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First Guilty Verdict In Criminal Copyright Case
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Brooklyn man has been found guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement by a federal jury in Virginia. He now faces up to five years in prison, a quarter-million-dollar fine, and three years of parole, not to mention the 'full restitution' he has to make to the RIAA. The charges against him stem from his role as 'Dextro,' the administrator of one of the Apocalypse Production Crew's file servers — APC being one of the release groups that specialize in pre-release music. While he's the 15th member of APC to be charged under the US DOJ's Operation Fastlink, he's the first to be convicted. He will be sentenced on August 8th. For those wondering when infringement became a criminal matter, you can thank the NET Act, which was signed into law in 1997 by Bill Clinton."
Yes, you don't understand because you aren't from the United States. You are probably from a country that realizes that its a bad idea to put people in prison for nonviolent offenses.
The United States is a police state, and we have a large prison population that proves it. Our republic has become too large to represent the people. Things will only get worse from here on out.
Stay away from the United States.
Personally, I'm going to stay and fight it out, but I would hate to see innocent foreigners get caught up in our problem (ie Dmitry Sklyarov).
In American political reasoning it is worse.
1. It hurts big industries who grow the economy.*
2. The money made obviously goes towards other ill-purposes, even possibly terrorism making it a terrorist act.**
3. It is a gateway crime which with certainly lead to many more homicides not only by the original perpetrator(s) but also anyone they touched.***
With number one it is worse than homicide because it hurts big business and without that support American citizens would die. Everyone knows food comes from Walmart!
It is also worse with number two because we all know terrorists kill many people and even the slightest of problems here in the states make them climax in evil pleasure and cause a hundred kittens to die. Don't you like kittens?!
Obviously it is also worse with reason three as the gateway effect of small crimes is well known, and those crimes also support terrorism leading into number two. We really should shoot these awful people on sight; it is a burden of civilization that we have to give them a fair trail before they are found guilty!
*Big businesses and industries are those 1% who control almost half of the US's wealth. These fine people and interests also help pay for our politicians and insure that we get the best laws and government their money can buy.
**It is well known that the money goes there, only a terrorist would say or consider otherwise.
***Also well known and proven.
Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho,
but this is one of the few cases where I have a hard time criticizing them or the legislation being used.
So it is clear that you have no problem with laws which impose what is obviously "cruel and unusual punishment" (except in the view of conservative activist judges, who should be in the business of curbing the excesses of a bought and paid for Congress).
This group are hell-bent on obtaining pre-released music (that the companies have not yet had a chance to recoup their investment on) and making it available for free.
This group (the **AA) is hell-bent on protecting its outdated business model against the public good, which expects to receive honest value for money. And expects the same for the artists who (with rare exception) are nothing but chattel to the rapacious motherfuckers in "the distribution chain".
Whether you believe copyright terms should be 99 years or 7 years is immaterial here.
Ahhh, yes -- every other consideration is immaterial to cocksuckers like you who are all for "law and order", regardless of how evil the law is, as long as your concept of order (for which, read "submission") is followed.
Whether you believe an individual should be able to rip their CDs is immaterial here. Whether you believe in teh doctrine of first sale for copyrighted materials is immaterial here.
More of the same shit, you shameless bastard.
Put aside your hatred of the RIAA for a second and see this for what it really is - one of the few occasions where they have a point.
Read the Constitution, you son of a bitch -- the phrase "for a limited time" was never intended to mean "until the heat death of the universe" until the horde of whores from Disney bought the damned-to-hell-for-eternity cocksucker Sonny Bono to do their bidding. It's just too bad that one of God's trees didn't clip off his whoring life before he worked his evil.
5 years is too much? You make me sick.
Christina Agurilla was going to put a gold-plated shark-tank bar next to her swimming pool this month, but now thanks to people like this scum bag who pirate music, she's going to have to wait two months before she has enough money to afford the addition. And Jay-Z? He was going to buy three new H2's, but thanks you criminals like yourself, he can't afford to build another garage right now, and he's going to have to sell his old H2's just to have a place to park his new cars.
Five years... It's scumbags like you who've sent this country down hill, sir, and I thumb my teeth at you.
Thanks, dude. Gnarly.
Who was talking about copyrights anyway? I was talking about stealing and breaking the law, not some hippie mentality that says I can copy because The Man has enough money.
"Information wants to be free, man, and music is digital now, which makes it information, and so I'm just freeing it. It's all fair use daddy-o! What's more fair than free for me?"
So when I wear a funny T-shirt, can I demand money from everyone who laughs at it?Yes, yes you can. In fact, I encourage it. It will make it easier to spot you without trying to pick you out from the other mouthbreathers.
He took an intangible right. You cannot dismiss that so easily. Many property rights (including real property rights) are intangible. Theft is theft.