BitTorrent Pirate Loses His Last Appeal 244
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."
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.
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.
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).
Re:wtf (Score:5, Informative)
Will Americans PLEASE get it into their heads that NATIONAL LAWS ARE NOT INTERNATIONAL.
That includes the MAFIAA. (Score:1, Informative)
Nobody is entitled to someone else's hard work for free.
That deal is about to change, so you might think twice before investing your work. The stuff that needs to be liberated long ago made it's money, the "workers" saw precious little of it and are mostly dead.
The world's three music publishers and movie publishers have been taking a long ride on my tax dollars, just so they can squeeze more out of me at the box office. Just threaten to eliminate perpetual copyright - 25 years sounds about right - when the copyright warriors are around. What's that you say, Mr. Pigopolist? You deserve the "protection" provided by my tax dollars? I don't think so. The deal is that you get limited protection for a limited time to recoup your investment, but only if such protection is required to advance the public domain and state of the art.
The laws are really out of control. People are put in jail longer for sharing music than they are for rape and the fines for the "crime" of sharing are to lose your life savings. Think about that. Are you really more upset when someone shares a song or movie than you are when they rape your neighbor? Is sharing really a crime people should go to jail for? Laws need to follow morals, not the other way around. Copyright law is wrong and needs fixing.
Re:wtf (Score:2, Informative)
Will Americans PLEASE get it into their heads that NATIONAL LAWS ARE NOT INTERNATIONAL.
this is not a troll (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wtf (Score:2, Informative)
It may not have been his initial intention, but if you look at it as if we we're talking about the music industry rather than software, a band generally invests an awful lot of time and hard work at their own cost and distribute their work for free, with the hope of eventually being compensated. To extend the metaphor to almost breaking point, bands make most of their money on the road through touring, personal appearances and merchandise. Not far off of Linus's fees for public appearances, conferences and consultancy, where he makes most of his money, I assume.
To just take the music industry, one of the key issues with it is that the current measure of success, chart position, is based on product sales. Due to the nature of commercial radio's playlist policies, it is impossible to get on air on a mainstream show without a reasonable chart position. As such you can't reach most of your potential audience without sales, so people downloading illegally and not buying the songs does directly affect the audience you can reach. I'm not saying that this is the way it should be, I know enough people in bands signed to major labels that this approach has almost ruined, but it's the way the industry currently works to achieve a good level of success (i.e. to be able to support yourself and plan for the future via the music industry) and you have to live within it.