World's First Jail Sentence for BitTorrent Piracy

Rob T Firefly writes "Hong Kong newspaper The Standard reports on what seems to be the world's first case of a BitTorrent movie pirate being sent to jail. (Others have been jailed for related crimes.) After losing his appeal against a November 2005 conviction, Chan Nai-ming, a 38-year-old BitTorrent user known as 'Big Crook,' has begun serving a prison sentence for making the films 'Daredevil,' 'Miss Congeniality,' and 'Red Planet' available for download via BitTorrent. His appeal was based on the fact that he did not profit from the piracy." From the article: "[Appeals Judge] Beeson noted [convicting magistrate] MacIntosh, in handing out the sentence, was fully aware of the noncommercial nature of the case, but measured the seriousness of the case by the harm done to the moviemakers — not by the gain made by the offender. Chan, and those in the chatroom, 'were aware of the possible criminal implications of uploading films to the system,' Beeson wrote. She also noted the sentence was already drastically reduced, from a maximum of four years, to three months, in order 'to reflect the novelty of the conviction.'

Comments

Just what is "Uploading" in this case?

[Kelson]

The article doesn't make it clear, but from the description, it sounds like he posted the .torrent files somewhere and either ran the tracker or put the whole mess on a site that would run it.

If this actually applied to simply seeding the file as a peer (i.e. downloading via BitTorrent and leave the client running), then there's more of a potential chilling effect, as it sets a precedent for downloading-via-BT being the equivalent of distribution.

Re:Just what is "Uploading" in this case?

[billcopc]

Bittorrent itself is just a protocol. If you were to encrypt the movie file and give the decryption key to everyone you want to share it with, then an outsider could not play back the movie. Now is an encrypted movie file still a movie ? Or is it just random garbage ?

This could be interpreted at least two ways. You could say that it is like a car with no engine. Technically it's still a car, even though you can't operate it. This is likely what a large corporation would use for an argument. Let's turn it around now, what if you have just the engine. Are you still in possession of a "car" even though most of its parts are missing ?

Back to piracy: If I'm sharing 99% of a file, but the file is unusable, I am probably going to get sued for piracy. Now if I were to share only the 1%, I'm still technically committing piracy. In both instances, the result is unusable. In both instances, I am distributing a portion of copyrighted content. In both instances, it can't be proven that what I am distributing is actually someone's copyrighted work. Repairing the file by replacing the missing bits could be construed as fabricating evidence, because we start out with a useless file, and after reconstruction it is now a playable movie. Well what if I am on trial for a stabbing murder, but the only "weapon" I'm carrying is a banana, so the prosecution "repairs" my banana by tying it to a machete, turning it into an illegal death banana. Yes it's loony, but to a non-technical person they are one and the same. The difference is most people know the difference between a knife and a banana, common sense takes over. Not nearly as many people know the intricacies of digital encryption and steganography and we're left having to trust the "expert", who is on someone's payroll.

Actual harm done

[LParks]

"MacIntosh, in handing out the sentence, was fully aware of the noncommercial nature of the case, but measured the seriousness of the case by the harm done to the moviemakers"

I imagine that the moviemakers actually did lose sales on these products, because most of the people that downloaded and watched these movies probably realized how bad they were and lost interest in purchasing them.

These companies want you to be blindfolded, and purchase based on 30 second blurbs with a catchy voice saying exciting things. When people see product they can make an actual informed purchase (or non-purchase).

Re:wow

[BakaHoushi]

And 100% of people who still bring up "Bush stole the election in 2000" jokes in every topic. =)

(No offense. I do believe it happened, but... it happened. Making fun of Bush now is a lot like beating up a man with broken arms and legs. Sure, you could, but... why bother? What else can you do to him that hasn't already been done?)

But as far as bad taste goes, look at any list of top sellers in any field.

Whaddya know, 8 million people bought Madden 0X again, even though it's the same game as last year, with a new guy on the cover!
Hmmm... Bill O'Rielly's book on the best-seller list? O R(iel)LY?
Hey! (Popstar who can't sing)/(Rap artist who sings about crimes he never did) just went quintuple super ultra platinum again! At least until everyone forgets him by next week.

Also, try walking into a fashion or decoration store sometime. I'm against the death penalty, but if bad taste were legal and I were a judge, I'd send half of the USA to the gallows.