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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."
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.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Why is this person being tried in the US? He's a British citizen living in Australia, what does this have to do with the US?
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
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.
Read Pynchon.
IMHO this kind of crimes shouldn't be punishable by imprisonment... but I guess indenture isn't such a hot alternative either. Anyway, 10 years for replicating electrical signals in a magnetic medium (nit pickers go away!)... basically he "stole" an idea, hot air. He *should* be punished for breaking the law, but wasn't there something against disproportionate punishment in western codes?
+Raider of the lost BBS
If he killed somebody he'd have been out already.
For many in the warez scene and beyond, this is how DoD will be remembered. Yes, I know this doesn't absolve them of their sins... well, I could envision someone making a reasonable argument about how the world isn't on a level playing field and these guys were helping to level things for those that couldn't afford to be recognized... but I digress. I just thought it was worth recognizing that there is something to be said about these characters that isn't completely negative.
It seems obvious, then, that the jury trying this case should use one of the rarely-used options available to them: Jury nullification.
In this case, it seems that the jury would have to consider the case as a whole - not merely the facts presented by the prosecution, not merely the letter of the law. They must consider this man's motives, and the motives of the government that is bringing about this case. Is the government being driven by a corporation known for its bullying thuggishness and its lawsuit-happy executives? Is copyright law fundamentally wrong? I look forward to this jury's answer to these questions and I hope that it is the answer I expect from conscionable human beings.
Hard work pays off tomorrow, but procrastination pays off NOW!
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...
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.
Considering that these people are really no threat to society at all why waste their time and taxpayers money (in two countries in this case) locking them up in the first place? It really should be a civil matter - fines would still hurt even if you have no money and get it garnished out of future earnings.
You also liken it to 'stealing' or vandalism, but I don't think that's right. Those crimes have victims who suffer directly, and more importantly, are deprived of the enjoyment of their property in respect of any possible use of it, whether in relation to the person committing the offence or any other person. If I smash your shop window, your shop is closed to me and to anyone else who might have come in that day. Copyright infringement is fundamentally different in that it deprives the copyright holder only of enjoyment of their property insofar as the infringement leads someone who would have paid to use the copyright to use an infringing copy free of charge. But it does not prevent the copyright holder from selling licenses to other potential users of their work. In other words, the effect of the 'crime' is heavily diluted, and there is no direct deprivation of enjoyment.
Society has a way of dealing with these types of 'crimes', in which an individual's behaviour is detrimental but only in a very diluted way. Parking fines come to mind. Speeding fines. Fines for failing to pay car registration. Civil offences, in other words.
I prefer to think of copyright as a mandatory, many-to-one contractual arrangement. If I create something original and subject to copyright, you and the rest of the world has an automatic contract not to exploit it in certain ways without my consent, and that contract expires after a certain amount of time (about 20000 years thanks to Disney and co). If you breach the contract, I think I should be able to pursue you on a civil law basis, but I do not think the cops should be throwing you in prison.
Read Pynchon.
What annoys me the most about this is that Australia has perfectly good laws under which to charge him. Why aren't they good enough?
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).
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Issues of copyright in regard to software infringe on the issues of free speech. Yes, I said that. If someone were to decry the evils of BMW, or publish how to make them more gas efficient there would be no foul. When it comes to copyright, there seems to be no justice.
Even if a person is guilty of helping people download movies for free, they should not be punished for the following reasons:
1 - you cannot help someone break the law if the act is committed without your presence.
2 - Telling someone how to break the law is not an illegal act.
3 - Even if you send them the file sharing program, you did not commit the act.
4 - If you complain to the police that someone stole your paper bag of money containing $50,000 dollars that you left on some street corner, they will laugh at you and tell you that you are stupid.
5 - Theft of copyright is not possible, the premise is theft of 'presumed' revenues. There is no proof that any 'illegal' activity caused known damage to revenues in a quantitative way.
6 - Current legislation doesn't provide protection or compensation for all copyright holders, only the very few and very rich corporations with copyrights. The law is not being applied equally.
7 - The reasonable doubt that 'fair use' implies means that most copyright litigation is of questionable nature to start with.
8 - There is NO proof that pirated copyright materials deprive the artist of what they would have received anyway.
9 - The US entertainment industry is not the lawmaking body for ALL of the world. Resist now.
10 - Punishing hackers does not protect the children, nor does it stop terrorism.
11 - Copyright infringement is not theft, but copyright infringement for profit is. See number 5.
12 - Australia is not a US state, nor is any other sovereign country. Any country that gives up sovereignty to the US over copyrights is seriously sucking ass...
13 - you make up your own for this one
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I agree with you on the crime he has committed and the punishment he has recieved.
But explain to me how and why corporates like Sony, BMI, etc., who distributed Root Kits, compromised thousands of computers' security, and illegally hacked into my property (my computer is my property) can be let off with just a free coupon and a "sincere" apology?
Should their board, CEO, etc, not be jailed under hacking laws?
If you can explain to me why RIAA member companies can always get off, while the giga-uploader gets "bubba" in jail for SAME crimes, i can explain why slashdot thinks this way?
Until then, Ciao
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Of course. We have a God given right to make a profit. Salaries are paid from profits. Think of all the little children who went hungry because this jackass disrupted our profits.
Now think of the drunken driver incident. The undertakers have to make a profit too. The drunken driver facilitated undertaker profits and that is an attenuating circumstance.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
A) He was in Australia, where what he did wasn't a crime at the time. How can you be tried for an act that isn't a crime in the country you reside?
B) Unless you suppose that US law should apply to the whole world. Exactly when did the US conquer all of Earth, pray tell?
Your argument is utterly off topic because it presumes to judge this situation based on US law when US law has no legitimate standing here at all. There was no reason to extradite this guy - he committed no crime. For what he did to be a crime it would have to be a violation of the law of the land he lived in. Is any of this, like, getting through to you???
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Anyone else find it funny that a criminal is being extradited from Australia? Didn't we send those Darn convicts there in the first place?
"What are you in for?"
"I raped my grandmother, bludgeoned her to death and ate the corpse. You?"
"I gave some software away."
He was sentenced to 100 years, but will be eligible for parole in 10 in exchange for his testimony against the other 3 soldiers charged.
I don't know if there were attenuating circumstances (can't think of one for rape and killing for cover up), but they should all be left to rot in jail.
No sig
I'd like to remind you that we're dealing with a *pirate*, here. These are the same people who fire their weapons on our ships at sea, kill our children, rape our women, and in this particular case, they were forcing people to either "drink or die".
Remember, kids: There is no crime more serious than copyright infringement. When you infringe copyright, you are possibly stealing from some of the richest organisations in the world. By definition, nothing could be more immoral.
Money and business has a history of getting preferential treatment in courts. And the structure of a representative democracy leaves little choice but to make tough laws for those with the most resources to lobby.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire