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5-Year Suspended Sentence For S. Africa's First Online Pirate
An anonymous reader writes "South Africa's first prosecution for online piracy was concluded this morning, with a five-year, wholly suspended sentence handed down to a filesharer who uploaded local movie Four Corners to The Pirate Bay. The man — who lost his job recently — said he's relieved by the verdict, which was the result of a plea bargain. Director Ian Gabriel, who made the film, recently said he was 'philosophical' about piracy."
Glad to hear you're still alive and well, Hilary!
Share your toys with others.
See where all the confusion comes from?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Going after the people who wrote the software will have no effect, since they do not and cannot control how the software is used. What happened to Napster etc all but ensured that was how future file sharing software would be written.
Your analogy is completely misdirected... making the rest of your paragraph complete drivel.
'We need to go after the people who write the file sharing software, not the people who use it'.
Apply your same brain fart to cars.
'We need to go after the people who create the cars, not the people who use it'.
Meanwhile, your after getaway drivers at bank robberies...
No one has ever uploaded a movie to The Pirate Bay. That is not how torrents work.
TFA correctly states what the defendant did, so why is the summary for Slashdot, the supposed "news for nerds" site, dumbed down?
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
This is incorrect. If there were people who designed and built "getaway" cars, with features specific to and only intended for use during bank robberies, it would behoove us to go after them for enabling bank robbers. You would need to demonstrate that the vehicles were intended for and used primarily for that purpose; but once you did it is a logical next step to incarcerate the people who enabled the crime. I more appropriate analogy would be the laws that send bartenders that serve alcohol to obviously drunk people to jail if they let them leave the bar and drive.
Somewhat agreed - although I'd restrict this to people who have benefited directly or indirectly from the software they wrote, i.e. excluding those who make anonymous contributions. The law should look more at intent and values than on individual acts. A person who profits from misery should always be targeted first.
You realize that P2P software is used for perfectly legit things besides the illegal. For example last night, one of the games that I pay for used Bittorrent to update itself. And last week I downloaded a ISO of open source OS via bittorrent.
To get off the car analogy take lockpicks. Their purpose is to open something that is locked that you don't have a key for. Next time you lock your keys in your car, be glad that the government hasn't the lockpick manufacturers in jail.
If anyone makes a tool, likely that tool is going to be used for something wrong. But you don't blame the tool or the makers of the tool, but the person who used it wrong.
There should be no analogies, as comparing software to the real world means you're profoundly ignorant to begin with. It's simply wrong to blame the developers of P2P software for the actions of the users; period. Anyone who says otherwise is an authoritarian piece of garbage.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Trololololol...
What would you do when the software is released on darknets, and spreads over sneakernet and other (maybe older versions of the same) P2P networks? Sue the people sharing them? Oh wait...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I love listening to the "whoosh" sound that accompanies each and every reply to this. Priceless!
There should be no analogies, as comparing software to the real world means you're profoundly ignorant to begin with.
Software is real. It's part of the world. Same as the internet - it isn't a "cyberspace", it's people sitting at keyboards, and servers in real places, with actual cables between. And laws apply to those people, servers, cables, and software. And analogies apply equally well and equally badly between software and the rest of the world as they do between other parts of the rest of the world. Some analogies are useful, some less so. Just because it's "software" doesn't make it, and the processes that produce it, magically immune to logical, ethical, and legal analysis.
Something about Generalisimo Fransisco Franco being dead still might make it too.
Software is real. It's part of the world.
What a revelation.
Just because it's "software" doesn't make it, and the processes that produce it, magically immune to logical, ethical, and legal analysis.
No, but these analogies are often garbage and demonstrate that the person doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about. Like that idiot who mentioned drug dealers. He should just stop making analogies, because he's a god damn moron.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
yes let's sue MS the creator of the most popular platform used for filesharing.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
No, what we need to do is kill the fucking jews.
Yeah, reminds me of a gun. There are very few legit uses for it and the vast majority of the time it's just use for crime.
A comparable example would be to go against Smith&Wesson for robbery and murder.
Technology is neither good nor evil. Its application is.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Few legit uses?
It was made for a specific legit use.
Except, the overwhelming majority of the traffic both by incidence and volume is illegal, and the law DOES take such things into effect.
You can argue it, but theres not much point; judges arent stupid, and the hammer is going to come down eventually.
5 years ago about one third of all internet traffic was P2P downloads. But I don't see anyone calling to shut the whole internet down.
Bad things can be put on webpages that isn't a reason to ban HTTP. Illegal sharing can happen on any protocol...
If the file sharing software is "open source" and you cannot determine the author, then you jail the owners of the site that hosts the software. It's a simple solution and, really, the only way the problem will be solved in the end.
What if it's the file sharers hosting the file sharing software, with their file sharing software?
Wow. I had no idea you could sail your pirate ship over the internet.
I must have missed the RFC.
The highest speed limit in the US is 85 MPH. Pretty much every new car sold in the US can go at least 100 MPH. So, the cars are being sold with functionality that will clearly break laws if used. By your argument, the car manufacturers should be locked up.