Operation Fastlink Nets 1000s in Pirate Sting

womanfiend writes "The Iowa City (Iowa) Press Citizen has been reporting the last two days about "'Operation Fastlink,' a multi-national investigation launched in April." Apparently, the investigation has netted a local college student hosting 13,000 titles worth a bundle of money both in simple value and liability for as many times as logs show the titles were downloaded. According to the P-C: "...'Operation Fastlink,' which targeted the underground community's hierarchy with [FBI] agents conducting more than 120 searches within 24 hours in 27 states and 11 foreign countries. At the time, authorities identified nearly 100 people as leaders or high-ranking members of international piracy groups." Sounds like somebody's in deep doo doo."

Comments

Call me when the headline reads:

[Chatmag]

1000's of spammers caught in sting.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[Creepy Crawler]

Substitute "Counterfeiting" or "Treason" instead of spammers.

*thinks of what Constitution says about federal crimes...

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[b1t r0t]

Isn't that what 'piracy' is, counterfeiting?

Counterfeiting is when you try to pass something off as the real thing.

An MPEG2 file named "Gigli.mpg" is not a counterfeit.
A DVD-R with Gigli.mpg burned to it and "Gigli" written on it in Sharpie marker is not a counterfeit.
A DVD-R with a scan of the Gigli disc art printed on it with an inkjet printer, in a DVD snap case with a scan of the Gigli cover sheet is a poor counterfeit.
A DVD pressed in Hong Kong with the Gigli disc art silkscreened on it, and a 4-color printing of the Gigli cover sheet is a good counterfeit.

The same applies to money:

A piece of paper with "ONE DOLLER" written on it is not a counterfeit.
A piece of paper where someone has drawn something vaguely looking like US currency but with no attempt to copy the artwork or face is not a counterfeit.
A xerox of a $1 bill, trimmed to size, is counterfeit, especially if you attempt to pass it off as such, like by using it in a vending machine.
A $200 bill with the face of George W. Bush is not a counterfeit. Neither is a $3 bill with the face of Bill Clinton.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[TheGavster]

That's a sex dollar bill (not a typo ;)) with the face of Bill Clinton: http://www.books4you.addr.com/ClintonSexDollarBill .html

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[op00to]

NBAHAHAHAHA HOLY CRAP BILL CLINTON SEX HAHAHAHA

Did you make that one up yourself? Cause it's SOOO funny! I've never ever heard anyone make a reference like that before!

I'd reply to this

[atarione]

.... but I'm too busy formatting my HardDrives..Must destroy evidence.....mmmmm evidence

Re:I'd reply to this

[saintp]

Luckily, I know just the program.

Re:I'd reply to this

[jellomizer]

I am sure that was ment for sarcasm. But the extra time it usually takes to format a disk is just checking for bad secotors. and the /Q just skips the scandisk. * For fun dor a format c: and at 99% hit crtl-brake and check it out your data should still be there.

* I Would sugest that you try in on a system you are not afraid of formatting over in the case that.
A. You are not using Microsoft Format.
B. The speed of your computer from 99 to 100 is to fast for you to hit brake.
C. I am compleatly wrong which I dont think I am. But they may have changed this in a newer version.

Re:I'd reply to this

[dougmc]

Luckily, I know just the program.

Your link points to a company that sells magnets. A better word than `program' would probably be `product'.

But no matter. It takes very strong magnets to erase today's high density media. Yes, you can erase (or at least seriously distort the data) a floppy or cassette tape with your average magnet, but to erase a DLT tape requires something much more powerful. As for a hard drive, I'd expect the required strength to be similar to that of a DLT.

Why do I know this? Because we upgraded our DLT drive to a model that puts more data (20 gb native vs. 10 gb native) on the same tapes. But the tapes needed to be erased before it would use the higher density (and the drive couldn't do it itself.) A standard bulk tape eraser would NOT do it -- it didn't affect the tapes at all, no matter how much we tried. Neither would a monitor degauser. After some investigation, I found that this wasn't expected to work, and a company that could erase the tapes for us for about $1/each. Worked nicely ...

Re:I'd reply to this

[AviLazar]

Residual data is pretty real. My friend works for a company that used to do data recovery (they have evolved to selling wholesale lockboxes to financial industry). Everything from formatted hard drives, to hard drives that were in a fire. There are plenty of articles on the web that discuss the different methods of recovering data from a formatted disk. Google it and you should find plenty of articles:

Dawn of the Undead Data

yeah the American people

[Shakrai]

Sounds like somebody's in deep doo doo

Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World.

Well in fairness they are still going after them -- this just seems like wasted resources to me.

Re:yeah the American people

[dsanfte]

Terrorism -- the perfect invisible enemy for a nation consumed with fear. Do you enjoy being manipulated?

Re:yeah the American people

[conteXXt]

"Well in fairness they are still going after them ""

Are you sure of that? I thought that building prisons for non-violent drug offenders was the current priority.

Re:yeah the American people

[cavemanf16]

Well, you're crossing genre's of "crimes" there, but I think you're on the right track. Who the FBI, CIA, NSA, DoD, and the Pentagon ought to be going after is China, Korea, Thailand, and all the other Southeast Asian countries that are costing American companies millions, if not billions, in 'lost revenues' on computer software sales. Sadly, that would require an act of war, and since our government leaders know that this is not a viable solution for saving a select few American companies millions of dollars every year, they stand by and let the piss-ant agents go after all of the American citizens who aren't really making any money off of these thefts of computer programs to give the rest of the country's bumbling idiots a sense that all is well in our great nation.

It's pathetic, and sad, but such are the times we live in. If this were medieval times we'd probably just go try to kick some Southeast Asia ass, but then we'd also only live to be about 40 and could get burned at the stake for not kissing the royal scepter and worshipping the Pope.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

The wholesale looting of others intellectual property is a very destructive thing. Of those 13,000 titles you can very sure that among them were titles by the non-industry powerhouses.

I've worked as an employee and contractor to a number of small niche players who wrote popular useful software but were ultimately forced out of business due to the direct and indirect effects of piracy.

It is criminal what is being done to some of these companies. When you have a potential customer base of perhaps 5,000 you really need to make sure that you do exactly what your customers want.

I helped organize a QA and customer satisfaction drive for a niche regional software provider. We surveyed every user of the software. Took suggestions and complaintants and feedback on every bit of the application. All told we collected, ranked, anaylzed and implemented 6,500 changes ranging from minor tweaks to major rewrites. It was an 18-month project. Every issue was documentated, analyzed, and every user, every issue recieved a human-authored note that dealt in depth with the issue.

At the request of several users the licensing was vastly simplified even though it meant - at best - a 15% decline in revenue. A solid base of the users/sysadmins complained about the technical measures used to prevent licensing violations. They were removed completely and the honor system was instituted.

After the project, the application won numerous awards within its industry. User satisifaction with the application went from 62% to 98% between the versions. The average site had about 10%-20% smaller licensing costs. Support calls dropped 50% in 3 months. A comprehensive professional written and edited user manual was given to every user, and a robust feature request/enhancement/bug tracker went live.

It was vastly successful. Yet, within 12 months of that release, the company closed its door, and released the code from escrow to the clients. 40 programmers, QA, and support people lost their jobs, and the owner - a very nice woman - was financially ruined. A number of the customer sites also went belly up - as many as 10.

The software was an investment to be sure, but allowed you to run an efficent, competitive, and focused organization. When the anti-piracy features were removed competitors with pirated editions sprang up, offering similair services at lower prices - part of which was because the new enterprises could escape making an investment in software that their competitors did have to make.

The fact is that in this situation everyone knows what happened. A few key employees from one established place took a copy of the server with all the data files and software and all that, and went to establish a competitor in an adjoining state. Same product, 25% cheaper. That 25% is almost entirely made up by the fact that they did not license the software everyone else has to pay for.

In this case, private litigation is useless and slow. The software company and several established reputable companies ended up being run out of business by a truly awful display of poor ethics.

Pirates destroyed the lives of many honest people here. This software package that was cracked and passed around so viciously on many of the big warez networks was the lifeblood of a vibrant partnership of interests. And it was trashed so that a quick buck could be made by a few destructive people (who ended up closing up shop when the easy money was over; they didn't charge enough or save enough to make it through the long slow periods that are inherent in the industry).

Bottom line is that this was a true shame. And it's not all that uncommon. Government acts on behalf of people, and many times, that means acting on behalf of businesses. It's sure easy to be pissed about the FBI spending moneny on anti-piracy, but it has very real economic effects.

Law-enforcement, including the FBI, is generally well-funded. There really isn't a great battle for r

Re:yeah the American people

[windows]

It's the responsibility of law enforcement to enforce all the laws. And when the content being distributed reaches a certain value, it does become a criminal offense.

There's a big difference between an operation like this and the lawsuits filed by the RIAA.

First of all, the RIAA stated previously that the people they sue on average are distributing 1,000 titles. The college student mentioned in the story was distributing about 13,000 titles. That's a big difference. I also can bet you that most of the people that got sued by the RIAA were downloading music for their enjoyment and weren't doing it with the intent of distributing it to other people. On the other hand, this sting operation was busting a piracy ring. These people ran the servers for the sole purpose of illegally distributing copyrighted materials to others.

The amount of material and the intent is very different.

Re:yeah the American people

[ScentCone]

Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World.

Nope. This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that should be part of law enforcement's routine responsibility. If a local college student had 13,000 shop-lifted DVDs in his dorm room, is the store he stole them from supposed to just sue him and hope for the best? Hire private investigators? No: you get robbed, and you know who did it, you call the cops.

Of course, if law enforcement simply refuses to help, that's when vigilantism increases, and then we get people complaining about businesses taking the law into their own hands.

And, of course, complaining that law enforcement should be pursuing other things is no different, philosphically, than suggesting that they should stop worrying about, say, arsonists burning down businesses, and only worry about arsonists burning down houses. This is crime. Civil judgements are great too, but crimal justice must also apply. It's not "wasted resources" to attempt to demonstrate that an entire area of intellectual property theft is in fact theft.

Re:yeah the American people

[Kithraya]

Exactly. I can't get anyone to do anything about the people dealing drugs across the street, but these dangerous pirates are locked away now. Maybe if I say the people across the street are selling copied DVDs instead of crack, something would get done...

Re:yeah the American people

[Cylix]

What was this product?

"but allowed you to run an efficent, competitive, and focused organization."

This is a rather vague statement... it could be a calendar application.

"The fact is that in this situation everyone knows what happened. A few key employees from one established place took a copy of the server with all the data files and software and all that, and went to establish a competitor in an adjoining state. Same product, 25% cheaper. That 25% is almost entirely made up by the fact that they did not license the software everyone else has to pay for."

Boookooo lawsuit bucks!

Piracy is going to happen, you have to factor this into any software sales. Even if you hadn't removed the licensing features they would have been worked around anyway given enough time. (Assumming the software was truely popular enough)

It really does sound like the product did a good job, but was horribly expensive. Combine that with bad decisions and lack of a legal offense for clear software theft, it seems to spell disaster.

Yeah, piracy is bad, but lets be honest here... most companies don't pirate software that is critical to their infrastructure as they need support contracts when something goes awry.

Re:yeah the American people

[Bimo_Dude]

<RANT>

I agree that this is a total waste of taxpayer money. As of June 2002, 1 in 142 US residents are in jail. The average annual cost to incarcerate an inmate in state prison is $22,650 . This is the country that is supposed to be the world leader in freedom and democracy? Am I to believe that this many people constitute a threat to society, that we have to lock them up? What about the real criminals... those that raid the resources of the world and kill thousands (millions?) of innocent people all in the name of corporate greed? I'm not sure who said it, but there is a saying, "Little thieves have iron chains, and great thieves gold ones."

The US government is supposed to be representative of the people, not corporations.

</RANT>

Re:yeah the American people

[nolife]

If a local college student had 13,000 shop-lifted DVDs in his dorm room, is the store he stole them from supposed to just sue him and hope for the best? Hire private investigators? No: you get robbed, and you know who did it, you call the cops.

Theft of a physical product is a criminal offense. A civil case is not required at all. Violating a copyright law is completely different as the damages and what was actually "lost or stolen" must be argued. If copyright law loses were cut and dry, the person who stole an the half-life code would be liable for exactly $49 and the editor that copied Shrek3 prior to the release date would have to pay up $12.99, the retail price of those products on the street. They only stole one unit from the owners. Involving the higher crime fighting organizations in the US is the copyright owners trying to get the best of both worlds.

Re:yeah the American people

[maximilln]

In the meantime, consider the "artificial monopoly" that keeps millions of folks in business.

Fake. Artists will always make art. Painters will always paint. Musicians will always make music. Programmers will always write programs. Society will always survive. If it were any other way we'd be extinct or living in caves.

The business plan - relying on licensing and copyright protection - is the most viable one for major software projects.

There's a difference between the easiest way to do things and the right way to do things. The dividing line is in morality, not legality.

You simply can't produce works like...say, Doom 3, without having the ability to pay all those folks for their work.

They could. Too bad we're so far down the "mine! all mine!" patent/copyright route that we don't know how anymore.

Just because you don't want to pay for the software doesn't mean you have a right to steal it.

If you leave $100 in the middle of your front lawn don't come crying to me when someone else picked it up. The media companies know they're dealing in a product which has unlimited supply. Why the farcical act of surprise when people copy it?

Re:yeah the American people

[b1t r0t]

The fact is that in this situation everyone knows what happened. A few key employees from one established place took a copy of the server with all the data files and software and all that, and went to establish a competitor in an adjoining state. Same product, 25% cheaper. That 25% is almost entirely made up by the fact that they did not license the software everyone else has to pay for.

This software package that was cracked and passed around so viciously on many of the big warez networks was the lifeblood of a vibrant partnership of interests.

So how does an inside job with employees stealing the source code and data relate to removing anti-piracy features? And what makes you call that "cracking"?

Geez, if you're going to troll, at least take the time to make up a consistent story.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

Sorry, I checked with legal, and as I know work for a competitor of the software, I can't really say. The product was a vertical market app used for the medical industry: essentially managed your entire office, billing, insurance billing, scheduling, etc.

Piracy is going to happen, you have to factor this into any software sales. Even if you hadn't removed the licensing features they would have been worked around anyway given enough time. (Assumming the software was truely popular enough)
No, not really. Every copy of the software used an active form of product activation, and required regular checks against a master database of legal copies: the client could go to a secure website and get a new pre-keyed version delivered by e-mail. That would only work on one PC - determined by a powerful hash of various system bits - and at one location. Every set of binaries was unique, and it was in daily communication (internet connectivity to a remote server was already required for many features). It was virtually foolproof. There really was no widescale way to fake the system. Maybe you could spend hours and make one copy run wrongly, but really, it couldnt be done on a wide scale.

Yeah, piracy is bad, but lets be honest here... most companies don't pirate software that is critical to their infrastructure as they need support contracts when something goes awry
I say no. I see it all the time. Every day actually. Companies - big and small - pirating infrastructure software on a daily basis from both big and small companies.

Re:yeah the American people

[danheskett]

No source code was stolen: a working copy of the software - which was newly setup not to require activation, and heavy onerus copy protection - was taken.

And what makes you call that "cracking"?
There was a small binary hack applied to a copy that was floating around. Certain advanced (dangerous) features of the software could only be executed with a support person on the phone. To control access you had to do a challenge/response with the support person. This was stepped over using a simple decompiler and a minor change.

Should have been more clear.

Re:yeah the American people

[Famatra]

"In the meantime, consider the "artificial monopoly" that keeps millions of folks in business. "

Or slavery that kept the south in business with cotton. What is your arguement that we can tolerate something bad (like stopping information flow or slavery) if it gives us jobs or coin?

[The] free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny...Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
- Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Re:yeah the American people

[Grym]

Why should one HAVE to do that [factor piracy into sales]? Because software pirates say so?

No, you factor it in because the reality of the situation (not pirates) dictates it. It's like factoring the cost of the locks on the doors when you build your house. The fact that some people ignore such an unnatural convention as "intellectual property," is a reality no different than the fact that some people will steal.

Which doesn't matter. You don't have the right to pirate something just because you think the price is too high.

I don't think he was saying that. Simple economics dictates that the price match the highest price the market could bear. It should be no wonder that a company that a company whose price is too high would go out of business.

Just because current IP laws allow you to get literally something for tangibly nothing, that shouldn't lead to the conclusion that you can charge anything you want. The fundamentals of economics still apply, and I believe that was the purpose of the original poster's statement.

This is the piracy justification I posted about elsewhere in this thread. This is where you start offering reasons and defense for the piracy. You blame it on the software company. "I've decided your software was too expensive, and you made bad decisions! You should just accept piracy because it's your fault!" This is the same reasoning software pirates use so that they don't feel guilty about their behavior. When you point this out to them, they often lash out. Here on Slashdot, that lashing usually comes in the form of downmods.

Now wait a minute. Sure some posters/mods on slashdot are merely apologetic with regard to piracy, but that doesn't change the fact that there are serious and legitimate problems with our IP laws as they exist today. Not only that, but some people, myself included, aren't convinced that the concepts of physical ownership should apply to things as diffuse and indefinable as an idea.

-Grym

Re:yeah the American people

[drinkypoo]

You have not actually shown that piracy is what caused the downfall of this company, and your comment was somewhat disjointed (as was your story) but this was nonetheless fun to read. Work more on supporting facts next time! B-.

Re:yeah the American people

[shark72]

"Or slavery that kept the south in business with cotton. What is your arguement that we can tolerate something bad (like stopping information flow or slavery) if it gives us jobs or coin?"

I think you've nailed it. My right to say how my program or my musical composition is distributed is just like the enslavement of black people in the 19th century.

Wrong Department

[TrollBridge]

Should read "From the finally-going-after-the-lawbreakers dept."

We pissed and moaned when the authorities went after the makers of P2P software, crying that they should go after the people doing the infringement.

Predictably, now that authorities are actually going after the infringers, we have something new to piss and moan about. Let's get consistent, can we?

Re:Wrong Department

[tenman]

Yes, ridiculous. This crime is nothing compaired to all that "crazy, crazy shit going on in the world" you talk about. Which is the same thing you cry when a cop pulls you over for driving to fast. You want everyone to turn their head to small crimes. Let's just stop following up on anything that doesn't injure someone. If they didn't rape or kill anyone, let's just not follow up on anymore claims of wrong. Right? You will never understand the concept of owning something of value, until you actually do own something of value, and some punk comes and takes it away. And as for your claim that it was a "massive, worldwide sting operation", it was 120 searches in 24 hours. Not massive by any sreach.

Re:Wrong Department

[NDPTAL85]

Do you think every company that depends on intellectual property is some huge megalithic entity? Aren't some of these companies small or midsized businesses that will go OUT of business if they can't get paid for what they're producing? So when those companies go under and those folks lose their jobs is that not an important issue? The perpetrator of the crime may appear generally harmless, but you greatly underestimate the amount of economic damage one twerp behind a keyboard can do while still in his mother's basement.

Come on Teal'C. I would have thought you'd have a much higher sense of honor than this! JaffaKREE!!

Re:Wrong Department

[plover]

Is it "worth" the effort? Cynically, considering that the government is probably going to collect millions of dollars in fines from the people involved, the answer would be "Yes. It's worth it."

If you were to "prioritize" all of law enforcement based on the severity of crime, every cop on the street would be fixated on catching every murderer. Once the murderers were all behind bars, the cops would all swoop en masse down on child molesters. Then, once every molester was in prison, they'd focus on rapists, etc. Burglars would never get noticed, and petty street crime like purse snatching, etc, would run rampant.

Obviously, that's silly. Cops spread themselves around, doing the best they can. So, what kinds of priorities do they use? They pick the so-called "low-hanging fruit" when the opportunity arises. Solve the easy cases, lock up as many bad guys as you can. It's kind of based on the idea that if you jail enough petty bad guys they won't have the chance to be really bad guys.

Now throw intellectual property laws into this mix. Hollyweird has managed to purchase enough congresspeople to convince them to consider copyright infringment "theft". Whether you agree that copyright infringment is theft or not, the cops are bound to the laws of the land, not what makes sense to you or I. So, if the RIAA does the work, cracks a case, chases down a "ringleader", sticks a mythical $200,000 price on his misdeeds and presents him to the FBI all tied up in a bow, yeah, they're going to take him in.

If you want to do something about it, send your outrage to your congressperson.

Re:Wrong Department

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Interesting, the concept of ownership is a construct to begin with. Most of these things 100 years ago were in the public domain. Lately the copyright, which was originally designed to protect the creator of the work and for some limited time his/her family, has comodotized the I.P. so it can be bought and sold by an "owner" not the creator, which makes a marked that wants to protect its assets, but for the most part, assests it did not create. Fairly recent legislation extended that period to much longer than the lifetime and family lifetime of anyone (priciply to protect Disney and the Steamboat Willy image).

If you were the creator of the work, I can see your beef. If you bought the work, or though a contract agreement with say a band or a scientist working for you, were able to "own" the work then it is a pervesion of the original intent of the law or if you will a much used "side effect" of the law.

If someone copies your song, have you lost it. No. If someone copies your image, have you lost it. No. If someone copies your program, have you lost it, No. What you have lost is the posibility of making money off that song, image, program... And it is property that you only own for a period of time that the law allows you to make an exclusive profit off it. A personal monopoly if you will. But that passes into the public domain as it should.

I think we need to go back to the 35 years it used to be, and get back protecting peoples life and safety not corporate profits.

Really, busting young kids by the FBI (not in this case) as mega criminals. Our businesses are Scrooging is up a little too much this holiday season.

My collection is bigger than yours ...

[orangeguru]

Why are some people so stupid and put everything they collected online - especially when it's pirated? It's like screaming 'get me! get me!'

And in other news...

[suso]

Copy protoction still fails to stop rampant software piracy.

Poor college students easy targets

[vision33r]

The software industry are busy spanking poor college students who couldn't afford over-priced software while not going after companies that use pirated software.. It's everywhere and they can afford to pay for it.

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[I8TheWorm]

while not going after companies that use pirated software

You're kidding, right? The BSA actively goes after companies that use pirated software. Canada has CAAST who is also actively pursuing companies that use pirates software.

So where did you dig up the fact that the software industry is only going after college students and not companies again?

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[LocoMan]

Yeah, how evil of them to go against the poor college students that couldn't afford the 13,000 software titles he obviously needed for his studies... :)

Don't copy...

[Phixxr]

...That Floppy!

College kids?

[tomstdenis]

I can imagine that call home

"Yeah mom, I was expelled. Why? Oh, uh, um, the FBI caught me using my net connection to distribute movies illegally. Yes, yes. With the computer you bought me. What? No. The tuition you paid is not refundable. Books? I'm off campus in under 24 hours, I don't have time to sell them. Another college? This is on my permanent record. BTW you wouldn't happen to have a couple thousand to settle this case would "

Tom

Re:College kids?

[jellomizer]

Nothing forces a kid to grow up more then multiple lawsuits. The kid was probably figuring that he was above the law and there was no way they could track him and he got more cocky over time. When they are in college they are usually 17 youngest and most likely 18-19 so they are no longer kids and they should know right from wrong by now and just because he was a college student it shouldn't ease his sentence.

Re:College kids?

[krbvroc1]

Yeah, before you know it, these little fuckers will be ripping the tags off their mattresses! Obviously, P2P is a gateway crime to bigger things.

I once heard that Bernie Ebbers of Worldcom once shared a copyrighted VHS tape with his neighbors. If he had only been stopped then...

Re:College kids?

[randalware]

Parents shouldn't pay the legal bills.
Let them use the public defender, lose the case & bill the government.
Then with manditory sentencing, we can have the prisons full of these kids.

Just think, our own home grown cyber terrorists.

Another generation lost in the battle of the brain damaged.

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

Share implies that it was yours in the first place.

You can share your DVDs or CDs all you want. That's not illegal and in fact a nice gesture. I'll presume this is what you are talking about.

You can't download media for which you haven't paid then re-distribute it. I'll presume this isn't what you are talking about.

Don't tell me my presumptions are wrong.

Tom

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

I wouldn't hire a college dropout thief to plug in a keyboard let alone develop and implement software.

Also what says this kid had any tech knowledge about him? I can easily go on gnutella and get a GB or two of hot titty porn in oh say a couple hours.

I do agree that prison isn't a solution for non-violent crimes but I think that's the case for all non-violent crimes [drugs included].

But as per my other comment, the martyrdome has already become. Just look at the one of your post. You almost revere the kid already and all he did was copy movies!!! Imagine how you'd feel if he actually did something beneficial for mankind!!!

Tom

Re:College kids?

[tomstdenis]

You bought the media and accepted the copyright. They make it quite clear on the package [hint: learn to read]. So you violated their distribution license.

Again, stop being an asshat.

You can still be kind in this world. You just have to actually be kind. There is nothing "kind" with P2P distribution of stuff you don't have rights to.

If you physically share things [e.g. DVD or CD] that's kind because you are making a sacrifice so someone else can benefit [if not temporarily].

Of course I guess that's the world I live in. Where "kindness" is measured with thoughtless meaningless gestures...

Tom

Is it obvious to anyone else..

[paganizer]

Is it obvious to anyone else that this person was caught a while back, and has a sealed plea bargain for lesser sentence somewhere whhich he got by agreeing to let them monitor his activities for a while?
Explains why he rolled over on himself so easily.

false Math

[hhawk]

"personally responsible for as much as $200,000 in losses to the industry"

That is making the assumption that everyone who pirated software would actually buy it and if they bought it they would pay full price..

Re:false Math

[I8TheWorm]

It doesn't matter if they would have bought it or not. The fact is they are in possession of the song/movie/software. Possession of the song/movie/software is how the companies that provide it earn revenue. So simply by having it, they have bypasses the revenue piece of the puzzle. That is, in technical accounting jargon, attributable to operating loss.

Re:false Math

[deblau]

The big change that accounting needs to incorporate is that traditional rules of economics simply don't apply to intangible 'property'. Economic principles and markets operate on the assumption that goods are scarce, which is false in the case of intangibles. If I build a chair and someone steals it, I'll write that off as an operating loss. If I play a record and someone tapes it, there's no loss. Economists have to bootstrap scarcity into the equation using legal fictions like "copyright".

To make the distinction crystal clear, if the guy from TFA had stolen a CD from Best Buy, it would be operating loss for Best Buy. If all he stole was the music on the CD (which he borrowed from a friend because he couldn't afford to buy the disc), no loss. The reason I know that there's no loss is that if there were, it wouldn't be claimed by only Best Buy, but also by everyone else who sells the same CD. That doesn't make any sense at all.

What little I know of basic microeconomics tells me that what's going on here is a black market. People aren't willing to pay full price, so they pay less through non-legit channels. The point is that they weren't willing to pay full price, so you can't count them as customers in the first place, hence no "lost revenue". It was never there to begin with, which is what I think GP post is saying. Again, the reason that this scenario is different from ordinary retail is that the thing being 'stolen' is intangible. If my CD ends up in someone's hands without them paying me for it, I can (and should) nail them for it. This situation is different.

Black market transactions take into account the cost of being discovered. This guy is facing 15 years in jail. Usually, this cost prevents black markets unless there is a serious cost/value discrepancy, such as (in this case) artificial scarcity through legal fiction. From what I understand, the reason there's so much piracy is that many people feel that the scarcity is a little too artificial. If the sales price would come down to something actually approaching marginal cost, maybe there would be less piracy. If the music distributors can't sustain at MP=MC, then they obviously can't compete in an open market, and should fold. This is the basic cycle of destruction and renewal brought about by technological advancement, and it's been working fine for several hundred years. Why muck it up now?

Just goes to show

[Heem]

Many have gotten real bold about how they go about sharing things. In the old days it was like you had to be "elite" or "31337 d00d" in order to get to the restricted files on the BBS so you could download them at 2400 baud. Typically this meant that you knew the sysop, or were a friend of a friend. We have gotten too lax in the way that people are just randomly sharing out everything. Want to share stuff and download? I agree, but take it to encrypted tunnels on IPv6.

Re:Just goes to show

[BobSutan]

If everybody and their brother wants to share, then doesn't that show that the system is in fact broken? If our laws are supposed to prevent "bad" behavior and whatnot, then what constitutes "bad"? In the past "bad" was determined by a general concensus that it was naughty behavior and needed to be corrected/punished. If everyone is alright with file sharing, then why not change the laws to reflect the shifting idealogy that culture shouldn't be locked up? Besides, copyright is meant to facilitate useful arts and sciences. Just how useful is a movie about someone getting their head blown off anyway (which seems to be the bulk of American action flicks these days)?

Re:Just goes to show

[I8TheWorm]

The problem is that everyone does not agree that file sharing is ok... and I'm one of them. There are more people murdered every day now, but that doesn't mean the laws should be changed because it seems a larger percentage of poeple think it's ok now.

Laws are not necessarily made to prevent bad behavior, but to prevent behavior that is considered harmful. Murder is an obvious one. But taking software/songs/movies without paying for them is harmful to the people that put it together. And don't think for a minute it's hurting the label/movie executives. It's hurting the few people they're going to lay off when their revenue dips.

I think your assumption that everyone is alright with file sharing is way off, given that not even everyone on /. thinks it's alright.

15 years....

[orion41us]

"Desir, registered as a student at the University of Iowa, waived indictment and pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Des Moines. He faces a maximum 15 years in prison on felony counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy. Sentencing is set for March 18."...


Ok - I know it was wrong - but 15 years! come on, 2nd degree murder is right aroung the same Sentence for ILLINOIS, anyone else think that this is a bit much....

Re:15 years....

[curious.corn]

Ok but as I said about another guy getting buried in jail for stealing CC off a WiFi network: there's a limit to the cumulability of certain crimes; you can't transform a relatively minor crime in a life sentence by stodgily adding up jail time per act * number of violations. If anything it should have a Log progression and in any case a cap; nothing less severe than loss of life / pain should be punished with more than 10 years. Corp Excecutives get away anyway so being tough of little guys is maximally unfair... On the other hand, a sentence to some socially useful job is way more effective towards social rehabilitation / damage repair.

Now we know...

[mshiltonj]

... why our intelligence community can't catch Osama bin Laden -- they are being used as flunkies for the MPAA/RIAA.

I feel so much safer knowing those dangerous file-sharers are off the Net and no longer threatening the American way of life.

I can now look forward to the next riveting season of MTV Cribs and see millions of dollars being wasted by morons with good lawyers.

Re:Now we know...

[AndyChrist]

Most of the people who would be involved in hunting Bin Laden wouldn't have a lot to contribute to hunting warez groups.

The other way around, probably still true, but almost certainly less so.

And the usual BSA propaganda

[pommaq]

From TFA:
is personally responsible for as much as $200,000 in losses to the industry
Business Software Alliance, which represents several software manufacturers, examined the two computer servers linked to Desir and reported that each contained client titles exceeding $2,500 in retail value. The $2,500 value is a benchmark in the federal criminal code.

This is, of course, complete bullshit. It's like Adobe always trying to claim that 12-year-olds warezing Photoshop are thousands of dollars worth of "losses" when there's no way in hell they would be able to buy the software. In many instances the widespread warezing of their software actually helps Adobe, since in a couple of years those 12-year-olds are going to enter their professional lives trained on Adobe's product, not their competitors'. Doesn't matter, though, piracy is wrong and you shouldn't do it (like doom2 said, if you're playing a pirated copy you're going to HELL) but these claims always strike me as ridiculous. Sure, send him to jail for a couple months or whatnot, but don't yell about how one pirate cost you bullions and bullions of dollars because it just isn't true!

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[leonardluen]

it doesn't matter if the people pirating the software are not able to aford it, or never would have bought it anyway, it is still a person using adobe's software without paying for it. had that person paid for it adobe would have gained however much adobe charges for photoshop. so it indeed is a loss for adobe. you can't deny that the person is using software with a retail value of several thousand without paying a single dime. so the person gained something of value without paying for it. technically it maybe be true that adobe did not lose a real physical object, but that doesn't mean that someone pirating adobe's software doesn't hurt adobe.

these arguements of companies not "losing" anything from piracy are "complete bullshit". to use your own words...they may not "lose" anything, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt them.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[leonardluen]

what gives someone else the right to take something that does not belong to them?

now, i am not saying i like the current state of copyright laws, i am a strong believer that copyrights shouldn't last forever. i also didn't intend for this to become a debate about them, if it did i would probably agree with you. i agree with you in that you can't hold a monopoly on an idea.

what this thread is about is all the stupid arguments /.'ers use about how the company doesn't lose any money, in order to justify their own actions. it makes them feel better so they don't think they are harming anyone by using software they didn't pay for. but because of it someone somewhere may be going without a paycheck because the company doesn't have enough revenue to pay them due to all the people using the software without paying for it.

Re:And the usual BSA propaganda

[vantagec]

Why do people equate "Failure to gain" with "Loss"?

Read the article...

[BlackMesaResearchFac]

It's never the college kids that are downloading illegal copies that are busted (unlike w/ music). It's the kids and adults that contribute to the warez community that provides it for download. Granted it's not as if the warez community doesn't use the software they steal, but it's because of them that hundreds of people do not purchase a game or software package. Why anyone should think they ought to get a free ride just because this or that may be percieved as worse does not hold water.

Amen to that!

[Sgt O]

It's been said a thousand times in /. and I'll say it again.

These idiots are stealing other peoples/companies stuff and redistributing

They know it's illegal but they do it anyway so they get no simpathy from me.

I speed (allot) normally doing 80-90 mph on the way to/from work. If I get busted, guess what? I got busted! I know I'm breaking the law so you won't see me whine when I get a ticket.

Re:Amen to that!

[3terrabyte]

Yea, but you don't get 15 years in a federal prison for speeding, do you?

Re:Amen to that!

[Diabolical]

got busted! I know I'm breaking the law so you won't see me whine when I get a ticket.

Yeah.. but this guy can get 15 years for something which isn't even close to doing a person bodily harm. However, if he did that he would face far less prison time.

C'mon ppl, these sentences are way too heavy for these kind of crimes. Punishment should be equal to the crime and not public (or corporate) outcry.

I can't wait to see the first death sentence spoken out for offering 100.000 illegal software titles.

Re:Amen to that!

[Dan the Intern]

Unauthorized copying isn't stealing.

Does that make it any less illegal? Let's at least agree that arguing over semantics is not a valid debate tactic.

Re:Amen to that!

[EllF]

Somehow, bringing in examples of law in other countries doesn't quite defeat my argument about the intent behind American law. The intent of my first point was that certain laws protect against the deprivation of life, liberty, and property -- such as laws that don't let you go 90mph in a residential neighborhood; these laws are inherently different from laws that prohibit certain behaviors that don't result in that sort of deprivation.

The counter-argument to my position is, at least so far as I can tell, that file-sharing DOES represent a tangible loss of property in the form of money not spent. I haven't heard a particularly convincing argument to that effect yet, however. On the other hand, I have seen reports showing that since the introduction of wide-scale P2P software (and to a lesser extent, easy access to file-sharing), media creation companies have seen a tangible -increase- in profits. Granted, that doesn't mitigate the illegality of stealing; if someone can prove that file-sharing is theft in some other way, the profit margins of the **AAs don't really matter.

Re:Amen to that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's just as illegal, but it's not as unethical. I consider harming people to be far worse than illegally violating someone's government granted monopoly. Don't you?

Re:Amen to that!

[swv3752]

Ahh, but stealing is a criminal offense. Copyright Violation is (except in recent select circumstances) a civil violation.

A used car salesman sells you a lemon, you cannot have him arrested, rather you have to sue him. Civil violations are considered less of a legal probelm than criminal ones.

Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[dahl_ag]

When I drive, I speed all of the time. I don't see anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe with the speed that I drive. But I know what the law is, whether I like it or not. And I know that I am breaking it. So if I get a speeding ticket, I deal with it like a big boy. I wish people would take the same approach to illegal file trading. If you want to do it, fine. But you know it is illegal, and there isn't much you can do about the laws. (lets be realistic, there are powerful influences behind these laws) So if you get busted, deal with it. You knew what you were doing.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[ChairmanMeow]

Yes, but it's sort of a false analogy. You can't get 15 years for speeding.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[smooth wombat]

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong or unsafe with the speed that I drive.

Yeah, nothing wrong with doing 40 in a 25 mph zone. After all, instead of having 5 seconds to react to a kid running into the street you have less than 2 seconds.

Of course doing 90 in a 65 means you've increased the time it takes you stop by an additional 3 seconds and roughly 90 more feet.

Yeah, nothing unsafe about speeding.

Re:Worse (cyber) crimes in the world.

[dahl_ag]

Yeah, I wasn't trying to argue that music sharing warrents the laws and punishments that it gets. I personally agree that it should be LEGAL to share music. It always pisses me off that bands like Metallica who got their fame because of people bootlegging their demo and concert tapes are now so strongly against music swapping. Biggots. I was more trying to emphasize that people know the laws and shouldn't be suprised if and when they get enforced. (of course the need to change the laws is a different matter) Its be a while since I did my sharing. Now I just pay for XM and still save tons of money vompared to my CD buying days.

Virus Writers

[pawnIII]

I know its alot harder to track virus writers, but why doesn't the FBI, instead of monitoring these type of operations, spend more time trying to track down the latest virus writers?

It seems to me, that even a middle of the road virus does alot more damage than any p2p group can. Not to mention, there is malicious intent behind the people who write viruses.

In an age, where the number of viruses released each year continues to rise at an incredible rate. It would seem a better use of taxpayers fund to find the people who are trying to maliciously attack other computer user's computers.

FBI Presence Outside US

[handy_vandal]

Why the bloody fuck are FBI agents able to conduct searches in forgein [sic] countries? They have nothing to say outside of the US!

The FBI has a considerable presence outside the United States:

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation is working every day not only in the United States, but in 52 countries outside our borders. The FBI has a Legal Attache Program which was created to help foster good will and gain greater cooperation with international police partners in support of the FBI's domestic mission. The goal is to link law enforcement resources and other officials outside the U.S. with law enforcement in this country to better ensure the safety of the American public here and abroad.

"Presently, there are 45 Legal Attache (Legat) offices and four Legat sub-offices. The FBI's Special Agent representatives abroad carry the titles of Legal Attache, Deputy Legal Attache, or Assistant Legal Attache. The FBI believes it is essential to station highly skilled Special Agents in other countries to help prevent terrorism and crime from reaching across borders and harming Americans in their homes and workplaces.

"Legats not only help international police agencies with training activities, they facilitate resolution of the FBI's domestic investigations which have international leads. The Legat program focuses on deterring crime that threatens America such as drug trafficking, international terrorism, and economic espionage."

Source: FBI

And:

"No one should scandalize the presence of FBI agents at the Mexico City International Airport, as the presence of intelligence agents at airports is common. Yes there are agents from the FBI (at airports), like our agents are in the U.S., like the Spanish police as well as carabineers (military or state police) from Chile and Italy are here. They are information agents, conduits for the intelligence systems of their countries to obtain confidential and verifiable information."

Source: Armando Salinas Torre, Interior Ministry Undersecretary of Migration

-kgj

Re:I wonder

[conteXXt]

debate? no debate allowed.

Ask the DEA about scientific experiments with medical cannabis. Not allowd to study it because it is dangerous. Proof? no proof necessary. It's illegal. why is it illegal? because it's dangerous.

This is your government on drugs.

time to go wireless

[utexaspunk]

with all the free and open wi-fi points in the world, i guess it's time file sharers went wireless. i suppose that could be a viable defense, as well, if one has an open wi-fi router at home. that is, of course, until the po-po confiscates your computer and finds all your warez on it...

Because we don't have enough people in jail

[HangingChad]

There's got to be some corner of federal prison somewhere we can stuff the infringer gang. Because obviously we don't have enough of our population in jail now that we have to give college students 15 years and remove any possibility of them ever finishing school and doing anything productive.

This way we can pay to keep them in prison, then continue to pay when they end up going back and back and back because they can't ever get a job anywhere.

But we sure showed them we're serious about getting tough, didn't we? Ha! Just like getting tough on drugs. That's been a really successful program, too. Got tough on those druggies to where today the cost of drugs is...well,lower than it used to be but that's besides the point. You gotta throw those bastards in jail! Not a grain of common sense, but we're definitely tough.

Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[swb]

For example: This priority -- I can't even believe that a group of serious adults gets up in the morning with the idea that they're working to end the vast and dangerous conspiracy known as the "bong industry".

I can accept that they'd go after commercial counterfeiters and pirates of intellectual property, but given the extent of fraud and other naughtyness associated with spam (ie, selling prescription drugs), why hasn't the FBI gone after that before college kids trading bad movies they'll never watch and probably won't even have five years from now (hard disk crashes, changes in life priorities, etc), let alone wouldn't have bought or paid to see anyway (and despite the fact that the movies have probably broken even or made a profit *anyway*).

I'm sure if they actually *did* investigate spam via stings, they'd find massive tax evasion, fraud, violations of more substantive drug laws, and a bunch of otherwise legitimate corporations collecting a tidy profit by selling services needed to run a spam operation. Which is probably why they won't make the effort -- whenever big business gets involved, somehow the law doesn't seem to apply.

Oh well, at least we'll know that "college kids" and "bong makers" can be safely removed from the Bad Guy checklist.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[b1t r0t]

It's simple. Follow the money. The **AA have lobbyists. Stupid people who buy things via spammers don't have lobbyists.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[LurkerXXX]

And exactly why should they limit the profits? If someone wants to spend $1,000,000 for a ticket to see a two hour movie, I'd consider it insane, but it would be their choice to make. Why should they be regulated on how much they can charge for the entertainment they produce?

It's entertainment. It's not food or some basic utility (electricity, etc). You don't *need* to see any movie. If you want some entertainment you go see whatever you find entertaining that you can find for a price you think is reasonable. Don't want to spend $7 for a movie ticket? Don't. You don't NEED to see it. And you don't have a RIGHT to see it at some price you consider reasonable. Get over it.

Re:Aren't Fed Law Enforcement Priorities Broken?

[LurkerXXX]

Oh please. If you need *intellectual food", they've got more than you could ever consume, available for free from your local public library. Once again, deal with it.

Viable Defense

[TrollBridge]

Why is it that when someone gets busted for copyright infringement, the Slashbot hive buzzes with the effort of finding the next "viable defense" to justify copyright infringement.

Wouldn't a better way to preserve P2P fair use be to actively discourage abuse of the tools?

Or isn't the actual goal here the preservation of fair use?

Re:Repost

[Richard_at_work]

Residual effect deals with the alignment of the heads on the disks. For each write, they arent perfectly in alignment with the last one, so older tracks get left as portions. The reason you dont see random r/w errors on a regular basis is that the disk itself masks them from you, they happen, but the disk wrote the data in several seperate places for just this purpose. A 40GB disk can actually hold a LOT more than 40GB, if you discount error correct and just wrote everything once to the disk.

Only difference

[thrill12]

Is: those people get sentences which are the equivalent of the sentence for murder one.
This you can protest: why not fine them instead ?

Or, to go along your analogy, why not sentence you to 15 years for speeding, knowing that there is a chance you will hurt someone else ?

It is the absurdity of the punishment that strikes me odd here.

In other words..

[bannerman]

You're better off just robbing a bank and buying the software, if you can't afford it! Less jail time if you're caught!

On a more serious note, these guys aren't in big trouble for using/sharing pirated material, they're into mass distribution. The fellow who's looking at a maximum of 15 years is there because he's 1337 and is distributing tons copyrighted material for the heck of it. If you don't want the time, don't do the crime. Pretty easy to avoid this one.

I'd want the help of law enforcement if someone was stealing things from my place of business. I don't see that it's all that much different to have help with the piracy issue. It's true that the developer doesn't physically lose anything, but surely the developer's license ought to be respected. If you don't like the licensing or cost of Photoshop, use The Gimp. There's really no excuse.

Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

What exactly does the arrest of criminals by constitutial and fair procedures have to do with "My Rights Online"?

Has software piracy become a right? Perhaps sometime when I wasn't looking?

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[avgjoe62]

What exactly does the arrest of criminals by constitutial and fair procedures have to do with "My Rights Online"?

According to those same "constitutial and fair procedures..." all of those arrested are inncent, not yet criminals. Once the charges are proved, then you can call them criminals. Untill then, they are suspects awaiting trial to determine if they are criminals.

And actually, this has a lot to do with your rights. I've said it here before (and I'll keep repeating it until you folks get it :-)) that the old line "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." is about as big a fairy tale as you can find. False accusations, and the arrests they can lead to, can ruin your life without your ever being convicted of a crime.

This has everything to do with your rights. The sooner you realize this, the safer you'll be.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

Sure, it's what's known as a fundamental right, which is differentiated from a legal right.

Oh... So it's a fundamental right to profit from somebody else's labor?

Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[maximilln]

THEY ARE BREAKING THE LAW! LAW ENFORCEMENT GOES AFTER THEM!

It's not my law and it's my right to speak out agains the frivolous use of my taxpayer money to enforce the rights of the yuppie next door to his latest finger-painting. Screw him. His work sucks, his art sucks, and it's not worth my protection.

Also, pursuit of unlimited profits IS a right. It's capitalism

You want to be a hard-nose? Fine. Copying is a right. It's called nature and nature existed long before capitalism.

providing jobs for millions of Americans

Has nothing to do with the DMCA or file-sharing. Artists existed long before any laws.

The movie industry funds a lot of other industries, and perhaps you should take an economics class to learn about it.

I did. I learned about monopolies, cartels, and money-laundering. Perhaps you slept through those classes.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

It's not my law and it's my right to speak out agains the frivolous use of my taxpayer money to enforce the rights of the yuppie next door to his latest finger-painting. Screw him. His work sucks, his art sucks, and it's not worth my protection.

So for art which you judge to be "good" it is moral to protect the product of the artist's labor, but if you judget it to "suck" (yet still good enough to be worth stealing), the creator should not be allowed to make a living selling it, because you are entitled to a free copy.

Interesting take.

Stupid, but interesting.

I did. I learned about monopolies, cartels, and money-laundering. Perhaps you slept through those classes.

The movie industry is a monopoly? That's funny, I thought there were a lot of competing studios (and lots more competition from Hong Kong, India, Japan, and Europe.)

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Genom]

Actually copying without paying (theft) is not a right. It says so right there in the US Code and does not mention anything about copying in the Constitution.

Um...no.

Theft is when I take something from you, in such a way as to incur loss. For example, if I take your wallet, you no longer have it. You have experienced loss, thus taking your wallet is theft.

Copyright Infringement is very different. If I download a copy of a song, album, movie, or piece of software, the original is still there, and still in the hands of the person who "owns" it. They have experienced no loss. They still have everything they had before I downloaded anything. Therefore it's not theft. The person making the download available has, however, infringed the author's copyright, if this was done without permission.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

I'm not sure if you're just trolling or stupid, but if I sell you my egg, that becomes your egg, and whether or not you share your egg is your business, not mine.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Golias]

Their right to due process by your assumption of their guilt merely from their arrest. This also puts your due process rights in jeopardy. I would also submit that you cannot determine if the arrests are justified or not. That is a matter for a court of law.

I'm not the one jailing them. My clumsy omission of the word "alleged" on a web forum does not deny them any rights. At best, you could accuse me of slandering them, but only if you can show that I had malace towards these people (who I don't know), and what I said turns out to not be true.

Let me be more specific about the question I asked you before. What rights has the State violated by arresting these people who are reasonable suspected of committing a crime? Any?

The arrest described in the article is the first step

Bzzt!

Oh, sorry about tat. I have this buzzer that goes off whenever somebody uses a "slippery slope" argument in place of logic.

Some people who should have been arrested (because there is compelling evidence that they have broken the law) have been arrested. You have not made a case as to why this is a Bad Thing. You've just nit-picked over my semantics.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[Surt]

I don't have any rights to that revenue stream, that's the fundamental problem. People think they have a right to make money from certain things, even if that overrides fundamental rights of others. Clue: they don't. And their attempts to manufacture rights that conflict with natural rights will end in failure or tyranny. I'd prefer failure.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[hesiod]

> Did the system work? Kinda.

NO, not at all. If you were innocent and had ANYTHING adverse happen to you (excluding work time missed to be in court, and I don't even agree with that) the system did not work. You were bullied into paying $5000 that you should not have. THAT MEANS THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN.

I can't see how you aren't totally pissed off about that. I don't know what kind of job you had in college (or if your parents are/were wealthy), but many college students don't have 5 grand to their name, let alone able to shell it out suddenly due to a wrongful accusal.

Of course, I have my own reasons to believe the system doesn't work. I was accused for possession of pot, although they had no proof that it was mine -- it wasn't on my person or in my car. They said "no charges will be filed," 1 year probation, then it gets expunged, so I took your stance (although I was not fined) -- sure, nothing bad will come of it, so I'll just play along.

Two years later, I have an FBI record and am almost denied a job because of that (I explained the circumstances and our HR director said a similar thing happened to someone else there and basically ignored it). That was the only time I've ever encountered the police for anything other than traffic violations. Certainly not worthy of an FBI record, but there you have it. I'm on par with an international terrorist because I liked smoking pot when I was 23.

Re:Can somebody tell me...

[jonbryce]

They release a particular film. Nobody else can distribute this film without their permission. Therefore they have a monopoly over this distribution.

This monopoly is state controlled becase the state enforces this monopoly with copyright laws.

You may think this is a good thing. I may not, in certain circumstances, disagree with you. Nevertheless you do have to recognise that this is a state controlled monopoly.

It's good... I don't care...

[erroneus]

Commercial software is good in a way and bad in others. Blah blah blah.

I like open source stuff. I get warm fuzzies any time I run it for anything I do on a daily basis. I don't waste my time with games... haven't for years... (one day I found myself calling in sick to work because I wanted to play a game... omg... I'm addicted... so I quit... after I finished the mission of course!) But I can see where there are plenty of areas where certain commercial apps are 100% necessary. (Use photoshop because the gimp isn't quite "there" yet...)

I personally, think "misappropriation" of software for personal and non-commercial use should be "ignored" though it should never be considered "okay." (I think games, if they are good and worthy should be paid for as a means of applause.) But the commerial benefit of misappropriated software is way out there "wrong."

These college kids are not the users of the software. I remember back in those days myself. It was just cool to try to get the latest "whatever" was out there and share it. When Win95 was new, it was the coolest thing ever to play with. Sleek new UI, came with TCP/IP already and a browser too! MSIE was my favorite back in those days... it was included with the OS! How convenient! And free? Who could beat that?

Are they really causing a lot of damage to the industry? I just don't know the answer to that question... I just don't know. Do I feel like these kids are "evil" and just want to do damage? Hell no. Should they be shut down? Hell yeah! Should they be allowed to lead a normal life afterward! Hell yeah... the first time only. Do it again and f@ck'em!

That's my few cents anyway...

Terrible idea...

[Kjella]

...we have this in Norway, and it is one of the looniest laws on the books. What it effectively means is that once you've reached a certain "treshold", crime is free. Have I shoplifted 20 times? Well, if I do it a 21st time, I'll get one more, but less for each one so it makes absolutely no difference if I do. It is paradise for career criminals, and does nothing for the rest.

Argue it how you like, but he does not seem like a casual pirate to me. He seems to have been actively leading a criminal life by piracy for quite some time. I don't see any prinicipally wrong with him getting a much harsher sentence than a casual pirate. I wish it was the same here in Norway (here we have a guy who's convicted of breaking & entering in somewhere between 500 and 600 cabins - he's still walking around, sigh).

Kjella

Expect lots of piracy justification

[Anonymous Coward]

Expect lots of piracy justification responses to your post, and expect those replies to get mysteriously modded up. Pirates seem to live in a dream world where they have mentally blocked out the consequences of their actions, often with bizarre justifications ("It's too expensive for me to buy"). They are freeloaders who get bitter when the free ride is taken away. There is a big difference from the free-ness of the OSS world and the free-ness as in the -loader variety. It's as though Linux newbies apply one set of value to the other as though they are related. Just because you get TuxRacer for free doesn't mean you have a right to Doom 3 for free.

Slashdotters only care when GPL source code is "stolen." In any other situation, however, copyright never matters, and anyone attacking piracy or defending themselves from it is evil, "money-grubbing," and so on. When they go after individual downloaders--the very thing Slashdotters suggested they do during the Napster trial--they get attacked. It's easier to demonize then to address the issue.

Re:I call self-serving BS

[danheskett]

A case in point - you apparently never did file criminal charges, did you?
I was a contractor, it was a nice company to work for. That's all. It was solid basis for a business: people who want and demand a good product, who can pay for it, and who have a strong desire to be efficent.

A 5,000 unit basis for business means that if only 500 users switch your bottom line revenue is deeply hurt.

Cheap, pirated copies will only get one so far. In fact, it's superb marketing for the real product (the one with real support). What counts is the technology, the imagination of the people involved, and the management of the organization.
No, its not. When users stop paying for the licensing to use pirated copies it a direct hit against the bottom line. When all new sales stop but your software is turning up at hundreds of new locations, it has nothing to do with management or sales department or imagination. It has to with lost income and poor revenues.

Re:I second that.

[toxtothogrady]

I presume most spammers pay taxes, therefore represent a nice little revenue stream for Uncle Sam. Why would the U.S. government bother spending its resources squashing profitable spam companies just because we peons (or our ISPs) complain about a little extra email? Answer is, they wouldn't.

It's more fun and rewarding for them to work high-profile "piracy" cases, busting the evil "pirates" and "hackers" of the world. And face it, the major ISPs and the citizens of this country don't have the lobbying power of the RIAA or MPAA, so nothing much gets done on our behalf. I think we'll see more and more cases like this in the near future, while spam continues to gobble up bandwidth and fill our mailboxes.

License management and copy protection

[puhuri]

Every copy of the software used an active form of product activation.

Sounds like real pain to support. I've seen lots of different license services and product activation keys and they usually result in lost productivity. Currently we use "only" four software packages that use license server, each its own. After an OS upgrade, it is very likely that some of those breaks and if you want to support several versions of operating systems you need to tweak license manager tools for the magical combination.

The protocols are not documented, so you need to try to find out how you configure firewall and you still worry for security problems.

I wonder why companies must treat their customers as thieves. If your customer cannot use software because your copy protection sucks, she may end downloading a cracked version. Then you wonder why those customers do not pay to you...

Internet Pirates unfazed by latest Attack

[ubernoob22]

Internet piracy is, surprisingly, still alive and doing very well, despite the FBI's latest attempt to discourage individuals from doing so by holding them personally accountable for their actions.

"We understand how much our clients are suffering," reports Jonathan Smith, head FBI agent of 'Operation Fastlink'. "I mean, can't these pirates see what they're doing? They're dashing all these poor companies hopes of making their money. And without money, how can their employees enjoy their temporary, godless, materialistic life?"

Neither side seems willing to budge.

"Them reality-lubbers be causin' lots of trouble in the cyber-seas," says one pirate who wished to remain anonymous. "we be tryin' to pay for nothin' and do nothin'. Yearg, but it's never good to see one of your own walk the plank."