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UK Gov't Asks: Is 10 Years In Jail the Answer To Online Pirates?
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.
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.
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.
Longer sentences don't matter. Never have, never will. Especially not for white collar crime. You could put the death penalty, or lifetime in prison, behind it and it wouldn't make a difference.
6 months in prison would be enough of a deterrent if it worked. Because the people who commit this ... erh ... "crime" are usually not the hardened criminals that need a revolving door in the jailhouse 'cause they spend more time going in and out that on either side.
Now, it doesn't work, does it? Nope, doesn't. Mostly for two reasons. First, it's a law that is not backed by popular consent. There is exactly ZERO chance that someone would turn someone he knows in for this. Or convince him that it's better to turn himself in. WAY different for laws that have popular support. Make this quick comparison: Imagine you know someone and you learn that he copies files. Do you turn him in? He's not a close friend, just someone you know. Would you? Probably not. You would probably not even ask him to not do it again. Now imagine him having stolen something from a shop. Does it get more likely that you at least ask him to stop doing it and "get clean"?
And that ties in with the second reason: Nobody thinks of getting caught when doing something. I'm not even going to cite the near zero chance to actually get caught because the sentence for armed robbery of a bank is already at 10 years around here and the chance to get caught is near 100%. Still, people do it. Why? Because that's not on their list when they commit that crime.
Now let's string it together: People not thinking of the consequences, a near zero chance of getting caught and no popular support for the law. Fuck, you could have public beheadings and it wouldn't change shit.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Here's an idea, how about we check all of Mike's families PC's and phones and cassettes first to see if there's any copyright infringements.
No?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Even then, that's ludicrous. Prison should be used as a way of removing a dangerous person from society until they're no longer a danger. Even people who sell millions of pirated copies are not dangerous. Sure, they should face stiff financial penalties, and/or be made to repay society in some other way (community service etc), but prison is not the right place for them.
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 !
Never forget that these cretins wanting "10 yrs for piracy" are in fact, raiders of the public domain.
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.
If a pirate is caught downloading, charging them a fine that's a little higher than the price to legally see the content makes perfect sense. That's not even $50 most of the time, but after court costs are added in, $50 seems about right. Ten years is ridiculous. Hollywood really over-values itself to the point that we'd all be better off it the whole thing were put out of business. Do they really think that ninety minutes of one of their screenplays or three minutes of a song is worth ten years of anybody's life? That movie or song better damn well confer a PhD just by viewing/listening to it because that's what ten years is worth.
This. Prison is an abused form of punishment which we for whatever reason perceive as normal. Actually prison is absolutely inhumane and ofter disproportionate punishment to most kind of crimes. I also doubt that someone comes back from prison less dangerous then they entered. I mean being in a closed space with only criminals and (sometimes violent) cops is not something that makes you turn to the good side, quite the opposite.
Economic punishment for all kinds of economic crimes makes much more sense, and it must be proportionate too. Heck, physical punishment is more humane if it does not leave permanent scars/disabilities and probably more effective, too.
1) Piracy is robbery, kidnapping, and murder on the high seas.
2) Intellectual property is a generalized term which supposedly covers copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret law.
Do not allow corporations to frame arguements in these terms. When they say "piracy of intellectual property", respond with "copyright infringement". Then it may be possible to have a rational discussion.
Prison is also supposed to be for punishment.
Actually, there's a difference of opinion on that matter.
There are those who believe the purpose of prison is to reform the convicted, that prisons need to be reformatories. Their argument is that just sticking a criminal into a holding cell for a few years does nothing to change his behavior; in fact, it more likely reinforces the behavior by fostering a "me against them" attitude between the criminal and civilization while at the same time exposing him to like-minded people. Reformatories try to teach the criminal new habits and skills so that - when he is released - he can find a new path through life. The most extreme example of this is Sweden, although many nations in Western Europe follow this path to some degree or another. It appears to work for them but it is arguable whether or not their methods would have the same results in other countries.
The US, on the other hand, largely follows a philosophy of punishment (in concept if not enshrined in law); the idea is that the fear of prison as a punishment will keep people out of mischief. That is, if you go to a penitentiary you should expect to be stripped of all rights, beaten by the jailers, raped by the other inmates and probably lose the ability to ever find decent work once you get out, therefore it is better not to break the law. Whether this philosophy works or not I'll leave up to others to argue; on the one hand, violent crime rates have dropped dramatically in the country, but on the other hand, there are high recidivism rates and the US has the largest population of inmates in the world.
Then there is simple detention, a concept where there is no innate intent to penalize (or reform) the criminal; rather, the goal is to simply isolate the wrong-doer to protect society from his evil ways. These differ from penitentiaries in that they aren't used as a threat to convince people not to do crimes, nor is there any goal to reform the convicted. Detention centers are not necessarily unpleasant places (but due to budgeting issues usually are) Most often used for the irredeemable (repeat offenders, murderers, etc) when it is felt it would be too dangerous to let them go, or for people who are temporarily incarcerated before being banished from the jailing society (e.g., illegal immigrants).
Personally, I lean towards the first example as how prisons are best used, but in truth best results would be from a mix of all three. Unfortunately - at least in the US - too many people refuse to even consider that prisons should be anything but the most dire of dungeons, an attitude encouraged by a legal and penal system which benefits monetarily from ever-increasing criminalization and incarceration.
So prison doesn't have to be about punishment; we in America just chose to make it so.
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.