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WW2 Vet Sent 300,000 Pirated DVDs To Troops In Iraq, Afghanistan
nbauman writes "WW2 veteran 'Big Hy' Strachman, 92, pirated 300,000 DVD movies and sent them to soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they were widely distributed and deeply appreciated. Soldiers would gather around personal computers for movie nights, with mortars blasting in the background. 'It's reconnecting to everything you miss,' said one. Strachman received American flags, appreciative letters, and snapshots of soldiers holding up their DVDs. He spent about $30,000 of his own money. Strachman retired from his family's window and shade business in Manhattan in the 1990s. After his wife Harriet died in 2003, he spent sleepless nights on the Internet, and saw that soldiers were consistently asking for movie DVDs. He bought bootlegged disks for $5 in Penn Station, and then found a dealer at his local barbershop. He bought a $400 duplicater that made 7 copies at once, and mailed them 84 at a time, to Army Chaplains. The MPAA said they weren't aware of his operation. The studios send reel-to-reel films to the troops."
“It’s not the right thing to do, but I did it,” Mr. Strachman said, acknowledging that his actions violated copyright law. “If I were younger,” he added, “maybe I’d be spending time in the hoosegow.”
The guy spent $30,000 of his own money to do it. Maybe the MPAA could sue him for a portion of the 'profits'. The best part is he was continuing to make copies, right there, while they were interviewing him. It's brought joy back to his life.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Lobbying from the Movie/TV/Music industry overwhelming favors Democrats by nearly a 3:1 margin. There's a tendency for people to interpret politics as "D = good, R = bad" or vice versa depending on your political affiliation. It is never that simple.
Not really. At $150,000 for willful infringement, and 330,000 copies, he's looking at $49,500,000,000, in damages. (SRC: 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(2)).*
That's about 1/3 of Hollywood's combined gross for every movie released 1996 and 2012 (as of last weekend). (SRC: http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/)
No due process problem with that.
--AC
*Actually, the statutory damages are per work, not per infringing act, so the real number would be reduced to reflect the number of titles he copied, not the number of copies he made).
I'm an army guy, so I have a different perspective. EVERYONE needs some entertainment/escape, but nobody's catching a ride to somewhere else for a friggin movie. That's why reel to reel doesn't make sense. The soldiers most in need don't have access to it. Soldiers usually have laptops. In Afghanistan, there are no copyright laws anyway. You can buy pirated movies through local shops by the truckload. They'll even let you bring back your pirated movies through customs as long as they are for personal use. ie, you can't have a bunch of copies of the same movie.
If you really want make a soldier happy, you have remember that they might be at a tiny outpost with a platoon of young men all deployment. They might not have seen a female for months. Yes, send porn.
If if if.... wars are fought for politicians careers, and contractors shareholders. All the lofty ideals are just the lies they use to dupe 18 year old poor kids into signing up to die.
and from that BS, I would be happy to have clean hands.
My Fucking grandfather fought in Korea. He sat in a half track with machine guns gunning down DPRK soldiers for the "lofty goals" of fighting communism and keeping "South Korea" free... in a conflict that officially has outlived him. To "keep free" a country which, still to this day, arrests political dissidents who insult the government.
Lofty ideals my ass. We are allied with the Saudis....the people who only decided, after very public international pressure was applies, that maybe they shouldn't stone a woman to death who was seen in public with a man who wasn't her husband...oh yah...and gang raped by the group of men who saw her in public without said man. Yah.... tell me more about your lofty ideals.
Given who we are really talking about being in charge, and what wars are really fought for...I will take clean hands any day of the fucking week.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"