BitTorrent User Guilty Of Piracy

DIY News writes "A Hong Kong man has been convicted of movie internet piracy in what is believed to be the first case involving BitTorrent file-sharing software. The man was found guilty of copyright infringement for distributing three Hollywood blockbusters using BitTorrent."

Comments

Next Gen p2p

[VAXGeek]

All actions like these do is force development of next gen p2p like Mute Filesharing.

http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/

Re:Next Gen p2p

[Teckla]

All actions like these do is force development of next gen p2p like Mute Filesharing.

MUTE looks even worse than BitTorrent. If you participate in the network, even if you personally never download anything illegally, copyrighted material may be flowing through your connection. I'd worry about being held liable for copyright infringement just by knowingly and willingly allowing my connection to be used in this way.

Re:Next Gen p2p

[Iriel]

Not just that, it's going to provoke lawyers to find ways around the precedent set by the Sony/Betamax case. It is already established (in the United States) that a technology cannot be outlawed simply because it allows someone the capability to commit piracy. However, with the recent Grokster ruling (which the US paid close attention to), you can be shut down if you grant the ability and endorse it.

Now they're going to try to take that old site post by Bram Cohen (which was a satire of the cypherpunk manifesto), and try to find a way to 'prove' that he once endorsed piracy. If they can manage to pull that off, we're all in for a world of hurt.

Re:Next Gen p2p

[Kjella]

Because they've been granted common carrier status, just like the telephone companies.

I don't think my home computer can be granted that status.

1) They are not granted common carrier status, it is exceptions in copyright law, paragraph 512.
2) If you set up a router/cache server in your LAN, you are already using two of the exceptions, a) and b) which are for routing and caching respectively. They are very easy to get and may apply to anonymous networks.
3) Exceptions c) and d) are used for hosting and information location (think homepage and google). They are much harder to get, then again you don't need those.

Re:Next Gen p2p

[rm999]

Inciting violence is not protected by the first amendment. Listing ways to kill the president will get you in a lot of trouble, especially nowadays. And I would argue that listing ways to kill a specific person is a threat.

More reports on this

[cciRRus]

Here, here and here.

Some notes from the trial

[bartash]

The government prosecutor Hayson Tse Ka-sze said it would be "absurd" to argue that the tracker server and not the uploader was responsible for distribution. He defined distribution as "sharing" and said the court would have to look at the intent of the legislation

Copyright-infringing copies of three films - Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality -- were found on the defendant's computer during a customs raid on his home on January 12. Photo images of the labels of the compact discs were also found on the computer. A digital camera consistent with the make and model used to take the photos was found at the defendant's home, government prosecutor Hayson Tse Ka-sze told the court.

I wish people would stop using this analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why don't you go out this monday night and grab a bunch of kids trick or treat bags... its all stealing, either way you look at it!"

How many times must this get corrected on /. before people stop using this false analogy? If you take a kid's candy, you have the candy and he does not. On the other hand, if you share a movie over the Net, you still have the movie, and so does the other guy. This is not stealing, it's copyright infringement.

Re:I wish people would stop using this analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

you are stealing would-be profit from the movie industry

Re:I wish people would stop using this analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

from:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicprofit .asp

"In calculating economic profit, opportunity costs are deducted from revenues earned. Opportunity costs are the alternative returns foregone by using the chosen inputs. As a result, you can have a significant accounting profit with little to no economic profit."

Re:I wish people would stop using this analogy

[nickname225]

That is entirely untrue. It is the exact same misleading statement that the RIAA and friends make when they insist that every pirated copy be accounted for as if it would be a full value sale. There are a wide variety of ways to quantify a possible sale. In every industry production planning is done based on projected (possible) sales that have not yet taken place. In its simplest example - the value of a potential sale = the probability of the sale multiplied by the amount of the sale. So- if the profit the studio makes of a DVD sale is $2 and the probability of the sale is .002 then the lost revenue is 4 cents. The only really difficult part is figuring out the probability of the sale. But it's done all the time by smart people with degrees in statistics

Re:Guilty by knowledge?

[nickname225]

The law (in the U.S.) recognizes two types of intent. There is "Specific Intent" - meaning that you intended the effects that occurred. An example of a specific intent crime is Murder. To be guilty of Murder you had to intend to kill. Most crimes in the U.S. are NOT specific intent crimes. The other kind of intent is "General Intent". General intent means that you intended to do what you did - even if you did not intent the consequences that occurred. An example of a general intent crime is Negligent Man slaughter - You intended to drop the brick out the window - You didn't intend to kill. So - If you intend to click on the download button - that intent is sufficient to support a conviction for uploading. Because intent can never be proven - in courts it is supported by circumstantial evidence. I am a lawyer and I work tangentially in the criminal law arena

Blockbusters

[Gogo0]

Pretty off-topic, but whatever...

Hollywood Blockbusters

A "Blockbuster" is a movie that grosses $100 Million or more.
Red Planet brought in $33 Million worldwide, nowhere near a blockbuster as it is defined.

But then I guess anything that comes out of hollywood (or even before it comes out) is considered a blockbuster these days, regardless of how bad it is. Hooray for marketing.

Having been to China...

[crashcodesdotcom]

In China...

Pirated copies of all kinds of things are sold at shops out in the open for all to see. They don't even try to hide it.

At one place I thought was like a flee market, they were selling GBA cartridges for about $5 US (before haggling). The cartridges looked legit at first. I just assumed they were used, then I saw a 6 games in one cartridge. Not a game like the Atari collection or something like that but like 6 Super Mario games in one including a recently released title.

Another place I went to was in a strip mall like shop. It looked like a retail buy/sell/trade place you might find in the US. Maybe like a mini version of an EB games store. The clerk behaved just like someone working at EB might act. Not pushy, but really zealous about gaming. I didn't even know it was a store for pirated stuff, until the issue of price came up. A few games were priced higher than the others only because it required a different type of DVD. Between that and the prices, I finally realized what they were selling.

The point of all this? I wonder if most Chinese have even given piracy moral consideration. /.ers may be pro piracy, insulted by the word pirace, anti-piracy, or whatever; but at least moral consideration was made at some point.

For a long time, I've been very careful about piracy and stuff. I got my own convinctions about it, and I try hard to hold true to them. I've explained this to my wife, who is from China, over and over again. Yet she continually puts me in compromising situations, and has to be reminded why I wont go along with it. Outside of my influence, I don't think she has any considerations toward piracy whatsoever.

strange fixation on transfer protocol name

[Ahaldra]

I cannot remember any slashdot article reading "HTTP user guilty of piracy" - What is it with BitTorrent that people are so hung up on the name of the transfer protocol?
Just because it's fast doesn't make it illegal! Every time a dumb headline like this is posted the tech crowd shoots itself in the foot - It's like saying "Porsche driver guilty of manslaughter", these two things may have something to do with each other, but expressing it this way makes it appear as if they are causally related - which they are not.
It's not that this specific transfer protocol enables copyright infringement right out of the box or anything....

No, he was found guilty of copyright infringement.

[jbn-o]

If you're going to make legal analysis, at least try to use the correct terms. It's headlines like these that confuse the public into believing that "movie internet piracy" is something one can be convicted of.

Similar news in Sweden

[kurt_ram]

AP is reporting that "A Swedish court on Tuesday handed down the country's first Internet piracy conviction, fining a man 16,000 kronor ($2,000) for using a file-sharing network to distribute a movie online". Link here.

DANGER DANGER DANGER

[42Penguins]

Links point to goatse-style photos.
Beware.