Slashdot Mirror
33 Months In Prison For Recording a Movie In a Theater
An anonymous reader writes: Philip Danks used a camcorder to record Fast & Furious 6 in a U.K. cinema. Later, he shared it via bittorrent and allegedly sold physical copies. Now, he's been sentenced to 33 months in prison for his actions. "In Court it was claimed that Danks' uploading of Fast 6 resulted in more than 700,000 downloads, costing Universal Pictures and the wider industry millions of pounds in losses." Danks was originally told police weren't going to take any action against him, but he unwisely continued to share the movie files after his initial detainment with authorities.
If he deliberately recorded and actually sold physical or digital copies, I have no sympathy for him. Why would I?
Yet the banksters who cost the public billions and TRILLIONS have yet to spend a single day behind bars.
"Danks was originally told police weren't going to take any action against him, but he unwisely continued to share the movie files after his initial detainment with authorities."
In other words, the cop had decided to let him go with a warning for speeding, and then, while the cop was walking back to his car, he peeled out and gunned the engine, accelerating as hard as he could.
Understatement of the year. This is a sad case of a stupid law intersecting with an incredibly stupid person.
No, the real crime is punishing a non-violent civil offender with violence (i.e. forced into a cage). It only takes a moment of critical thinking to realize that punishing non-violence with violence is a product of injustice, not justice.
the real crime is punishing a non-violent civil offender with violence (i.e. forced into a cage)
Would you feel the same way if a financial advisor intentionally stole all the money your parents had for retirement? That wouldn't be a physically violent act, but would seem to have consequences that merit punishment other than a fine.
I think it's impossible for a government to do anything without at least some real threat of violence behind it. How do you enforce a nonviolent sentence?
Government: "Pay me a $1000 fine."
Offender: "No."
Government: "You're a poo-head."
Offender: [sobs pathetically] "Ok, ok, I'll pay! Just please, please don't hurt my feelings again."
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
You're arguing about something unrelated to my comment. My point is that sometimes the physical "violence" of being incarcerated is justified for non-physical crimes. That's all.
Copyright infringement for money is a criminal offense, fyi.
Not at Slashdot...
People seem to miss the point that this was a criminal activity for profit.
But of course here, entertainment that cost millions of dollars to create must be free.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
>> truly-victimless crime (personally using drugs without any intent to distribute, for example),
Thats a very naive viewpoint. Just by buying the drugs you're funding the entire drug machine so keeping it rolling, including the bits that hurt innocent people.
No, the real crime is punishing a non-violent civil offender with violence (i.e. forced into a cage). It only takes a moment of critical thinking to realize that punishing non-violence with violence is a product of injustice, not justice.
no, the real crime here is a misleading title that implies he was given 33 months solely for the act of filming a movie with a camcorder.
Offender: [sobs pathetically] "How am I going to pay my rent or car payment or buy food now? I guess i'll have to start mugging people."
FTFY
I agree, it's cheaper and does not encourage prison corporations to side with the copyright lobbies.
He's not in jail for recording a movie; he's in jail for distributing copies and selling them. Selling copies isn't a civil offense; it's a crime. And did you miss the part where he kept selling and distributing even after his arrest? I have pretty liberal views on file sharing, but this guy was asking for it.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Would you feel the same way if a financial advisor intentionally stole all the money your parents had for retirement?
The financial advisor isn't a geek ---
and the geek should never have to serve hard time.
That is the argument as it usually plays out on Slashdot.
Prison sends the message that the white guy with a six or seven figure income will be treated the same as the poor and the black.
It sends the message that intangible property is still property.
Something that the geek --- who spends his entire working life inside a digital universe defined by the value given to endless streams of ones and zeroes --- ought to be applauding,
Actually most crimes are not prevented or thwarted by jail or excess sentencing. The reason is that those committing crimes aren't considering the risk or consequence of their actions. The line of thinking that jailing, violence toward (physical abuse, caning, etc), etc will reduce crime is naive, but it is also the line of thinking most people have grown up with and been taught. Other solutions may not necessarily have a significantly better outcome, but without different approaches being attempted its we're probably not going to see a significant reduction in crime.
What we know has had major impacts in different parts of the world:
1. Advancements in medicine (drugs) have reduced crime (they have almost eliminated the need for insane asylums)
2. Banning certain chemicals from gas (has resulted in significant reductions in violent crime)
3. Reducing the wage disparity between classes (particularly reducing poverty, educational opportunity, and enabling advancement)
4. Focusing on rehabilitation facilities for drug offenders rather than jail
5. Legalization of at least low-impact recreational drugs
Damn! If only he had bankrupt an energy conglomerate, dissolved hundred of millions of dollars in pension funds, and legally embezzled 9 figures into personal accounts! He'd have received no punishment at all!
The fall-out from Enron
Even though the criminal justice system had to vacate the convictions because he died before his appeals were exhausted (and he couldn't very well assist in his own defense at this point), "civil suits are expected to continue against Lay's estate." In other words, you can't imprison the dead man to punish him (or you could, but it wouldn't be a very effective punishment, deterrent, or rehabilitation effort), but his family can be punished by having money and property taken away from them through the civil courts.
Nice try.
At the bottom of the reference I linked to, they mention that there are conspiracy theorists that say that Lay faked his death and he's still alive. Are you one of them? Of all the people who saw his dead body, not a single one of them would come forward to tell his story for the probable six figure payment he'd get? Sure.
When I saw the headline for this article I could guess that it was biased and incorrect, and I was right. The guy got 33 months in prison not for recording a movie in a theater, he got the criminal sentence for distributing copies for sale. The former could have gone unnoticed and would have harmed nobody, had he not continued to distribute even after he was warned about it.
> Sounds like you're a violent sociopath. Maybe we should cane you if you like that kind of punishment so much.
A good beating administered by the authorities in a controlled and relatively safe environment will likely do FAR MUCH LESS damage than being locked up with animals and sociopaths for 3 years.
You simply don't have any clue. You can't relate do doing any kind of hard time. You probably can't even relate do doing a week or a weekend in the local lockup.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"civil suits are expected to continue against Lay's estate." In other words, you can't imprison the dead man to punish him .. but his family can be punished by having money and property taken away from them through the civil courts.
It is not punishing his family. It is restoring them to the status they would have been in if the culprit had not committed his crime. Which is as it should be.