First Guilty Verdict In Criminal Copyright Case 278
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Brooklyn man has been found guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement by a federal jury in Virginia. He now faces up to five years in prison, a quarter-million-dollar fine, and three years of parole, not to mention the 'full restitution' he has to make to the RIAA. The charges against him stem from his role as 'Dextro,' the administrator of one of the Apocalypse Production Crew's file servers — APC being one of the release groups that specialize in pre-release music. While he's the 15th member of APC to be charged under the US DOJ's Operation Fastlink, he's the first to be convicted. He will be sentenced on August 8th. For those wondering when infringement became a criminal matter, you can thank the NET Act, which was signed into law in 1997 by Bill Clinton."
Well, okay then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Further proof that even politicians you like (I voted for Clinton in 1996, the first presidential election I was old enough to vote for) can do foolish things.
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The first conviction was in 1999 (Score:4, Informative)
Jeffrey Gerard Levy [cybercrime.gov] was actually the first person convicted of felony copyright infringement without profit motive under the 1997 NET Act. The University of Oregon threw him to the wolves [wired.com] when he was 22 years old. He was given two years probation.
Others have already pointed out that criminal copyright infringement in the US is far older than Bill Clinton, but that does not excuse him for the 1997 NET Act. Before that act, imprisonment for sharing without profit motive was not an option. I'd say America has enough prisoners already. America claims 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the the world's imprisoned population.
Re:Well, okay then... (Score:5, Insightful)
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and you're still an uninformed fool (Score:4, Informative)
I just did a quick look-up on Thomas. The Bill originated in the House:
On the Senate side, the following Senators voiced support in the Congressional Daily Record:
I found no obvious dissent, and there were many other House members who did not speak, but were mentioned as supporting the Bill
The Bill was passed by unanimous consent on a voice vote in both the House and The Senate, indicating that if there was any opposition, it was very weak, and they did not even consider it important enough to order a roll call vote (any legislator can call for a roll-call on any vote)
The legislative branch makes the laws. The President can veto, but given the evidence I found from a skimming search, even if Clinton had been opposed (which I doubt), the veto would have easily been overridden in the legislature. The President usually does not waste his power pissing off legislators in a veto battle he has no hope of winning.
The Slasdot author took a gratuitous baseless shot at Clinton, who hasn't even been in office for over 7 years now, when the congressman who introduced the bill and 5 of the 6 sponsors are still house members, as are 3 of the 4 Senators I listed.
The arrogant naivete of American voters is astounding and obscene. I wasn't a big Clinton fan; in fact anyone who would lie under oath about a consensual blow job has an exceedingly low valuation of his own personal honour. Still the fact remains, that after 7 1/2 years of the Bush tyranny; a president's lies about a blow-job, cum-stained dresses, and exotically aromatic tobacco products is fucking minor league when compared to lies about the causes for War Upon Iraq; the lies about al Qaida licking its wounds in Pakistan, the theft of habeas corpus, the governmental imprimatur upon acts of human torture, and the blood-stained Iraqi sands.
The Democratic Party is The Lamer of Two Evils, and the Republican Party has yet to even begin to feel the level of pain necessary for it to purge its resident evil.
Which is a bigger lie?
Thus Speaks The Rectaltude of Contemporary Conservatives.
But, look out behind you! It's The Penis of The President Past...
Re:Well, okay then... (Score:5, Informative)
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You're saying that the original copyright holder no longer holds the copyright?
That sounds pretty far-fetched. Can you point me to the legal statute that backs up your claim that a third party engaging in copyright infringement voids your copyright, because I have a very hard time believing that.
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No, he is saying that the copyright holder has to compete with his own product.
Besides being a huge stretch to interpret the poster's comment to mean that, this is a moot point - the copyright holder *already* has to compete with their own product in the form of used merchandise, rental market and borrowing (libraries, between friends, etc.)
Unless you're also going to say that borrowing a book or DVD from your library is also stealing?
Buying from a used bookseller or DVD shop? That would also be stealing then wouldn't it?
Taken to it's logical conclusion, if I buy something, but only
Re:Well, okay then... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather classify this particular case as unfair trading practice and trade secrets stealing. (You see, until they're released, the albums' content is supposed to be secret).
So partially you're right, regarding zero day warez and similar stuff. But after the albums are released, it's the same monopolistic crap we've had.
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Re:Well, okay then... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. If I take your car and blow it up, your car is permanently gone, and there's no way to get it back. If I distribute copies of your copyrighted work, once you stop me from doing so, your rights have been fully restored.
2. If I take your car, you cannot use it while I have it. If I make unauthorized copies of your copyrighted work, you can continue making your own copies while I do so.
Now, because I can tell you're the kind of person who will think that the above means I think that copyright infringement is acceptable, I'm going to try to emphasize that THIS IS NOT THE CASE. I'm merely pointing out that copyright infringement is NOT theft (aka larceny), not by any legal definition and not by common usage. They are different beasts, which is why we have entirely separate bodies of law covering them.
Re:Fsck the engieer! They do no work!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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OK (Score:2, Insightful)
The more you learn about the RIAA, the more sense a simple FU makes.
They are coming for the virtual priates now (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:They are coming for the virtual priates now (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, perhaps they do? (silly analogy coming up). What if you had spent millions to hire a group of famous comedians to come up with the funniest T-shirt ever? Suppose that you planned to wear it standing inside a tent, so that you can charge people $10 admission to come look and laugh. Wouldn't you be pissed at people sn
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Wouldn't you be pissed at people sneaking in under the canvas without paying, or copying the T-shirt for their friends?
Sneaking in is trespassing. It deprives me of the exclusive use of my property, because people take up space inside the tent.
Copying the T-shirt for their friends, however, is fine. To stop someone from doing that, I'd have to either prevent him from describing his personal experiences to a friend ("this is what I saw"), or from putting some ink that he owns onto a shirt that he owns.
What right do I have to interfere with either of those? Why should I get to stifle his speech or tell him what to do with hi
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It's also a fact that a small piece of paper made in a certain way is a banknote. Are you implying there's nothing wrong in printing your own money?
If you spend a counterfeit note, you're defrauding whoever you give it to: they value that note because they believe it was printed by the treasury, when in fact it wasn't, and you use that deception to get something of value.
The same applies to trademarks, by the way. If you build a car in your back yard and then try to sell it as a "Honda Civic", that's fraud. Your customers reasonably expect that a car known as a "Honda Civic" will have been made by a certain company, using certain designs and materials
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The idea that you should be able to prevent someone from relating such a trivial idea (and we do now have sports leagues trying to do this) is absurd.
In a less obvious sense, many current forms of copyright are absurd and so people ignore them.
The laws around this are so corrupt that people don't respect them and the basic concept that creative types should get paid for their work is getting carried alo
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Actually, I think it's the other way around. By telling people copyright infringement is something it really isn't the **AA etc. automatically deliver a flawed argument and cause confusion among the people who don't know anything about copyright law. When someone point out that co
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The irony of the juxtaposition you create by hating DRM because you have to pay while at the same time stifling free speech when it's not in your best interest gets me through the day still feeling self-righteous.
Stifling free speech? No one's deleting your posts (and of course /. doesn't owe you space on their site anyway). They're just pointing out, as a service to other readers, that reading your posts might not be the best use of their time. If people think the moderators are doing a bad job, they can change their own comment preferences.
You know, the moderations here aren't always great, but generally, if you can speak thoughtfully on an iss
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Not my fault you can't come up with a better argument than "I have a funny shirt," failing to say that you own the copyright for the shirt, you created it, or really anything other than you wearing said shirt.
I didn't mention any of that because it's irrelevant. Let me remind you of what you originally wrote, since it was so long ago: you complained about "enjoying something without paying for it when the owner wants you to." Surely you understand how owning a shirt works, right?
Enjoy your stolen music, movies, and software.
How amusing that you're making all these assumptions about me just because I've pointed out the flaws in your argument. Try to separate the message from the messenger, and maybe those mean ol' mods won't pick on you so much.
Just remember, you're not depriving anyone of anything. Everyone who has more money than you doesn't need any more.
Why are yo
If you're going to stalk me, send pictures ;) (Score:2)
Gotta quote myself here.
Just still wondering the answer. Or are you too busy spouting off about people who use Austin Powers jokes while you can recycle catchy phrases like "strawman", "ad hominem", and the other classics without trying to let a little originality seep into your membranes?
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Is Metallica worth the ruination of someone that has pirated their music?
Also, enabling the consumption of those willing to spend nothing to
consume is by no means "stealing paying customers". The idea that
a pirate is a lost sale is trivially absurd both logically and
mathematically.
individual right to begin with.
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Like those fuckers who STOLE my camp fire last weekend. I put a lot of effort into making that fire, then these clowns come over when I'm not looking, put a stick in MY fire and STEAL it. I deserve money!
Pre-release music the issue (Score:5, Informative)
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My company's first DMCA notice was for a pre-release Britney spears that a client was sharing on IRC. A subsequent scan of the machine showed it had a trojan and IRC client software on it. That's been the only DMCA for music that we've gotten. It does appear pre-release is watched closer than normal release.
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Frankly, there's precious little entertainment left worth supporting from major labels.. and the tiny fraction that is generally is a band (or individual) that is well established. I'm not saying definitively that all new stuff is crap, because I'm not that old. What I am seeing is a concerted effort by the media conglomerates to flood the market with also-rans and copycats vastly
Cry me a river... please. (Score:5, Insightful)
This group are hell-bent on obtaining pre-released music (that the companies have not yet had a chance to recoup their investment on) and making it available for free.
Whether you believe copyright terms should be 99 years or 7 years is immaterial here. Whether you believe an individual should be able to rip their CDs is immaterial here. Whether you believe in teh doctrine of first sale for copyrighted materials is immaterial here. Put aside your hatred of the RIAA for a second and see this for what it really is - one of the few occasions where they have a point.
Re:Cry me a river... please. (Score:5, Insightful)
Prohibition (Score:2, Offtopic)
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Sophistry with hypotheticals is cute, but don't forget there have been and still are plenty of societies that don't outlaw use of cannabis, and the evidence suggests that it's a much, much less harmful drug than alcohol, and arguably even plain coffee.
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It is hard to design laws to be adaptable to every possible situation. They had to pick a point and
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Or, as in, they don't allow anyone at all to drive because human blood has a minimum amount of alcohol in it, even in teetotalers.
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"Jail time for this though? He's not a dangerous person"
That's what "white collar" crime is. And, as in Enron's case, it can be as devastating or even more so than some pimp or drug dealer.
"Sorry Timmy, you can't go to college. No money. Oh, and we just lost our house because some fat cat. But it's ok, it's not like that crime affects our lives."
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And, as in Enron's case, it can be as devastating or even more so than some pimp or drug dealer.
I agree. Therefore, these pirates should receive punishments that are proportional to those of Enron executives, based on total economic damages.
In the case of Enron, a few $billion in mayhem is worth maybe 30 years of prison time. These pirates probably served up a few $million worth of of CDs. That would make the applicable prison sentence about 1/1000 of an Enron: let's say a week or two.
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This guy "stole" imaginary property. He shared music online. Music that the RIAA effectively stole from the artists who created it (but that's another topic completely).
My issue in this case is not with the RIAA, but with the US government being hijacked by corporations for the
It's a trade secret (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree 100% with you that pre-existing laws were more than sufficient to cover this incident. We did not need the DMCA or the NET Act (or whatever it was. i've never heard of it until now). Those laws are overbearing and give way too much power to a few at the expense of our citizens. The police should be protecting us (the people) from murder, theft, and other crimes. It should not be their job to force us to adhere
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We lock away more people per capita *and* in raw numbers than any other country in the world. Primarily due to drug laws which cause far more harm than drugs ever have.
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But, like the War on Drugs... someone has to get pinched.. and we wouldn't want it to be the anti-soviet dictatorships who give us money.
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Welcome to the Grown-up world.
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It the future, as the perceived value of intellectual property grows it is bound to receive ever more legal protection, possibly even more than the tangible (clay and metal) kind.
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This is what happens when you are trying to get fancy with tags ...
The sentence was: I for one will not willingly go there.
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Bang on, dude. When all the money is tied up in patent and copyright litigation, and no one can actually legally make anything tangible without infringing, the bottom is going to drop out faster than gasoline prices on Jan 20, 2009.
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Not just the US government, many of the same corporations are trying (with varying degrees of sucess) to get these kind of laws everywhere on the entire planet.
The other problem is that these laws are often useless against large corporations themselves. (Criminal law especially, corporations can be sued, but they can't be jailed). Otherwise something drastic would have happened to
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How much do our freedoms go for these days? (Score:2)
I don't have such a problem because I refuse to judge the situation we face by just one case. When I think of all the people the RIAA harasses and gets loads of money from regarding alleged non-commercial infringement (consider the many informative stories promoted here by NewYorkCountryLawyer [slashdot.org]), I became convinced that the RIAA was a proponent and beneficiary of going too far, and I was also convinced that the NET Act is another step of metaphorically swatting flies with sledgehammers.
The length of copyr
17 USC 506 -- why it's criminal (Score:5, Informative)
--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation! [nerdkits.com]
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"Total retail value" comes closer to $0.99/track (Score:4, Interesting)
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I live in the backwoods of Wisconsin, but I've heard of a guy who makes his living copying DVDs to DVD-r's for $3 a pop, and i heard about this guy from my Social Worker. the person is clearly violating $1,000 a year, if he's making a Living at $3 a movie, but nobody cares about the movie industry in this town, not even the cops.
Let's just hope that person never has a evil ex-significant other.
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Normally I'd be wary of the slippery slope logical fallacy. In this case, I think there's a proven track record that that's exactly what's happening.
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Which of course makes all copyright infringement into criminal infringement as no copyright holder is ever going to claim less then hundreds of thousands to millions in "losses" per piece of data shared. You see, 1000 million bazillion downloads could have occurred (yes, yes every man, woman and child and their pet parrot could have purchased the thing many times - and soon that will be the only option with "pay-to-read"!) thus depriving the poor copyright holder of a veritable mou
NET Act redefines "financial gain"! (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to be fair, the NET Act also redefines "financial gain" to include a laundry list of things. One of those things that laundry list covers is receiving other copyrighted works in return.
Yes, that's right. In theory, joining a torrent could be "financial gain" so long as the contents were valuable enough.
In practice, we don't have full-fledged copyright cops (yet), so they don't bother with small fry. But that WILL change [slashdot.org] if th
Compare to trade secret law (Score:2)
2) total value over $1,000,
What's the value of a song these days? Just about anyone can hit that. Sure, a CD might only cost $15, but the song on it can still be worth insane amounts.
It's $15 for purposes of this section. Read why [slashdot.org]
or 3) pre-release of material in preparation.
And this one is just BS. I can see the argument here, again it's "diluting the market," but seriously, criminal charges? Federal prison for leaking media early? That's BS.
It's no different from existing trade secret laws that give criminal penalties for disclosure of unpublished documents.
CC "nc" licenses; copyleft/$$$ dual licensing (Score:4, Interesting)
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Giving something away for free is only criminal if its value is over $1000 (total) or it's prerelease. So giving away free software against the copyright agreement after it's been released will never be criminal, but using free software in something that is for profit is.
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To defeat which argument the corporates will argue that they are charging only for the "service" of "giving away" the software, i.e. you pay for delivery not contents. And in effect they would be right, since they could not put a new copyright on such work, only to sell it as is. My point stands.
I fully realize that this still does not de
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The CEO bit is some misinformation, though -- part of the point of a corporation is to limit liability. If a corporation was responsible for criminal acts, the investors and most employees (at least, those not directly involved in the wrongdoing) would be free of liability.
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1. financial gain
would apply. So it doesn't matter if you have $1,000 or $10,000,000 software theft.
Secondly, since FOSS under GPL can't be used in propitiatory offerings, the value of such software can be argued to be "cost to develop" using tools like SLOCcount.
Regardless, financial gain is enough. And ALL GPL infringements have financial gain as their motive.
The key here was that he got paid for it (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree. I mean, I didn't RTFA, so I'm assuming you're right that he got paid for it, but I agree that it makes a world of difference.
To me, copyright law's original intent is valid. The system was set up in a time when making copies and distributing them on a wide scale took serious money. So the problem was that a book publisher, for example, might front a writer development costs for writing a book. Then the publishing house prints up copies and starts selling them. Without any laws in place, anoth
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RIAA's other lawyers (Score:2)
Their first legal harassment technique, suing filesharers randomly, appeared to have run out of steam and then backfired on them so they got the government to invoke a little-known, eleven year old statute to crack him op
How does it compare to... (Score:2, Insightful)
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1. It hurts big industries who grow the economy.*
2. The money made obviously goes towards other ill-purposes, even possibly terrorism making it a terrorist act.**
3. It is a gateway crime which with certainly lead to many more homicides not only by the original perpetrator(s) but also anyone they touched.***
With number one it is worse than homicide because it hurts big business and without that support American citizens would die. Everyone knows food comes from
another nonviolent offender behind bars... (Score:3, Insightful)
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In the American system almost all violent offenders are prosecuted at the state level. The federal system has more than enough room for the Enron exec who thinks that economic and property crimes harm no one.
In other societies the white-collar criminal has been known to face the hangman's noose or the firing squad.
An extreme remedy, perhaps. But it does tend to very efficiently strip away the technocrat's assumption that his brains and his skills make
Several facts are wrong (Score:3, Informative)
The funniest part is the fact that this group has been practically dead since around 2002 or so.
Slow down, cowboy (Score:5, Informative)
From the Copyright Corner:
Criminal misdemeanor penalties have been a part of the copyright law since 1897.
In the 1909 Copyright Act, criminal copyright infringement was expanded to cover all types of works and all types of activities. It continued to be a misdemeanor offense with both willfulness and a financial motive required; the penalties included imprisonment.
The 1976 Act revamped the criminal provisions by changing the "for profit" requirement to infringement conducted "willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain." This lowered the standard from requiring that the defendant profit from the infringement merely to an intent to profit or gain from the activity. The Act retained the one-year in federal prison term but increased the fine from $1,000 in fines to up to $10,000 generally, and to $50,000 if the work infringed was a sound recording or motion picture.
In 1982 the criminal infringement provisions were amended to make certain types of first-time infringement punishable as felonies.
The most recent amendment to criminal copyright infringement was the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 (NetAct) which made it a felony to reproduce or distribute copies of copyrighted works electronically regardless of whether the defendant had a profit motive. Thus, it changed the 100-year standard regarding profit motive but retained the element of willfulness. The ease of infringement on the Internet was the primary reason for criminalizing noncommercial infringement as well as recognition of other motivations a nonprofit defendant might have such as anti-copyright or anti-corporate sentiment, trying to make a name in the Internet world and wanting to be a cyber renegade. So, the infringement must be either: (1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain or (2) involve the reproduction or distribution of one or more copies of a work or works within a 180-day period with a total retail value of $1,000. Commercial infringers are subject to higher penalties.
CRIMINAL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT [unc.edu] [2004}
Connecticut Man Sentenced To 30 Months in Prison For Criminal Copyright Infringement - Forty Defendants Convicted In Operation Copycat To Date [cybercrime.gov] {April 29, 2008]
Re: Slow down, Cowboy (Score:4, Insightful)
Short and sweet:
Criminal misdemeanors have been part of american copyright law since 1897.
The reach of the criminal law was extended and harsher penalties made available as early as 1909.
In 1982 first-time offenders could be convicted on a felony charge.
As for the NET act of 1997:
The ease of infringement on the Internet was the primary reason for criminalizing noncommercial infringement as well as recognition of other motivations a nonprofit defendant might have such as anti-copyright or anti-corporate sentiment, trying to make a name in the Internet world and wanting to be a cyber renegade. Criminal Copyright Infringement [unc.edu]
unreleased = no value (Score:2)
I'm glad we have such a great economy... (Score:2)
Our country is dieing senators...
Mr President...
Anyone doing anything? Anyone really care? I didnt think so. But i figure i should ask. Someone should.
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Re:Criminal downloading (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Criminal downloading (Score:4, Funny)
Clearly, a more fitting crime for this liberal commie-terrorist (who kicks kittens) would be 5 years per kilobyte.
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*ducks*
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But we ALL know that won't happen.
In my eyes, until the rich and politically powerful are held to the same laws that govern us little people -- jail time for something like this is insane.
You DO realize that there are cases where people have been murdered, which did not net as much jail time as we are talking about this?
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Christina Agurilla was going to put a gold-plated shark-tank bar next to her swimming pool this month, but now thanks to people like this scum bag who pirate music, she's going to have to wait two months before she has enough money to afford the addition. And Jay-Z? He was going to buy three new H2's, but thanks you criminals like yourself, he can't afford to build another garage right now, and he's going to have to sell his old H2's just to have a place to park h
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Now if he manages to get to Iran/North Korea/Cuba then there wouldn't be an issue...
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You won't be jetting off to Europe without a passport. You won't be getting a passport while you are on probation. Urgent Passport Services FAQ [urgentpassport.com]
...instead of forcing a roll-call vote (Score:3, Interesting)
This law was nothing of Bill Clinton's doing, except that he signed it instead of vetoing it (which would have been pointless
True, a presidential veto of the NET Act, the Bono Act, or the DMCA would have been pointless in terms of keeping the bills from becoming law. Each of the bills passed through a voice vote, meaning that the yeas and nays of each member never became public record. Under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, it takes four-fifths percent of both houses to push a voice vote through (section 5) but only 67 percent of both houses to override a veto (section 7). Still, a President has power to create bad press for
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