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FBI Arrests Eight On Copyright Charges
luigi6699 writes "The BBC reports that 'the US authorities have charged eight people in connection with the illegal trading of copyrighted films, music, games and software over the net.' According to Acting Assistant Attorney General John C Richter, 'cases like these are part of the Justice Department's coordinated strategy to protect copyright owners from the online thieves who steal and then sell the products they work so hard to produce.'"
If tomorrow there is a terrorist attack that the FBI failed to prevent because they were busy arresting some copyright violator, I'm going to be mighty pissed.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Glad to see our government is looking out for the consumer.
Arresting teens for committing the hideous crime of downloading music and stopping monopolies right in their tracks.
Ok, maybe not the second part, but 1/2 isn't that bad.
Think what you will about it, but recieving a free copy of something someone else has invested time and money to produce is not a "right."
Well think about this, if they are taken to court or pay an out of court settlement then they might not have enough money to feed them selves (etc.) as they might me heavily i debt(etc.), so then they might turn to crime as means of income. There must be a better way.
Try RIAA/MPAA.com.
You didn't hear? Yeah, they run the government now.
I never thought I'd ever live in a time where something that is so clearly a civil issue would be come a criminal charge. What's next, arresting people for slander or violating a contract?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I LIKE this logic!
Now if we could only get Bush to misrepresent the truth in only the way he can under grand jury proceedings about say weapons of mass destruction in Iraq... we could arrest him for LYING UNDER OATH by the Figure of Speech conversion.
...and it should be known by now
Oh that's right, I don't live in America. I wonder if these other countries will actually extradite people to the US? I doubt theyt would in New Zealand as copyright infringement isn't a serious enough crime and imagine the outrage if you got 30 years jail in the US, when convicted killers often get away with 10 years here.
One actually deprives people of something that they possesed, the other doesn't. Yet which is more heavily punished? It's just crazy.
I had an arguement about copying vs sharing, the guy was saying that copying software isn't the same as sharing, he said if you gave away your copy to the person then that would be sharing. I guess that he also thinks that someone writting down a copy of a recipe for a friend isn't sharing either.
There are many methods that could be used for allowing artists to make money and allowing people to share. One such way that I've thought could be good is for the artists to just with-hold new albums, and saying they need $X amount and once that is reached they will release it for everyone to share. I'm sure that they fans would quickly fund the artist, this way the artist would get money for their art (instead of the big labels soaking it up and dripping a little down to the artists) and more people would have access to the music. The only people that don't like this seem to be those that think 'why should I give money away and then people who haven't get to download the music/movie for free'.
#1) Sometimes a highly visable arrest is enough to deter people from an activity, without allocating many law officers. All the FBI has to do is make an example of one person, charge him with everything, throw the kitchen sink at the guy and make sure he never gets outside of a jail, and that might stop other people from doing the same act.
#2) Follow the money. There would be no FBI without money, and they get their money from congress. Members of congress get elected, and that takes lots of money. I can't give/donate nearly as much money as organized groups like the RIAA, so members of congress won't listen to me. If the RIAA wants music file sharers chased, arrested and prosecuted, and members of congress want money for the next election, guess what the FBI will be doing?
#3) Perhaps terrorists are not a high priority because the politicians in power have been able to take advantage of the attacks. Whenever there is an attack, the people collectivly lose more rights. Police put up camera's in cities to videotape everyone (chicago and boston both have over 3,000 each). Libraries require fingerprints (Naperville). Gas prices soar. Companies like Halliburton get rich. I also noticed a direct relationship between acts of terror and rednecks getting very patriotic, which means they vote republican. For some reason, people in the south think democrats are pussies because we want to understand a problem before shooting at it.
I would also add the uber rich are not scared of terrorism because when was the last time a suicide bomber blew himself up in Beverly Hills? The terrorists target public trains and busses which the avarage joe takes to work. The rich live in gated communities, they have private security in addition to the police. And when the rich call the police, the police know to anwser quickly and with their best officers. The last thing the police departments want is a millionaire with lawyers pissed off at them.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
that sweden was one of the countries involved, does this mean swedish law is changing? Will we soon see the ever popular piratebay being closed down? I know they have always taunted in their legal threats section about how swedish law keeps them running. Curious to know how far the grasp of the DoJ reaches on this.
Think what you will about it, but recieving a free copy of something someone else has invested time and money to produce is not a "right."
The problem with the system is I can't own a damn thing anymore. There was a time if I wanted to tape something off TV, I would have used a VCR. Now people are paying a monthly fee for TiVo. 20 years ago, people could buy a satelite dish and get all the channels for free on C-band. And back then cable was fairly inexpensive. Today, a "basic" subscription to cable can cost over $60 a month. AND back then there were not as many commericals on television as today. What has changed? Did these companies hire specialists to determine just how much bullshit people can take before they break?
And it is not good enough to have a phone in the house, now everyone needs a cell phone. I had one employer ask me to update my file with my second phone number, a cell phone number. I did not have one. My boss gave me one hell of a look.
And take operating systems for example. There was a time that when I purchased a operating system, I could put it on any computer I owned. Now Microsoft wants me to call in and ask for permission to install Windows.
Every buisness is figuring ways to not sell a product, but to sell a reoccuring service. One day, people won't be able to buy underwear, they will have to buy a license from fruit of the loom. Perhaps washing machines will need to call fruit of the loom before you can wash underwear.
And the music industry and movie industry is doing the same thing. It is not bad enough that they want $10 to see a movie, after half an hour of commericals (what is the point of paying $10 if they will force people to watch commercials anyways, isn't that just like TV?). In addition to the $10 ticket and forced viewing of commercials, the theater has a monopoly on snacks, and they use that monopoly to charge $5 for a soda that probably costs them a thin dime. One year later, the movie gets released on DVD for $29.99. The movie quality is so-so. Three years later a nicer version comes out for $29.99.
And If I want to back up my copy, in case it gets scratched so I have a working copy, the movie industry won't let me. They shut down DVD Decryptor.
And about the music industry. Remember, they kept prices inflated to over $15 a CD. They were sued and they lost. They were ordered to give free CD's to libraries and what did they do? 100 different CD's that would be interesting? NO. They gave 100 identical copies of Christmas songs.
So, no, sharing is not theft. What is theft is what the corporations are doing to people.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
"......online thieves who steal and then sell the products they work so hard to produce......'" Im sure they work REAL hard, maybe 1% as hard as the average blue collar american? and they make more a minute than I make an hour..... Sorry guys, Not only do I think your grossly overpaid, I have a hard time swallowing calling what you do "Hard work"
There are tons of identity thieves and pedophiles out there that the FBI hasn't gotten around to nailing, either.
What would the point of "nailing" pedophiles be?
You don't "nail" Satanists. Nothing wrong with being a Satanist. The problem comes in if some guy starts cutting human hearts out on an altar somewhere -- then you're nailing a murderer who happens to be a Satanist.
Similarly, you could maybe nail someone guilty of sexual abuse of a child who happened to be a pedophile, but what would be the benefit of nailing pedophiles?
Identity thieves, on the other hand, have committed a crime.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Over the last couple of years I have sold most of my CDs (several hundred), not gone to a movie and have lived in a world where I listen to a few CDs (the Ally McBeal soundtrack and the Neil Diamond Jonathan Livingston Seagull CD) on an ongoing basis.
Guess what? It doesn't significantly impact the self-perceived quality of my life to any extent.
That would suggest that *much* of the entertainment media (movies & sound-tracks) are "add-ons" -- i.e. they must create the demand and the consumers buy into it.
From my perspective the entire copyright debate tends to boil down to a question of whether or not you are producing something which people are willing to pay to see/hear. From my rather jaded viewpoint the answer is no.
If an individual has a perspective that all copyrighted information will eventually be available for free (which is true to the best of my knowledge) *and* that human lifespan is only limited by our current lack of knowledge with respect to the biology of aging and how to prevent it, then the media producers have a significant problem... I.e. "How do I produce material which people are willing to pay to see now... vs. material which they will (legally) be free to see/hear sometime in the future?"
Even though the material producers have pushed laws which extend copyright protections far beyond their original intent -- the progress in extending the human lifespan has not been locked in stasis either. Unless copyright protections are pushed beyond the maximum feasible human lifespan I will eventually have *legal* access to all of the material for free.
So it would appear the entire "copying" debate is wrapped up in the question of whether or not one has access to it "now" or at sometime in the future. One could obviously draw analogies between the entertainment realm and other forms of self-gratification.