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In Mississippi: 15-Year Jail Sentence For Selling Pirated Movies and Music
New submitter patella.whack writes "A guilty plea for six counts of selling counterfeit media gets a defendant 15 years in Mississippi. An undercover reporter from the Attorney General's Intellectual Property Theft Task Force managed to buy a total of five copied movies and one music CD from the defendant, who had 10,500 pirated discs at home and two prior convictions: one for assaulting a police officer 17 years ago and one for CD piracy that got him a year under house arrest. Says the RIAA: '[This] highlights the fact that the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals for whom IP theft is simply the most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others.' Frequently serial criminals? 15 years? I wonder how much of his sentence can be attributed to his priors rather than to other factors."
Maybe this career criminal should have stuck to misdemeanors like bank robbery and murder; he would have received an easier sentence.
What would the sentence be for rape of manslaughter?
These laws are dumb as shit since they make the judge irrelevant, as it takes away the courts power to hand down an appropriate sentence.
Mississippi is a three strikes state. So this is another "20 years for jaywalking" piece of nonsense.
"Prison sentences for rape are not uniform. A study made by the U.S. Department of Justice of prison releases in 1992, involving about 80 percent of the prison population, found that the average sentence for convicted rapists was 11.8 years, while the actual time served was 5.4 years. This follows the typical pattern for violent crimes in the US, where those convicted typically serve no more than half of their sentence.[11]"
source: wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_rape
I'm more shocked that he got 5 years for assaulting a police officer. Seriously? Like someone getting arrested takes a swing at a cop (and then suffers a serious beatdown, taser-fest, etc., etc.) and gets 5 years? Most cops are corrupt fascists who bully society. Cops are just a gang.
It's not selling pirated movies, it's selling pirated movies on an industrial scale, which is *completely* different from sharing a dozen MP3s.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
A woman got sentenced to 12 years in prison today for brutally murdering her five children. She stabbed four of them with a knife, and drowned the other. And yet here we are, where some guy in Mississippi gets three years more for selling pirated goods. Who's the greater danger to society?
He got caught selling pirated content - the 15 year term might be harsh, but I doubt it would have been as tough if it didn't seem like he was intent on mass-producing and selling.
There is a jerk like this at the local grocery store every weekend selling cheap rips of current movies out of a shopping cart right under the No Soliciting and No Loitering sign. No one else cares because, well it's, Miami, hardly anyone speaks english at that store (much to my annoyance) or cares much about anything.
Personal use is one thing, outright selling pirated discs is another.
P.S.
MPAA, I hate you. Please burn and die.
But, if you are by chance reading, this jerk operates at the Publix on sw 132 and 8th street during weekends. Throw away the key.
I RTFA this morning. This isn't Joe Blow getting a few movies from the pirate bay, this is a counterfeiter. Copyright infringement isn't theft, but I'd say this is, as the criminal is getting the money that should have gone to the movies' producers.
Also, the guy was imprisoned for the very same offence before, as well as going to prison for some violent crimes.
This isn't Joe Nerd getting fifteen years for sharing movies, it's Joe Beentoprison making money off of someone else's work.
Free Martian Whores!
So, burn all your CD's and DVDs, go get a life and forget worrying about this mafia outfit entirely. Then they'll have to do like the cops do - "find" some coke or pot they dropped on your property when it turns out you're not actually guilty. Step it up a notch.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
I wonder how much of his sentence can be attributed to his priors rather than to other factors.
It's Mississippi. You should be wondering how much of this can be attributed to the cop or the prosecutor suddenly happening upon some money innocently left behind by an RIAA lawyer at one of their meetings. Either of them bought a new boat lately?
0 1 - just my two bits
Because no one would "plead guilty" in exchange for a 15 year sentence. That's not much of a plea bargain. The article mentioned seizures of weapons as well. Missouri has some form of "three strikes" law, which uses the phrase "prior and persistent offender." One wonders whether this sentence was lighter than what might have resulted had he been charged for gun possession.
s/theft of intellectual property/possession of an intellect/
Fixed it.
He would have gotten less punishment for a simple theft. Copyright infringement is almost as bad as murder, it seems.
It seems you got more chance to get a minimal sentence when you shoot your procecutor than copy a few disks.
This sort of imbalances in the judicial system will cost the country dearly in the end.
Toss the book at him. This wasn't just some guy downloading a couple of grumble flicks. This was a commercial copyright violator.
Everybody must do their part to eradicate criminal scum like this by simply torrenting their pirated media, rather than propping up the repulsive trade in physical copies sold at retail... The Swarm Needs You to fight piracy today!
Our government must protect us from those sociopathic individuals would would reduce the potential profits of giant music corporations. I feel safe!
Being a two time loser, previously convicted of CD piracy, then caught selling bootleg DVDs with 10,000 more in his posession got him 15 years.
Context matters, asshats. No matter what your position on piracy is, this twat got what he deserved.
15 years for pirated movies. I guess the jail industry's PAC money is well spent.
Even with prior convictions taken into account we are talking for a financial crime here not a violent one. I wonder if 15 years in prison has any correctional value for someone like him.
What is the purpose here? To secure the community from the evil he represents or to make sure the producers profit what they should? It seems like he is made to be an example and nothing else.
For some reason, i can't help but think that this could only happen in the US of A.
These are the people the RIAA, MPAA, etc. should be focusing on and suing for the large sums of money. Not the little sharer that makes no money off downloading media.
You should go to jail for the sheer stupidity of BUYING pirated content in the 21st century.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
It is 15 years in prison - who cares about the headline?
Say that this person has sold for a grand total of $100,000.- (street value) merchandise. For that he'll go to prison for 15 years.
Now look at how much money the mafiaa has withheld and continues to withhold from those who actually create the product they peddle. Are they going to prison as well? If not, why not? If you want to talk about copyright violation on industrial scale I'd say it does not get bigger than what the mafiaa does.
--frank[at]unternet.org
Let's say...
Sell a CD copy of Michael Jackson : 15 years in jail
Kill Michael Jackson : 4 years in jail
makes sense...
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Brown guy sells DVDs on street corner.
Gets busted.
RIAA claims vast copyright ring was destroyed doing gazillions of damage.
Business as usual.
This is my first article sumbission to /.
Do editors regularly change headlines? There is a huge difference in meaning between the edited headline and the initial wording, IMO.
Original wording: "In Mississippi: 15 Year Jail Sentence for Movie and Music Copyright Infringement"
Says the RIAA: '[This] highlights the fact that the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals for whom IP theft is simply the most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others.'
A single event highlights "the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals"? Have these shitheads no shame?
That's like saying, "a rare, maybe one time event occurred, from this we extrapolate that this is a frequent event.
This is a sad and pathetic abuse of observations.
As for "most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others," considering what they charge for shitty movies they crank out by the thousands, I guess they feel stealing from others in this way is THEIR JOB, and that's why their pussies hurt about it.
But, if you are by chance reading, this jerk operates at the Publix on sw 132 and 8th street during weekends. Throw away the key.
If you do a cursory internet search, you'll probably find the appropriate place to send this message. Posting on slashdot is going to be only marginally more effective than praying for someone to do something about it, considering that by praying, there is a zero percent chance anything will hear and/or respond to your prayers, (unless some human being overhears you, which is unlikely to happen if you pray silently,) and a fractional percent chance if you post on slashdot.
To highlight this, let me point out that I would DEARLY love for some gorgeous woman, about college age, to fellate me, and let me fondle her supple young body, then have intercourse with her.
How likely do you think it is that my having posted this on slashdot alone, will directly result in this happening where if I did not post it such would not happen?
See? Posting on slashdot isn't going to get anything done. You need to send that message to the correct place, perhaps the FBI.
Nobody ever talks about the cost of jail. It costs around $25,000 per year to incarcerate someone. Even with parole this would only be reduced to $10,000 a year. I don't want to pay this...do you?
...and downloading electronic.
One is a profit-driven criminal enterprise, the other is entertainment-driven personal desire.
Twice I have seen "physical pirates" selling obviously pirated physical copies of movies/music/software for more-than-trivial sums but less than standard retail ($5 for a movie or CD, $20 for normally-much-more-expensive software.) Those I report. Those are the true vultures. Those are the actual *criminals* conducting *criminal* copyright violation. Those are the ones who deserve prison time. (For a first offense, 15 years would be harsh, but it sounds like this guy has other issues that made it higher.)
Mississippi goddam!
People still have CDs? Why wouldn't he just have everything on a little lap top and let people hook up with their flash drives?
Proverbs 21:19
It's possible that the 'weapons' were non-conforming knives, but that could have been part of the plea - drop the weapons charges, he pleads guilty to the piracy.
I don't read AC A human right
"Everybody must do their part to eradicate criminal scum like this by simply torrenting their pirated media, rather than propping up the repulsive trade in physical copies sold at retail... The Swarm Needs You to fight piracy today!"
oops, I pirated that. Help - someone's knocking at my door....
We are never going to be able to bust every pirate, or even enough pirates to serve as a deterrent.
What we're doing instead is trying to really crucify the ones we catch, as a warning to others. That isn't working because the chance of getting caught is so low.
Instead, we should view media as a market which had a time period in which to be profitable. Before digital copying was easy, media had a monopoly on the means of its delivery and so was able to make profit.
Now? It's like advertising: you have to give it away for free. That doesn't leave much for your advertisers, and it will cost them even more.
As a result, the model is dying. Media can't make enough money from their product to cover costs. Right now that's true of news, but soon it will be true of movies and music.
And so what?
We're not losing the next Beethoven here. We're losing entertainment for the masses, and we can do that ourselves on a much lower budget. Music, art and news can go back to a normal role as a low-cost local phenomenon.
Markets periodically foreclose themselves like this. They simply become obsolete. That time has come for media, and we'll all be richer for it.
Futurist Traditionalism
gets a defendant 15 years in Mississippi
I'd rather go to prison.
And how much government waste is responsible for this? The poverty line is at just over $11,000 for a single person. And yet it costs $25,000 to feed and keep someone in a tiny metal box for a year? The taxpayers shouldn't be outraged at another person in jail so much as for how much our government manages to waste in doing so.
"Assaulting an officer" - i.e. if you commit any more crimes for the rest of your life, they're going to go for the maximum allowable punishment. Does it seem strange to you that otherwise small-time crimes like littering could land you a $5,000 fine and/or a year in jail? Now you know why.
CD piracy conviction. If that had been a year in prison instead he'd be in for life without the possibility of parole, since combined with the 5 year assault conviction he'd hit Mississippi's version of three strikes: http://www.mscode.com/free/statutes/99/019/0083.htm
Someone, somewhere, is keeping track.
Never go there for any reason.
Is this Mississippi in North Korea or Iran? Or maybe China? Because it can't be the Mississippi in America: we're not that extreme, are we? Has America really jumped the shark?
We've got too many laws and too many prisoners in the US. Did you know there's a 65-year-old guy doing hard time in Federal Prison for the crime of importing orchids without the proper paperwork?
http://www.economist.com/node/16636027
...working on an RIAA chain gang CD duplicator.
Most cops are corrupt fascists who bully society. Cops are just a gang.
The mod-up to "Informative" comes cheap these days.
After storm, NYC police officers, firefighters leave work to find recovery chaos back home
Let's face it, the RIAA and MPAA are the #1 / #2 Biggest IP Thefts in the fraking Universe.
Each and every one of their member corporate officers should be serving multiple consecutive life sentences for all the shit they've stolen, lives they've ruined, families they've torn asunder. They're worse than any 100 individuals they've sued, and they have congress backing them up due to all the bribes they've paid out.
Unconstitutionally extended copyright to infinity due to DMCA laws.
Failure to pay artists what they are due.
Twisting every legal term they can to force artists who make them millions of dollars think they owe them instead of being paid by them. Have you seen where they charge the artists for Album Covers, wrappings, shipping and handling charges for digital downloads? WTF?? Seriously?
Both groups need to be shutdown with EXTREME PREJUDICE, and all of their corporate officers imprisoned if not given lethal injections for all the harm they've caused.
Let's use the RICO act against them. Hell, let's use the Marines against them - fucking blow the fuckers up.
never trust the police. in the united states their goal is to make arrests. if they start talking to you, they're trying to get you to incriminate yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
On a non-violent crime like this, even as a prior and persistent felony offender, he will likely only serve a small percentage of his sentence and be paroled. Just sayin.
so it's really 10,506 counts of murder.
Nullius in verba
I am! I do have to say that Anonymous Coward is in the lead so far
For one, there is no such thing as intellectual property. This is a lie from the one percent copyright/patent trolls. Second, what other verdict could one expect from a state that has an "awshucks/nascar/racist/GOP" attitude to everything. Really, Mississippi? You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Yes sir, I admit my guilt. I did willfully attack this police officer's fists with my stomach and face.
If you care enough to respond, then you care. You care. Sir, YOU care! Carer. You're like a Care Bear.
na naaa naaa naaaaa
15 year sentence for BUYING movie!!!!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
The seemingly insane judge is a tool of terror in the justice system. By somewhat randomly slapping a defendant with a severe sentence the notion is that others will not want to play the game and will keep free of crime. It is not just Mississippi that does things like this. Most states seem to have the same types of actions. Imagine a burglar confronting a judge and getting probation and a fine whereas the next burglar who also has no record at all gets twenty years for exactly the same crime.
There are people in the US serving life with no hope of parole who have done next to nothing at all. Imagine the teen in Texas who broke into a vending machine, then offered a cop a joint to give him a ride across town. The kid is doing life without any chance of freedom as they classified the joint, offering it as a form of sale, and the vending machine as felonies. The three strike nonsense has taken his life.
A guy over here (New Zealand) got 5 years (will be out in 3) for shooting his girlfriend in the head and killing her.
So 15 years for piracy?
3rd strike law being applied I presume?
Hey dumbass! The internet is full of it. Not to mention all the legal movie service either free or paid for.
the RIAA continues to equate infringement with theft. I for one, am shocked.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
What you describe seems to fit the description of the Ankh-Morpork city watch by the times of young Sam Vimes (see "Night Watch"). Bullies for hire...with some outsourcing (the Unmentionables) going on and privileges for the wealthy individuals or Guilds (corporations).
It can be manipulated to still be constitutional. They should triple all the sentences, and as a condition for a third of the jail time they are on probation and if they commit a crime while on probation they have the remaining sentence applied plus sentences for any new crimes. If they violate probation more than three times, then they simple are not offered the option.
rape goes to 30 years. you get out in 10. if you do it again, you get the remaining 20 years + another 10 years. Three times and you pretty much have worked it out to be 90 years. The advantage of this is it is a condition of probation, so a serial rapist isn't automatically out of their three strikes if they aren't caught and tried right away. They might end up with 5 counts for 50 years though, which doesn't seem "cruel and unusual" to me. If they get out in 50 years and do it again, then they get to serve the remaining 100 years.
that would be life.
I'm only going to visit mississippi 2 times!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Because if people haven't learned by the 3rd time, another soft sentence is going to teach them.
This guy PROFITED from copyright infringement. Not shared, profited. This isn't about using a track on youtube or sharing an album, he ran a business ripping content from others and selling it on. That is a crime in most peoples eyes and gosh, in a democracy, the majority rules.
Normal people have had it with revolving door criminals, people who just see light jail sentences as the cost of doing business. So, the three strikes rule combines "giving people another chance" with "if you fuck up we lock you up and throw away the key".
1 offence, another chance.
Offend again, another chance.
Offend again, no more chances.
It ain't that hard and is a decent enough balance between a system where people can better themselves and getting rid of those who can't.
A recent case in Holland showed a kickboxer who had already been convicted of a mass shooting in a school years ago now succeeding in killing someone in a shooting. The bleeding hearts of course see only two crimes but forget that in Holland, owning a gun is illegal. So, just how many micro-seconds did it take this person to break the law by getting a gun? And continue to break the law every second he had it on him? Including his probation rules?
Give him another chance? So next time he can kill two people?
You can see the extremes in Norway, mass murderer will walk free in a decade or two. Because he deserves another chance?
Fuck that. The average person is sick to dead of the bleeding hearts. Keep breaking the law and society is done with you.
If you know that with 2 previous convictions any offense is going to land you in jail for a long time and you STILL re-offend, there must be something seriously wrong with you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Regardless of the law, this cruel punishment seems very much like it has a political agenda.
So in my view, Patrick Lashun King is a political prisoner.
why call it a life sentence if you can be paroled?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Anyone else amused that 75% of the comments all pertain to someone posting "Thank God I don't live in the USA"? Specifically, the use of "God" in that phrase.
...his priors certainly affected the sentencing. However, since one of the priors was for selling pirated stuff, I think even that would have been enough to send him away for a long while.
Get these sentences for rape, armed robber and other violent crimes.
The proof is in the pudding. Our judicial system is concerned about profits, and not protecting society.
That's 1 point for the RIAA and 0 for human rights. Seriously, I am going to be afraid to even think about listening to music as it might be thoughtcrime. It's just music. We can't even get a murderer locked up for 15 years unless he causes the jury to throw up. America is not the free place it used to be.
Paedophiles get 5 years - and a cushy job, next to a school, when they get out.
I was really thinking I'd visit Mississippi soon and see the sights, but now I'm really excited to check out the state knowing they're fighting the good fight and focusing on the REAL issues going on in their state. Hell, I think I may move there now.. maybe raise a family.
Argh Matey, pirates are so 17th century... The way to make money in Mississippi is to bootleg.
*shivers*