Slashdot Mirror
Korean Brothers Arrested For File-Sharing Site
HarlanC writes: "This story discusses the arrest of two Korean brothers who run a website [warning, page requires Korean language support] that allows peer-to-peer file sharing. Note that the Recording Industry Association of Korea reports local companies lost $154 million in sales in 2000 due to use of the program, even though sales increased to $31.5 million in total sales in 2000 from $29.2 million in 1999."
I "steal" music to evaluate it. If you don't let me "steal" the music first, I will not buy it.
Don't like it? Tough. I can live without your music WAY longer than you can live without my money.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Well, if there were any credibility of these companies in reporting that they are taking losses, they would report what their projections were for the previous two, three, or four years (prior to the year in question). Next, adjust the year in question's projected sales by how historically close (above or below) they've been and see where the numbers fall out. Since no one has actually done this type of thing which is very easy to do, I suspect that there is merit to the claims that sales have actually been improved, or worse case, there has been no actual losses.
If you think about it, they have only biased reasons to lie about these types of things and not a single reason to say anything counter to their position. Thusly, anyone that's breathing should take EVERYTHING they say with a very large grain of salt.
Remember back during the Cold War, when Soviet Russia was the Great Enemy of Democracy and Freedom? Its government closely monitored all copying equipment, and you could go to prison (or worse) for owning an unlicensed photocopier - let alone actually using the thing.
I'm dumbfounded by the number of people posting to slashdot about how "they pirated/stole music so they should go to jai" - bloody hell, read the damn article, they're NOT being arrested for stealing books, they're being arrested for the equivalent of building a photocopier and letting anyone use it!
*That* is what you tell Joe American Sixpack. That the US government arrested a guy for making photocopier software, just like the Soviet Union used to do during the Cold War, because the corporations don't want anyone using anything without paying a corporation for the privilege.
(yeah, so not all corporations are like that - but the corporate profit mentality is one of the biggest field demonstrations of abuse-of-power::power that I've ever seen)
And now South Korea is following suit. Oh, and by the way - Happy Korean Liberation Day! *choke*
Ok this has to be a dam low blow from the corporate world. We got Dmitri Sklyarov in jail for basically giving a presentation. Napster basically shut down from RIAA who believe that napster is lowering sails when all I can see is napster increasing sales. I bought more cd's when I was on napster then ever before. So this all goes to show that the corporate world will go as low as they need to go to make 10$.
My 2 cents plus 2 more
In my experience the downloading of MP3's have served to promote artists, not to deprive them. This can also hold true when it comes to software. I am a professional designer who uses photoshop and the like at work, yet as a student I used warez versions simply because I could not afford the price of the software. Later, I land myself a job and ask the boss to buy those same packages for me to use professionally. Theft or promotion? If it wasn't for warez not a single designer would have enough experience to land their first job!
Do they actuually report this kind of loss on their finincial statements? I'm not sure what it's like in Korea, but I remember being really pissed off here (the US) when companies were claiming losses in the hundereds of millions over what Kevin Mitnick did, and then turning around and telling their shareholders that things were never better.
Does anyone know the laws behind this kind of thing? (either US or Korea)
Slashdot, the best source of legal information on the net!
..Although one might argue that a law that cannot be enforced consistantly (i.e, you're only punished if you somehow "stand out" from all the other violators) needs to be refined or clarified somewhat.
What I really don't understand about all this is that the persons arrested were running a peer-to-peer filesharing service. Now, the peer-to-peer paradigm of filesharing really shouldn't be considered intrinsically illegal (the sorry case of napster comes to mind, but then so does that of gnutella). Should the maintainer of the service be punished, or the individuals using the service for illegal activity?
If someone runs someone down in a car, do we sue the person who built the road in the first place?
Who would be left to build new roads? Who would be foolish enough to build one? More importantly, who would walk down the street at all, knowing that there are no repercussions for vehicular manslaughter?
Peer to peer filesharing -can- be legal and -can- coincide with fair use provisions. When it dosent, the lazy governments just attack the target that's easiest to find, even if it's the -wrong one-, just so the recording industry can feel like all their bribe money is being put to good use.
What's next? Is someone going to be monitoring my AIM file transfers to make sure i'm not sending copyrighted material to my friends? After all, to be consistant, you would have to sue AOL for making such copyright infringement possible, right? Of course, not all companies (napster) have enough money to alter legal reality (AOL/TW)
2. Placing music on media that cannot played (like on a CD-ROM drive) without warning the purchasers is bad.
3. Point-to-point transfer of commercial music to combat otherwise inability to play above media currently owned is good and well within the moral rights of the f**ked consumer (even better in lossless format).
4. Regardless of imaginary losses to piracy (not necessarily to real ones, which are not always avoidable), the ability to sample music in lossy formats to enable the consumer to effectively direct their dollars towards satisfactory music is good, often even to the evil beings trying to destroy the sharing networks.
5. The warped notion that purchasers should be forced to pay full price for polluted (watermarked) audio is bad.
6. The next time I see (insert overexposed crap-'musician'), I want to see (said musician) on one of those flaming crosses in the background of a Madonna video.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
OK, so let me get this straight, total sales are 31 million. But they are claiming that they lost 150 million in sales due to this program? I've got to be missing something...
While being tossed in jail is a little excessive for this kind of crime, should it surprise anyone that law breakers are liable to be punished?
Even Gandhi accepted being thrown into jail for his crimes.
"Soribada is probably affecting our business, but there is no concrete evidence," said Cho Jin-bae, who handles online marketing at the Seoul office of the EMI record label. How well does this hold up in court? They're "probably" affecting our business???
paul
War? Is that what capitalists that behave this way want? I mean, goddamnit. I'm a pacifist, but I'm also a realist. How many people can you harrass, deceive, and imprison before someone blows their fucking lid and torches a corporate office? In some countries, there are already riots inspired by this sort of abuse. I remember reading about a McDonald's being vandalized, and the golden arches becoming a hood ornament on someone's car. THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR WAS STARTED OVER LESS. Jesus Christ. This bulllshit is never going to end. The only solution is to make money obsolete.
I fail to understand what is it that they are guilty of. They just wrote and hosted a file sharing service. Like, you know, millions of FTP sites out there, and newsgroups and whatnot. How are they guilty if people using their service decide to use it for some illegal purpose? Is Smith & Wesson guilty because I decided to kill someone using a weapon manufactured by them?
There is another way to change the law: Mass Disobedience. Gandhi led India to freedom from British rule using this tactic. Marijuana use was decriminalized in many states in the 1970s because of mass disobedience to the laws. When the legal system is corrupt, using legal means to change the system may not be sufficient. We need to call on all of our resources, the whole repertoire from lobbying to political organizing to protesting to encouraging mass disobedience. Any other response is self-crippling.