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."
wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Actual harm done (Score:1, Insightful)
I imagine that the moviemakers actually did lose sales on these products, because most of the people that downloaded and watched these movies probably realized how bad they were and lost interest in purchasing them.
These companies want you to be blindfolded, and purchase based on 30 second blurbs with a catchy voice saying exciting things. Jack tries to contact Kate in flash-forwards off the island. When people see product they can make an actual informed purchase (or non-purchase).
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.
In the net balance... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wtf (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody is entitled to someone else's hard work for free.
Re:wtf (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wtf (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In the net balance... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're going to oppose something, oppose patent laws which actually influence what medications and life saving devices people have access to. Fighting copyright law is like fighting the ability for someone to own a
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.
Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wtf (Score:3, Insightful)
1 down, 1.2 billion to go ! (Score:1, Insightful)
Go get 'em, Tiger !!
Re:wtf (Score:1, Insightful)
If I create a beautiful painting, I am free to burn it rather than show it to you.
If I make beautiful music, I am free to leave it unrecorded.
If I create novel technology, I am free to destroy it.
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.
Re:wtf (Score:3, Insightful)
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 the forest, no one cares.
Re:wtf (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 show for my efforts.
Re:wtf (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
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, despite the amount of effort put into producing the telephone directory. Creativity may apply in the selection or the arrangement, but not in the facts themselves.
Now, of course, in an attempt to end-run around this ruling, there are occasional rumblings of creating a 'database copyright', that may forbid the duplication of a database of facts.
Re:Uploading copyrighted works without permission (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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 pressure from periodic raids by the Customs Dept. Of course, if you want Spiderman 3 the week the movie opens, you can probably find a crappy cam version. As for software, the days of the "fully loaded" PC as was standard 10 years ago are long gone. Most PCs come with the whole shrinkwrapped and certified software deal now. Businesses need support, they have to buy legal software.
It's another story over the border in Shenzhen.
then the media companies do have a right to be paid for the copies and in the long term the penalties would very well need to be harsh.
You've lost me there. The media companies certainly want penalties to be harsh. You can steal physical DVDs and suffer much lower penalties. In the case of uploading old movies, movies that have already been shown on free to air TV in this case, it's hard to see any reason to treat it as a capital offence.
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This case is just a joke. The dude is a sacrificial lamb to help convince American media interests that China is serious, nothing more. But if they were really serious about respecting copyright, they'd make a serious effort to crack down on all the people who are selling counterfeit CDs and DVDs on the streets in Beijing. This is like busting some poor schmuck who buys an illegal shot of booze, but leaving Al Capone free on the street. I'm not saying that he's in the right, but the guy's real crime is being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RTFA (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:1, Insightful)
much easier to deal with." ('Atlas Shrugged' 1957)
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.
Re:wtf (Score:3, Insightful)
yes, copyright periods should be shorter. Ignoring all copyright and taking all copyrighted works (including very recent ones) works AGAINST this argument, as it just persuades content creators that copyright needs stronger enforcement, and that those who violate copyright are opposed to paying the creators for their work at all.
If you really have a beef with copyright, start a campaigning website, write articles on it, pester your elected representative, boycott companies that lobby for extensions, and make a public fuss about it through the democratic system. persuade others of your case. I agree 100% that copyright should never extend past the lifetime of the author, and probably be shorter still. Do NOT kid yourself that doing none of the above, but sitting in your bedroom downloading hollywood movies achieves anything towards this aim. It just increases the justification for stronger DRM, more draconian sentences for copyright infringement, and makes governments more sympathetic to the complaints of big business. Pirating Spiderman 3 is not a political gesture, it's just getting a movie for free.
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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: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.
Re:wtf (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wtf (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:wtf (Score:1, Insightful)
All patronage does is take the middle-men out the loop. Today you have small numbers of people with large amounts of money acting as venture capitalists - either officially in the case of actual venture capitalists or with other titles in the case of movie, music and game studios. These people aren't even the end buyers, they rarely even give a damn about the significance of the work, just whether or not they think it can earn lots and lots of money - nobody pitches stories to these guy's they pitch P&L numbers.
If anything, the current system is a far stronger promoter of "bland sequels to existing ideas" because these venture capitalists perceive them as being low economic risk, story itself is rarely the prime factor "the franchaise" or some other proof of past performance is (c.f. Shrek III, PotC III, Spiderman 3, Fantastic Four 2, Hostel Part 2, 28 Weeks Later, Transformers, Harry Potter 5, The Bourne Ultimatum, Rush Hour 3, Mr. Bean's Holiday, Resident Evil 3, The Eye, Saw 4 - and that's just the obvious ones on the list of what's due in the next 5 months).
Patronage will encourage risk taking because the money will already be in hand, it's a guaranteed profit no matter how outlandish the project sounds. Instead of convincing a handful of notoriously tight-fisted individuals to take a very high risk and put up very large sums of money, the creators need only convince millions of people to take the equivalent risk of a single movie ticket - something that already happens on a regular basis today.
Re:Copyright law is a farce.. (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/usa.shtml [worldsalaries.org] In all cases is more than $1000 a month. For a quick calculation let us assume the salary is $3000. From this amount of money he could get 120 DVD releases, calculating with an average $25 per DVD.
Let's take a look at a Romanian (I'm from here) guy with decent job and salary. The average monthly salary is somewhere around $300. The average price for a DVD release (which is quite old compared to the new releases in the US, because here, the new releases come after 5-6 months) is $20. Now it's easy math, the Romanian guy could buy 15 DVD releases, which aren't even the newest ones.
I know these calculations are vague, to say the least, because one doesn't spend his whole salary to buy DVDs, but also think that stuff like clothes, consumer electronics, etc. cost more than in the US. Only food is a little bit cheaper or at the same price as in the US.
Also think of that the internet has "opened the eyes" of people living in poor countries for what they "could" buy, what is available on the international market, and those people are willing to have those stuff too, but their financial status doesn't allow them.
My point is that the market isn't fair, why (and how) should a poor country's citizen pay almost the same price for a product as a rich country's citizen for the product which is not even the newest.