Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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...
I love listening to the "whoosh" sound that accompanies each and every reply to this. Priceless!