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Aussie Students Face Jail Over Music Sharing Site
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."
Nevermind that said movements survive on the concept of copyright and respecting the creator's wishes. Standard copyright doesn't even do that anymore, considering most creators of original content hand it over as a work-for-hire and aren't even able to assert moral rights (most copyrighted work being produced in the U.S. or for U.S. companies). So it's possible the prosecutor is attempting to trace the connection between open source and piracy that simply doesn't exist.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
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."
While the article was poorly phrased, I seriously doubt that it was an attack against the Open Source community. The author was implying that Ng was somewhat about copyright law, and that he probablly knew well that the site was illegal. It was trying to make his infraction seem more blatent, because he allegedly knew he was doing something wrong and still did it. Although, I would see little connection between software licensing and music copyright law, I guess it helps paint him as a bad guy. Bad journalism, definitely; but an attack on the Open Source community, highly unlikely.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
I don't think it was meant as anything negative about OSS licensing. But, to write a paper on OSS licensing, they would need to know about copyright and licensing, and thus cannot claim that they didn't know that what they did was illegal.
I.e, he was well aware that he was acting illegally.
On a final note, I don't think anything really needs to be said about how his paper on "open source software licensing" is somehow evidence of culpability. A hefty roll of the eyes goes out to the genius who thought that up.
I disagree. I'm not saying it's *correct* or anything, but the ideas behind free software are incomprehensible to non-programmers, and are therefore easily lumped together with piracy.
Remember, if you can't understand it, it's bad, or otherwise wrong, somehow. And the idea that you should have rights to software for *free* sounds an awful lot like piracy to many average Joes.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
We have a free will.
This means nobody is making you buy things at gunpoint.
This also means, that if you stop buying music, stop "consuming" music and overall just don't touch anything provided by these *AA people, two things will happen:
1. You will always be safe from litigation
2. They will be hurt due to lost sales
And there is not a goddamn thing they can do if you choose to take this strategy!
Read a book instead. Or listen to the existing records you might have. Or get an instrument like guitar and learn to play.
I disagree. I'm not saying it's *correct* or anything, but the ideas behind free software are incomprehensible to non-programmers, and are therefore easily lumped together with piracy.
Remember, if you can't understand it, it's bad, or otherwise wrong, somehow. And the idea that you should have rights to software for *free* sounds an awful lot like piracy to many average Joes.
You're missing the point. That quote wasn't about open source software, it was about the student's knowledge of copyright. This person was a student in an "information technology law course" and wrote a paper on "open source software licensing". A person like this claiming to know nothing about the fact that posting copyrighted works on the internet is illegal is like an accounting student claiming that he didn't know he had to file his taxes every year. If someone knows the advanced portions of copyright law, then they obviously know the basics, as well. That was what the counsel meant.
The point about the open-source software licensing is that he knows the terms of licenses and the legal consequences of violating them. It could have been any liscensing topic and the same comment could have been made.
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. -Henry David Thoreau
What the lawyer did not say:
The lawyer was making an insidious attempt to vilify Free Software with his questionably legal attack on information sharing. That would be an added benefit for an industry that wishes to eliminate OSs that have the ability to disable DRM.
The record industry is steady on course to destroy all freedom on the Net for a few quarters of profit. This is the essence of greed.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
... but the ideas behind free software are incomprehensible to non-programmers ...
How wrong can one be. What makes you think so? In my profession (medicine), knowledge is completely unlicensed. If you are interested in a particular piece of knowledge, like how to operate a hernia - I am happy to share this with you. No royalties, no licensing fees. You may have to pay for my time if you need me to teach you, buts that's all. After that, you can do whatever you like with your knowledge - share it, multiply it, APPLY it!
It is even tradition in my profession to provide services for free to those who can't afford them - in most countries legislation even compells us to do so (in most civilized countries, a doctor cannot walk away unpunished from a patient in danger of life or limb regardless whether the patient is able to pay anything for the services rendered).
"IP" however is an artefact created by people who either see their purpose in life in amassing as much money as possible regardless of the damage they do to society or by people who would not have any purpose at all if they wouldn't create such artefacts.
Doctors all over the world are fighting drug patents and similar "IP" that actually kill more people every single day than the whole gulf war did.
We certainly have no sympathy for putting people into jail for replicating an indefinite ressource. How can you steal what can be replicated indefinitely?
Actually, the legal definition of a 'thief' and 'stealing' requires 'the taking of property with intention to permenantly deprive its owner of the its use', not 'keeping it.' You are still a thief if you steal something and sell it (i.e. not keeping it). You are NOT a thief if you COPY something as you have not deprived the owner of the use of it by taking it.
Read Pynchon.
*snip*
We certainly have no sympathy for putting people into jail for replicating an indefinite ressource. How can you steal what can be replicated indefinitely?
I think you may be stretching the analogy a bit. As a physician, you're welcome to tell all your friends how to operate on a hernia. However, it would not be appropriate for you to photocopy all of your med school textbooks and give those copies away, would it?
This is not to say that textbook publishers are not, as a species, utterly reprehensible in their practices--new editions annually, ugly markups, etc. However, If I were a textbook author, I still would legitimately feel I had been ripped off if someone were to copy my work.
Your point that concepts in intellectual property--open source, closed source, public domain--can (and should!) be explained to the layperson is well taken, but your comment is equally instructive on the dangers of analogies in law.
~Idarubicin
Don't let the Aussies get all of the credit!
Title 18, Section 2319 of the US Code:
"Any person who commits an offense under section 506(a)(1) of title 17 -
(1) shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $2,500;"
You can search the US code here.
The same language is going into The FTAA Treaty, meaning all of North and South America would face prison for the same crime:
"[4.1. Each Party shall provide criminal procedures and penalties to be
applied at least in cases of willful trademark counterfeiting or infringement
of copyrights or neighboring rights on a commercial scale. Each Party shall
provide that significant willful infringements of copyrights or neighboring
rights that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain shall be
considered willful infringement on a commercial scale.
In criminal procedures, remedies available shall include imprisonment and/or
monetary fines sufficiently high to deter future acts of infringement and
with a policy to remove the monetary incentive to the infringer. Each Party
shall further ensure that such fines are imposed by judicial authorities at
levels that actually deter future infringements.]"