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UK Government Proposes 10-Year Copyright Infringement Jail Term

Posted by Soulskill on from the booked-for-voluntary-contentslaughter dept.

An anonymous reader writes: According to a BBC report, the UK government is proposing increasing the jail term for copyright infringement from the current two years to 10 years, which they say would "act as a significant deterrent." "The proposed measures are mainly targeted at the distributors of pirated content — the people creating copies of movies, sometimes before release, and uploading them to be downloaded by thousands upon thousands." Another reader notes a related court ruling in the UK which has once again made it illegal to rip lawfully-acquired CDs and DVDs for personal use. "A judge ruled that the government was wrong legally when it decided not to introduce a compensation scheme for songwriters, musicians, and other rights holders who face losses as a result of their copyright being infringed."

5 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. This is outrageous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These jail terms are higher than an armed assault theft, or murder...
    All this indicates excessive lobbying or even corruption.

    1. Re:This is outrageous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This victimless crime undermines the asset value of intellectual property. While it is true that "intellectual property" is entirely imaginary, the fact is that many wealthy people have a significant investment in it. Its free distribution reduces its value (based on how they appraise it), and so they see it as a threat to their wealth.

      Throw aside all concepts of justice, and the issue becomes perfectly clear. They see copyright law as a means of protecting their wealth. Further, this is a greater threat to them than muggings, assault, etc., because they already have effective means of protecting themselves against those threats. So, they are focusing their political power on the task of protecting their wealth against what they see as its greatest threat: you.

      It doesn't matter that physical violence causes more harm to an actual person...that is a problem largely for poor people so they don't care about it. But you taking their wealth away is something they absolutely will not tolerate....and unlike you, they have the political clout to do something about it.

      Your only option is to overwhelm them with numbers (politically speaking). You either accomplish this, or you live under their laws.

    2. Re:This is outrageous by spire3661 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Imaginary property does not deserve this level of protection. I dont care what kind of infringement is going on, or how much money is lost. 10 years for 'stealing' essentially THOUGHTS is insane. The point of Copyright is to encourage works and it think its quite clear by now that works do not need this kind of protection, humans will produce them no matter what. Throwing people in jail over it is absolutely repugnant. I dont think we can truly call it an Information Age until we seriously hamstring copyright, not make it stronger.

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      Good-bye
  2. Insanity by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    10 years? You can rape and/or kill someone and not get that much time. Pure insanity.

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    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  3. Copyright itself is obsolete by xenog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I certainly hope the UK does not go down this road. It is like making manufacturing refrigerators illegal because it leaves ice sellers out of a job. This is retrograde. The industry should just start to accept that the Internet means copying things, and that is good. Ten years in jail for putting a film online? The UK is copying the bad things from the USA.