Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Crackdown on BT Users in Hong Kong

Posted by Zonk on from the it's-not-safe-to-breathe-anymore dept.

griffinn writes "100 BitTorrent users in Hong Kong are about to receive legal threats from the MPIA (Hong Kong's equivalent of the MPAA), BusinessWeek reports. The users were randomly selected from more than 6000 IP addresses collected by investigators. Customs officials are also following through on their previous arrest of a 38-year-old man who allegedly uploaded three movies." From the article: "If convicted, the suspect faces up to four years in prison and a fine of 50,000 Hong Kong dollars ($6,400) for every illegal copy."

4 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Bloody typical by gowen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How can you expect the RIAA to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate uses of BitTorrent when slashdot editors cannot be bothered to do the same? Hong Kong is not cracking down on BT Users, but on wilful copyright violators who happen to use BitTorrent.

    You might as well run a headline "US police crack down on Drivers", leading to a report detailing the arrest of a guy who drove a getaway car in a robbery.

    Sheesh.

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
    1. Re:Bloody typical by LordSnooty · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The real issue here, I think, is that the (presumed guilty) copyright offenders are looking at 4 years in a Chinese prison. Is that an appropriate punishment for the offense?

      Considering that apparently every street corner in China has guys selling pirated DVDs for thier OWN PROFIT, it does seem a little disproportionate, yes.

    2. Re:Bloody typical by grumpyman · · Score: 5, Interesting
      The situation in Hong Kong is quite different from the rest of China. Hong Kong judicial system is based on British common law. The basic law set the guiding prinicple around the system after 1997.

      I think the judges still wear that stupid wig from colonial days, and vast majority of them are actually ethnicity of non-chinese last time I checked. "MORTIMER", "HOFFMANN", "Hon Sir Ivor RICHARDSON" doesn't sound Chinese to me. The official language in court is actually English, unless approved by the judge to use Cantonese.

      Please, please, please, fellow slash-dotters, for once stop making sweeping statement about China, that because they're communist, they must be evil in every aspect. I'm not saying communist is better but check out how well western democratic is working for all of us. We in Canada are ruling by a party of 35% support (liberal), and soon we'll probably be ruled by a party of 30% (conservatives).

      If you want to read more about politics/judicial/business corruption mess, please first check with Halliburton and Enron.

      I urge all of us to read more before making judgements.

  2. If this happened in the US... by Veinor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    BitTorrent is not inherently illegal. You could use a similar argument to prohibit downloading of ANY files, since they just use a different method.

    It appears that their government is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If they tried that sort of stuff in the United States, then the government would catch so much flak from people claiming this is an invasion of privacy (which it is.)