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Legal Scholars Warn Against 10 Year Prison For Online Pirates

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-directly-to-jail dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The UK Government wants to increase the maximum prison sentence for online copyright infringement from two years to ten. A number legal experts and activists are pushing back against the plan. One such group, The British and Irish Law, Education and Technology Association (BILETA) has concluded that changes to the current law are not needed. "legitimate means to tackle large-scale commercial scale online copyright infringement are already available and currently being used, and the suggested sentence of 10 years seems disproportionate," the group writes.

6 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Won't do a thing. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pirates do not fear prison, because they know that their crime is so commonplace that their chance of being caught is very remote indeed. Why would the threat of a longer sentence change this?

    1. Re:Won't do a thing. by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously, jail time for a non-violent civil offense is asinine.

      I'd suggest a small amount of monetary related to the local cost of the media that was infringed (around 2.5 times the actual cost seems reasonable for non-commercial infringement) and then a small amount of community service that's tied to the duration (impractical for some software and other digital goods, but works well for most things) of the infringed content.

      This way if someone ever does get in trouble, society doesn't have to bear the cost of imprisoning someone for something that's about as harmful to society as jaywalking. While we're at it, let's get formatting shifting legally codified into the law and return the copyright duration to a more reasonably limit in line with what was originally proposed.

    2. Re:Won't do a thing. by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Mod parent up; even the death penalty wouldn't stop it, it's so commonplace that once half the population is in jail; a military coup would ensue.

      The point isn't to put everyone in jail, the point is to put anyone in jail.

      Turn everyone into criminals and you legally put anyone of them in jail when they are inconvenient for whatever reason.

      "Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

      - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

      Yeah, yeah. "Objectivist", blah blah blah.

      For being so wrong she is proving to have been remarkably prescient.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  2. Hmm.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Manslaughter... copyright infringement... they should both get about the same sentences, right? Nothing weird about that at all, is there? ~

  3. perhaps I can clarify. by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    Many poeple find that spending a decade of human life imprisoned for a victimless crime is rather heavy handed. some decry it as "disproportionate" while others have remarked that its "just shy of lovecraftian in its malevolence." Im here to lend a bit of clarification and state for the record there is a very real victim in thje crime of piracy, and that victim comes with hand stitched Corinthian leather. Im talking of course about my Rolls Royce.

    Piracy deprives my rolls of a clean garage. It means I cant afford to pay my motor butler a decent wage and in turn it means the handles will persistently be wracked with smudges and fingerprints. It means I'll have to settle into something called 'the drivers seat' which makes it difficult, if not impossible to fetch the Perrier '65 Brut from the chiller (which as we all know is in the back seat.) Yes good people, Piracy could even mean -- and I shudder to envision this -- that I am forced to austerity and must drive a Bentley instead. So please, wont you reconsider sending those who pirate mellow folk sensation Roger Whittaker to a decade or more of prison? Its only fair after all.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  4. Re: America tried long prison sentences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please search for another factor, crime rate in North America fell faster in Quebec than anywhere else and they have the laxisest penalty for crimes, however they used to be a leader in rehabilitation....