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First BitTorrent Arrest in Hong Kong

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the john-law-catches-on dept.

prostoalex writes "Associated Press says a 38-year-old was arrested in Hong Kong for uploading Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality via a BitTorrent client. Hong Kong laws provide for a maximum of 4 years in prison and $6,400 fine for every copy distributed without copyright owner's permission."

6 of 454 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is proof even necessary? by Macadamizer · · Score: 3, Informative

    "How are they going to prove he "distributed" the movie if he is only serving chunks out piecemeal to various clients?"

    Under U.S. copyright law, you don't have to actually prove that distribution occured -- it is generally sufficient to make a copyrighted work available for distribution. You don't have to prove that anyone downloaded the file -- simply making it available on Kazaa or whatever is sufficient. There's a case on this, Playboy v. Chuckleberry or Playbou v. Harbough, or one of the Playboy v. someone cases that raised this point.

    --

    "That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
  2. Re:I thought China was in charge of Hong Kong Now by cryptochrome · · Score: 3, Informative

    Pirated DVDs actually bring money into the local/Chinese economy and encourage trade. Online piracy doesn't, since no money changes hands. So from a Chinese perspective, this guy really was hurting the economy for much the same reasons as the *AA claims, just with the added irony of those reasons being themselves illegal in a much more conventional sense.

    --

    ---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?

  3. Re:Don't call it a "BitTorrent Arrest" by cortana · · Score: 4, Informative

    Tell it to these people. :)

  4. Re:Why not encrypt these downloads? by evilmonkey_666 · · Score: 3, Informative

    That would not work with bittorrent.

    Once you are associated with the tracker your IP address is visible to everyone in the swarm.

    All the *IAA has to do is pretend to be a user, connect to your client, and decrypt data received from *YOUR* IP address and it's game over....

    --


    - PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
  5. Re:Thats Nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your link was broken..

    Here is the link:
    http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/1/ 14/nation/9901032&sec=nation

  6. Re:Thats Nothing. by Viceice · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope.. sadly i'm not kidding.

    Article here : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/1/ 14/nation/9901032&sec=nation

    As for the marijuana, we only hang traffickers. IIRC the distiction between posession and trafficking is weight though IANAL, so i'm not too sure.

    --
    Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.