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UK Gov't Asks: Is 10 Years In Jail the Answer To Online Pirates?

Posted by timothy on from the hate-the-way-they-rape-and-pillage dept.

An anonymous reader writes with a link to this piece at TorrentFreak: Physical counterfeiters can receive up to 10 years in jail under UK copyright law but should online pirates receive the same maximum punishment? A new report commissioned by the government reveals that many major rightsholders believe they should, but will that have the desired effect? A new study commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) examines whether the criminal sanctions for copyright infringement available under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) are currently proportionate and correct, or whether they should be amended. While the Digital Economy Act 2010 increased financial penalties up to a maximum of £50,000, in broad terms the main 'offline' copyright offenses carry sentences of up to 10 years in jail while those carried out online carry a maximum of 'just' two.

8 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Well, then I guess by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the "property" holders won't mind paying taxes on the property? Right? Like you and me?

    Oh, it's different for them.

    --
    Mostly random stuff.
    1. Re: Well, then I guess by cosm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the US, you pay taxes on just owning property, even if you are just holding it and have no expected profit. GP is saying same reasoning could be applied to those trying to codify IP as true 'property' to mitigate the propensity to classify it as such.

      --
      'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
  2. I Don't Know by KermodeBear · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know what an "appropriate" punishment is for illegally downloading or distributing someone's content, but ten years sounds incredibly excessive unless you're running a vast, far-reaching network, distributing content to a million people and charging them for the convenience or something like that.

    Some Average Joe sitting at home, downloading a bootlegged copy of the latest Hollywood movie... I don't know, a $50 fine maybe?

    The thing is, the Internet has, and will continue to change, how media can be distributed and consumed. The old model of ticket and physical media sales just doesn't seem viable anymore. I think the media companies are going to need to find other ways to pick up revenue. Advertising in the movie itself, of course, is an option, but I think we're missing part of a bigger picture somewhere.

    Someone, someday, is going to figure it out and make a bazillion dollars.

    --
    Love sees no species.
    1. Re:I Don't Know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Someone, someday?"

      Really?

      This problem has been solved for years.

      We invented the legal fiction of copyright for exactly one reason. To find a way to pay artists to create their work. We wanted successful artists and a society made rich and beautiful by their work.

      There are a total of 12 business models that are known to have ever made money at all. One of them is to make a product and sell it above cost. Others include things like loaning money and charging interest, leasing a property, buying wholesale and selling retail, providing insurance against risk. What all of these have in common is that none of them make any sense at all for turning art into money on the Internet.

      There are a few models that obviously work just fine.

      1. Become famous and sell tickets to live concerts. Been done too often to think about.
      2. Become good enough to aggregate an audience, use your influence to advertise things that people actually want to buy. Every Youtube star does this. Every TV show does this. Everyone who puts on a "free" show at a coffee shop or a bar does this.
      3. Build a catalog and charge for access - make sure it is sufficiently convenient an inexpensive that the "happy to pay crowd" outweighs the "I'll just copy it" crowd. Musically I know about the weird case of Magnatune. Also done by every single Porn site in existence, and you don't exactly hear the Porn industry complaining that the Internet ruined their movie business, do you?
      4. Lastly, and most directly, is to recognize the obvious: Distribution online is effectively free. Creating the work in the first place is expensive. So quit trying to prop up the DISTRIBUTION industries and start paying the artists for CREATION. If you need crowd funding, take a look at Kickstarter. You want a crowd funding subscription to the service of artistic creation, head over to Patreon.

      Again. This problem has been solved for years.

      It may be hard to become a great artist, but there is absolutely nothing complicated about paying artists to create work that we can download and copy for free. The only reason we have this problem is because we keep listening to corporate mouth-pieces of the completely redundant distribution companies who were NEVER INTERESTED IN PAYING ARTISTS TO BEGIN WITH.

      Stop listening to the corporate mouth-pieces. Please. You are far to intelligent to fall for their BS.

  3. how about 10 yrs for execs by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about 10 yrs in the slammer for execs guilty of corruption and bribery? Like creating retroactive changes to the laws, raiding the public domain, and making perpetuities out of basic, limited copyright in faster world of the internet. My contention is that copyright for ephermera, like news, TV and movies, should have been SHORTENED from 28 yrs to a lower number !

    1. Re:how about 10 yrs for execs by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't throw aristocracy into jail!

      But if history serves me right, it's ok to remove the head.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. Re:screw the system by DrLang21 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Prison is also supposed to be for punishment.

    He said should. I have to agree with his sentiment. When people go into prison, they spend years learning from the worst of society. When they get out, no one will hire them for a serious job with their record. So when you put people in prison who are not dangerous, you are consciously deciding to transform them into a dangerous person. This is about as counter productive of a justice system as you can get.

    --
    I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
  5. Re:screw the system by HiThereImBob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Prison is also supposed to be for punishment.

    He said should. I have to agree with his sentiment. When people go into prison, they spend years learning from the worst of society. When they get out, no one will hire them for a serious job with their record. So when you put people in prison who are not dangerous, you are consciously deciding to transform them into a dangerous person. This is about as counter productive of a justice system as you can get.

    Exactly. It is also a significant expense to incarcerate someone, generally estimated to be $20,000 - $40,000 per year per inmate. Take into account the lack of employment options with a prison record you mentioned (aka, lack of tax revenue from the former prisoners income), and the taxpayer pays twice when we send someone to prison.

    When we incarcerate someone, we are taking away their freedom in the interest of the general public. This should be reserved for people who pose a genuine threat to the public. Using it as out go-to form of punishment for any offense is akin to shooting ourselves in the foot.