DoD Warez Leader Faces 10 Years in Jail

An anonymous reader writes "After spending nearly 3 years in a detention center fighting his extradition from Australia, a leader of notorious warez group 'DrinkorDie' was yesterday arraigned before a U.S. District Court to face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement. If found guilty he faces 10 years in jail & a $500,000 fine."

Comments

MAFIAA gets their way

[User 956]

to face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement. If found guilty he faces 10 years in jail & a $500,000 fine.

Meanwhile, a drunk driver who kills someone can get off scott free, with no jail time at all. Sweet.

Re:MAFIAA gets their way

[Crunchie Frog]

to face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement. If found guilty he faces 10 years in jail & a $500,000 fine.

Meanwhile, a drunk driver who kills someone can get off scott free, with no jail time at all. Sweet. Ah you've made the oft repeated mistake of assuming laws are created to protect people, rather than protect profits.

The fundamental question:

[caitsith01]

Is a man's freedom itself really only of equivalent value to the artificially created rights in a creative work?

It's time that copyright infringement, and all intellectual property offences, returned to the purely civil arena. Pecuniary penalties are one thing: bankrupt them with fines and damages, by all means. To do so is consistent with the justifications for having intellectual property rights in the first place, which are either related to innovation, commerce, or artistic integrity depending on where you come from historically.

But no-one should be imprisoned for copying information.

Re:Why the US

[Anonymous Coward]

If the US wants to extradite someone in another country, they waltz over and get them. If another country wants to extradite someone from the US, it never happens. This double standard has got to stop.

Re:Why the US

[Kris_J]

The argument is that he didn't commit crimes in the US, he never entered the US and wasn't committing any crime in the country in which he resided.

If this precedent sticks, almost every individual in Australia can be dragged to the US to face, ironically, the kangaroo court funded by the [RI/MP]AA.

Should, therefore, US women who dare to show some skin in magazines that are exported to the Middle East be dragged to some backward Islamic court to be stoned to death?

Re:Is it a mandatory minimum?

[Sorthum]

I'm more concerned that ONE COUNT of copyright infringement plus conspiracy to commit same can get you more time in prison than if you'd committed any number of violent crimes, up to and including some instances of first degree murder...

Re:Is it a mandatory minimum?

[Sorthum]

It almost seems like intellectual property is valued far more highly than human life. I don't think that's right, in a moral sense.

Re:Is it a mandatory minimum?

[fred911]

NO TIME??? Jeeze, he already spent 3 Years locked up in Australia without being convicted! Now he has to defend stateside. All for something where no profit was made and no one was physically injured. Armed robbery has less a penalty. Fucked up legal system here (stateside).