Chinese Man Pleads Guilty To $100M Piracy Operation 174
iComp sends word of a Chinese businessman who pleaded guilty to selling pirated software the retail value of which totaled more than $100 million. The software came from over 200 different companies, and was sold to buyers in 61 different countries over a 3-year period. The man was arrested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on the island of Saipan in 2011, after undercover agents had been working on the case for 18 months (PDF).
"Li trolled black market Internet forums in search of hacked software, and people with the know-how to crack the passwords needed to run the program. Then he advertised them for sale on his websites. Li transferred the pirated programs to customers by sending compressed files via Gmail, or sent them hyperlinks to download servers, officials said. ... Agents lured Li from China to the U.S. territory of Saipan under the premise of discussing a joint illicit business venture. At an island hotel, Li delivered counterfeit packaging and, prosecutors said, "Twenty gigabytes of proprietary data obtained unlawfully from an American software company." Officials did not identify the company in court documents."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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When someone breaks into your house or shop do you want to recover the full value of the property he stole or the price he received for his stolen goods --- mere pennies on the dollar at best? If he gives your stuff away, what then?
Total non sequitur. No one broke into anywhere or took anything from anyone.
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So you're saying that, since the total value of what the guy took was 0 (nothing was removed from the possession of its owners), it was a zero dollar piracy operation?
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Or are you trying to say that stealing is the same as infringing copyrights?
It's true that noncommercial copyright infringement isn't theft, any more than murder is rape, but commercial infringement is actually fraud, which is theft. The money the counterfeiter got was money that should have gone to the producer, money the producer actually owned.
When you DL from TPB, nobody is harmed and most content creators are helped. But if you burn that content to disks and sell them, there is harm.
That said, if this
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but this is slashdot - information wants to be FREE*
* unless it's a GPL violation, in which case they flay you alive.
GPL licensed works ARE free; violations take free information and enslave it. Slave traders NEED to be flayed alive!
100 million my arse (Score:2, Insightful)
More like a 60,000 USD operation, which is what he made off his dealings. Retail value here has no meaning here as nothing was taken from anyone.
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Anyway. Who BUYs pirated software? His clients should be fined for stupidity.
Re:100 million my arse (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway. Who BUYs pirated software? His clients should be fined for stupidity.
They were. They paid him for the product.
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Everyone in China. You can pay 2 years salary for CS6, or get the same thing from a guy on the corner (often in an official Adobe box) for one or two day's salary.
Or, if you don't want the box, just one DVD in a plastic bag for about $1.
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Anyway. Who BUYs pirated software? His clients should be fined for stupidity.
The FBI did. Same way they pretend to be 12 year old girls in chatrooms and invite guys to meet them.
In this case it was pretty specialised stuff, not cracked copies of Photoshop.
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of COURSE something was taken.
"Taking" an imaginary profit from an imaginary sale is not "stealing".
how would you feel if everybody was jumping the turnstiles but you were the only one paying for the subway? you'd feel like a fool and so your willingness to pay is decreased. same thing here.
In the subway, one you get past the gate, you get the same service. If you use warez, you have no support, no tax deductions, and are at constant risk of auditing. Anyone who wants bootleg copies of MS Office or Adobe CS6 can get the torrent in an hour. Yet Microsoft and Adobe make billions from selling the same software. So, clearly no one is discouraged from buying it. In fact both MS and Adobe encourage piracy of their software in poor
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Yea, but the argument here is that he did not make 100mil, therefore it is not a 100mil scam. 100mil was an imaginary profit, or "retail value" of the software he sold. That would probably not have been sold at retail price anyway.
Strict in dealing (Score:1)
How much tax did the US company pay? (Score:3, Insightful)
I hazard a guess that the cost of this operation was less than the amount of tax that the US company paid that year.
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The money is probably given to the Chinese government which in turn funneled back to the U.S. in the form of treasury bonds in order to finance the deficit spending.
Was it oracle and the range-check function? (Score:1)
;>)
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Slashdot covered this earlier in the year [slashdot.org] with a judge saying that a high-schooler could write the range-check code from scratch with no difficulty. Yet Oracle was suing for millions for nine lines of code that checks and validates the input matching the expected range of values.
.
If these court cases can hide what exactly the person is charged with doing wrong and illegally, then how can we even know if there is a potential miscarriage of justice?
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...then how can we even know if there is a potential miscarriage of justice?
I don't think we can or ever will... even if I hope we do.
Do not sell "pirated" software (Score:1)
That is the moral of the story. If you get something for nothing then share it for nothing. Profiting from anothers work may be a crime, but freely sharing what you have with others is not, and is certainly in sync with the most followed world religions.
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If you get something for nothing then share it for nothing. Profiting from anothers work may be a crime, but freely sharing what you have with others is not, and is certainly in sync with the most followed world religions.
I believe there is enought evidence that this is not the case, as the RIAA/MPAA have been so thoughtful in constatnlty reminding us.
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Not to derail, since I completely agree, but it's worth pointing out that typical "free-sharing piracy" is not "sharing what you have."
Although you might think you have a tangible copy of a song or movie sitting on your hard drive, what you really have (assuming you obtained it legally) is a license to use that song according to 1) the EULA, if there is one, and 2) the copyright law of your respective country. What you don't have is a license or freedom to upload and share the file with the rest of the wor
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IANAL (law student), but just because the record companies have not sued (at least with excessive publicity) the general public for sharing music to which they had license does not make it presumptively legal. It's just a whole lot harder to prove than obvious downloading and infringement, so it's easier to create a chilling effect based on the simple cases. Although not as popular in p2p / torrent cases, this is the basis of "public performance" violations where ASCAP/BMI can sue business owners for plug
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IANAL (law student), but just because the record companies have not sued (at least with excessive publicity) the general public for sharing music to which they had license does not make it presumptively legal.
It makes it presumptively illegal, but de facto legal. If your actions are never prosecuted, even though known to the authorities, then your actions are legal. Much like the laws from the 1800s about stupid stuff (illegal to mispronounce Arkansas in Arkansas, or carry wire cutters in your back pocket in Texas) are so unenforced as to be legal. In fact, the courts have indicated that a law unenforced long enough has been repealed because enforcing it again would be, de facto unconstitutionallly unfair (in
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You're welcome to assume, but you would still be wrong. Check out A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001), and the UMG Recordings case cited therein:
We conclude that the district court did not err when it refused to apply the “shifting” analyses of Sony and Diamond. Both Diamond and Sony are inapposite because the methods of shifting in these cases did not also simultaneously involve distribution of the copyrighted material to the general public; the time or space-shifting of copyrighted material exposed the material only to the original user. In Diamond, for example, the copyrighted music was transferred from the user's computer hard drive to the user's portable MP3 player. So too Sony, where “the majority of VCR purchasers ... did not distribute taped television broadcasts, but merely enjoyed them at home.” Napster, 114 F.Supp.2d at 913. Conversely, it is obvious that once a user lists a copy of music he already owns on the Napster system in order to access the music from another location, the song becomes “available to millions of other individuals,” not just the original CD owner. See UMG Recordings, 92 F.Supp.2d at 351–52 (finding space-shifting of MP3 files not a fair use even when previous ownership is demonstrated before a download is allowed); cf. Religious Tech. Ctr. v. Lerma, No. 95–1107A, 1996 WL 633131, at *6 (E.D.Va. Oct.4, 1996) (suggesting that storing copyrighted material on computer disk for later review is not a fair use).
Nor is your assertion that archaic laws are overturned when not enforced. You could in fact bring up any of the laws still on the books; they would just be overturned and are considered to be a waste of taxpayer money to bring a case on them, so no one does. If a law is on the books and has not been repealed, it is still valid.
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They just take the easy target, and lie about it to scare everyone else.
Anyone who owned the CD but downloaded a copy had the charges dropped because the RIAA didn't want the law tes
Real reason he got arrested? (Score:3)
"Li trolled black market Internet forums"
Maybe the forum members got disgusted by his posts, and so reported him to the Feds. Seriously, I didn't know till I checked my edictionary that "troll" had the pre-Internet non-mythical meaning of "circulate, move around".
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"Li trolled black market Internet forums"
Maybe the forum members got disgusted by his posts, and so reported him to the Feds. Seriously, I didn't know till I checked my edictionary that "troll" had the pre-Internet non-mythical meaning of "circulate, move around".
I think that "trolling" in this instance, and when people are looking to incite comments in Internet forums, comes from this definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_%28fishing%29 [wikipedia.org]):
Sounds like a reasonable analogy for what the guy was (probably) doing. Posting comments about cheap software to see if anyone would (bite|buy).
Arms wide open (Score:5, Insightful)
'The man was arrested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on the island of Saipan'
So lemme get this straight - the Department of Homeland Security spent taxpayer money finding and arresting a software pirate...
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They arrested a bootlegger. Pirates sail the high sees looking for booty to plunder. Infringing on copyrights involves downloading or sharing copyrighted work with others. Bootlegging involves copyright infringement in order to make copies for sale for profit. Piracy is a criminal offense as it often involves rape and murder. Copyright infringement is a civil offense that the MAFIAA somehow managed to convince the US government to treat like a criminal offense, even though it's definitely not. Bootlegging i
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But how is selling a bootleg in China, copied in China, printed in China, and paid for in Chinese money by two people who have never left China a US crime under US jurisdiction?
Dunno. Why do you ask?
I especially wonder why you ask when the article you asked in is about a Chinese man who left China and was in a US territory breaking US laws (as dumb as those laws can be at times)
Post to the wrong article again?
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Didn't you get the memo? The whole world is the US' jurisdiction. Has been since WW2
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It's not, but offering to sell someone a bootleg copied in China and printed in China after you've landed on US territory with the goods in hand pretty likely is.
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I dunno. If they send people for up to 5 years to federal jail for copyright infringement, it looks to me like they've upgraded copyright infringement from a civil to a criminal activity. By the way, in many countries, copyright infringement is now criminal offense, thanks to the intense lobbying and arm twisting of the US government. It'
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So lemme get this straight - the Department of Homeland Security spent taxpayer money finding and arresting a software pirate...
The DHS includes almost all law enforcement agencies in the federal government --- including para-military organizations like the Coast Guard. The software pirate who breaks federal laws is a legitimate object of pursuit. He will be charged and he will be convicted. It happens all the time.
Scope of Homeland Security (Score:3)
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$100M That's All? (Score:2)
Do you think it would be possible to get him to plead guilty to ALL of the world's piracy? I mean, If I'm ever looking down the barell of the *AA's guns and expect to be found guilty, then I'm going down Like Spock: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Who wouldn't want to become the modern day version of, Jesus?!
Why are we taxpayers, paying for this? (Score:3)
Then to add injury to insult, Gates had MS Windows cost less than $5 to buy in the store in China, while here, they take in $200-1000. And they actually pay MORE taxes in China than in America. INSANE.
BUT, I look at the likes of Bill Gates and Balmer, who have invested into companies that basically steal IP from America and are now hard at work shipping it out. For example, Bill gates wants to develop his nuke idea in China rather than in America. But, China has ZERO intention of protecting his IP. In fact, they will use it for their own purposes and like Germany's transrapid, buy one and then steal all of the tech.
Seriously, the west needs to quit providing companies like this with help, when they constantly screw over the nation. HP, Dell, IBM, GE, etc should be allowed to take up the theft with China, rather than having us solve their issues.
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The really insane part is that you can not go to China, buy a couple hundred copies (at $5 retail price), carry them to the US, and sell them here (at say $100 a pop). Fully legal copies, original packing, original license key, etc. Somehow they suddenly lose validity it seems. And somehow if it is for own use (e.g. people carrying laptops with a copy of Windows on it) there is no problem. It's just weird.
can selling pirated software be justified? (Score:2)
A bright, handsome young man joined our Mensa computer group in the early 80s. We were mostly hackers and programmers and we swapped a lot of software. Just curiosity; we'd run a program a few times to see how it worked. We'd disassemble it to figure out how the clever parts were done. And we'd move on to the next batch of software at next months meeting.
The young man seemed to come from nowhere and was instantly very popular. After a while I discovered he was printing labels for his 5" floppy disks and sel
What is more telling .... (Score:2)
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I wouldn't surprised if the operation is actually supported by the Chinese government.... look at what kind of software is being mentioned in this article.
Piracy of expensive CAD software. (Score:3)
This guy is not pirating DVDs that sell at 10$ a pop. The software mentioned in the document, Ansoft Designer, Ansoft HFSS, Ansoft SIWave, Ansys Multiphysics etc sell at USD 50K down + 10K a year typically. The R&D content of these products are measured in man-decades. Even the entry level developer positions in such companies require a Masters in a STEM field. Computer aided design tool making companies like Ansys, Ansoft, Fluent, Abacus, *CCM++ are the last few companies that pay decent wages for American ^H^H^H^H STEM grads from American univs. It is not fair to club these companies with RIAA and MPAA and paint them all with a broad brush.
Piracy of these software bleeds these companies and actually hurt earning potentials of nerds in America. These companies are places where it is cool to be a nerd. They treat their employees well because PhDs do not work to the drum beat of a slave driver. You have to convince them to be productive voluntarily.
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Not to mention the potential military application of some of these software... no wonder why DHS was involved.
Being that said:
"PhDs do not work to the drum beat of a slave driver. "
And to the eye's of a normal MBA, this is same as "laziness". It does take some extraordinary management skills to activate these people, at least for STEM PhD's are concerned. Liberal Arts PhD's are much easier to motivate, they willing to do a lot for cheap.
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Piracy of these software bleeds these companies and actually hurt earning potentials of nerds in America
Only if the piracy has a negative effect on the income of the companies. How many of the pirate's customers would have payed 50k for the software if they hadn't been able to buy it cheap?
The man could walk free.... (Score:2)
if he was HSBC.
Great, $100 million added to US economy! (Score:2)
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Saipan is the largest island of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), an unincorporated territory of the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saipan [wikipedia.org]
About Saipan (Score:2)
By the way... Saipan is the largest island of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated territory of the United States.
So it is well within the scope of the Homeland Security Thugs...
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What do those chemical substances have to do with the American STASI arresting people in foreign countries? Would you be comfortable with some police from a middle eastern country arresting you in the US for breaking some law they have over there? Does the word "Homeland" have any meaning for you at all?
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I would not be comfortable with any police force (or military for that matter) from *any* country arresting anyone in *any other* country. I think extradition treaties are there for a reason, but even then extradtion orders are supposedly carried out by the local LEO on behalf of the requesting LEO.
And *even* then, there should be a close oversight on this, to prevent things like the Dotcom scandal. Anything else seems like a slipper slope.. obviously I'm not comfortable as this is already happeni
Re:We need to stop this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:We need to stop this (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'd outlaw governmental lying. Claiming to be a 14 year old girl to invite men to your sting? Say "I'm not a cop" when asked what you do when meeting a suspect undercover? Invite a foreign national to a US territory to arrest them for what isn't even a crime ( If I'm in Mexico and kill an American, I broke Mexican law, not US law, so deciding they are undesirable people, then inviting them to the US to arrest them for breaking US law when they never set foot there before is insane). If anything, the people that approved his visa should all be fired and arrested. They knowingly issued a visa on false grounds. I haven't seen any exception in US immigration law for covert op visas issued on false pretenses.
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Prosecuting a crime that wouldn't have been committed if it hadn't been encouraged by a LEO is sort of not ok.
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It's not entrapment. He committed the crime without being encouraged by LEO. He performed an action in his country that his country declined to prosecute or deport him for. So the US LEO tempted him into their jurisdiction so they could arrest him for a crime committed elsewhere.
Still dodgy as hell, but not entrapment.
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Calm down there, chief (Score:2)
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As pointed out, Saipan is US territory but it has special visa rules.
Who pointed it out, and what are the rules? I looked online and the rules didn't look to help a Chinese national get to Saipan (though Taiwanese and Hong Kong passport holders have special rules.
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Signed in Bill Clinton's tenure? It basically says 'any US citizen violating a US law is guilty of breaking that law, regardless of their location at the time of the event. 'It goes on to say that any 'US citizen breaking a law of a [specific] foreign countries is then a felon in the US.'
http://www.uniset.ca/other/cs6/253F3d234.html
In 1998, Thomas Bean, an FFL, was in Laredo participating in a gun show. One evening he crossed the border into Mexico for dinner. A box of ammo was found in his vehicl
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Saipan is tecnically a Commonwealth, which is slightly different from a Trust Territory like Guam or Puerto Rico. Foreign nationals do not need a US visa to visit Saipan, just a visa to Saipan from the government of Saipan. Foreign nationals need a US Visa and go through US immigrations to visit Guam. You still have to go through immigration again in Hawaii when you arrive from Guam. People used to travel to Guam and become residents to fast track a US citizenship, but that's more difficult now. A lot
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http://hongkong.usconsulate.gov/niv_guam.html
It appears that your information is incorrect. You need a US visa to go to Saipan, unless one of the exceptions.
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This guy made less than $100k selling pirated software, so we're not really talking about some kind of big-shot international criminal syndicate. I don't think I would want the U.S. busting small-time drug dealers in random third countries either.
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I don't think I would want the U.S. busting small-time drug dealers in random third countries either.
If you get caught with $100,000 worth of cocaine you're going to prison for a LONG time. If you think $100k is "small time" you must work on Wall Street.
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Unless he was forced to take the Meth, then it was his own choice to take it. So he destroyed his own life.
I don't see why drugs are singled out to be prohibited, when there are so many other vices that destroy lives. Alcohol, tobacco, gambling, legal drugs,...... Either ban all of them or let Darwin take care of the addicts.
Censorship & Piracy (Score:4, Interesting)
The other day I was chatting with someone from an Islamic country and the guy told me that he **WAS FORCED TO DOWNLOAD PIRATED MOVIES** because of the censorship that was being practiced in his country.
He posted a list of movies that he said he had to pirate because they were ***ILLEGAL*** in his country.
The local cinemas were prohibited from showing those movies, and he couldn't buy any legal version of those movies on legal DVDs either.
Among the names of the movies that he posted, I only remember two of them, and they were:
The Prince of Egypt http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120794/ [imdb.com]
and
Babe http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112431/ [imdb.com]
The person claimed that he felt bad for downloading the pirated version of the movies but he had no choice.
Re:Censorship & Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Forced to download! No choice! (As if someone held a gun to his head and MADE HIM pirate movies.)
These words. They do not mean what you think they mean.
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Well if he wanted to see them he had no choice, anyway. But I think you already knew that, didn't you?
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Well if he wanted to see them he had no choice, anyway. But I think you already knew that, didn't you?
I can't imagine why any grown man would want to watch babe, a Children's film about a talking pig.
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I read this twice trying to understand how a censorious government was forcing this man to download movies. How did he have no choice? Were agents holding a gun to his head telling him to download? Was he working for the government and how to download the movies to determine whether their content should be censored?
Then I realized what you (or he) meant was that he really, really wanted to see these movies and couldn't obtain them through legal channels.
I'm usually the one with the tent and sleeper who c
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Then I realized what you (or he) meant was that he really, really wanted to see these movies and couldn't obtain them through legal channels.
If you realized that, then why does the rest of your post make it seem as if you didn't?
this guy plainly and simply violated the law and ethics of his culture
Do you think that's a bad thing?
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I'm sorry, but if you can't be arsed to sell your stuff and it gets pirated then you can't claim lost sales. At all.
Same goes for DVDs, Books, Comics and other stuff. You didn't find a regional publisher for those? You think that the hassle to actually sell your goods outweighs revenue? Boohoo. Cry me a river. But do so silently.
Also, regional publishing rights. These need to go. Electronic goo
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Your choice is not like that guy's choice. Leaving aside that laws are not ethics are not cultural values (congruent to a degree that is strongly dependent on your location, but not the same), his choice is quite different.
Your choice is whether to accept or reject a contract between you and the movie vendor. Party A: You. Party B: Vendor. Enforcer: Government.
His choice is whether to accept or reject a unilateral prohibition against the movie itself. Party A: Him. Party B: Government. Enforcer: Government.
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Laws still aren't ethics; I might accept "laws *articulate* ethics...", perhaps. Hmm. I think I lack sufficient skill to concisely convey my thoughts, here.
Would my analysis change if your source was a bootleg? No. That's just adding another intermediate step between you and the vendor; the work itself is still not prohibited to you. Unless I've misinterpreted and you meant something else. Now if the work was being denied to you by its own vendor, that would be something I'd have to contemplate.
I do certain
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Just because a law exists does not make it right. And when laws are not right it is you moral duty to break them. Over and over again. Until the buttheads that support the wrongness finally understand the error of their ways.
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I've never felt too bad for not seeing those movies.
I remember one thing about two hollywood photography movie guys(the guys in charge of cameras, lighting and that) was that when they were in their soviet state film school, they were allowed to see western movies. but without audio.
there really is compelling reasons for some guys to see movies, even shitty movies, in order to learn.
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He had no choice as in someone put a gun to his head and told him to start DLing or die? That's hard to believe.
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The other day I was chatting with someone from an Islamic country and the guy told me that he **WAS FORCED TO DOWNLOAD PIRATED MOVIES** because of the censorship that was being practiced in his country.
He posted a list of movies that he said he had to pirate because they were ***ILLEGAL*** in his country.
The local cinemas were prohibited from showing those movies, and he couldn't buy any legal version of those movies on legal DVDs either.
Among the names of the movies that he posted, I only remember two of them, and they were:
The Prince of Egypt http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120794/ [imdb.com]
and
Babe http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112431/ [imdb.com]
The person claimed that he felt bad for downloading the pirated version of the movies but he had no choice.
He could also just consider not watching those movies...
Re:Censorship & Piracy (Score:4)
He should probably stop living in an Islamic country.
Of course, he snaps his fingers, and winds up skipping down the road hand in hand with his new friends in the United States of America, who's doors are always open.
Re:Censorship & Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
How would US citizens feel about his, and other's like him living in the US?
As far as I'm concerned, so long as they learn the local language and customs ... anyone who can use an apostrophe correctly is welcome to become a US citizen.
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He should probably stop living in an Islamic country.
If you really believe that, you should invite him to stay at your place (I'm assuming you're not living in an Islamic country).
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I don't see how the number of digits on your UID related to your intelligence, punctuality, respectfulness, social status etc.
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at the expense at the people who put hard work behind it?
At the expense of them? As far as I know, this guy's actions had no direct effect on the people who made the original product.
but if everything were free in the world
Who claims that everything in the world should be free?
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As far as I know, this guy's actions had no direct effect on the people who made the original product.
Well, folks on the Pirate Bay usually have a positive effect on media sales (studies have shown this), but in the case of counterfeiters like this guy, there was actual harm. TPB users probably wouldn't buy anyway (unless they liked the movie they pirated and saw the DVD at Walmart), but these people spent money on the product -- money the producers should have gotten but never saw.
Who claims that everythi
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there was actual harm
Well, I think what you consider actual harm and what I consider actual harm may differ.
but these people spent money on the product
But the amount of money they spent is still relevant. If the real product costs more money, and there are no 'illegitimate' ways to get it at a cheaper price, then people may simply decide not to buy it at all.
money the producers should have gotten but never saw.
"should have gotten"? That doesn't sound much different from the usual copyright infringement.
The only difference between selling it and giving it away is that the probability of the original artists losing potentia
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But the amount of money they spent is still relevant.
That's true, if the counterfeiter charged $5 for photoshop it's a pretty good bet the buyer wouldn't have paid full price. $75 for office? Maybe.
"should have gotten"? That doesn't sound much different from the usual copyright infringement.
The difference is there's money involved. If I share a file with you it's the same as selling it for $0. That 0$ actually goes to the publisher. If I sell it for $5, that $5 does not, but it's $5 that belongs to the publ
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The difference is there's money involved.
It doesn't matter either way. As long as you have money and would have bought the official product had the cheaper version not been available, they lost potential profit. They gain no less than they would have if someone just shared the product for free.
but it's $5 that belongs to the publisher.
Huh? The same could be said of normal copyright infringement. Any money not given to the publisher 'belongs' to them.
Of course, I disagree. I think the money belongs to the seller.
It was proven that the people were willing to pay for it.
"That's true, if the counterfeiter charged $5 for photoshop it's a pretty good
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They are not getting paid for those copies
But they've directly lost nothing. The only thing they've potentially 'lost' is potential profit, and I lose that all the time just by existing.
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Ok, terrible to reply to a robospam post. I'm just wondering if a post offering "Cheap NFL Jerseys from China" in a story about a Chinese counterfeiting operation is irony or some sort of slightly confused bot that actually read the summary and thought the post might be a relevant product pitch?