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Two Birmingham Men Are Arrested By UK's New Intellectual Property Crime Unit
cervesaebraciator writes "The Guardian reports that the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit has arrested two men from Birmingham and have seized 'suspected counterfeit DVD box sets worth around £40,000, including titles such as Game of Thrones, CSI and Vampire Diaries.' The claim is that the men were buying foreign counterfeit copies and selling them online as genuine. London police commissioner Adriad Leppard offers commentary indicative of the thinking behind these efforts, saying, 'Intellectual property crime is already costing our economy hundreds of millions of pounds a year and placing thousands of jobs under threat, and left unchecked and free to feed on new technology could destroy some of our most creative and productive industries.' The article offers £51 billion as an estimate for the cost of illegal downloading to the music, film, and software industry, a figure they say will triple by 2015."
Meanwhile, Netflix is paying attention to piracy via torrent sites as well. The difference is that they're using that data to decide what shows they should buy.
i don't get it. can somebody provide insights into why this is a big deal and is on slashdot? criminals break law, get arrested. what is the sizzle here?
Who do I have to pay to get corporate police?
an unauthorized/unlicensed download does not equal a lost sale. is it that hard a concept to comprehend?
What are they smoking? Because I'd like some of that!
"It not only damages the UK economy, but substandard goods and services can pose real threats to consumers too."
if it's actually "substandard" then it means it's not a copy of the original because there is no original to copy. meaning they were selling the latest seasons of the shows which aren't on sale yet. if you want the latest season of game of thrones, you are going to have to wait until 2014.
the industry needs to learn that when there is a demand, someone will fill it. if you aren't filling that demand, someone else will.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
No, neither the US nor the UK has any provisions saying that "if a show isn't sold in this country, copyright doesn't apply to it". Even if it did, that wouldn't apply in this case, as you can buy DVD box-sets of all of those shows in the UK.
Of course, there are instances where copyright holders take a relaxed view of whether or not to pursue people from territories they don't operate in downloading their stuff. Anime's probably the biggest example here; the odds of being sued for torrenting fansubs of an anime show that isn't licensed in the West are next to zero (though the people who upload them in Japan can and do get prosecuted over there). Even if the show is licensed, you're still much less likely to get hit than you might be with Western shows. The main reason why? Overseas sales are so marginal to the business model for making these shows that it's not worth the cost of cross-border prosecutions. Plus watching the popularity of torrents is, as referenced with Netflix in the summary, sometimes an indicator of which shows are worth licensing for a Western distributor.
But that isn't to say that they couldn't go after people in the West downloading their shows, or even that it hasn't happened. We've seen a harder line on people torrenting Ghost in the Shell material (certainly to the extent of chasing fansub groups, if not individual downloaders) - possibly because GitS is a bit more "made for export" than the norm.
Easiest job ever, search online through shopping review sites and ebay feedback for 'fake' etc, Buy item. Arrest if selling a lot of fakes.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
I tried to look up the size of the UK music, movie and software industries for comparison. Music wasn't too hard, but I'm getting wildly conflicting results for the movie industry in my googling. It's hard to work out - most of their income comes from overseas distribution, and as with any movie production the official net income is worthless due to dodgy accounting. That's before considering the government subsidies and tax breaks the industry gets to 'promote british culture.'
In this case, fraud - they were buying counterfeits and selling them as if they were genuine. They were deceiving consumers into believing they were buying something they weren't. That's a definite attack on English consumers, even if it doesn't hurt their economy per se.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
It harms the bit of it that's reselling the genuine articles, as they lose out on sales, which has a knock on effect on various things, such as being able to maintain a profitable business, paying your employees, collecting VAT...on which point, I suspect the gentlemen in question were almost certainly not collecting VAT on their sales; so that's denying HMRC tax revenue. And I'm willing to bet they either weren't paying import duty on the DVDs or they weren't paying the correct import duty.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
That's about half a DVD according to "Piracy" metrics.
They have caused a damage of £40000 from a total damage of 50billion. Let's assume those are American rather than continental billions (or the numbers get even worse), and we get a factor of about a million: they do about a millionth of the harm in the UK, which means that about one out of every sixty citizens of the UK runs a business at least as bad as those guys. But wait, they were two, so it's one in thirty.
By golly, the Brits sure are pirates.
This is precisely what copyright laws are supposed to prevent - the bootlegger making money by illegally selling multiple copies of someone else's content.
The problem with Copyright is the *AA has been trying to use these laws to penalize the filesharer (who makes a single copy for themselves) as if they were full-blown bootleggers. The "making available" argument is bunk because if you take the number of illegal copies made via filesharing, and divide by the number of people doing the sharing, the math says there's one illegal copy made per offender. Ergo each offender is responsible for one illegal copy. Totally different from the bootlegger case where the single bootlegger is making thousands of copies available (the buyers are not guilty of anything because they paid for what they thought was a legal copy).
That's why copyright fines are so high - to discourage bootleggers who are trying to sell thousands of copies for profit. Not to bankrupt for life someone trying to make a single illegal copy for himself. The law really needs to distinguish between these cases.
How does that harm them? They never had the money to begin with.
Da derp dee derp da teedly derpee derpee dum. Rated PG-13.
I would like to be the devil's advocate. In TFA, the IP cop says
Intellectual property crime is already costing our economy hundreds of millions of pounds a year and placing thousands of jobs under threat, and left unchecked and free to feed on new technology could destroy some of our most creative and productive industries
Violating IP is now a crime instead of an offense in the UK? I note that we always consider the lost money stream and jobs at companies holding IP, but not at the actors that violate it. After all the two men selling counterfeit DVD created two jobs (their own), and generated revenue. Of course that revenue cannot be taxed, but the IP holder is big enought that I assume it used some fiscal tricks to avoid paying taxes too. In the end we talks about a law that guard revenue for big players, locking any other actor out for decades, and I wonder whether it is economically efficient. Even if it is, I wonder if it benefices the general interest, which is the reason why we make laws, and the only point that makes them legitimate.
The argument that IP holders could be innovative is weird, as IP holders seems very resistant to any technological change (except perhaps in the porn industry).
Did you know that piracy increases lifespan by 5.7 years on average, boosts the national GDP by 3.2% (4.1% adjusted for inflation), and increases overall subjective happiness by no less than 18.5%?
Writing random numbers is so easy. I don't know where they pulled that "£51 billion" crap out of, but they're welcome to shove it back in there.
> can one make a "counterfit" digital bit?
What, you didn't get the memo about the TCP Evil Bit? :)
They didn't pay VAT or import duties (which doesn't really apply since the products weren't real), costing the economy a miniscule amount and you're all "grr, thieving bastards" whereas you're fine with the *billions* Vodaphone costs the economy by not paying tax?
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
does someone really BUY the dvd boxset of the vampire diaries? Now I do watch the series mostly out of habit now, but buying it? I mean seriously?
Technically speaking, as some of the people selling these DVDs at car boot sales etc. use that as their main or only source of income, enforcement puts thousands of jobs under threat. It all comes down to a value judgement of whose job you think is more important - the guy letting you get a cheap copy of "Game of Thrones" with Chinese subtitles, or the several layers of middle management in the "Entertainment industry" responsible for the enforcement of DRM.
and the fact that there is no british film industry,its just eastern hollywood,any profits go straight out of gb. anyone want to tell me how much tax warners have paid in gb ? i bet they have paid in tax about 10% in taxes of the billions they have extracted from the british public purse,they get local government help,central gov help,tax breaks and then just defraud the rest. i worked at leavesden studio while potter crap was being made but only being a thick local yocal gardener i cannot understand them when they discuss big business in the main meeting room with the windows open.
How on earth did you decide I had no problem with Vodaphone?
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
There's deliberate mixing of issues going on. This new unit is supposed to police "illegal downloads" and "counterfeit DVDs". There's a huge difference between a counterfeit of a physical item, and a digital copy. As you say, counterfeits can be of inferior quality. Counterfeits are fraudulently misrepresented as the real thing.
I have no problem with going after counterfeits. What I object to is calling this an "intellectual property" enforcement action, as if there is no difference between busting a counterfeit goods operation, and busting ordinary citizens sharing data. They should call the crime what it is, fraud, and not try to say the chief crime was copyright violation. Physical items were misrepresented. These items happen to be media that contain copyrighted data. Money was fraudulently collected, by deliberately fostering a misunderstanding of where that money was going. Some buyers may have figured out their game, but undoubtedly, many buyers thought they were supporting the artists.
Many people purchase physical media not because they are compelled to, but because they genuinely want to support the artists, and that's the only means the idiot industry has blessed. Yes, the industry grudgingly allows downloading for a price, but they don't like it. A purchase of physical media is really a donation to the artists. Let's not pretend that the content can't be easily copied for free. Pretending to collect donations for some cause, and then pocketing the money, is fraud and theft. Big Media loves it whenever that kind of crime is equated with simple downloading. Most file sharers are not trying to misrepresent the data in any way at all, or collect money. Unfortunately, there are plenty who try to use downloading as a vehicle to commit other crimes, such as injecting viruses into computer systems. And they get away with it because they know no one is busting people for that, not when the attitude is that the "thieving" downloaders got what they deserved.
Once again, Big Media has tricked government into wasting taxpayer money on trying to force their sick, dark fantasy world of total ownership of all content on the public. This new police unit should at the least be given a more accurate name, and its duties more carefully defined. Or it should be dismantled. Too much chance that they will now wade into file sharing, seeing rampant crime everywhere in activities that shouldn't be criminal at all. Police are wont to see crimes where none exist, out of sheer self-interest. They get to stay employed that way. They're real suckers for sob stories of alleged victimization of those poor little giant media conglomerates, I mean, starving artists, by mean, delinquent teenage pirates.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Whilst it's true that there are crazy comments here on this story, it's also true the the copyright laws are counter-intuitive in places. My favourite is borrowing DVDs from the library. Public libraries buy DVDs at the same price as we do (i.e. they don't pay the rental price because they're not renting and therefore making money). I often watch TV shows by waiting until they appear in the library and then borrowing the disks. If I do this, it's not "theft" as defined by the MPAA, even though they may have lost a sale. If, however, the DVD is out and I choose to download from TPB instead of waiting in line at the library, then it is theft. Similarly, if I take out a box set, don't get to watch it in time, then clone it (with a view to deleting once watched) and return the disks then that's theft too.
soylentnews.org
When I consume a sandwich in a restaurant, the restaurant has that much less meat, bread, cheese, and alfalfa. That and the labor used to make sandwich are direct losses to the restaurant. Furthermore, no one else can have that sandwich once I have, so the restaurant will have to make new ones before they can sell more. There is nothing about this that is directly analogous to what's called piracy.
Which brings up another point. I know the pirate community has embraced the term piracy (case in point, TPB). It's probably too late to change this, but I think the term inappropriate. A pirate takes things from other people (violently at that) and once the thing is taken its original owners no longer have access to it or control over it. The making and distributing of digital reproductions we term piracy is nothing like this. A better term than piracy, I would suggest is smuggling. A smuggler takes goods from one place to another for distribution, in contravention to bans, embargoes, and government enforced monopolies.
There may, for example, be a royal monopoly on tea. The pirate steals the royal tea ships, representing a theft and a direct loss of royal property. The smuggler sneaks tea from other sources into port, never personally laying a finger on the royal tea. The exchequer will claim, and this is admittedly true, that the royal monopoly on tea is challenged by this act and it is hard for the market to bear the monopolist's high prices when there are cheaper alternatives. He is mistaken, however, when he calls it theft or even when he claims that each purchase of the smuggler's tea is a purchase which otherwise would have supported the revenue, for even tea has an elasticity of demand and there may be many who will buy from the smuggler who could never afford the monopolist's prices.
To find out just how strong it is, follow their claims to the end. 51bn * 3 * 12 = £1.836 trillion per annum. Now, just for the fun of it, take the IMF's number for the nominal GDP of the UK, and covert it into pounds. You'll come up with about £1.5 trillion. In other words, the industry is claiming that by 2015 losses due to piracy will exceed the value of all sectors of the UK economy in 2012.
I, too, agree that the men were involved in fraud but I think we're missing the point by talking about the guilt or innocence of these two individuals. If the article only said that two jerks were selling bad copies of The Vampire Diaries, then it'd hardly be worth mentioning.
The revealing thing about the article is the way that a new police unit, funded with £2.56 million over two years, is justified. Of course the first people they arrested were engaged in fraud, for who can complain about arresting such people? But the hyperbolic claims made about piracy here would, in fact, make the girl who downloads a One Direction album partly responsible for the destruction of one of the world's largest economies. And this unit is, as parent recognizes, charged with prosecuting "illegal downloads" as well. £51bn per month, to triple by 2015? Just think about that claim for a moment. That's larger than the British economy! If you take these people at there word then you could blame illegal downloading on the world-wide recession. You needn't bother with accusing innocent financiers and speculators who, after all, are just trying to make a better life for their families and provide a public service.
Such hyperbole is reported as fact, except on alternative, online news sources. And it is little wonder. Is MSNBC or FoxNews apt to disagree with the figures given by major media conglomerates? It would be rather shocking if Comcast and Rupert Murdoch allowed anything but the inflation of such figures.
Such hyperbole is also a matter of course when those in power seek to shape public opinion and have new policies accepted. To give a parallel, look at the rhetoric of hawks in the U.S. They constantly inflate the size and significance of every possible threat in order to drum up support for their cause. Hussein was a Hitler-like madman bent on world domination. Never mind that in reality he lacked the capacity and further invasion was not in his interests. Iran will start WWIII by blowing up Israel since they're religious zealots who think to welcome the 12th imam thereby. Never mind that intelligence show Iran is not building a weapon and the religious authorities in Iran have declared the deployment of nuclear weapons haram. Not one year ago, I heard John McCain declare the world a more dangerous place than he had ever seen it. This from a man who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis. But without the fear, the hyperbole, the little bin Ladins around every corner, the wars will not go on and without the constant wars the apparent need for an ever growing state security apparatus might falter. Then we might devolve to a pre-9/11 world where our lack of war threatens the peace.
Whenever someone in power indulges in hyperbole, threat inflation, and encourages an exaggerated fear know that they're trying to manipulate the public into accepted a policy which, examined with a clear head and a calm heart, any decent person would reject.
You wouldn't be the first thick local yocal gardener to hear a big business discussion, in the main meeting room, with the windows open, when it comes to fantasy films http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/
At least nobody caught you, or you might have had to slog all the way to mount 7 Arts, with soul sucking henchmen dogging your trail the whole way to confront a giant, floating, flaming, time warner logo.
Who is John Cabal?
They never had the money to begin with, so no. All that happens is they make less money than they might have wanted, but they lose nothing.
Da derp dee derp da teedly derpee derpee dum. Rated PG-13.
The article offers £51 billion as an estimate for the cost of illegal downloading to the music, film, and software industry, a figure they say will triple by 2015."
I think that is wrong... pretty sure the number they were looking for was £51,000,000 trillion billion bazillion... and it will certainly more than triple... with crappy draconian new laws and whatnot, it will be more like 10x.
Commercial bootlegging and personal use copying are very different beasts. Unfortunately, in most countries, they are unreasonably treated as if they were identical. It would be nice to have some sort of way to prevent this from becoming a life-ruiner for personal-use downloaders, but the numbers will screw them every time.
Imagine a home user downloading all the episodes of the couple dozen shows they watch/have watched over the years on bittorrent (even though half of them are probably available on Netflix, but I digress). Due to the nature of the bittorrent system, now the 24 series at an average of 7 seasons of 26 episodes each (just to get ourselves a round figure here) will potentially give that home user enough episodes to be in the range of 4,368 counts all on their own. Add in a completely made-up number of 10 people having connected to download segments of each episode, and congratulations! You've got 43,680 counts of distribution of content against you as a defendant.
The physical, commercial bootleggers in the article are a different beast, but it's not far-fetched to imagine this agency growing and taking on home users simply out of a need to justify their existence. Particularly if they prove effective at putting the commercial guys out of business.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!