Slashdot Mirror
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.
... 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
===== 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!
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.
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!