NinjaVideo.net Founder Gets 14 Months

angry tapir writes "A Virginia judge has sentenced Matthew David Howard Smith, a founder of the NinjaVideo.net website, to 14 months in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday. Smith was indicted along with four others late last year. The DOJ charged that they illegally provided copyright-protected movies and TV programs for download from the NinjaVideo.net website. The site operated from February 2008 until authorities shut it down in June 2010."

Comments

My mind is blown!

[Anonymous Coward]

The ninjas were actually.... pirates?!

Re:My mind is blown!

[lostthoughts54]

had they been real ninjas, they would have never been found.

meanwhile:

[Anonymous Coward]

The TSA's jack-booted goons can steal $40,000 (real money, not imaginary money) from your luggage and only get 6 months for it.

Re:meanwhile:

[bky1701]

Of course, they irradiate you and violate your civil rights as part of their job. Theft is rather inconsequential.

Re:meanwhile:

[reboot246]

The real thieves are elected. Congress makes the TSA look like pikers.

Throw them all out this November. If you recognize the name on the ballot, vote for the other guy.

Re:meanwhile:

[TheGratefulNet]

$100 says that even if 100% of who is in office, flipped, it would not make a damned bit of diff.

people are people. the system allows people to join politics and get rich.

THAT is the problem.

nothing can be fixed until you fix that.

Re:meanwhile:

[schnell]

Karma suicide in 3, 2, 1...

We've had a coup and the corporations have taken over.

I know it's super cool on Slashdot to talk about how the US is the worst country in the world, it's a fascist dictatorship, all elections are run by corporations, Soylent Green is made by the Federal Reserve, etc. But honestly that is a very simplistic view of things that fails to account for the complex interlocking of interests that makes up US public policy.

If corporations really did "own" the US government...

• Why did the government deny AT&T's merger request with T-Mobile, even with the $millions AT&T spends on lobbying?
• Why do Federal and state governments keep laying taxes on tobacco, even with the $millions the tobacco companies spend on lobbying?
• Why did the Sarbanes-Oxley act pass when all big corporations absolutely hate it and lobbied against it?
• Why did the government reject the Keystone Pipeline from Canada to the US when the oil industry spent $millions lobbying for it?

The truth is that corporations or other interest groups that spend a lot on lobbying often get their way. But they don't always get their way or "own" the government - when enough people speak out against it, it does actually make a difference. We do have a democracy in the United States ... even if you don't like the outcomes sometimes. That means you should convince your fellow Americans to make smarter voting choices, not blithely dismiss the system as corrupt.

Re:meanwhile:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a graph that explains it for you.

At left, we see that as people at the bottom of the income spectrum care more about an issue, the probability of action on that issue scarcely budges. At right we see that policy responds a little more to median preferences. But what's clear in both is that the rich are much more successful at getting their issues on the docket.

So no, money alone does buy you your interests. There will obviously be counter-examples. But the policy decisions will largely prevail in your favour unless there is a large countervailing public opinion (as there was with all the examples you've provided). Basically, unless a large portion of the public decides it's an issue, the decision will go in favour of the wealthy.

Money in politics is the single biggest corrupting factor in politics. Remove direct money & indirect money & benefits will be the next biggest factor. & it'll keep going that way, but each time the totals will (in theory) keep decreasing so you're making a net positive change.

My tax money supporting the film industry

[BlueCoder]

I am upset that my taxes go to supporting the film industry's copyright policing like this.

Keeping a person in jail for a year costs between 25-50K not including court costs.

That's money that can be used for more worthwhile things. What it's being spent on will not result in any changed behavior or profits for the entertainment industry. It only drives things more underground and makes people become more sophisticated. The only people making money from this are the lawyers collecting paychecks and not producing anything of worth for society.

It's also exposes all the corrupt politicians and the justice system. While they have always been corrupt I would have been happier to live in ignorance than to have it exposed out in the open like this.

Copyright police? Censorship? The original politicians that started this country are turning over in their graves. This country was started as a backlash to self serving corruption like this.

Re:More Forced Labor

[bky1701]

The first three seem to have gotten nowhere so far, with corruption at every level and candidates literally corrupted as part of assuming office.

"Authorities"?

[jginspace]

The site operated from February 2008 until authorities shut it down in June 2010.

Ninjavideo.net was among the first group of sites seized by ICE and their "authority" is questionable.

Interestingly, ICE have not placed a redirect to their Youtube video yet on any of the Ninja* sites (see TVshack.cc for an example) so presumably the decision to steal/confiscate the site is still being contested by Matthew David Howard Smith or an associate.

you realize one CDO could be a billion dollars

[decora]

the fraud perpetrated by Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, BNP Paribas, etc, in one single day dwarfed by a dozen fold the fraud this mortgage guy perpetrated in his whole career.

where do you think they sold all those fraudulent mortgages?