P2P Operators Plead Guilty 554
Bootsy Collins writes "In the first such criminal convictions in the U.S., two peer-to-peer hub operators have
pled guilty
to conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement. The two men were subjects of raids last August after Department of Justice investigators downloaded content valued at US$25,000 retail from their servers, the Movie Room and Acheron's Alley. They face sentences of up to five years in prison, and up to US$250,000 in fines, in addition to the possibility of being forced to pay restitution to copyright holders.
Conspiracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just goes to show you... (Score:3, Insightful)
Demand, where where is the (legeal) supply? (Score:5, Insightful)
P2P? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conspiracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just goes to show you... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm... (Score:1, Insightful)
It doesn't make any sense at all.
Conspiracy to commit copyright infringment? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously though, I can understand that turning a blind eye to something is not good, but if you're running a hub, then surely you're just negligent, not malicious?
Re:Just goes to show you... (Score:3, Insightful)
At what point is disobedience justified? - I am tempted to argue that the suppression of the now-possible global multimedia library which p2p users are trying to provide is a step too far.
Copyright has not always existed, and it may now have outlived its value to humanity as a whole.
I feel so safe now... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just goes to show you... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like the law, tough-titties. Don't think that you can get away with changing it unless you have more money than those who support it.
Re:Just goes to show you... (Score:2, Insightful)
By god you are one smug asshole! Don't they teach Civil Disobedience in school these days? I take it you're not a citizen of the US?
You just came out against the entire Civil Rights movement, Henry David Thereaux, and most of the Founding Fathers of the US of A.
You think the suffragettes should not have gone to jail to get sufferage? ... the list is fukking endless - these events are taking place in the United States, not the USSR. It is not only traditional to fight unjust laws by breaking them, it's widely accepted as a form of protest.
I'm guessing you are a citizen of some Islamic theocracy? Or perhaps a communist or fascist totalitarian state? Many dictators would have agreed with you quickly and completely, but - as I believe I mentioned - this is the US you're talking about, an the Regime is only trying to lock it down, they haven't actually succeeded in suppressing all dissent just yet...
Re:Conspiracy? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Conspiracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Its a plea. Want to understand the law, get a law degree or be a lawmaker. Although, neither really can understand the often contradictory aspects of the law, but those people are the only ones with the authority to do so.
Also, from the FA, its worth mentioning:
Both men pleaded guilty to acting for commercial advantage or private financial gain
This is piracy or bootleging or whatever you want to call it. This is not typical p2p activity because there was commercial gain from it.
250,000 songs = 100GB? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Conspiracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:is that legal? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's also why its now open season on BitTorrent users. All they have to do is open a
And I am so sick of hearing "its not stealing". When you buy CDs you're buying the right to listen to a copy of the music in digital form. When you download, you're getting the copy of the music in digital form without paying for the right to listen to it. So please, from now on, be sure to use BitTorrent for all your future downloads. It should "thin out the herd" much more quickly. I'm just waiting to hear from Comcast for having so many torrents open only to be able to explain to them that they're all legal. I guess I won't hear from them until they get a notice about me.
Re:From the Croft (Score:1, Insightful)
I've got a problem with copyright law that says I can't use my legally purchased material on the device of my choosing. If they want to jail people who feel that it's okay to download everything without the copyright holder ever seeing a penny, that's cool with me.
Civil Disobedience? Pul-leeze! (Score:3, Insightful)
A couple of guys hiding behind the (assumed) anonymity of the Internet, breaking the law for their own personal gain doesn't quite pass the civil disobedience litmus test.
Re:Newspeak (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with you and the Supreme Court. Copyright infringement itself is not stealing.
However, the laws also allow for retribution, which generally means you turn over any profits to the copyright holder, and then you can end up paying some hefty fines, depending on how much damage you cause.
And we all used to think getting an F in English class for plagiarizing (a form of copyright infringement) on a term paper was harsh...
Re:is that legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're both illegal; downloading is a form of reproduction, and reproduction is infringement per 17 USC 501, 106(1). Distribution is another kind of infringement per 106(3). This is not news: check out the Napster case (holding that uploaders and downloaders were each direct infringers), or the disturbing but well written Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry case in D. Utah.
How many "downloaders" have they gone after? How many uploaders/sharers?
That's a tactical decision; taking out uploaders puts pressure on downloaders who now have fewer opportunities to download. This is why they went after the networks before the users. It's just a matter of going after the head of the snake.
And I am so sick of hearing "its not stealing".
Maybe so, but it's not stealing. It's illegal, it's just not stealing. Is that so weird? Arson isn't stealing but it deprives the victim of something. Tresspassing isn't stealing, but it's not legal (and much more closely analagous to copyright infringement).
When you buy CDs you're buying the right to listen to a copy of the music in digital form.
That's not at all true. When you buy a CD, you buy the CD as a piece of personal property. You can do anything at all with it. The law may independently limit your freedom with it (e.g. you own your car but can't go 100mph in a school zone) but you still own it.
This is easily illustrated: if you buy a CD, and the work at some point enters the public domain, the scope of what you can lawfully do with it enlarges significantly, probably contrary to the desire of the former copyright holder. If you merely bought a right to listen, that wouldn't enlarge later.
Are you willing to listen to reason, or need I start pulling quotes from the courts that support my point.
Re:Newspeak (Score:3, Insightful)
"The theft of intellectual property victimizes...the American people, who shoulder the burden of increased costs for goods and services."
So shall we assume that drug patents, which definitely cause the American people to shoulder the burden of increased costs, are the next target of the Justice Department? Or how about the cost to the American public of being deprived of free access to 50-year-old ideas and expressions?
Re:Conspiracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
So then why is the charge only for conspiracy, and not for the actual crime which has already been committed?
Maybe because they were sharing files out, which is conspiracy because they were helping other people break the law. This might not be conspiracy in the sense most of us think of, but sometimes the police can get someone on charges like this even though they cannot prove a more serious offense. For example, I know someone who had in his possession a large (car trunk full) amount of marijuana. Rather than get him for possession, they got him for conspiracy. He was carrying it for someone else, someone who was going to distribute and sell it. The police knew he was a small fish, and were hoping for a bite. In this case, conspiracy to sell that much marijuana was a more serious offense than mere possession. In the end the police couldn't prove much, so this man went to jail for about 2 years.
I could see the same idea applying with copyrights. Possessing a few gigabytes of unauthorized copyrighted material is one thing, but conspiring to distribute multiple copies of that data could be a more serious charge. What is worse from a legal standpoint: possessing $1,000 worth of unauthorized copyrighted material, or distributing it such that the total value of all the copies is $50,000? Sure, us Slashdotters may think that argument is bullshit, but the legal system does not. That is where conspiracy comes in: maybe he did not make a bunch of copies, but he intended to do so with the help of other people (downloaders). The fact that the Justice Department was able to download that much illegal content is just another nail in the coffin.
Re:Demand, where where is the (legeal) supply? (Score:5, Insightful)
-
Quick economics lesson : Demand is a function of price. There is a lot of demand, because the illegal copies are FREE.
That's not necessarily true. If it was then iTunes store wouldn't sell a single track, but they do. People wouldn't come into stores looking for singles of songs they like, but they do.The demand is there for digital music downloads in the format people want, free of DRM crap and at a reasonable price. I suspect you could sell tons and tons of music at around 50 cents a track in Mp3 format. Hell the RIAA companies could still sell tons of CD singles but they've killed off that market trying to force people to buy full albums.
Besides, books are available for free, you can check them out of the library and read them and not pay a cent. You do have to return them in time, but that's a small issue in exchange for free books. Why would anyone buy a book when they can read it for free? People do it every day though.
Demand's not a function of price, price is a function of demand. If supply is low and demand is high, price rises. If supply is high and demand is low, price drops. That's the point the RIAA & MPAA are missing. With digital music/movies supply is infinite, so normal economics rules indicate that price should drop. Instead they want to charge as much as, or more, than it costs to buy a better quality physical copy. No wonder they're doing so poorly, they haven't got a clue how to handle the digital market, not technically or economically.
Re:P2P? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm no fan of John Ashcroft, but the job of the Attorney General of the United States is not to fight terrorism. The AG is the chief law enforcement officer and his office has decided to aggressively pursue copyright violators. I agree with you that this should certainly not be the top priority but just because it appears on Slashdot does not mean it is the only thing happening.
Er, felony? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe I don't understand what the word "felony" means or applies to. My understanding is that a felony charge is given for causing life-threatening or altering harm to another person.
What kind of things get classified as felonies? Is grand theft auto a felony? How about breaking and entering? I don't think inciting a riot is, or in many cases even something like attacking another person (non-lethally). Drunk driving isn't a felonous charge unless you -really- fuck up.
This isn't a violent crime, has not even the slimmest chance of harming someone's livelyhood, and about as harmless as some guy on the street in Mexico selling "Timex" watches on the street for $15. Maybe less so.
It just seems incredibly draconian and fascist to have laws that protect corporations to the utmost while punishing the violators with a life-destroying sentence. Copyright law is a fucking civil issue. The parties involved should have the option to take them to a civil court, and nothing more. Now, if these people hacked into systems to store or acquire their warez, sure, prosecute them federally. But this is just rediculous.
I can see it now. School cops will start looking for CDs and removeable hard disks when they search through students' lockers now, and burned CDs will first be an automatic 2-week expulsion, followed up by a $20,000 fine the second time and 6 months imprisonment at the county jail. Then, it's pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Re:...value... (Score:3, Insightful)
So he's a student. He downloads a copy of $5000 AutoCAD instead of... what? Buying $5000 AutoCAD?
And if he passes the exam from AutoCAD because he had one at home, and could train it outside of the classroom hours, he may start a company and purchase 30 licenses (he has to, can't run a company on a pirated product). If he fails the exam, because he wanted to obey the law and didn't get the pirate copy, he will never look at AutoCAD again and just get a job of a janitor.
What deal is better to the software authors?
Max 5 Years?! (Score:5, Insightful)
My Corrections professors told the class about somebody who got 1-2 years for date rape. Under what system of morality is copyright infringement worse than drugging somebody and raping them?
You are absolutely right re: value (Score:3, Insightful)
When you buy a CD or piece of software, you get the support... the nice packaging... the printed manuals... the fancy CD... the liner notes... The legal serial number.
When you download media, you only get the media itself, and usually a much crappier version of it (if it's video) or a mildly crappier version of it (if it's sound) or a version you are forced to read on a screen (if it's a PDF of a book).
Not to mention that there is no proof that every download is a lost purchase... I'm telling you, most of these people are merely into collecting and hardly have time to "consume" the media or software.
Mod parent up!
I got better than lobbiests! (Score:3, Insightful)
You are wrong. I have something more powerful than all the money a company can throw at lobbiests: an informed vote. Money works in politics because people can be bought with pretty adds on TV. If you become an informed voter to whom ads do not matter you scare all polititions because you have the power to vote them out, and they cannot influence you easily.
In most elections the difference between the winner and looser is only a few thousand votes. IF you work at it next time around you can change that many people's vote without spending a penny!
Become an informed voter and get your friends to become informed. (Or if they won't become informed, tell them to stay home rather than vote for the guy who looks better on TV!)
Re:Just goes to show you... (Score:1, Insightful)
They did what they had to do to effect change
Try:
They did what they had to do to affect change.
Please note that -- because I don't mean to act petty with you -- this post aims to underscore a much more important point. You think that P2P file sharing is all about "download[ing] Britney". It's not. That's why you don't see any connection between Rosa Parks protecting her personal freedoms, and the freedoms that those willing to go to jail for P2P are trying to protect. That's fine -- we've already established that you don't have a high school education. So I'll explain it to you simply.
We fight this in court to:
- Protect our freedoms
- Protect the free dissemination of information
- Fight the increasingly ridiculous practices of the MPAA/RIAA
- Protect our beliefs that the internet should remain a fertile ground for free and open behavior.
- This list goes on forever the more you think about it. Freedom of information is probably the most important belief Slashdot readers hold.
P2P isn't about ripping off corporations. That's a use (obviously), but to think of it in terms that shallow shows that your brain can only comprehend this issue as well as the RIAA, MPAA, a politician, a CEO of a large software company, etc. Grow up and learn something before accusing others of being uneducated.
Greed (Score:1, Insightful)
What about the big entertainment companies' "victimizing" the American people by charging $30 for something that costs $1 to produce? What about the cost of entry for talented individuals into the world of professional entertainment being so enormous that it banks on people being brainwashed into longing for human-manufactured super-star gods (rather than actual talent or substance of real everyday people)?
I think these are more direct causes of the "cost burden" that mainstream entertainment causes the American people to "shoulder." The people who aren't aware yet of entertainment alternatives such as independent film or local music are not simply getting stuff for free because they can. They are getting the stuff because it isn't, and has never been, available for a fair price. But they are so hooked on mainstream entertainment, like it's crack, that they can't resist.
Re:Just goes to show you... (Score:3, Insightful)