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BitTorrent Site Admin Sent To Prison
Marc wrote in with a Torrentfreak story which opens: "The 23 year old Grant Stanley has been sentenced to five months in prison, followed by five months of home detention, and a $3000 fine for his role in the private BitTorrent tracker Elitetorrents.
This ruling is the first BitTorrent related conviction in the US. Stanley pleaded guilty earlier this year to 'conspiracy to commit copyright infringement' and 'criminal copyright infringement.' He is one of the three defendants in the Elitetorrents operation better known as 'Operation D-Elite.'"
The federal prison system does not allow conjugal visits. Conjugal Visits
...but isn't this what other torrent sites fought in the past?
They don't actually host the illegal material; just a reference to it. If they're going to arrest admins for that, then why are search engines still indexing crack/serial/warez sites?
If you want to get technical about it, the users submitting the torrents are the ones at fault, here. Granted, if the admin is the submitter, then he has every right to be imprisoned for his doings. But if he simply provided the web space for the torrent of copyrighted material to be hosted, and provided the bandwidth for the same, then his liability is somewhat questionable.
I, personally, don't know how that site operated. If I were running such a site, then I would implement a moderation system. But depending upon the popularity and traffic involved in such a site, that could easily become a daunting task.
I see it in the same light as arresting automobile manufacturers for the hit-and-run death of an innocent pedestrian. Sure, the car was used as the lethal weapon of choice, and it was productive in doing its task, but it's not Chevrolet's fault that their Silverado 1500 was used to kill someone. BitTorrent has a valid use, just as an automobile. When it's misused though, it's not the responsibility of the manufacturer, the used car dealer, or even the gas station!
That's just my two copper pieces.
For anyone that makes it this far, theft is legally defined as "the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving that person of it." Until recently, copyright infringment was a civil matter. That means that you couldn't be brought to court by the state, and you couldn't serve jail time. You could be made to pay reparations to the party or parties whose copyrights you infringe, though
that kinda of depends on what you think is recent.
The willful infringement clause that establishes criminal liability for willful copyright violation was added to section 506(a) of title 17 of the u.s. code on May 24, 1982. So you've been able to serve jail time for copyright infringement for over 24 years.
(This addition had nothing to do with the internet. Name servers and the use of TCP/IP as the standard protocol for the internet didnt happen until 1983. DNS was introduced in 1984.)
5 months in prison is a pretty light sentence compared to what he could have gotten. the maximum prison sentence for willful infringement is 5 years (depending on the type of infringement. that's the worst possible case).
That isn't to say that i agree with the charges against him.. The actual infringement of the copyright is done by the seeders. The tracker maintainer seems like he would be the person in the chain who is clearly not guilty of actual infringement since all he is doing is saying "hey, that guy is giving away free copies of Memento, Microsoft Word, and Half-Life 2".
However, he did plead guilty. I cannot fault the judge for finding him guilty when he pleads guilty...and in light of the possible sentence he could have received, he got off pretty light. Given what i know of the case, i think he could have fought it, but he (and his lawyer) might have been privy to more damning evidence against him.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
You're in good company -- Thomas Jefferson always referred to them as "monopolies" (albeit without the "intellectual" part) too.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Apologies, that should've been "months" in the parent post, not "years". Eh, it's been a long day. :/
I downloaded some. Did anybody actually lose any money?
The MPAA would have you believe that they lose $60 billion a year. Now let me put that into perspective: $60 billion US is like almost 10% of the annual GDP of a small country like say CANADA... These people are so full of shit.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"Good question, but considering that he's already going to jail for what essentially amounts to thoughtcrime"
Conspiracy is not a thought crime. Conspiracy consists of planning and usualy preparation, most often involving several individuals. It's one thing for you to think "I want to kill George Bush", it's quite another if you go up to your friends and say "hey guys, I bought this here rifle...who wants to be my spotter when I go assassinate the president?".
At this point, the government can put you in jail for pretty much anything. And with the death of habeas corpus on October 18 2006, they don't even have to give you a trial.
I swear to god I'm going to take a claw hammer to the next person who repeats that myth.
For the thousandth fucking time, that bill only applies to non-citizens!
"Doesn't this sort of thing make owning and operating a search engine a risky venture?"
Not really. Legitimate search engine operators are not involved in conspiracies to commit copyright infringement.
Remember, this is the guy who ran elitetorrents. The guy who posted "HEY, WE HAVE STAR WARS!" six hours before it was released into theatres. He wasn't running a legitimate search engine. He was deep into the warez scene.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
There really is no other type.
In the UK there are "Open Prisons": low security places for low-risk criminals. Armed robbers, gangsters, murderers, rapists etc. go in high security prisons, while perjurers, embezzlers, tax avoiders, shoplifters, manslaughterers by negligence and, er, copyright infringers are put in open prisons.
As I understand it, in an open prison, you're locked in a cell -- more like university accommodation than a barred cell like in Prison Break -- for stretches of time, but if you wanted to escape, you could just wander off during the time you're not locked up. Very few people do escape, because when you're re-apprehended, your original crime is trumped by the worse crime of escaping from prison, and this time you get put in a far more unpleasant high security jail.
Isn't there something similar in the US?
They'd probably sue each of you for copyright infringement. Performing a song in public without the permission of the copyright holder and all that.....
This is what the GP meant by 'enemy combatant'. Note the addition of 'unlawful', the GP and a lot of other people seem to mix them up.
Conspiracy is not a thought crime. Conspiracy consists of planning and usualy preparation, most often involving several individuals. It's one thing for you to think "I want to kill George Bush", it's quite another if you go up to your friends and say "hey guys, I bought this here rifle...who wants to be my spotter when I go assassinate the president?".
Actually, if you bought the rifle after you said those words (or one of your friends laughed it off and bought a spotting scope 6 weeks later), you're only a overzealous prosecutor and a jury full o'tards away from a conspiracy conviction.
For the thousandth fucking time, that bill only applies to non-citizens!
The cool thing about the bill, is that if you are awaiting determination, it doesn't apply. So if someone never actually checks to see if you've been properly detained as an enemy combatant, you're still quite fucked.
`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
`(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.'.
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