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United Kingdom Crime Piracy Your Rights Online

UK Gov't Asks: Is 10 Years In Jail the Answer To Online Pirates? 284

An anonymous reader writes with a link to this piece at TorrentFreak: Physical counterfeiters can receive up to 10 years in jail under UK copyright law but should online pirates receive the same maximum punishment? A new report commissioned by the government reveals that many major rightsholders believe they should, but will that have the desired effect? A new study commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) examines whether the criminal sanctions for copyright infringement available under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) are currently proportionate and correct, or whether they should be amended. While the Digital Economy Act 2010 increased financial penalties up to a maximum of £50,000, in broad terms the main 'offline' copyright offenses carry sentences of up to 10 years in jail while those carried out online carry a maximum of 'just' two.
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UK Gov't Asks: Is 10 Years In Jail the Answer To Online Pirates?

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  • Well, then I guess (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:18AM (#49209259) Journal

    the "property" holders won't mind paying taxes on the property? Right? Like you and me?

    Oh, it's different for them.

    • I don't agree with a lot of what the recording industry do but, to be fair, they are obviously to be paying taxes on profits. +/- a bit of dodgy account, of course. So I don't see how it's really "different" for them.
      • by cosm ( 1072588 ) <thecosm3@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:28AM (#49209307)
        In the US, you pay taxes on just owning property, even if you are just holding it and have no expected profit. GP is saying same reasoning could be applied to those trying to codify IP as true 'property' to mitigate the propensity to classify it as such.
        • by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:11AM (#49209497)

          In the US, you pay taxes on just owning property, even if you are just holding it and have no expected profit.

          No, in the US you pay taxes on Real Estate. Which is a type of property to be sure, but it's not ALL property.

          For instance, I own several computers, a lot of clothes, furniture, etc. No taxes for owning any of that. My house, on the other hand, I pay taxes for owning.

          Treating Copyright like Real Estate isn't an unreasonable idea in and of itself. But it sets the precedent for expanding the definition of Real Estate to other things that would affect the rest of us....

          • by __aaltlg1547 ( 2541114 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:25AM (#49209575)

            What is the rationale for treating real property differently than other property? That's an assumption worth examining.

            Is it because real property can be used to generate rent? Then copyright and patents are kind of like real property.
            Is it because a person's ownership of real property imposes a burden on everybody else because it restricts what would otherwise be their right to use it? Then again, copyright and patents are like real property.

            • That's the most interesting question I've seen come up in a Slashdot thread so far. It's a bit of a tangent from the article, but it would be interesting to see it explored more aside from the predictably, "It would make prices go up," line.

              It could be because real estate and automobiles have immediate real value but intellectual property only has speculative value. If you invent something, you can be optimistic but you don't know for sure it will fly in the market. The same goes for creative works.
            • by swb ( 14022 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:56AM (#49209779)

              There's probably no good single explanation, but it might revolve around property tax being something of a usage tax for local government services that mostly relate to property, such as police, fire, and civil infrastructure in the local community.

              I think in a lot of ways it's probably an inherited anachronism from an era before income taxes when towns or counties (in the US) needed a source of revenue to provide services. There was no income tax and few other ways to generate funds for local government.

              Unfortunately, it's grown very regressive because property owners are taxed on the unrealized market value of the property. If you bought your house for $10,000 and it went up in value to $500,000 (less hyperbolic than it sounds in many places) you're stuck paying a tax on an asset whose value increase you can't realize without selling it and chances are your income hasn't risen as fast as your asset value.

              A lot of elderly people on fixed incomes get pushed out of their houses because they can no longer pay the property taxes on houses they own outright -- their fixed incomes don't increase to match the increase in value and taxes.

              There's all kinds of ways they try to fix this, like homestead exemptions and income tax based property tax refunds, but it just feels like a bad patch on an obsolete system.

              • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @11:35AM (#49209985) Homepage Journal

                On the flip side of that, business property should be taxed on property's actual value, because it is actively making money using that property, so the business should be able to recover the difference in value through the use of the property. If it can't, then that business isn't making effective use of a scarce resource (commercially zoned real estate) and should make way for a business that will.

                That's what bugs me about California's Prop 13. People get stuck in their homes and can't afford to move closer to their jobs because they'd take a huge property tax hit, but businesses just lease from land management companies that own properties forever (literally, because businesses don't ever really die), thus artificially deflating their costs and encouraging businesses to locate themselves in places where housing is most expensive rather than in the suburbs where most of their employees live. All of these factors put serious strain on the highway system, on workers, etc.

                And rental housing units have artificially deflated rent because they aren't subject to property tax increases based on the value of the property, thus making it harder and harder for people to justify buying homes. As a result, whenever there's a recession, the housing market falls significantly faster in California than the national average.

                If you ask me, property tax should be limited to property that is used commercially, either for a business (not including small businesses run by an individual within his or her home) or for rental purposes, and should be eliminated entirely for personal residences (or at least for your primary residence). This would go a long way towards fixing a lot of problems with one simple law change.

              • In CA there's Prop 13 which made it so taxes were assessed on the purchase price, regardless of current value. It bankrupted the state.

            • What is the rationale for treating real property differently than other property?

              Because you can't hide it. It is really easy to cheat on income tax. It is harder, but still pretty easy, to cheat on sales tax. It is far harder to cheat on real estate tax. Your title, the sales price, and the tax appraisal value, are all public information, available at the county courthouse, and very often on the county's website. I don't like paying taxes, but I dislike real estate tax the least, because I know that everyone is paying their fair share.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            As a business owner in the US, I pay taxes all my assets, every desk, chair, computer owned by my company, every bit of saleable product under my roof, etc. etc. Why should intellectual assets be different?

            • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

              That's certainly true in many states. We used to take advantage of that law by buying expensive things at a discount from stores in Kentucky right before the end of the year; if they had those products on their books on January 1, they had to pay tax on them, so they had an added incentive to sell them. Thus, they were willing to take a little bit less money for them, because they knew they'd get that much less if they sold them a week later anyway.

          • by dk20 ( 914954 )

            No, in the US you pay taxes on "property" as the OP stated (not just realestate)

            Case in point, property tax on vehicles:
            "Motor Vehicles are subject to a local property tax under Connecticut state law. This applies whether or not the vehicle is registered. The local property tax is computed and issued by your local tax collector."

            So, if IP is property, why cant we tax it like other forms of property?

            • No, in the US you pay taxes on "property" as the OP stated (not just realestate)

              ...

              "Motor Vehicles are subject to a local property tax under Connecticut state law.

              Luckily, I don't live in CT. Nor is CT synonymous with "the US".

              Fortunately, most of us in the US do NOT pay property tax on motor vehicles....

          • No, in the US you pay taxes on Real Estate. Which is a type of property to be sure, but it's not ALL property.

            For instance, I own several computers, a lot of clothes, furniture, etc. No taxes for owning any of that. .

            Then there's the business property tax in several states, on which you pay tax on the value of every fixture. We pay tax on the Ikea shelves in our store.

          • Wrong. As a business owner, I pay taxes on things I OWN, not just what I sell. I pay taxes on inventory, for example. You forget we are talking about corporations, which are supposed to pay taxes on property of virtually all kinds.

    • by harvey the nerd ( 582806 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:13AM (#49209499)
      How about 10 yrs in the slammer for execs guilty of corruption and bribery? Like creating retroactive changes to the laws, raiding the public domain, and making perpetuities out of basic, limited copyright in faster world of the internet. My contention is that copyright for ephermera, like news, TV and movies, should have been SHORTENED from 28 yrs to a lower number !
  • screw the system (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rickybobby12 ( 4032907 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:19AM (#49209269)
    10 years in jail for illegally watching a movie....No it is not ok!
    • Tangible vs intangible is a huge difference. Ten years is a stiff deterrent and doesn't really fit either crime, depending on the value. In the case of say, check/cheque fraud, forgery for gain, converting property/conversion, these have a directly cost that can be calculated and audited. Intangibles, the crux of various publishers, is more difficult to do.

      Although stealing is horrendous, the RIAA/MPAA/publisher's actual injuries/damages aren't what they claim them to be, IMHO. Ten years is too much.

    • by harvey the nerd ( 582806 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:16AM (#49209527)
      Never forget that these cretins wanting "10 yrs for piracy" are in fact, raiders of the public domain.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        And how about that loaded phrase they use, "rightsholders"?

        Seem to imply that the general public does not have any rights, and only these big media cartels do.

    • by skegg ( 666571 )

      Why doesn't the UK government also introduce (and enforce!) ridiculously high prison sentences for politicians who break laws?

      Cash for Honours? [wikipedia.org]
      United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal? [wikipedia.org]

  • by invictusvoyd ( 3546069 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:20AM (#49209273)
    The recently banned ( in India) BBC documentary constitute online piracy ?
    • Piracy is... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08, 2015 @11:35AM (#49209987)

      1) Piracy is robbery, kidnapping, and murder on the high seas.
      2) Intellectual property is a generalized term which supposedly covers copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret law.

      Do not allow corporations to frame arguements in these terms. When they say "piracy of intellectual property", respond with "copyright infringement". Then it may be possible to have a rational discussion.

      • This article is saying copyright infringement is counterfeiting which unless the copyright infringers are pretending that their movies are the genuine article and the proceeds/ or the creators have given there permission for you view it, then the movie is not a counterfeit.

        Counterfeiting is fraud because you are fooling the purchaser into believing they are purchasing something that they are not really purchasing.

        But why not call it counterfeiting, you call it piracy and equate it to a bunch people stealin

      • by Altrag ( 195300 )

        1) Piracy is robbery, kidnapping, and murder on the high seas.

        Stop this. Just stop. Language changes. Live with it. There are very few contexts in which one could possibly confuse tween girls downloading One Direction songs with "robbery, kidnapping, and murder on the high seas."

        If you ever run into such a situation, then please do be careful to make the distinction. Lawmakers need to make the distinction when putting the law down on paper because you never know where it might be applied in the future. In all other situations, you're just shutting down the conve

  • I Don't Know (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KermodeBear ( 738243 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:24AM (#49209289) Homepage

    I don't know what an "appropriate" punishment is for illegally downloading or distributing someone's content, but ten years sounds incredibly excessive unless you're running a vast, far-reaching network, distributing content to a million people and charging them for the convenience or something like that.

    Some Average Joe sitting at home, downloading a bootlegged copy of the latest Hollywood movie... I don't know, a $50 fine maybe?

    The thing is, the Internet has, and will continue to change, how media can be distributed and consumed. The old model of ticket and physical media sales just doesn't seem viable anymore. I think the media companies are going to need to find other ways to pick up revenue. Advertising in the movie itself, of course, is an option, but I think we're missing part of a bigger picture somewhere.

    Someone, someday, is going to figure it out and make a bazillion dollars.

    • by rasmusbr ( 2186518 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:36AM (#49209361)

      Someone, someday, is going to figure it out and make a bazillion dollars.

      Yeah, one day a company like Netflix may no longer ship physical discs, but instead rely on digital streaming over the Internet. Remember where you heard it first!

    • The industry sponsored copyright legislation (I won't call it "law") being expnded with demands for "10 years" on thefts of the public domain is like a massive counterfeiter demanding execution of people that refuse its currency.
    • Re:I Don't Know (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:30AM (#49209597)

      "Someone, someday?"

      Really?

      This problem has been solved for years.

      We invented the legal fiction of copyright for exactly one reason. To find a way to pay artists to create their work. We wanted successful artists and a society made rich and beautiful by their work.

      There are a total of 12 business models that are known to have ever made money at all. One of them is to make a product and sell it above cost. Others include things like loaning money and charging interest, leasing a property, buying wholesale and selling retail, providing insurance against risk. What all of these have in common is that none of them make any sense at all for turning art into money on the Internet.

      There are a few models that obviously work just fine.

      1. Become famous and sell tickets to live concerts. Been done too often to think about.
      2. Become good enough to aggregate an audience, use your influence to advertise things that people actually want to buy. Every Youtube star does this. Every TV show does this. Everyone who puts on a "free" show at a coffee shop or a bar does this.
      3. Build a catalog and charge for access - make sure it is sufficiently convenient an inexpensive that the "happy to pay crowd" outweighs the "I'll just copy it" crowd. Musically I know about the weird case of Magnatune. Also done by every single Porn site in existence, and you don't exactly hear the Porn industry complaining that the Internet ruined their movie business, do you?
      4. Lastly, and most directly, is to recognize the obvious: Distribution online is effectively free. Creating the work in the first place is expensive. So quit trying to prop up the DISTRIBUTION industries and start paying the artists for CREATION. If you need crowd funding, take a look at Kickstarter. You want a crowd funding subscription to the service of artistic creation, head over to Patreon.

      Again. This problem has been solved for years.

      It may be hard to become a great artist, but there is absolutely nothing complicated about paying artists to create work that we can download and copy for free. The only reason we have this problem is because we keep listening to corporate mouth-pieces of the completely redundant distribution companies who were NEVER INTERESTED IN PAYING ARTISTS TO BEGIN WITH.

      Stop listening to the corporate mouth-pieces. Please. You are far to intelligent to fall for their BS.

      • "Someone, someday?"

        Really?

        This problem has been solved for years.

        We invented the legal fiction of copyright for exactly one reason. To find a way to pay artists to create their work. We wanted successful artists and a society made rich and beautiful by their work.

        There are a total of 12 business models that are known to have ever made money at all. One of them is to make a product and sell it above cost. Others include things like loaning money and charging interest, leasing a property, buying wholesale and selling retail, providing insurance against risk. What all of these have in common is that none of them make any sense at all for turning art into money on the Internet.

        There are a few models that obviously work just fine.

        1. Become famous and sell tickets to live concerts. Been done too often to think about. 2. Become good enough to aggregate an audience, use your influence to advertise things that people actually want to buy. Every Youtube star does this. Every TV show does this. Everyone who puts on a "free" show at a coffee shop or a bar does this. 3. Build a catalog and charge for access - make sure it is sufficiently convenient an inexpensive that the "happy to pay crowd" outweighs the "I'll just copy it" crowd. Musically I know about the weird case of Magnatune. Also done by every single Porn site in existence, and you don't exactly hear the Porn industry complaining that the Internet ruined their movie business, do you? 4. Lastly, and most directly, is to recognize the obvious: Distribution online is effectively free. Creating the work in the first place is expensive. So quit trying to prop up the DISTRIBUTION industries and start paying the artists for CREATION. If you need crowd funding, take a look at Kickstarter. You want a crowd funding subscription to the service of artistic creation, head over to Patreon.

        Again. This problem has been solved for years.

        It may be hard to become a great artist, but there is absolutely nothing complicated about paying artists to create work that we can download and copy for free. The only reason we have this problem is because we keep listening to corporate mouth-pieces of the completely redundant distribution companies who were NEVER INTERESTED IN PAYING ARTISTS TO BEGIN WITH.

        Stop listening to the corporate mouth-pieces. Please. You are far to intelligent to fall for their BS.

        (Bumping insightful AC comment rated at 0)

    • Re:I Don't Know (Score:5, Interesting)

      by __aaltlg1547 ( 2541114 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:32AM (#49209617)

      Why not make it a punishment that fits the crime, but per count? Put a realistic value on the illegal downloading. A song is worth (in the market) $1, so petty theft. A movie is worth, in the market, maybe $10 to $15. Again, petty theft. We don't put people away for 10 years for petty theft, no matter how many times they do it.

      Instead, let the copyright owners sue for actual damages and let them make the case that they were actually out $1 for the illegal song download or $10 for the illegal movie download, or upload. Massive infringers could be put out of business. You uploaded a movie and provided it to 10,000 downloaders? You owe us $100k, and you're guilty of 10,000 counts of petty theft.

      • A song worth $1, yea right why to put the value that is paid to the artist per download of that song

        from http://business.time.com/2013/... [time.com]

        But the company estimates that the average song generates between $0.006 and $0.0084

        • That's per time it's played. The $1 is based on the value a typical copyright holder charges a user to gain a permanent, non-transferable license to play the song in private.

    • A fine is sensible (Score:5, Insightful)

      by duck_rifted ( 3480715 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:44AM (#49209701)
      If a pirate is caught downloading, charging them a fine that's a little higher than the price to legally see the content makes perfect sense. That's not even $50 most of the time, but after court costs are added in, $50 seems about right. Ten years is ridiculous. Hollywood really over-values itself to the point that we'd all be better off it the whole thing were put out of business. Do they really think that ninety minutes of one of their screenplays or three minutes of a song is worth ten years of anybody's life? That movie or song better damn well confer a PhD just by viewing/listening to it because that's what ten years is worth.
    • Re:I Don't Know (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:59AM (#49209793)

      I don't know what an "appropriate" punishment is for illegally downloading or distributing someone's content, but ten years sounds incredibly excessive unless you're running a vast, far-reaching network, distributing content to a million people and charging them for the convenience or something like that.

      That is precisely whom these heavy fines in Copyright law were intended to punish. Someone running a bootleg CD or DVD operation could stand to make thousands if not millions of dollars in profit. So the punishment had to be severe enough to discourage them. Otherwise they could just use a fraction of the profits to pay the fine as a cost of doing business.

      The problem is, Hollywood has been abusing the law given to them to combat these cases, by applying it to "home use" filesharers. And the courts have been negligent in failing to toss that argument out the window. Proof? Just look at their argument in court. When they claim Jammie Thomas-Rasset "made available" songs for other people to download, exactly what are they saying?

      By definition, the number of downloads of a fileshared song equals the number of copies uploaded. If 1000 people are filesharing a song, then they each want a single copy of the song, and a total of 1000 copies are made. If you can wrap your head around this amazingly difficult math, that works out to each single person being responsible for one illegal copy.

      But in court the RIAA has been arguing that the one person is somehow responsible for the thousand copies made in total. What exactly does that mean? If you accept their argument, then that one person is responsible for the thousand copies so the other 999 people are not responsible. That is exactly the reasoning you'd use against someone running a commercial bootleg CDs operation. He sells 1000 copies of a CD. The 1000 people who bought CDs from him paid for them, so you can't really consider them guilty. Instead you make him solely responsible for all 1000 copies. That's what the law is designed to punish.

      But this argument doesn't work against a single-use downloader. If the courts convict one person claiming she is responsible for the thousand copies made, then they convict the next person and claim he's also responsible for the same thousand copies made, and so on until they've convicted all 1000 people, what exactly has happened? In total they've convicted 1000 people of making 1 million copies of a song. But there were only 1000 copies of the song ever made! The math doesn't add up because the making available argument is wrong! It is fundamentally flawed. It is logically erroneous.

      The courts should've spotted this flaw in the RIAA's "making available" arguments, but they haven't. Or they have and have failed to slap it down for the silliness it is. The legislatures badly need to revise copyright law to distinguish between commercial copyright infringement, and single-use home filesharing. What going on now is akin to the EPA abusing laws meant to punish companies illegally dumping toxic waste with millions of dollars in fines, and applying the same punishment to someone who fails to recycle a CFL light bulb (they release a tiny amount of mercury into the landfill when you throw them away in the trash).

      The thing is, the Internet has, and will continue to change, how media can be distributed and consumed. The old model of ticket and physical media sales just doesn't seem viable anymore. I think the media companies are going to need to find other ways to pick up revenue.

      Wedding photographers already went down this route. They used to shoot your wedding for a nominal fee, or even for free. Then they'd charge you for prints of the photos. If you wanted extra prints, they'd charge you extra. Then scanners came way down in price and people started just scanning and printing co

    • Let's split pirating into two crimes:
      IP Theft
      IP Infringement

      IP infringement would be commercially using someone's IP as though it were your own. Selling bootleg DVDs, straight-up counterfeiting, plus corporate copyright/patent/trademark infringement. This can be left under the laws currently.

      IP theft would be equivalent to regular theft of the same product, for non-commercial personal use. If you have to make it a separate crime, give it penalties on the scale of "five times the retail value of the product"

      • Lets split it into Comercial and Non Comercial. If you do something for profit it's Comercial. And have high fines for Comercial, and public service for Non Comercial.
    • Re:I Don't Know (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @11:31AM (#49209961)

      I don't know what an "appropriate" punishment is for illegally downloading or distributing someone's content, but ten years sounds incredibly excessive unless you're running a vast, far-reaching network, distributing content to a million people and charging them for the convenience or something like that.

      That's why you have "maximum" penalties, and you'd hope that a judge would handle this sensibly. There may be a "maximum" penalty for selling drugs, and it should be obvious that someone selling 1,000 kg of cocaine should likely get the maximum, and someone selling 5 grams should get much much less than the maximum. I'd fully agree with the maximum being horrendously high so that the guy selling 1,000 kg can get a fair punishment, but that maximum should be totally irrelevant for the 5 gram seller.

      For something like murder it's different; there isn't that much difference between the most harmless and the most evil murder. For assault there is a huge difference, between a harmless slap, and breaking every bone of someone. For copyright infringement, as you say, an enormous range from a single download to a multi million dollar illegal enterprise.

      Quite obvious that the maximum penalty will be excessive except for the few that deserve the maximum penalty. Instead of setting a maximum, they should have a guideline for the penalty depending on the severity of the crime.

    • This. Is little Timmy, aged 12 years, going to be in prison until he's 22 because he wanted to see Game of Thrones? If there's no profit involved then there should be little or no fine, let alone any jailing of anyone. If it's something that was broadcast for FREE over-the-air in the first place, then nobody should give a fuck, unless they want to get into the Time Machine and go back to just before the first VCRs were available to the general public and make them completely illegal -- or for that matter, g
    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      I don't know what an "appropriate" punishment is for illegally downloading or distributing someone's content, but ten years sounds incredibly excessive...

      That's probably what they're really trying to find out. Not if the populace thinks the punishment is appropriate, but if concept is frightening enough people will obey regardless of how they feel about copyright infringement.

    • by Altrag ( 195300 )

      $50 probably isn't sufficient given that buying the bluray is damned near $50, so when you multiply out the risk factor you'd actually be encouraging infringement at that rate!

      Up here in Canada we have a pretty good system IMO. There's a $5000 maximum penalty. That is, its high enough to be punishing but not high enough to be life-destroying (for most people.) There's also a distinction for commercial infringement which allows for much higher penalties.

      Its probably not perfect.. I'd like to see a scaling

  • It doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:24AM (#49209293)

    Longer sentences don't matter. Never have, never will. Especially not for white collar crime. You could put the death penalty, or lifetime in prison, behind it and it wouldn't make a difference.

    6 months in prison would be enough of a deterrent if it worked. Because the people who commit this ... erh ... "crime" are usually not the hardened criminals that need a revolving door in the jailhouse 'cause they spend more time going in and out that on either side.

    Now, it doesn't work, does it? Nope, doesn't. Mostly for two reasons. First, it's a law that is not backed by popular consent. There is exactly ZERO chance that someone would turn someone he knows in for this. Or convince him that it's better to turn himself in. WAY different for laws that have popular support. Make this quick comparison: Imagine you know someone and you learn that he copies files. Do you turn him in? He's not a close friend, just someone you know. Would you? Probably not. You would probably not even ask him to not do it again. Now imagine him having stolen something from a shop. Does it get more likely that you at least ask him to stop doing it and "get clean"?

    And that ties in with the second reason: Nobody thinks of getting caught when doing something. I'm not even going to cite the near zero chance to actually get caught because the sentence for armed robbery of a bank is already at 10 years around here and the chance to get caught is near 100%. Still, people do it. Why? Because that's not on their list when they commit that crime.

    Now let's string it together: People not thinking of the consequences, a near zero chance of getting caught and no popular support for the law. Fuck, you could have public beheadings and it wouldn't change shit.

    • Correction, it may change shit: People would actually cry out against the law because the alleged crime is very visibly in no relation whatsoever to the punishment. It already is. It just is way less public.

      • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        Longer sentences don't matter. Never have, never will. Especially not for white collar crime. You could put the death penalty, or lifetime in prison, behind it and it wouldn't make a difference.

        Copying movies isn't really white collar crime though where peoples life savings are often defrauded from them. I'd like to see the courts *enforce* penalties against those who ruin the lives of so many for their own compulsive greed so that they are in prison for ten years.

        Bur not people who copy movies.

        Correction

    • Never forget that these assh*** demanding "10 yrs for priracy" are in fact raiders of the public domain and corrupt usurpers of real law and order.
  • by Lawrence_Bird ( 67278 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:28AM (#49209311) Homepage

    Is 10 years enough if you sell/buy bootleg cigarettes or booze? Instead of looking at the fundamental issue (cost) that creates the black markets, the "leaders" seek ever higher penalties that never seem to stop the undesired actions.

    it is all about pricing and availability. If the media companies want to reduce piracy then make their products priced and available in a manner that people want - that need not equat to "free". If instead, they insist on maintaining prices and policies that encourage blackmarkets, they should treat it as a cost of doing business.

    • Re:black markets (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:36AM (#49209357)
      True, but there's not really any downside to it. The put someone away for 10 years for pulling the latest Britney Spears magnum opus and it's going to have an effect. A pretty large one I'd say. Sure, it won't completely stop the behavior, but it'll slow it. Plus, what's the downside to the record labels and movie studios? Tough on Crime _always_ plays well with the base. The UK and US both are scared shirtless of Yaboos and the like. Or at least the people who vote are (doesn't count if you don't vote and young people don't). Heck, not sure about the UK but in America our white collar prisons are privately run and most of the tops 1% own stock in the companies. Plus we do prison labor in parts of the South (Elon Musk's company just got caught using it to build solar panels, I wish I could say it's a scandal but nobody cares).

      Less piracy, more profit for their prisons and they get to tell the base how tough on crime they are? It's a net win for the ruling class.
    • by dk20 ( 914954 )

      +1 for this (no mod points, plus i already posted on this as well).

      Several years ago bootleg cigarettes were a huge issue here (Ontario). Since most of the price of them is taxes the government was actually forced to lower the taxes to compete and try to end the black market.

      This "10 years in jail" sure sounds like a "cobra effect" waiting to happen:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]

      Who will pay to house the inmates? Since this law benefits a specific industry, they should fund it. Why should my tax doll

  • the only punishment that would actually work is one that is actually reasonable... how about, you get caught, you have to pay 5x the price of the item you pirated? people might actually stop pirating. the issue with these ridiculous punishments is that the only people you could reasonably go after for are the outliers who are the ones uploading tons and tons of content and profiting off them. if you attempted to put the average joe in jail for 10 years for piracy, first of all, there would be riots on your

  • by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:34AM (#49209337) Homepage

    Will it include corporates such as newspapers who grab images, etc, from individuals' web sites and publish it on their web site and ignore any attempt by the copyright holder (individual) to get proper compensation ?

    I doubt it - such laws do not seem to apply to corporates.

  • If the UK actually goes through with something this stupid, and thier track record indicates they probably will, I will simply geo block the UK.
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @09:49AM (#49209427)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Check Mike First (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:00AM (#49209455) Journal

    Here's an idea, how about we check all of Mike's families PC's and phones and cassettes first to see if there's any copyright infringements.

    No?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Longer sentences don't do a damn thing to prevent anything other than removing the problem from society.
    In fact, the longer the sentence, the considerably higher chance that person is going to just go straight back to criminal business BECAUSE they will end up blacklisted by a considerable number of companies for work. (which is retarded and only makes society worse for everyone due to it)

    The only people that get screwed over in all of this is literally the lesser grunt-work people, very rarely do the high

  • How much does it cost to put a person in minimum security prison for a year? If we jailed enough people to be a deterrent, the cost to society would be enormous. Certalnly higher than the cost of piracy.
  • I welcome the next round of idiotic legislation that accomplishes nothing.

  • Yes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:17AM (#49209529)

    Yes. If the crime is comparable then the punishment should also be comparable.

    Now the real question is are the crimes actually comparable? Typical cases of physical piracy involve people duplicating and selling software for personal profit. I see no problem with the same punishments being applied to people who do this online. Typical online piracy on the other hand is not done for profit. The most common case is actually for personal use with the side effect that sharing is part of the acquiring process and no money changes hand.

    So while the answer is yes another question needs to be asked:
    Would you lock up your friend for 10 years for giving you a mixed tape or photocopying a chapter out of a textbook?

  • by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:17AM (#49209531)
    Counterfeiters make and sell fake products. Is someone going around selling fake episodes of Game of Thrones? Copying something and sharing it for free is not the same as selling something and passing it off as the real thing.
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:26AM (#49209581)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Did the debate about whether or not this is really theft get answered?

    Is a kid watching a movie on some streaming site stealing? Is it the same as looking around and slipping a Blu-Ray in your pocket at the local store? I think we should finish that debate before we change the question to how much prison time is appropriate.
    • You can't stop idiots from voicing their opinions [fixedearth.com], so there will always be "debates" on subjects that aren't really debatable. The sun revolving around the earth, atheism being a religion, or copyright infringement being theft, whatever. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

  • by Livius ( 318358 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:30AM (#49209599)

    How about a 10-year sentence for maintaining a spiteful monopoly stranglehold on distribution?

    There are 'pirates' who believe they are entitled to receive something for nothing because they simply feel entitled, and I don't have sympathy for anyone like that. But many people copy intellectual property illegally that they would gladly pay a reasonable price for if there was simply some reasonable means for doing so, rather than dealing with obnoxious monopolies and inconvenient delivery channels and being forced to pay for garbage programming that they don't want. I like the fact that the BBC makes Doctor Who and I want to encourage them to continue doing so - why do they make that hard?

  • by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Sunday March 08, 2015 @10:35AM (#49209629) Homepage

    Hey, your politicians are taking money from media companies, too!

  • What about the people who download music then either buy it if its good or delete it if its rubbish?

    Only last night I went to a gig for a band touring for a new album. I didn't buy the ticket or the cd until the album was released. You can work out the rest for yourself. That's ~£75 I spent (CD, ticket, travel, parking etc) only because I heard the album without paying for it first. If I hadn't heard it because it was impossible to get or the death penalty scared me too much then that's money that wou

  • One day people will have more than their fill of the entertainment cartels' BS, and after they day those smug little shits who buy their own laws and judges will get a big big surprise

  • The only existing online pirates are in Eve Online. Good luck catching them.

  • for raping babies.

    Google:

    Jimmy Savile
    BBC Coverup
    Rotherham
    Rochdale
    Beechwood
    Wood Nuck
    Rampton
    Elm Guest House
    Dolphin Square
    Haute de la Garenne
    Haringey LB
    Coventry
    Doncaster
    Leeds
    Derby
    North Wales
    Great Ormond Street
    St. James'
    Alder Hey
    Little Ted's

    All massive scandals in the public eye, yet the only ones that have seen convictions are Little Ted's and... nope, that's it. The others are very well protected under colour of Law and Establishment protectionism.

  • NT, there's no need to elaborate.
  • If violating copyright by pirating a work is worth 10 years in jail, surely fraudulently claiming copyright and preventing the distribution of a work is worth an equal sentence.

  • by Kirth ( 183 ) on Monday March 09, 2015 @02:31AM (#49213273) Homepage

    Because it's supposed to be a matter of civil and not criminal law.

    Did you already forget this? And did you also forget that copyright was NEVER about downloading, but always PUBLISHING?

Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. -- Norman Augustine

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