PIRACY CONSPIRACY

The max on the felony charge is five years and $250,000 fine.

Three juries had a look at Jamie Thomas. Three juries hammered her into the marble flooring.

There are lessons in that for the geek:

1 The american juror is middle-aged, middle-class, small C-conservative.

He has a lot in common with Heinlein, who would sell you air on the moon. "There is no free lunch."

2 Jury nulllification is for the good old boys from the pine barrens. For the geek - the outsider - it is a stout branch and ten feet of hemp. You are a fool to expect it - and a greater fool to demand it.

2 The celebrity pro bono attorney will tell you what you want to hear.

Not what you need to know.

He will be long gone wnen it comes time to auction off your house.

The issue is that they could do so for a civil infraction, as opposed to a criminal infraction.

Copyright infringement can be prosecuted as a federal felony charge.

The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.
In addition, it added a threshold for criminal liability where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement. In response to the NET Act, the US Sentencing Commission stiffened sanctions for intellectual property theft offenses. NET Act

The federal government has the constitutional right to criminally prosecute violations of federally granted property rights.

Prosecuting economic crimes with an interstate or international dimension is primarily a federal responsibility.

In a service-based economy, the entertainment industry generates a lot of jobs and a lot of domestic and export dollars. Many of those jobs and many of those dollars going directly into the pockets of the American geek - and not to the Russian or the Swede in Pirate Bay.

Two Individuals Sentenced to Prison for Conspiring to Traffic in Counterfeit Slot Machines and Computer Programs [casino gambling software] [August 20]

Thibodaux Man Pleads Guilty To Violation Of Digital Millennium Copyright Act [XBox 360 mods and pirated games] [maximum exposure, 5 years and $500,000, sentencing in 2011] [August 11]

Manhattan Federal Court Orders Seizures Of Seven Websites For Criminal Copyright Infringement In Connection With Distribution Of Pirated Movies Over The Internet [June 30]

Texas Man Admits Involvement In Software Piracy Conspiracy [Warez] [August 10]

The issue is that they could do so for a civil infraction, as opposed to a criminal infraction.

Copyright infringement can be prosecuted as a federal felony charge.

The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.
In addition, it added a threshold for criminal liability where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement. In response to the NET Act, the US Sentencing Commission stiffened sanctions for intellectual property theft offenses. NET Act

The federal government has the constitutional right to criminally prosecute violations of federally granted property rights.

Prosecuting economic crimes with an interstate or international dimension is primarily a federal responsibility.

In a service-based economy, the entertainment industry generates a lot of jobs and a lot of domestic and export dollars. Many of those jobs and many of those dollars going directly into the pockets of the American geek - and not to the Russian or the Swede in Pirate Bay.

Two Individuals Sentenced to Prison for Conspiring to Traffic in Counterfeit Slot Machines and Computer Programs [casino gambling software] [August 20]

Thibodaux Man Pleads Guilty To Violation Of Digital Millennium Copyright Act [XBox 360 mods and pirated games] [maximum exposure, 5 years and $500,000, sentencing in 2011] [August 11]

Manhattan Federal Court Orders Seizures Of Seven Websites For Criminal Copyright Infringement In Connection With Distribution Of Pirated Movies Over The Internet [June 30]

Texas Man Admits Involvement In Software Piracy Conspiracy [Warez] [August 10]

The issue is that they could do so for a civil infraction, as opposed to a criminal infraction.

Copyright infringement can be prosecuted as a federal felony charge.

The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.
In addition, it added a threshold for criminal liability where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement. In response to the NET Act, the US Sentencing Commission stiffened sanctions for intellectual property theft offenses. NET Act

The federal government has the constitutional right to criminally prosecute violations of federally granted property rights.

Prosecuting economic crimes with an interstate or international dimension is primarily a federal responsibility.

In a service-based economy, the entertainment industry generates a lot of jobs and a lot of domestic and export dollars. Many of those jobs and many of those dollars going directly into the pockets of the American geek - and not to the Russian or the Swede in Pirate Bay.

Two Individuals Sentenced to Prison for Conspiring to Traffic in Counterfeit Slot Machines and Computer Programs [casino gambling software] [August 20]

Thibodaux Man Pleads Guilty To Violation Of Digital Millennium Copyright Act [XBox 360 mods and pirated games] [maximum exposure, 5 years and $500,000, sentencing in 2011] [August 11]

Manhattan Federal Court Orders Seizures Of Seven Websites For Criminal Copyright Infringement In Connection With Distribution Of Pirated Movies Over The Internet [June 30]

Texas Man Admits Involvement In Software Piracy Conspiracy [Warez] [August 10]

The issue is that they could do so for a civil infraction, as opposed to a criminal infraction.

Copyright infringement can be prosecuted as a federal felony charge.

The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.
In addition, it added a threshold for criminal liability where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement. In response to the NET Act, the US Sentencing Commission stiffened sanctions for intellectual property theft offenses. NET Act

The federal government has the constitutional right to criminally prosecute violations of federally granted property rights.

Prosecuting economic crimes with an interstate or international dimension is primarily a federal responsibility.

In a service-based economy, the entertainment industry generates a lot of jobs and a lot of domestic and export dollars. Many of those jobs and many of those dollars going directly into the pockets of the American geek - and not to the Russian or the Swede in Pirate Bay.

Two Individuals Sentenced to Prison for Conspiring to Traffic in Counterfeit Slot Machines and Computer Programs [casino gambling software] [August 20]

Thibodaux Man Pleads Guilty To Violation Of Digital Millennium Copyright Act [XBox 360 mods and pirated games] [maximum exposure, 5 years and $500,000, sentencing in 2011] [August 11]

Manhattan Federal Court Orders Seizures Of Seven Websites For Criminal Copyright Infringement In Connection With Distribution Of Pirated Movies Over The Internet [June 30]

Texas Man Admits Involvement In Software Piracy Conspiracy [Warez] [August 10]

Wow, even they couldn't avoid the car analogy.

As far as I know, the Justice Department's position hasn't changed much since this 1998 policy FAQ.

Anyone have any later statements from them?

Why claim a $500 reward when you can exploit and steal more?

Because that is illegal... the idea of this project is to get honest security researchers incentives to find bugs so that the people who would exploit them, cannot.

People keep saying this, but it ain't illegal at all. Show me the law.

Exploiting computers and stealing aren't illegal you say?

Links to a number of laws: http://www.cybercrime.gov/cclaws.html

More sources of reading pleasure:

http://www.cybercrime.gov/cc.html
http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/financial_crimes.shtml#Computer
http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/cyberhome.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/technology/electronic-crime/welcome.htm

And in case the .gov websites aren't legit enough for you, there is always wikipedia ;}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_crime

Oh, and as for stealing not being illegal, you are wrong there too.

http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS

Go to that link, scroll down to "PEN" for penal laws and click, then go down to section 155 on Larceny.
(Their site sucks and uses javascript for navigation, so I can't directly link. Bastards :} )

You can look up your own state laws similar (Under penal law, for the crime larceny)

Just to head off the inevitable "But I don't live in the US so everything you said doesn't matter", the answer is "no, it does, you are wrong."
Google is in the US, so is bound by US laws, which is the topic of conversation in this thread.
(Granted, California state laws for theft and not New York, but that was the link I had handy, they are all basically the same except for some minor details, and it was painful enough looking up anything on the NY site as it is :/ )

Why claim a $500 reward when you can exploit and steal more?

Because that is illegal... the idea of this project is to get honest security researchers incentives to find bugs so that the people who would exploit them, cannot.

People keep saying this, but it ain't illegal at all. Show me the law.

Exploiting computers and stealing aren't illegal you say?

Links to a number of laws: http://www.cybercrime.gov/cclaws.html

More sources of reading pleasure:

http://www.cybercrime.gov/cc.html
http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/financial_crimes.shtml#Computer
http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/cyberhome.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/technology/electronic-crime/welcome.htm

And in case the .gov websites aren't legit enough for you, there is always wikipedia ;}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_crime

Oh, and as for stealing not being illegal, you are wrong there too.

http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS

Go to that link, scroll down to "PEN" for penal laws and click, then go down to section 155 on Larceny.
(Their site sucks and uses javascript for navigation, so I can't directly link. Bastards :} )

You can look up your own state laws similar (Under penal law, for the crime larceny)

Just to head off the inevitable "But I don't live in the US so everything you said doesn't matter", the answer is "no, it does, you are wrong."
Google is in the US, so is bound by US laws, which is the topic of conversation in this thread.
(Granted, California state laws for theft and not New York, but that was the link I had handy, they are all basically the same except for some minor details, and it was painful enough looking up anything on the NY site as it is :/ )

What? Sigh. Once again, all together now: Piracy is not stealing.

The Black Flag was flying over the Carribbean when "piracy" was first used to descrbe copyright infringement.

The connection was anchored then. High profile sites like "The Pirate Bay keep it anchored now.

This a not a battle the geek can win. He can't even hold the line on Slashdot.

"
But wait, there's one more oddity in the same sentence: "more money" - which assumes that money is made at all by piracy

The line can't even be held within a single post.

There is money to made in "pirated" IP of every sort: New wave of pirates has psoriasis, frat boy hair; no peglegs

But Ars Technica got one fact wrong. The DOJ will prosecute an individual who is not in the game for the money:

San Diego County Man Pleads Guilty In Movie Piracy Case for posting 'Slumdog Millionaire' On Internet

A word to the wise:

This was a guilty plea on a felony charge.

The Feds award the geek bonus points for the upload of a pre-release screener.

Is this story a hoax? There is only one other report, and that report is identical...

Hoax? didn't you RTFA? there's a link to the official news release from the US DOJ.

That is easy to deal with, just hand off the spec to a developer outside the USA. The DMCA does not matter anywhere else.

Try telling that to Dmitry Skylarov.

Worcester Airport, either 1997 or 1998. The lead investigator told his side of the story at the Microsoft Security Summit in Boston in 2004

If this is it then I say connecting a computer to a modem without dialback is one of the dumbest things you can do.

'The juvenile computer hacker identified the telephone numbers of the modems .. he accessed and disabled both in sequence.

Acting Special Agent in Charge Johnston stated, "This case, with the associated national security ramifications, is one of the most significant computer fraud investigations conducted by the U.S. Secret Service."'

What a load of hogwash. Did they identify who configured the insecure modem. What the f*** would the 'secret service' know about computer security.

Jeffrey Gerard Levy was actually the first person convicted of felony copyright infringement without profit motive under the 1997 NET Act. The University of Oregon threw him to the wolves when he was 22 years old. He was given two years probation.

Others have already pointed out that criminal copyright infringement in the US is far older than Bill Clinton, but that does not excuse him for the 1997 NET Act. Before that act, imprisonment for sharing without profit motive was not an option. I'd say America has enough prisoners already. America claims 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the the world's imprisoned population.

From the Copyright Corner:

Criminal misdemeanor penalties have been a part of the copyright law since 1897.

In the 1909 Copyright Act, criminal copyright infringement was expanded to cover all types of works and all types of activities. It continued to be a misdemeanor offense with both willfulness and a financial motive required; the penalties included imprisonment.

The 1976 Act revamped the criminal provisions by changing the "for profit" requirement to infringement conducted "willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain." This lowered the standard from requiring that the defendant profit from the infringement merely to an intent to profit or gain from the activity. The Act retained the one-year in federal prison term but increased the fine from $1,000 in fines to up to $10,000 generally, and to $50,000 if the work infringed was a sound recording or motion picture.

In 1982 the criminal infringement provisions were amended to make certain types of first-time infringement punishable as felonies.

The most recent amendment to criminal copyright infringement was the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 (NetAct) which made it a felony to reproduce or distribute copies of copyrighted works electronically regardless of whether the defendant had a profit motive. Thus, it changed the 100-year standard regarding profit motive but retained the element of willfulness. The ease of infringement on the Internet was the primary reason for criminalizing noncommercial infringement as well as recognition of other motivations a nonprofit defendant might have such as anti-copyright or anti-corporate sentiment, trying to make a name in the Internet world and wanting to be a cyber renegade. So, the infringement must be either: (1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain or (2) involve the reproduction or distribution of one or more copies of a work or works within a 180-day period with a total retail value of $1,000. Commercial infringers are subject to higher penalties.

CRIMINAL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT [2004}

Connecticut Man Sentenced To 30 Months in Prison For Criminal Copyright Infringement - Forty Defendants Convicted In Operation Copycat To Date {April 29, 2008]

We need the FBI Baltimore office taken out of the business of distributing child porn and put on this problem. After ten years of work, they've arrested over 6,000 people.

How many computer criminals have they arrested? The Department of Justice doesn't seem to provide useful statistics, but it looks like the number per year is in the 10-100 range.

This is backwards, given the relative size of the problems.

Part of the problem is that the FBI has a measurement bias against white-collar crime. See the FBI Crime Statistics page. Violent crimes are counted if they are reported; white collar crimes are only counted if there's an arrest.

What possible international law enforcement agency would enforce a ban on work-alike/look-alike products?

WIPO.

Who would you have enforce the copyrights and trademarks of IBM?

The Department of Justice.

do you think that US Customs should be the filter and prevent such purchases from entering the US?

Check this out.

And if you bought something like this on the Internet and it was confiscated, should the customer just lose their money?

Pretty much.

The DOJ has taken the position that giving up your encryption keys is not testimony, so it isn't protected by the 5th amendment.

In the United States, you could never be compelled to turn over an encryption key as that is a violation of the 5th amendment

I wouldn't be so sure. The 5th amendment only protects against self-incrimination, but the search may be for evidence against a third party, in which case you may be compelled to comply.

It's also not clear that giving up your encryption keys would be considered "testimonial", so it might not be protected under the 5th amendment according to US courts. See here (somewhat outdated in other aspects, but an accurate reflection of US policy on the legal hair splitting):

http://www.cybercrime.gov/cryptfaq.htm

No matter how thin you slice it, it is still baloney.

Copyright will never expire quickly enough to keep the geek out of jail.

How many of the movies - how much of the music, the warez - that makes its way to the net is less than five years old? Less than one year old? Less than six weeks old?

Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section: Press Releases

506. Criminal offenses

(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -

(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, - OR -

(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000
Copyright Law of the United States of America

ILLINOIS MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO POSTING '24' TELEVISION SHOW ON INTERNET PRIOR TO FIRST BROADCAST ON FOX

A Chicago man pleaded guilty today to a felony charge for posting the first four episodes of this season's "24" on the Internet before they were originally aired on the Fox television network earlier this year.
Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section [July 2, 2007], The No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act [February 18, 1998]

The "not for profit" loophole was closed by the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act of 1997-1998.

Justice Department Announces Guilty Plea in Peer-to-Peer Piracy Crackdown This was the first criminal enforcement action against copyright infringement on a P2P network using BitTorrent technology. {September 2006]

No, it's not. It's called the plain view exception and has been found to be completely constitutional. I refer you to this page from the Justice Department (ok, no snickers) which references Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990).

The relevant part is as follows:

To rely on this exception, the agent must be in a lawful position to observe and access the evidence, and its incriminating character must be immediately apparent.

How this exception would apply in the current situation will be up for debate but the exception of an officer finding evidence of another crime, while executing a search warrant for a different crime, is fully constitutional. For a further reading of just this subject, see Danny Weitzner's comments with a much more detailed discussion of the plain view exception.

What, you expect the cops to ignore the dead body missing its arms lying in the back room because they were only looking for the stash of cocaine in the house?

that's only because they have managed to convince some judges that seeding a file (or 1000) via P2P is on the same level as a full-blown for-profit piracy ring.

No, actually that was the 1997 NET Act which made sharing files with no profit motive a felony criminal offense. The RIAA didn't need to convince a judge, just pay off legislators.

Dowling (473 U.S. 207), was a narrow ruling about the National Stolen Property Act. The court found that under the terms of the statute the defendant's interstate shipment of bootleg records was not covered under the terms of the Act, because it was a criminal statue, which must be construed strictly.

This does not mean that the court would not construe copyright violation to be "theft" under a different statute. I'll agree with your premise that in this case the court differentiated between IP rights and rights in tangible property. Despite the language of Justice Ginsburg's concurrence, "And deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft," the term doesn't seem to have been used in a majority opinion by the USSC in defining copyright infringement. So perhaps for copyright, at least, there is a clear line between infringement and theft.

That still leaves us with theft of trade secrets, trademark, and patents.

The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 explicitly refers to the theft of trade secrets.

It may be that trade secrets are the only area of IP law where the term "theft" is explicitly used, and it may be that patents and trademark both conflate infringement with theft. I don't have time to go sifting through cases, but it does seem clear to me that at least with regard to trade secrets, the law explicitly states that theft of IP is possible.

I appreciate your bringing Dowling to my attention. I was obviously overly broad in my portrayal of infringement as "theft." I'm pleasantly surprised.

The Department of Justice has already utilized section 220 in extremely important terrorism investigations. As the Criminal Division's Assistant Attorney General, Christopher Wray, testified before the Senate's Committee on the Judiciary on October 21, 2003, section 220 proved useful in the Portland terror cell case, because Athe judge who was most familiar with the case was able to issue the search warrants for the defendant's e-mail accounts from providers in other districts, which dramatically sped up the investigation and reduced all sorts of unnecessary burdens on other prosecutors, agents and courts.@ This provision of the PATRIOT Act has been similarly useful in the AVirginia Jihad@ case involving a Northern Virginia terror cell and in the case of the infamous Ashoebomber@ terrorist, Richard Reid.

Want to mess with the students who boot off of CD to access the internet?

Set all the computers to use static addressing. (it helps to know what is on the network quickly anyway)

99.9% of users will try to use DHCP to get on the network the first time.

Then set up a bogus DHCP server. You can quickly tell anytime something new comes onto the network. Give them a bogus gateway address and they will not get onto the web. Point the DNS server address to a machine that returns all resquests for web site addresses to be the ip address of: http://www.cybercrime.gov/ or to a web page that asks for the students name and ID # :-)

Yes, they can get around this, but it will tell you the scope of the problem anyway. And if someone else wants to add a computer to the network they will most likely come to you to find out why it is broken.

You do require permission to put hardware on the network, don't you?

Let's take a look at the career of last year's big pump-and-dump spammer:

"Computer Virus Broker Arrested for Selling Armies of Infected Computers to Hackers and Spammers

"Pump-and-dump spam domains go silent after botnet closure"

Spammers register pump-and-dump spam domains for use in spam runs. These domains are commonly discarded after a few days. The tactic is commonplace but the the arrest of alleged botmaster Jeanson James Ancheta, 20, of Downey, California, on 3 November has been accompanied by a radical shift in the landscape. "Up to recently, the graphs were all fairly smooth, with the stats showing that 12 days was about the maximum lifetime for this type of domain, while 30 per cent only lasted a day or under, and 10 per cent only lasted three hours or under," Shipp said. "This kind of activity just disappeared completely from the radar on 2 November."

Following up:

"Botnet Creator Pleads Guilty, Faces 25 Years"

Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator

• Name: JEANSON JAMES ANCHETA
• Inmate number: 32392-112
• Age: 21
• Race: Asian
• Sex: M
• Projected release date: 12-25-2009
• Location: CALIFORNIA CITY CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION

California City Prison: "This medium security desert prison opened in 2000, and is a stunning sight, either by day when its monolithic forms stand out on the desert pavement like ancient Egyptian architecture, or by night when floodlights bathe the gleaming facility in an orange glow which can be seen from as much as 30 miles away."

Next spammer, please.

Show me a passage in any lawbook that equates copyright infringement with theft.

Chapter IIIa of Prosecuting Intellectual Property Crimes (my copy is in dead-tree form, but it's also available online: http://www.cybercrime.gov/ipmanual.htm), by David Goldstone: "the criminalization of large-scale copying even in the absence of economic motivation by the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, Pub. L. No. 105-147, 111 Stat. 2678 (1997). . .

Also, in many jurisdictions copyright infringement is a tort, not a crime.

In the U.S., all copyright cases are Federal, and controlled by the United States Code and stare decisis in the Federal District and Circuit courts, and the Supreme Court. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html#301 17 USC 301. Under the United States Code, copyright infringement can be (depending on the factual circumstances present) either civil or http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506 criminal (17 USC 506).

Many extra-territorial jurisdictions treat, or can treat, (c) infringement as criminal.

U.S.: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/06/28/1699696.h tm

Viet Nam: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php ?num=06SOC080706

New Zealand:http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/2006/07/ar t100012268.php

China:http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-07/1 6/content_641731.htm

Special Chinese District of Hong Kong:http://www.thestandard.com.hk/weekend_news_de tail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=22887&sid=8816949&con_ty pe=3&d_str=20060715

I saw something in my news clipping service about a recent -- last week -- India conviction and six month jail sentence for (c) infringement, but can't find it on news.google.com.

The NET Act (No Electronic Theft) eliminated the profit motive as an element of the offense in 1997.

Does this mean we should treat profit-motivated and profittless cases the same? I think not. Profit is a factor in determining sentences in murder cases. In some instances, it can decide whether the accused faces the death penalty or not. Under this concept, which is active in the US "justice" system, it would seem that sharing files is a step down from selling them, and should be treated as such.

This is certainly NOT a case worthy of extradition.

Despite the misleading comments about movies in the press release, this group had nothing to do with movies, but rather, applications software. So the Pixar example is not really valid.

Nor do you need to be a "major player" to attract attention. As an example, I give you the wholly unnotable group Fastlane, which was unheard of before the FBI raided them in 2000 (http://www.cybercrime.gov/fastlane.htm).

Then there was "Rogue Warriorz", http://www.cybercrime.gov/bandwidth.htm - such a major player that their arrests were ridiculed by other warez groups because no one had ever heard of them. It later turned out they were basically a private group sharing files, NOT a starter point of distribution. In other words, they didn't crack or provide any original material. In fact, if the FBI hadn't given them a honeypot, they never would have managed to pirate as much as they were accused of.

The NET Act (No Electronic Theft) eliminated the profit motive as an element of the offense in 1997.

Does this mean we should treat profit-motivated and profittless cases the same? I think not. Profit is a factor in determining sentences in murder cases. In some instances, it can decide whether the accused faces the death penalty or not. Under this concept, which is active in the US "justice" system, it would seem that sharing files is a step down from selling them, and should be treated as such.

This is certainly NOT a case worthy of extradition.

Despite the misleading comments about movies in the press release, this group had nothing to do with movies, but rather, applications software. So the Pixar example is not really valid.

Nor do you need to be a "major player" to attract attention. As an example, I give you the wholly unnotable group Fastlane, which was unheard of before the FBI raided them in 2000 (http://www.cybercrime.gov/fastlane.htm).

Then there was "Rogue Warriorz", http://www.cybercrime.gov/bandwidth.htm - such a major player that their arrests were ridiculed by other warez groups because no one had ever heard of them. It later turned out they were basically a private group sharing files, NOT a starter point of distribution. In other words, they didn't crack or provide any original material. In fact, if the FBI hadn't given them a honeypot, they never would have managed to pirate as much as they were accused of.

The reality is, you have be a major player in the warez game to attract the DOJ's attention: Deciding Whether to Prosecute an Intellectual Property Case (Revised 2003)

The NET Act (No Electronic Theft) eliminated the profit motive as an element of the offense in 1997. Criminal Intellectual Property Laws

As a shareware developer, I could care less about kids cracking my software

The world looks a little different when you managing a $90 million dollar Pixar production that will ultimately employ over 400 workers and take five years to complete.

The reality is, you have be a major player in the warez game to attract the DOJ's attention: Deciding Whether to Prosecute an Intellectual Property Case (Revised 2003)

The NET Act (No Electronic Theft) eliminated the profit motive as an element of the offense in 1997. Criminal Intellectual Property Laws

As a shareware developer, I could care less about kids cracking my software

The world looks a little different when you managing a $90 million dollar Pixar production that will ultimately employ over 400 workers and take five years to complete.

This article may be a recycle, the group mentioned "RiSCiSO" has been listed in previous cases. I would hope these guys wouldnt continue their practices, and even if they did that they would find a different name to use. Also, the DOJ has always posted press releases about their busts the same day as they happen on http://www.cybercrime.gov/ipcases.htm

It's also in an inconspicuous place. Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 7.

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

Given that privacy is such an explicit right in regards to mail, how come the courts just don't get it when it comes to the modern day equivalent? I guess it's because privacy in America died in 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of search warrants for "mere evidence" overturning the 1886 Boyd decision. (A brief history of the Privacy Protection Act)

Actually, the Federal Gvt. has long declared that copyright infringement was in fact theft in their eyes. http://www.cybercrime.gov/netsum.htm says it all.

They don't have jurisdiction.

Contact your local FBI field office:

http://www.cybercrime.gov/reporting.htm
http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/fo.htm

You should also file complaints with your state's
attorney general and with the Federal Trade Commission,
and perhaps with other agencies that I'm forgetting
about at the moment.

When you define "friends" as "everyone on the Internet" with a P2P client you have moved into distribution big-time. You might want to think about that before going into competition with the real-world pirates who settle territorial disputes with guns.

The government has the resources to pursue both the amateur and the pro: Cybercrime