10 Years in Prison For Online Pirates a Step Closer in the UK (torrentfreak.com) 136
The UK Government's Digital Economy Bill has moved a step closer to becoming law after its second reading in Parliament. With unanimous support, the current two-year maximum custodial sentence for online piracy is almost certain to increase to a decade, TorrentFreak reports. From the article: Due to UK copyright law allowing for custodial sentences of 'just' two years for online offenses, anti-piracy groups such as the Federation Against Copyright Theft have chosen to pursue their own private prosecutions. These have largely taken place under legislation designed for those who have committed fraud, rather than the more appropriate offense of copyright infringement. Physical pirates (CDs, DVDs) can be jailed for up to 10 years under current legislation. During the past few years, there have been lobbying efforts for this punishment to apply both on and offline. That resulted in a UK Government announcement last year indicating that it would move to increase the maximum prison sentence for online copyright infringement to ten years. They also urge Google to do something about growing incidents of piracy.
Crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
10 years for piracy? Force them to pay for the pirated content, plus a fine. Why prison at all?
Also, what about google? Why should google "do something"? Not their table . . .
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Leaving aside that this is obviously a troll, you should know that the current EU administration is heavily on the strong-copyright and big-media side of this debate. For example, EU rules are why the UK government recently failed to change the law to allow a reasonable personal use exception to copyright that was long overdue.
Also, the 10 year penalty we're discussing here is aimed at large-scale, professional distributors. It's not for someone who accidentally downloaded someone's mix that had a bit of Ta
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The government failed because to introduce personal use exception because it did not follow the rules and was using a statutory instrument rather than primary legislation. I would note that the government lost in a UK court and not the ECJ. The basic rule that they lost against while an EU rule is that you cannot take away someones property (and the UK court decided that IP is property) without either giving compensation or having proper evidence that there would be no financial loss. They did neither of th
Re: Crazy (Score:1)
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Re:Crazy (Score:4, Funny)
The UK starts to look like the world of Max Headroom.
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Torrents upload. People have been punished for that, I believe.
and as long as you are using a torrent that let's you Freeleach then it's all fine NOT to upload.. you can limit the bandwidth you upload tight down to 0 on a decent client. Your argument only works when you are getting torrents from sites that worry about tracker ratios and by far not all do.
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Well, sure, but if everyone did this the whole torrent system would completely collapse. So, if they make uploading illegal, and actually manage to really catch people doing it on a large scale, then there won't be any torrents left.
The legal situation in Scotland where i am and also in England coincide here(We have separate and distinct legal systems). It IS already illegal to upload as it's the sharing part that's getting you into trouble for distribution.. the distribution part being key to their case as X IP numbers connected = amount of shares = money lost according to the studio and their agencies.
BUT downloading it.. perfectly fine and not illegal. this is also why many streaming sites like Http://movies.ru and it's other add
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as X IP numbers connected = amount of shares
Which is really stupid, when you think about it. If you upload 0.1% of a file to 1,000 different peers, that's one copy shared, not 1,000. And if they all do the same (within the group) that's 1,000 copies created, not 1,000,000. But the studios manage to get away with suing 1,000 peers for 1,000 copies each, which is far more than the potential revenues even if one very generously assumes that every peer who obtains a copy of the file represents a lost sale, even before you throw in nonsense like statutory
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as X IP numbers connected = amount of shares
Which is really stupid, when you think about it. If you upload 0.1% of a file to 1,000 different peers, that's one copy shared, not 1,000. And if they all do the same (within the group) that's 1,000 copies created, not 1,000,000. But the studios manage to get away with suing 1,000 peers for 1,000 copies each, which is far more than the potential revenues even if one very generously assumes that every peer who obtains a copy of the file represents a lost sale, even before you throw in nonsense like statutory damages.
The correct liability for a single peer with a share ratio of 1.00 or less (cumulative upload less than or equal to the file size) is no more than perhaps three times the standard retail value of the work. Not $450 or $1,500 or $150,000 or $21M, no matter how many other peers were involved.
and you are absolutely correct,spot on , accurate and reasonable in what you say.... now tell me.. when did that get in the way of the copyright industry's legal stance? they are of course gonna try and hump you for every cent they have... this is a new side industry for them that rakes in millions.
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Except for ones that have content that was legal for anyone to copy and distribute in the first place without express permission from the copyright holder.
Much of the freely available content or software that I download these days is via torrent.
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Do you think they bother to look at the difference?
The average seed ratio is 1.0, a few people seed up to 10
Yet the record studios always claim the defendant distributed tens of thousands copies.
Proof isn't exactly something that is important in theses cases.
It's more about who wears a suit and who shows up in slacks.
Used to be a Mandatory Death Sentence (Score:5, Funny)
10 years for piracy?
Actually until 1998 piracy used to carry a mandatory death sentence in the UK under the 1837 piracy act [wikipedia.org]. This was one of the few crimes which still had it after the (almost) abolition of the death sentence in 1965. Mind you it did have to be committed on the high seas so it only applied to those downloading content while on a ship at sea.
in the mean time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nazi war criminals serves five years or less.
Apparently IP piracy is more severe in scope than industrialized murder of six million.
Re:in the mean time... (Score:5, Informative)
Rape gets you a slap on the wrist because the people and the wallets in whose name filesharers are being imprisoned, tend to like to rape a lot and need the law to have a contingency for them. There's also a lot of kiddie rape among them entertainment industry stars, and from all the years of news articles and controversy with a kiddie rape tradition within Hollywood and labels and those entertainment companies it is only telling why kiddie rape nets so little time in the joint.
On another hand, let us look at the nature of the copyright cartel a little:
a. Drug trafficking (Vytas Simanavicius case[http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-chief-pleads-guilty-to-drug-trafficking-130421/])
b. Defamation (Prenda/Malibu)
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/porn-troll-prenda-law-sanctioned-in-defamation-lawsuit/]
[http://torrentfreak.com/accused-movie-pirate-sues-for-defamation-120723/]
c. Uploading torrents and copyright material themselves unlawfully (Megaupload case, file-lockers, and honeypot schemes).
http://www.brutalattack.org/index.php/2013/08/15/copyright-troll-ran-pirate-bay-honeypot-comcast-confirms/
[https://torrentfreak.com/voltage-pictures-sued-for-copyright-infringement-150520/]
This leads to hypocrisy.
d. Breaking the 8th Amendment of the USA under the justification of example making. (Fining people hundreds of thousands per song or movie, instead of fair fines of the exact price of the pirated products + a reasonable percentage addition based on the product cost which doesn't go beyond 100%; Aaron Swartz case)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz]
e. Actual cybercrime of spreading malware and trojans on the Internet (https://torrentfreak.com/30000-pirates-receive-fake-fines-with-trojans-attached-140708)
f. Unwarranted and unlawful incarceration beyond what the law regards as a legal period (Piratebay founder Gottfrid Svartholm), or in other words subversion and undermining of the justice system and causing the loss of trust in the system and the twisting of the term "justice" itself into a worthless term.
g. Bribery, blackmail and perversion of the justice system (Piratebay founder, KimDotCom, Prenda,
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/19/google-internet-censorship_n_6354518.html]
h. Wasting more tax-payer money than artists lose to piracy over unlawful use of police forces (KimDotCom case,
[http://torrentfreak.com/can-pirate-bay-make-comeback-141210/] and many more) when the police could be saving actual lives...
So anti-pirates are also potentially indirectly responsible for civilian deaths due to siphoning police reserves.
i. Filing millions of false DMCA notices and taking down many legitimate sites while hurting many businesses in the process. Censorship.
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071010/162619.shtml]
j. Creating money out of thin air by making up piracy/download numbers, exaggerating them vastly, and thus undermining the economic system. Using this fraudulent way of getting money and passing it off as legal also constitutes money laundering. There's also the issue of false advertisement in the digital economy not being punished [see gaming, EA and Ubisoft just for some examples]. False advertising being helped by the nature of digital products not being capable of being ostensibly evaluated by an individual like material tangible products, and the attempt at monopolizing this "blindness" by scamming with rigged demos, paying up reviews and attacking negative reviews [see 4. bellow], paying up let's play videos and using the DMCA to take down any negative critique that may appear, and generally trying to monopolize the ability of people to know what they may pay for and scam on a massive scale, and removing the ability of consumers to have a return guarantee on products in any way possible. All summed up, piracy is the only tool currently in existence that gives power to consumers over the corporations trying to scam them in full scale, and trying to destroy the "consumer is always right" principle that existe
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You are confusing actual piracy with what this actually refers to, copyright violations.
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Whoosh
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What will stop the courts from making the same mistake?
The way most laws work, they are not enforced, unless they want to convict someone for a crime. So person X was accused for Crime Y where they couldn't find the evidence for that, but they did find some small scale pirating or copyright infringement, and boom 10 year sentence, and the lawers on his side may not been fully prepared to fight a piracy charge.
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And you don't see a problem with that?
Actual pirates aren't Even Detained (Score:2)
You are confusing actual piracy with what this actually refers to, copyright violations.
No I would never do that because you aren't even detained [wikipedia.org], let alone imprisoned for 10 years, for actual piracy under UK law because they are worried you might try to claim asylum.
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B.t.w related stories are listed as:
Seems right... Except the PayPal story that's WTF related.
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Because copying stuff on the internet is WORSE than stealing physical items!
Put everyone in fear of jail and it makes the police state easier to maintain...
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That's what it's about: fear.
The City of London Police, the content industry's private police force, will use this to threaten and intimidate people running services that compete with their corporate masters.
With this and Brexit, it's probably just best to take your innovation elsewhere.
It's the new war on drugs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's put lots of young people in prison on long mandatory sentences for petty crimes. Sounds genius!
Re:It's the new war on drugs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Plutocracy at work:
Rape, stab, murder = yawn
Copy My-Little-Pony vid = SLAMMER FOREVER!
You can stab people, just not profits.
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It would be interesting to see what would happen to the entertainment industry if copyright enforcement and/or laws were very weak.
Would it depress the economy overall, or just shift where entertainment money is spent?
For example, it's possible that big-budget movies would mostly disappear, but more yet smaller-budget movies would appear with embedded product placements. China seems to have been shifting to the second model rather than fight piracy harder. And their movie industry is doing fine.
Re: It's the new war on drugs! (Score:2)
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Because many people still like to get out and go to theaters. But pirating is rampant there in terms of the after-market.
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"Credit fraud? That's worse than murder!"
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Behold! A new Rule of Acquisition!
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Marijuana is gradually being legalized in western countries, we need *something* to keep the jail cells full.
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This is only for criminal piracy - i.e. piracy to make a profit, and the maximum sentence is only for the most serious cases, so for example if someone is selling pirated software online as legitimate software and then using that money to fund al-Qaeda or whatever then they might get 10 years.
People downloading the latest movies, TV series, or music aren't affected by this as they're not engaging in criminal piracy, it's still a civil issue and there is no prison sentence for civil offences.
That EU Flag (Score:2)
Will be missed
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Will be missed
Sarcasm runs deep with that one...Deeper than the English Chanel at least.
The UK won't look back once the unsavory business of splitting up is over. The EU is on borrowed time as well as on borrowed money and unless something happens, more members will be taking the exit path from the roundabout and re-asserting the authority of their own countries and courts.
10 years?! (Score:1)
“However, I wish to stress to hon. Members and to members of the public that this is not to catch out people who download music and unwittingly download or stream something illegal. I want to make that clear in adding my support to this measure. As far as I understand it, it targets the criminals who make money from distributing music to which they do not have the rights.”
We'll see about that. If it's anything like in the states, one offense and you'll be charged with piracy. Like when you're caught with a - ONE - joint, you are charged with intent to distribute.
The law will be abused.
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That's EXACTLY what this is, the government's "gateway drug" to totalitarianism....
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Or are people's memories show short they don't remember.
No, its just that people tend to get old and die at some point, where only the young stay, who think that history is boring and it was a different time and can't happen ever ever again.
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The law will be abused.
Ya think?
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it... While those of us who do are doomed to helplessly watch.
Prison conversations become more ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
PrisonerA: "What are you in for?"
PrisonerB: "I was caught with a potted plant in my home."
PrisonerC: "I couldn't remember my password."
and now,
PrisonerD: "I consumed propaganda without also paying for the privilege."
And many more! Western civilization has gone bonkers.
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PrisonerE I shoplifted the same CD and I have 3 days left on my 30 day visit don't drop the soap.
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Prisoner A: I got 10 years for assault and manslaughter, you?
Prisoner B: I shared a movie.
I guess that Prisoner B will have a huge butthole or change to violent crimes instead when he comes out.
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Prisoner A: I got 10 years for assault and manslaughter, you? Prisoner B: I shared a movie.
I guess that Prisoner B will have a huge butthole or change to violent crimes instead when he comes out.
Just shoplift the Blu-Ray, less punishment for that.
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Just shoplift the Blu-Ray, less punishment for that.
Isn't having a Blu-Ray enough punishment for anyone?
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"I am here because I trusted onion routing, and they charged me with piracy," says the first.
"I am here because my VPN leaked my real IP, and they charged me with piracy," says the second.
"I am here because my VPN worked well every day," says the third, "and they charged me with been a Russian spy."
Up the ante! (Score:4, Insightful)
10 years? For 10 years I can mow down an MP with my car. Or kidnap his kids and rape them repeatedly before cutting off a limb or two. Or after, if that's more my fancy. I could also blow up the effin' Parliament (of course while nobody is inside, else it could mean a longer sentence).
No, wait, blowing up the Parliament carries a lower sentence.
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"No, wait, blowing up the Parliament carries a lower sentence."
What if you do it on the 5th of November?
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"No, wait, blowing up the Parliament carries a lower sentence."
What if you do it on the 5th of November?
With laws like this, do they have any other options left?
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Recover from the after-election hangover, most likely.
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Just avoid blowing up a member of the royal family or you will see that they find a way to reinstate the death penalty.
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Not as long as that member of the royal family brings disgrace to it. Then you even may get paid afterwards.
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Probably paid by being requested to serve as a serf at a remote embassy. That would please everyone.
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That would probably depend on who is in power at the time...
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No, wait, blowing up the Parliament carries a lower sentence.
Not to mention that you'll get an annual holiday named after you - and that's even if the plan doesn't work!
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Umm...didn't the last guy who tried to blow up Parliament meet a rather more harsh fate?
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That's why I said to empty it out first.
Unintended concequences (Score:2)
Could this kind of severe punishment have an unintended consequence of causing a potential younger tech professional from wanting to move to the UK? I know a lot of tech people who "share" movies and such (I have since grown out of it, but I don't begrudge someone w
licensing adjustment visits where they say you nee (Score:2)
licensing adjustment visits where they say you need to license each system in your office even if they don't use that software at all.
Or on your VM you need to pay for all the cores in the host even if Oracle is just using 1/4 of them.
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Not to be pedantic but I hate that the creation of Linux is being used above to promote piracy.
Yes, part of the motivation for the creation of Linux was to save $ on software - but it was more than that.
- The UNIX most people used (SunOS) was only available on Sun Workstations which were wickedly expensive dedicated hardware found only at universities or corporations that could afford them.
- The BSD community at the time had some ports to the x86 platform but their developers didn't really get along with ma
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I am a tech professional and major nerd. When I was growing up and teaching myself different software and operating system, I had the tendency to find them on "sharing" websites. (only because I was dirt poor and only looking to learn the tools)
Could this kind of severe punishment have an unintended consequence of causing a potential younger tech professional from wanting to move to the UK? I know a lot of tech people who "share" movies and such (I have since grown out of it, but I don't begrudge someone who does). I think it is kind of part of the millennial culture. I could be wrong.
Meh. I would imagine that the fact that the UK is rapidly becoming a real world model of Airstrip One would be more than enough to discourage anyone at all; not just IT people, from wanting to move there.
Online Pirates and the WWW (Score:1)
It's too bad we didn't call it the "all-around really radical reticulation" so our third-level domains would traditionally start with arrr.
This would result in Mass Incarceration (Score:2)
This would result in Mass Incarceration of young people. Copyright infringement is basically a thought crime. I wish that we could see more picketing and mass protests of this sort of thing all over the world. Because "Intellectual Property" is effectively worthless. Unlike Physical goods, its not finite, and can be reproduced limitlessly. To keep a few very rich and powerful people in power, we are willing to institute a massive wave of fascism, which will end in destroying free speech and communication in
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Nah, the majority will just go "they came for the nerds, but I was not a nerd, so..."
What about the burden of proof? ISP's do a poor jo (Score:2)
What about the burden of proof? ISP's do a poor job of keep track of equipment so they end up with the wrong person just from that.
What about the proving that file is pirated and not an Professor's Lecture's that has the same name as an artist?
"What are you in for?" (Score:5, Funny)
Prisoner 1: "What are you in for?"
Prisoner 2: "I posted a low grade copy of "Spock's Brain" to YouTube."
Prisoner 1: "What!? Are you mad? How many views did you get?"
Prisoner 2: "Zero."
Prisoner 1: "How long is your sentence?"
Prisoner 2: "They are giving me 'The Chair' tomorrow morning."
Prisoner 1: "Dude, I'm sorry. That sucks."
Prisoner 2: "Yeah... well, my brother-in law did the same thing; only it was "Threshold".
Prisoner 1: "Star Trek Voyager? The Wacko Amphibians??"
Prisoner 2: "Yeah. That one. He died in a drone strike, an hour after it was posted."
Prisoner 1: "Who killed him?"
Prisoner 2: "It's a toss up between Trekkie's and the government. I'm leaning towards the government."
Prisoner 1: "Well... I'm out tomorrow. I guess killing 12 people isn't what it used to be. Your president really means business in clearing this Cuban prison."
The sign above the door reads 'Guantanamo Bay'
6 months for rape or a decade for copying a file? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know its US vs UK, but Brock Turner (http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/us/sexual-assault-brock-turner-stanford/) received a 6 month sentence for raping an unconscious woman, yet someone else could spend 20 times that length of time imprisoned for copying a file?
And people wonder why we question our faith in the police, government and the system!
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Proportionality (Score:5, Informative)
When will these type of crimes become proportional FFS??
Here's some average jail times for crimes in the UK to put this into perspective:
Administering drugs to obtain intercourse Sexual Offences Act 1956 s4 2 years
Abuse of trust: sexual activity with a child Sexual Offences Act 2003 s16 5 years
Burglary with intent to commit rape (non-dwelling) Theft Act 1968 s9 10 years
Distributing copyrighted material Dumbass Act 2016 10 years?!
Who is "demanding justice" in this case to require 10 years for "piracy"? It's not for the people...you know, the individuals that make this democracy thing work.
8th ammendment (Score:4, Funny)
Thankfully the USA has the 8th amendment forbidding cruel or unusual punishment. So we won't see such a bill here.
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Bankruptcy only lasts 7 years on your credit record doesn't it? And although it ruins your credit for awhile, you can still live as you please (and can afford to pay cash for).
Rape a Woman.... less than a year (Score:2)
View a video or song, and 10 years.
Oh, mind you, most of us have bought the same album in different formats repeatedly. So if you bought that album on vinyl, cassette, and CD. You didn't buy it, per the record labels you just bought a license.
Well, fine....where the hell is my damn license? And if I have a license, why does the media matter?
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Looks reasonable (Score:2)
So basically... (Score:2)
Torrenting a few porn movies is worse than rape. At some point ideas like 'fair', and 'proportional' were euphemised and defined out of the window.
What better way to kill the industry? (Score:1)
Those convicted aren't going to be purchasing media for the next 10 years, nor likely thereafter out of spite.
Even if it does function as a deterrent, many are going react with a similar "fuck you" to the establishment and find other entertainment. (Not only pirates, but principled people protesting this outrageous injustice.) Media outlets will become a target of vandalism/arson/etc., which will also provide entertainment with a lesser sentence if caught.
The only paying customers left will be worthy of s
This is ludicrous (Score:3)
Abolish copyright. Now.
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"pirates"? (Score:2)
This is great (Score:1)
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Don't be and Online Pirate.
Or simply kill the movie studio and MPAA/RIAA heads.
You'd likely get less than 10 years for that at least in time served, so why not? Same with Lords & MPs who are in favor of this expanded sentencing for copyright violations.
Off with their heads (which seems rather a popular pastime in the UK since the influx of young men from the ME ramped up)!
Strat