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Prison Messaging System JPay Withdraws Copyright Claims
Florida-based JPay has a specialized business model and an audience that is at least in part a (literally) captive one: the company specializes in logistics and communications services involving prisons and prisoners, ranging from payment services to logistics to electronic communications with prisoners. Now, via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing comes a report from the EFF that the company has back-pedaled on a particularly strange aspect of the terms under which the company provided messaging services for prisoners: namely, JPay's terms of service made exhaustive copyright claims on messages sent by prisoners, claiming rights to "all content, whether it be text, images, or video" send via the service. That language has now been excised, but not in time to prevent at least one bad outcome; from the EFF's description:
[Valerie] Buford has been running a social media campaign to overturn her [brother, Leon Benson's] murder conviction. However, after Buford published a videogram that her brother recorded via JPay to Facebook, prison administrators cut off her access to the JPay system, sent Benson to solitary confinement, and stripped away some of his earned "good time." To justify the discipline, prison officials said they were enforcing JPay's intellectual property rights and terms of service.
So you want to make sure that they cannot do anything but stay a criminal after their sentence is finished ?
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
That's cute that you think prison is for "reform". Prison is for no such thing.
Ah, but the Department of Corrections sounds soooo much more civilised than "the Department of Brutal Vengeance".
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Oh but what if he is innocent ?
The GP asked you to look at the cost of death row prisoners. I think what he means is paying compensation to relatives for a false conviction is cheaper than keeping them alive until the appeals process is finished, and that he personally feels that this line of logic is acceptible. Personally, I consider this attitude murderous in and of itself. Perhaps the GP will voluntarily submit to the death penalty...?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
most incidents of wrongful imprisonment involve police investigators and prosecutors, both of which are heavily protected against any charges of wrongful imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and the like.
Maybe that's the part that needs to change. Take away some of those protections and then maybe you'll have prosecutors who will place the truth over their own careers.
No. We are in a first world country where assholes in charge lie about what they are doing.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I live right here, in the US. And, I agree with AC's post. There is no justifiable reason that the prison system should charge as much as $75 for a short conversation with a prisoner. None. That "service" only helps to justify the statement that the prison systems are run for profit.
The United States cannot justify it's huge prison population. The US cannot justify privatized prisons. The US cannot justify locking people away for decades for crimes in which no person was hurt. ESPECIALLY since murderers often walk free after 5 to 10 years.
Face it - our system is fucked. Money making slave holes sums it up nicely.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense. Communications can be controlled, regardless of the pricing. The phone call can be totally free, and be monitored. Or, it can cost ten thousand dollars, and be monitored as well.
A dangerous person who is incarcerated should be strictly controlled. No access to telephones, or limited and closely monitored access is fine with me. Charging exorbitant prices is NOT alright. Someone is exploiting the prisoners and their families for profit, and THAT is exactly what I am talking about. The whole prison industry is exploiting the prisoners and their families.
Prisoners have less voice than any other group in America. No senator gives a damn about them, no congressman, no governor. Those prisoners with any voice at all are beholden to lawyers or to activists. They have few legal means of communication, and they are charged fees that are outrageous when they use them.
Your concerns about scams would be better addressed by getting control of all the cell phones smuggled into the prisons, oftentimes smuggled by the guards who are supposed to enforce the prison rules.
It would be virtually impossible for me to sneak a telephone into a prison, without being detected. But, I can offer a guard a hundred dollars to openly carry that telephone in to work with him, and he will readily give it to the individual I've specified. Some guards may hold out for more than a hundred dollars, some will simply refuse. Some few of them might go to the law, and report that I've attempted to bribe them. But, by and large, the guards are the major suppliers of cell phones within the prisons. And, THAT is where most of the scams come from.
In some cases, trustees may compromise the prison's own telephone system, but as nearly as I can tell, that is usually discovered in relatively short order, and corrected.
And, none of that justifies the flagrant exploitation of the people who are put in the care of the prison system.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br