BitTorrent User Guilty Of Piracy 470
DIY News writes "A Hong Kong man has been convicted of movie internet piracy in what is believed to be the first case involving BitTorrent file-sharing software. The man was found guilty of copyright infringement for distributing three Hollywood blockbusters using BitTorrent."
Next Gen p2p (Score:5, Informative)
http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
More reports on this (Score:5, Informative)
Some notes from the trial (Score:5, Informative)
Copyright-infringing copies of three films - Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality -- were found on the defendant's computer [ucla.edu] during a customs raid on his home on January 12. Photo images of the labels of the compact discs were also found on the computer. A digital camera consistent with the make and model used to take the photos was found at the defendant's home, government prosecutor Hayson Tse Ka-sze told the court.
I wish people would stop using this analogy (Score:5, Informative)
How many times must this get corrected on /. before people stop using this false analogy? If you take a kid's candy, you have the candy and he does not. On the other hand, if you share a movie over the Net, you still have the movie, and so does the other guy. This is not stealing, it's copyright infringement.
Re:I wish people would stop using this analogy (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Guilty by knowledge? (Score:3, Informative)
Blockbusters (Score:4, Informative)
Hollywood Blockbusters
A "Blockbuster" is a movie that grosses $100 Million or more.
Red Planet brought in $33 Million worldwide, nowhere near a blockbuster as it is defined.
But then I guess anything that comes out of hollywood (or even before it comes out) is considered a blockbuster these days, regardless of how bad it is. Hooray for marketing.
Re:Next Gen p2p (Score:4, Informative)
All actions like these do is force development of next gen p2p like Mute Filesharing.
MUTE looks even worse than BitTorrent. If you participate in the network, even if you personally never download anything illegally, copyrighted material may be flowing through your connection. I'd worry about being held liable for copyright infringement just by knowingly and willingly allowing my connection to be used in this way.
Re:I wish people would stop using this analogy (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicprofi
"In calculating economic profit, opportunity costs are deducted from revenues earned. Opportunity costs are the alternative returns foregone by using the chosen inputs. As a result, you can have a significant accounting profit with little to no economic profit."
Having been to China... (Score:4, Informative)
Pirated copies of all kinds of things are sold at shops out in the open for all to see. They don't even try to hide it.
At one place I thought was like a flee market, they were selling GBA cartridges for about $5 US (before haggling). The cartridges looked legit at first. I just assumed they were used, then I saw a 6 games in one cartridge. Not a game like the Atari collection or something like that but like 6 Super Mario games in one including a recently released title.
Another place I went to was in a strip mall like shop. It looked like a retail buy/sell/trade place you might find in the US. Maybe like a mini version of an EB games store. The clerk behaved just like someone working at EB might act. Not pushy, but really zealous about gaming. I didn't even know it was a store for pirated stuff, until the issue of price came up. A few games were priced higher than the others only because it required a different type of DVD. Between that and the prices, I finally realized what they were selling.
The point of all this? I wonder if most Chinese have even given piracy moral consideration.
For a long time, I've been very careful about piracy and stuff. I got my own convinctions about it, and I try hard to hold true to them. I've explained this to my wife, who is from China, over and over again. Yet she continually puts me in compromising situations, and has to be reminded why I wont go along with it. Outside of my influence, I don't think she has any considerations toward piracy whatsoever.
strange fixation on transfer protocol name (Score:5, Informative)
Just because it's fast doesn't make it illegal! Every time a dumb headline like this is posted the tech crowd shoots itself in the foot - It's like saying "Porsche driver guilty of manslaughter", these two things may have something to do with each other, but expressing it this way makes it appear as if they are causally related - which they are not.
It's not that this specific transfer protocol enables copyright infringement right out of the box or anything....
No, he was found guilty of copyright infringement. (Score:3, Informative)
If you're going to make legal analysis, at least try to use the correct terms. It's headlines like these that confuse the public into believing that "movie internet piracy [gnu.org]" is something one can be convicted of.
Re:I wish people would stop using this analogy (Score:2, Informative)
Similar news in Sweden (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Next Gen p2p (Score:3, Informative)
Now they're going to try to take that old site post by Bram Cohen (which was a satire of the cypherpunk manifesto), and try to find a way to 'prove' that he once endorsed piracy. If they can manage to pull that off, we're all in for a world of hurt.
Re:Next Gen p2p (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think my home computer can be granted that status.
1) They are not granted common carrier status, it is exceptions in copyright law, paragraph 512.
2) If you set up a router/cache server in your LAN, you are already using two of the exceptions, a) and b) which are for routing and caching respectively. They are very easy to get and may apply to anonymous networks.
3) Exceptions c) and d) are used for hosting and information location (think homepage and google). They are much harder to get, then again you don't need those.
DANGER DANGER DANGER (Score:2, Informative)
Beware.
Re:Next Gen p2p (Score:3, Informative)