5-Year Suspended Sentence For S. Africa's First Online Pirate 45
An anonymous reader writes "South Africa's first prosecution for online piracy was concluded this morning, with a five-year, wholly suspended sentence handed down to a filesharer who uploaded local movie Four Corners to The Pirate Bay. The man — who lost his job recently — said he's relieved by the verdict, which was the result of a plea bargain. Director Ian Gabriel, who made the film, recently said he was 'philosophical' about piracy."
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Re:Go after the people who write the software (Score:5, Insightful)
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Your analogy is completely misdirected... making the rest of your paragraph complete drivel.
'We need to go after the people who write the file sharing software, not the people who use it'.
Apply your same brain fart to cars.
'We need to go after the people who create the cars, not the people who use it'.
Meanwhile, your after getaway drivers at bank robberies...
Re:Go after the people who write the software (Score:5, Insightful)
To get off the car analogy take lockpicks. Their purpose is to open something that is locked that you don't have a key for. Next time you lock your keys in your car, be glad that the government hasn't the lockpick manufacturers in jail.
If anyone makes a tool, likely that tool is going to be used for something wrong. But you don't blame the tool or the makers of the tool, but the person who used it wrong.
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Yeah, reminds me of a gun. There are very few legit uses for it and the vast majority of the time it's just use for crime.
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Except, the overwhelming majority of the traffic both by incidence and volume is illegal, and the law DOES take such things into effect.
You can argue it, but theres not much point; judges arent stupid, and the hammer is going to come down eventually.
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Bad things can be put on webpages that isn't a reason to ban HTTP. Illegal sharing can happen on any protocol...
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There should be no analogies, as comparing software to the real world means you're profoundly ignorant to begin with. It's simply wrong to blame the developers of P2P software for the actions of the users; period. Anyone who says otherwise is an authoritarian piece of garbage.
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There should be no analogies, as comparing software to the real world means you're profoundly ignorant to begin with.
Software is real. It's part of the world. Same as the internet - it isn't a "cyberspace", it's people sitting at keyboards, and servers in real places, with actual cables between. And laws apply to those people, servers, cables, and software. And analogies apply equally well and equally badly between software and the rest of the world as they do between other parts of the rest of the world. Some analogies are useful, some less so. Just because it's "software" doesn't make it, and the processes that produce
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Software is real. It's part of the world.
What a revelation.
Just because it's "software" doesn't make it, and the processes that produce it, magically immune to logical, ethical, and legal analysis.
No, but these analogies are often garbage and demonstrate that the person doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about. Like that idiot who mentioned drug dealers. He should just stop making analogies, because he's a god damn moron.
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The highest speed limit in the US is 85 MPH. Pretty much every new car sold in the US can go at least 100 MPH. So, the cars are being sold with functionality that will clearly break laws if used. By your argument, the car manufacturers should be locked up.
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Somewhat agreed - although I'd restrict this to people who have benefited directly or indirectly from the software they wrote, i.e. excluding those who make anonymous contributions. The law should look more at intent and values than on individual acts. A person who profits from misery should always be targeted first.
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Trololololol...
What would you do when the software is released on darknets, and spreads over sneakernet and other (maybe older versions of the same) P2P networks? Sue the people sharing them? Oh wait...
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I love listening to the "whoosh" sound that accompanies each and every reply to this. Priceless!
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yes let's sue MS the creator of the most popular platform used for filesharing.
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A comparable example would be to go against Smith&Wesson for robbery and murder.
Technology is neither good nor evil. Its application is.
Kindergarten Rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Share your toys with others.
See where all the confusion comes from?
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What confusion? Who's confused?
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Content "owners".
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copying something is not the same as taking.
P2P is exactly that, sharing your toys with others.
I'm not sure which way your point was supposed to be taken, can you clarify?
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P2Ping software illegally is taking something that isnt yours-- the right to distribute. Thats the problem.
Joey loaned you his toy truck to play with. Is it OK to paint it red? Wouldnt he be right to be upset if you did that, as you violated the terms of your arrangement>
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You miss the point. With software, the agreement generally is that you may use but NOT distribute or copy the software. That right is reserved by the maker.
With the truck, the agreement is that you use, but NOT paint the truck red. Joey reserves that right for himself.
In either case, the owner of the property has the right to be pissed off if you "take" their rights. Not sure why you're arguing this, the law is sort of clear on it.
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Rights are nothing but words until they are backed up by someone with the power to enforce them. Generally, that means whoever has sovereignty of an area; in our case that would be the state and federal government.
Bad Summary (Score:5, Informative)
TFA correctly states what the defendant did, so why is the summary for Slashdot, the supposed "news for nerds" site, dumbed down?
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Typical. The one story in ten that isn't a copy and paste of two randomly chosen paragraphs from the article, and it's wrong.
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Maybe the submitter had to spellcheck for copyrights before downloading the article to slashdot.
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The torrent is the movie. It's just heavily compressed, using a compression algorithm that involves a look-up to a different location.
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In this thread: Geeks attempt to use technical devices to create legal loopholes, discover that that doesnt work.
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People have tried to get away with that sort of thing in "compression" algorithms before. For example, create a thousand 0 byte files and stuff all the data in the filenames and you can claim to have just achieved an infinite (or undefined) compression ratio. That sort of thing is rightly considered to be cheating when it comes to compression algorithms.
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I'm playing Nautical Street Racer for the Nintendo 64, and boy is it fun! "He's the Grinch! The Naaaaaaaaaautical Grinch! He's slimy when he's sleepy, and shitty when he's peepee! He's the Griiiiiiiiiiiiiiinch!" Wow, the music in this game is fantastic!
Wait... how come every time the music loops, more and more light disappears from my house...?
If this were on CNN it would be BrEaKiNg NeWs! (Score:1)
Something about Generalisimo Fransisco Franco being dead still might make it too.