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

wow

[joss]

> 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

Damn, I didnt know bad taste was a jailable offence.

Re:wow

[HappySqurriel]

Now if only they would arrest the people who were involved in making those movies ...

Re:wow

[ggwood]

Ya, and since "[the judge] measured the seriousness of the case by the harm done to the moviemakers" the sentence should be the movie makers handing cash to this guy. He's advertising their crappy movies for them, for free.

Re:wow

[russ1337]

>>> "Jailed for making the films 'Daredevil,' 'Miss Congeniality,' and 'Red Planet' available for download ....... MacIntosh, in handing out the sentence measured the seriousness of the case by the harm done to the moviemakers"

I can see where they are coming from. I'd be embarrassed and 'harmed' by the general public seeing my totally crappy films too.

Re:wow

[ggwood]

The Tomato Meter ratings of these films are: 14, 37, 44 - which (as I understand it) is the percent of favorable reviews.

Re:wow

[geekoid]

I would be happy with just the arrest of Ben Afflack

Re:wow

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Beg Clook? What is Beg Clook?

Don't raugh at me!

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.

Re:wow

[RKBA]

What else can you do to him that hasn't already been done?

Hanging for treason against the American people and the United States Constitution?

Re:wow

[aardvarkjoe]

Damn, I didnt know bad taste was a jailable offence.

If that was the case 51% of the US electorate should have been jailed after the 2004 presidential election.

51%? Try 98%.

Re:wow

[Kuvter]

You should be arrested for misspelling Ben Affleck.

Re:wow

[A beautiful mind]

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?

Oh, but you bring up a good point. Bush doesn't have his arms and legs broken yet and he's not sitting in a cell with no habeas corpus. Just, so you know, comparable treatment to what he is doing for alleged war criminals.

Alternatively the death penalty could be used on him, but I object to it on a moral basis. But the fact is, Bush is not lame at the moment - he's still the president unfortunately.

Re:wow

[jagdish]

Hey its Ben Assfleck.

Re:wow

[BakaHoushi]

Actually, I do agree with you 100%. At this point, I don't think there's any doubt in my mind that what Bush did was nothing short of Treason. The Downing Street Memo is essentially the smoking gun that Bush lied to the world in order to start an unnecessary war that has cost unimaginable damage to human lives, our world image, and the economy.

However, I'm simply stating here that when people here take every chance they can to take a dig at him, especially in totally unrelated articles, it does not make us, the supposed side of Justice, if I may be so crass, look very fair. It just tends to annoy those who aren't as thoroughly convinced.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that in politics, you can't just accuse someone of treason like this so late in the game. Bush's image in the eyes of both the world and in the eyes of Americans is so far down the shitter that I don't think there's any way in Hell he could ever become popular again (hence my original comment). It's just a matter of time, waiting for him to make his next big screw up, and then striking while the iron's hot, to blow that out of proportion, and to add in charges of treason.

I don't particularly like this idea, but Congress doesn't seem to be responding to the letter I sent about increasing political efficiency by replacing everyone's desks with some gallows.

Re:wow

[James McGuigan]

The problem is not Bush per se, but the fact that congress, the military and everyone else is following his nonsense. The best punishment for Bush would be to send him back to his ranch, and let him spend out the rest of his days being a big kid with lots of toys but prevent him from every being put in a position of responsibility ever again.

The best thing the American people could do would be to vote him out of office (well he's not going to run for a third time, unless he proposes a new amendment) and get rid of the two party system by voting in an independant for president.

Re:wow

[BakaHoushi]

I'm entirely aware of this, and would love nothing more than to see him shipped off to prison for crimes against humanity. However, I'm simply saying that a discussion of jail sentences for a man on BitTorrent is not a good place to start complaining about him in. This isn't a political thread, and bringing it up here is only going to irritate people on both sides.

Bush is a slimeball asshole, but that doesn't need to be said in EVERY topic. But I'm entirely for locking up him and every one of his puppet/puppet masters. (In fact, as far as I'm concerned, getting elected is proof of guilt. Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200)

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?

[jank1887]

it sets a precedent for downloading-via-BT being the equivalent of distribution.

Last I checked, since the protocol works such that having that file in that folder implies consent to upload the file, then yes, it is the equivalent of distribution. The question is only whether or not the distribution is illegal. It seems hard to argue that distribution takes place unless you can prove that you somehow turned off that feature.

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

[miyako]

As I understand it, the way bittorrent works means that even if I'm seeding a movie it's fairly unliikely that any one person will get the entire file from me, if there are a decent number of peers as well as plenty of other seeders.
Assuming that you need at least, say, 75% of the file for it to be even semi-watchable, I would suspect that with the distributed nature of bittorrent, very few peers or seeders actually distribute enough of the file to any given person for it to really be that "person A got the movie from person B".

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

[jank1887]

let the fake slashdot lawyers chime in to correct me, but I'm fairly certain that you don't have to get the whole file to be infringing. even a portion of the file is infringing distribution. now, how small? don't know. But if you're talking about a movie, my guess would be far less than 75%. even a 30 second segment of a 2.5 hour movie could be considered infringing if the copyright owner wanted to consider it that way. That's only 0.3%. Also, you shared the movie regardless of the number of other sharers, so the intent is there along with the act. Again, intent might or might not matter depending on whether your jurisdiction considers it criminal or civil, but as I said before, I still think intent to distribute is inherent in using the protocol unless you make provisions to avoid sharing.

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

[miyako]

it's true that if I had 75% of the movie, that would definitely be copyrite violation. What I was wondering though is, if I have say, 50% of the bits in a file, but due to where those bits are, they are useless for playing back the file, is that still infringment?
Now what if I have the whole file, but I never share out enough to anyone that they would watch the file just with what I've shared?
I'm certainly not qualified to answer any of these questions, it's just sort of my brain wandering off into a tangent.

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

[eno2001]

True. However, I expect that the RIAA and the MPAA WANT this to be a nebulous result. They don't want clarity so that anyone even THINKING of using BitTorrent will be dissuaded from doing so. If it was clear that he was operating at a higher level in the BitTorrent tree, then this case wouldn't be very noteworthy. Especially if people in the know made it clear to the less technically inclined but piracy prone end-users.

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

[Kijori]

But bittorrent is if someone else gives them the sheet and you give them the letters to fill it in. I don't think anyone's going to find you guilty for selling alphabet soup in the knowledge that they might write something bad.

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

[MikShapi]

Playing devil's advocate here, this does not even remotely resemble the truth, as in the alphabet soup case the mechanism used does not provide an immediate facility to reconstruct the original from the bits and pieces whereas bittorrent does, making it matter on the end-result - one facilitates an end result where material was copied, shredded paper alphabet soup doesn't.

Another similar case is whether it would be legal to distribute a copyrighted bitstream with all the original bits run through a NOT gate (or encoded in any other format for that matter). After all, you're not distributing the original copyrighted material, you're distributing something else which is
[a] derived
and
[b] can be used to reconstruct the original.
This is, of course, just as illegal (no flames please, I don't use inflaming words like "theft" or "piracy", all this is is copyright infringement), just as illegal as re-encoding a red-book Madonna CD into mp3 and distributing the mp3 files.

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.

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

[Kijori]

Yes, both result in a copy of something being created. But in your NOT-gate example, you're providing the 'materials' and the method of assembly - NOT-gate it again. With bittorrent, one person supplies the plans (the .torrent) and a group of other people supply the raw materials (the file pieces). In my previous post I was just going for the funny, but imagine a different situation. On my fridge are a load of magnets with words on. They can be used to create copyrighted poems if I know, independently, how to do this. But it's no one's fault but mine if I do.

Please remind me again

[Psionicist]

Please remind me again how this man is so dangerous to society he must be locked up in jail.

Re:Please remind me again

[AndersOSU]

You know sometimes we put people in jail for reasons other than they are dangerous, like to punish them... Otherwise a "white collar criminal" would never have to do jail time.

Re:Please remind me again

[Albert Sandberg]

Please remind me again how this man is so dangerous to society he must be locked up in jail.

And house arrest sounds like a smart option to you?

Jail sentances are not only to keep away people from the rest of us, it's about punishment too.

Re:Please remind me again

[geekoid]

Society is a collection of rules.
He broke the rules, and it being punished for it.
Rightr now, society says the punishment is jail.

Hopefully society will change where a judge will be able to come up with punishments that aren't so expensive to institute.

Re:Please remind me again

[voice_of_all_reason]

He allowed rich people to have less money. There is no higher law.

Re:Please remind me again

[Rob T Firefly]

You try telling anyone whose life savings were vaporized by the fallout from Enron and such that white-collar criminals aren't dangerous.

Re:Please remind me again

[geekoid]

Yes, but there are other punishments.
Public service comes to mind.

Jails should be about rehabiltating people.

Re:Please remind me again

[PingSpike]

Because fining poor people doesn't work and for some reason we don't have debtors prisons anymore.

Re:Please remind me again

[Anonymous Coward]

"Society is a collection of rules"

Rules made by a few for the many.

The few, are in the pockets of the Corporations.

Re:Please remind me again

[AndersOSU]

Yes, but we didn't send the Enron guys to jail because they're dangerous. We sent them to jail because they were bad (among other reasons.) We could make Enron execs effectively harmless in the future by banning them from certain business positions.

When we talk about sending someone to jail because they're dangerous it usually means preventing them from physically harming people in society at large.

Re:Please remind me again

[AndersOSU]

Jails are for lots of things, rehab is perhaps the aspect they are least effective at.

Re:Please remind me again

[owlnation]

He allowed rich people to have less money. There is no higher law.

In his defense, they wouldn't have lost much money. Not with those movies.

Re:Please remind me again

[shawn(at)fsu]

Not all white collar crimes vaporize peoples life savings.

Re:Please remind me again

[geekoid]

I'd just tax all income, not just monetary, at 100% for every dollar over 100 Grand.
I'd sell all there assests. Give half to the spouse, take the rest.

Use it to fund presecription drugs for all the people who lost there life savings. As much as you can, anyways.

All the stocks they hqave for the company are immediatly sold, and all options exercised and taken.

Also, take there drivers lisense away.

Re:Please remind me again

[Total_Wimp]

I agree with you. Unfortunately, US prisons have largely checked themselves out of the rehabilitation process for many years now. Most people, it would seem, are more interested in revenge than in attempting to foster any good that may still be left in those that commit crimes.

My personal opinion is that this glorifies our basest instincts and shuts out our most human. In other words, choosing to only punish criminals is really a choice to hurt ourselves.

TW

Re:Please remind me again

[j00r0m4nc3r]

And make them watch Miss Conegeniality once a day.

Re:Please remind me again

[archcommus]

Definitely agreed. Perhaps he deserves a REASONABLE fine (as in, try to calculate how many people downloaded his films and multiply that by like $10, not $500,000 or something ridiculous) and some community service. Not being an actual inmate in a prison for a crime that no one is seeing any direct harm from.

Re:Please remind me again

[E 99]

Rightr now, society says the punishment is jail.
Hopefully society will change where a judge will be able to come up with punishments that aren't so expensive to institute.

What ever happened to sending criminals to Australia? That seemed to be working.

BTW, I'm not so sure that China's version of jail is "expensive to institute."

Re:Please remind me again

[LiquidCoooled]

Yes, the punishment should fit the crime.

If this guy was sentenced to so many hours community service work in the film industry, he would not only know who he was effecting but also make a direct contribution back to it.
Hell, he might even find himself a real job afterwards.

Here in the UK, our prisons are at maximum capacity - we are locking away too many people (some understandably need to be kept away), and I think some common sense needs to be applied.

Re:Please remind me again

[pluther]

But wouldn't it make more sense to, say, make them pay back the money they stole?
Maybe 2-3 times what they took, so it serves as a deterrent. Instead, two or three of the Enron guys go to some country-club prison at taxpayer expense for a few months each, and they and everyone else involved gets to keep most of the money they took. How is that good for anyone but the criminals?

Same with this guy: how many copies of the movie were actually downloaded? They're available for, what $15.00 each more or less? It seems that would be a more appropriate punishment for copyright violation than jail time...

Re:Please remind me again

[mark-t]

He's not a direct danger to society, obviously*

Now if copyright infringers aren't actually punished when they are caught, and most importantly, the severity of the punishment is sufficient to minimize the incentives to do so in a straightforward risk/gain analysis, the chance of a repeat infraction after the penalty has been paid is minimized.

Fining people impossible amounts of money usually doesn't accomplish anything, because if they don't have that much then there's nothing they can do, and if they _COULD_ afford the fine, then it would not necessarily be a sufficient deterrent to stop people from repeating the crime.

* At least not in the same way that people who threaten other people's lives are. However, if copyright has any value at all, then infringement poses a danger to that value, and in turn, to *ALL* copyright holders, so infringing on one person's copyright indirectly reduces the value of everybody's. I don't own any copyrights on anything I make money on (it's all GPL'd), but I damn well do care about whether or not other people respect my copyright by adhering to the terms that I, as the copyright holder, am free to dictate as being required to obtain permission to copy my works (in my case, comply with the terms of the GPL), and I most definitely realize that infringing on anybody's copyrights inevitably reduces the value of my own, because the concept of the exclusivity behind copyright loses significance in the view of the general public as a result, so I have no sympathy at all for infringers.

Re:Please remind me again

[twiddlingbits]

That approach has been used before. Remember the stock scam guy Micheal Milliken (sp?)from the 1990s? The Gov't banned him from ever working in the Securities industry as a broker. So what does he do, he makes millions as a "Consultant" to firms showing them how to avoid the scams like he ran and also showing them the loopholes he found that he didn't get caught for using. Kinda like hiring the hacker to show you how not to get hacked which has happened many times. The ability of the Enron execs to make any sort of living after they serve time is going to be compromised, not many firms want to hire a well-known felon. When Skilling gets out of prison he'll still get his Social Security plus anything he had before Enron that his soon-to-be-ex-wife doesn't get in the divorce.[NOTE == this assumes SS is still around in 30 yrs)

Re:Please remind me again

[danpsmith]

You try telling anyone whose life savings were vaporized by the fallout from Enron and such that white-collar criminals aren't dangerous.

Embezzlement and the complete destruction of a company along with pensions, savings, stocks and lives is hardly comparable to sharing a couple copies of some terrible movies with people on the Internet. That the people may or may not have even bought/watched if they weren't free.

But nice try linking the two.

Re:Please remind me again

[b.burl]

Thanks, that was really funny.

Re:Please remind me again

[mark-t]

Debtor's prison has been abolished in most civilized countries because it is considered an unfair punishment. It treats people who are having financial difficulties in the same manner as violent criminals, and it makes a positive solution that much more unlikely. People who are free are generally more productive, and will be that much more likely to be able to pay off the debt eventually.

Re:Please remind me again

[HappySqurriel]

And house arrest sounds like a smart option to you?

Jail sentances are not only to keep away people from the rest of us, it's about punishment too.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that after a certain age most people are not motivated by potential (or previous) punishments so I suspect that "punishing" criminals is mostly a pointless act. Now, if your goals are protection of society and rehabilitation of the criminal (and your penal system was properly structured) house arrest would be a smart option; at $65,000+ per year to jail a prisoner it would be far less expensive to have a criminal watched by their own personal parol officer than it would be to hold them in jail and (with the exception of violent and sexual predators) would probably be better for the criminal and society at large.

Re:Please remind me again

[fahrbot-bot]

Hopefully society will change where a judge will be able to come up with punishments that aren't so expensive to institute.

Perhaps he could be forced to actually watch those movies, though at least one of them could be considered "cruel and unusual". Lucky for him he didn't distribute "Miss Congeniality 2"...

Re:Please remind me again

[vakuona]

Here's an idea. A court fines you so much money, and if you don't have a job, they give you one at around minimum wage (diggin up roads), and they deduct the fine from your wages until you have repaid every penny. So you actually do something productive whilst 'learning your lesson' If you have a job, they just instruct your employer to deduct a certian amount from your salary every month until you repay your debt. There is this fallacy that a fine that doesn't run into 5 figures isn't effective. Please. anyone who says that has obviously not ever had to earn their money.

Re:Please remind me again

[Vitriol Angst]

Society doesn't benefit by this man in Jail.

I could imagine, that this person is unlikely to commit this crime again.
Deterrence would work -- but only for White Collar criminals.

Prison should not be intended as a punishment. It is to protect others, or to rehabilitate. We have way too many people in prison -- now the most of any country. Being abused by some dangerous thugs, is not much good for making a better person come out of prison -- we are basically throwing away a human life.

And nobody should be in prison for using drugs. They should be in treatment.

>> Make him pay a fine and do community service. You can't make examples out of a few people with the intent of scaring everyone else into compliance with a law. That is un-equal protection. They ruin a few people, to help promote an anti-distribution policy. 99% of the people doing this won't be punished, so how is this fair? If Police just took a few speeder a year and shot them in the head, it might get people to slow down on the roads -- but it would be highly "unequal" for the person being shot.

Re:Please remind me again

[vishbar]

Hopefully society will change where a judge will be able to come up with punishments that aren't so expensive to institute.

They have. Corporal punishment, lashings, flaying, and execution (I'm not talking pretty little gas-chamber humane execution, but charging the family of the dearly departed a bill for the bullet). The problem is, the cheap methods aren't humane.

Re:Please remind me again

[Mister Whirly]

"Enron guys go to some country-club prison at taxpayer expense for a few months"
Well, CEO Jeffrey Skilling was sentenced to more than a few months, he got 24 years - or 288 months to be exact. And former CFO Andrew Fastow was given a 6 year term after cooperating with prosecutors and helping them secure Skilling's conviction - or 72 months. Ken Lay would have probably got at least 10+ years, but the bastard died before we could punish him. Skilling also faces a possible $18 million dollar fine - still less than he bilked investors and workers out of though...

Re:Please remind me again

[Jinjuku]

Hello... They guy isn't going to jail for the rest of his life, it's 90 days. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Nice try at not linking those two together.

Re:Please remind me again

[Mister Whirly]

Does anyone really still harbor the illusion the jail is for rehabilitation?? Jail is for revenge and punishment... oh, and to learn how to become a better criminal, and make better criminal connections...

Re:Please remind me again

[bidule]

Jails should be about rehabiltating people.

<deadpan>
So should death penalty.
</deadpan>

Re:Please remind me again

[tcphll]

Isn't that cruel and unusual punishment?

Re:Please remind me again

[geekoid]

too bad he effected no one in the film industry.

I was thinking picking up trash. I mean, from the movies listed the man knows trash.

Re:Please remind me again

[TooMuchToDo]

Actually, I would argue that in some rare cases that white-collar criminals are more dangerous then someone who murdered one person.

Someone who wipes out the life savings of thousands upon thousands of people for example. I understand living in poverty means you still have your life, but only barely (i.e. being homeless, foodless, etc).

Re:Please remind me again

[geekoid]

Jail SHOULD be about rehabilitation, currently it is not, and can not be because we have too many people in them for stupid reasons.

Re:Please remind me again

[mark-t]

Of course smaller fines can be effective, but they would be proportionally LESS effective against people who had more money, and it should not be the law's job to make the severity of the punishment greater for people more able to afford it without serious consequence.

Re:Please remind me again

[danpsmith]

Hello... They guy isn't going to jail for the rest of his life, it's 90 days. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Jail sentence notwithstanding, I was making the point that because Enron executives committed "white-collar" crime and were a danger to society that doesn't mean that this guy is a danger to society for having committed a so-called "white-collar" crime. I said nothing about his jail sentence.

I was pointing out a common logical fallacy:

Some P are Q therefore all P are Q.

I do think it's a little harsh to put someone in jail for sharing bad movies, but that's another topic.

Re:Please remind me again

[StikyPad]

If society is a collection of rules, and he broke the rules, then he broke society!

Society is not a collection of laws, it's a collection of people, and in most societies the majority of those people are at least two steps removed from creating, or causing the creation, of law. Hopefully the morons who decided that non-profit copyright infringement is a criminal offense will reconsider.

Re:Please remind me again

[jimicus]

Let's try a thought experiment.

Either you can rehabilitate criminals, or you can't.

Similarly, either jail is an effective rehabilitation tool or it isn't.

This gives a number of scenarios:

1. Criminal is jailed, criminal cannot be rehabilitated.
    Why bother? Just shoot them on conviction and save society the money. (Yes I know that's an extreme viewpoint. Bear with me, this is a thought experiment).
2. Criminal is not jailed, criminal cannot be rehabilitated
    So society sees little point in jailing the criminal, but they are free to commit crime which is one thing jail does prevent. Ouch.
3. Criminal is jailed, and can be rehabilitated. But jail's a lousy tool for rehabilitation.
    Why bother? While the criminal can in theory be rehabilitated, society doesn't have an effective means to do so. Shoot them and save the money.
4. Criminal is jailed, can be rehabilitated. Jail works for rehabilitation.
    Oh goody. Finally something that works. Except that every developed country in the world has lousy recidivism rates for formerly jailed ex-convicts, which suggests that this option is far removed from the real world.

Sounds like every option sucks to me.

Re:Please remind me again

[mOdQuArK!]

Sounds like a good way for the "ruling class" to create a bunch of slaves (which would compete against non-criminals looking for work at a decent wage).

Re:Please remind me again

[idugcoal]

Dude, i know you're trying to be funny, but come on. Lots of people losing everything they've worked for vs. the discomfort you put yourself through watching a movie that you didn't like? Wow.

Re:Please remind me again

[Vitriol Angst]

>> I think prisons are not providing a benefit to our society. Instead of dealing with major factors in crime; poverty, education, opportunity, drug treatment, and even health -- we depend upon a system that warehouses people.

My brother "experimented with drugs" without using a Lab Coat in college. He was a suburban white kid and went to a treatment program -- kind of like a summer camp with hard labor. Nothing went on his record, and today he is a 6 figure executive with a good family. If he had been an "urban" person, he'd be coming out of jail now, with no prospects and little value to society.

So by not getting caught, or society has an educated person who supports the economy. I think that is a pretty powerful statement. Our justice system might work better if it stopped arresting MOST people. Most kids just need to be in a good environment with a little discipline.

Re:Please remind me again

[undercanopy]

the problem with that is tha their stocks were/are basically useless. that's why it was so devastating to everyone who had their pensions locked up in company stock. when the scandal came out, the stock prices plummeted and the damage was done.

If he had a milltion shares of enron and the price dropped from 100 to 1, that $1,000,000 is something to add to the pile, but was miniscule compared to what it cost everyone else. that's if enyone would even buy a million shares of the compant in that position for anything more than a few cents a share

selling all of their other holdings, however, would likely be more profitable.

Re:Please remind me again

[rolandog]

Agreed... even worse than waterboarding.

Re:Please remind me again

[Firehed]

If memory serves from the stories that came up when he was original arrested (months ago), it actually was MC2; the summary just reported it wrong. I didn't read TFA either though, so I could just be imagining things after exam week.

Re:Please remind me again

[dheera]

The guy SHOULD NOT have been jailed. Jails do not rehabilitate, they torture people instead. A woman convicted of file sharing of copyrighted things should NOT face rape as a punishment. I know that's not the way jail is supposed to work, but currently it does. The Enron guys should not have been jailed either, especially considering most businesses do exactly what the Enron guys did on a small scale. Martha Stewart also should not have been jailed. I don't see why insider trading is a crime. If you know information about a company beforehand, it's because you are smart. Stock markets should be a place of freedom and survival of the fittest in knowledge. If you're able to get insider information on a company and your neighbor isn't, well, your neighbor sucks.

Re:Please remind me again

[pbaer]

"Now if copyright infringers aren't actually punished when they are caught, and most importantly, the severity of the punishment is sufficient to minimize the incentives to do so in a straightforward risk/gain analysis, the chance of a repeat infraction after the penalty has been paid is minimized."

Not really. That assumes criminals are thinking rationally, something very few due. For example, most drug sellers make close to or less than minimium wage. High risk + illegal + poor pay is worse than flipping burgers.

Re:Please remind me again

[nasch]

Embezzlement and the complete destruction of a company along with pensions, savings, stocks and lives is hardly comparable to sharing a couple copies of some terrible movies with people on the Internet.

There's been a lot of mention of how bad the movies are. Some are obvious jokes. Others are used in an otherwise-serious post, with the implication that the offense is less serious if the movies (more generically, content) are bad. Are the /.ers just taking an opportunity to get in a jab at a movie they don't like (probably haven't watched) or do some people really think it makes any difference, legally or ethically, how good or bad the movie is? Please reassure me that it's the former! :-)

Re:Please remind me again

[Jherek Carnelian]

However, if copyright has any value at all, then infringement poses a danger to that value, and in turn, to *ALL* copyright holders, so infringing on one person's copyright indirectly reduces the value of everybody's.

And how is that any different from people who employee their right to freedom of speech to convince people that copyright is an antiquated and useless concept? Do they deserve punishment for devaluing the worth of all copyrights?

Re:Please remind me again

[geekoid]

I don't think you read my post correctly.

You seem to have an issue with the poor condition, and lax security that happens inside a prison. Different topic, and probably one you and I would agree on. I also don't know what a chinese prison is like, so I really couldn't comment anyways.

As someone who has worked with CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs on accounting issues, I can tell you what the Enron people did was rare, and even harder to do these days.

"Martha Stewart also should not have been jailed. I don't see why insider trading is a crime. "

Tt has nothing to do with being 'Smart' and everything to do with the fact that you are supposed to make stock buys and sells with the same infiormation that is publically available.
If I researched publically released information and sis a really smart investment, and my neighbor didn't, yeat too bad so sad.

Re:Please remind me again

[mark-t]

Perhaps you missed the provision which qualified the assertion I stated... that is, *IF* copyright has value...

If you do not believe copyright has value, that's all very well and good, but existing law disagrees with that interpretation.

Re:Please remind me again

[Jherek Carnelian]

I don't see how what the perp believes has any impact on your argument.

Re:Please remind me again

[dheera]

1. Accounting issues and fraud happen all the time these days. Every time a worker misrepresents his work hours is an accounting fraud. Either way, the punishment shouldn't be jail time, it should be related and proportional to what was misrepresented. The punishment should be a direct, monitored way to help remedy the problem, not throw the guy in jail. In the case of bittorent, perhaps the first offense should result in being requried to purchase what they shared. next offense, double that. double that. etc. it's a reasonable price to pay that will go up in cost pretty fast but still keep the guy's mind in commission for contributing to whatever job he does for the world. many people that file-share are doing something for the world and they shouldn't be stopped from that by being put in jail. people committing *direct* harm (shoplifting, murder, violence, rape, etc.) should be put in jail. people that are causing threats (speeding on the road being a potential danger to others, filesharing being a potential danger to company profits, etc.) should not.

2. I know this is off-topic, but:
(a) There is such a thing as "heya, I just felt like selling a thousand shares, so I did".
(b) If you have access to insider information, you're at an advantage. Others can just go suck it up. If they want the information, they should submit their resume to the company, get a job, go up the corporate ladder, and try again. If they aren't willing to, tough luck.
(c) Insider trading is permitted in everything else, for example. If I know the price of apples is going up next week, they aren't going to jail me for buying a bunch this week. If a scientist finds out an EASY way to turn graphite into diamonds in mass quantities such that the price of diamonds will fall, he isn't restricted from selling all his diamonds before he publishes his paper.
(d) Free capitalism means buy and sell what you want, when you want. Not based on where you got information from.
(e) Stock trade data should be a state functions, not path-dependent functions. Where information comes from should not count. The only thing that should count is who bought and sold what and when. It's like asking me how I got into a city and arresting me for using bridge X and not arresting me if I used bridge Y. If the state of the bridges are unchanged, all that should matter is my initial and final location. Period. If the state of the bridges are changed because of me, then we have a problem.
(f) Good analytic skills are equivalent to insider trading. Just because a guy has an awesome brain shouldn't mean he should be restricted from using it ("I think a merger between companies A and B would be so succussful this month that I don't see a reason they won't! So I'll buy a million shares. Also maybe I'll suggest the merge to them to prod them and maybe they will merge!"). If someone else found a way to achieve the equivalent information that the guy with the awesome brain can get ("I heard from the CEO in a private discussion that they might merge this month"), great! Both should be allowed to trade!
(g) In a world of 6 billion people it's plausible that a guy has a lot of money to throw around, and not having insider information access, decides to just buy a million shares of something for the hell of it. And then if it goes up a ton he'll be accused of insider trading, but maybe he really isn't.

Re:Please remind me again

[TrickyRick]

>I'd just tax all income, not just monetary, at 100% for every dollar over 100 Grand.

If you tax someone at 100% they quit making money rather than pay it taxes.

Re:Please remind me again

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Precisely. You try telling any movie studio whose profits were vaporized by pirates like this guy.

Re:Please remind me again

[Yartrebo]

They are dangerous. White collar criminals can strike twice just like blue collar criminals.

Re:Please remind me again

[Yartrebo]

"Skilling also faces a possible $18 million dollar fine - still less than he bilked investors and workers out of though..."

Now compare this to the punishment for shoplifting. If the punishment were proportional, shoplifting a can of soda would get you a millisecond or seconds of jail time (not long enough for the cops to even get handcuffs on you) and a fine of perhaps ten cents - and you get to keep the soda.

Re:Please remind me again

[Yartrebo]

Perhaps there is more than meets the eye.

When a movie is bad, word of mouth and 'free samples' will totally ruin the movie's profitability. In such cases P2P will have a substantial effect on the movie's gross, as word of mouth will spread more quickly.

If a movie is good, P2P might very well increase the box office take as more people find out about it. Even if the downloader doesn't watch it in a theater, (s)he will probably tell others how good the movie is and they'll pay for it.

Re:Please remind me again

[Yartrebo]

This would be very reasonable if the law was just and fair in the first place.

The problem is that copyright is very unfair, and this guy looks a lot more like the colonists in the Boston Tea Party then Ken Lay or even someone cheating on a punchcard.

Re:Please remind me again

[Yartrebo]

Yeah, I wonder where copyright and patents would be if people voted directly on it AND the mass media wasn't there to 'reinterpret' their votes for them (by bombarding them with pro-copyright advertising and spin before the vote).

Re:Please remind me again

[charlieman]

Public service comes to mind. Yeah, they should make him seed linux distros for a few months, that's gonna teach him!

Re:Please remind me again

[A beautiful mind]

Hopefully the morons who decided that non-profit copyright infringement is a criminal offense will reconsider.

No, they won't, unless you make them to. Make copyright (and relaxation of rules or abolishment of it) a campaign topic and show that a lot of regular folk are willing to vote politicians out of office based on that. Then they'll care.

Re:Please remind me again

[shmlco]

"Our justice system might work better if it stopped arresting MOST people."

I disagree. People need to learn responsibility, and to recognize that actions have consequences. What those consequences should be, however, is another topic of discussion...

Re:Please remind me again

[LordSnooty]

well we shouldn't put people in prison unless they are dangerous, in my country all the prisons are officially full precisely because we send fare-dodgers, shoplifters and the like to prison.

Re:Please remind me again

[blahplusplus]

"When we talk about sending someone to jail because they're dangerous it usually means preventing them from physically harming people in society at large."

The truth is white collar crime is even more dangerous because you can perform your hostile intent in abstract terms such as money, it's just as violent and hostile to take someones money through theft and deceit as it is through lesser means such as identity theft or breaking into someones house or invading their privacy.

Enormous amounts of criminal activity go unpunished through white collar and other criminals offloading financial risk to citizens or other businesses!

Re:Please remind me again

[nasch]

If that's true, then sharing bad movies would be a WORSE offense! Nobody seems to be suggesting that, though...

Re:Please remind me again

[AndersOSU]

You missed the point, jail, as it exists today, is very ineffective at rehabbing anyone. If we want to rehab people we shouldn't send them to jail. Jail does other things, like punishes criminal, stops criminals from hurting society at large, makes said criminal not want to go back once he gets out, makes non-criminals not want to become criminals, and so on.

It also doesn't matter if every option sucks, even if jail is completely ineffectual, it is still a better than the other option, which is to not punish criminals. I'm thoroughly unsurprised that we are talking about jail being a sucky solution.

If he had been living in the US

[Hubbell]

He would have gotten away with it due to the fact that they mention a chatroom, which more than likely means IRC, and nearly every single IRC channel related to piracy has the standard: If you are an agent of the government, you cannot enter here yadayada legalspeak yadayada.

Re:If he had been living in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not realize this, but you're being modded funny because that statement is completely worthless. An IRC channel that says government agents aren't allowed to enter has no more meaning than an opium den with a sign above it that says police aren't welcome.

Re:If he had been living in the US

[Rob T Firefly]

I remember reading an interview with some "cybercrime" expert in the early 1990s, who collected printouts of the "if you're law enforcement you're not allowed to login or nark on me" screens from underground BBSes, just because they were so incredibly funny and naiive.

Re:If he had been living in the US

[shaneh0]

This has about as much credibility as selling drugs to someone and saying "You're not a cop are you? You gotta tell me if you are. Otherwise it's entrapment."

Uhh...... If I had a nickel for everytime I've heard someone misuse the "entrapment" line, I'd be able to do my laundry this weekend.

Re:If he had been living in the US

[CCFreak2K]

For anyone that doesn't understand why it's funny instead of insightful or something: http://www.snopes.com/legal/privacy.htm

I don't know what's worse

[the_humeister]

I don't know what's worse: that he's being jailed for 3 months for "distribustion" or that people actually wanted to download Daredevil, Miss Congeniality, and Red Planet.

Re:I don't know what's worse

[Kelson]

This reminds me of something that happened back in college.

I was living on campus that year, in student housing. Early in the year, figuring some sort of file-sharing was useful within the house, I set up two public shares, one read-only and one write-only. A folder where I could post things and a dropbox. Within a few months I'd forgotten about the dropbox.

Sometime the following year I was cleaning up the system and stumbled across the folder. Embarrassingly, I discovered two very large MPEG files containing the movie, Entrapment. Apparently someone had found a writable share, uploaded it with the intent to transfer it somewhere else, and discovered they couldn't get the file back. (This was exactly why I made it write-only in the first place -- so it couldn't be used as a transfer point).

I told my brother about this, and he laughed and said, "At the very least they could have pirated a good movie!"

Re:I don't know what's worse

[Gospodin]

Kind of ironic, too, isn't it? I mean, that the movie that was uploaded was Entrapment?

Re:I don't know what's worse

[meta-monkey]

That's nothing. I worked at a campus computer research lab at a major US university. Somebody got into our system through an old forgotten Sparc workstation that hadn't been patched. They deleted the entire contents of our home directories and replaced it with 40GB of porn, that they then proceeded to share through IRC. This was about 6 or 7 years ago, when 40GB was an ungodly amount of anything.

We had nightly backups of our home directories and all our work, so we don't lose anything. It was really kind of hard to be mad at anybody who gives you 40GB of porn.

Re:I don't know what's worse

[speculatrix]

I used to work at an ISP, and we have an FTP server shared by various customers and many had an "incoming" directory for uploads. One day we discovered the disks were overflowing, mainly with warez. Our logs were not really much use, and this was before internet piracy was making headlines. I was about to hit "rm -rf /home/*/incoming" when a colleague stopped me and ran a tape backup "just in case"; there were the latest versions of all sorts of stuff from Windows betas to Photoshop and games galore!

Good

[geekoid]

" has begun serving a prison sentence for making the films 'Daredevil,' 'Miss Congeniality,' and 'Red Planet' "

serves the bastard right.

Re:Good

[opkool]

" has begun serving a prison sentence for making the films 'Daredevil,' 'Miss Congeniality,' and 'Red Planet' "
serves the bastard right.

Yeah, it's against the Geneva Convention to share Movies of Mass Destruction (MMD)

Saturation

[Anonymous Coward]

To review the saga:

Here Hong kong announces their plan to find people violating copyright using BitTorrent.

Here is the report where they actualy find a guy.

The conviction.

Now he has been sentenced. Hooray, we were right there with you all the way dude, at least in a metaphorical sense.

As a contest, the prize for which is my unending admiration, lets all agree not to rehash the same tired arguments in the 3 links above.

Re:Saturation

[Lead Butthead]

Now he has been sentenced. Hooray, we were right there with you all the way dude, at least in a metaphorical sense.

In the mean time, pirated DVDs continued to be manufactured (and I mean serious manufacturing, not a couple of guys with a dozen or two DVD burners) and sold by street vendors.

Re:Saturation

[novus ordo]

That is so true. Not only do they manufacture, but they export this to other nations. Read this 2006 report for some details:

China's infringing products dominate the black markets of the world, and the reputation of China's industry has suffered as a result. China is not doing enough to stop the outbound infringing products at its borders.

Trade in pirated optical discs continues to thrive, supplied by smugglers and by both licensed and unlicensed factories. Small retail shops continue to be the major commercial outlets for pirated movies and music, and roaming vendors offering cheap pirated discs continue to be very visible in major cities across China.

Interesting tidbit:

Piracy and counterfeiting are partly products of China's market access restrictions, which artificially limit the availability of foreign content and thus lead consumers to the black market. Various U.S. right holders continue to be adversely impacted by restrictions on imports, including having to go through import monopolies, restrictions on foreign investment in distribution, and delays in regulatory approval. Examples include restrictions on the import and distribution of legitimate foreign movies and delays created by the censorship process. Efforts to speed up content review for entertainment software have also been unavailing.

Most pertinent:

The United States is also encouraged that authorities in China started to take enforcement actions against Internet piracy in 2005, following China's 2005 JCCT commitment to carry out a "nationwide crack-down on Internet piracy, including through enforcement at Internet cafes." This included a temporary campaign from October 2005 through February 2006, the concrete results of which remain unclear.

I guess this will please their WTO overlords?

Re:Saturation

[Kuvter]

And from whom would I get admiration from Anonymous Coward?

"Magistrate MacIntosh..."

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm a Mac, and you're going to jail."

Confession

[spyrochaete]

Chan also advertised the movies, and the procedure for downloading the files, on an online chatroom.

So basically he confessed and bragged about his l33titude, just like a little script kiddie bragging about defacing a website on an IIS 3.0 server. Had he not done this, perhaps it would have been more difficult to prove that he was sharing this movie and not just random blocks of binary code that happened to be very similar to those found in one rendition of the AVI files.

If you're going to share something iffy on BitTorrent use a public tracker that doesn't require logins, and maybe use an anonymous proxy like TOR. This isn't a 100% safe solution but it's likely better than what this chap did.

Re:Confession

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to share something iffy on BitTorrent use a public tracker that doesn't require logins, and maybe use an anonymous proxy like TOR. This isn't a 100% safe solution but it's likely better than what this chap did.

TOR is slow as it is, running BitTorrents through it would really kill it, you'd be better off uploading it once to usenet or rapidshare.

Re:Confession

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better still, have some fucking respect for other peoples work and dont go around distributing stuff you didnt help create, or own the IP of.
Unless you are a communist, or someone who thinks enabling freeloading is somehow cool.
Soprry to interrupt the "piracy is l33t" slashdot groupthink there.

Re:Confession

[necro2607]

Uhhh, sure, either that or he just had an xdcc bot running, providing the .torrent files....

Keep in mind the media isn't exactly known for wording anything properly when it comes to computers, technology & the internet...

Re:Confession

[spyrochaete]

If it was some method of automated distribution he might have been able to plead ignorance, pretending he was infected with a trojan or something. Are .torrent files distributed on IRC? I thought people just nabbed the whole movie from XDCC.

Yeah, right...

[ppolitop]

but measured the seriousness of the case by the harm done to the moviemakers -- not by the gain made by the offender. I would be really interested in how can one measure that "damage", in a reasonable way.
We are dealing with jailtime and people's lifes here, we can't just assume....

the doc

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:Actual harm done

[eltonito]

"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)."

I often do the very same thing at the grocery. I open up a package of something I saw advertised and eat some of it to see if it tastes good. If it sucks I don't purchase it. I really can't figure out why store managers get so upset about it, I'm just trying to make an informed purchase.

Re:Actual harm done

[rk]

Questionable analogy aside, there are grocery stores that let you do this if you were to just ask. I know it's a Whole Foods chainwide policy to let you do this, and if you at least ask nicely, many other grocers will let you try a new product free. Some days, they even try to push samples of new or featured products on you. Barring all that, call a manufacturer. They are very likely to give out a "get our product free" coupon and send it to you if you only ask.

Movie makers could learn from this, put the first 15-30 minutes of a movie on line and then say "To see the rest, here's the showtimes for your local theatre". At least they'd be forced to make a few minutes of decent movie, instead of just enough to make a catchy 60 second trailer.

Re:Actual harm done

[Reservoir Penguin]

Bad analogy, maybe most stores won't let you do it, but at any marketplace ( I believe they are called farmer's markets in America) you can ask to taste anything your see before buying. And really, why shouldn't you?

The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[Rob T Firefly]

There are a ton of snarky "lol the movies sucked" comments being posted, and that's all good, but it's actually interesting to note that this very fact formed another part of Chan's failed appeal. FTA:

Beeson seconded MacIntosh in rejecting the argument the movies "were neither current, nor in the `blockbuster' category." She wrote: "A court was not in a position to assess the quality or value of such material."

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[t0rkm3]

Seems odd. Doesn't a court decide reasonable damages frequently?

Sounds like someone was a wee bit lazy.

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[owlnation]

"A court was not in a position to assess the quality or value of such material."

Um, yes, but isn't that what happens - at least in part - during copyright cases?

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[JonathanR]

"[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. So she made no judgement on the value of the movies, but still could determine that harm was done sufficient to warrant a jail term?

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[Endo13]

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking. So basically they're letting the movie industry set the actual value of the films, to the point that even "justice" is based on the price they set. If that's not price-fixing, wtf is?

Wow. Just wow.

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[kimgkimg]

Well if he had thrown Gigli in there I'm sure the charges would have been thrown out of court...

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[LordLucless]

The judge explicitly said during the appeal that the sentance was based on harm done to the copyright owners.

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[JonathanR]

My wifes father spent 30 days in jail for not paying child support ($400 at the time). It would have been 30 days if $1200. It wasn't based on the amount, it was on what most slashdotters lack: Princpal(s). You must be part of the other Slashdot majority who can't spell.

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[JonathanR]

Grammar Nazi? Absolutely! And while you're at it, perhaps you'd like to find out the difference between principle and principal.

Re:The court doesn't recognize bad movies

[JonathanR]

Try and comment when you actually have a real/valid point.... what a joke. Lol. And your original point was? [making sweeping generalisations about Slashdot readers' values]

Why not send the movie makers to jail?

[starX]

I mean seriously, those movies are awful. So awful, in fact, that the only way I can imagine anyone watching them is if you did give them away. Using the judges logic, the studio did significant damage to themselves way before this guy unleashed the big nasty bit torrent.

Big Crook

[RiddleofSteel]

I wonder if they chose him because of him flaunting his criminality with his username? Because surely he was doing those studios a favor distributing those crappy movies, I'm not sure they could even give them away.

Re:Big Crook

[Giggles Of Doom]

With a name like Big Crook, it is hard to use the "I didn't think it was wrong" defense. Its like having Mob Boss tattooed on your forehead. Idiot.

Who needs comedians?

[charlesbakerharris]

...has begun serving a prison sentence for making the films 'Daredevil,' 'Miss Congeniality,' and 'Red Planet' available for download...

How the hell are we supposed to get modded funny when the friggin jokes write themselves??

Re:Who needs comedians?

[Goaway]

Judging from the rest of the thread, by going ahead and making them over and over again.

Re:Anymore room in here...

[kentrel]

Don't worry, they're just warming up for the pro-piracy, anti-"The Man" comments they're getting ready to write. It wouldn't be slashdot without someone denying downloading means less ticket sales or splitting hairs over why copyright theft isn't the same as stealing.

The funny thing about the bad taste jokes is that if they all know they're really bad movies just what were they doing watching them in the first place.

what a turn of fate...

[east coast]

Chan Nai-ming, a 38-year-old BitTorrent user known as 'Big Crook,'

In prison his user name will be "Ben Dover"

Re:what a turn of fate...

[BalkanBoy]

Or Heywood... Heywood Jablowme.

Re:what a turn of fate...

[ElephanTS]

Strangely enough Ben Dover is big in Torrentland too.

Re:Harm?

[JustNiz]

More to the point, all those movies are available via netflix which don't charge based on a per-rental basis, so are already basically free elsewhere anyway.

Re:4 years for sharing 3 movies !!!???

[FunWithKnives]

I think that these kinds of punishments are pointless and stupid as well, but you should reread TFA. This is in China, not the US. Doubtless it is only a matter of time and lobbyists until it is, though.

Re:Harm?

[Hijacked Public]

Oh wait. This is America

While you may be referring to yourself, the situation described in the submission is happening in Honk Kong..

Note to self...

[CheeseTroll]

Don't illegally download copyrighted material under the user name of "Big Crook"!

Rule #1

[CouteauTM]

Don't use username like 'Big Crook' if you wanted to do something illegal. Come on, that's just asking for it.

Re:Harm?

[RiffRafff]

Where is Honk Kong, anyway?

It wasn't really sharing

[ClosedSource]

It's not as if he shared his food with the poor or something like that. It's more like me telling my buddy I'll share your car with him.

Re:It wasn't really sharing

[freeweed]

Actually it's more like you telling your buddy that you'll share YOUR car with him.

Re:It wasn't really sharing

[ClosedSource]

I guess your comment suggests that he paid for the movies in the first place. Do we know that for a fact?

In any case, everyone knows they're not "buying" the content: the annoying warnings at the start of DVDs make that quite clear. In addition, not being copied is part of the business model and has direct impact on the price you pay.

As I see it there are 3 alternatives: 1) keep laws as they are 2) reduce the penalties for non-profit copyright violation but add a fee to the purchase of each DVD to compensate for the copying loss. 3) reduce or eliminate the penalties and make only movies that cost under a million dollars (or some appropriate figure).

What isn't going to work is for significant movie copying to develop and for studios to continue to spend 100's of millions of dollars making movies. It just doesn't add up.

Re:It wasn't really sharing

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Finally, we've got a replacement for "It's not stealing, it's more like borrowing"!

One correction

[linguae]

s/society/government/g

There. That fixes the argument. There is a big difference between society and government. Society is simply a collection of people, whereas government is the ruling force of a jurisdiction of land. In some cases the society and government are somewhat intertwined, whereas in other cases the government is far removed from the society that it is governing.

Re:One correction

[geekoid]

Government is a product of society, not independent of it.

My argument stands.

Re:One correction

[b.burl]

Really? East Timor? Stalin era Ukraine? Cambodia? Pol Pot? Government can be evil if it is not of the people for the people--which is definiately is not always.

Funny line break make much happy laughter.

[LittleBigLui]

$EVIL_PIRATE has begun serving a prison sentence for making the films 'Daredevil,' 'Miss Congeniality,' and 'Red Planet'

Sounds fair to me.

Re:Prison sentence?

[danpsmith]

If anyone deserves it it was him.

Can you just imagine what it would be like to be in the big house on this charge?

Cellmate: "Whatcha in for man?"

Nai-ming: "Miss Congeniality and Daredevil, how about you?"

Cellmate: "Double-murder, you're a Daredevil huh? well you'll be Miss Congeniality tonight."

Re:Harm?

[NineNine]

So, you won't mind if I take a copy of your entire website, and post it on different servers, would you?

It's called deterrence.

[Vellmont]

Yes, but we didn't send the Enron guys to jail because they're dangerous. We sent them to jail because they were bad (among other reasons.)

I'm not sure I understand what "bad" means within the context of jail. The reason why the Enron boys should (and did) go to jail was to deter other people from doing the same thing.

We could make Enron execs effectively harmless in the future by banning them from certain business positions.

Which would have little or no deterrance to stop anyone else from doing it again. Why not try the same thing if the only consequence is being banned from that practice? This is another way in which sending the Enron boys to jail protects society. If we didn't, society would be threatened by others who want to get away with the same thing.

When we talk about sending someone to jail because they're dangerous it usually means preventing them from physically harming people in society at large.

I disagree. We send plenty of people to jail to prevent them from commiting non-violent crimes. The guy commiting check-fraud sure isn't a violent criminal, but he's still hurting society. A spammer hasn't physically hurt anyone, but most everyone on slashdot is harmed in some small way every day by these people. Locking them up in jail is often the ONLY way we can prevent them from harming others.

Re:It's called deterrence.

[fishbowl]

>The reason why the Enron boys should (and did) go to jail was to deter other people from doing the same thing.

More to the point, the reason *anyone* should go to jail is because society feels they should be subjected to confinement, isolation, bad food, and anal rape, as a consequence for what society has claimed is damage to them.

Whether it's for smoking a joint or defrauding thousands of people for billions of dollars, basically, the threat of anal rape is the bedrock of the justice system.

Re:It's called deterrence.

[Mister Whirly]

"the threat of anal rape is the bedrock of the justice system."
So how does that explain criminals who are gay bottoms?

Re:It's called deterrence.

[xantho]

Rape isn't about the act, it's about the power to make someone do something that they really don't want to do. Even though there exist heterosexual men and women in the world, they don't all want to fuck each other all the time, and thus, the idea of rape is defined.

Re:It's called deterrence.

[jb.hl.com]

Even though there exist heterosexual men and women in the world, they don't all want to fuck each other all the time

We're on Slashdot. We're already fully aware of that. ;)

Re:It's called deterrence.

[AndersOSU]

There are many reasons for sending anyone to jail, some are better than others. The OP essentially assumed that the primary reason for incarceration was incapacitation - removing them from society to protect us. I responded that the punitive aspect of punishment is much more important in this case, and that there is essentially no need to incapacitate non-violent criminals.

Clearly deterrence is another important aspect, which is why I added the "among other things" parenthetical.

You might be right that incapacitation is an important aspect of some white collar punishment - but I don't think it is in this case.

Re:It's called deterrence.

[Vellmont]

My point is that punishment is just a form of deterrence. We don't put people in jail to "pay" for what they've done, nor do we put people in jail as a form of revenge.

Re:It's called deterrence.

[AndersOSU]

I don't know where you get that idea, but many thinkers smarter than you or I have thought about punishment for centuries. For a very superficial review read this if you are interested. The fact of the matter is that we put people in jail because it makes us (society) feel better. All the various theories of punishment try to explain why it makes us feel better.

By the way, the word penitentiary is based on the idea that we sent criminals there so they could atone for their sins, hence the root, penance. So at least at some point in history someone in charge (of the Pennsylvania prison system to be precise) thought that we sent people there to pay for what they've done.

If you really think that the only worthwhile aspect of prison is deterrence, we should probably release anyone who commits a crime of passion. A crime of passion is essentially something that is done illegally without thought of consequences (which is why the death penalty as a deterrent argument is bunk.) Since consequences play no roll in such an act there can be no justice. Just to make sure though we could crank up all the prison sentences of those judged to be guilty of a premeditated crime (maybe we should bring back the stocks?) - that way people won't test the system to see if they can get away with something.

Re:It's called deterrence.

[Vellmont]

I don't know where you get that idea, but many thinkers smarter than you or I have thought about punishment for centuries.

I guess I don't subscribe to the theory that when someone "smarter" than me has already said something about a subject, that makes what I think totally invalid, or at least less valid. I also don't subscribe to the theory that what people believed in the past is what's true right now.

If you really think that the only worthwhile aspect of prison is deterrence, we should probably release anyone who commits a crime of passion. A crime of passion is essentially something that is done illegally without thought of consequences (which is why the death penalty as a deterrent argument is bunk.)

That's assuming we could somehow determine, with 100% accuracy whether a crime was a crime of passion, or pre-meditated in some way. YOu can't trust the perpetrator. How do you know the person isn't lying, or just simply wrong about what would or wouldn't have affected their actions?

It's also assuming there IS such a thing as a crime of passion where the consequences or lack thereof don't play into person commiting, or not commiting the crime.

The third assumption is that all people are equally likely of crimes of passion, so removing anyone that commits crimes of passion would have no effect on protecting society.

The first assumtion is obviously incorrect. The second assumption I'm not really sure about, and probbably isn't even something you could really prove one way or another with any certainty. The third assumption you could probbably show statistically one way or the other, buy I know of no such statistics.

In any case, it's pretty obvious to err on the side of caution, and lock people up who commit a "crime of passion".

Re:It's called deterrence.

[AndersOSU]

I guess I don't subscribe to the theory that when someone "smarter" than me has already said something about a subject, that makes what I think totally invalid, or at least less valid. I also don't subscribe to the theory that what people believed in the past is what's true right now.

Jees, simmer down there, I wasn't trying to insult you. What I'm trying to say is that there has been a lot written on the subject, and while that certainly doesn't invalidate what you think, you should at least consider why other people came up with their ideas. The wholesale dismissal of anything you disagree with, combined with very little justification of your own deterrence only theory does however lead me to question its validity.

In my opinion punishment is pragmatic solution, and the theories surrounding it are derived a posteriori. While you blasted my crime of passion example, you took no time to consider my proposition that theories of punishment are ultimately rationalizations. I maintain that since punishment is ultimately a human exercise, human motives must be considered. And since revenge, punishment, and fear are very real human experiences there is no reason to assume that somehow the criminal justice system cleanses these motives from the actual imposition of sentence.

Back to my crime of passion example. Consider it a thought experiment. If you could know with certainty that someone committed a crime, wholly without regard to consequences, and further that his punishment or lack thereof would never effect another persons decision to commit any crime, should that person be punished?

I would say yes, because punishment serves more functions than just deterrence.

Re:It's called deterrence.

[Vellmont]

you took no time to consider my proposition that theories of punishment are ultimately rationalizations.

I think that's ultimately an impossible thing to prove or disprove, so why consider it? The only thing you can do is find an action that's not in the best interest of the actor and call that irrational. I don't see anything that can't be explained about punishment that can't be explained through rational means. Do people have emotional reactions to crimes? Of course. Do some judges act emotionally when handing out sentences? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean punishment is a form of revenge or some kind of payback.

If you could know with certainty that someone committed a crime, wholly without regard to consequences, and further that his punishment or lack thereof would never effect another persons decision to commit any crime, should that person be punished?

I never argued that the only justification for locking someone up is deterrence. I fully acknowledge that it's often times a means to protect society.

Anyway, your thought experiment is invalid. We don't live in a world where you can get perfect knowledge of peoples motivations, and the effect of actions. Our brains our geared towards predicting the future and understanding the past and present based on our limited knowledge and experience, not perfect knowledge of the past, present, and future. Thus our entire world view is shaped by that. I can't give you an answer to that question, since it's beyond anyones experience. You might as well come up with a thought experiment asking what life would be like if there were 6 spacial dimensions. Maybe you could even come up with an answer based upon a purely mathematical model, but that doesn't mean it has any bearing on this world.

Re:Anymore room in here...

[E 99]

Don't worry, they're just warming up for the pro-piracy, anti-"The Man" comments they're getting ready to write. It wouldn't be slashdot without someone denying downloading means less ticket sales or splitting hairs over why copyright theft isn't the same as stealing.

I'm stunned that I can't find any real anti-intellectual-property, copyright-violation-isn't-stealing arguements here yet. Just a bunch of people condemning the corporate corruption of the U.S. penal system. (Don't tell them TFA is about China, they're on a roll.) Seriously, Where Have All The Hippies Gone? Is there some big game of Ultimate Frisbee I don't know about?

Re:4 years for sharing 3 movies !!!???

[Ajehals]

This case is in Hong Kong, a SAR of China so how biassed/corrupted the US legal system can be by corporate power is largely immaterial, I would also suggest that the penalties for Rape and Murder are somewhat harsher, at least in China and I assume in Hong Kong to a certain degree as well (Saying that I am unsure precisely what the situation is in Hong Kong, and what amount of transitioning there has been in the legal sphere since the UK handed the territory back to China).

In any case, this is certainly not one of those times where US intervention will have had much of an impact if it was even attempted, (which I doubt but cannot confirm).

As for the general topic of copyright infringement, I can quite honestly say that I support the fact that there are laws with hefty penalties in place (whether civil or criminal). After all Copyright law does do its part in protecting content producers. Patents are another matter entirely. As for materials subject to copyright, I think it is down to the creator to decide how, where and under what conditions it is distributed and used, I and the company I run prefer to release things under permissive licenses, primarily the GPL (It gives customers and consumers a choice as to what to do with the product we supply and prevents us being the sole option for them when it comes to alteration or expansion which is good and bad but still something I prefer, after all if we are better than everyone else they will come back, if we are not we must try harder..), but I wouldn't force that upon others.

No, it's the Hong Kong SAR

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Technically it's the Hong Kong SAR, which is NOT covered by Chinese law. The HK SAR basically still uses the British legal system that was in place at the time of the handover. I was shocked to see the judge's name because her name is as Anglo as they come, so it's not impossible to conceive that she's actually a Brit who decided to stay in Hong Kong after the handover. I would fully consider such a judge to be immune from Chinese political pressure. That doesn't mean that HK authorities didn't deliberately seek to find a guy they could easily convict of "piracy" to tell the US "We care about piracy. We really do!" but I doubt that this conviction was because Beijing ordered it.

Re:No, it's the Hong Kong SAR

[faloi]

Thanks for clearing that up. I had assumed, wrongly apparently, that the SAR portion applied more to economics. I didn't realize it carried over into the judicial system as well.

German society circa. 1936?

[FatSean]

I mean, that's a collection of rules and people were made to obey the rules.
Sure several million people were murdered for being the wrong race...but that was the law at the time!

really dude...

Re:German society circa. 1936?

[geekoid]

First off, don't compare copyright infringement to the mass murder of millions.
It's really bad taste, and doesn't really make any point.

And if I am not mistaken society ended it. People fighting back were part of society, and society can make change.

One group of people does not make up all of society. One group of people with guns forcing people against there will is not society either.

If society was happy with it, then it would have continued.
Don't forget that society dictates what is moral. So if society dictates that sacrafaicing the fourth born to the mud god is right, then it is the right thing to do.

Do not confuse large groups of people with power with society.

Re:German society circa. 1936?

[FatSean]

You missed the point. Just because 'society' says something is wrong, doesn't make it wrong. Society once thought slavery was all good. Society once thought that making women subservient to men was all good...and some societies still do! Me, I make up my own morals based on others' ideas.

Only in China

[b.burl]

can you imprision for something so stupid and inconsequential. oh, and the u.s. And can anyone actually cite an independent piece of research that shows if file sharing actually hurts the industry, and if so by how much. Everyone just assumes this tech hurts movie/record companies...but as far as I know, no non-industry funded research has shown this. & the tobbacco industry showed us how good industry science can be. Whereas the enron guys devestated peoples lives.

Re:Only in China

[AtomicBomb]

Do you realise an interesting fact from the article: "[Appeals Judge] Beeson"? It is a typical Anglo Saxon surname. Even after the 1997 transition, Hong Kong still maintains its legal system is largely intact. It has full autonomy especially for the vast majority of cases that are not very political in nature. It follows the common law system as Britain, and still uses the same case laws. Many lawyers and even judges are from other common law countries...

However, Hong Kong is the bridge head for laissez-faire capitalism economy ideology since the colonial era. Many laws and the elites in the society are strongly pro-business. Milton Friedman, the influential Nobel prize economist, once said "if you want to see capitalism in action, go to Hong Kong". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Hong_ Kong.
The case is just revealing how raw capitalism is supposed to work.

Re:Don't forget it's China

[br0pbr0p]

Hong Kong runs its own legal system, which is way better than China's. Most of the judges are actually British judges, so unless the British justice system is messed up, Hong Kong's is fine seeing as Hong Kong's justice system is mainly based on British one.

A beowulf cluster

[Weaselmancer]

...of 'bad taste in movies' comments.

Asking to be caught?

[bishbashbosh]

O.K so i'm gonna upload three terrible movies, then i'm gonna shout about it on some chatrooms, then i'm going to show people how to download them... Oh and i'll also use the moniker 'Big Crook'... What was he thinking? It's as if he wanted to be caught...

Re:Don't forget it's China

[b.burl]

Umm, no. HK is not a democracy therefore the legal system is fucked and HK's system is not a british legal system even if there are some colonials left colleciting their salaries by enfocing fascist laws. It is no better then mainland's, it's just different.

Facts.

[Das Auge]

Don't let the facts get in the way of an anti-American rant.

Re:Facts.

[Mister Whirly]

And don't forget to "Think About the Children"(TM)

Re:Facts.

[Das Auge]

Save the children, ruin the adults.

Re:Harm?

[Ogive17]

Oh wait. This is America. You don't need proof anymore. Unprovable accusations will suffice.

Well then I guess it's a good thing this took place in Hong Kong. Did you read the summary OR the article?

Honk Kong

[Kelson]

Where is Honk Kong, anyway?

It's an island in the Mediterranean. Right next to Geese.

Re:Anymore room in here...

[syrinx]

splitting hairs over why copyright theft isn't the same as stealing.

but... but... copyright infringement *isn't* stealing. Whether or not you think it's "ok", it's still not stealing. How is this "splitting hairs"?

Also, what is "copyright theft"? Trying to claim a copyright you don't own? I doubt this guy is claiming he owns the rights to Red Planet, he's just distributing without authorization from those who do own the rights.

Re:Harm?

[Soul-Burn666]

You mean you'd mirror my website for free? How kind of you.

Revenge

[MikeFM]

Unfortunately, often the criminal justice system is used as a means of revenge rather than as a means to making society safer and healthier. We take people that could be useful members of society and instead throw them in prison so that they can live on the tax payer's dollar and become hardened criminals. Stop wasting tax payer dollars on vendettas. If these people do need to be dealt with it should be as a serious attempt to fix whatever issues have made them a detriment to society or if they can't be salvaged then we need to execute them.

[Disclaimer: I'm a white, born citizen of the US, and I pay taxes.] A recent example that's been big in the news locally is the factories that were just raided by immigration. They took people that were working at competitive salaries, feeding their families, paying taxes, etc and have now made them unemployed. Now people are in some cases being deported at the tax payer's expense while in a few months most of them will probably be back in the US but are likely not to try to take a semi-legal route, many of them won't be deported at all but are now unemployed and on welfare, and many are going to be jailed again at the tax payer's expense. Worse, many of these people have children that are US citizens that will now be living on welfare because we've taken their parent's jobs. Very foolish way to handle the situation of people who may be breaking the law but who overall are a benefit to society. The people who in this situation DO need to be caught and dealt with are the people selling these illegal immigrants stolen identities. These people are hurting our society and are probably legal US citizens and very likely they aren't hispanic. We need to stop using immigrants as a scrapegoat for our problems and spend our energy on actual reforms of our legal system, welfare system, etc.

Appeal

[mattwarden]

He should have based his appeal on the fact that none of those qualify as movies.

Re:Finally, Justice for The Artists

[speculatrix]

I'll feed the troll.

Theft means to deprive someone of property. If he took them from a grocery store, there's a loss of physical goods which means shop makes a loss on the items.

If he borrowed the disks, made a perfect copy in nanoseconds using a 3D replicator, and put them back on the shelf, such that they were unchanged, he hasn't committed theft, he's committed copyright violation. BIG difference. The shop still has the actual item.

Re:Finally, Justice for The Artists

[cayenne8]

"It's good to see artists being protected for a change. If this guy had stolen these movies from a grocery store no one would even question whether or not it was theft."

Yes, but, for that, let's see. 3 DVD's at about $15 = $45. In the US, for that amount of dollar value, he'd be charged with misdemeanor (sp?) theft...bascially shoplifting.

For first offense, he'd likely get off maybe with pre-trial intervention..do some community service, be on probation, and have it expunged from his record. At worst, conviction of mis. but, probably no jail time...just probation.

Remember kids...

[Omeger]

Use PeerGuardian to try to keep the feds from catching you.

Re:Remember kids...

[Shadow-isoHunt]

The tracker still reports your upload/download stats and your IP, regardless of if it's a private or public tracker. If it didn't report this, then you wouldn't be able to actually use bittorrent. All peergaurding will do is stop known abusive IP ranges from sending your client crap data.

Re:Remember kids...

[Omeger]

But the tracker doesn't save data.

Not dangerous

[bussdriver]

White collar criminals are probably the WORST and most of them probably never even end up in court.

Prison is a practical thing for what it good at-- namely, separating them from hurting us (society.) Prison is NOT for those who are not a physical threat.

Handling crime is not about punishment and revenge (hey Christians try reading that book of yours...)

Punishment doesn't work for many people because they do not think they will get caught or the punishment isn't a deterrent.

Some hacker kid shouldn't get a scholarship to criminal college (prison.) Either send them to therapy (while still young) or restrict their computer use. Big Brother is upon us anyhow, might as well use it to restrict people who can't constrain themselves.

I still don't see how a 100% guilty rapist can't get just "fixed" and leave it at that. The others should get a monitoring device as a parole which make it impossible to rape again without concrete evidence.

If X you will do f(X)

NOT If X then, go_to_jail() //do not pass go, do not collect

Re:Not dangerous

[Yartrebo]

Punishment can work if it's done regularly, is done in small doses, and is seen as fair (only for guilty people and in line with the severity of the offense).

In moderation and with an attentive parent or teacher to dole it out, it works quite well on kids.

The problem with the police/prison system is that this is not the case. People are rarely caught, punishment is often draconian, and there are plenty of cases where it's unfair.

Re:Not dangerous

[bussdriver]

Actually, crime can be minimized so this not such a big deal. The USA is seriously messed up on multiple levels and as a result we have a stupid number of people in jail.

A big system failure is that we have too many people screwed by the system combined with too many people with money to burn, like on drugs-- which are a huge problem for the whole world. the usa's relative wealth and heavy drug use means high profit on all levels. Prohibition created large powerful mobs and greatly increased all types of crimes; this time, its larger and more powerful groups coming together and its less a state-level corruption issue and much more of a federal level one.

Re:Holy Redundancy, Batman!

[necro2607]

Seems you can also never have too many comments about having too many comments about bad taste!

weak

[Intangion]

well at least its only 3 months, thats still lame though

Re:Harm?

[deesine]

You might salvage some of your rep by simply owning up to your ire-inspired geographical mishap.

Re:the LAW

[deesine]

Cosmic use of hyperbole! What was the charge again? Oh, that's right. He knowingly and illegally "shared" movies, in a SAR of China no less.

Mountain out of a molehill: check

I'm not surprised

[Zodman]

Anyone distributing such high quality movies deserves to go to jail. ... I think I just threw up in my throat.

Re:Vomit Inducing

[Moflamby-2042]

Agreed AC, it's quite clear that a society that profits by keeping public information secret is ultimately crippling themselves. And when they punish those who transmit these public "secrets" then it's just backwards and sad. Judging by the nature of comments all around here though it looks like it will take many years to convince the masses of even the most obvious better ways to handle this.

Odd

[Frankie_CWRU]

Does it seem odd to anyone else that a communist country jailed someone for sharing with their fellow man?

Are you sure?

[patio11]

I'm generally against capital punishment but being Ben Affleck should be a capital offense. Preferably involving death by torture, such as being forced to watch Gigli. On second thought, Pearl Harbor. I'm not totally devoid of mercy.

Re:Harm?

[Chas]

If you really want the shitty code on my website, be my guest.

Just don't be surprised if I laugh at you.