Slashdot Mirror
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."
Were those films part of the evidence or his punishment?
He had been charged in April for uploading three Hollywood blockbusters to the net - Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality.
There is no accounting for taste...
If I am getting caught, it damned well better be for "Good" movies...
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
All actions like these do is force development of next gen p2p like Mute Filesharing.
http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Out of all the movies to go to jail for, this guy picks Daredevil. Ugh.
Next thin ya'll know, dang ol' house o' repersentatives an' courts an' lawyers be tarrin' it all up with the same brush used on Gnutella, Kazah and whatnot.
Dang. Put me right offen my coffee!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
the torrent of his trial is available at http://www.chin.../ oh wait, nevermind ;)
In Hong Kong, of all places...
Wow so they are taking down the person who took part in the copyright infringement and not the software used... Oh wait its still early in the day, I'm sure BitTorrent will be blamed once again for its ability to be used for evil purposes...
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
These threads are quickly becoming a rehash of all the previous file sharing threads. Queue the people saying he was breaking the law, the people talking how sharing information isn't stealing, and finally all the people claiming that information wants to be free.
How is this lawsuit different than all the others?
Piracy is the least of his problems...
I use BitTorrent to get the updates for World of Warcraft. I'm not guilty of 'piracy' for that.
Headline should read: "People who share copyrighted movies guilty of copyright infringement."
But I guess that wouldn't get as much of a reaction, what with it being obvious and all...
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
In other news, a man in Delaware has been found guilty of beating another man to death with a toaster. The toaster industry declined to comment.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Here, here and here.
w00t
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.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
What I want to know, and the article doesn't say, is whether he was a "distributer" or whether he was just an unlucky sharer that was downloading a movie and got nabbed. If he was seeding the torrent, whatever -- he deserved it, I'd think that it would be "scarier" if he was just a user downloading/uploading by using the seeded torrent.
"This ruling means a lot," said Hong Kong Commerce Secretary John Tsang, explaining that it would deter other possible file-sharers.
What deters me is simply that it's more worth it to just buy the movie in the store. I don't have to waste bandwidth downloading it, the time to burn it to DVD, and my drive space while I do that. Most movies (especially real suck ass ones like Dardevil) are available for $7.50 at Target all the time. Hell, I just got Season 1 of Nip/Tuck for $18.88 two weekends ago!
Bittorrent gives a grey area... you are not just 'getting' the file, but also 'hosting' pieces of it (or the entire thing if its still in the sharing network when you have the complete file). It isn't as open-shut as you imply.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Better to sue him than to sue legit Bittorrent users.
Piracy? In China? The Chinese government would never allow that to happen. Now that this guy has been caught, that will be the end of trademake infringement in China.
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.
This is hilarious because if the guy had simply left his apartment and walked to the nearest corner, he could have bought the DVD for next to nothing.
It's amazing to me that real piracy, where huge profits are made, is ignored while file sharing between friends is hammered.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
My initial thoughts were "Prison ? he only uploaded the thing , he didn't produce it"
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
1) The guy didn't get arrested for using Bit Torrent to illegally distribute others' work. He was arrested for illegally distributing others' work (re-read that until you understand the distinction).
2) This was not an arrest for using file sharing software. This was an arrest for copyright infringement. The tool that was used is immaterial.
And so on...
If on some planet those movies are considered to be 'blockbusters,' then his main legal defense should be, "But this is Earth."
So if a tech-unsavy person is uploading while downloading as part of the protocol, s/he is likely not intending to infringe copyright in the uploading, and therefore likely not guilty of an infringement. However, the downloading itself may be an infringement, and by virtue of clicking the link, you have shown intention (though shown, it's not proven; accidental clicking, etc.). Incidentally, I do not know what would happen if you were downloading a copyrighted movie you already own (fair use/dealing), and you were aware of the uploading. In that case you may be infringing copyright, but at the same time exercising your right to a backup, though to exercise that right through the bittorrent protocol, the only means of acquiring a backup given the DVD copy protection, you must redistribute and inherently infringe portions of the copyright.
A better analogy would be if you had access to a replicating machine, and little kids allowed you to use it to make copies of their candy. Still, even that analogy breaks down when you consider that movies, unlike candy, are not consumable.
Perhaps a better analogy would be going into a library and photocopying one of the books so that you could take it home and read it at your leisure. If you saw someone walking out of the library with such a copy, would you point and shout "Thief! Thief!", in the same manner which you might if you saw a shoplifter shove a dozen DVDs down their pants and try to leave the store? No? Then it's not stealing.
Such court cases only happen because the movie industry pressures courts and law enforcement, presumably with some support from U.S. trade or diplomatic channels. Now, the clever thing about such court cases is that they focus on the black/white legality of an action, and ignore the wider ramifications. Very typical of the divide and rule approach. You are either for the movie industry, or you are for thr pirates. This is what Fox TV calls a "wedge issue" and it's a clever way of keeping people divided while avoiding useful debate.
It is a false issue, and anyone discussing whether "piracy is right or wrong" is falling into the trap.
What most people actually are for is a better way of getting content. We don't like thieves. We don't like stealing. But we find paying $50-$100 to take the family to the movies unjustly expensive.
The movie, music and TV industry has to give its customers what they want, or they will - court cases or not - lose those customers.
And the simple solution, by the way, is to boycott Holywood, and boycott the record labels that sponsor the RIAA. Consumers do not have much power, but - as Rosa Parks demonstrated - even the most humble of us can refuse to give our money to those that would mistreat us.
My blog
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.
The only difference between a seeder and the other users is that the seeder has the completed copy. In both cases you're uploading something you don't have distribution rights for, so I'm curious how you're making the distinction.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
In China...
/.ers may be pro piracy, insulted by the word pirace, anti-piracy, or whatever; but at least moral consideration was made at some point.
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.
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.
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....
Code is Speech. No to Censorship.
"...If he was seeding the torrent, whatever -- he deserved it, I'd think that it would be 'scarier' if he was just a user downloading/uploading by using the seeded torrent."
I think that was exactly the point of the lawsuit; they (the media industry) want to give *all* who use bit-torrent for illegal distribution of copyrighted materials pause. Not just the seeder, but all those who consequently share the bandwidth of it as well (i.e., the leechers).
I would imagine that the only difference beween being a seeder or a leecher might possibly be the penalty the prosecutor asked for; unauthorized seeder or leecher - it's illegal just the same.
I'm not saying I like what happened, and I too would like to know if he was the original seeder, but I guess what I'm trying to say is - I don't think the media industry cares too much. I agree that going after leechers has more chilling implications, but that's probably what they're aiming for.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
'I don't have to waste bandwidth downloading it'
Bandwidth is very cheap and getting cheaper and faster. It won't be long before it is faster to download a film than it is to walk to the video store and back. In some places it already is that fast. Besides, most people have unlimited bandwidth deals where if you *aren't* using it, you are wasting more money than if you use it to it's full potential. Most programs can download in the background so that they do not disturb your browsing etc.
'the time to burn it to DVD'
You can do this in the background. If you use a modern OS like Ubuntu with built in support for burning to DVD, burning to disc is such a trivial exercise that it's hard to understand how Windows makes it so hard to do this simple task quickly. Even if you don't want to burn it, you can watch the film directly from your hard disk and then delete it when you are done.
'my drive space'
Because drive space is a scarce commodity? All you need is a gigabyte or two free for the twenty minutes it takes to burn.
It's not that I condone copyright infringement, but you will have a hard time convincing other people that they should go out in the rain/snow, etc. to buy a film rather than download it from the comfort of their own home.
Wouldn't it be simpler if the music industry just decided that downloading films via the internet was a viable business strategy?
I'll probably be modded down for this...
What I want to know, and the article doesn't say, is whether he was a "distributer" or whether he was just an unlucky sharer that was downloading a movie and got nabbed. If he was seeding the torrent, whatever -- he deserved it, I'd think that it would be "scarier" if he was just a user downloading/uploading by using the seeded torrent.
Note: I'm going to be using "you" to mean "people in general", not "you in particular".
Now, I'm not familiar with Chinese copyright law as it stands, but I have a feeling he's guilty either way. If you want to glamorize this and call it "civil disobedience", then be ready to go down for your actions. If not, just admit that as the law stands now, regardless of whether that is morally right or wrong, the action is illegal, and that he is being punished for what he did.
I'm more likely to laugh at every person- downloading, uploading, sharing, seeding, whatever- that gets caught and whines about "their rights" than I am to feel sorry for any of them.
No, I do not buy movies or CDs often- a few here and there, and most likely at a band's show for a CD- but I also don't bother downloading a bunch of stuff and then whining that I got caught. You seem to be in a similar boat to me. If you enjoy it, you buy it when it gets cheaper. Save yourself the money and the hassle of downloading.
And if all of it sucks so much, why do people want it in the first place?
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.
Digital Citizen
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.
Clearly, Google is the next Microsoft.
I'm not justifying piracy, I'm saying the problem is not about piracy, it's about overpriced, out-of-date products.
Did you actually read my posting, or are you simply attempting to divert my argument back to the wedge issue that I clearly identified?
So long as Hollywood tries to force people to pay over the top for movies, there will be pirates. This seems obvious, and any discussion about whether piracy is "good" or "bad", whether it's "theft" or "copyright violation" is a waste of time. It's the question itself that is misleading. There is no good answer except to change the way movies are sold and provide a product that people will be glad to pay for. It's basic sense. Charge a couple of dollars to download a good quality movie, from a reliable network, and people will for the most part happily pay for the real thing rather than muck around with fakes.
As for boycotts, I'm serious. Rosa Parks started a boycott that lasted almost a year. It was the only way that the community could fight against an oppressive regime.
And yes, this is about civil rights. Maybe you've missed this, but over the last decade the pendulum has started to swing towards a regime in which all content is property, and all unauthorised access is a crime.
Let's connect the dots, shall we?
1. Take communal property.
2. Become owner of this property.
3. Rent back to original owners.
4. Profit.
No-one honestly cares about a few B-grade movies. The grand prize is a lock-down of the world's cultural, genetic, and technological heritage, and every court case of this nature pushes the law further towards corporate policeman and further away from protector of the community.
But heck, interpret this as a vote for piracy if you want to!
My blog
And don't forget, the box-office smash "We Don't Need No Stinking Commas!"
Are you a Candy Addict?
During the time of Charles Dickens, there were no copyright laws for books in the USA. They didn't need
them because very few books were written in the USA. All their books were written by English authors
like Dickens - so not having copyright laws mean that US printers could print British books without
paying any royalty & sell them for pennies.
Charles Dickens saw this on his visit to the USA & tried to fight against this.
However, USA started having copyright laws on books only after there were enough American authors
whose rights needed to be protected. By that time the book industry was jumpstarted by having a
good business of seeling cheap pirated books & they could build on it.
Every country starts respecting copyrights/patents only when they have more things to
protect than to steal.
Look. I am guilty of speeding... hell I even let my insurance lapse a few times. I've shoplifted before (when I was a kid) and YES I admit to having downloaded music and movies from across the internet using a variety of means. (I also buy music and movies when I think they are worthy... haven't bought music in a VERY long time but you might find that I own DVD versions of some TV shows and movies that are also on my hard drive.) I make only weak attempts to justify my actions in that I know what I do "isn't right" but at the same time, I don't feel so wrong about it either. Whenever three conditions meet, I am inclined to buy! Those conditions are Availability==TRUE, Affordability==TRUE and Appreciation==TRUE. I think it's generally true of just about anyone out there.
I don't think it's good that the current market is essentially a "buyer assumes the risk" market. After all, will sellers accept a return of a CD or DVD based on the "I didn't like it" argument? I think they should but they don't. This practice, when done maturely, essentially helps to balance this problem in the market. Is it "wrong"? Yeah... it's wrong by a variety of standards, but it's also a market demand otherwise so many people wouldn't be doing it.
I don't think we should feel any worse than we feel for our neighbor when he gets a speeding ticket. (And I don't think he should get much more punishment than a speeding ticket either.) Just like anyone else, he knew the risks and he took the chance... gambled and lost.
I guess what I'm saying here is that we don't need to call an end to "copyright" and all that. But we do need to bring sanity into play when all of this is going on. I think we can all pretty much agree that it's insane now. If the motive is profit, throw the book at them. If it's the kind of (ab)use that we see on a regular basis, give them a [reasonable] fine and move on. I think it would be fair enough.
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts that you're up against - and then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of lawbreakers and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
Links point to goatse-style photos.
Beware.