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Jail Time for Movie Swappers
ArmenTanzarian writes "The MPAA is at it again, reports CNET in a story from yesterday. Apparently, suing the pants off of teenagers RIAA-style isn't good enough, they want to go ahead and throw you in jail. To that end, their senators will introduce the Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act today; which carries with it a maximum sentence of 3 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Here's the best part: you don't have to infringe on copyright to be found guilty!"
It'll be a juvenile detention center for those under 18.
This is only for movies that haven't yet been released. Your copy of Matrix won't land in the slammer, but your prerelease screener for RotK will.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
The fact that you put the words "Stealing" and "Copyrighted" in the same sentence demonstrates you have no idea what you are talking about.
Have you actually taken a moment to read the copyright laws? Or did you ask for someone to explain it to you?
Stealing or theft of property is an actual removal of property that doesn't belong to you (yes.. I simplified it for him). Copyright infringement is the distribution of material you have no legal right to distribute. And in most cases carries a heavier penalty than theft.
Did I get it right?
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Having a copy of a movie in a shared folder is not copying it, it's indicating a willingness to copy it.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
"actress" Bo Derek.
Actually it's both. There are limits that must be met before criminal prosecution can set in but you can be fined and/or imprisoned for infringing copyrights, typically through distribution for financial gain.
Copyright law usually has specific situations under which actions become illegal. For example, showing a movie at home to your friends: legal. Same situation but charge each friend $1: illegal.
Being in possession of a pre-release movie: legal. Distributing a movie without consent of copyright holder: illegal.
Having a movie on your hard-drive, even shared, can be legal, falling under some fair use provision. Under certain circumstances, it is the copying that is illegal.
This has been, at times, a point of contention with file-sharing and Intellectual Property. If someone has a file shared, and another logs on and downloads it, then who's computer is actually doing the copying? Which individual is actually doing the distributing? Legal issues can hinge on the answers to such questions.
That's part of the reason why they tend to want to go after people who are both downloading and sharing copyrighted material. It removes the possibility of such arguments as "I just ripped it to my hard drive. Someone else *copied* it!"
After all, in a Windows environment, it isn't uncommon for people to leave the C$ share open. Therefore, you may be sharing *everything* on your computer and not know it.
Having a copy of a video on your hard drive is (arguably) fair use. If your next door neighbor makes a copy of it, then that was and will still be copyright infringement. Under the new law, however, merely having the file up on an open FTP server or Samba share will count as copyright infringement EVEN IF IT CANNOT BE PROVED THAT YOUR NEIGHBOR MADE A COPY-- or for that matter, even if he DIDN'T make a copy. Because it's possible, you're guilty of copyright infringement
Huzzah for the senator from the MPAA....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
U.S. Constitution: Bill of Rights, 8th Amendment-
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
how's that for legal?
Supreme Court decision
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Agreed. Actually this ART Prevention act is very much like farm subsidies and steel tarrifs, and will prove to be very bad for the economy. Unfortunately, most people will only realize this in hindsight, after the bill is passed and nearly impossible to repeal.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Holy crap, another completely useless term created for no good reason.
You deprive someone of something without paying for it. You're stealing the money you owe them.
No. You have deprived them of nothing, they still have it. You have infringed copyright, and it is arguable that you owe them money, but you certainly did not steal money from them. The law is very clear, why can't YOU understand it? If copyright infringement was the same as stealing, there would be no reason to have the term "copyright infringement" and an entire section of laws pertaining to it.
This is so insanely simple. Not that it matters. I don't know why Slashbots feel the need to point out that it's not "theft" constantly. It doesn't make it any less illegal or immoral.
You are right, it is simple, but you don't get it. You are also right that it doesn't make it less illegal. (no reason to talk about morals here, they are subjective) It makes it a different *KIND* of illegal. That is a huge difference. Civil vs Criminal illegal, to be exact. By calling it theft, you are changing it from a civil offense to a criminal offense. There *IS* a difference between them. The law makes a distinction between them, why can't you?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Slightly incorrect. Orrin Hatch's son, Brent Orrin Hatch, is a lawyer retained by the SCO. Funny that Senator Orrin Hatch is trying to pass laws to make his son rich.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
"That is a huge difference. Civil vs Criminal illegal, to be exact. By calling it theft, you are changing it from a civil offense to a criminal offense. There *IS* a difference between them. The law makes a distinction between them, why can't you?"
It's an extremely common perception among /. readers that copyright infringement is exclusively a civil offense. Nonetheless, in US law, there is such a thing as criminal copyright infringement. Here are the details.
It can also be an eye-opener to Google on "criminal copyright infringement." You'll be rewarded with plenty of links to cases in the USA where parties were found guilty of criminal copyright infringement and have been sentenced to jail time.
At any rate, maybe I can explain the original poster's point better. If I create something (a book, or some software, or a song) for which there is a total market of X people, and if this gets out on the P2P networks which facilitates X - N (where 0
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Unfortunately, you apparently have not read the article. There are two new classes of felony defined by the proposed legislation. The first felony kicks in if you make a digital copy of a movie (that isn't commercially available yet) available in digital form on a computer network. That carries a maximum 3 year prison sentence. In order for the law to apply, you must (a) share the file on any computer network, and (b) the movie in question can't already be available on DVD or VHS for purchase. Once a movie becomes available for purchase in stores, the law appears to no longer apply, and the article seems to confirm this supposition. Furthermore, mere possession of a file isn't sufficient; the file has to be shared, so that you're actively contributing to infringement. However, the law doesn't specify that you have to actually be infringing the movie studio's copyright, nor does it specify that anyone had to actually download the file from you.
Of course, bills can and do get changed before they are passed into law. So this loophole might be closed up soon.
The other class of felony, which nobody seems to be talking about, carries up to a 5 year prison term, and comes into play if you bring a camcorder (or other "audiovisual recording device") into a movie theater. So if a theater owner or usher catches you with a camcorder in a movie theater, and you're recording the movie you're watching, you would be in violation of this law. This is a form of piracy that has been around for a long time, but with the advent of digital camcorders and software that makes it easy to make DVDs or DiVX files out of digital video, it's a lot easier to distribute movies pirated this way.
I have mixed feelings about this second provision. First, a 5 year prison sentence seems a bit harsh for someone who's taping a movie. In fact, it seems very excessive. Not everyone who tapes a movie intends to distribute the copy widely (or at all). On the other hand, making video copies of movies before they're available for purchase or rental, indeed while they're still in the theater, robs the studios and the makers of the film of potential revenues. Of course, there's no loss of real money, so it's hard to call it theft in the strict sense, but someone who might be inclined to go see a movie several times on the big screen might instead see it once on the big screen (or not at all), and then watch a bootleg thereafter.
(By way of contrast, it's highly unlikely that someone who pirates a song or an album would actually pay for that song or that album if the illegal copy weren't an option. Music is much more commoditized, and social attitudes toward pirating music are much more permissive than toward pirating movies. Besides which, most people seem to agree that music is overpriced. Therefore, it's much easier to dismiss RIAA claims of "lost revenue" because the reality is that you can't lose what you never had to begin with. At least with movies, there are still plenty of ordinarily honest people who would be tempted to watch a bootleg movie instead of pay for a ticket to the theater. And the bootleg is almost always inferior to the big screen experience.)
Sounds to me that you are a bit confused between Civil and Criminal as well.
1) Anything that results in jail time IS criminal -- by definition. There is no "maybe" about it.
2) If anyone has to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal proceeding, it is the government, NOT the MPAA. MPAA representatives can be witnesses, but they are NOT a party to the case.
3) There is no requirement to actually cause damages to be guilty of a crime. Committing the criminal act is enough.
The
This ought place him square on your enemies' list. He's also been in support of the SCO as his son whores, excuse me, works for them.
He also has been in support of the RIAA, the MPAA, and pretty much everyone else we'd call evil around here.
Orrin Hatch (R UTAH) is a very bad man. Plus, he's a jackass.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.