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Feds Convict Warez Dealer
XaviorPenguin writes "News.com.com.com has a story that says the DoJ has '...landed its first conviction against an American defendant trapped via Operation Fastlink, a multinational law enforcement effort undertaken against online software piracy. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa said that Jathan Desir, 26, of Iowa City, has pleaded guilty to charges related to his role in a criminal enterprise that distributed pirated software, games, movies and music over the Internet.' Desir is the first conviction that Operation Fastlink has done. He will possibly serve up to 15 years in prison when his sentencing is in March 18, 2005. Previous Slashdot articles are included here(1), here(2), and most recently here(3)."
Queue "Rapists get less time" posts. If you think this is unfair punishment, lobby your congressmen, complaining about in on /. will accomplish slightly less then nothing.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Fifteen years for distributing data. The jail time for violent crimes must be way longer than that!
What? What's that, you say? You can be in prison for less than a year for beating the shit out of another human being?
Something is terribly wrong with this system.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
... it's just scary.
... it's just another world.
In one case you've destroyed an individual- taken his/her dignity, the right to be safe, the very 'temple' of his/her body with a violent act such as rape.
In another, we have little bits of signal that have 'more' importance than the afore mentioned victim.
I have always been cynical and said everything comes down to money- religion, lawyers, corporations- it all revolves around that little dollar sign.
But when you hear about someone getting locked away for 15 years (sorry Kevin)
And it scares me.
I see this going the way of the "war on drugs" in the way they jail people...but is this really going to stop the flow of mp3's or software or movies? I mean, do they REALLY think they're going to stop this now that the genie is out of the bottle?
Perhaps, they should re-think their distribution methods on how they receive payment for their work/art.
I don't have the answers or even a suggestion...but jailing people left and right certainly isn't working on drug use...why do they think it will work here?
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Of course, people are still having unprotected sex, too.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Violent rapists should obviously be punished severely. But what about cases where both individuals were drunk but it's somehow the man's fault because the woman was too drunk to say no?
Anyway you just can't compare the two.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Once the damages are demonstratably higher than a certain figure, it becomes a criminal issue rather than a civil issue. I shall not attempt to even discuss the issue of damages here, as the usual slashdot response will kick in. What I will say is this, to all people complaining that 15 years is too long compared to other crimes: He willingly did this and knew he was commiting an illegal act. He was systimatically breaking the law, again and again and again. He demonstrated blatant disregard for the law, time after time. After all, if this guy was spamming, you wouldnt have any issues with him being locked up for 15 years (or receiving multimillion dollar fines, as has happened).
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
I just hope any 'attempted murder' sentences will last more than 15 years because if software pirates get 15, then convicts arrested for shooting somebody should have double!
If you want to make a quick buck, mug some little old lady.
I think it's awesome that someone finally got the book thrown at them for cheating hard working professionals out of their profit. It's fun to watch.
Screw the software/music/movie pirates.
This was not a case of the teenager down the street sharing movies and music for free with others via Kazaa or Bit Torrents. This was a person who was involved in a ring that charged for access to copyrighted materials. I think the time fits the magnitude of the crime.
The Justice Department estimated that the seized copyright material alone was worth $50 million.
You think if this guy was sitting on $50 million dollars that he would be peddling warez and playing games?
hehe, what's interesting is, most do not ask for spam. A lot of people want warez. I guess where there is demand, somebody will supply despite the risk.
Some call me Howie Feltersnatch
Not if you're the one running it. Rapists: not a threat to your empire. People breaking laws which make you rich: a threat.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
...but an individual rapist affects only a handful of individuals. Someone unlawfully distributing software like this is negatively affecting the economy and social structure of the United States of America. The United States economy has for a large number of people become an intellectual property economy. Many people don't want to go back to the days where they had to toil in factories for minimum wage. Instead, we'd rather be writing software, making games, making movies, writing music, or designing products that get assembled in China by poor workers there. Anyway, people like this--whether they are distibuting for profit or not--are undermining the economy of the United States and we will not allow that to happen.
If you want "free software", use free software that's really free.
My other first post is car post.
Way to go, waste more money on prison time for people responsible for non violent crime. Who cares about people murdering people when we have people out there pirating software!
been sentenced to 15 years. It is simply the maximum he could get. In reality, he will get one or two - much less than a typical rapist. In any case, here is a fun argument as to how this person could have caused more harm than a rapist. Let us presume for a moment than the $50 million figure cited was correct (actually, it is more complicated than this, of course). How much harm, in monetary terms, does a rapist do? Many people quibble about how one can do this, but I have no problem with it at all. First, we start with the pretty solid basis that a typical American values their life at roughly ten million dollars. How do you figure this? Risk analysis - people with risky jobs are paid more than otherwise similar jobs. One can then simply extrapolate the risk/reward curve to figure that at the margins, $1 is worth about 1/10 million of your life. Other methods of calculation by various economists produce similar results. Now, given that your whole life is worth about $10 million, it is obvious that being raped, while sucking quite hard, is clearly better than dying. Maybe 10% as bad, at most. So therefore, a rape is something on the order of $1 million dollars in damage, mostly to the victim, but also to society in general which experiences fear and must pay for police protection, courts, etc. So at least by this logic, this guy caused 50 times the damage of a rapist. The primary difference is not that he did less damage, but that his damage is diffuse - spread among thousands of stockholders, rather than essentially focused on one person. Stealing a few bucks from millions of people doesn't manifest itself as clearly as stealing a million bucks from one person.
The portion of the article you quoted didn't say ANYTHING about charging. Last time I check in IRC, the stuff wasn't being charged for, nor do most peer to peer networks. These groups, I would tend to call "clubs", as people collect it, just to have it. They would never buy it if it costs money, but it's cool to "have" a copy of say, Autodesk, or 3d studio.
Bullshit, that is not just a "gotcha" for city revenue. It's called deterrence.
The thing is, if all they wanted was for people to go slow if there happens to be a cop around, then yes, using unmarked cars and disguises would make no sense. But what they want is for people to be paying due care and attention and not speeding even when there isn't a cop around to enforce it.
If people would obey the law at all times (instead of only when it's risky to break them) then there'd be no need for these tactics. Then again, if people would obey the law at all times there'd be no need for police either.
So, because people are jerks and have the attitude of "if I don't get caught, it's okay to do" then the police have to put the idea into people's head that they could get caught at any time. So it may not enhance public safety at that particular moment in time, but it does enhance it by making those drivers wary in future.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
... I really don't know where to begin with you.
Most of you are just throwing around "numbers of years in prison" as if they mean nothing at all. The maximum sentence this guy could receive is 15 years. Don't you have any concept of just how LONG that is? 15 years ago, it was 1989. Think about where you were in 1989 and everything you've done between now and then. Now imagine it ALL WIPED OUT, instead spent in a cell. And not because you killed or raped someone. No. Because you committed "copyright infringement".
Now does the punishment really fit the crime?
Others of you say if we disagree with the penalty, we should lobby our congressmen. This is laughable. If you're not a sizable organization, namely one with a lot of money, you're not going to get to DO any lobbying. And that's the problem here. The system is currently set up completely in favor of the big corps. Due to the money they have, they can influence the laws to favor maximum profitability for them, rather than what's best for the entire country. They can also scare almost anyone out of doing something, whether it's an illegal activity or not, simply with the threat of an expensive lawsuit. And this is without even getting into the ridiculous patent issues - again, because they have the money, they can afford to use a good chunk of it snapping up questionable patents and then trying to profit from them later (again, usually via "scare" lawsuits, and not from actually defending the patents).
But... I'm going off on something else now. The point is: I don't argue against copyright infringement being illegal. What I argue is that it should be no more severe than a misdemeanor.
15 years, minimum security, approximately 80000 per year, 12 million.
Your math is a bit off, it's 1.2 million. Still though, you bring up an interesting point. The best way for those who feel that copyright infringement should not be punished by jail time is to hit "the man" back where is hurts him the most...his pocket.
Be creative and think of possibilities here. If everyone who sincerely believes that it is their right to ignore copyright law stood up and proudly shouted "look at me, I'm going to share whatever I damn well please" then no one could be imprisoned because it would be impossible to afford to do so.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
This is so nuts. Nothing anywhere in this says this guy was profitting. He was merely copying and distributing games/apps. There is also no evidence anyone suffered any real damages because of this.
I know some collectors. The mentality is to get copies of everything, they never even install 1/10 th of the stuff, use my maybe 1% of what they install. It is just like a big game to them.
Blah blah this is the law... Frankly it is an insane law. The law is bought and sold by psychopathic corporations and dirty politicians.
We have a system were someone trades information at no personal gain and no measurable loss to the "owner" and they are a federal criminals.
I see a bleak future for the individual and small buisness. As corporations buy more laws and patents and monopilize more technology, eventually you won't even be able write software without being part of the giant corporate hegemony.
Every day I look at this I see a steady trend toward corporate police state.
Industry in the US, back in the clolnial days, started out by explicitly violating the British patent system.
That system was intended to create long-term monopolies on many manufacturing processes and devices, such as thread mills and power looms. Part of the point of these patents was to keep colonies agricultural and raw-material producing, dependent on the "mother country" for their manufactured goods (rather than competing with it and becoming a world power).
The arrival of people with knowlege of mill manufacture, who set up their own plants here, was a major factor in the colonies achieving the ability to break away. And the "mother country"'s attempts to enforce these monopolies produced some of the major greviances that lead to the revolution.
So now it looks like the US has come full circle. B-(
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Did the software companies report $50 million in losses? No.
They claim that every download or copy is a lost sale, which is total crap. I'm sure many people here on slashdot remember the days of dialing in to the local pirate BBS, downloading crazy expensive business programs, and playing with them for the fun of it. Did I need autocad? No. Was I using autocad for business? No. Was it lost revenue from Autodesk? No. Did I even know what I was doing? No.
I understand the software publishers desire to get paid for their work. Things are much better today, I downloaded a preview of Combustion!! Didn't know what to do with it (like Autocad) but got a glimpse of the real software.
We all knew those people that had the insane software collection. They didn't play the games. They didn't use the applications. They stored it away, stacks and stacks of disks.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Okay, there are a couple of posters here to whom I can better explain my ideas.
First of all, one of the ways in which software piracy hurts the economy is not in a direct way. Suppose someone wants Photoshop, but doesn't want to pay $500. Suppose he can afford to pay perhaps $100. There are a LOT of these people out there. Many of them right now pirate Photoshop. However, there are photo manipulation programs out there that cost around $100 that they could legitimately buy. If these people with $100 didn't pirate Photoshop, then there would be a larger market for $100 photo manipulation softwares. Some company would hire programmers and software designers and marketers to produce and sell $100 photo manipulation software.
By the way, with digital cameras being so popular, the market for photo manipulation software has exploded recently and there are many more choices available. Your Mom and Dad generally don't buy a digital camera and then go onto suprnova or torrentreactor. They'll either use the software that came with the camera (and the camera maker paid the developer a couple of dollars to include) or they will buy some low-cost program or maybe they will go all-out and buy Photoshop. Personally, I think this is a Good Thing. Money changes hands, people are employed, the market grows, more choices are available.
Second, as far as affecting society being more serious than affecting an individual: of course a crime against society is more serious. Look at the case of the Rosenbergs for example. In one sense, they just copied some information and gave that copy to someone else. Sounds like copyright infringment, maybe. No one was directly injured by it. The original people still had their information. However, they gave vital information on the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. For this they were found guilty of treason against the United States and were executed. Obviously that's an extreme example, but it does show how a seemingly simple crime can be elevated in seriousness when it affects a large number of people, an industry, or an entire nation.
Lastly, regarding free software: Free software is just filling another segment in the market for software, even if it is at a $0 price point. I think the best part about free software is that it raises the bar for commercial software. Any program that someone is charging money for had better be superior to free alternatives otherwise it's not a good value. Also, commercial software companies have obviously not had a problem competing with free software in most cases.
My other first post is car post.