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First BitTorrent Arrest in Hong Kong
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."
Bull.
My rights are not affected by the prosecution of some pirate. We don't have, nor should we expect, the right to pirate movies.
This is an interesting point. Bittorrent does not transmit files in a linear fashion. The client requests parts of the file and other clients respond. It is very possible for all parts to be from seperate clients. How will they determine how many copies he distributed?
Don't call it a "BitTorrent Arrest" -- some of my best friends use BitTorrent for perfectly legitimate reasons... It's really an arrest for piracy.
who's moderating the meta-moderators?
Uh oh. Be careful! That statement goes against the slashbot groupthink!
...and so it should. You don't get to break the rules when programming. Why should you get to break them in real life?
The man wasn't arrested for using BitTorrent, or for using the Internet, or for using his computer, or for having an opinion, or for speaking out. He was arrested for committing a crime which he knew to be a crime. This is as it should be.
Yeah, but you can get all that stuff on the street in NYC, too. It doesn't mean the US turns a blind eye to copyright/trademark laws, only that the NYPD and DA have better things to do most days.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Bittorrents don't upload copyrighted files - people do.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
He was arrested for not persuing the appropriate piracy channels in Hong Kong. Namely going to retail stores that sell pirate dvds. BT poses a threat to the triad-run piracy market, and they obviously wanted to crack down on such behaviour.
"The truth is that the Hong Kong street vendors selling pirated copies of movies, software, etc are taking a beating from the people choosing to use P2P methods of obtaining their media."
In other words crooks are being hurt by other crooks. Irony at it's finest.*
*There's one thing to keep in mind about thieves and their means of correction vs content providers means of correction. The former have no rules standing in their way. The latter at least do (however inadequate you all may feel them to be).
We don't have, nor should we expect, the right to pirate movies.
That's not the issue, not by a mile.
What rights are you willing to surrender so that the state and corporations may more effectively combat piracy?
Your rights most certainly are affected by the laws, many created just recently, that protect intellectual property holders. The Betamax decision, which made home taping legal, is being eroded at an ever increasing pace. The powers-that-be are actively seeking an end-around against Fair Use and the Doctrine Of First Sale.
You know this, right? You're supposed to know this, this is Slashdot. Idiots like me blather and foam about this stuff all day.
Mentioning it only smacks of propoganda.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
No, distribution is merely an exercise of freedom of speech, and that's a natural right.
This right is partially, temporarily, waived by society in order to further other societal interests, but the previous poster's point remains a good one: what are these interests that are so compelling as to justify an infringement on free speech?
We should never assume that copyright is inevitable. Rather, we should consider it critically and always reassess whether it is desirable at all, and if so, to what extent.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Can anyone explain to me why it's their right to hold copyrights in perpetuity?
Play Command HQ online
I am more concerned about the image of useful software getting dragged through the mud by a handful of people using it for illegal purposes. By the time this makes it to CNN, all Joe Internet-User is going to know is that bittorrent is used for bootleging media. More fuel for the media conglomerates to use in their war on p2p. This is bad for everyone who uses p2p apps for legitimate purposes.
itadakimasu
But when thousands of people die from genocide, when chemical weapons are used or when building collapse on hundreds of people in a foreign country, we don't even make them footnotes in the foreign news sections of our newspapers.
If we act to stop it, we're bitched at for being war-mongers who are just in it for oil/cheap labor/ blah blah blah.
The shittiness of your country is YOUR PROBLEM TO SOLVE. It was your choice to live like animals.
Fuck you, rest of the world.
Love, America