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BitTorrent Pirate Loses His Last Appeal
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri May 18, 2007 07:53 PM
from the no-more-second-chances dept.
from the no-more-second-chances dept.
Vix666 writes with a link to a ZDNet article on the final chapter of a story we've discussed before: the first user convicted of piracy for using BitTorrent to download a movie has really, finally, lost his case. Chan Nai-ming was sentenced in November of 2005, lost an appeal in December of last year, and appears to have once again failed to convince a judge to let him out. "The Hong Kong government welcomed the judgment, saying it clarified the law regarding Internet piracy. 'This judgment has confirmed that it commits a crime and violates copyright laws for the act of using (BitTorrent) software to upload and distribute,' said customs official Tam Yiu-keung in a written statement. He added the judgment would have a deterrent effect, a view endorsed by industry watchdogs such as the Hong Kong branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry."
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Entertainment: World's First Jail Sentence for BitTorrent Piracy 280 comments
Rob T Firefly writes "Hong Kong newspaper The Standard reports on what seems to be the world's first case of a BitTorrent movie pirate being sent to jail. (Others have been jailed for related crimes.) After losing his appeal against a November 2005 conviction, Chan Nai-ming, a 38-year-old BitTorrent user known as 'Big Crook,' has begun serving a prison sentence for making the films 'Daredevil,' 'Miss Congeniality,' and 'Red Planet' available for download via BitTorrent. His appeal was based on the fact that he did not profit from the piracy." From the article: "[Appeals Judge] Beeson noted [convicting magistrate] MacIntosh, in handing out the sentence, was fully aware of the noncommercial nature of the case, but measured the seriousness of the case by the harm done to the moviemakers — not by the gain made by the offender. Chan, and those in the chatroom, 'were aware of the possible criminal implications of uploading films to the system,' Beeson wrote. She also noted the sentence was already drastically reduced, from a maximum of four years, to three months, in order 'to reflect the novelty of the conviction.'
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Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, it does not matter at all what's the threat when you get caught. Whether it's just a slap on the wrist and probation or death by hanging, the people committing this "crime" are not ghetto gang members who don't care about another sheet in their file. They're usually normal, law abiding people who have fairly normal jobs or, if younger, go to school or college, often rather good schools or colleges, and plan to have a normal life with a normal job.
When you criminalize those people, all you get is a criminal who wouldn't have been one. Because what's the next thing happening? He's got a file, he's on probation, he probably won't get a good job. What is he gonna do? Commit more crimes. And since he's a criminal already anyway, why not break a real law? Does it matter?
When you go to jail for longer for copyright infringment than for robbery, do you think people who already got jail time for copying would care about what's happening when they sap that old lady to get her purse? Hey, it's a lesser crime, he's getting better!
Folks, something's running REALLY wrong here. With laws like this, we create more criminals but not more faith in the laws.
Why do people usually not murder or steal, rob a bank or kick old nannies off the curb? Because you simply don't do that! Do you really think about the possible jail sentence when you decide NOT to roll your car over that asshole who just gave you the proverbial finger? No, you don't kill him because that's simply something you don't do.
Because, quite frankly, if the law's the only thing that keeps you from going on a killing spree, something's very wrong with you!
People usually abide to the law not because they fear jail, but because of their moral code. Why are there more people speeding than shoplifting? The sentence for either is about the same (for a first time violation) here, still, we have a ton of speeders and rather few shoplifters, compared to it. Why? Because one is negligance and the other is stealing.
And you simply don't steal.
The danger I see is that people get used to breaking the law. When you simply continue what you have been doing for years and suddenly it becomes a crime, will you stop or will you ignore the law? And when you ignore one law, how far is it to ignoring the law altogether and just relying on your code of morals?
Will your morals stay the same? Or will you question them as well? Will you start wondering whether not only the law but also the morals you have been brought up with are wrong?
Scary, if you ask me.
Parent
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a lesser crime. It's just a crime with fewer corporate-funded lobbyists pushing for disproportionate punishment. Your sig is probably unintentionally but ironically relevant to this discussion.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason is that society has had years of conditioning that tell us these actions are wrong. We don't do these things because we decided a long time ago that we didn't want that in our society, that our society would be better off without such actions happening, We then solidified that into written law. The pro-copyright lobby is trying to do the same thing with piracy.
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The only way to enforce a resisted law is by brute force. And behond, we're heading that way. That doesn't lead to more law and more support for the law. Rather, it breeds resistance, not only against this single law but against the whole legal apparatus.
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright infringement is a economic crime. So, the punishment should be of an economic nature --- a fine. No reason to put anything in his criminal record either. For downloading, I suggest 2*(price of movie at time)/(chance of discovery). For uploading, I'd suggest a very similar amount... the damagde to the "victim" is greater, yet his personal gain is less. So, same fine.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with you.
But let us just do a little comparison here.
Let's say a guy with a decent job in America (the US) is downloading movies using BitTorrent software. The thing is that this way he gets the movie for free, he only pays for internet connection, which he would pay already. A recent movie release in the US is something between $10 and $40 (I'm not a US citizen, so I looked at WalMart's prices). What is the average monthly sallary for an average guy? $2500 to $5000? http://www.worldsalaries.org [worldsalaries.org]
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Rubbish. I live in Hong Kong. Bootleg media have always been around, but there are legit music and DVD shops in every shopping mall. Bootleg shops were concentrated in a few areas, and temporary street stalls, but there are perhaps a fewe dozen outlets in the whole territory at any time, under
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This case is just a joke. The dude is a sacrificial lamb to help convince American media interests that China i
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
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Stop making movies if it costs too much. Nobody is entitled to guaranteed profit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody is entitled to someone else's hard work for free.
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They were fools to produce something they knew (or should have known) would be copied by millions.
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Re:wtf (Score:5, Informative)
Will Americans PLEASE get it into their heads that NATIONAL LAWS ARE NOT INTERNATIONAL.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hard work, by itself, guarantees nothing. I can spend thousands of hours building model planes, grinding through MMPORGS, or trying to woo a crush, only to be left with little or nothing to sh
Yes you are. Supreme court: Feist vs RTC (1991) (Score:3, Insightful)
This was already ruled upon in the US Supreme court. Feist vs Rural Telephone Company (over a telephone book). They rejected any argument that right t of control (copyright) would be granted based on 'sweat of the brow' or the hard work in creating an uncreative or unorigional work.
They explicitly said that creativity is required to grant copyright. As alphabetizing names and putting them into a book is not creative, the result was not copyrightable,
Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, this argument is easily seen as false.. just go out in public. You will find plenty of people doing hard work and not getting paid for it. You'll even find plenty of musicians.. playing a whole lot of music.. doing this supposed "hard work" that most people who make this argument are suggesting must be paid for. Do you feel you should give them money? Or do you just feel they are begging. How about those assholes at the lights who clean your windshield with a dirty squiggy? Do you feel you should give them money because they did a service for you.. even though you didn't ask them to? Even though it was useful because your windshield was dirty?
No. People who do work for hire without first securing someone to hire them are just confused.. or deliberately trying to invoke an obligation in others when none should exist.
Parent
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It's called the public domain.
it's called I can do whatever I want because I say so.
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Being in the public domain also means the author has no other obligations with respect to the work either.
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Copyright and other intellectual property mechanisms exist to promote the sharing of novel and other valuable works. Passage into public domain is in exchange for protection, not some natural state of things.
No now you are being insane. Public domain is PRECISELY the natural state of things. Freedom of expression is a natural right, copyright is defined as a temporary exception to that right. It certainly is not a natural right on its own.
Meanwhile, wrt your point about not publishing the work prevents it from entering the public domain. Well, no effing duh. Yer a bril genius with that. If you don't show the creation to anyone else, it really doesn't matter now does it? It's like the tree falling in th
Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright is a right, granted by the government, to enter into my house or my business and forbid me from copying a work for a friend or creating a derivative work. Generally in american jurisprudence, we frown upon the government infringing into people's private homes and businesses unless the government has an overriding interest otherwise.
You are perfectly free to leave a piece of beautiful music unrecorded, but you won't convince me that the natural state of things includes the ability to, with the power of the government, coercively forbid me from transcribing that overheard music. Of course, copyright does give you the right to enter my private home or business to enforce your will, because public policy has judged that the public benefit --- the production of creative works --- justifies the infringement on personal liberties.
Parent
Re:wtf (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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yes, copyright periods should be shorter. Ignoring all copyright and taking all copyrighted works (including very recent ones) works AGAINST this argument,
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what do you do when people simply dont intend to pay for something that took alot of cash to make to begin with
Work only on commission. That way you get paid before it is possible to "pirate" the creation. The internet is great at distributing information in the form of media, it ought to be great at distributing information in the form of debts too, making the pooling of commissions by groups of millions of patrons feasible to pay for even the most crazy expensive productions.
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Hey I'm so glad you have agreed to commission my upcoming movie. What's your paypal ID?
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Let's hear your sales pitch - what's the plotline, who do you expect to star and direct, who is the writer, do you have examples of previous productions? If your pitch is good enough I'll paypal $10 to your escrow account.
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You don't have to use verbatim. There's memorex, imation, philips....
This guy taunted them (Score:3, Informative)
Thats similar to the motorbike guy who gave loads of speed cameras the bird because he thought he was safe.
Had it just occurred quietly no-one would have batted an eyelid.
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Please tell me your ok!
Uploading copyrighted works without permission (Score:5, Informative)
No, he could have used any other protocol. He was not convicted for using Bittorrent to do anything. He was convicted for uploading a movie without having a license to do so.
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Scapegoats to the slaughter (Score:5, Informative)
(Sadly) this isn't the Chinese government kissing American butt. They've got some "bad" [cnn.com] publicity [reuters.com] last week, so this poor sap is being made an example of.
Meanwhile the RIAA and MPAA continue to lie [ornery.org], cheat [ornery.org] and steal [wikipedia.org] with politicans at their bidding [wikipedia.org] (that's the DMCA Congressman).
In the net balance... (Score:2, Insightful)
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If you're going to oppose something, oppose patent laws which actually influence what medications and life saving devices people have access to.
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If someone was to restrict access to Heroes episodes though, I definately WOULD die.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A reworking of a Disney cartoon is of equal value to an original cartoon, actually.
Look at Shakespeare: nearly all of his plays are either based on history, or are based on stories that were already around. He was a thoroughly derivative artist, but a really excellent one. So long as
What!??! (Score:3, Funny)
Well, somehow that would make sense as they are fu*%$ this guy.
China's economy (Score:3, Interesting)
Uhhh, yeah, sure, uh huh, china cares about piracy?????
If anything china is the one country on this planet that in general has no respect for any copyright laws of any other nation. Hell, they will pirate anything. You invent and patent invention a (NOT SOFTWARE), the chinese will steal it, remake it out of the cheapest and crappiest components possible and try their hardest to undersell you, effectively causing you, the inventor/artist/producer major damages. What legal repercussions do you have? Don't look at me, I have no clue.
We pirate movies freely in america, in china you pay for pirate copies of movies in retail stores.
Although there are ethical rules against being a pirate, a pirate must also have a code of ethics, and reselling is against that code. They aren't even to be called pirates from now, they do not deserve the honor with the title, from now on chinese pirates are to be known only as software thieves.
Re:come on out trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, he wasn't imprisoned for copying a file (funny how we expect copyright to be followed when bringing companies to task for violating the GPL but not when some individual violates copyright; the GPL is founded on copyright law, after all, not contract law), he was sentenced for *distributing* the copyrighted content that he copied. That's a far greater transgression under copyright law.
Finally, don't look now, but the only troll in this picture is you.
Parent
Re:come on out trolls (Score:5, Interesting)
It's because the GPL (and simmilar) was created to sidestep the problems of copyright. If you think current copyright law is a farse, than you release your work as GPL, not public domain. If you release it public domain, people can use it in copyrighted works, thus (indirectly) copyrighting your work.
The GPL uses copyright law to make sure your work never becomes part of the farse of copyright.
Parent
Re:BitTorrent illegal? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent