Slashdot Mirror
Parents Not Liable For Their Son's Illegal Music Sharing, Says German Court
An anonymous reader sends this quote from an IDG News report:
"A German couple are not liable for the filesharing activities of their 13-year old son because they told him unauthorized downloading and sharing of copyrighted material was illegal, and they were not aware the boy violated this prohibition, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled on Thursday. ... The ruling of the Federal Court of Justice reversed a ruling of the higher regional court of Cologne, which found the parents were liable for the illegal filesharing because they failed to fulfill their parental supervision. That court said the parents could have installed a firewall on their son's computer as well as a security program that would have made it possible to only allow the child to install software with the consent of his parents. Besides that, the parents could have checked their son's PC once a month, and then the parents would have spotted the Bearshare icon on the computers' desktop, according to the Cologne court. 'The Federal Court overturned the decision of the Appeal Court and dismissed it,' the court said."
how to justify the 13 year old's apparent love of music from the 60s and 70s...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Bad enough that your teenager might wreck your classic sports car, get busted for trying to buy alcohol or cigarettes, become a sex offender for sexting, cause a pregnancy, or thousands of other delinquent acts. At least if they commit piracy, you're personally off the hook now. Too bad your family isn't. You could disown the kid, I suppose.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
But what if a kid steals, gets into a fight or robs people? Who will be liable?
And the child duty is to get around all limitations placed on them by the parents. Or did you do as you were told and have no imagination to do other wise when you were a child (you still may be - I don't know)?
He was just downloading stuff, it's not like he was smoking cigarettes or drinking.
Jesus.
Piracy for personal use = total worth ignoring
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Parents should take alternate shifts so there's always one awake watching their child at any moment of the day or the night. Having more than one child should be forbidden because then watching them 24 hours a day would be impossible with only 2 parents.
Exactly! That's why I keep my son locked in a cage, except when he has to go potty. God forbid he ever leaves my sight, as he might buy nuclear arms behind my back... or worse... download some old music illegally!
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
sorry but that is exactly what the highest court in Germany just decided is NOT the case. You completely got it back to front.
It may be YOUR opinion that the situation is different, but the high court decision in Germany is that the LAW doesn't require this. End of story.
"Age of criminal responsibility"
Differentiating between crimes isn't done in this fine scale (i.e. at 10 you can murder, but at 15 you can't, etc.) - you're either criminally responsible for your actions or not. The offence only determines the severity of the crime, not your capacity to know better.
Most countries have this at an age where the child should "know better", i.e. usually around 10 years old. Below that age, you can't be "criminally responsible" for the acts you've committed, because it's unlikely you understood what you were doing or what the impact would be (i.e. a toddler pushing another toddler off a high-rise block of flats while playing).
What you're confusing is the SEVERITY of the crime, and the capacity to know whether what you're doing is wrong or not. The severity of the crime determines the possible "punishment", the capacity to know what you were doing determines whose fault that was (i.e. parent for leaving you alone, you for not knowing better, etc.)
Bears that share are probably the MOST dangerous thing on the internet!
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
OP is trying to understand the German liability laws for parents, not make a moral comparison between the two
Germany isn't the US.
You watch over your 13 year old every minute of every day? 13 is more than old enough to have a private life and private activities, in fact I would argue that trying to deny them that would have a much worse effect on society than downloading music does. How long does it take to install some peer to peer software and hide it? 20 minutes? Maybe 5 minutes to queue up each song and move it to the device of your choice. Yeah, letting your teenager have 30 minutes on a PC without your supervision should be a criminal offense. Not digging through every file on the family PC should be a criminal offense. Not spying on your children should be a criminal offense. That all makes perfect sense.
He was just downloading stuff, it's not like he was smoking cigarettes or drinking.
Jesus.
Piracy for personal use = total worth ignoring
I totally agree. However, he was not just downloading, he was "sharing", uploading as well. So he stole a pack of gum, and gave a few away. That's the size of this case. Give him a good spanking, and let it go.
These laws are stupid. How in hell are parents able to tell what a kid is doing on his/her computer? How many parents are able to tell the difference between two icons that don't look like Word or IE? After this ruling, all kids know to delete these icons from their desktop. Or they learn how to change the icon into something else. There is probably an app for that.
Sure, after all downloading music in the internet is a considerably graver crime and should be punished at all costs, even by transferring the responsibility to the parents, whilst the comparatively mild crime of murder obviously should not.
Any parent who is truly aware of everything their child is doing should be reported to child services.
By giving kids no autonomy to learn the world for themselves you're not only potentially stunting their mental growth but potentially also breeding one hell of a rebellion when a child gets to that age.
The 13 yr old probably knows more about how to circumvent the measures suggested by the earlier court than the parents know about installing them. It was a stupid ruling and should have been struck down. The only reason for it is that those that are prosecuting know that the parents have money and the boy does not.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Parents do need to take a more active approach to "protecting" or "limiting" there children online. You always hear how a computer is filled with xxx or yyy and the parents had no idea. I think that is BS, if the parents aren't going to take an active stand then they have nothing to complain about. It's not even hard, decent security software is available for low cost and easy setup. It wont prevent the children from breaking the rules but at least if the rules are broken the parents can know they at least attempted to protect there wishes.
If the 13-year-old commits murder, are the parents liable? Are the parents liable for any of the kid's law-breaking actions?
How's downloading illegal music any different?
That would depend on whether or not they've neglected their parental duty of supervision.
In this case the court found that it is sufficient to teach the kid the rules that apply when using the internet because the parents had no indication that their son would not comply.
Of course after this incident they do have to watch and/or restrict his internet access by additional means.
The same applies to any action of your kids - if the parents have fulfilled their parental supervision within a reasonable extent they're off the hook. "Reasonable" obviously depends on the the circumstances and ultimately the court's ruling, but spying on your kid every second of the day is surely deemed "not reasonable".
Children are not adults, this means they require parental guidance, can't make certain decisions for themselves etc...
So yes, we actually do hold parents responsible for some of the things their kids do. (I'm not from Germany)
Example: your kid goes to his friends house and breaks a window, you would probably pay for it not?
Your kid vandalizes some of the schools property, again you'll probably pay for it and are deemed to punish your kid appropriately
your kid does illegal things on the internet; suddenly the parents are no way at all liable.
Now, I actually don't consider downloading music a criminal offense or even illegal. I don't know the case for Germany.
What I do find odd is the first courts decision:
That court said the parents could have installed a firewall on their son's computer as well as a security program that would have made it possible to only allow the child to install software with the consent of his parents.
Let's face it, neither the judge nor the parents can probably explain what a firewall is, let alone install one and configuring it to stop 'piracy',
And if programs need installing, it's probably the kid that does it.
Parental duties is one thing, policing your kids is another. We don't want to live in an Orwellian police state, so we definitely aren't going to push that on our kids.
No. He copied a pack of gum and gave further copies away. Nobody lost any gum.
You need at least 3 persons for an 8 hour shift. Also you will have to plan for sickness, weekends and vacation time. I'd say you need 6 people to watch a kid around the clock.
And since we are talking about teenagers those propably should be armed with more than just harsh language.
So for proper parenting you will need to hire 6 Blackwater mercs just to make sure.
Also: what does a Bearshare logo look like? Hadn't heard of that before. I would have understood Beavershare. He is an adolescent after all...
20 minutes into the future
Yes, Right Click on the Icon | Properties | Change Icon ... | Browse ... | Look for MS Word or something and use its icon.
Probably not but the kid is. Big difference between a felony and a civil issue anyways. Even then the kid should be treated a lot differently than an adult in respect to the felony.
I'm a parent I believe in parental responsibilities at the same time I'm not the sue everybody sort. My son stole something once he was 2 and a half at the time, I noticed a couple minutes later brought him back into the store had him give it back and apologize. I do not think you need to get into litigation, police etc, this is part of growing up and being a parent. I think the thing people tend to forget is the parents need to be the ultimate authority as far as the child is concerned to do otherwise undermines there ability to parent. By the RIAA/MPAA definition reading a magazine in the store constitutes theft and you should pay 1000 times the real value to account for the people they did not catch and and the store should enforce this for them, check out lines would never be the same.
No sir I dont like it.
American in Germany here.
Well the whole case is a civil case. It simply says that the Parents don't have to pay for any civil damages that may arise due to the illegal activies of the child. The child alone is responsible. Furthermore, since the child is not old enough to be held legally responsible the music industry basically just have to sit on their civils claims. So no one pays, but the child did do something illegal. Since this is only a civil case, there are no further actions that can be taken.
I don't have access to the first courts ruling.
But during the higher courts session it became clear: THEY HAD A FIREWALL and had tried to restrict his users rights to install new software.
Ofc. it is beyond any laymans responsibility to install aditional software to 'guard his children' from illegal activities.
Even more annoying: the law situation is crystal clear. Nevertheless the 'music company' sued in the hope to get a cheap victory in a lower court from an unexperienced judge.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You do know the difference between civil and criminal law right?
Murder is a criminal offense and would be tried in a criminal court where the rules of punishment range from fines, probation, jail time and even death in some locations. Criminal cases are brought by the state and prosecuted by the state for violating criminal laws.
Downloading music in violation of copyright is a civil matter. The state really doesn't care that much if you do it and are not likely going to be interested in tracking you down and hauling you to court for it. The state does not actively enforce copyrights or look for people who violate the copyrights of others. However, the copyright owner does have the right to sue for infringement and collect damages in civil courts. The RIAA is just a group of copyright holders who have banded together to find people who infringe on copyrights and take them to civil court and recover damages.
The question being asked here is what is the civil responsibility of parents when their children are taken to civil court and loose. It seems that in Germany, the collection of civil judgments against minors just got a lot more difficult. Given that most 13 year old kids don't usually own that much or even have a job, I suspect this will pretty much squash any attempts to sue kids for sharing music in Germany at least.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So does this mean a 13 year old will bet sent to jail?
No, this is the civilized world, where they don't usually send children to prison.
Or anyone to prison for what's clearly not crimes where the society needs to be protected from the individual.
Prisoners, USA: 0.73% of the population
Prisoners, Germany: 0.083% of the population (and that's high by world standards).
Children serving life without parole, USA: ~2500
Children serving life without parole, rest of the world combined: 0
Oh, come on. That's not their only option. I count a few other options:
1 - No access to any computational device, ever.
2 - The parents could have become IT specialists.
3 - The parents could have paid a firm to monitor their child 24/7.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
But many lost the need to taste it. This is not a virtual loss, it's actually a lost potential probable income. Think of the taxes that would have gone to the Government from that income. So many statistical orphans skipping lunches, being denied the dream of making hard-earned money from music. It's murder, i tell you!
uhm...
Well, downloading illegal music is a criminal offense. Illegally downloading (legal) music is a civil offense. Illegal music in Germany would e.g. be Nazi songs etc...
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
also a firewall does not block apps that you install and want to use.
and security program The parents can think that microsoft security essentials is one that does not block file shearing apps.
OP is trying to understand the German liability laws for parents, not make a moral comparison between the two
A parent is liable if they neglect to supervise their children properly. Courts will take a common sense approach to this. A 13 year old is capable of making their own decisions, and capable of doing things on their own. You are not neglecting to supervise them if you tell a 13 year old what to do and he secretly does it.
Many people in Germany have liability insurance. So if your five year old scratches your neighbour's car, the liability insurance will ask if you neglected to supervise your child properly. The correct answer is YES. Because it is then your fault, you are liable, and the liability insurance pays the damage. If you say NO, then it was nobody's fault, a five year old is not responsible for what they are doing, and it's just tough luck for the neighbour.
the criminal standard of proof are to high for most of the file sharing cases.
Ever more so if they just have a IP and did not even download the file from his system.
IP address have a lot of ISP errors that can flag some one who did not even share a file at or even flag a printer as a file shearing system.
The question being asked here is what is the civil responsibility of parents when their children are taken to civil court and loose. It seems that in Germany, the collection of civil judgments against minors just got a lot more difficult. Given that most 13 year old kids don't usually own that much or even have a job, I suspect this will pretty much squash any attempts to sue kids for sharing music in Germany at least.
No, collecting money for causing criminal damage for example is no problem. They will wait until you make enough money. The problem with a 13 year old will be that you have problems holding him responsible in the first place, which is why they tried to go after the parents. And another problem will be to get a huge monetary amount for copying music in Germany, against anyone. I would be quite sure that if a fourteen year old smashes up your car intentionally, he'll pay for it. Eventually.
So the problem is not collecting, the problem is convicting.
It's pretty disturbing that you got modded up to "Insightful." Disobeying one's parents from time to time is inevitable, but "getting around all limitations" is not a filial "duty." What rubbish.
Oh, come on. That's not their only option. I count a few other options:
1 - No access to any computational device, ever.
2 - The parents could have become IT specialists.
3 - The parents could have paid a firm to monitor their child 24/7.
4 - don't have children
5 - profit!
Those parents who are not aware of what the sons are doing, are doubly liable.
This is one of the parents duties: watching over the sons!
Not really... these are parents who either do not know the first thing about computers, know that they know nothing about computers, and know that their son knows far more than they do, or who believe that his right to privacy in his bedroom is more important than the need to get him used to living in a surveillance state.
(As a hint, privacy in Germany is given a much higher priority than it is in some other parts of Europe, or the US).
And of those chirlden serving life without parole, how many are doing it because of file sharing rather than extremely violent crimes such multiple homicide? How many of these "children" are actually 16 17 even 17.9 years old, childen only in the letter of the law, not in physiological or mental development?
Your back handed attempt at insulting the US is foolish.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Oh please. If this was 25 years ago and involved a kid sharing music via cassette tapes, no one would have batted an eyelash. The only stupid thing is that it gets take to court now because 1 kid among literally millions gets caught and has to be made the scapegoat for the rest of society. Total and utter bullshit.
GEMA should go fuck itself.
Would the parents incur any liability under German law if they left an unsecured gun around the house and the kid used it to kill someone?
IANAGNAL, but the rational thing would be to have leaving an unsecured gun be the same crime whether someone got to it and used it or not. The severity of a crime should not be affected by happenstance.
Which is why I'm also not happy with how we distinguish between murder and attempted murder. The criminal act is the same - if two people shoot at two victims with the intent to kill, it makes no sense to me that if one of them survives, the sentencing should be different. The crime stopped when the trigger was pulled, and what happened afterwards is not part of the crime. The effect can not change the cause, unless you apply religion instead of reason.
Backhanded attempt?
2500 to 0 speaks for itself. It requires no explanation.
If the 13-year-old commits murder, are the parents liable? Are the parents liable for any of the kid's law-breaking actions?
How's downloading illegal music any different?
...when their child commits murder? There are plenty of cases in the US and the UK available to research. Unless you hand your kid the gun, or don't leave YOUR gun lying around (applies to the US mostly), only the child ends up in (a special, depending on age) court. Then of course, in the US there are plenty examples where a 12 year old is tried as an adult, but that still leaves out the parents.
As for your second question, of course! If they are directly responsible. You cannot send your child to commit a crime thinking YOU won't be punished.
Your 3rd question, you DO know that even in the US civil and criminal law are two very different things?
So, to sum it up, are you just trolling because you immediately dislike something you hear, and are too lazy to invoke some more modern parts of your brain instead of just the knee-jerk reaction part?
Children serving life without parole, rest of the world combined: 0
Not quite true. There are also child prisoners in North Korea who are unlikely to be released.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_22:
Based on the guilt by association principle (Korean: [some Korean text that Slashdot won't print here], yeonjwaje) they are often imprisoned together with the whole family including children and the elderly.[12] All prisoners are detained until they die and prisoners are never released.[18]
So no, not just the USA.
Of course, if you meant the rest of the civilized world, then you'd probably be correct.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
So if your son shoots someone, you should go to jail.
Good to know.
Can you break down the ages of the ~2500? When I see 'Children', I guess I'm thinking 18 and under, but in Germany (as noted below), children are 11 and under. Are there ~2500 kids under the age of 12 in prison serving life without parole in the US?
[John]
Shit better not happen!
You know, I was able to bypass this problem by making my son's cage floor a wire mesh. Now the droppings fall right through. As an added bonus, when I need to hose the floor down I can also spray the boy for his shower. Two birds with one stone.
So your parents know of everything you did when you were young? Methinks not, guv.
In some countries, 16 is a legal adult.
In other countries, 16 is effectively an adult.
So Europeans whining about the American incarceration of "children" is a little disengenuous. Kind of reminds one of how American fundies like to trivialize young adults.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
People who were betwen 13 and 17 when the alleged crimes were committed. I believe there are 40 who were age 13.
Compared to the zero figure for the rest of the world combined, any figure 1 or higher is way too high.
Maybe in Germany? In the US as far as I can tell, downloading is nor more illegal than bringing bootleg CDs home that you bought on the street of some third-world country, or bringing home a counterfeit good you bought in China on the street. It's the sharing and uploading that is the apparent illegal part. Not to mention profiting. Is this not true?
Of course, if you meant the rest of the civilized world, then you'd probably be correct.
But, Shirley, then I would have excluded USA too...
You are right, in more oppressive societies, the government would just have them killed. Yay, rest of the world!
It's pretty disturbing that you got modded up to "Insightful." Disobeying one's parents from time to time is inevitable, but "getting around all limitations" is not a filial "duty." What rubbish.
What are you a nipple-neck?
A child's job is to hack reality. A child's three primary goals are to 1) experience, 2) learn, and 3) test boundaries of their current experience/knowledge. Fun and entertainment is an evolutionary benefit to physically/physiologically promote those goals. Like hunger being painful and sex being pleasurable.
Adulthood is a word for the stage of life when strictly obeying your progenitors is merely one option.
And THIS is why we need the government to install security cameras in everyone's home. To save the people from having to monitor themselves or their children. Isn't that the government mandate?
Bonus points if they can just install a V-CHIP into all children's brains to not only monitor their behavior, but to actually alter it so that they can conform to being good passive citizens!
No, it absolutely requires explanation. Are you using a consistent definition of "child"? What are your sources?
Remember, you can't look dignified when your having fun! Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive
So you'd rather have 2500 psychopathic children free to roam the streets of your town, and potentially grow up to commit more horrible crimes than they have already been convicted of doing?
The rest of the world appears to manage. And with every other country having a much lower adult prison population too, I can't see the American policy having solved a lot of the problem with adult crimes?
At the risk of being modded into oblivion I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you may be a moslem shill. I say this because of the statistically young age of suicide bombers and the high probability they suffer from a severe pathology.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm a white freethinker with no sympathy for absurd nonsense like religion and dogmatism, on either side.
The consequences for piracy should be no graver than those for jaywalking or speeding.
There is considerable disagreement on these matters regarding just how severe "piracy" is and how much social cost should be tolerated in order to prevent copying.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force more than two decades ago, expressly prohibits the imposition of life imprisonment without the possibility of release for offences -- however serious -- committed by people under 18 years old. All countries except the USA and Somalia have ratified the Convention.
USA the land of freedom. Well not if you are a child obviously.
So Europeans whining about the American incarceration of "children" is a little disengenuous.
How about an American whining about it?
Anyhow, 13 year olds are, I believe, children by any country's definition.
And if you think the US definition of children is too high, you need to work to rectify this then, because children are to be given special rights and protections according to the UN charter of children's rights. You can't pick and choose and give people a certain age the limitations of a child but not the protections. Either give them both, or neither.
You are right, in more oppressive societies, the government would just have them killed. Yay, rest of the world!
Actually, people being executed for crimes committed while children has been more of a problem here in the US than anywhere else I can think of.
And, to bring this back to modern Germany, how many children have they either incinerated for long sentences or killed? The answer should be really unsurprising.
It's the mentality that children should be subject to adult punishment that I find abhorrent. We don't give them the privileges of an adult, so we have no business giving them the responsibilities either.
This kid is liable to no record company.
We actually call people under the age of 18 young offenders, and they are tried in juvenile courts, and sent to "young offenders instituions" if found guilty.
If a 13-year old (or younger) child commits murder or another crime (in the sense of public law), it is not charged. If a 8-year-old (or older) child commits a forbidden action (in the sense of private law), it can be charged if it understood that it was responsible for a forbidden action at the time of commiting it.
In both cases, however, the parents are liable if they did not fulfill their duty of parental control. This obviously is a hard decision. It depends on the child, its past, on the parents and on what the public can expect parents to do in order to control their children.
I don't believe that stat. I quick lookup on google provided many references to problem with children in prison in many other countries.
Just buy them Apple devices. There's so many restrictions and content control you won't have to worry about anything.
don't call me Shirley
(sorry, somebody had to say it)
A recent visitor of mine reported that at the age of 12 he installed a key logger to get the password that his parents had put on his PC to limit his use of it... He only told his dad recently (he's 19...) The court is clearly right in refusing to hold the parents responsible. It's HARD!
Obligatory Parking Lot is Full
Thirteen is old enough to think through things rationally and question social mores. Filesharing is largely a victimless crime and the thread of reasoning for it carrying a punishment is tenuous at best. It's easy to see how a person with a well developed sense of right and wrong can think filesharing isn't wrong.
Anyway, he was downloading old music, right? Some of it was from artists that are now dead. The bigger stretch is saying that it's wrong to deprive media executives income derived from the works of other dead people. It takes a much more twisted sense of right and wrong to justify eternal (forever minus a day) style of copyright with massive financial or criminal penalties.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Mitt? Is that you?
And Paula Cooper is not one of those 2500 children, because after the wacko left got her death penatly revoked, she was only given 60 years, after she and three friends broke into a 78 year old womans home where she proceeded to stab her 37 times.
If a child has to re-learn reality from scratch, that's not a very useful process. Most parents do pass on useful information to children. It may be a good idea for a child to see what is absolutely necessary as opposed to just their parents' very strongly worded preference, but many children who try and get around their parents (unless their parents are useless wastes of space) end up just having to learn the same lessons the hard way later anyway.
In the U.S. 16 is still a minor. If the U.S. doesn't want to be bashed for trying 16 year olds as adults, it should lower the drinking voting ages accordingly.
But this is an adult crime:
"(11-16) 10:57 PST VALLEJO -- A 14-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and attempting to murder a 65-year-old woman in Vallejo, police said Friday.
The suspect was booked at Solano County Juvenile Hall on allegations of attempted murder, assault, carjacking, armed robbery and kidnapping for ransom.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Boy-14-arrested-in-assault-of-woman-65-4043616.php#ixzz2CPmK03Sr"
This was today, near San Francisco.
This is an adult crime. Talk to the 65 year old woman he raped about "children are to be given special rights and protections according to the UN charter of children's rights".
Ask her what she thinks about that.
You're being trolled. Please don't feed the Trolls.
Who is John Cabal?
We don't give them the privileges of an adult, so we have no business giving them the responsibilities either.
But we do sometimes give them the privileges of an adult. So your reasoning doesn't hold.
Think about it. By definition the number of downloads has to equal the number of uploads. So if there were n people sharing a song, on average they uploaded n/n = 1 copy each.
Dock his allowance (fine him) for the cost of the one song; treble damages for willful copyright violation if you like. Anything above that is silly.
You are almost there, just keep looking at it.
If a 13-yr old commits murder, then the 13 year old committed murder. Unless the parents told him to do it, or helped him plan the murder, they did NOT commit the murder.
That's the key thing here that really makes these lawsuits against IPs or account holders asinine: The law breaker is liable for the law breaker's actions. The key facet is that the person who broke the law, is the person who should be punished for breaking the law.
Parental responsiblity for crimes only applies if it can be proven that the parent knew that a crime was about to be committed. Even then, if the parent took action to deter the crime, it is VERY difficult to show that such action was insufficient. It is very difficult to prove because you can't just say "Well, they did this, and since that didn't work, it was insufficient." You have to prove that not only was the parent aware of the impending crime, but that the parent knew that the deterrent they applied would be insufficient to stop such behavior. That's a very difficult thing to prove.
Back on topic, what happened here isn't that someone is not being punished for a crime, but that someone who didn't commit the crime is not being punished for the crime.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
MoThe actual definition of children is a person that has not yet begun puberty, and most other countries use it in that way. Very few 13 year olds would fall into that category in first world countries.
You're clearly applying feelings and not reason to what happened.
Did the child in question enjoy the rights you and I have, to work, vote or otherwise change his situation? No? Then how is he responsible for actions his situation put him in?
This is a child. Yes, the acts were heinous. That doesn't mean that the child is beyond our help. Yes, help is what he needs, desperately.
What good would it do anyone to put him in jail for life? It wouldn't be preventative, cause children don't look at sentence levels before doing things. It wouldn't rehabilitate him. It wouldn't unrape the woman.
Get this child help now, and stop letting your base feelings for revenge dictate what should be done.
It does if other countries have different defintions of "child" - for example. Also, not that I have any reason to disbelieve, but a source would be good.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
No one is whining. We are accusing. You can only wrap barbarism in the flag of liberty for so long.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
It would be preventative in that it would prevent him from doing it again. It might rehabilitate him if he is willing to be rehabilitated. He may not be.
Help is not the primary concern. PREVENTING him from doing this again should be our number one concern. This involves incarceration.
I'm not scared of the 14 yr old. I'm scared of people would not incarcerate him.
Don't know about German law, but in the US... Collecting money for damages is civil law which is separate from criminal law.
Doing damage to a car that is not yours by say breaking all the glass with a hammer, would be a criminal offense. The local government may go after the criminal charge and haul the kid into court (or not). The prosecutor is not tasked with collecting damages for crimes he prosecutes, but they can ask for payment of damages as part of punishment if they decide to.
Even if ordered paid as part of punishment for a crime, the actual damage remains a civil issue. If the victim doesn't get paid for damage, they is free to sue and use the criminal conviction as evidence. Even if there where no charges or the kid was acquitted one would be free to sue for damages in civil court.
Sharing MP3's is not necessarily a criminal offense. Further, it is unlikely to be something the local DA would be interested in trying in criminal court if it was. You might get local police to step in and stop commercial duplication and distribution infringement operation, but usually you need to get the attention of the FBI for that. Most copyright crimes are Federal and not state or local and have more to do with distribution and mass duplication. A kid with a computer is not likely to get much attention at the Federal level, they are busy with other things.
Which is why all this kind of thing usually boils down to civil court actions and rarely involves criminal charges.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Most people's definition of Modern Germany would specifically exclude the mid-20th century Germany that incinerated its citizens, young and old.
Getting around some limitations is different from getting around all limitations.
Knowing which rules you can bend and which you can't is an important thing to teach children.
Not a sentence!
I'm not saying that parents' duty is to block kids. It's just to be aware. Then, maybe, to operate as parents.
In most countries parents are liable on behalf of kids, anyway.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
That court said the parents could have installed a firewall on their son's computer
For sure, all parents should be able to know how to configure multiple accounts with correct right management so that the other users cannot modify the firewall configuration, and configure a firewall to disallow all programs to connect to anything other then 127.0.0.1 except a white list. Oh and they have to find a way to disable websocket from the browser.
as well as a security program that would have made it possible to only allow the child to install software with the consent of his parents.
And of course a 13 years-old kid is not capable of cracking that kind of crap.
They could have also moved to China.
ya thats it. everytime i disagree with teh /. norms of insulting the US and labeling the military as wholesale monsters mark me troll and flamebait. only further proves my stance about the typical stupidity of most /. posters.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
yes because we send "kids" to LWOP for file sharing. none of them were convicted of violent crimes, ever.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
thank you. this was precisely my point. but now like me, you will be labeled flamebait and troll because you went againt the accepted /. norm of auto-bashing the US.
children in the US is defined as anyone younger than 18.
so if someone 17.8 years old kills 6 people, he is still a "child". No matter that he's 6'4" 220lbs and shot 4 people and then bludgeoned two others who we kids themselves to death with a table leg. he is still a "child", and deserves mercy instead of LWOP.
Or the case of the 16yo gang banger who was part of a drive by shooting involving 10 people wounded, 3 of which died. The same gang banger wanted previously on several drug charges.
Or the 17yo who drowned a next neighbor's 4 yo daughter after raping her.
No, none of those "2500 'children' serving LWOP" actually deserve it. They are all victims of the mean ol' US prison system and our harshness. They dont deserve punsihment, they deserve therapy and understanding......F that.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Exactly. That's why the constant harping about "2500 children are serving LWOP in the US" is total BS (besides the fact there is no citation for that number, and the only source I can find is an anti-jail website that has no prior source of its own, so i'm calling hand waving BS on that too). Thats why we use the phrase "minors", to indicate someone who maybe be physically an adult, not a child, but not legally an adult.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and state that I very seriously doubt we have any actual CHILDREN, 12yo or under, serving LWOP. I'd even wager we have no one 15yo and under serving it. That everyone one of them serving it is "not an adult" only by the legal technicality, because in this country there is this desire to baby young people until they are 18yo, even 21yo with the alcohol laws, and think of them as "children" even when they clearly are NOT.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
So you'd rather have 2500 psychopathic children free to roam the streets of your town, and potentially grow up to commit more horrible crimes than they have already been convicted of doing?
The rest of the world appears to manage. And with every other country having a much lower adult prison population too, I can't see the American policy having solved a lot of the problem with adult crimes?
At the risk of being modded into oblivion I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you may be a moslem shill. I say this because of the statistically young age of suicide bombers and the high probability they suffer from a severe pathology.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm a white freethinker with no sympathy for absurd nonsense like religion and dogmatism, on either side.
===
When are children able to be non-impulsive? Children learn to manage rage and anger by following their parents and peers.
So, if children murder, it is probably because the gun was left in the house within reach, and it was loaded. Only in the USA is it necessary to have a gun in your truck or van. (Well perhaps as well, if you live in some Latin American countries).
I am surprised that someone hasn't stated that the other countries execute children, and that is why the number is at zero.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I am surprised that someone hasn't stated that the other countries execute children, and that is why the number is at zero.
Probably because it isn't true. Most of the civilized world don't allow the death penalty at all, and especially not for children. In fact, USA is one of very few countries that do execute children, and lose on that account too.
thank you. this was precisely my point. but now like me, you will be labeled flamebait and troll because you went againt the accepted /. norm of auto-bashing the US.
children in the US is defined as anyone younger than 18.
so if someone 17.8 years old kills 6 people, he is still a "child". No matter that he's 6'4" 220lbs and shot 4 people and then bludgeoned two others who we kids themselves to death with a table leg. he is still a "child", and deserves mercy instead of LWOP.
Or the case of the 16yo gang banger who was part of a drive by shooting involving 10 people wounded, 3 of which died. The same gang banger wanted previously on several drug charges.
Or the 17yo who drowned a next neighbor's 4 yo daughter after raping her.
No, none of those "2500 'children' serving LWOP" actually deserve it. They are all victims of the mean ol' US prison system and our harshness. They dont deserve punsihment, they deserve therapy and understanding......F that.
Looks like you're objecting to the line being drawn at 18, or even 16. Where do you want to set it? 15? And if you do, do you want to give 15+ adult rights/responsibilities like drinking/voting/driving/etc? If you do not, why not? You're implying that they are responsible enough for their misdeeds to be punished in the adult system.