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Game Pirate Sentenced To Jail Time
A man charged in a case separate from the much-publicized anti-modder raids last month has been sentenced to ninety days in prison, another nine months of work furlough, and five years of probation. "Police seized over 1,000 pirated game discs during the raid on Brown's home, along with 'numerous' mod chips. Ric Hirsch, Vice-President of Intellectual Property Enforcement at the ESA, said, 'Sentences that include jail time send a clear message that violating intellectual property rights is a serious crime with significant consequences and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.'"
I'm sure he'll get put in white-collar prison and not get mixed in with the gangbanging general population. He won't be taking the place of some murderer, but I do get your point about law enforcement and correction institutions' resources probably better served going after crimes with non-corporate victims.
That said, I sort of wished they threw more of the book at this guy for pirating this stuff. Mod chips have a legitimate use by enabling the owner of hardware to use it in the way they see fit. The homebrew community and those who enjoy the protection that backups provide should hold a zero-tolerance policy to those who would use those tools to enjoy materials for which they didn't pay.
My guess is that if the homebrew/backup communities weren't all driven underground thanks to the DMCA and corps with large legal budgets, they'd agree.
More Twoson than Cupertino
A ton of policemen who could've done something useful (like finding some people who do actually rob and steal, in the actual sense of the law) for society were kept busy to stick a guy in the can who doesn't affect me or 99% of the population in the slightest.
And for what? 90 days of jail. Whoo boy. He must be a really tough criminal! I dunno about your country, but 90 days is about what you get when you drive with the subway and refuse to pay the fine. For the third time. After being tried and told that paying the fee of 60 bucks is PROBABLY more interesting for you.
In other words, the damage this guy did must've been somewhere around 60 bucks. At least we now have found a reliable value for IP.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Since prison isn't a deterrent to any crime, let's just stop throwing money there and close them down, right?
I get the sneaky suspicion that he wouldn't have been raided, and hauled up if he hadn't been selling the pirated games.
Personally, I pay for all the games and stuff I have, but I'm indifferent to people using copies. Where I do draw the line is commercial infringement. I actively dislike the making of money from an infringement setup. For that, I think 90 days is fair. It's not throwing the book at him and making him out to be the root of all evil, and up there with the terrorists.. It's saying "You've been very naughty. Really, don't do it again, or else"..
He really did wrong, and got caught. What were the cops to do, turn round and say "Never mind. Be a good boy. Off you go now!".
That's right, he was selling mod chips.
Not mod chips! Oh no!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
For what it's worth, the police involved were doing their jobs and doing them correctly and efficiently. Sure, you can disagree whether or not IP infringement (in whatever form) should or should not be a crime, but as of right now it is one. A police officer, presented with a crime in plain sight, cannot (and, I would dare to argue, should not) ignore it because they disagree over whether or not it should be a crime.
Their job is to uphold the law. They did so. There is nothing wrong with that.
If you're angry, then I seriously suggest that you write your Representative(s) and Senators.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
Im going to kill my use of my mod points. Here goes.
This whole digital copying thing is a really horrible precedent to set in this country.
I really want to know why they equate digital copying to theft , we pay for data bits and the electricity to get and send them as well as paying for the service to transport it. This completely ticks me off.
If the person was selling "back ups" then I am all for having them arrested and they should be sitting in their home with out a internet connection or computer. I see nothing wrong with selling and installing mod chips.
While IP issues should be resolved in a civil case , they should not be wasting resources on this. Yet another waste of resources.
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
If you're going to pirate, don't do it for profit. I can't support piracy for profit, sorry.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Actually, that was a pointless rambling.. I sincerely doubt the ESA would do something so laughably foul.
The comments (so far) on this story are unbelievable. If you don't want to buy the game, then don't buy it. If you don't want to pay for the game but you steal it to play it anyway (or sell/distribute it illegally), then suck up the consequences.
Real, actual, non-fictional people's salaries are based on the fact that if people play these games (or music, or movies) then they will pay for them. If you don't like the way the market works due to levels of compensation, etc. then feel free to get your media from those that offer it freely or at a rate you agree with and who base their economic plans on that fact.
However if it's a commercial product and you steal it, then go to jail and shut up. You broke the law. Quit whining, quit the straw man style "rapists and murderers" blathering and learn something for a change. If you advocate open source and freely available media, quit giving our community a black eye by encouraging theft and cheering on pirates. If the new media model is going to work, it will work by being a better model, not by undermining the current system we have. Undermining rather than supplanting only encourages harsher laws and more intense DRM which will make the transition harder to accomplish in the end. Like I said, unbelievable.
I think it should be dependent on the severity of the crime. A CEO who commits massive fraud that results in the loss of thousands of jobs has committed a serious crime and has adversely affected the lives of thousands of people. Should he really be allowed to serve his time under "house arrest" in his opulent mansion? How is that justice?
I'm not saying that these types of crimes are best punished by putting these people in with violent criminals, but they should definitely serve time in a real prison. Separate the violent criminals from the non-violent criminals for safety's sake, but other than that the accommodations should be similar across the board.
Yep. Sadly justice these days goes not to those who deserve it, but rather those with the best paid lawyers.
If law enforcement would quit whoring itself to corporations to inflate their statistics with bogus cases like this, and actually took the resources used on this to track down, say, serial killers, rapists etc... The world would be a much better place.
But apparently Jim Franklin at Scumbag Games wanting a slightly better Porsche is more important than anything with honest to goodness traumatized victims who have been scarred physically or mentally for the rest of their lives. No, far better to shove some software pirate in jail, rather than some criminal that would take actual police work to put behind bars.
Or just do the right thing and execute the criminals with the only exceptions being the ones whose cases are iffy.
It's funny, isn't it? When a dog is considered a danger to the community we have no problem putting it down. It's an animal after all. However, when a human, another animal which supposedly has the ability to know right from wrong, kills/murders/rapes/whatever, we have no problem keeping them around.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
that because you don't make a living from IP. for some people, their IP is their salary, their savings and their pension. Now imagine having that stolen from you. still don't care?
OK, I suppose I'm a little behind the times and I apologize for that. I also don't wish to start a flame-war here and I do believe that some people have pretty heated opinions about this.
There are mod chips for my Prius. There are performance mod chips for lots of cars. While they may invalidate an owner's warranty (in some cases) one has purchased the car and is willing to install it and take a chance that maybe, perhaps, they either won't pass their vehicle emissions inspection or they may wear the car out a little sooner.
So why is it illegal to make or sell a mod chip to make a game console work differently? If it invalidates one's warranty, well that's the chance you take--you cannot take the console back and get warranty service on it.
I cannot see or understand a law that would prevent you from doing a mod on your PSP or X-Box. After all, you bought it; if you mod it it's yours so who cares?
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
that because you don't make a living from IP. for some people, their IP is their salary, their savings and their pension. Now imagine having that stolen from you. still don't care?
... give me a break. I'd rather be funding the police to track down bigger fish than that.
I make a living from IP, and no I still don't care.
The average brute who beats his wife and kids probably won't end up in jail for the first several incidents.
Your average petty thug mugger who confronts people and takes their wallet and watch at knife or gunpoint rarely ends up in jail for more than a few hours, no matter how often they get caught. Despite the threat of violence, the theft of real property, and the substantial emotional distress they cause their victims.
Your average retail convenience stores are shoplifted from on a daily basis. Real goods, that cost real money, being stolen for real. Every day. When the pricks get caught, how many of THEM end up in jail for more than a few hours? Practically none.
So why should a guy who makes copies in a nonviolent way, that don't take anything real away from me, and potentially don't usually even mean a lost sale -- what exactly has he done that he should he go to jail when other criminals who do much worse things do not?
Once we've got a policy of locking up all the brutes, thugs, drug dealers, thieves, and shoplifters then we can look at raising the penalty for crimes like jay-walking and copyright infringement.
Now, of course, if this guy is at the commericial/industrial scale of infringement, complete with counterfeiting discs, and laundering the money made, then yeah, he's costing his victims and society enough to treated like a serious criminal and deserves jail time.
But your average schmuck with an ftp server or some such nonsense
"A intellectual property holder has a right to control their assets just as much if not more than individuals." And I'm yet to be convinced piracy does anything but benefit the intellectual property holder. As an artist in any medium, your job is to get your material as much exposure as humanly possible. The more eyes the better. A producers's job is to find a way to make money from all these eyes. If you don't know how to do that, you shouldn't be in producing.
Painlessly? In some States, maybe. Usually, death by injection is done by sedating the person so that they can't move, and then chemically stopping their heart. Heart attacks are painless, right? In some states, they knock the person unconscious before stopping the heart, but if they're sedated so that they can't talk, how can you really be sure they are completely unconscious?