NinjaVideo.net Founder Gets 14 Months

angry tapir writes "A Virginia judge has sentenced Matthew David Howard Smith, a founder of the NinjaVideo.net website, to 14 months in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday. Smith was indicted along with four others late last year. The DOJ charged that they illegally provided copyright-protected movies and TV programs for download from the NinjaVideo.net website. The site operated from February 2008 until authorities shut it down in June 2010."

Re:More Forced Labor

[Ihmhi]

We possess the means to liberate ourselves. All that is left is to decide which ones we use. The court? The public square? Voting? The rifle?

My tax money supporting the film industry

[BlueCoder]

I am upset that my taxes go to supporting the film industry's copyright policing like this.

Keeping a person in jail for a year costs between 25-50K not including court costs.

That's money that can be used for more worthwhile things. What it's being spent on will not result in any changed behavior or profits for the entertainment industry. It only drives things more underground and makes people become more sophisticated. The only people making money from this are the lawyers collecting paychecks and not producing anything of worth for society.

It's also exposes all the corrupt politicians and the justice system. While they have always been corrupt I would have been happier to live in ignorance than to have it exposed out in the open like this.

Copyright police? Censorship? The original politicians that started this country are turning over in their graves. This country was started as a backlash to self serving corruption like this.

Re:My tax money supporting the film industry

[bky1701]

The founders were not saints. Most were tax evaders or smugglers angry about the British crackdowns on their activities. Almost all owned slaves. Many were womanizers. Once in office, they pretty much all abused power; the Alien and Sedition Acts were possibly worse than their modern counterparts, especially compared to what was actually possible in the day. My point is, they might have been perfectly fine with a lot of what is going on today. Indeed, they'd likely be more concerned about the Federal Reserve than with the rampant corruption and rights violations.

Re:Meanwhile...

[the eric conspiracy]

Incorrect.

From Politifact

"The highest-profile convictions we found were from Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, which was a mortgage lending firm based not on Wall Street, but in Ocala, Fla. Its former chairman, Lee B. Farkas, was convicted of directing nearly $3 billion in fraud that put thousands out of work and contributed to the collapse of Colonial Bank. The collapse was the sixth-largest bank collapse in U.S. history. A judge sentenced Farkas to 30 years in prison on June 30, 2011. Several other executives associated with the firm pleaded guilty in related cases. "

"Authorities"?

[jginspace]

The site operated from February 2008 until authorities shut it down in June 2010.

Ninjavideo.net [ninjavideo.net] was among the first group [ice.gov] of sites seized by ICE [ice.gov] and their "authority" is questionable.

Interestingly, ICE have not placed a redirect to their Youtube video yet on any of the Ninja* sites (see TVshack.cc [tvshack.cc] for an example) so presumably the decision to steal/confiscate the site is still being contested by Matthew David Howard Smith or an associate.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

So a thieve is someone who buy's a dvd and share's it with a friend? or someone who watches a tv series (free ota cbs grey's antomy for example), records it and share's it with a friend? or uses tivo to record 1000's of shows and share them with some one who responds in kind in life and shares them to another friend and on and on? Would you consider a close relative a thieve because they were on a party, popped their cell to record a baby laughing and there was some copyrigthed music on the background? Would you put in jail someone who recorded your bbq and posted it online? recorded a theater movie with a shitty quality cellphone and posted it online for people whom would'nt ever go to the movies to watch it? ('cause no one who actually goes to the movies would watch that kind of s#!t)? WTF is wrong with you? .. if you were an intelligent human beeing, you'd consider asking the copyright holders to make the actual movies,music,images,tv series, etc.. available online for the same fee they charge at a timely manner which would definitely avoid all these "pirate sites" who only exist because the "holders" wont release for whicherver stupid reason they think is right what people want to see. Remember the prohibition? the only reason ppl kept "pirating" alcohol is because it was nowehere to be found.. once the prohibition stopped .. only very few kept "pirating" alcohol, the rest of the people went back to paying/buying their alcohol ... yeah.. i'm sure your (great)grandpa should ROT IN JAIL for drinking during the prohibition .. 'cause let me tell you..he did! .. so yes.. ever borrowed a book? watched a DVD on a friend's house? listened to someone elses ipod? ROOOOT IN JAAAAILLL TOO!!!!

Re:meanwhile:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a graph [economist.com] that explains it for you.

At left, we see that as people at the bottom of the income spectrum care more about an issue, the probability of action on that issue scarcely budges. At right we see that policy responds a little more to median preferences. But what's clear in both is that the rich are much more successful at getting their issues on the docket.

So no, money alone does buy you your interests. There will obviously be counter-examples. But the policy decisions will largely prevail in your favour unless there is a large countervailing public opinion (as there was with all the examples you've provided). Basically, unless a large portion of the public decides it's an issue, the decision will go in favour of the wealthy.

Money in politics is the single biggest corrupting factor in politics. Remove direct money & indirect money & benefits will be the next biggest factor. & it'll keep going that way, but each time the totals will (in theory) keep decreasing so you're making a net positive change.