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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."
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."
I can just feel the arts and sciences being encouraged right now!
"What are you in jail for?" they ask. "I made a facebook post."
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You can go to prison for your facebook post for many reasons in shit hole countries.
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...
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.
"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.