Man Who Uploaded Deadpool To Facebook May Get Six Months In Prison (gizmodo.com)

A California court may soon sentence a man who posted the entirety of Deadpool on his Facebook page to six months in prison. Gizmodo reports: A week after Deadpool was released in theaters, millions of people watched the film on a viral Facebook post by the account Tre-Von M. King. The FBI found that the account belonged to Trevon Franklin, a 22-year-old in Fresno, California. Franklin had downloaded the movie from file-sharing platform Putlocker.is, then uploaded the movie to his Facebook page, where it garnered 6,386,456 views, according to court documents. He was indicted and arrested in June 2017. In May, Franklin made a plea agreement with the government. Franklin pled guilty in exchange for authorities agreeing to recommend a reduced sentenced. Last week, the government filed its sentencing recommendation. As TorrentFreak originally reported, authorities suggested a prison sentence of six months. The government argues that the sentencing "is both necessary and sufficient to address the nature of circumstances of the offense and to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense."

This is because Franklin publicly disregarded the law in a number of posts. In one such post he wrote: "I got the ultimate way out of this, yall might be surprised on how I won't go to jail but just become more famous." In another he wrote, "I'm just sitting back smoking out my bong laughing at these mfs who think they know what they talking I haven't sold shit to anyone, or made copies."

Comments

prison

[phantomfive]

That's the first time I've heard of someone going to prison for a copyright violation.

Re:prison

[jonsmirl]

Why didn't they ask for their usual 6,386,456 * $250,000 = $1,596,614,000,000, call it $1.5 trillion, in fines?

Re:prison

[viperidaenz]

Because he'd just declare bankruptcy and his assets won't even pay the lawyers fees.

Re:prison

[hey!]

Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Copyright violations are a felony, and can carry fines of up to $250,000 or five years in prison for a first offense -- as you'd know if you've ever actually read the text that displays when you pop a DVD into a drive.

Now it's actually rare to pursue criminal charges against copyright infringers. Usually it's a civil suit. Fewer than two hundred criminal prosecutions are undertaken against all kinds of IP violators in the entire US each year. Given the frequency at which copyright infringement occurs, your chances of facing criminal prosecution at all is close to zero.

But it's not quite zero, and if you *do* end up facing prosecution, yes you can go to jail. In this case the reason is probably that the guy didn't make any money that could be recovered. He just did it to be a dick, and pretty much dared prosecutors to throw him in jail. That said, six months seems pretty excessive; that Stanford swim team rapist got six months in prison for three convictions on felony sexual assault.

Re:prison

[LordKronos]

But I thought the law stated that criminal copyright infringement requires distribution for financial gain, and I didn't see that mentioned here. There's also the exception that applies to distributing a work that hasn't yet been released yet, but since the movie had already been in theaters for a week, that wouldn't apply either.

What other cases can criminal copyright infringement be applied to that is actually applicable here? My guess is none, but I suppose that doesn't really matter if they just scared him into accepting a plea.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Uploading the movie to a public post on Facebook somehow doesn't count as distribution?

Re:prison

[hey!]

Nope, it doesn't require financial gain on the part of the infringer. Felony copyright infringement requires distribution including by electronic means of works where the net retail value of all the copies distributed over a period of up to 180 days is at least $2500.

That said, given that this particular act is so common and its prosecution as a crime is so rare, you have to assume there's something capricious in the application of the law. For practical economic purposes nothing would change if this crime were never prosecuted, so why have the law at all?

Re:prison

[viperidaenz]

You missed the bit about ... for financial gain
The only ones who profited from the distribution are Facebook

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

distribution for financial gain

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

If individuals can go to prison for copyright violations, then so can the people making, marketing, and distributing movies.

Think about that next time you see a movie where the hacker's laptop screen quickly flashes with all sorts of Python code.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

For practical economic purposes nothing would change if this crime were never prosecuted, so why have the law at all?

That is definitely NOT true. If the crime were never prosecuted, every shady business operator would be selling pirated copies of everything he could just to make an easy buck.

We know this because it's happened in the past with books. It's even easier to do now, so of course it would happen.

Prosecutions have to happen just often enough to keep the commercial operators in line.

This guy's mistake was being a defiant loud mouth. If he'd just shut up about it, the prosecutor's wouldn't have wanted to waste their time.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

But I thought the law stated that criminal copyright infringement requires distribution for financial gain, and I didn't see that mentioned here. There's also the exception that applies to distributing a work that hasn't yet been released yet, but since the movie had already been in theaters for a week, that wouldn't apply either.

According to https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101:

"The term “financial gain” includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works."

Given that he was expecting to "just become more famous", fame could perhaps be considered something of value and thus the financial gain reason could be relevant. Note that it would seem that swapping copyrighted works with someone else could fall under this definition as well.

I'm no legal expert though, so that could be completely wrong.

Re:prison

[piojo]

Uploading the movie to a public post on Facebook somehow doesn't count as distribution?

You only got through the first half of one sentence of the above comment?

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Time served in prison instead won't pay the lawyers fees either. In fact, that'll actually cost more.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

The ThePirateBay founders went to prison.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the mean time, Yahoo who had millions of accounts hacked because they had piss poor security gets away with a slap on the wrist with a soggy bus ticket.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

amazon was selling MY BOOK WITHOUT PERMISSION and taking my money.

yeah, not like bozo is going to spend time in jail.

Re:prison

[duke_cheetah2003]

Copying should not be a crime. Copying is a natural right, it does a great deal of good and the so-called harm it causes is a figment of delusional thinking

This is where you are wrong. When a person or company invests time (money) and effort (also money) into creating something, they should be compensated for their time and effort. That's how economics work, I do something, someone else gives money for my time and effort, so I can use that to buy other people's time and effort. Intellectual property is no different than anything else. It's tangible, and people have shown time and time again to be willing to trade some of their time and effort for such works. Just because you don't doesn't mean others feel the same way. The majority of human civilization feels intellectual property does have value.

Copying is stealing someone's time and effort, copying and giving it away is no different. Just because I didn't lose something you think I didn't deserve in the first place changes nothing about what has occurred. I have lost something, someone elses time and effort I could have traded for mine, you took it away.

Do you realize that education is a massive copying of knowledge into children's memories?

This is the most retarded argument for stealing IP I've seen in a while. You do realize we have two separate concepts of intellectual property: Public and private. Of course things like language, math and history, that's public knowledge. Hell, even a lot of 'public knowledge' isn't free. I suggest you head down to your town hall or records department to see that even public knowledge housed within will cost you to have copies made of, for you. Now what happens in the next episode of Game of Thrones, you need to give up some time and effort to find out.

Re:prison

[Solandri]

People go to prison for copyright violation all the time. This case is just unusual because the guy didn't pirate the movie for personal financial gain. That's an important distinction which I feel needs to be retained in the law. If you violate copyright for personal gain, then I'm ok with the possibility of prison time. But if you violate it for no benefit to yourself, then I believe the penalty should be limited to fines. Maybe with a provision for prison time for repeat offenders.

The issue isn't that people are all too willing to violate copyright. The issue is that technology has advanced to the point where copyright is all too easy to violate. This suggests that copyright is outgrowing its usefulness, and we need to sit down and consider replacing it with a different model. The reduction in cost of duplication and distribution to near zero means it's becoming more and more expensive to enforce copyright. Meanwhile, the benefit to the copyright holder has held steady, while the potential benefit to society from just giving everyone a free copy has grown. So as a whole, the cost of copyright is increasing while its benefit is holding steady. We may soon reach a point where the cost of copyright exceeds its benefit to society. So the role of copyright may be better served in the future by the way artistic works were created in the past.

Centuries ago since it was nearly impossible to enforce copyright. So a rich patron would hire artists to create works. That's how artists got paid, and works got created. Once created, there was no copyright so anyone could copy the work. You'll notice that wedding photography has already reverted to this model. In the 20th century, the photographer shot your wedding for free or for a token fee. You then paid for copies of the photos. The increasing quality of scanners and color printers forced wedding photographers to abandon this model. Nowadays, you hire the wedding photographer for a large enough fee to cover all their costs (the "patron" model). The prints (or digital copies) are given to you for a token sum, or even for free.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has to take a stand, or bad laws will never be changed. If he does go to prison, I will regard him as a political prisoner

Good for you. I'll regard him as a dumbass that knowingly violated the law and then stupidly bragged about it.

A big problem is that California is home to Hollywood. If I was the defendant, I'd certainly ask for a change of venue.

Maybe he should have thought of that when he decided to do this from Fresno.

Re:prison

[terrycarlino]

All this ignores the basis of copyright law. That is, creators are given an exclusive right to profit off of their works in exchange for it's eventual inclusion in the public domain. Society only enforces an exclusive license to distribute because culture benefits over the long term.

However the compact has been corrupted because creators have colluded with government to prevent any transfer of material to the public domain. Even now industry is attempting to extend the embargo on the transfer of material to the public domain yet again.

People can see that not only is industry preventing materials from going into the public domain they are also making those materials unavailable at any price. Try to find a legal source for a great amount of content produced in the past. Classic and not so classic movies, out of print books and so forth. Illegal to distribute and unavailable at any price legally.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

!When a person or company invests time (money) and effort (also money) into creating something, they should be compensated for their time and effort."

That's what they say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franelero

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet The Pirate Bay is still a thing.

Re:prison

[turbidostato]

"> Copying should not be a crime. Copying is a natural right, it does a great deal of good and the so-called harm it causes is a figment of delusional thinking

This is where you are wrong"

Not at all. He is, in fact, absolutely right. Copying is, in fact, a natural right: you need to exert violence to avoid it. Copy rights are in fact not rights but a privilege: you apply state violence against those that otherwise could freely copy/distribute what they know/they have, purportedly for the greater benefit of society (...To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts).

"Copying is stealing someone's time and effort"

It is fuckingly obvious that's not the case. After such "stealing" the copyright holder is neither older, nor more tired, nor poorer than right before the act. Because of the government granted privileges, the producer has the *expectation* of recovering his *already* expended time/effort/money, but that's all: an expectation. Following your path of thought, simply *not* going to see your film should be a felony since that also goes against the copyright holder's expectation of recovering his investment to become true.

Now: it is obvious that things can't change overnight. One of the pillars of a mature society is stability and no one should change the legit expectations of those that have founded a career or an industry on top of them. But this doesn't mean things shouldn't change *at all*. Going back to origins, copy privileges are still privileges and are still there in order "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". Any state-granted privilege must be reconsidered or even abolished (on proper time/pace) when either:
* The purported goal is not considered valuable enough anymore.
* The privilege fails to achieve the purported goal.
* There are other means, not involving special privileges, to achieve the desired goal.

I would say the first point is still valid but the current means miserably fail for the other two, so it's time to reconsider the situation.

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to the public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute not common law. Neither individuals not corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."

Re:prison

[UnknownSoldier]

> Copying is stealing someone's time and effort, copying and giving it away is no different.

1. You keep using this word "steal". It doesn't mean what you think it does. The original author STILL has their effort.

2. FTFY: Copying is DUPLICATING someone's effort for almost zero time. Whether it is LEGAL or ILLEGAL depends.

3. /sarcasm Who knew that copying Linux was stealing Linus' time ! Oh wait, you meant "illegal copying", because LEGAL COPYING granted by GPL, BSD, Public Domain, etc. is perfectly fine.

4. Furthermore, under certain conditions as provided by section 117 of the Copyright Act., one IS allowed to backup their software until the DMCA hijacked that right.

5. /sarcasm Wait till you find out about Project Gutenberg -- one can read over 57,000 books! /sarcasm Look at ALL that IP theft!

> Intellectual property is no different than anything else.

FALSE

Copyright is an ARTIFICIAL monopoly; it was created BY publishers to stop OTHER publishers from profiting.

> The majority of human civilization feels intellectual property does have value.

Appeal to Popularity fallacy. Quantity != Quality.

The majority of human civilization also tolerated slavery, racism, and prohibition at one time. That doesn't imply the majority was right.

e.g. Billions are served at McDonalds; that doesn't imply that McDonalds serves gourmet food. They served cheap, crap food, until recently.

This is the most retarded argument for IP I've seen in a while. You do realize we have ONE concept of imaginary property: delusion thinking. Of course things like language, math and history, that's FIRST private knowledge, then EVENTUALLY becomes public knowledge.

Re:prison

[guacamole]

Indeed. God have mercy on his still tender rectum.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it doesn't require financial gain on the part of the infringer.

In that case the law is immoral and should be rewritten.

The punishment should always fit the crime, otherwise there is no incentive for criminals to not escalate the situation.
It is not reasonable that you get less time if you break a window, steal the DVDs and sell in a back alley.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where you are wrong. When a person or company invests time (money) and effort (also money) into creating something, they should be compensated for their time and effort.

This is a fallacy.
I can do a lot of work that is unwanted and request compensation from people who are not willing to give it.

In this case I have a natural right to send whatever bits in whatever combination I want to my friends.
I have never given any consent to limit that right just because someone worked really really hard to pick out a particular order of bits.

They do definitely not have the right to get compensation for their time and effort.
What they should have done is ask people if they are willing to pay for the work first, like we do in any other profession.
Then we do the job and people not involved does not have to give any consent or give up any of their rights.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

The ThePirateBay case was about assisting copyright infringement.
Also, that entire trial was a clusterfuck.

The prosecutor, judge and plaintiff where all members of the same copyright organization.

The police who lead the investigation just happened to take some time off and got a well paid consulting job at Warner Bros. after the trial.

1/12th of the case was distribution of the World of Warcraft binaries and the manual literally gives the buyer written consent to distribute the binaries. (It required a subscription to play and it was sold with a free trial pass that you could give away to get more people hooked.)

There was also the thing about a letter that the copyright holders get the US government to send to the Swedish government to pressure them into getting ThePirateBay shut down instead of just relying on the legal system.

Re:prison

[gnasher719]

Why didn't they ask for their usual 6,386,456 * $250,000 = $1,596,614,000,000, call it $1.5 trillion, in fines?

Because statutory damages are _per work_. How many works were copied? One. The number of copies doesn't matter. So statutory damages are up to $150,000.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it hilarious that you present allegations as facts.

Facts:
* Swedish trials do not have *one* judge, but several. In this case, three professionals and two lay judges.
* 34 cases of copyright infringement were listed in the case, of which 21 were related to movies.
* The Swedish government has no influence over trials. To claim that is just plain absurd.

The Wikipedia page is quite clear about all this, but I guess you throw that aside because it doesn't fit your narrative.

Re:prison

[BlueStrat]

You only got through the first half of one sentence of the above comment?

IMHO his getting past the post's title at all places him on the high side of the bell curve here on Slashdot.

Just sayin'...

Strat

Re: prison

[Chas_Smith]

Guy streams a movie not out to retale. 600,000 pepole see it. Of the 600,000 would any of them bought a legit copy when avaliable? Would they ha e gone to the thither? Impossible to tell. Did this guy knowly throw up a copy of this movie ? YUP was there a potential losse to revenue? YUP. should you feel sorry for some 2 bit ass clown that thought he was above the law? There is a huge problem, and this sets an example. *note i understand the ins and outs and have used torrents a ton but.. 8 dont go Hay guy look here and post to FUCKING facebook. I had the stewy Griffin story 8 months before it was even show as a thing to the press. But yeah did not make a deal about it and run my mouth i watched laughed and enjoyed

Re:prison

[The Grim Reefer]

But I thought the law stated that criminal copyright infringement requires distribution for financial gain,

Then your understanding if the opposite of what it is. Or at least what the warning states on any disks that I have. It specifically states that it's a violation even if not for financial gain.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

like wise?

"... I won't go to jail but just become more famous"

Re: prison

[Andy Smith]

Iâ(TM)d like to hear more about this please.

Re:prison

[spire3661]

You do realize the word 'steal' has no context in discussions about infringing copyright? Calling it stealing means you dont know what you are talking about, and have no place in this discussion. Infringement is never theft, its infringement. We make this distinction as to remind everyone that we are talking about ephemera, not actual tangible goods.

Re:prison

[Ogive17]

The guy suddenly had millions of people seeing his facebook page... seems to me even if there wasn't a direct financial windfall from this act he could stand to benefit from the increased publicity in the future.

He clearly knew what he was doing was wrong and it simply wasn't him downloading the movie to watch by himself at home.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Sucks to be them then.

Sometimes you don't make a trillion dollars off of some guy.

Re:prison

[DrXym]

If he does go to prison, I will regard him as a political prisoner, same as Phillip Danks and the founders of the Pirate Bay.

I'll regard him as a dumbass who openly broke the law, bragged about it, was arrested, indicted and will soon be sentenced for his troubles.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

None of your points are relevant to copying a brand-new movie.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

"None of your points are relevant to copying a brand-new movie."

Use your imagination.

The legal system spent millions of dollars tracking this guy down, trying him and imprisoning him. Why? To protect the profits of this movie.

Why are people compelled to pay taxes to enforce this business model?

Because "... creators are given an exclusive right to profit off of their works in exchange for it's eventual inclusion in the public domain"

Since Deadpool will NEVER in OUR LIVES enter the public domain, and likely never in our children's lives enter the public domain, the social contract is broken.

Disregard copyright and let the business die.

Re:prison

[Chris Mattern]

That is definitely NOT true. If the crime were never prosecuted, every shady business operator would be selling pirated copies of everything he could just to make an easy buck.

We know this because it's happened in the past with books. It's even easier to do now, so of course it would happen.

It *does* happen. In many countries, it's actually difficult to find an honest copy of a movie or software. They're massively outnumbered by the pirate sellers.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, content creators reneged on their side of the bargain. Why should we still be expected to uphold ours?

Copyright law is null and void until such time as public domain is reinstated.

I feel no guilt at all about pirating.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet part of the time was due to the fact he is a drug addict. He mentioned using one of those bong things, and as far as I know, they have no use other than to drug addicts.

Re:prison

[geggam]

This is the most retarded argument for stealing IP I've seen in a while. You do realize we have two separate concepts of intellectual property: Public and private. Of course things like language, math and history, that's public knowledge. Hell, even a lot of 'public knowledge' isn't free. I suggest you head down to your town hall or records department to see that even public knowledge housed within will cost you to have copies made of, for you. Now what happens in the next episode of Game of Thrones, you need to give up some time and effort to find out.

What happens when you point out the content is actually a mathematical formula using a shared algorithm to render the content into a video ?

Math being public.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not going to prison for that, he's going to prison because he made law enforcement butthurt.

You can fight the law; you can scoff at the law; but you can't spread the idea that the law can go fuck itself.

Re:prison

[swillden]

But I thought the law stated that criminal copyright infringement requires distribution for financial gain

No. Copyright infringement only requires distribution of a copyrighted work without permission. However, there is an escape hatch: "Fair Use". If you can show that your distribution fell into this category, then it's legal. The category is kind of fuzzy, though. The law specifies four factors to be considered when Fair Use determination is made:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Factor 1 is what you're thinking of. Use that is clearly non-commercial in nature but is for nonprofit educational purpose can be Fair Use. "Can be" because the other factors also have to be considered. In this case, it wasn't ordinary commercial use, but it wasn't for "nonprofit educational" purposes either. Looking at factor 2, this work is clearly intended to be used commercially by the copyright holder for commercial gain. Regarding factor 3, the doofus posted the entire thing. Regarding factor 4... it's hard to say whether this really resulted in fewer theater visits, rentals and sales but absent any other evidence the court is probably going to assume that at least some significant percentage of people who watched it on Facebook didn't pay to see it and otherwise would have. Given the very large number of views, that translates into a negative effect on the market value of the work.

Also, the doofus' comment that this was going to make him famous shows that he was expecting some sort of gain from it, which could potentially be characterized as commercial.

Bottom line, if he'd tried to argue Fair Use, I don't think there's a judge in the country who would have bought it.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand how poor people were centuries ago. Rich people hired artists because nobody else could afford to pay for art. They couldn't even afford meat or tea, or fancy clothes which was the most prestigious thing in their society.

Re:prison

[houghi]

Probably he did not agree with the extortion, er, plea bargain.

Re:prison

[mlw4428]

Actually you did give up your right. It's in the terms and conditions of sale, it's written into the laws of this nation. Your natural rights are non-existent. They don't exist. If we revert to this idea of natural rights, we must logically revert to the natural right I have to murder you and your whole family for my own selfish gains. Otherwise it's an artificial restriction akin to the laws of society today. Be very careful with the idea of natural rights - those rights are simple: the right to eat or be eaten and the right to end your own life. Beyond that there's nothing. Society denotes laws and rights so that a collection of intellectual animals can live and work together in as close to harmony as possible.

Re:prison

[tehcyder]

Copying is, in fact, a natural right: you need to exert violence to avoid it. Copy rights are in fact not rights but a privilege: you apply state violence against those that otherwise could freely copy/distribute what they know/they have

Found the libertarian.

By this definition, any law requires 'violence' to enforce it, as the penalty for breaking a law has to involve some form of constraint on property or person.

Re: prison

[Anonymous Coward]

amazon was selling MY BOOK WITHOUT PERMISSION and taking my money.

Oh, he must be referring to those George Orwell books, 1984 and Animal Farm. So, that makes you one of George Orwell's great-grandchildren?

Re:prison

[tehcyder]

You'll notice that wedding photography has already reverted to this model. In the 20th century, the photographer shot your wedding for free or for a token fee. You then paid for copies of the photos. The increasing quality of scanners and color printers forced wedding photographers to abandon this model. Nowadays, you hire the wedding photographer for a large enough fee to cover all their costs (the "patron" model). The prints (or digital copies) are given to you for a token sum, or even for free.

Yes, but what professional wedding photographers don't do is spend several hours of their own time at the wedding using equipment that they've had to pay for, then give you a copy of all the photos on a memory stick and rely on your goodwill to pay them for copies of any you like.

And in reality, there's no difference between paying (made up figures) five hundred quid for the photographer's time and getting 'free' prints, or paying him nothing and spending five hundred quid on a reasonable choice of photos.

Re:prison

[DontBeAMoran]

Isn't Facebook the one doing the distribution? Shouldn't it be Zuckerberg going to prison?

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

That last quote you supplied was from Heinlein and you, like many others, misunderstand it. You do realize Heinlein supported copyright and all his works are copyrighted, correct?

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

And you miss the primary concern of copyright, the right of the owner to oversee distribution. That, indeed, has been stolen when a work is copied w/o permission. And your point 5 is ludicrous. All the Guttenberg's availability is based on works in public domain.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

YAAFM - You are a fucking moron. Those people making, marketing and distributing movies all have contracts stating they may do so.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

seems to me even if there wasn't a direct financial windfall from this act he could stand to benefit from the increased publicity in the future.

The copyright industry does not want this reasoning to gain any traction.
If it did then those who get their YouTube pages blocked because of frivolous copyright claims would have a case to sue.
The only thing keeping them back right now is that they can't prove any financial damages.

Re:prison

[amicusNYCL]

Apparently he was bragging about how it was going to make him famous. That statement may count as him pursuing financial gain for himself.

Re:prison

[greythax]

This used to be the case, before the DMCA was passed, attaching criminal sentencing to infringement, and more draconian measures (criminalizing education on the circumvention of copy protection). One could argue fair use as a defense, but I don't think that has been very successful in the last 18 years, on the rare occasion one can afford to plead innocent.

Re:prison

[duke_cheetah2003]

1. You keep using this word "steal". It doesn't mean what you think it does. The original author STILL has their effort.

Of course. But you did steal something from me, by copying and distributing my work without my permission. You stole the time and effort that I could have gotten from others by giving them my hard work to enjoy.

I'm sorry you can't seem to wrap your head around the value of intellectual property, and the time and effort that goes into creating content, like books, movies, television, games, or whatever other entertainment work you have decided shouldn't have value because you think I've done my work and now that I've finished it, I no longer deserve any further compensation. Bullshit.

The only thing that's truly broken is the constantly extending copyright protection that is prohibiting older works from falling into the public domain. It was never meant to last forever, that was how it was supposed to work, you pour your heart and soul into a work, and you get exclusive rights to distribute it for I think the original term was 20 years. But now everything is fucked up cuz the term is now what, death of the author + 70 years or someshit? This is what's broken, not the fact intellectual property has value and we should pay for it. If copyright law was working as intended, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Re:prison

[duke_cheetah2003]

You do realize the word 'steal' has no context in discussions about infringing copyright? Calling it stealing means you dont know what you are talking about, and have no place in this discussion. Infringement is never theft, its infringement. We make this distinction as to remind everyone that we are talking about ephemera, not actual tangible goods.

It's theft. It's theft of time and effort. When a person or company invests time, money and effort into creating something people will want to see, read, or play, they don't get compensated as their creation is created. They get compensated when the work is complete and they begin to sell copies of it to interested people. You stole that compensation I would have gotten if you hadn't stolen it. Doesn't matter if the person getting the copy could or couldn't actually purchase the copy. Every copy made is a potential compensation I lost. You stole it.

You do realize, if the world worked the way you imagine it working, no one would create anything of interest. There's no motivation to do so. Why would anyone pour their heart and soul into some creative work when they're starving and living on the street cuz no one wants to pay for it?

What is really needed here is for copyright law to return to it's original format, where the author of a creative work is granted exclusive distribution of that work for I believe the original term was 20 years. This is fair compensation for the author's effort. But now, it's completely broken cuz copyright protect is far far too long (it's basically endless, thanks Disney!), works are never going into the public domain like they used to, and authors are abusing their exclusive distribution rights they've bribed our government to grant indefinitely.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws are backed by the force of the State, yes. Not sure what other definition is available.

Re:prison

[clovis]

I didn't read past the OP's "Copying is a natural right". It appears you did, and you have my sympathy.

Re:prison

[Obfuscant]

The legal system spent millions of dollars tracking this guy down, trying him and imprisoning him. Why? To protect the profits of this movie.

Use your imagination. Not only the profits, but cost recovery. Not only for this movie, but for other movies and art that are covered by copyright law. Hint: deterrent.

Why are people compelled to pay taxes to enforce this business model?

Because it isn't a "business model".

Since Deadpool will NEVER in OUR LIVES enter the public domain,

You don't know that, and it is irrelevant to begin with. If you don't value the work enough to pay the producer for his work and effort, then why are you so interested in watching it in the first place? I wouldn't pay anyone for a copy of Deadpool, but I also don't give a damn about watching it.

Disregard copyright and let the business die.

There are some theories that altruism is a valid "business model", where companies pay people to produce art (movies, TV, etc) and then never expect any money in return. This is the business model you would force upon businesses by disregarding copyright -- and you admit that it would result in businesses dying.

If you value the content enough to spend your time viewing it, you should value the time of the producers enough to be willing to pay for it. The claim that it will never see public domain is a juicy rationalization of criminal behavior, as is the complaint that the company may not sell the content to you in the form that you demand it be made available.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's what makes them laws and not 'natural laws.' Natural laws are self-evident. Nice reading comprehension.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

IOW, copyright infringement is worse than violent rape. This country is fucked up.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Deadpool will NEVER in OUR LIVES enter the public domain,

You don't know that, and it is irrelevant to begin with.

Actually, it is a virtual certainty. Every time Mickey Mouse reaches close to the limit of the public domain, sellout legislators extend copyright protection further. Since the copyright on Mickey Mouse is older than the one on Deadpool, Deadpool will never enter the public domain. Also, you conveniently left out the remainder of GP's sentence, which was GP's fundamental point and so completely relevant:

Since Deadpool will NEVER in OUR LIVES enter the public domain, and likely never in our children's lives enter the public domain, the social contract is broken.

Creators deserve to receive compensation for a reasonable period of time for their works, but not for perpetuity, which is what we effectively have now. You know it.

Creators want protection? Great, then the work has to enter the public domain within finite time.

Re:prison

[bzipitidoo]

now that I've finished it, I no longer deserve any further compensation

No one said that. You exaggerated.

I agree that artists deserve compensation. I would suppose that nearly everyone agrees with that. Where we disagree is the means, and the quantity. Copyright is a terrible system for compensating artists. There've been many cases in which copyright was used against the very artist it was supposed to help. A big media corporation has a lot more power than a lonely artist, and they use that power to dictate terms, terms which are extremely unfair. They know they have artists over a barrel, know they can make or break an artist. Artists can too easily be pushed into selling all rights to their own works for pennies, actually lose the right to use their own work.

In addition to doing a poor job of ensuring that artists are fairly compensated, copyright has all kinds of negative side effects. Copyright is the biggest reason our public libraries can't be a lot more digital. That would vastly increase their usefulness through increasing our access to knowledge, and at the same time save a great deal of money.

You stole the time and effort that I could have gotten from others by giving them my hard work to enjoy.

This kind of talk illustrates why copyright is so enduring. It pushes our buttons. It frames the debate in terms of property and loss, and people really, really hate suffering losses, hate being the victims of theft. But that is the wrong way to think of it. Set aside your emotions, your desire to see a thief get his hand or even his head cut off. And then, maybe you can acknowledge that there are significant differences between these kinds of products. Material goods are scarce, and theft of those should be strongly discouraged for that reason. The immaterial, however, is not scarce. This difference is extremely important. It's fundamental. The vested interests have done a thorough job of befuddling and confusing the public on this point. But they're fighting a losing battle, and less and less of the public is fooled as the years roll by.

Offering a torrent of Beatles albums is not at all the same as claiming to be the actual composer of those songs, trying to take credit for them. Taking credit, plagiarizing, that's real theft. Merely copying is not. That's just copying.

Re:prison

[turbidostato]

"You do realize Heinlein supported copyright and all his works are copyrighted, correct?"

So what? That his quote could be used even against him makes it more valuable if anything.

Re:prison

[turbidostato]

"Found the libertarian."

I'm not.

"By this definition, any law requires 'violence' to enforce it"

Not by that definition, it's simply a stated fact. Goverment retains the privilege of violence monopoly for a reason.

But, even then, here I'm not talking about the State violence to restore a legit state of affairs, i.e.: the implied violence required to put you in jail after you commit a felony, but violence to avoid the fact itself. A simple example: you own a rubber duck and I ask you to give me your rubber duck. You don't want to. Then, the only means I have to get the rubber duck is exerting violence against you one way or the other. This is what makes obvious that you are the practical owner of the rubber duck. Now, you tell me a joke and, after the fact, you ask me not to tell that joke to anyone, but I tell you I don't want the joke to stay secret. Now it is *you* the one that needs to exert violence against me in order to avoid me spreading that joke. Just like in the case of the rubber duck, the direction of violence makes factual that it is *me* the owner of my "mental copy" of that joke, so it is only natural for me to do whatever I want with my ownership. That you and I, by means of copyright laws, agree on telling the joke only under your restrictions, makes obvious that this is not a right but a privilege I grant you against the natural state of things.

Re:prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you can't declare bankrupt for a fee from a court imposed fine. Regardless, I believe that this is still considered a felony regardless of how much time he is dealing with. So this will hurt more in the long run.

Re:prison

[Obfuscant]

Actually, it is a virtual certainty. Every time Mickey Mouse ...

No, is not a certainty, neither real nor virtual. It is your prediction. Deadpool is not Micky Mouse.

Creators deserve to receive compensation for a reasonable period of time for their works, but not for perpetuity, which is what we effectively have now.

Deadpool is a current product. It has not reached even a 17 year lifespan. Pretending that Deadpool deserves no copyright protection at all because at some time in the far future it might not enter public domain is ridiculous rationalization. Claiming that IT deserves no copyright protection NOW because Disney has been able to get protection for Mickey Mouse is absurd.

Great, then the work has to enter the public domain within finite time.

So you would punish every creator NOW because a few of them have been able to get copyright extended on their products? What an absurd concept. Should everyone who uses a computer be punished NOW because a few of them have become criminal crackers, and a few of them might do so in the future?

This all leaves the main question unanswered. If Deadpool is such critical content to the society as a whole that it must become public domain "within finite time", then how is it that it has so little value that you are unwilling to pay to access it long before it becomes free under any reasonable copyright lifetime? Are you perhaps predicting that Deadpool will become a significant cultural resource in 20 years but that it is worthless now? I find that concept fascinating. Can I subscribe to your newsletter?

And yet the makers of the movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Will walk away scot free.

Re:And yet the makers of the movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Right! That's because of Hollywood Accounting, the movie won't make a pence. They'll be sure of it.

Detritus

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about this?

Re:Detritus

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had a son, he'd look like Trevon. *sniff*

yes!

[cascadingstylesheet]

I can just feel the arts and sciences being encouraged right now!

Re:yes!

[ChromeAeonuim]

Darn right. This is all about supporting the arts. That's why copyright laws cover works where the artist has been dead for half a century. You're not sarcastically suggesting that the laws are designed to line the coffers of the corporations who essentially wrote the laws, are you?

Re:yes!

[cascadingstylesheet]

Darn right. This is all about supporting the arts. That's why copyright laws cover works where the artist has been dead for half a century. You're not sarcastically suggesting that the laws are designed to line the coffers of the corporations who essentially wrote the laws, are you?

I might be ;)

hahahah

[Anonymous Coward]

Respect for law? We have sanctuary cities that hide criminals and politicians and corporate thugs get away with everything.

There is no respect for law. The United States is corrupt from top to bottom.

Re:hahahah

[Anonymous Coward]

Problems start at the top.

Re:hahahah

[thewolfkin]

Respect for law? We have sanctuary cities that hide criminals and politicians and corporate thugs get away with everything.

There is no respect for law. The United States is corrupt from top to bottom.

there's no such thing as a sanctuary city that hides criminals

Re:hahahah

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no such thing as a sanctuary city that hides criminals

That's true. They celebrate them and call CNN to send a crew there so they can say on camera how inclusive and diverse they are. Keeping the fact that they harbor foreign invaders a secret would indicate that they have some shame.

Re:hahahah

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no such thing as a sanctuary city that hides criminals

Sure there is! Isn't that why we put a wall up around New York City? Too bad for the President his chopper happened to crash there. I hope he makes it out okay.

Re:hahahah

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no such thing as a sanctuary city that hides criminals

Stop trying to conflate legal immigration and illegal immigration. Sneaking into the country illegally, by definition, makes them criminals. The reality is that there is no such thing as a sanctuary city that doesn't protect criminals. Sanctuary cities are not to protect legal immigrants, they are to protect illegal (criminal) immigrants.

Idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have just become a Disney executive, where you get to fire film directors and potentially ruin entire blockbuster films along with the schedules of all the people working on them just on a whim, because you heard someone say something baseless on Twitter. And you will face no public repercussions at all, as long as others passively went along with your decision.

"to reflect the seriousness of the offense"

[Anonymous Coward]

these lapdogs of the ruling class clearly didn't watch the movie didn't they?

Death by torture

[rsilvergun]

I mean, if the goal is deterrent, then why not? After all, at 6 million views x $10 a ticket he'll never be able to pay back his 'debt'.

Re:Death by torture

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to bring back the debtors prisons. He has quite the debt to pay off.

Get off my Lawn

[rsilvergun]

The guy who ran Hanoverfist Enterprises did prison time as I recall. I had bunches of his releases on the C64 when I was a wee lad who didn't know what piracy was, just that I had a stack of disks full of games.

Re:Get off my Lawn

[Anonymous Coward]

But that guy sold pirated content. Just copying something and giving to another person doesn't result in jail time. The copyright holder would have to sue for damages.

That's the civil lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

he'll be dealing with that for the rest of his life.

I wish the industry would just move back into the 21st century and publish movies online within a few weeks
because people like me don't visit movie theaters anymore.
Sitting in a cramped room with popcorn throwing noisy scum is not really something like a 'movie experience'.

Re:That's the civil lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, I don't really need to watch on a gigantic megascreen the size of a fucking house. Big screens have diminishing returns after a certain size and move theaters passed it by a long shot.

Re: That's the civil lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that Europe just decreed that the 21st century must adapt to the 20th, I think asking for reasonability is too much.

Re: That's the civil lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a tangible product, a digital product can be distributed infinitely and instantly.

Re: That's the civil lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm simply not buying anymore, nor do I download. If movie studios were to publish online I would consider paying a reasonable price.

Re:That's the civil lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

he'll be dealing with that for the rest of his life.

I wish the industry would just move back into the 21st century and publish movies online within a few weeks
because people like me don't visit movie theaters anymore.

My aren't you precious; you don't want to watch in a theater, no problem, just wait to watch it on netflix.

Re:That's the civil lawsuit

[DontBeAMoran]

Theaters:
- You need to go see the movie while it's still in theatres.
- You need time to go from your home to the theatre.
- You need to arrive way before the movie start in order to get a good seat.
- If you want snacks, you'll be forced to pay three to four times the normal price from an extremely limited selection compared to what you'd snack on if you were at home.
- If you arrived too late, you may be forced to sit too far to the left or right, or too close to the screen.
- You are forced to watch ads before the movie. Wait, didn't you just pay to watch the movie? Why is there ads?
- You may be unlocky and sit too close to annoying, smelly, talking, phone-using people. Even if you wanted to change seats and even if you had the time, better seats may not be available anymore.
- The sound will most probably be way too loud.
- If you are sitting too close to the screen, you will miss a lot of the action since the display is now larger than your field of vision.
- Need to go to the bathroom? Good luck with that since unless you're sitting on an end-of-the-row seat you'll have to pass in front how people who are trying to watch the movie. Then you need to get back to your seat. If you had snacks, drinks, a winter coat or anything else and you're alone at the movies, you need to bring it all with you.
- You need time to go from the theatre back to your home. You then waste more time by being in a traffic jam with everyone else who saw the same movie since you all quit at the same time.

Netflix/etc:
- You can watch the movie as long as it's available in the library.
- No need to go outside.
- It's much, much cheaper.
- You can eat and drink whatever you want, even a complete meal if you want to. Great if you have dietary restrictions. Ask someone at the theatre if their popcorn has any dairy products in it and you'll get a blank stare as if you asked a question about temporal physics.
- You start the movie when you want.
- You can pause the movie if you need to go to the bathroom.
- You control the volume of the movie, you control how far away you are to the screen.
- You can actually enjoy the movie since there's nobody around to fuck up your experience. This is the most important part. Watching a movie at the theatre is like trying to read a book in a busy shopping mall.
- Once the movie is over, you're already home.

Re:That's the civil lawsuit

[DontBeAMoran]

I think what he's saying is that more and more people are not going to theatres anymore and are waiting to watch it on Netflix.

I think most theatres will be closed in a few decades.

Re:That's the civil lawsuit

[clovis]

Go on a weekday during the day, and you'll avoid all that.
I'm aware this advice does not work for wage slaves.

Re:That's the civil lawsuit

[DontBeAMoran]

You will avoid some of the problems but not all.

Re:That's the civil lawsuit

[clovis]

You will avoid some of the problems but not all.

Well, yeah, you're right about that.
I have had to once share the weekday show with members of the permanently unemployed nothing-to-lose underclass who felt a need to act out.
Also, one is more likely on a weekday to get stale popcorn, although I stopped buying that quite some time ago.

Another dumbass millenial

[Anonymous Coward]

Darwin at its finest.

Re:Another dumbass millenial

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you explain what Trump's treason and dissolution of America's institutional pillars have to do with Millenials? Other than a few million of them being stupid and angry enough to continue to support a traitor, now that Hillary is gone?

Trump isn't just "the other team's guy" or "anti-Hillary" nor should you confuse yourself to think that people who will put him in prison support Hillary. I fucking can't stand Hillary or her increasingly moronic husband.

But treason? That I really fucking can't stand.

Re:Another dumbass millenial

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary wanted war with Russia where Russian planes would be shot down!

Oh shit.

There is something common with the treason narrative, the fake poisoning story in England and the Syrian chemical weapons.
It's all unsubstantiated bullshit! No proof for anything. It's like that time Hitler claimed that Poland attacked Germany.

Re: Another dumbass millenial

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like that time everyone claimed that Russia attacked Ukraine.

I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused, because it says the guy downloaded the film and then "posted" it to Facebook. But we all know that movies aren't 140 byte tweets. A HD movie is at least 4GB, so someone had to have served those 6 million views, times 4 GB = around 25 PetaBytes.

* If he just *linked* to the torrent, then no crime was committed IMO.

* If he seeded a torrent from his PC, then IMO he's no more responsible than the original seeder. At most they should be able to charge him with distributing the copies that he directly seeded, but most of the blame should still fall on the original seeder.

* If he actually provided the bandwidth for all 6 million viewers, then OMG where do I sign up for his ISP? Seriously, why isn't that the news: "Man's ISP allows him to upload 25 PB in one day." (Obviously this isn't the case.)

* If he uploaded 4GB to Facebook servers and then 6 million viewers downloaded 25 PB from Facebook servers, then FaceBook should be at least partially responsible for enabling this to happen.

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous lawyer? Worth exactly nothing.

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[viperidaenz]

The 6 million views include all the auto-plays that people scroll straight past on their feed.

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[mark-t]

If he uploaded 4GB to Facebook servers and then 6 million viewers downloaded 25 PB from Facebook servers, then FaceBook should be at least partially responsible for enabling this to happen.

Is Facebook expected to manually vet every video uploaded to it before it is allowed to be viewed by anyone else?

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[PPH]

then FaceBook should be at least partially responsible

As should Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc. Not being 'telecommunications carriers', but 'information services', they are in part responsible for providing access to that ill-gotten information.

Vestberg, Stephenson and Roberts get cells next to Franklin. Or perhaps they could get Pai to serve their sentences as a stand-in.

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm...by anyone? Perhaps not. By six million people? Perhaps around the 100,000 mark???

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[magarity]

Anonymous lawyer? Worth exactly nothing.

An AC lawyer in this case is probably better; his legal strategy according to his own posting was "sitting back smoking out my bong laughing".

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

A HD movie is 4GB in an older codec like wmv or divx (they would if they existed in that way). It can easily be 1GB in H264. Drop to 720p, use stereo sound, one language. Since then we invented other codecs and people watch 360p and 480p movies on laptops anyway such that you even find 300MB movies (on illegal streaming websites with the very old H264 and AAC codecs) and they're better than shaky cam bootleg. It's multimedia!

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous lawyer? Worth exactly nothing.

An AC lawyer in this case is probably better; his legal strategy according to his own posting was "sitting back smoking out my bong laughing".

I'm sure that helped his defense a lot too.

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[Calydor]

So every video uploaded by every semi-popular news outlet would need to be vetted before people can watch the news?

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

When deciding which video to vet, Facebook could take into account having passed the vetting process in the past.

And what's this obsession with the phrase "before people can watch"? Facebook can apply presumption of innocence and only block videos when they fail the vetting process.

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Facebook expected to manually vet every video uploaded to it before it is allowed to be viewed by anyone else?

Depends.

Do you think "It was automated" should be a sufficient defense for crimes?

Should I be able to get away with anything as long as I first write scripts that will do the action and then trigger them in an "unintended" way?

Re:I'm confused -- what actually happened?

[mark-t]

It might be a sufficient defense against an *alleged* enabling of a crime.

Destruction of evidence is a crime... should the company that makes the software that deletes contents of devices be charged with a crime if someone uses it to erase evidence of another crime they committed?

Not feeling the least bit sorry for him

[CharlesAKAChuck]

Normally I'd be totally dead set against prison time for copyright violations (I still am), but it seriously sounds like this guy is so dumb he deserves the jail time. Not for copyright violations, but for being an idiot in general, flagrantly disregarding the law, being stupid enough to upload the whole movie to Facebook, not knowing at all how technology works, and again just for being an idiot. From the full article:

In one such post he wrote: "I got the ultimate way out of this, yall might be surprised on how I won't go to jail but just become more famous." In another he wrote, "I'm just sitting back smoking out my bong laughing at these mfs who think they know what they talking I haven't sold shit to anyone, or made copies." Franklin went on to create a Facebook group called “Bootleg Movies,” posted “EVERYBODY JOIN,” and told people he’d be posting more movies on the page.

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him

[Anonymous Coward]

If the law is wrong, then why is it better to disregard that law with good thoughts and intelligence, than to disregard the law through rude disrespect and ignorance?

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him

[markdavis]

>"but it seriously sounds like this guy is so dumb he deserves the jail time."

+1 Bingo.

This is not a legal assessment but:

1) We are not talking about an obscure movie, but something very popular.

2) We are not talking about some old movie, or something that should have been public domain a decade ago, but something recent produced.

3) We are not talking about some secret or obscure site, but Facebook, which doesn't get more mainstream and visible.

4) We are not talking about damages that number in the hundreds or thousands of views, but over 6 million potential viewings.

5) He probably has no money, so there is probably nothing to take from him other than his freedom.

6) His attitude about it shows he has zero remorse and, instead, actual contempt for the law AND the justice system.

Keep in mind that I have no love of what "modern" copyright has become- with ridiculously long monopolies, and evil tactics to enforce it. But there is some type of balance that has to remain if we expect any reasonable quality of intellectual property to be developed.

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him

[Anonymous Coward]

So you believe it should be legal to copy brand new movies?

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him

[thewolfkin]

4) We are not talking about damages that number in the hundreds or thousands of views, but over 6 million potential viewings.

I take issue with this. It's Deadpool one of the highest rated rated r movies or the recent era. There's no way the six million views on facebook seriously impacted this movie's ticket sales. There's no significant population who saw the movie and decided "ya know what I WAS going to see it in theatres, but now that I've seen it I'm not going."

You're using Hollywood logic. The one that states dedicated people who pirate movies and never go anywhere would totally have gone out to see Deadpool but darn it they caught it on Facebook so now they're not going. Most people who pirate were going to pirate anyway. Most people who go to movies would have seen it liked it and gone to see it anyway. I've seen Deadpool and Deadpool 2. They're pretty good theatre movies. I know I saw the second in theatres and maybe the first as well.

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him

[eaglesrule]

I wouldn't be surprised if the six million views didn't act as advertisement and boosted ticket sales. If it is such a good movie, then people seeing in low framerate, low resolution, and audio channels limited to stereo (at best) would be more likely to want to go have the big screen experience. Or at least pay for a better quality stream.

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him

[thewolfkin]

exactly.. that's what the numbers tend to show anyway. Piracy actually increases awareness.

Studio

[dohzer]

And how much jail time will the studio get for creating the content?
Thank you, thank you. Wow, what a great audience!

What are you in jail for?

[Layth]

"What are you in jail for?" they ask. "I made a facebook post."

Re: What are you in jail for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mixing of corporate power with the state against the individual is one of the signs of right wing fascism. You didn't study politics I take it.

Re:What are you in jail for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whereas in a right-wing world, he would have just been disappeared? Hella better.

Re: What are you in jail for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is Hollywood "right wing"?

Re:What are you in jail for?

[cascadingstylesheet]

"What are you in jail for?" they ask. "I made a facebook post."

Ask the guy in England about that ...

Re:What are you in jail for?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Trump would have Tweeted about how he was a "Bad Hombre" and then he would have been given a multimillion dollar CNN contract to make up fake news all day long.

Its the left that is criminalizing speech. The right is tweeting about bad speech to make people aware, but not locking people up or making claims that they should be executed for it.

Re: What are you in jail for?

[Anonymous Coward]

The creatives might be lefties, but the people who actually control Hollywood are right wingers to the core.

Re:What are you in jail for?

[thegarbz]

How about specific intent to distribute copyright law en mass.

He will find friends in jail among others who have been prosecuted for criminal copyright infringement.

Re:What are you in jail for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to a left wing world. Prison for taunting the powers that be.

In the right-wing word the cops just gun-em-down in their apartment; perhaps playing a little "simon says" first.

Re: What are you in jail for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Should be the regular penalty for posting on Facebook, would make the world a better place...

Re:What are you in jail for?

[eaglesrule]

You don't have to go to anti-free speech state like the UK to get jailed for a Facebook post. Just ask this kid about it. Everything you post is a written confession as far as prosecutors are concerned.

That would require Facebook approve all your posts

[raymorris]

If you want social platforms like Facebook and Slashdot to be RESPONSIBLE for what people post, they aren't going to be responsible for stuff they haven't screened and approved. In the US, we don't want Slashdot to only show comments that have been approved by their staff. Thus, they aren't responsible for the content.

A middle ground we're seeing now I when a forum / platform is informed that a particular person has a pattern and practice of posting unlawful or patently offensive content, they can choose not to associate with that user any more. Slashdot could ban user ABC without needing to approve every post everyone makes (if we didn't have ACs).

In a rule of law country maybe,but this is America

[Anonymous Coward]

In a rule of law country maybe, but this is America.

Any banksters in jail yet?...

[Anonymous Coward]

just saying...

yes!-slippery slide.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as much as you'll feel when people completely disregard every law they can get their hands on.

Re:yes!-slippery slide.

[Anonymous Coward]

You make a decent point here, just not the one you meant to make.

When we make laws that are so hard to respect, and so blatantly against the spirit of what the original law was meant to "enshrine", it makes disrespecting the law a little more common-place. With enough silly not-respected laws on the books, people just stop respecting the law in general. This is bad for the overwhelming majority, but a non-issue for the very few.

The simple half of the solution is just to make laws that actually make sense. Laws that benefit everybody, not just the few who had the means to buy them in the first place. The hard half of solution is getting rid of the bought and paid for laws that benefit the very few at the expense of the majority, especially the ones that are enabling the very few to buy new laws in their favor at the expense of the majority of the population. A good place to start is public debate, and a excellent way to get that going is civil disobedience, and blatantly thumbing nose at the very few.... which this poor dumb pirate has inadvertently done..... see how we are discussing?

fuck gizmodo

[Anonymous Coward]

total shite group of websites.
they don't deserve the link.
could have linked to something respectable and honest.

Not feeling the least bit sorry for him-being hidd

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference between a wrong that's done in secret, vs one done with the whole world watching? Think carefully before answering.

Different culture, same result

[Gabest]

You can go to prison for your facebook post for many reasons in shit hole countries.

Re:Different culture, same result

[Anonymous Coward]

All the more reason to not have FB....

Re:Different culture, same result

[Anonymous Coward]

...or live in shit hole countries.

Re:Different culture, same result

[Anonymous Coward]

You can go to prison for your facebook post for many reasons in shit hole countries.

Namo one "non-shithole" country by this criteria and I'll be applying for citizenship. But there is none. Europe? Yeah, try posting something the authorities cosider "fascist propaganda" (and nowdays anything euroskeptic is considered "fascist").

Re:Wow 6 months for prison for THAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

The defendant isn't white. So there you go.

Was never convicted

[FeelGood314]

The police took away any means he had to defend himself, threatened him with a ridiculous punishment and he accepted a plea bargain. There is only one country in the world that regularly pretends such a thing is a conviction. Of course going to federal court is also a 99.8% chance of being convicted of something. Some federal districts in the USA actually go more than a year without an innocent verdict. http://justicedenied.org/wordp...

Re: Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

Your justice system has been bought, America

Re:Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

As a conservative, I'll just say the following, "If you can't do the time, then don't do the crime."

Re:Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't tell if you're being a smart Alec about your use of the word innocent, but the term "innocent" is rarely if ever used in US courts. The term is "not guilty". Only in cases of Perry mason style misidentification might you use the term innocent. But, furthermore, that website conveniently ignores that the vast majority of cases at this level is a result of plea bargaining. It counts as a conviction even if you plea bargain to time served.
Does the prosecution push this for non violent offenders? Hell yes. Why would you the tax payer want a 2 month jury trial for a guy charged with felony weed possession during a traffic stop?

If he didn't get a lawyer, he's an idiot. You don't accept a bargain from anyone without representation.
Know your rights.

Re:Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a conservative, too. And you're out of your mind if you think you know all your state and federal laws and that you're obeying them 100% of the time.

Re:Was never convicted

[cascadingstylesheet]

The police took away any means he had to defend himself, threatened him with a ridiculous punishment and he accepted a plea bargain. There is only one country in the world that regularly pretends such a thing is a conviction. Of course going to federal court is also a 99.8% chance of being convicted of something. Some federal districts in the USA actually go more than a year without an innocent verdict. http://justicedenied.org/wordp...

Uh, how can it be justice denied if he's guilty as sin?

I'm actually with you on procedural protections, but regarding justice, let's get real; the guy was literally bragging about his guilt.

If he was punished, then justice was done, albeit perhaps not done correctly.

Re:Was never convicted

[cascadingstylesheet]

The police took away any means he had to defend himself, threatened him with a ridiculous punishment and he accepted a plea bargain. There is only one country in the world that regularly pretends such a thing is a conviction. Of course going to federal court is also a 99.8% chance of being convicted of something. Some federal districts in the USA actually go more than a year without an innocent verdict. http://justicedenied.org/wordp...

Uh, how can it be justice denied if he's guilty as sin?

I'm actually with you on procedural protections, but regarding justice, let's get real; the guy was literally bragging about his guilt.

If he was punished, then justice was done, albeit perhaps not done correctly.

And just to be clear, I support going back to the Founder's version of copyright (7 years, extendable to 14 max).

Re:Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only one country in the world that regularly pretends such a thing is a conviction.

I take it you aren't familiar with the Japanese justice system. God help you if you end up accused of a crime in Japan, there's at least a 95% chance you'll end up imprisoned, even if you're actually innocent, unless your family is insanely wealthy and knows the right people to bribe. American justice is downright Utopian in comparison.

Re:Was never convicted

[thegarbz]

Uh, how can it be justice denied if he's guilty as sin?

It's justice denied because he self incriminated to remove himself from the process of justice. Plea bargains in the USA are horribly stacked in the favour of prosecutors. America has jails full of people who plead guilty for the sole purposes of not being dragged through the legal process all while being told when they do go through the process they will go away for life.

Re:Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course going to federal court is also a 99.8% chance of being convicted of something. Some federal districts in the USA actually go more than a year without an innocent verdict.

So what you want is for the federal courts to charge more innocent defendants?

Re:Was never convicted

[thewolfkin]

As a conservative, I'll just say the following, "If you can't do the time, then don't be accused of doing the crime."

FTFY. Because this same pressure appears whether you're guilty or not. Innocent people go to jail all the time. It's all fun and games until you're the one under the microscope.

Re:Was never convicted

[thewolfkin]

Can't tell if you're being a smart Alec about your use of the word innocent, but the term "innocent" is rarely if ever used in US courts. The term is "not guilty". Only in cases of Perry mason style misidentification might you use the term innocent. But, furthermore, that website conveniently ignores that the vast majority of cases at this level is a result of plea bargaining. It counts as a conviction even if you plea bargain to time served. Does the prosecution push this for non violent offenders? Hell yes. Why would you the tax payer want a 2 month jury trial for a guy charged with felony weed possession during a traffic stop?

If he didn't get a lawyer, he's an idiot. You don't accept a bargain from anyone without representation. Know your rights.

can't tell if you're being pedantic or not about obsessing over the word innocent not being a legal term. That said plea bargains don't happen "to save the tax payers the expense of a 2 month jury trial" they happen because the prosecution is allowed to throw all the charges at someone until something sticks via a plea bargain regardless of whether or not there's a reasonable suspicion that they are guilty a LOT of convictions arise from the prosecutors being able to levy charges that there's no way they should be able to levy. If they charge you with Murder in the first when you hit a jaywalker and broke his leg and he got sepsis and your choices are death penalty or 10 years plea bargain. There's a lot of people who take that plea bargain. It also applies on smaller scales when you're faced with 20 years and you plea down to 2. The fact that most cases are plea bargained is a bug not a feature of the current legal system.

Re:Was never convicted

[thewolfkin]

There is only one country in the world that regularly pretends such a thing is a conviction.

I take it you aren't familiar with the Japanese justice system. God help you if you end up accused of a crime in Japan, there's at least a 95% chance you'll end up imprisoned, even if you're actually innocent, unless your family is insanely wealthy and knows the right people to bribe. American justice is downright Utopian in comparison.

If you think American justice is bad you wouldn't want to live in the first Babylonian Dynasty. Back then they'd cut off your hand if you stole something and if you took someone's eye they'd take yours. American justice is downright Utopian in comparison.

Re:Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

Due process is why there is a high conviction rate. Due process filters for innocence, abuses, and mitigation through pleading every step of the way leading up to decision. There SHOULD be a really high conviction rate once decision by judge or jury occurs.

Re:Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you are innocent, and you tell them to go fuck themselves; they give you three times the time for "making them go to trial".

The whole thing, is a load of horseshit.

You'ld know it, if you went threw it.

In short, its a robbery. Of your life. At gunpoint. No different than a crip or a blood dragging you off the street, claiming you broke one of their gang rules, and if you don't admit it, they're going to cut pieces off you, until you do.

Welcome to the Federal System.

Re:Was never convicted

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you the tax payer want a 2 month jury trial for a guy charged with felony weed possession during a traffic stop?

The laws against weed possession are and always have been illegal laws. They were created to give law enforcement a tool to drive mexican-americans away from jobs that white americans wanted during the Great Depression (an illegal attempt by government to solve a problem created by government in the first place). Read up on the economic and social history of these issues to understand that.

The willingness of multiple state's voters to vote in favor of legalizing maijuana shows that reasonable use of the drug, including production and transport, IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN an exercise of fundamental rights retained by the people under the 9th Amendment, reserved to the people under the 10th Amendment.

Laws to the contrary are in conflict with the highest law in the land, and hence illegal. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges enforcing these illegal laws are engaging in criminal conduct.

Even ONE person asserting a right is sufficient to establish that right under the 9th Amendment, if the right is reasonable. Having the people in multiple states doing so goes FAR beyond that standard.

A jury might actually understand the legal issues here, and be willing to publicly assert that the law is illegal and they are refusing to enforce it. So, yes, I'd say that's a good use of my tax dollars.

The special interest groups that profit from the War on Drugs, and those that are profit from other illegal practices that occur in violation of the 9th Amendment, but I'd be happy to see it.

Why is it so hard to learn the lesson of Nuremberg?

Let's face it. Government in the USA is massively corrupt. The US legal profession is massively unethical. It's a public disgrace. Even in cases like this, where the guy did something dumb and wrong, nobody trusts the government.

Corporate fascism

[Anonymous Coward]

Use of criminal sanctions for the civil matter of copyright infringement is a signal of corporate fascism for those who understand history.

Should have lied about conspiring against the US i

[Anonymous Coward]

14 days beats 6 months.

Actually UPLOADED?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone confirm if this was actually "uploaded" to Facebook or was it just a Facebook post with embedded video linking to elsewhere?

Facebook allowed 4gig uploads back then? What kind of connection did this guy have?

He said he didn't make any copies so it would seem like he just embedded a link... hm.

Re:Actually UPLOADED?

[thewolfkin]

Can someone confirm if this was actually "uploaded" to Facebook or was it just a Facebook post with embedded video linking to elsewhere?

Facebook allowed 4gig uploads back then? What kind of connection did this guy have?

He said he didn't make any copies so it would seem like he just embedded a link... hm.

the real questions.

Stay edgy kids!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some get less time for rape.

Start of a Trend?

[Barny]

I am excited to see this continue, and the FBI start investigating freebooting (companies who cut/copy popular videos from youtube to facebook for ad revenue) and start sending their arses to jail too!

Re:Start of a Trend?

[Joe_Dragon]

and repast get kicked out early to make room.

Re:Start of a Trend?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? "Repast" means "food" or "meal".

Care to try again?

Re:Start of a Trend?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume this was an attempt at "rapists".

Not about him

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also not really about him, which sucks for him but it true generally.

Tech geeks by and large totally ignore copyright laws, have no idea how they work, have wishy-washy hand-wavy ideas they'd never accept in a math proof about it being okay to copy stuff, and go so far as to casually commit felony conspiracy copyright infringement.

And mostly that's the kind of silly thing no prosecutor would waste their time on. But a massive high-profile case is a great opportunity for a prosecutor to send this idiot kid to jail for six months so that a million idiot tech geeks will stop and think "$20 for Netflix is better than committing a felony, thanks." It sucks for that one kid, but it makes the law much more likely to be followed in the future.

There's a morality debate about whether it's okay to punish the kid the way the law said for doing a thing that was obviously illegal when he's being punished because of how public it was. But it's not much of an argument in extreme cases like this--nobody blames the cop for giving the person speeding down main street while flipping off the cops a ticket while letting the little old lady who speeds down a side-road she's driven on for seventy years off with a warning.

Re:Not about him

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how it works though, because Netflix in my country does not contain the same content as the UK and US for example, so I'd rather NOT spend my hard earned cash for a inferior product. I'd also not want to spend my hard earned cash on a product they decide to change, as soon as I've started watching a show. I'll also not spend my hard earned cash on those 7-8 Netflix-like services that I'd have to pay for each month, in order to watch the shows I'd might be interested in. You know what I do instead? I go for a walk in the woods and mountains. I play board-games with my friends because you actually own those after paying for them, I work out with friends and do just about ANYTHING but pay for Netflix and the likes. You know why? I have a finite amount of money to spend. When the industry clearly do not want my money, I take it elsewhere. The movie and TV-industry has completely lost me as a costumer, because I have principals. Putting this kid in jail will not bring me any closer to becoming a paying costumer, it just pushes me further away.

Re:Not about him

[thewolfkin]

Tech geeks by and large totally ignore copyright laws, have no idea how they work, have wishy-washy hand-wavy ideas they'd never accept in a math proof about it being okay to copy stuff, and go so far as to casually commit felony conspiracy copyright infringement.

Actually it's more the other way around. Copyright laws and those who control them ignore technology and have no idea how it works. these people have wishy washy hand-wavy ideas they'd never accept in a math proof about it being ok to prosecute people for doing things that are perfectly reasonable^1 and go so far as to casually accused people of felony conspiracy copyright infringement.

[1] To be clear I'm talking about in general not in this case. In this case the guy is a moron.

Re:Not about him

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright laws and those who control them ignore technology and have no idea how it works.

This lies at the core of the problem. The internet makes duplicating and sharing data effortless and virtually free of cost; copyright laws exist to impose a false scarcity onto the market. Without that false scarcity, Hollywood would cease to be profitable, the movie industry would collapse, and society would move on to new forms of culture that suck less than what Hollywood pumps out for mass consumption now. The technology evolved, and the arts should evolve with them; copyright law is a luddite refusal to allow culture to evolve. Deflating the Hollywood bubble would allow more money to flow to more entertainers across the country: instead of Tom Cruise making $70MM for a role in one film that gets replicated across the country, we could have many less-paid performers presenting a diversity of forms of entertainment locally for live performances (the obvious way to add value when experiences can be filmed and easily distributed for free). It could mean a renaissance of live theater, or it could take some totally different form: the point, though, is that the arts should be allowed to take their natural next evolutionary steps away from Hollywood. Technology makes new things possible, and art should embrace those new things and make beauty and entertainment with them.

Serves him right!

[Anonymous Coward]

He's nothing but a freedom-hating, copyright-violating, puppy-killing, terrorist. Won't someone thing of the children?!?

What they should have done is thrown him in jail for being a dumb ass. He flagrantly broke the rules and boasted about it, a lot. In this case, douche-baggery became a criminal offence.

Are they going after everyone who watched it at well?

He only made two copies, Facebook made the rest

[penguinoid]

So he downloaded it (copy on his computer) and posted it on Facebook (copy on Facebook). Also he's a total idiot. But Facebook made millions of copies, and they aren't a common carrier.

Re:He only made two copies, Facebook made the rest

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook also made some good money on ads for those 6,386,456 views.

Re:He only made two copies, Facebook made the rest

[cascadingstylesheet]

So he downloaded it (copy on his computer) and posted it on Facebook (copy on Facebook). Also he's a total idiot. But Facebook made millions of copies, and they aren't a common carrier.

Yeah, if the movie had proposed tax cuts or immigration restrictions, that would be different. Facebook woulda had that thing gone in nothing flat ...

Re:He only made two copies, Facebook made the rest

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook also made some good money on ads for those 6,386,456 views.

Facebook filtering algorithms can manage to find and ban a breastfeeding clip in about 2 millseconds, but somehow a two-hour full-blown Hollywood production was viewed over 6 million times, and was never caught? Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that one. You're right. Facebook enjoyed the shit out of that revenue.

Re:He only made two copies, Facebook made the rest

[Anonymous Coward]

The DMCA Safe Harbor provisions protect Facebook.

Re:He only made two copies, Facebook made the rest

[thewolfkin]

Facebook also made some good money on ads for those 6,386,456 views.

Facebook filtering algorithms can manage to find and ban a breastfeeding clip in about 2 millseconds, but somehow a two-hour full-blown Hollywood production was viewed over 6 million times, and was never caught? Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that one. You're right. Facebook enjoyed the shit out of that revenue.

QFT. They have custom nipple based algorithms alright they can spot the nipple on a titmouse 2 seconds before you hit submit but can't spot a Hollywood watermark until they get that sweet advertiser friendly revenue

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him-being h

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is the example you set. And justice is all about the example, and avoiding the propagation of bad behaviour.

Re:He must be dumb, no way he could be smrt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because provoking the government to a massive overreaction has never resulted in sudden climatic change and removal of that government. TOPKEK slave!

Jewish tyranny

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all to make us think that Deadpool is even worth anything - it's more modern Jewish trash. And how ridiculous that they are even considering putting somebody in prison for this 'crime'. So they are admitting that watching the film in a cinema is no better an experience than watching it on your PC - or at least, not sufficiently better to be worth paying a few dollars for.

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him-being h

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference between a wrong that's done in secret, vs one done with the whole world watching? Think carefully before answering.

If the damage claim is based on exposure, then the one done in secret causes no damage

You only have to see his name...

[Viol8]

... to know that he's not going to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. I supposed we should be impressed he can actually operate a grown up computer, thats an einstein level ability down in da hood.

Re:You only have to see his name...

[thewolfkin]

... to know that he's not going to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. I supposed we should be impressed he can actually operate a grown up computer, thats an einstein level ability down in da hood.

dude your racism isn't necessary.

Re:You only have to see his name...

[Viol8]

Racism? Just stating facts my friend. Not all of us live in a liberal fantasy world.

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

You can Kill someone in some states and get less then 5 years.

let that sink in.

Re:By Neruos

[thewolfkin]

You can Kill someone in some states and get less then 5 years.

let that sink in.

Um... while that's interesting.. this dude only got six months. Not sure how germane that observation is to the topic at hand

Re:By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

He got a tenth of the jail time some killers get.

Is what he did a tenth as bad as killing someone?

Safe Harbor

[swillden]

So he downloaded it (copy on his computer) and posted it on Facebook (copy on Facebook). Also he's a total idiot. But Facebook made millions of copies, and they aren't a common carrier.

The DMCA's Safe Harbor provision (one of the few parts of the DMCA that makes sense, IMO), protects site operators from prosecution for infringement for content posted on their sites by users, as long as they take it down promptly upon receipt of a takedown notice. If this didn't exist, basically no site could host user-provided content.

However, it might be possible to argue that he only made two copies, and should only be prosecuted for those, not for the 6M. That doesn't help him much, though, since the maximum penalty for making those two copies is a $500K fine and 10 years in federal prison.

Re:Safe Harbor

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it might be possible to argue it, but you'd get your ass handed to you logically. Those 6M copies were the direct result of his setting up an automatic copying machine (FB) for anyone to use.

6,386,456 views???

[Topmounter]

6,386,456 views??? How many of those views were by children? How is Facebook not deemed complicit? How many views would he have gotten on YouTube, Vimeo, etc. before it was taken down?

Re:Not feeling the least bit sorry for him-being h

[Anonymous Coward]

Corruption of social values is done in secret all the time. The act being visible makes the damage greater.

Re: Wow 6 months for prison for THAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Should HAVE or SHOULD'VE been, NOT should OF. Things like this show just how much of a moron (you know... STOOPID) you actually are.

but...but...but...look how popular

[p51d007]

He was on Fakebook! Over 6 MILLION likes!! Wow! That's awesome! LOL, building his power base, so he won't get messed with in prison LOL. Then what's he do? He creates ANOTHER fakebook account to share more pirated movies.

NETA makes uploading a felony.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the No Electronic Theft Act (signed by Clinton, so it's been on the books quite a while now.)

Re:Wow 6 months for prison for THAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take your meds, twatmuffin...

Re:Wow 6 months for prison for THAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that have to do with anything, you prejudiced asshole?

Too little

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems way too little time to me, if those posts are truly attributed to him.