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Aussie Students Face Jail Over Music Sharing Site

Posted by timothy on from the that's-reasonable-right dept.

An anonymous reader writes "SMH this morning is reporting that three uni students may be jailed for their creation of a music sharing web site. Ok, piracy is not a good thing, but jail is just a tad extreme, don't you think? I hope ARIA (Australian version of RIAA) are pleased with themselves. What burns me about this article is the quote: 'Counsel for the Commonwealth, Paul Roberts, SC, said Ng was well aware he was acting illegally. Not only was the site camouflaged - the web space had been let to him by a teenage boy in Perth - but Ng had co-written an essay for his information technology law course on "open source software licensing."' Not entirely sure what OS licensing has to do with music piracy."

2 of 448 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good by harriet+nyborg · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Ng ran the Napster-style website from his bedroom at his family's home in Blacktown, and while none of the students made any money out of the site, the music industry alleges the pirated music cost it at least $60 million.

    Counsel for the Commonwealth, Paul Roberts, SC, said Ng was well aware he was acting illegally. Not only was the site camouflaged - the web space had been let to him by a teenage boy in Perth - but Ng had co-written an essay for his information technology law course on "open source software licensing".

    sort of speaks for itself.

    a consideration in sentencing is the deterrent factor on others. jail doesn't seem unreasonable for a profligate offender who wontonly disregards the law.

    the part about open source is entirely irrelevant - and it throw's dirt on lawful members of the community. give him an extra 6 mo. for that.

  2. Jail is too good for them by kentrel · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    They deliberately break the law and steal and distribute thousands of dollars (at least) of other people's property. If some guy on the street was doing this with physical CD's he'd get plenty of jail time, so why are these students any different? I know many fools on this site likes to support thieves like this. And they all kid themselves that the RIAA (or it's equivalent) are the bad guys and they're sticking up for rights, etc etc... but lets face it, they're thieves like anyone else who steals property that does not belong to them. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. I have several friends who are struggling to get a foothold into the music industry partly because of piracy. They feel even more strongly about it than I do.