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

Re:prison

[bzipitidoo]

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, and it's incredibly easy and getting easier by the year. It's past time the law was changed to reflect this fact of nature.

Do you realize that education is a massive copying of knowledge into children's memories? It is also a harm to McDonald's for a consumer to buy at a grocery instead, but that action is not a crime, nor should it be. It's competition.

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

Or, the arts could change to another business model, of which there are a number of viable options.

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.

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, same as Phillip Danks and the founders of the Pirate Bay. We could write letters, lots and lots of letters, to the politicians of California, urging them to drop the case, or pardon him, or change their laws. It may make an impression.

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

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: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 ...