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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.
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.
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.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
The legal definition of 1st offense is the first time one is caught and prosecuted.
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.