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BitTorrent Pirate Loses His Last Appeal
Vix666 writes with a link to a ZDNet article on the final chapter of a story we've discussed before: the first user convicted of piracy for using BitTorrent to download a movie has really, finally, lost his case. Chan Nai-ming was sentenced in November of 2005, lost an appeal in December of last year, and appears to have once again failed to convince a judge to let him out. "The Hong Kong government welcomed the judgment, saying it clarified the law regarding Internet piracy. 'This judgment has confirmed that it commits a crime and violates copyright laws for the act of using (BitTorrent) software to upload and distribute,' said customs official Tam Yiu-keung in a written statement. He added the judgment would have a deterrent effect, a view endorsed by industry watchdogs such as the Hong Kong branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry."
How about the death penalty for downloading mp3s? Also, we should definitely kill the family members of people that download movies illegally.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
his judgment has confirmed that it commits a crime and violates copyright laws for the act of using (BitTorrent) software to upload and distribute
Bah! I was about to put a link to one of my favorite page with nonsensical translations but it has been fixed. Weak.
the punishment seems a bit extreme for one movie but where do they draw the line? what do you do when people simply dont intend to pay for something that took alot of cash to make to begin with- especially when every protection scheme fails horribly? make better movies? how exactly does that solve the problem of people in effect stealing movies? [if thats the case why are pirates getting the crappiest movies?]
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Chan had posted a message inviting BitTorrent users to download a movie on an Internet movie forum called "bt.movie.hk" using his "Big Crook" alias.
Thats similar to the motorbike guy who gave loads of speed cameras the bird because he thought he was safe.
Had it just occurred quietly no-one would have batted an eyelid.
liqbase
"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. Jack tries to contact Kate in flash-forwards off the island. When people see product they can make an actual informed purchase (or non-purchase).
aXXo is that u?
Please tell me your ok!
the first user convicted of piracy for using BitTorrent to download a movie has really, finally, lost his case.
No, he could have used any other protocol. He was not convicted for using Bittorrent to do anything. He was convicted for uploading a movie without having a license to do so.
Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but you realize Hong Kong's judiciary derives (still) from the British tradition, I hope?
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
(Sadly) this isn't the Chinese government kissing American butt. They've got some "bad" publicity last week, so this poor sap is being made an example of.
Meanwhile the RIAA and MPAA continue to lie, cheat and steal with politicans at their bidding (that's the DMCA Congressman).
Well, first of all, he's 38. Even if "30 is the new 20" he hardly qualifies as a kid. When I was 38 (but hey, 40 is the new 30, so I can be 38 again ina a few years ), I knew at least a few things. I knew the difference between right and wrong, legal and illegal, smart and stupid. In the latter category comes the idea that "If my definition of right and wrong differs from the law's definition, I should not do about enacting my definition in a public and noticeable way, lest I get busted." Clearly, he didn't get the difference between smart and stupid.
Secondly, he wasn't imprisoned for copying a file (funny how we expect copyright to be followed when bringing companies to task for violating the GPL but not when some individual violates copyright; the GPL is founded on copyright law, after all, not contract law), he was sentenced for *distributing* the copyrighted content that he copied. That's a far greater transgression under copyright law.
Finally, don't look now, but the only troll in this picture is you.
...wouldn't abandoning copyright law entirely ultimately have greater good than what we have now? There are abundant examples that creativity and innovation are not absent where there is not a motive of profit. If I had a machine that could copy food endlessly with no more work than bringing a bowl to it, would I not be acting immorally to demand as much payment as I could for it and restrict the creation of such a machine by anyone else? The 'right' to property, including ideas and other intangibles as 'property', has been the root of so much human suffering but continues to be excused. Instead, they punish Prometheus.
Hax-fu?
That's the point of the GPL you fucking idiot--the stronger copyright law is, the stronger the GPL is. If copyright law became weak, the GPL would no longer be necessary.
It means committing a crime in Hong Kong is now illegal.
There's RIAA, MPAA, DRM, AACS, DCE, DMCA, EUCP, and now IFPI... I don't think I can keep up.
"Vix666 writes with a link to a ZDNet article on the final chapter of a story we've discussed before: the first user convicted of piracy for using BitTorrent [CC] [MD] [GC] to download a movie has really, finally, lost his case. Chan Nai-ming was sentenced in November of 2005, lost an appeal in December of last year, and appears to have once again failed to convince a judge to let him out."
Now you all know what happens when you use a slashexcuse on a judge.
There's a reason geeks get up at arms over GPL violations, and it's not because of a double standard.
It's because the GPL (and simmilar) was created to sidestep the problems of copyright. If you think current copyright law is a farse, than you release your work as GPL, not public domain. If you release it public domain, people can use it in copyrighted works, thus (indirectly) copyrighting your work.
The GPL uses copyright law to make sure your work never becomes part of the farse of copyright.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
Man, at first I read the end of the summary as "the International Federation of the Pornographic Industry".
:(
Well, somehow that would make sense as they are fu*%$ this guy.
-- SouNerd.com
Go get 'em, Tiger !!
If you live under an oppressive regime, you should dedicate your subversive activities to the overthrow of that regime, not your personal entertainment. If he was being persecuted for opposing the corrupt government, he would deserve respect. Instead, he is being persecuted for bing subversive for his own entertainment purposes. Not only is that not deserving of respect, but it might make life even a little worse for others who have to live under the same corruption. Selfish bastard deserves prison, but the unfortunate thing is it may have repercussions for others who do nothing wrong.
That said, my other observation has long been, why aren't "pirate" networks obscured by real crypto already? Mildly hard crypto keeps observers out, and investigators would have to actively be a party to the sharing, as opposed to being able to easily stumble upon it.
Please before you flame me, my interest here is purely in terms of the capabilities of network systems, among other things, for private communication, specifically private from prying eyes of oppressive governments. In some eyes, I'm sure that makes me a terrorist or something, but I'm not concerned about that.
Damn! From the headline, it sounded like someone went to jail for pirating bittorrent. I was thinking: Oh crap, I pirated /usr/bin/cp -- making a copy of it for a friend, without ever complying with GNU's license. Is GNU going to send me to jail? I knew I should have agreed to that GPL.
But instead, they're just talking about what tool he happened to use. That's still a little creepy, though, because I use my pirated /usr/bin/cp for pirating.
I don't give a shit about this ruling. Screw hong kong
Nobody is entitled to someone else's hard work for free.
That deal is about to change, so you might think twice before investing your work. The stuff that needs to be liberated long ago made it's money, the "workers" saw precious little of it and are mostly dead.
The world's three music publishers and movie publishers have been taking a long ride on my tax dollars, just so they can squeeze more out of me at the box office. Just threaten to eliminate perpetual copyright - 25 years sounds about right - when the copyright warriors are around. What's that you say, Mr. Pigopolist? You deserve the "protection" provided by my tax dollars? I don't think so. The deal is that you get limited protection for a limited time to recoup your investment, but only if such protection is required to advance the public domain and state of the art.
The laws are really out of control. People are put in jail longer for sharing music than they are for rape and the fines for the "crime" of sharing are to lose your life savings. Think about that. Are you really more upset when someone shares a song or movie than you are when they rape your neighbor? Is sharing really a crime people should go to jail for? Laws need to follow morals, not the other way around. Copyright law is wrong and needs fixing.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The funny thing here is that I was listening to the radio this morning while driving, and thought "Wow - that's a CD I want"
I have forgotten about it until I saw this article. Thanks, RIAA!
If this is the situation, the MPAA's officers should be charged with obstruction of justice. The obstruction here, is polluting the system with false criminal investigations.
not that long ago, copyright law wasn't so cloudy.
now, your congressmen and mine, have been bought and paid for like cheap whores to write laws that protect the revenues of massive corporations.
this is the exact opposite of the intention of copyright.
Write your congressmen and women. demand they re-write the laws with their real constituents in mind.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Actually, for copyrighted works, we most certainly are entitled under law. It's something called the Public Domain.
That said, it's theirs for a limited time and if they didn't keep retroactively extending copyright lengths, I might be more sympathetic. As is, I don't think they're entitled to be paid quite so many times for the same work. They're quite fond of reselling the same "content" over and over and over and...
As for me, I mostly publish anonymously and give my imaginary property rights away. After all, whenever I see people take my ideas as their own, without credit, I know that they feel those ideas are worthwhile. As an author, nothing could be more gratifying. Current copyright laws are only worthwhile if you want money or fame; I find other pursuits much more worthwhile.
whoever marked this guy troll should be ashamed of themselves. This site could really do with stiffer punishments for people who do shit like this. It's like stuffing a ballot box.
How we know is more important than what we know.
He wasn't convicted for downloading a movie.
He was convicted for distributing three movies. And his term was only three months, which is not at all extreme, IMO. You can get 6 months for traffic violations in many jurisdictions.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_ 340.htm
This was already ruled upon in the US Supreme court. Feist vs Rural Telephone Company (over a telephone book). They rejected any argument that right t of control (copyright) would be granted based on 'sweat of the brow' or the hard work in creating an uncreative or unorigional work.
They explicitly said that creativity is required to grant copyright. As alphabetizing names and putting them into a book is not creative, the result was not copyrightable, despite the amount of effort put into producing the telephone directory. Creativity may apply in the selection or the arrangement, but not in the facts themselves.
Now, of course, in an attempt to end-run around this ruling, there are occasional rumblings of creating a 'database copyright', that may forbid the duplication of a database of facts.
Its legal for me to buy an actual pirated DVD from hong-kong.. yet I can't upload a BT file in hong-kong? wtf mate!
If you're in the United States and ever have to sit on a jury for one of these Internet piracy trials, I hope you'll do your best to portray impartiality in the jury panel interviews, then convince the other jurors of a verdict of "not guilty."
Our founding forefathers intended the jury to be the last line of defense against a tyrannical government. Take for instance prohibition. In the early 20th century, alcohol was illegal. However, because no jury would convict those on trial for violating prohibition, the law was eventually repealed. From this point of view, jurors have an indirect impact on legislation.
Perhaps if enough trials result in failure to punish Internet piracy, the conventional sentencing will be re-examined, intended punishment will become more proportionate to the damage caused by this victimless crime, and the law will develop a little more sanity.
<:
This is just a joke, sure 1 person loses most of his life so china can make an example to the world that "oh we care about piracy". They are a communist nation and as such have sacrificed one life so they can pretend like they care.
Uhhh, yeah, sure, uh huh, china cares about piracy?????
If anything china is the one country on this planet that in general has no respect for any copyright laws of any other nation. Hell, they will pirate anything. You invent and patent invention a (NOT SOFTWARE), the chinese will steal it, remake it out of the cheapest and crappiest components possible and try their hardest to undersell you, effectively causing you, the inventor/artist/producer major damages. What legal repercussions do you have? Don't look at me, I have no clue.
We pirate movies freely in america, in china you pay for pirate copies of movies in retail stores.
Although there are ethical rules against being a pirate, a pirate must also have a code of ethics, and reselling is against that code. They aren't even to be called pirates from now, they do not deserve the honor with the title, from now on chinese pirates are to be known only as software thieves.
No one will require you to make the fruits of your labor available. You can keep it all to yourself if you want to.
But you simply cannot give someone access to information and expect to control what they do with it. Information simply does not work that way. If the fruits of your labor are just collections of information, and if you give someone access to that information, that person's free will will dictate how he uses it, not your desires.
That's a good question. What the f*** is the outrage at imprisoning some kid for copying a file? Cultural imperialism?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
2. I believe beings should not be physically restrained simply because they acquire and experience information.
I can understand debate on the first point, but not on the second.
The GPL uses copyright law to make sure your work never becomes part of the farse of copyright.
No, it doesn't. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The GPL completely and utterly _relies_ on copyright to have any purpose. Without copyright, the GPL is meaningless and the restrictions it imposes would be impossible.
In other words, for licensing your code under the GPL to mean anything, your work *must* "become part of the farse[sic] of copyright".
If only this man didn't live in a "Special Administrative Region" of China.
There's a big flaw in that reasoning, though - namely that if the current copyright law "farse" [sic] was indeed abolished, people could use your work in proprietary products as well. You'd be free to copy those products then, of course, but do you think the source code would magically appear out of nowhere? Think again.
On a side note, I should also note that your statement that "[i]f you release it public domain, people can use it in copyrighted works, thus (indirectly) copyrighting your work" contains several rather glaring errors. First of all, *all* works are copyrighted (at least a priori, issues of creativity etc. nonwithstanding); what you're thinking of is propietary works. And second, you can't copyright someone else's work, neither directly nor indirectly; you can copy it and use it as part of your own works, but while those works will then be copyrighted to you as a whole, the individual parts' copyright still belongs to the original copyright holder.
butter the donkey
2. Yes we are ALL entitled to the results of such work for free.
It's called the public domain. 1) you were not forced to leave your house this morning 2) Yes we are entitled to beat you with a pool cue in an alley
it's called I can do whatever I want because I say so. With that kind of logic I must assume you are wearing a Klingon costume. An appropriate equivalent would be:
1) you were not forced to leave your house this morning 2) Yes we are entitled to take pictures of you.
You may have worked hard on your appearance, but that doesn't give you the right to send thugs after me if I look at you or take your picture.
Qapla'!
If the person got nailed for video piracy, then how come: He added the judgment would have a deterrent effect, a view endorsed by industry watchdogs such as the Hong Kong branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry." Unless they use the case as example, perhaps I read that part wrong.
I wonder how they're gonna build all those prisons?
Ah, YES. We ARE in prison. Everyone on probation or life arrest, GPS phone tracked, huge fines paid every month for the rest of their lives, rest of the money for lawyers and government monitoring fees. You status as a criminal or non-criminal is just a boolean assignment. They don't need to lock you up. They merely need to change the intensity of the monitoring already you live with. Keep you from ever working a real job again. Keep you from voting, ever again. Impoverish you.
In the UK, this case cost the taxpayer £18.4m. All to prosecute a gang who made precisely £0 from their activities.
Here the correct links are. Well, I hope. :-)
1 627037420070517
l /bc.usa.china.currency.reut/
Biden shills for MPAA. Maybe he'll follow that link on Hollywood Accounting.
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN
Oooohhh! Obligatory photo of pirated DVDs:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/18/news/internationa
The GPL uses copyright law to make sure your work never becomes part of the farse of copyright.
No, it doesn't. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The GPL completely and utterly _relies_ on copyright to have any purpose. Without copyright, the GPL is meaningless and the restrictions it imposes would be impossible.
In other words, for licensing your code under the GPL to mean anything, your work *must* "become part of the farse[sic] of copyright".
In other words, we beat them at their own game! Tell me again, how is this part of the intent of copyright law???Without copyright, the GPL would not be needed! If there was no copyright, then there would be no incentive to keep your source code secret, as you wouldn't be able to sell your software anyways.
This is the stupidest argument since Congress tried to tax email.
If I own the legitimate DVD or CD, then it's perfectly legal for me to download another copy of that work as a backup. If you use a torrent to do so, then you are, be definition also distributing it.
This is not copyright enforcement... it's a ban on software.
Which is not only stupid... it won't work.
Content wants to be free.
Relax... You're soaking in it." -Madge
Whether it's just a slap on the wrist and probation or death by hanging, the people committing this "crime" are not ghetto gang members who don't care about another sheet in their file.
Just to clarify, the only reason gang members don't care about another sheet in their file is because they have much bigger things to worry about, such as people shooting up their house, stealing their stuff, kidnapping their family members, and feeding their family. It has to do with escalation in the sense that it is self perpetuating, people are "protecting their neighbourhood." The problem comes in when there isn't that much of an opportunity for a good education or good jobs. A lot of families don't grow up with enough money to send their kids to school and they barely have enough to feed themselves. A father might steal to feed his baby. Kids might drop out to start working early.
Temptations such as drugs and drinking are very strong in hard times like these, and if someone isn't 100% vigilant about maintaining their composure they can easily become depressed or angry and turn to drugs and drinking even to take their mind off. Temptations to join up with friends who are in the same situation and have opportunities for making money are high. Temptations to SELL drugs are high because it brings in much more money than the jobs you can get without a good education, or the jobs (and the amount they pay you) you DO get in that neighbourhood even if you have an excellent education. Sometimes people get so fed up of their situation and they want to have at least one nice thing and they steal. It's tempting to move out, but then how do you help the community? By putting money back in? Shouldn't everyone be contributing? Shouldn't the government step in?
Look, it's easy to stereotype gang members, but to think people go out and murder for no reason whatsoever is putting it lightly to say the least. There's a saying, "Get it how you live", and often, that's just how these situations start.
Twinstiq, game news
Boost a copy of a DVD in a store and you've basically stolen something worth $15 plus you stand a fairly good chance of being caught: hence most people don't do it. The risk/reward proposition sucks.
Put a copy of SM3 on your torrent server, and you're going to enable thousands of such "thefts". (Try seeing what the punishment is after you're caught boosting thousands of DVDs from a warehouse.) Further, currently your chances of being caught are low. Hence higher fines and punishments as deterents, much the same as those places where tossing trash out of the window of your car can net you a $1,000 fine for littering.
You probably won't get caught... but the is the risk worth it?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
In other words, we beat them at their own game!
How do you figure that ?
While the GPL is a somewhat... unorthodox... usage of copyright, it's in complete agreement with the fundamental principles underlying it.
Tell me again, how is this part of the intent of copyright law???
Much of the "intent" of copyright has changed over the years, however, one common theme is the ability of the holder of a particular work's copyright to dictate under what conditions it can be used and, particularly, distributed. That is all the GPL does and, hence, code licensed under the GPL is unquestionably being used in line with the "intent" of copyright (ie: you get to say what people do with your code).
Why do I keep reading this as International Federation of the Pornographic Industry...
"Hong Kong's Commerce Secretary earlier said the posting of copyrighted materials in Hong Kong using BitTorrent had dropped 80 percent within a year of Chan's arrest in 2005."
At least, obvious posting of copyrights materials dropped 80%. I'm not really seeing any lack of available content on The Pirate Bay...
I will have to do other things to have a life similar to the one I have now.
In my case, it means that I will spend the time in jail learning how to do this and when I get out I will go and apply them.
In my case, I will probably work my ass off at a shitty job to buy or rent a property suitable for growing weed.
But that's me. Why don't I do it now? I have the skills and the knowledge. Simple: It's not worth it. My current life is 'good' and I don't need the level of danger it introduces.
You're right in a way - they are accusing the innocent of "stealing". As I demonstrate in my essay "The Case for File Swapping", file swapping is not a crime - it's not wrong and it should be legal. Once a work of art has been released for public consumption, one must not try to restrict its non-commercial distribution.
We have two eyes and ten fingers so we will type five times as much as we read. http://www.shlomifish.org/
He may have broken a law, but I think that you are confused as to the actual crime committed.
Nowhere did he deprive another of an object. He did assist in the illegal duplication and distribution of copyrighted material, and that is the offence. Not stealing. He didn't steal anything!
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.