Legal Scholars Warn Against 10 Year Prison For Online Pirates 168
An anonymous reader writes: The UK Government wants to increase the maximum prison sentence for online copyright infringement from two years to ten. A number legal experts and activists are pushing back against the plan. One such group, The British and Irish Law, Education and Technology Association (BILETA) has concluded that changes to the current law are not needed. "legitimate means to tackle large-scale commercial scale online copyright infringement are already available and currently being used, and the suggested sentence of 10 years seems disproportionate," the group writes.
Won't do a thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pirates do not fear prison, because they know that their crime is so commonplace that their chance of being caught is very remote indeed. Why would the threat of a longer sentence change this?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
These are laws aimed at commercial pirate operations not home users.
Every time RIAA drags a home user to court they argue that it is a commercial operation. Every time they argue that the defendant has distributed the file to tens of thousands of other people yet we all know that the seed ratio averages at 1.0 for torrent users.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
but the level of evidence needed in a criminal court is higher then a civil one also you get the right to trail by jury.
Re: (Score:2)
Right to a jury varies with jurisdiction. Not sure about the UK but in Canada it only kicks in for indictable offences with the possibility of over 5 years prison time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
"These are laws aimed at commercial pirate operations not home users"
The problem is that almost all of the copyright punishments in place were also aimed at commercial pirates. (ie: well before downloading even became a thing.)
Re: (Score:2)
At what point does the money spent appeasing the MAFIAA and enforcing their laws equal the losses caused by 'piracy'?
Oh, wait. They haven't actually demonstrated any losses yet.
Depends what you mean by 'a thing'.. (Score:1)
It won't do much to stop copyright infringement but it will be just dandy for losing anyone the government doesn't like. Downloaded a movie from the pirate bay at any point in the last 10 years? A quick check on the internet surveillance database and it's bye bye to you.
United Kingdom: combining the worst parts of European-style Big Brother government and US-style corporatocracy since 1997.
Re: (Score:1)
How would anybody download a movie from The Pirate Bay?
I went there and checked. They don't have any movies you can download from that website.
Re:Won't do a thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd suggest a small amount of monetary related to the local cost of the media that was infringed (around 2.5 times the actual cost seems reasonable for non-commercial infringement) and then a small amount of community service that's tied to the duration (impractical for some software and other digital goods, but works well for most things) of the infringed content.
This way if someone ever does get in trouble, society doesn't have to bear the cost of imprisoning someone for something that's about as harmful to society as jaywalking. While we're at it, let's get formatting shifting legally codified into the law and return the copyright duration to a more reasonably limit in line with what was originally proposed.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop being reasonable.
Re:Won't do a thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
The punishment for pirate consumers should be no more than that for shoplifting, since the crimes are similar. The punishment for pirate distributors should be more.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They should be even less, as actual physical theft deprives the store of an item to sell.
Re: (Score:2)
Shoplifting is a form of theft, and theft can put you in jail for a long time.
Re: (Score:2)
So
Re: (Score:2)
Yhey are not guilty of a crime since they paid for the CD (just paid to the wrong person)
That is not true receipt of stolen property is a crime, at least when done knowingly in most jurisdictions.
This is yet another example of why we don't need more laws we just need to enforce the ones we have. The legal system needs to decide is intellectual property distinct from physical property as a matter of law or not. If the answer is no fine, we have plenty of laws governing the possession and distribution of stolen goods. I realize this article was about the UK. To speak about the US for a moment
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair to the RIAA/MPAA (I never thought I'd type those words), they typically only go after uploaders because the finding someone who is purely downloading a copyrighted work is nearly impossible. It would take a lot of time and effort and the RIAA/MPAA are all about quick and easy copyright enforcement.
I agree about the appropriate punishment, though. It should be 10 times the cost of the nearest equivalent product. So if you share a DVD rip, 10 times the cost of the DVD. If you share an MP3 of a
Re: (Score:2)
When someone sells bootleg CDs, you do not also charge the people who bought the CDs. They are not guilty of a crime since they paid for the CD (just paid to the wrong person).
If they know they're copies, and they know that copyright infringement is a crime, then they're certainly guilty. You don't charge those people because that would be inconvenient and also wouldn't stop the distributor from distributing. Why do something to which there's no point?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, jail time for a non-violent civil offense is asinine.
Such is the punitive nature of the petty bureaucrat, completely lacking in character, a weak vengeful little man that was bullied by his older brother and friends. Don't look for reason, it's not there. They are driven by greed and antipathy.
Re: (Score:2)
It's t
Re: (Score:3)
Copyright infringement is only loosely enforced because if it were strictly enforced it would bring down society and the economy.
For example, how many companies use pirated software? Even the ones that generally try to correctly licence everything will have some pirate software, e.g. using font's that they don't have a licence to use in print that were installed with some random app years ago. Maybe some employee is using a little free app, and didn't notice that the EULA forbids commercial use. Maybe they
Re: (Score:2)
Intellectual property should be abolished.
Just keep trademarks, so consumers are not deceived. That will do.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably what the rest of us mean by it: an action that results in harm to another party but that does not break any laws in or per se.
Fraud is a criminal offence; there are criminal laws against it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That death sentence is for having or sharing media that wasn't issued by the government. Not quite the same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
The death penalty is for having or sharing media that the government doesn't want to be shared.
Seeing how the media companies buy law, it is quite the same thing. And seeing how you can get 10 years for this, and get much less for murder, it seems very disproportionate.
Re: (Score:2)
Quoth the OP,
North Korea has a death sentence and yet people still keep pirating.
(Emphasis added.)
Pirating is sharing, but not all sharing is pirating.
In the West, simply sharing is not (for the most part) enough to get you a prison sentence, although pirating may be. In North Korea, simply sharing may get you sent to Yodok or up in front of a firing squad, and in this it matters not a whit whether what you shared happens to have been pirated. Or not.
Re: (Score:2)
If the idea is that the threat of longer prison sentences would discourage pirates, then one must assume pirates will switch to theft and fraud at some point.
"disproportionate" is the right word. This is simply a government kowtowing to it's corporate overlords.
Re: (Score:1)
In that case, we need a penalty worse than death... Fortunately, such a thing exists... Being forced to pirate "music" from Justin Bieber!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Mod parent up; even the death penalty wouldn't stop it, it's so commonplace that once half the population is in jail; a military coup would ensue.
The point isn't to put everyone in jail, the point is to put anyone in jail.
Turn everyone into criminals and you legally put anyone of them in jail when they are inconvenient for whatever reason.
Re:Won't do a thing. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Yeah, yeah. "Objectivist", blah blah blah.
For being so wrong she is proving to have been remarkably prescient.
Strat
Re: (Score:1)
For being so wrong she is proving to have been remarkably prescient.
That's the kindest way I've ever heard anyone say "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, she gets a lot of things right. She brings with her a lot of valid observations from her time in a totalitarian state, and she sees how many of them are applied in her new home country. There is a lot of commentary she gets right.
Where she goes wrong is in assuming this means that only selfish people should lead the world and then everything will be all right. In fact, it is amazing that she misses that observation from the totalitarian state. Her perception was selective indeed.
As was her writing on th
Re: (Score:2)
She imagined how they were applied in her new home country that she never understood - comparing Twentieth Century Fox to Stalinist Russia FFS!
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, she gets a lot of things right. She brings with her a lot of valid observations from her time in a totalitarian state, and she sees how many of them are applied in her new home country. There is a lot of commentary she gets right.
Where she goes wrong is in assuming this means that only selfish people should lead the world and then everything will be all right. In fact, it is amazing that she misses that observation from the totalitarian state. Her perception was selective indeed.
As was her writing on that point; it's hard to find more selfish people than the ones she so strongly despise in her stories. They just happen to not be written as heroes, and therefore their selfishness is bad, while that of the heroes is good. Simply because her stories make it so.
Ow! Man that whooshing sound (as your observation passed over the heads of the Rand fanboys here) was so loud it hurt my ears. Well said, sir.
Re: (Score:2)
If that's what you took away from Atlas Shrugged then you missed the point or simply refuse to acknowledge it for ideological/political reasons.
Where she goes wrong is in assuming this means that only selfish people should lead the world and then everything will be all right.
Wanting to not have the fruits of your labor stripped away and redistributed to those who have not worked for it (but who would otherwise be capable) is NOT "selfish". It's the story of the ant & grasshopper, only these grasshoppers come armed and take from the hard-working ants at the point of a gun.
As was her writing on that point; it's hard to find more selfish people than the ones she so strongly despise in her stories. They just happen to not be written as heroes, and therefore their selfishness is bad, while that of the heroes is good. Simply because her stories make it so.
The villains in Atlas Shrugged seek power & control by rob
Re: (Score:2)
Neither. I get the point, it's just so horribly made it doesn't follow at all from the events in her books.
The point may seem horribly made to those to whom the concept is foreign and antithetical to their way of thinking, yes.
And it seems you conveniently missed the title of one of her stories. "The virtue of selfishness".
I quoted Atlas Shrugged, and specifically for the authoritarian point made. You're welcome to start another thread where Rand's other works could be discussed in relation to other concepts like capitalism vs collectivism. I preferred to stay on-topic.
Strat
Re: (Score:3)
That was an awesome quote from Ayn Rand.
But one good quote out of so much dreck is not a redemption of an elitist hack. The smart people and engineers aren't being burdened by the dumb and the poor -- they are being exploited by the owner class.
And Atlas Shrugged would have been better if Rand had had raining fetuses. Keep with a good shtick.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Except I don't really think that's the game. In the case of copyright, they're just politicians trying to please their corporate overlords. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Now it's true that enforcement tends to be abused in the manner she describes, but that doesn't mean it was the intent.
Re: (Score:1)
You kid, but you are already there. Papers please.
Hmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Manslaughter... copyright infringement... they should both get about the same sentences, right? Nothing weird about that at all, is there? ~
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Manslaughter... copyright infringement... they should both get about the same sentences, right? Nothing weird about that at all, is there? ~
Well these are conservatives we are talking about here and they do love draconian justice. Plus, we all know what massive success the Americans have had in their war on drugs with their longstanding policy of sentencing people to multi decade mandatory minimum sentences whenever they are caught with a few too many grams of pot.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you're painting with a broad brush. I think conservatives do, generally, see obeying the laws as a moral virtue, and disobeying laws for selfish purposes, or other anti-social acts in general, as a moral failing worth of punishment. I think there's a general feeling that we should (a) have a set of laws we agree to live by, and (b) have to obey them except in extraordinary situations.
But many conservatives,
Re: (Score:2)
You fail to respond to his point. When you put people in jail for 10 years for two completely different crimes, unintentionally killing someone (manslaughter) and copying music for money you've got a problem. This is the same problem the US has experienced with the drug laws where you'll serve more time in jail for a drug charge than you will for rape or murder.
The problem is that conservatives view more punishment as a good thing without regard to sanity. Killing someone and copyright violations aren't eve
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're mistaken on both points above. I'm stating that in my experience, a large plurality of conservatives I know do not carte blanch see more punishment as better.
But they do see a different set of behaviors as worthy of punishment than do many liberals, which may explain part of that perception by liberals. And if your point is that the difference in what is wo
Re: (Score:2)
Try Egypt, where it's just become a criminal offence to report news that doesn't agree with the government's version of events [bbc.com].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, of course it sounds weird when you say it like that, but remember we're talking about piracy here. Other cases of piracy have received higher sentences, sometimes even death, see Piracy off the coast of Somalia [wikipedia.org]. When you think about it that way, the proposed sentences make a lot more sense.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
America tried long prison sentences (Score:5, Interesting)
Fear of longer prison sentences does not in any way affect the decision to commit a crime.
With regards to online piracy, the people involved generally do not consider it a crime and so do not consider the legal ramifications. It's kind of like if you went to North Korea, you won't be less inclined to give out a bible if they tell you it's 10 years than if they say 1 year in jail.
Re: (Score:1)
The sentences weren't long enough. Give every crime a 100 year minimum sentence, and there will be no more crime. It's so logical.
Re: America tried long prison sentences (Score:5, Informative)
Please search for another factor, crime rate in North America fell faster in Quebec than anywhere else and they have the laxisest penalty for crimes, however they used to be a leader in rehabilitation....
Re: (Score:1)
Nobody's going to prison if they can't catch you.
Right now, everyone is completely retarded and sharing and getting fucked over clearnet.
But with anonymous networks, nobody is going to catch you.
The solution to the copyright/patent mess is to keep on sharing
till their business model is completely destroyed.
Start by ripping and sharing all the physical media you own.
And do it over anonymous overlay networks such as I2P and Phantom.
That way you can share 24x7x365 without fear of the MAFIAA.
No one needs to fee
Re: (Score:1)
x264, x265
libav
aria2c
proxychains
youtube-dl
rsync
might come in handy.
And never ever publish if you have to use ddrescue or disks with any kind of read error. they can be watermarks, they used to do that, don't know if they still do.
Re: America tried long prison sentences (Score:3, Insightful)
Abortion rights are generally considered to have lowered crime rates. When fewer unwanted children were born, twenty years down the line fewer crimes happened. This is covered extensively in Freakonomics.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not surprised. Killing someone does tend to make them less likely to commit a crime.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: America tried long prison sentences (Score:4, Informative)
The cause was pointed out, it is unleaded fuel. www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-caused-americas-violent-crime-epidemic/
Re:America tried long prison sentences (Score:4, Informative)
Um sorry, crime rates have gone down in the US. Nobody has pinpointed exactly why.
Lead in fuel was a significant part of the story.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi... [bbc.com]
Re: (Score:2)
There's an interesting, fairly even-handed look at that hypothesis at RationalWiki [rationalwiki.org]. As with many things in social science, it's tricky to really prove this kind of macro-scale hypothesis with airtight evidence, but there is some suggestive evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
Few want to look too closely at that. It would imply that some portion of people in prison are, in fact, victims of a corporate entity and that the same entity's actions are the root cause of many crime victim's troubles. It would also indicate that a corporate entity is properly on the hook for many billions in environmental remediation.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually, they've pretty conclusively pinpointed it to lead abatement programs.
Kids that inhale/ingest dust with lead in it (usually from old paint) turn out stupider and more violent. Period. The massive fall-off in crime in the mid 1990's was mostly due to making lead-based paint illegal for most uses in the 1970's.
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when can you get ten years *prison* for a fucking civil issue?
Re: (Score:2)
Since when can you get ten years *prison* for a fucking civil issue?
Although copyright infringement is generally a civil matter, large scale intentional copyright infringement for financial gain has been a crime [wikipedia.org] for over a century.
Re: (Score:2)
All they need to do is declare that "making X available to download potentially by the entire Internet" equals "large scale copyright infringement" and "saved some money pirating music instead of buying" equals "for financial gain." Bam! All online pirating is criminal piracy.
Since forever? (Score:2)
The people pushing for these prosecutions have gotten around the civil case restrictions since day one. Accessing content that a person claims is protected can (and often does) result in charges for illegal wiretapping, criminal hacking, and and in the US about a half a dozen other federal charges. If you want an example, look at what Aaron Schwartz was getting charged with for copying books. His case would be a bit more than average since he installed a laptop in a library to do this, but not that far o
Criminalizing what isn't criminal (Score:1)
TEN years imprisonment for personal copyright infringement, what is actually a civil tort, when other actual crimes so often result in sentences less than that? What a surprise that corporations want to criminalize anything that might reduce their already insane profits, and bribe lawmakers to do their bidding for them and leave their hands unbloodied. In a more honest transparent world they'd just hire mercenary squads to go murder or maim people who dare question their perpetual copyrights. Is this a c
Re: (Score:2)
Well the jokes on them where there taxes go up as the state will have to pay the costs of jail / court / prison for all of the people who are being changed with copyright infringement.
Re: (Score:2)
What if they are privately run prisons? Those are very profitable and all the rage now.
Re: (Score:2)
TEN years imprisonment for personal copyright infringement, what is actually a civil tort, when other actual crimes so often result in sentences less than that?
Well, no. Ten years prison for the worst possible cases of commercial and criminal copyright infringement. Let's say someone decides to start selling the complete Pink Floyd catalog without having any license to do so, and makes $20 million over the next years. To you think ten years in jail is too much for that? Absolutely not.
Instead of getting all excited about the headlines, you should read the actual text of the law and figure out what the suggested punishment for "personal copyright infringement" (
Re: (Score:2)
You didn't read it either, did you?
Re: (Score:2)
That's quite a non sequitur. Laptops are physical, tangible, personal property. Digital "content", whatever its form, is immaterial, intangible, and the "crime" we're talking about here is not theft: the alleged owner(s) of the content are never at any time deprived of their use of it, nor are any of the other people "licensed" to use it deprived of that usage. That "denial of usage" is an essential characteristic of any action that might be described as theft. There is no theft taking place in these in
Re: (Score:2)
I can add that the closest historical parallel to what is not being called piracy might be land squatting. It's not a perfect analog, but the best that comes to mind.
Obviously (Score:2)
That's because the legal scholars are all downloading episodes of Mr Robot and Game of Thrones from Kickass Torrents.
Re:Obviously (Score:4, Insightful)
That and the fact that they realize that the suggested punishment is too much. Keep in mind, they're British, when they say
that's about the same as someone in the US screaming 10 years is fucking insane!!!
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
A 10 year prison sentence is a $500K tax on society for the cost of incarceration then hundreds of thousands of dollars more in public assistance after the infringer gets out of jail and can't find a job to support himself.
We'd be better off forcing the public to write nimbius a fucking check for his Royce.
Let's get more meta. Let's discuss the impossible logistics of enforcing control over an intangible, nonconscious concept, anywhere in the universe forever. I'm
Really? (Score:1)
The real problem here is that there is actually a 2 year precedent. We shouldn't be arguing if this mandatory sentence shouldn't be changed (i.e be higher) but be lowered.
Corporate Bully-ism (Score:1)
"Think of the Children!"
"Corporations are children too!"
Re: (Score:1)
If that's the case, then CEOs are paedophiles...
typical (Score:3)
So, essentially, ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's now cheaper, considering the jail time, to kick some RIAA goon's teeth in than to download one of their songs?
There are certain things you MIGHT want to ponder before you ask for a change of laws, dear copyright lawyers...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You might run into a copyright issue, with things like "the right to your own picture" and all that. I wouldn't really take that risk. Just kick his teeth in off cam, much safer.
A 10 year prison sentence is a tax on society (Score:5, Insightful)
A 10 year prison sentence is a $500K tax on society for the cost of incarceration then hundreds of thousands of dollars more in public assistance after the infringer gets out of jail and can't find a job to support himself.
Large scale commercial piracy? (Score:2)
Gona have to update their DVD warning... (Score:3)
You wouldn’t steal a car
You wouldn’t steal a handbag
You wouldn’t steal a television
You wouldn’t steal a movie
Downloading pirated films is stealing, stealing is against the law, PIRACY. IT’S A CRIME
To bring these inline with the new jail term:
You wouldn’t knife a person
You wouldn’t rape a child
You wouldn’t blow up a school bus
You wouldn’t steal a movie
Downloading pirated films is murder, murder is against the law, PIRACY. IT’S A CRIME
Torrentfreak is clearly lying. (Score:2)
What we have here is actually a consultation. If you have anything to say about it, you are free to write to the UK government. If you manage to write down your thoughts in a coherent manner, responding to the question asked and not to what you image is asked, and to argue your case, chances are that your opinion will
Re: (Score:1)
While I largely agree with your comments, I think there is some possible merit in region restrictions, in so far as they are used for price fixing that favours poorer regions. While a free market makes economic sense for rivalrous goods, it doesn't make sense for non-rivalrous goods.
According to Wikipedia, "over 50% of the world population lives on
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it PROVES that the market has failed. Clearly, they can profitably sell media to those poorer regions for a small fraction of the price they demand from the richer regions. Put another way, the marginal cost of production is small enough to sell profitably in poorer regions for a fraction of the region 1 price.
If the market is functional, it will force the price to approach that marginal cost of production everywhere. Clearly, it hasn't done that.
A free market would mean manufacturers would be fre
Re: (Score:2)
It would encourage them to initially price for the richer market, but as sales began to slump, they would be strongly encouraged to lower prices until finally, it was priced suitably for the poorest region. Any other policy would be leaving money on the table. Instead, with region restrictions, they effectively set a floor price in each region (and so further damage an already broken market).
They would be the first to complain if we 'region coded' labor.
Re: (Score:2)
So poorer people might end up waiting a while, which seems a bit unfair.
The other regions already do wait 6 months to a year. Not just for DVDs, but for release in theaters.
I wonder about other works besides entertainment though. Imagine the same system for patents: Price equalising patented medicines would essentially leave poorer people to die. (Actually, I'm not sure this hasn't been the case already.)
Sadly, that is a daily reality. It is somewhat balanced by other countries (India for example) granting their pharmaceutical manufacturers permission to violate some patents on essential medications.
Of course, there are plenty of not so rich people here in the U.S. that go without medication as well. To the point that statistically, they will die years sooner than wealthier people. Growing numbers are forced
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, I mean price gouging, except that, in practice, I don't think it would mean that those in richer regions would pay higher prices than they otherwise would. I'll illustrate this with a thought experiment (I haven't got real numbers, but it's my understanding that the income gap between richer and poorer c
Re: (Score:2)
We already do pay more, and have from the beginning.
Re: (Score:2)
But sales of media tend to ramp down over time. At some point, if they can't region code, it becomes more profitable to further lower the price in the richer regions in order to get many more sales elsewhere.
Similarly, the "Disney Vault" is a good argument to put a publish or perish clause in copyright law.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is why the MPAA's best weapon against piracy is Netflix. If the MPAA and other content owners allowed Netflix to put EVERYTHING on their systems, how many people would pirate versus watching via Netflix? And yet the content owners treat Netflix like it is an enemy to be shunned and starved of content. They've got a great weapon against piracy, but they're too afra