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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."
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.
"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).
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?
And since we know how well the death penality worked as a determent for murder...
Seriously, it does not matter at all what's the threat when you get caught. 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. They're usually normal, law abiding people who have fairly normal jobs or, if younger, go to school or college, often rather good schools or colleges, and plan to have a normal life with a normal job.
When you criminalize those people, all you get is a criminal who wouldn't have been one. Because what's the next thing happening? He's got a file, he's on probation, he probably won't get a good job. What is he gonna do? Commit more crimes. And since he's a criminal already anyway, why not break a real law? Does it matter?
When you go to jail for longer for copyright infringment than for robbery, do you think people who already got jail time for copying would care about what's happening when they sap that old lady to get her purse? Hey, it's a lesser crime, he's getting better!
Folks, something's running REALLY wrong here. With laws like this, we create more criminals but not more faith in the laws.
Why do people usually not murder or steal, rob a bank or kick old nannies off the curb? Because you simply don't do that! Do you really think about the possible jail sentence when you decide NOT to roll your car over that asshole who just gave you the proverbial finger? No, you don't kill him because that's simply something you don't do.
Because, quite frankly, if the law's the only thing that keeps you from going on a killing spree, something's very wrong with you!
People usually abide to the law not because they fear jail, but because of their moral code. Why are there more people speeding than shoplifting? The sentence for either is about the same (for a first time violation) here, still, we have a ton of speeders and rather few shoplifters, compared to it. Why? Because one is negligance and the other is stealing.
And you simply don't steal.
The danger I see is that people get used to breaking the law. When you simply continue what you have been doing for years and suddenly it becomes a crime, will you stop or will you ignore the law? And when you ignore one law, how far is it to ignoring the law altogether and just relying on your code of morals?
Will your morals stay the same? Or will you question them as well? Will you start wondering whether not only the law but also the morals you have been brought up with are wrong?
Scary, if you ask me.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Go get 'em, Tiger !!
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.
He was convicted for uploading a movie without having a license to do so. No, his big problem was redistribution: he uploaded while feeding other bittorrent clients, therefore falling into a more severe legal category.
It's not a lesser crime. It's just a crime with fewer corporate-funded lobbyists pushing for disproportionate punishment. Your sig is probably unintentionally but ironically relevant to this discussion.
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Rubbish. I live in Hong Kong. Bootleg media have always been around, but there are legit music and DVD shops in every shopping mall. Bootleg shops were concentrated in a few areas, and temporary street stalls, but there are perhaps a fewe dozen outlets in the whole territory at any time, under pressure from periodic raids by the Customs Dept. Of course, if you want Spiderman 3 the week the movie opens, you can probably find a crappy cam version. As for software, the days of the "fully loaded" PC as was standard 10 years ago are long gone. Most PCs come with the whole shrinkwrapped and certified software deal now. Businesses need support, they have to buy legal software.
It's another story over the border in Shenzhen.
then the media companies do have a right to be paid for the copies and in the long term the penalties would very well need to be harsh.
You've lost me there. The media companies certainly want penalties to be harsh. You can steal physical DVDs and suffer much lower penalties. In the case of uploading old movies, movies that have already been shown on free to air TV in this case, it's hard to see any reason to treat it as a capital offence.
This case is just a joke. The dude is a sacrificial lamb to help convince American media interests that China is serious, nothing more. But if they were really serious about respecting copyright, they'd make a serious effort to crack down on all the people who are selling counterfeit CDs and DVDs on the streets in Beijing. This is like busting some poor schmuck who buys an illegal shot of booze, but leaving Al Capone free on the street. I'm not saying that he's in the right, but the guy's real crime is being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You cannot torrent a movie down without also sharing it up. While he started the first seed it does raise the issue of casual downloading leading to draconian sentencing. It is interesting that this was often misrepresented though. Gee I wonder why major media outlets would conceal the facts in this case and give the impression that a downloader was convicted & jailed.
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be
much easier to deal with." ('Atlas Shrugged' 1957)
Copyright infringement is a economic crime. So, the punishment should be of an economic nature --- a fine. No reason to put anything in his criminal record either. For downloading, I suggest 2*(price of movie at time)/(chance of discovery). For uploading, I'd suggest a very similar amount... the damagde to the "victim" is greater, yet his personal gain is less. So, same fine.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
And that doesn't work, writing laws before common consensus supports them. A law that is resisted by the majority of people will be ignored.
The only way to enforce a resisted law is by brute force. And behond, we're heading that way. That doesn't lead to more law and more support for the law. Rather, it breeds resistance, not only against this single law but against the whole legal apparatus.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I agree with you.
But let us just do a little comparison here.
Let's say a guy with a decent job in America (the US) is downloading movies using BitTorrent software. The thing is that this way he gets the movie for free, he only pays for internet connection, which he would pay already. A recent movie release in the US is something between $10 and $40 (I'm not a US citizen, so I looked at WalMart's prices). What is the average monthly sallary for an average guy? $2500 to $5000? http://www.worldsalaries.org/usa.shtml In all cases is more than $1000 a month. For a quick calculation let us assume the salary is $3000. From this amount of money he could get 120 DVD releases, calculating with an average $25 per DVD.
Let's take a look at a Romanian (I'm from here) guy with decent job and salary. The average monthly salary is somewhere around $300. The average price for a DVD release (which is quite old compared to the new releases in the US, because here, the new releases come after 5-6 months) is $20. Now it's easy math, the Romanian guy could buy 15 DVD releases, which aren't even the newest ones.
I know these calculations are vague, to say the least, because one doesn't spend his whole salary to buy DVDs, but also think that stuff like clothes, consumer electronics, etc. cost more than in the US. Only food is a little bit cheaper or at the same price as in the US.
Also think of that the internet has "opened the eyes" of people living in poor countries for what they "could" buy, what is available on the international market, and those people are willing to have those stuff too, but their financial status doesn't allow them.
My point is that the market isn't fair, why (and how) should a poor country's citizen pay almost the same price for a product as a rich country's citizen for the product which is not even the newest.