US Government's Pirate Movie Bootlegger Gets 24 Months Probation

Solandri writes: Ricardo Taylor, a former supervisor at the U.S. Department of Labor, ran a bootleg DVD operation for seven years, copying DVDs and selling them to other employees via the Department's internal email system. You know — exactly the sort of thing our draconian copyright fines were meant to prevent. He made more than $19,000 from these pirated movie sales in 2013 alone. His punishment? 24 months probation. Apparently, using the Internet to share Copyrighted materials at no personal profit is a more serious crime than selling copyrighted works for profit on physical media. More details on this local NBC site with auto-playing video.

Comments

It is not what you did ....

[Alain Williams]

it is who you know, who you work for. If laws exist the have got to be applied consistently. I wonder if the RIAA will appeal for a tougher sentence ?

It would be interesting to see those apprehended in the future for piracy use this as part of a plea for clemency.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[ultranova]

If laws exist the have got to be applied consistently.

And they are. Or can you honestly say this judgment surprised you?

Re:It is not what you did ....

[devman]

The article is comparing apples and oranges. What happened in the above article was a criminal prosecution brought by the Government, what happened to Thomas-Rasset was a civil action brought by Capital Records. The government employee may still be sued by the actual rights holder. Thomas-Rasset, to my knowledge was not prosecuted, for her copyright violations.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[tomhath]

If laws exist the have got to be applied consistently

This guy pleaded guilty, admitted that what he did was wrong, and faced the consequences. It was apparently his first offense so the punishment was essentially a slap on the wrist and warning to not do it again.

Compare that to someone who ignores repeated requests to stop distributing, claims there was nothing wrong with what he did, shows no remorse, etc. That person will likely face a much stiffer punishment. Nothing inconsistent about that.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[MrL0G1C]

" It was apparently his first offense"

He must of committed the offence thousands of times, so clearly, not a '1st offense' but the first time he was caught for the thousands of offences.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[dreamchaser]

The legal definition of 1st offense is the first time one is caught and prosecuted.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[Applehu Akbar]

What accounts for the difference in punishments is that criminal procedure requires a much higher standard of evidence than the junky stuff allowed under civil procedure, and subject to an overall "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, rather than "preponderance of evidence." Then to arrive at a judgment requires a unanimous jury, not just a majority.

Civil procedure is specially designed to make lawyers rich and extort large amounts of money out of people by intimidation.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[Anonymous Coward]

If laws exist the have got to be applied consistently.

And they are. Or can you honestly say this judgment surprised you?

I certainly am surprised at this judgment. The last person to be convicted of this same crime got 4 years in prison, not probation!

Immediately after there were talks to raise even that to 10 years in prison. No where was mentioned changing from prison time to probation nor lowering the number of years, so this is even more of a shock.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[Theaetetus]

What accounts for the difference in punishments is that criminal procedure requires a much higher standard of evidence than the junky stuff allowed under civil procedure, and subject to an overall "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, rather than "preponderance of evidence." Then to arrive at a judgment requires a unanimous jury, not just a majority.

And they had all that and this guy was convicted, so the punishments are equal, right? No. What accounts for the difference is that this guy faced jail time and is now a convicted felon, while Thomas-Rasset did not and is not. And, as others noted, this guy could still be sued and face the same penalties as Thomas-Rasset did.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[Anonymous Coward]

"Compare that to someone who ignores repeated requests to stop distributing, claims there was nothing wrong with what he did, shows no remorse, etc. That person will likely face a much stiffer punishment. Nothing inconsistent about that."

Compare THAT to people who get extorted to pay 3000-5000 dollars for downloading an mp3, most likely with it being the first time they've ever been accused of such a thing. Or someone who gets slapped up with a 1-2 million dollar judgement against them for 12-24 songs on their first time in court "to serve as a lesson and deterrent for others", yes it is VERY fucking inconsistent.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[Applehu Akbar]

Yes, the employee could still be taken to civil court and be cleaned out of his entire assets for the rest of his life, like Thomas-Rasset. This only strengthens my argument.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[ewibble]

Then it is still the first offense of the person who ignored requests to stop distributing too.

Re: It is not what you did ....

[Anonymous Coward]

He was an exemplary ass kisser. Made all the difference

Re:It is not what you did ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the 1268 US government employees who "downloaded" his pirated DVDs, very likely for intentional broadcast to family and friends, thereby also further "copying" the DVDs. I assume these will also be caught up in this, being charged for each and every DVD he ever made and copied then further infringing.

Re:It is not what you did ....

[Anonymous Coward]

What accounts for the difference in punishments is that criminal procedure requires a much higher standard of evidence than the junky stuff allowed under civil procedure, and subject to an overall "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, rather than "preponderance of evidence." Then to arrive at a judgment requires a unanimous jury, not just a majority.

No. What accounts for it is he knew he was guilty and took a plea bargain. Thomas-Rasset was guilty and instead of settling for $5K, decided to fight and lose in court. Of course that's going to be a hell of a lot more expensive.

Re: It is not what you did ....

[slick7]

He works for the government. He should lose his job, his retirement and be banned from any further government employment or association. It's bad enough the politicos get away with their antics, but now the underlings are their cut as well? Oh, by the way, the same should happen to the politicos.

*Holds up hand...*

[magusxxx]

So why, exactly, does the DoL have 5-tray DVD burners in the first place?

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

Because politicians watch porn just like the rest of us but don't want their names on any lists at the adult movie store.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the Department of Labor. You don't think anyone there actually does any useful work do you? Get real.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

To burn 5 DVDs at once, of course.

Why is it that people demand so little insight into private business - especially when it's contracting to government - but government departments, which receive some of the most oversight of any organisation (NSA/CIA excepted), receive the ire of each citizen over every last cent spent, no matter how reaonable?

I know, I know, "Government money is my money!" Except it's not - it's government money. The reason you have property is that the government protects it for you. There is no law without the means to enforce it. In return, you pay taxes. Yes, keep a good idea on what the government is doing, but waste your time on details and you'll miss great hunking questions (why is the Fed private? why do we keep engaging in offensive wars in the Middle East? why do we have such an expensive healthcare system? why do we have such high gun crime compared to other countries with both disarmed and fully armed citizenry?).

As for me, I want to see more auditing of private corporations. If I don't like what the government is doing, I can vote for change, but if I don't like what private busienss is doing, I can't do anything about the property they own - nor can I simply not engage in business with them, if they're a utility, or an ISP, or they undercut all their competitors and put them out of business before raising prices. I've worked in public and private sectors and the most waste I've ever seen was when accompanying salespeople across the world as the "tech guy" (i.e. lead developer who could make sure demos/installs went 100% smoothly) for their biggest sales. Anything on expenses to give the impression of wealth/success, treat the prospective/new clients (would you like a feature upgrade with that?), from wine to women to ugh. That organisation was about as old as Microsoft, and going from strength to strength, but taught me that money is easy to gain, but ultimately leaves you soulless and depressed. It also turned me from a near Objectivist to a social democrat, who sees that there's nothing inherently good/evil about any system, and success comes with good values and a balance of ideas.

So, hurrah for the Dept of Labour, hurrah for Microsoft, and hurrah for casual pirates. But RIAA go too far, and this guy went too far. Everything in moderation.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[magusxxx]

"The reason you have property is that the government protects it for you." Unless there's an eminent domain issue and then they protect it 'from' you.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

And this guy *did* make such a list of clients. Must be some juicy names there.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Rainbow Nerds]

Government spending is highly scrutinized because 1) the taxes to pay for it takes money away from citizens and business who could spend the money in other places and 2) the federal government has incurred over 18 trillion dollars in debt. If the debt reaches a point where lenders to the US become concerned about the ability of the US to repay their money, those interest rates will rise. Not only does this make it more expensive to for the government to borrow and repay debt, but other interest rates are pegged to those rates, including the rates for private citizens and businesses to borrow money from banks. There's a lot of waste and fraud both within government and in government contracts to businesses. While it's true that there needs to be much more auditing of government contracts, that does not justify wasteful spending within the government. A dollar wasted is still a dollar wasted, whether it's within a government department or in a government contract.

As for the auditing of private business, I disagree that it should be permitted. The issue you're describing occurs as a result of a lack of competition, either through a monopoly that has arisen from acquisitions or competitors failing or a government-granted monopoly such as a utility. Competition is extremely effective at reducing prices for consumers, improving the quality of service, and eliminating waste by businesses. Deregulation of utilities is a better solution than audits. However, anti-trust laws must be strongly enforced to ensure a persistent state of competition, or else the market will move toward a monopoly that may not be in the interest of consumers.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

first paragraph demonstrates that government spending is in fact NOT properly scrutinised, and people are worrying about every last line item but not considering the bigger picture. also, nearly every government has revolving debt, that's how it's always worked, and well.

Second paragraph is hopeful ideology. If competition were so totally effective then it wouldn't have to be regulated into existence! I.e. antitrust etc. It is effective sometimes, but since human nature is to not be a fucking idiot and that means not competing where cooperation increases wealth and decreases risk, for essential services regulated cooperative efforts tend to work better, and for the commanding heights competition is hard to achieve (barriers to entry, and why bother anyway) and cannot be magically enforced.

As above, balance. Capitalism as ideology-in-practice is as fantastical as communism, with competition as philosophy being as religious an approach as one of complete harmonious cooperation, but mix them together and you have an advanced modern society.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

... don't want their names on any lists at the adult movie store.

1993 called. They miss you terribly.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Culture20]

Because they needed to burn 50 DVDs for a few events back in 2003? That's why a lot of places have them. Just be glad they didn't spend money on one of those duplicators with the robotic arms.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably associated with the Bureau of Labor Statistics which has published CD/DVDs of compiled statistical data for decades. Like with everything else government, they're a little slow to move to a less expensive, more streamlined solution like using the cloud.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Opportunist]

I highly doubt that most politicians have arrived in the technological world of 1993 already.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems you're conflating religion with the dismal science

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

The company I worked for around that time used to have a similar system for managing archive data. This is back in the days before larger NAS systems were more cheaply available, and anyone could be taught to use them, we had multiple copies of a ~3.5Tb archive and anytime someone had a problem with a disc we'd dupe one from another copy. When it was decided that data wasn't necessary anymore, we'd gather copies and shred them. Things ran in that manner from around 1997 with cds to about 2008 when the company decided we could afford a NAS after all.

And then - dude who was in charge of managing the archive at that point, new dude of course being that the shiny new NAS project was his, decided (on his own) that the NAS was so shiny it didn't need its own backup, probably also because the tape backups that had been in use only had enough storage to cover the systems in operation. Only one "copy" of archive data until sometime in 2011. This was doubly cool because there was only one NAS. You can imagine what happened.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they need(ed) to make DVDs all the time for training etc... They probably determined it would be cheaper to burn their own rather than contract a service.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't really understand analogies, or similies, or other such things, do you?

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[nbauman]

So why, exactly, does the DoL have 5-tray DVD burners in the first place?

The DoL publishes a shitload of documents. They used to publish it all on paper. Now they publish it on the Internet, but at one time they could presumably save a lot of money if they published it on DVDs. If you want a report of every workplace fatality in the US in 2005, that's a lot of paper that you could fit on 1 DVD.
http://www.bls.gov/opub/
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/public...
https://www.osha.gov/

(But that's assuming the DoL did have 5-tray DVD burners. The article just says that the guy used 5-tray DVD burners. It doesn't say that he used the DoL's 5-tray DVD burners.)

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss 1993 too.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[nbauman]

This is the Department of Labor. You don't think anyone there actually does any useful work do you? Get real.

I think telling employers how to stop their employees from getting injured and killed on the job is useful.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[nbauman]

As for the auditing of private business, I disagree that it should be permitted. The issue you're describing occurs as a result of a lack of competition, either through a monopoly that has arisen from acquisitions or competitors failing or a government-granted monopoly such as a utility. Competition is extremely effective at reducing prices for consumers, improving the quality of service, and eliminating waste by businesses. Deregulation of utilities is a better solution than audits. However, anti-trust laws must be strongly enforced to ensure a persistent state of competition, or else the market will move toward a monopoly that may not be in the interest of consumers.

Every private business that is large enough to have stockholders is audited. Otherwise, how do you know that the CEO of the business isn't pocketing cash, or putting his daughter in a do-nothing job? How do you know the bookkeeper isn't stealing?

Competition isn't as efficient as you think it is. The coal mining industry is or was a competitive industry. But a lot of coal mines regularly had accidents, workers regularly died, and the managers and owners didn't do anything about it.

The Wall Street Journal used to cover the coal industry, and did a lot of stories about coal mine accidents. When a worker got killed, inevitably it was because the mine owner wasn't following standard safety procedures, like ventilating shafts so they wouldn't have methane explosions.

Since worker's compensation is no-fault insurance, and employees (and their survivors) can't sue the employers in court, mine owners can make more money by skipping safety procedures and letting miners die. So free market competition among mines drives employers to let workers die. If you spend more money on worker safety, your competitor who doesn't will out-compete you.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (which is part of the Department of Labor) keeps after employers to follow safety regulations, but (especially since Ronald Reagan) the budget for workplace inspections, and the number of inspectors, has been cut throughout MSHA and OSHA. That's one of the reasons unions are so popular among coal miners. If your supervisor tells you to work in an unsafe shaft, where the roof isn't supported properly, you can refuse and the union will back you up. Without a union, you'd get fired and replaced with somebody else who is willing to work until the roof caves in on him.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[nbauman]

Capitalism as ideology-in-practice is as fantastical as communism, with competition as philosophy being as religious an approach as one of complete harmonious cooperation, but mix them together and you have an advanced modern society.

That's because some of the leading theorists of modern American capitalism are ex-Communists who left the party, denounced their old friends to HUAC, found rich patrons, and used their old skills and doublethink to glorify the free market. The National Review was full of them.

If in your youth you could justify the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovokia, then your country needed your skills then to justify the U.S. invasion of Vietnam, Iran, etc. If you could defend Stalin, then you could easily turn your skills to defending segregation.

I agree with you that the best systems seem to take the best parts of capitalism and socialism. They also seem to have a more equal distribution of wealth.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Applehu Akbar]

And I miss Miss 1993.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[nbauman]

They now have pretty much all their publications on line.
http://www.bls.gov/opub/

Don't forget, Gordon Crovitz notwithstanding, the government really did invent the Internet. http://articles.latimes.com/20...

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

Government spending is highly scrutinized...

Apart from when it involves paying private businesses to do government's job.. You know, like private jails, charter schools, blackwater, etc.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always wondered why Labor Day was one of our few no-work holidays. Thank you for pointing me to the source of this confusion.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux was out and interesting in 1993, and hadn't been discovered by the hipsters. Windows 95 was still two years away. I miss 1993, too.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

As for the auditing of private business, I disagree that it should be permitted. The issue you're describing occurs as a result of a lack of competition, either through a monopoly that has arisen from acquisitions or competitors failing or a government-granted monopoly such as a utility. Competition is extremely effective at reducing prices for consumers, improving the quality of service, and eliminating waste by businesses. Deregulation of utilities is a better solution than audits. However, anti-trust laws must be strongly enforced to ensure a persistent state of competition, or else the market will move toward a monopoly that may not be in the interest of consumers.

Every private business that is large enough to have stockholders is audited. Otherwise, how do you know that the CEO of the business isn't pocketing cash, or putting his daughter in a do-nothing job? How do you know the bookkeeper isn't stealing?

Ones that aren't large enough to have stockholders may be audited, too, because there's a point at after which is just plain more efficient for the owner(s) to pay somebody else to make sure of those things instead of attempting to do it themselves.

Competition isn't as efficient as you think it is. The coal mining industry is or was a competitive industry. But a lot of coal mines regularly had accidents, workers regularly died, and the managers and owners didn't do anything about it.

The Wall Street Journal used to cover the coal industry, and did a lot of stories about coal mine accidents. When a worker got killed, inevitably it was because the mine owner wasn't following standard safety procedures, like ventilating shafts so they wouldn't have methane explosions.

Since worker's compensation is no-fault insurance, and employees (and their survivors) can't sue the employers in court, mine owners can make more money by skipping safety procedures and letting miners die. So free market competition among mines drives employers to let workers die. If you spend more money on worker safety, your competitor who doesn't will out-compete you.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (which is part of the Department of Labor) keeps after employers to follow safety regulations, but (especially since Ronald Reagan) the budget for workplace inspections, and the number of inspectors, has been cut throughout MSHA and OSHA. That's one of the reasons unions are so popular among coal miners. If your supervisor tells you to work in an unsafe shaft, where the roof isn't supported properly, you can refuse and the union will back you up. Without a union, you'd get fired and replaced with somebody else who is willing to work until the roof caves in on him.

Arguably, it'd be even more efficient to shift monitoring to the unions, and make sure that if somebody dies as a result of failure in workplace safety then the person(s) responsible for it can face depraved-indifference murder or negligent homicide charges. Your supervisor's not going to be as eager to tell you to work in an unsafe shaft if he'll be facing felony charges if there's a cave-in...

That said, I've actually heard of and experienced some OSHA safety regulations that are not really that safe to obey--a good rule of thumb seems to be that the people most likely to die as a result of bad safety practices produce the most sane safety procedures. There are people who'd certainly be more okay with joining a union if the union's role was giving them a local OSHA that will produce regulations and safety procedures that will always have at least a high proportion of people with direct experience of the work environment--and in some ways might go over better than raises. Love is a lot cheaper to buy than attempting to obtain sane safety regulations out of government.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[jmac_the_man]

(especially since Ronald Reagan) the budget for workplace inspections, and the number of inspectors, has been cut throughout MSHA

In 1980, the year Reagan was elected, the United Mine Workers represented 160,000 miners. In 2005, that number was 16,000. Since there are 10 times fewer coal miners than when Reagan was elected, doesn't it stand to reason that they need fewer safety inspectors?

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't really understand analogies, or similies, or other such things, do you?

I understand analogies, similies, metaphores, memes, tropes, and etc., just fine. Thank you very much.

You, on the other hand, appear not to understand jokes, humor, and other such things, do you?

Now go back under your bridge.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has seen a whole bunch of employers who re-interpret the law to suit them, or just plain ignore it, that's precisely what they're not doing. What they are doing is making sure employers are aware of their legal obligations, and prosecute them where they fail to meet them: they're enforcing responsibility, because most employees don't have deep pockets and more often than not, employers are stinking liars.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[nbauman]

(especially since Ronald Reagan) the budget for workplace inspections, and the number of inspectors, has been cut throughout MSHA

In 1980, the year Reagan was elected, the United Mine Workers represented 160,000 miners. In 2005, that number was 16,000. Since there are 10 times fewer coal miners than when Reagan was elected, doesn't it stand to reason that they need fewer safety inspectors?

All industrial jobs have declined since 1980. I mentioned coal mining because that's an occupation in which, to quote a Wall Street Journal headline, mines can be safe if the employers really try. In other words, in the free market, especially with high unemployment, many mine owners will skip standard, recommended safety procedures in order to make more profits, and have fatal accidents as a result. There are a few mine owners that follow safety procedures rigorously, but they're going against their free market incentives.

The reason I mentioned Ronald Reagan was that I used to work in the electrical construction industry, and I followed occupational safety. I looked for the best safety studies around, and I found that California OSHA had done a series of really great workplace safety studies, based on their accident investigations in California. Two of them dealt with electrocutions in the workplace. They found a large increase in two types of workplace electrocutions.

The first was the introduction of a new, smaller boom truck. The truck distributors were taking regular flatbed trucks and mounting small cranes on them, which were very popular and convenient for loading and unloading construction supplies, etc. But the drivers of these new trucks weren't trained in using boom trucks, and there were several accidents in which the booms hit high-voltage wires and electrocuted the workers. Those problems could be solved first by telling truck drivers that it was a hazard, and second by redesigning the trucks with insulation and grounding to prevent electrocution (which I think federal regulations now require).

The second was ground fault circuit interrupters. GFCIs are like high-speed circuit breakers. They're circuits that monitor the electrical power going through an electrical device like a drill. If there's a sudden surge of power, which indicates a short circuit, it shuts off the power. There were two kinds of GFCIs. You could built the circuit into the device, or you could get a separate GFCI, that looks like an extension plug, and plug the device into the GFCI in series with the power. At that time, they were using plug-in GFCI. Construction workers routinely work in wet sites, and the insulation on their power tools gets worn out. They would get a short circuit in the mud, the GFCI would cut off the power, and the tool would stop working. They'd reset the GFCI, and go back to work. The GFCI would cut off the power again -- because it was protecting the worker from being electrocuted. Finally, the worker would get irritated, unplug the GFCI, plug the tool directly into the extension cord -- and get electrocuted. The federal agencies solved that problem by requiring worker education but more effectively by requiring the manufacturers to incorporate the GFCI circuits in the tools themselves (which raised the price of the tool by about 25 cents). The manufacturers were also encouraged by losing product liability lawsuits from the families of workers who were killed and would have gotten a pittance from Worker's Compensation.

After I read the studies, I called up the engineer who had done them. He was really enthusiastic about saving lives, and we had a nice conversation. He said that they had done ten studies and stopped. I asked him why they stopped and he said, "Ronald Reagan." As governor of California, Reagan cut the budget for the safety studies.

The point of this story is to show the limits of the free market and the value of government. It illustrates how, under deregulation and the free market, employers have a financial ince

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[ChrisMaple]

The two major activities of the Department of Labor are supporting unions regardless of merit, and attacking businesses regardless of merit. The 3rd and 4th activities are forcing employers to post silly notices and generating paperwork.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[jmac_the_man]

After I read the studies, I called up the engineer who had done them. He was really enthusiastic about saving lives, and we had a nice conversation. He said that they had done ten studies and stopped. I asked him why they stopped and he said, "Ronald Reagan." As governor of California, Reagan cut the budget for the safety studies.

Wait, hang on. As you tell the story, "the California OSHA" did 10 studies, which all concluded that tools should come with built in GFCIs. Then, the government mandated built in GFCIs in power tools. Then, you talked to some nameless engineer who blamed Ronald Reagan for cutting off the studies..

Did it occur to you that the government found solution to the problem, mandated that solution, and then decided to devote its resources elsewhere? Should they have done more studies to justify mandatory GFCIs AFTER GFCIs were made mandatory?

This is the same issue that I was gettng at with the coal miners and the reduced number of safety inspectors at MSHA. OSHA makes sense in high risk industrial jobs (except coal mining, because they have MSHA instead), but, as you point out (correctly), fewer people work in that kind of job than did in 1980. Since there isn't as much to inspect, there should be fewer inspectors.

You also gloss over the fact that at most construction sites, workers purchase and bring their own tools rather than having the foreman or the company or someone picking them out. Thus, the worker themselves were picking tools without GFCIs, and could presumably picked tools which included them. You also conflate Worker's Comp and product liability lawsuits for some reason, Even though they have nothing to do with each other.

Also, the conservative who says "Government is useless" is a strawman. There are plenty of conservatives who say "Government should do LESS." For example, government should do less mine inspection than they did in 1980 because the number of miners has dropped by 90 percent since then. Or, maybe we should either pick having a federal OSHA or 50 state OSHAs, but we probably don't need both. Or, maybe we can get rid of the bureaucracy of MSHA and just have OSHA inspect mines.

Finally, the problem with Communists isn't mindless sloganeering. Nobody has a monopoly on that. The problem with Communists is that their economic system leads to mass starvation everywhere it's really enacted, and if they're in power, they'll kill you if you point that out.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[ChrisMaple]

• The Fed is private because its activities are prohibited to the government by the Constitution. It's a trick to evade the law.
• The Middle East is a hellhole of murderous thugs, and has been for many centuries. We fight "offensive" wars there to limit their capacity for destruction, when it's in our best interests to do so.

• The healthcare system: A. Under Obama, deliberately messed up to encourage people to agitate for an even worse system, B. Before Obama, the tax code encouraged a system (untaxed employer-provided insurance) that disconnected costs from care.

• The gun crime rate among white second-or-higher generation Americans is comparable to many other 1st-world countries. The disproportionally murderous groups are blacks, illegal and legal new residents.

If I don't like what the government is doing, I can vote for change...

Vote all you like, it's not going to make any difference.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[nbauman]

After I read the studies, I called up the engineer who had done them. He was really enthusiastic about saving lives, and we had a nice conversation. He said that they had done ten studies and stopped. I asked him why they stopped and he said, "Ronald Reagan." As governor of California, Reagan cut the budget for the safety studies.

Wait, hang on. As you tell the story, "the California OSHA" did 10 studies, which all concluded that tools should come with built in GFCIs. Then, the government mandated built in GFCIs in power tools. Then, you talked to some nameless engineer who blamed Ronald Reagan for cutting off the studies..

No, there were 10 studies.

These engineers were investigating accidents and writing reports. They looked over all the reports to identify the most common categories of workplace fatalities, and then did individual studies of each of those categories to see why they were happening and whether there was any way to prevent them. They wrote a total of 10 reports. 2 of them were about electrocutions. One was about electrocutions in boom trucks, and the other was about electrocutions involving GFCIs. After they published 10 reports, Reagan, who was governor of California, used his budget authority to stop paying for the reports. He wasn't a nameless engineer. He was the author of one of the reports, he was speaking on the record, and I quoted him for my own report, although my editor may have cut out the part about Ronald Reagan. I could probably find his name if he had to (although it might take a Nexis search).

I don't remember whether the report concluded that tools should come with GFCIs. What it did say was that employers could save lives if they taught their workers the importance of GFCIs and how to use them, and required them to use GFCIs. They said that if the manufacturers made power tools with GFCIs incorporated, that would solve the problem too without having to depend on workers to cooperate and get it right.

At that time (about 1980) there was a big debate between the manufacturers and a large coalition of government and private advocates who wanted them to include GFCIs in industrial and consumer products, such as electric hair dryers which electrocuted about 500 children a year. The manufacturers didn't want to do it because it would increase the cost of the products by about 25 cents. You can read the whole debate in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, which opposed the regulations. Finally, after I talked to the guy, the government agencies decided to require the manufacturers to incorporate GFCIs in the products.

Did it occur to you that the government found solution to the problem, mandated that solution, and then decided to devote its resources elsewhere? Should they have done more studies to justify mandatory GFCIs AFTER GFCIs were made mandatory?

No, that's not the way it happened. Everybody in the construction business sort of knew that workers were getting electrocuted, although a lot of business owners ignored it. This GFCI study found out exactly how and why workers were getting electrocuted, and found was to prevent it, and this was part of the evidence to mandate the GFCIs.

After the GFCI study, they didn't need to keep doing GFCI studies. They went on to other causes of workplace fatalities, such as workplace falls and trench collapses. CalOSHA was studying local problems specific to California that even the Federal OSHA hadn't gotten around to. It was very cost-efficient, because they could save a lot of lives for not very much money. But Reagan was cutting taxes, so he cut these studies out of the budget.

Re:*Holds up hand...*

[nbauman]

The two major activities of the Department of Labor are supporting unions regardless of merit, and attacking businesses regardless of merit. The 3rd and 4th activities are forcing employers to post silly notices and generating paperwork.

There's a story about a woman who sued her husband for divorce, on grounds of impotence.

They had a trial before a jury.

The man testified that not only was he not impotent, but he described his extravagant sexual prowess in detail.

The jury didn't believe him, and gave his wife a divorce.

They said he obviously knew nothing about the subject at all.

You remind me of that story, because you obviously know nothing about the subject at all.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[jmac_the_man]

Keep blustering all you want. Your last post was a whole lot of blather to conceal the fact that your argument is based on a strawman.

None of this has anything to do with what I originally asserted, which is that we don't need as many mine safety inspectors as in 1980 because there are 90% fewer miners. This applies more broadly to all industrial jobs and OSHA inspectors, although that ratio isn't as stark a contrast as with the miners.

Re: *Holds up hand...*

[slick7]

How else do the ssn's go missing?

Socialism vs Capitalism!

[Daemonik]

It's because he was selling the movies for profit, of course... the studios can respect some good honest capitalist theft, I mean c'mon, most of the studios have at least a couple of outright thefts of their own.

No no, the REAL threats to the system are those damn pinko socialist commies just GIVING AWAY the studio's "property". We can't let that stand, no sir!

He made money from it

[houghi]

He made money from it and that is ok, because he only got 24 months probation.
Others, who notr do it for profit, get much more.

Re:He made money from it

[Opportunist]

It's just so un-american to want nothing for giving out nothing! That alone has to be punished.

Re:He made money from it

[codeButcher]

That's what The Fantastic Summary alluded to. "Apparently, using the Internet to share Copyrighted materials at no personal profit is a more serious crime than selling copyrighted works for profit on physical media."

What is /. coming to? First Beta, then in-feed polls, now the summary's content gets forced on us even when we do not want to read the articles or summaries, but only the content????

This is why.

[Anonymous Coward]

"He made more than $19,000 from these pirated movie sales in 2013 alone. His punishment? 24 months probation."

This pretty much shows why most people don't take copyright laws seriously. They know the damned things are a sham. You want some respect, you apply the damned things fairly regardless of who's breaking the law. And I can assure you at that point the people PASSING the laws won't let laws like what we have for copyright get passed in the first fucking place.

Re:This is why.

[devman]

In all seriousness though the article is comparing apples and oranges. What happened in the above article was a criminal prosecution brought by the Government, what happened to Thomas-Rasset was a civil action brought by Capital Records. The government employee may still be sued by the actual rights holder.

Pirate movie bootlegger

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he got off lightly as he was only bootlegging pirate movies?

Criminal versus Civil

[dirk]

While I agree he should have probably gotten a more severe penalty, comparing the civil cases versus a criminal case is an unfair comparison. The companies could still pursue a civil case against him and they have an automatic win on their hands because of the criminal conviction. He could end up with what he was sentenced to here PLUS a civil case for a huge amount. This isn't necessarily the end of it, it's just the end of what the government can do.

Also, I can't find anywhere exactly what he was convicted of, but I would guess this was felony level copyright violation, which means he now has a felony on his record which in reality is a much bigger deal than losing a civil case and owing the companies a ridiculous amount of money because it means you basically can't get a decent job anymore.

Re:Criminal versus Civil

[codeButcher]

... it means you basically can't get a decent job anymore.

Well, I guess if you work at the DoL you are already past the stage where "a decent job" is very high on your priorities list.

Re:Criminal versus Civil

[jamesmusik]

I came here to say that. There have been no criminal prosecutions for people who merely share copyrighted material on P2P services. Also, statutory damages aren't available in a criminal proceeding. A fine would have been, but that goes to the government, not the copyright holders. Here is what the United States said about restitution in this case:

The United States does not seek an award of restitution as part of the sentence, due to difficulty determining the amount of actual loss suffered by any victims as a result of the conduct. In a similar circumstance, the D.C. Court of Appeals recently found that a district court abused its discretion in awarding restitution in a copyright infringement case where the evidence was unclear on whether the defendant’s conduct “in fact thwarted actual sales of the victim’s product.” United States v. Fair, 699 F.3d 508, 514 (D.C. Cir. 2012). The Court of Appeals noted that “a defendant’s gain is not an appropriate measure of the victim’s actual loss in [Mandatory Victims Restitution Act] calculations.” Id. at 513. Counsel for the United States reached out to the Motion Picture Association of America, a trade group representing the major American motion picture studios, to inform the group of the August 13 sentencing date and that there may be a right to present a Victim Impact Statement if desired.

There would be no such limitations in a civil suit against him.

Re:Criminal versus Civil

[Anonymous Coward]

you basically can't get a decent job anymore.

He better step into a hot-tub time machine and try IBM in 1920s. Some things were better back then. Libelalism for the win!

Sorry, that's the German wheat beer talking I just tasted for the first time.

Does he get to keep the money?

[Opportunist]

In this economy, I am pretty sure for 19k a lot of people would accept a 2 year probation time.

Do I have to do the crime to get the money?

Re:Does he get to keep the money?

[kramerd]

Yes, you have to commit the crime to get the money. The 19k was from profits from running a bootleg dvd service. Our government is not paying people to take probation periods.

Do I need to quote you your own signature?

Re:Does he get to keep the money?

[ChrisMaple]

Our government is not paying people to take probation periods.

Lois Lerner is one of the more recent and egregious counterexamples.

Of course filesharers are punished more harshly.

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, if you share the files for free, it calls into question the concept that intellectual property has value in the first place. By comparison, sure, this guy made money, but at least he didn't upend the paradigm.

Life in prison!

[Anonymous Coward]

He is a criminal!

$250K per incident! At $5/ea, that's 3800 times or $950M in penalties.

Life!

Rebel with Voluntarism!

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution to the copyright/patent mess is to keep on sharing
till their business model is completely destroyed. Reject the
bullshit your state and puppets place on you.

Start by ripping and sharing all the physical media you own.
And do it over anonymous overlay networks such as I2P and Phantom.
That way you can share 24x7x365 without fear of the MAFIAA.
No one needs to feed the machine (with at least $9.50 to the machine and
$0.50 to the artist) and you can Bitcoin your money straight to the
artists that make a difference in your life.
The only thing these labels and distribution companies exist to do
is to tax both you and the artist and to payoff politicians.
SCREW THAT.
Crush these useless "intellectual property" companies once and for all.
Share and share at will my brothers!

*** Approved Tools ***
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http://open-zfs.org/
https://geti2p.net/
http://code.google.com/p/phantom/
https://transmissionbt.com/
http://xiph.org/flac/
http://xiph.org/paranoia/
http://www.cdda2wav.de/
http://cdrtools.sourceforge.net/
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/
http://www.labdv.com/aacs/
http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html
http://www.dvdfab.cn/mlink/download.php?g=DVDFAB9
http://ffmpeg.org/

Quality is paramount, bandwidth and storage are cheap, therefore...
CD and DVD *must* be shared losslessly, as FLAC files and VOB dirs only.
BluRay *may* be shrunk to DVD-9 ISO file / VOB dir format before sharing.
Don't waste people's time and quality by jerking them around with
arbitrary format choices on your end, give them lossless and let
them choose to downconvert on their own as they wish.

Re:Rebel with Voluntarism!

[ChrisMaple]

And when the movie production companies have all been driven out of business, and when nobody wants to excel at acting because there's no money in the business, will you still be whining?

A real comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

The comparison is bad, because it's a civil case. Here's a better comparison: Operation Fastlink. Almost all the people convicted never made any money, and yet some of them did end up in prison.

What about all the buyers?

[alw53]

They had to know what was going on and no-one complained to a manager for 7 years. In addition to file-sharing they are all abusing government computers and networks.

must've

[Anonymous Coward]

"You have committed a crime."

"You of committed a crime."

One of these is not a valid English sentence.

Another entrepreneur

[Anonymous Coward]

driven out of business by the Obama administration.

Draconian ????

[will_die]

You want to use someone else's creations without their permission and in a way they don't want you to and there are laws that protect the rights and choices of the creator and that is draconian?

Re:Draconian ????

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to do something and someone says I can't, so it must be draconian laws.

30 Years In The Mail Room

[westlake]

You are 57 years old ---

at an age when most of us are worried about retaining our jobs, retirement benefits and health insurance.

You managed a federal government mail room and a movie theater and are now for all practical purposes unemployable in the only jobs you have ever known.

Out of habit, you retained a full set of account books and ledgers documenting every pirate transaction,

Your guilty plea on the federal criminal charge soon to be followed by a settlement with the rights agencies for the damages they can now claim and win in the federal civil courts.

Re:30 Years In The Mail Room

[Anonymous Coward]

Your guilty plea on the federal criminal charge soon to be followed by a settlement with the rights agencies for the damages they can now claim and win in the federal civil courts.

The big difference being that they know how many copies: 1200. They can't bring in the boogie man that files posted online could be downloaded by millions of people. So Jamie Thomas gets a fine of $200,000 for 24 files, but I'll be surprised if a judge imposes even $20,000 for this one.

All Animals are equal,

[Anonymous Coward]

except some are more equal than others.

Its communism!

[Anne Thwacks]

Not doing it for profit is communism, and undermines the great American way. Of course it needs to be stamped on with the iron jack-boot of fascism!