Slashdot Mirror
UK Man Faces Prison For Circumventing UK's Pirate Site Blockade (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader writes with news from TorrenFreak that a Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit in the UK has charged a man for operating proxy sites and services that let fellow Internet users in the UK bypass local pirate site blockades.
In a first of its kind prosecution, the Bakersfield resident is charged with several fraud offenses and one count of converting and/or transferring criminal property. During the summer of 2014, City of London Police arrested the then 20-year-old Callum Haywood of Bakersfield for his involvement with several proxy sites and services. Haywood was interrogated at a police station and later released on bail. He agreed to voluntarily hand over several domain names, but the police meanwhile continued working on the case. I wonder if the same logic applies to customers of the shrinking number of VPNs that can be used to bypass other kinds of country-level controls.
Wonder how much taxpayers money was wasted on this effort.
Although laws blocking content are draconian, why wouldn't someone expect the government to frown upon operating websites to circumvent the law? It seems like political activism to overturn the law would be a better course of action. Although copyright holders may be entitled to damages, I don't see why they should be able to enforce censorship.
I will find it hard if they find him guilty under the charges, but with DUMB judges who believe the cattrap the plod talk about I suspect he will do down. The thing is that UK BLOCKING is not legal. Their is not UK law derived from Parliment that create the law, hell not ALL ISPs are are even covered by the court order to block site as it only the few biggest one which have to block. So this guy is being led to slaughter for a crime that does not exist and in now legal law, hell it would have to be EVERY UK ISP to be forced to block to get any where near it
...and throw him to the floor sir? -oh yes.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Using proxies to bypass government mandated restrictions on Internet use is illegal in some other authoritarian countries. Why should be UK be any different?
A man accused of a crime in Bakersfield is imprisoned. Later he escapes but is re-captured, only to be used in a game show where contestants fight for survival.
Is Callum Haywood ready to be The Running Man?
I'm glad to know that given all the cuts on the police force that Osborne is talking about, the humming a tune in the shower police unit remains well-staffed. Right along the lines of the "Big Society" trumpeted by Cameron.
After all, who cares about assault, burglary, etc ? Good luck having the police respond to a call reporting assault. Good citizens should band together and defend against those, the police is too busy with much more serious crimes. Like not paying for the right to hum a tune in the shower.
This is the UK not the USA. There is *ZERO* I repeat *ZERO* chance that he will in jail for decades. The maximum sentence in the UK for any copyright offence is 10 years and/or an "unlimited" fine. Further to get the maximum sentence would require you to be profiting financially from the copyright infringement. Also note in the UK damages are limited to *actual* losses.
Yes, when Brits talk about "The city" they are referring to London's financial district, it's the equivalent of "Wall St" in the US.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The EU, despite it's problems has been the main thing limiting the insanity of recent UK governments.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
If you keep thinking on ethnic groups rather than individuals, someone from an ethic group you trust will stab in the back.
The maximum sentence in the UK for any copyright offence is 10 years
It is worth bearing in mind that the charges in question do not appear to be charges under copyright law. They are, apparently:
one count of converting and/or transferring criminal property and six counts of possession of an article for use in fraud
Converting criminal property falls under s327 Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and has a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
Possession of an article for use in fraud is covered by s6 Fraud Act 2006, which carries up to 5 years imprisonment.
This appears to be a "spirit of the law" sort of case. While nothing he has done is in itself criminal (he's laundered no money, and personally committed no fraud) he has assisted others in potentially performing now criminal acts.
So how is this any different to myriad of tax evasion schemes, which also fly in the face of the "spirit of the law"? I'd rather the powers that be concentrate on the (IMO) fraudulent actions of large (and small) corporations denying the people of this country reasonable tax income.
Our wise fore fathers recognized the difference between nonduplicable "property" and infinitely duplicable copyrighted materials. The rest is corruption of legislation or judges.
My bad for not checking what he was been charged under. However 14 years is still not decades.
Further I severely doubt they will hand down a maximum sentence either. Maximum sentence's are very much the exception in the UK. For example those involved in the Hatton Garden burglary, the biggest in British history only got seven years maximum.
I agree on the likely "number of years" front, although I suspect that this might be perceived by some as an opportunity to make an example. Whether the judge goes for it, of course...
The crime he allegedly committed wasn't "talking to a muslim woman", it was for inciting racial hatred online (which is illegal in the UK). He asked a muslim woman to "explain Brussels" and she said "nothing to do with me", which he described as a "mealy mouthed reply". He then went on to tweet other things, including using the word "towelhead" multiple times.
I don't think this should be a crime, free speech and all that. The guy supposedly works in PR, I'd rather see him try to further his career in that field after this.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
It's still ridiculous that jail time is considered suitable for non-violent crimes. Copyright infringement is a civil matter with fines. Why should this be treated differently?
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
This is even more daft when you consider that it's only the big ISPs that block those sites anyway. Smaller ISPs, even though they go via BT's network, still allow access to them all.
Heck, back when Wikipedia was blocked a few years ago (due to a contentious album cover) I could still access it via my ISP at the time, Entanet... which meant they weren't even implementing the super-secret block list as operated by the Internet Watch Foundation.
Don't worry, as long as you you wear a suit and a tie ... there will be no problem.
Well, a suit and tie won't cost you much.
I'd never heard of Bakersfield, and Googling brings up somewhere in California. Yet TFA refers to a UK man, and he is going on trial in Nottingham (UK). Can someone explain?
Whereas your job is vital to society I suppose.
Between 'Hey, use my proxy! Be anonymous!' and 'Hey, use my proxy! Pirate shit!'
Plausible deniability?
The article says the perpetrator was 20 years old. Like the RIAA going after grandmothers and teenage children, they selected a target least likely to afford to defend themselves. How many 20 year old men have deep enough pockets to afford a lawyer?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
...a conviction is another. The PIPCU will have taken legal advice, I'm sure, but just because the police bring a case, that doesn't automatically mean that a court will see things their way. It may yet prove an interesting one to watch.
That's what you get when let a Corporate police force run amok and arrest ordinary citizens outside of the Corporation's domain. You were watching Robocop eons ago and thought we'd never see corporate police going after citizens? Well, here you go.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Because he did not violate any laws.. with a good legal team. he will be able to prove his innocence. If, however, he cannot afford a good legal team he will surely get sent down the river for life. And pleez no cracks about "innocent until proven guilty"! Does *anyone* even still believe that's how the real world works? :hint: Where the F#$k is the EFF in this case? Shouldn't they be all over it with support?
Justice in this case is absolutely "up for sale".
If only he had been operating a service which obscured the identity and origin of its users, he would not have been caught.