Aussies Face Jail Over MP3s

An anonymous reader writes "Two Australian students have been charged over music piracy offences, according to this story on Australian IT. It's short on details, but presumably they weren't running a P2P network. The maximum penalties for breaching copyright under Australian law is 5 years jail."

Comments

Now I know this is hard to hear

[NicotineAtNight]

But people have to produce the songs that you're listening to for free.

Now I know that you might think that the companies involved are scummy or evil, but remember - if we didn't have the legal frameworks in place that we do, then the evil companies would do a lot more than overcharge you.

You'd be their slaves.

Re:Now I know this is hard to hear

[phrogeeb]

But people have to produce the songs that you're listening to for free.

I find it amusing that people assume that there would be no more new music if people weren't getting millions of dollars for making it. I'm not sure if this is what you're assuming, but I'll use this time to rant anyways.

Music was around a long time before record labels. Moreover, when music is driven by the dollars that it brings in, it tends to suck. I would have absolutely no problem with the record industry coming crashing to earth and half of the crappy musicians in the industry having to get real jobs because they can no longer live off the royalties.

Music, without the record industry, would be incredible. It would be written by people who actually have some interest invested in making music.

Down with the RIAA! Stop buying CDs, pirate it off the 'net!

Where's the news value in this?

[NewtonsLaw]

Perhaps I'm missing something here but how does this differ from a story with the headline:

Liquor Store Robbers Face Possible Jail Term

If these guys did actually break the law, and if the maximum penalty is jail, then this is no different to thousands of other cases before the courts -- except perhaps that the law involves the protection of intellectual property.

Move along people, there's nothing to see here.

Re:Where's the news value in this?

[pantropik]

I guess I'll play devil's advocate ...

Consider the following two items:

1) I am not a customer of the music industry. Even if I'd never heard of an mp3 I would not buy music. Period.

2) Stealing, by definition, means taking something from another without permission. The core idea is that by taking this item, you deprive the rightful owner of the item of its use and value.

Now, assuming point one is true -- that I'd never buy music -- then my downloading mp3s is taking nothing from anyone. In that case I'm not downloading music INSTEAD of buying it, I'm downloading it just because it's there. If it wasn't there and "free" I'd just do without.

So we get to point two. Let's say I come to your house and you have your dead mother's Harvard degree hanging on the wall. I take it. You'd be justifiably angry. But what if I just took a picture of it? Then we both have a copy. What if I stole your car? That'd suck. What if I somehow duplicated it without inconveniencing you in any way? I doubt you'd care unless you're just a big meanie.

It's not as if I download an mp3 and it's MINE MINE MINE and only mine ... no one has been deprived of anything if I never intended to buy the CD anyway.

My roommate downloads songs all the time. Then he buys the CD if he likes the music and there's not too much crappy filler material ... who wants to pay $17 for 3 good songs and an hour of crap you'll never listen to? Not every good song becomes a single, after all. Maybe the industry should look into letting people download legal tracks and make their own CDs without filler crap that they'll never listen to and don't want to pay for ... and make the price reasonable. Sounded good up until that last part, huh?

And what if he buys a CD and HATES it? Can't take it back after it's been opened, that's a no-no. So he downloads the stuff, listens, and decides based on that whether to get the CD (he was way over a hundred, compared to my zero -- I'm just not a music person).

I bet there are a lot more people like him (and like me) than there are people who "steal" just for the fun of it. The music industry MAKES money because he "steals" music. If the music industry would get with the times and stop waging war against its customers ... well, I doubt it would stop piracy, but it certainly couldn't hurt.

Re:Where's the news value in this?

[RajivSLK]

Perhaps I'm missing something here but how does this differ from a story with the headline:

Liquor Store Robbers Face Possible Jail Term

Yes you are missing something.

It is common place for robbers to be sent to jail. However, this is new. Australian teens facing jail for mp3s related crimes is ground breaking.

Your missing something else. You fail to take into account the spirit of the law. In most countries, when a law is applied, not only is the letter of the law considered but the spirit as well. Was it this law's intention to target and prosecute small infractions (such as teens trading mp3s or people recording radio shows and sharing them with friends)?

Additionally, there is the matter of public policy. In many cases public policy out weighs the techinical implications of the law. Generally it is against public policy to enforce a law that would deem a large percentage of the population criminals.

You must realise that the law is not a set of rules that can be executed like a computer program. The law is open to interpertation by reasonable minds. Simply applied to the letter, the law (in any country), would land most of us in jail.

Re:Where's the news value in this?

[richieb]

While you're correct, the act of listening to mp3's doesn't steal from anyone? Distributing those mp3's, however, does break US copyright law. If one copy of the song was purchased and 10 copies have been distributed, isn't that 10 copies that may have been sold?

Maybe yes, maybe no. If ten people listen to the song on the radio and don't buy the CD is that theft too?

If I drive a small car, instead of an SUV, am I stealing from the oil companies? After all I only buy 10 gallons of gas, instead of 30?

Re:Where's the news value in this?

[Sunnan]

By listening to these records, no matter how you obtain them, you are a customer of the record industry.

That would be a very scary world. I walk into a café and they have the latest pop song on - I'm all of a sudden a "customer" of the record industry, owing them something. When I read that taxi drivers in Finland need to pay royalties for the music their clients hear in the car, it scares me.

How long do the tentacles of ownership stretch?

The very principle of intellectual property is insidious in and of itself, since it's dealing with a lot more abstract concepts. We don't generally allow people to claim ownership of air, right? And the air isn't even copyable.

Information and knowledge, especially in digital form, can be copied at next to no cost. Having an economic system that negates, practically forbids, that very real advantage should be looked upon with great caution.

It's odd that people don't find these discussions more tiring. Every time a news story like this is posted, we don't get reactions to the story itself, rather people (of both positions in the question) start to discuss the validity of, or necessity for, a strong concept of intellectual property.

I think it's pretty scary that mere samizdat is yet again punished by deprivation of physical freedom - this time in a so-called "free country". The information - in this case music - does not appear to be something that's destructive or harmful, and reproduction of it has plenty of positive effects for most people, the only exception possibly being the record industry itself.

Hmm, looks like it's 5 years total

[joeflies]

After a quick browse of that article, it looks like the penalty is a fixed number instead of charging per incident. In which case, wouldn't it be overprosecuting small time users with a liberal sense of copyright law, and underprosecuting the real pirates (i.e. manufacturing and distributing copyrighted material)?

Of course, it's not clear what side of the fence the accused stand on.

Re:Hmm, looks like it's 5 years total

[TheMidget]

In which case, wouldn't it be overprosecuting small time users with a liberal sense of copyright law, and underprosecuting the real pirates (i.e. manufacturing and distributing copyrighted material)?

... and it would also encourage users to continue, even after caught. Indeed, continuing will not make the penalty any worse, as number of incidents does not come into play.

Re:Hmm, looks like it's 5 years total

[spasm]

*Maximum* 5 years. Australian law only describes maximums; judges are free to interpret circumstances and context and assign penalties *within* a range 0-maximum.

Those readers from countries other than the US (or other third world dictatorships) may be familiar with the concept.

Re:no fun

[smclean]

It's funny how officials think they should give a few people the maximum sentence to 'act as a deterrent'. That's like saying we should kill 10 jaywalkers a year randomly, and when we do we'll paste their pictures all over the TV, with remorseful family shots, etc. Jaywalking? This is what it gets you!

Don't do the crime

[Dot.Com.CEO]

if you can't do the time.

By downloading music you don't own you break the law. Just because people think they have the right to listen to music for free it doesn't mean it has to be that way. I don't understand what the fuck this has to do with "your rights online". Privacy, I understand. Spam, I understand. Spyware, I understand. But what right are we talking about? Kazaa leeching? Give me a fucking break.

Go on, mod me a troll. I don't give a shit, I've had it with listening to the constant whining of a handfull of people who cannot understand the basics of "stealing music".

Re:Don't do the crime

[ninthwave]

I agree with everything you said except for one point. I miss having radio stations that played a variety of music. It is hard to find new songs I download listen and buy if I like. I use it like the radio. I don't see that action as criminal because I am an active cd buyer. Though the way the law is written it is. I think my problem with the attack on mp3s is the control on the release of music by the record industries has become so strong that the variety of music is suffering on the airwaves, so to hear new things out of the pop mainstream you have to search a bit. Internet radio is great, followed by net downloading to find the version of the song you are looking for which is then followed by a hunt for the cd or a delete this rubbish option for me. I just can't see what is wrong with my use of it like that. Granted what is stated here is stealing but again the law is so rigid I am stealing under it. And I can not accept that not because I want free music but because I want the promise of captialism to offer consumers more choice to actually do that and offer me more choice while in the record industry it seems to be doing the opposite and offering my less.

more detailed articles

[flokemon]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/24/10507773 42470.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1027-998132.html

Copyright is a NECESSITY

[Michael's a Jerk!]

All the slashbots constantly whinge about how copywrite is wrong, patents are obsolete. Let's imagine a world where there is *no* IP. Making a living as a programmer is no longer viable. The whole field of software development will grind to a standstill. Do you think patents stiffile inovation? Imagine a world where if you invent something really cool, all the major hardware companies will mass-produce cheap knockoffs within weeks. You have no incentive to design at all. Companies will grow ever larger. IP might be a bad thing, but it's the lesser of 2 evils.

Re:better start deleting..

[Negatyfus]

Congratulations on the most obvious troll for the day!

I agree to some extent that it's not very ethical to be sharing mp3's on your fave p2p network. I'm the last one to scream "but it can be used for good, too!" We all know what the primary purpose is. Fact remains, times are changing.

P2p file sharing isn't going away. And I perceive that as a good thing.

Information availability has been upped a few notches and now I can quickly access music and movies that before I could only dream of. I'm talking non-commercially available stuff. Will I have to wait before someone decides to release a DVD box set (that is very much over-priced)? No, but will I buy it if I deem it a valuable addition to my collection? Yes! No one ever bought a movie to watch it once and let it collect dust afterwards.

This whole situation is called evolution. It happens and no one can do anything about it, no matter how hard they try. Some victims will fall, but in the end, the majority will benefit the most. No, I don't see mp3 file sharing as a severe crime punishable by jail time. That's just a shock-and-awe tactic that will get the music industry nowhere. They think "set an example!" and don't think in terms of human beings. What do they care? As long as they get out the message that they want. A person's life does not matter, nor does it matter that possibly this offender will fall victim to more severe crimes because of his social decline. If anything is criminal, this is it.

The people will continue buying. Maybe a little less than before, but that may be for the better. Too much of anything is simply too much. Step off your high horse and see things in perspective. This is just an over-reaction and it's painfully obvious.

Re:Make up your minds!!

[Strepsil]

Perfectly understandable if you assume the Australian newspaper is reporting the figure in Australian dollars, and news.com.com.net.com.org.com is reporting in US dollars.

The significance of this is...

[CaptainPotato]

...that several Australian universities have cooperated in handing over the details of students without having to so do. Given that ISPs fight tool and nail to avoid having to so do, they did this without being forced to. As somebody who works at an Australian university (but not one of the ones targetted by the music industry), this is concerning (and, no, not because I pirate music - I don't), especially under the new privacy laws in this country. The privacy of the arrested students - regardless of whether they broke the law - was breached in the first instance by the universities handing over their details without being legally made to so do.

BTW - another article about this can be found here.

Damages

[DreamingReal]

The industry estimates the value of albums downloaded by Web surfers worldwide was between $37 million and $44 million.

The piece of information I want the most at this point is the source of these numbers. Everytime I read these articles and come across figures such as these, I smell bullshit. Are they pulling these numbers out of their arses? Is it fuzzy math? (i.e. one download equals one lost album sale) If it's the latter, I say they need to start producing *real* numbers, and not these mystical figures. IMO, claiming one lost album sale for every download is like charging a retail burglar for the MSRP value of every single item in the store, regardless of whether or not it was actually stolen.

Re:no fun

[Organic_Info]

"If you knew that there was a small chance that the police would kill you for it, would you stop doing it?"

Not really, how many people belive it will not happen to them? Look at smoking, the packects say on them "these things will kill you and give you cancer" but people still keep on doing it.

Up the percentage killed and over a (shorter) period of time people that are inclined to jaywalk will be removed from the gene pool thus a form of darwinian(sp?) natural selection will prevail reducing the number of jaywalker/stupin people.

This would scale well to other situations...

Re:Don't do the crime - price fix monopoly abuse

[joelparker]

I don't understand what the fuck this has to do with "your rights online"

I'll sketch a quick picture for you:

1. Massive global corporations refuse
repeated requests by their own customers
for convenient ways to download and pay.

2. Instead, these corps collude to fix prices,
impede unsigned artists from radio airplay,
bury studies showing that MP3 helps artists,
and sue alternative distributors into oblivion.

3. These corps lobby for draconian DMCA laws,
push for spyware and denial-of-service attacks,
force police and DAs to criminalize MP3 trades,
use subpoenas and search warrant techniques,
and seek terrible shock-and-awe punishments.

4. Many governments call this monopoly abuse,
for a wide range of probable legal reasons.

5. P2P overcomes this monopoly abuse,
even as it enables copyright violations.

So I think the answers are less obvious
than "don't do the crime" like you said.
There are legal twists and turns to this.
Cheers, Joel

Re:better start deleting..

[fruey]

Yes! No one ever bought a movie to watch it once and let it collect dust afterwards.

This is a misnomer. The DVD medium lends itself to kneejerk buying : it's a movie your friends may have raved about, it has special features. You buy it because it's about 10-15 bucks, and then you watch it once, don't enjoy it, and indeed it does gather dust. Or, you're a business traveller and you want something to watch on the plane, you impulse buy a DVD that looks OK at the airport in 5 minutes as you rush to get to the gate, to watch on your laptop. You never watch it again.

I have done all of this. Half my DVD collection is unlikely to be watched again. Indeed, I would never have bought VHS tapes the same way, because I never had a portable VCR... but I have a laptop with DVD, a PC with DVD, and a home DVD player. Add to that quality, nicer form factor, special features that may make the DVD as a whole more valuable than just as a movie. And of course let us not forget that we can watch a particular scene and freeze it really well, just to see if there was indeed a hint of beaver in that sex scene ;-)

Add in special features and extra content, and you have DVDs that you might buy (especially if you have a reasonable income) on a whim.

Now, the scary thing with mp3 / DivX (why have I seen no articles about DivX and mpeg traders?) is that there are students being taken to court, fined and jailed. Students don't have much of a disposable income, and are bound to be ahead on the technology curve. I don't understand why they're being persecuted, because they are the ULTIMATE consumers of the future. Sure, I've downloaded the odd movie, but I'm in an income bracket now where a couple of DVDs per month is going to be par for the course for a long time. A lot of my friends, graduated say over 5 years ago, also have big DVD collections.

Banks, restaurants, brandnames for clothes, dead tree publishers... these have all been known to give students breaks in order to keep them when their income starts coming in. This is the mistake the record industry is making, because they are missing the whole point. Students have always bootlegged, borrowed and stolen music. I can't quite understand it. The regular consumers are NOT doing this. It really screws with my mind to see this kind of intellectual property fascism. Consumerism is not the be all and end all of the whole world economy, let's hope that sooner or later a bit of clemency starts to happen especially, I have to say, in the US (by virtue of its being the biggest, most hardcore consumer economy in the whole world).

sent to jail instead of being sued

[QuantumG]

Imagine if the headline read "Aussies Face Jail Over Slander". It really is a scary prospect! Slander is a civil matter and cannot result in criminal action being taken against the defendant. Copyright infringement is also a civil matter, but recent changes in law have criminalised certain acts which facilitate copyright infringement (such as the creation of circumvention devices) and it is probably this that the three in question have been charged with. This is "news" in that it is unprecidented for someone to face jail time for simple copyright infringement in Australia, but its probably just bad reporting.

What next?

[jthorpe]

Living in Australia, I wonder how long it will be before the partially Government owned Telstra discovers that I've been downloading DeCSS (for playing DVDs I actually owned) and send police to lock me up in jail for 5 years.

Makes me sick when there are people who are actually comitting crimes that harm people and society aren't even getting jail terms.

Re:no fun

[DZign]

If you knew that there was a small chance that the police would kill you for it, would you stop doing it?


This thinking is wrong.. yes if there is only a small chance then people would still do it,
thinking it'd be someone else who'll get caught.

What you get when you put too harsh punishments is that people who break the law, will act more violent and try not to get caught. If the punishment for something feels too high compared to more severe act for which you get punished less, people may commit the other crimes too.

I.e. if a burgler gets caught and he knows he'll get life imprisonment for this, he will do everything to escape, including killing who's trying to bust him. If he gets away by killing someone, good for him (and bad for our society as we now created a murderer), if he kills but gets caught, he still gets life imprisonment, so he didn't loose anything by killing someone..

5 years for some mp3's ? You might as well defend your pc with your shotgun and make sure no
police gets near it.. or better, be a drunk driver and run over the kids of those who voted this law, and you probably get less than 5 years..

I agree with financial punishments - you stole the mp3s, now you pay (double, triple, ..) for all of them. But putting people in prison for years is imo wrong, certainly compared to the severe things one could do and be punished less.

I thought the times that people were put to jail for stealing bread were over..

Re:no fun. Germans

[panurge]

In Germany, people never used to jaywalk. They waited religiously for the Grüne Mann. Then one day in Munich I was crossing the road with a guy who had recently left East Germany, literally the day the Wall came down. He marched out into the traffic. People blew horns. I shouted at him to come back. He replied "Hitler and Stalin were possible because people behaved like sheep. Germans must learn not to be sheep!"

And that's the answer to the likes of the RIAA. Laws are supposed to reflect the beliefs of society in general, not special interest groups. If society believes that the present copyright laws are a mistake, people must not behave like sheep.