Man Handed Conditional Prison Sentence for Spreading Information About Popcorn Time Service (torrentfreak.com) 120
A man from Denmark has been handed a six-month conditional prison sentence for spreading information about Popcorn Time, an authorized on-demand movies and TV shows streaming service, news outlet TorrentFreak reports. From the report: In what is being described as a first for Europe, the man was convicted after telling people how to download, install and use the movie streaming service. He was also ordered to forfeit $83,300 in ad revenue and complete 120 hours community service.
Re: Russian: selective enforcement (Score:2)
You spam bots are getting more advanced by the day ...
Clickbait horse stuff (Score:2, Interesting)
What a load! You don't make $83,300 in ad revenue from just "spreading information about [banned service]." Sounds like maybe there would be other English words that would more accurately describe what he's accused of.
Re:Clickbait horse stuff (Score:5, Informative)
In August 2015, police in Denmark announced they had arrested a man in his thirties said to be the operator of a Popcorn Time-focused website. Popcorntime.dk was subsequently shut down and its domain placed under the control of the state prosecutor.
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PopcornTime.dk was an information resource, offering news on Popcorn Time-related developments, guides, plus tips on how to use the software while staying anonymous.
Re:Clickbait horse stuff (Score:4, Informative)
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Clearly making money off of the illegal thing is enough. Courts are allowed to employ the common sense eyeball test, obfuscations don't get you out of trouble.
Re:Clickbait horse stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Clearly making money off of the illegal thing is enough. Courts are allowed to employ the common sense eyeball test, obfuscations don't get you out of trouble.
Although true, I still have trouble believing they would not simply find something else to charge him with even if he ran the site on his own money. Look how far authorities have gone, in some cases even breaking their own laws, not to mention issues regarding national sovereignty, in order to go after those they perceive as threats to the copyright cartels and their business models.
Strat
Re: Clickbait horse stuff (Score:2)
mre interesting is surely the corrupt danish police and judges that allowed ths to ggo to trial. No way this wasnâ(TM)t motivated by bribes from the media industry.
Re: Clickbait horse stuff (Score:2)
sucky ipad touch keyboard, last apple device i ever buy.
Re: Clickbait horse stuff (Score:2)
Denmark sure does hate freedom.
The best machine guns to kill in movie theaters (Score:2)
Someone who runs a website actively promoting illegal activities needs to be squeaky clean to get away with it. If you are making money off it, it's going to look bad. I don't know the Danish laws but in the US there's only so much you can hide behind on the first amendment which protects free speech not commerical speech.
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Did the Constitution get amended? The 1st seems pretty simple.
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the first amendment which protects free speech not commerical speech.
The first definitely protects commercial speech, just not as strongly as some other kinds.
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If you're advertising how to reach him to purchase meth, you will certainly be in trouble, yes.
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They put him in prison
Where is that in the article? I believe that "conditional" prison sentence in this context is like a suspended sentence: he doesn't go to prison unless he commits a new crime or fails to meet the requirements of his sentence (community service, restitution).
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So, when the summary says
...it really means "unauthorized?"
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So, when the summary says [an authorized on-demand movies and TV shows streaming service] it really means "unauthorized?"
Well probably not 100% illegal just as you could find Linux CDs on The Pirate Bay. I guess he's trying to hide between a very thin veil that says he only instructed people how to use the site, he didn't explicitly tell them to pirate anything. That generally doesn't work, if you're the mob's accountant you're still part of the mob. This guy must have basically been their marketing department, this is not your random peep telling a buddy where to find it. It's large scale commercial gain.
You made a profit... (Score:3)
That's why you got criminal charges and a sentence... If you are going to do this and hope to get away with it, at least don't profit from it... You make yourself a huge target when you make a profit doing this kind of thing so you will be first on the list.
This guy made how much from ad revenue? $83K
...from an "authorized" site? (Score:5, Insightful)
A man from Denmark has been handed a six-month conditional prison sentence for spreading information about Popcorn Time, an authorized on-demand movies and TV shows streaming service.
So either the summary is wrong and the site was illegal (which is what I suspect) or someone needs to explain why making money pointing people to a legal streaming site is illegal.
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Marijuanna seeds should be soaked in warm (72-80F) water 1-2 days. They will initially float, but ought to sink after the soak. Choose healthy seeds that are green and meaty; immature seeds will have a smaller, white appearance.
Prepare soil with one cup hydrated lime per square yard, and some water-soluble nitrogen fertilizer. Ideal soil will cake when squeezed, but break when prodded, and absorbs water well.
Plant ~6 inches deep, pointy end up. Sprouts will be visible in ~5 days blah blah blah
This is too sl
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Contributory copyright infringement for commercial gain. Profit from a web site designed specifically to instruct people how to infringe copyright and you will likely be held partially liable for their actions.
It's a little like the person instructing the gang how to pull off a heist. Even if they don't participate in the heist they are still criminally liable.
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Contributory copyright infringement for commercial gain.
That only applies if there is copyright infringement. If you point people to, and I quote the summary, "an authorized site" where is the copyright infringement? If the site is authorized there is no copyright infringement involved. For example, if I set up a website to point people to Netflix I would not expect that to be illegal even if I made money out of it.
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Why on earth would you do that? You have the whole internet at your fingertips, and you pick the slashdot summary as your prime source of information??
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If you point people to, and I quote the summary, "an authorized site" where is the copyright infringement?
You need to expect a certain degree of dishonesty. Authorized site to do what? Popcorn seems according to what I read to be software that is intended to be used for copyright infringement. You can be authorized by say the authors of popcorn to link to their site. At the same time you are not authorized by the copyright owners of gazillions of different works to help with copyright infringement of their works.
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If you are going to do this and hope to get away with it, at least don't profit from it.
The other way to get away with it is to incorporate, and make so much money that you can tie up the courts for years with legal maneuvering while you launder the money. This is what The SCO Group did to steal Novell's money and property.
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LOL.. I'm not so sure that SCO thing worked out well, in the end.... But you have a point.
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Nobody is making you watch them. If they are such shit, stop watching, problem solved?
How would you know they are shit unless you watched them? Sounds like the GP did stop watching some. Trouble is that movies are launched with such hype that you think they must be worth watching, so you give it a try.
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"HOW TERRIBLE white people are, and men in particular"
Yup, we only want movies that show make believe, not reality
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Subtle that, we almost missed your racism. And sexism.
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Subtle that, we almost missed your racism. And sexism.
You missed something alright. But not what you think
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Maybe the point is that most white guys identify as the person that they are, and resent other people trying to label them as white or male, and particularly react against people trying to suggest that either label is inherently bad.
Perhaps protesting against other people being racist sexist cunts is something they could volunteer to do. You'd support that, surely?
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Tell us how you really feel about WhollyWeird...
They are victims of their own success formulas. Nobody is willing to take risks unless it's been tried before. If you have a story or a film that doesn't follow one of the paths that was successful before, good luck getting funded. Of course, the bean counters are not all to blame. They have also forgotten the fist rule of business, don't offend your customers. In the race to the bottom driven by "sex sells" they continue to shock and offend the majority
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If you want to protest you protest by not consuming their shit.
Doesn't work. Ignoring things is never noticed by those responsible for the things. What might have more effect is to watch the shit and then say it's shit in a review on IMDB - not a huge effect from your one review, but collectively it would hurt them. Of course you might have other things to do with your time.
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The problem is Hollywood.
It's as much of a problem for you as any other entity that produces poor quality products. You just don't buy them.
The problem here is people assuming easy access to quality movies, on their terms, is a god-given right.
There was actually a time when they created *original* movies like "Predator" and "Aliens", and showed them for less than $10.
There was also a time when a candy bar was a nickle.
Not precisely. (Score:2)
Forfeited $83000 in revenue?
Methinks he wasn't just "telling them about the service".
IMO from an American law point of view, it wouldn't seem that he did anything precisely illegal, merely enabled other people to do things which might include illegality. It'd be like hosting a site on lockpicking.
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IIRC, Napster was brought down with a similar argument, though I think that was in civil court.
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No, they didn't host the files. My recollection was correct [nytimes.com]:
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And that's what this guy had - a list of files and their locations in the form of hyperlinks. And detailed instructions. And, like Napster, he was trying to make money with it.
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In the UK you'd get seriously spanked for carrying them around without what the court would rule was reasonable cause.
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Car door lock picking tools are more suspicious as locksport doesn't usually include car doors, so you'd better have a good reason for carrying them.
Authorized? (Score:2)
Authorized to do what by who? It's a torrent site.
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Something lost in translation (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article, and as near as I can figure, he was busted for posting instructions on how to download, install, and use software for pirating content from PopcornTime.
From the /. excerpt, it sounds like all he was doing was helping people to legally use the service. Highly misleading.
And what a crappy headline... I have pretty low expectations for accuracy in /. postings, but this is one of the more egregious cases of crap editing, or something. Unless it was intentionally misleading.
What's next? (Score:1)
"Thought crime"
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Does that mean msmash is due for indictment for posting this story? How many people never heard of "Popcorn Time" before this article, and now have the seed planted for illegal activity?
Conspiracy charges, here we come!
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Wow, I've just found popcorntime.sh ! Never heard of it before. Jailtime for msmash, she (he?) led me on.
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What's next? If you mention something illegal in conversation, you can be reported, arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to prison?
This is the comment of a person that's run out of real problems to worry them and are now inventing fantastical ones to fulfill some deep seated need to be threatened. They took away the money he made by selling access to IP he didn't own (and yes, if he collected ad revenue, that's selling it). How terrible.
Regardless of how you feel about movie piracy, actually selling someone else's IP takes it to a new level.
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If the mob pays you $83,000 to run messages about planned robberies and murders between people, then yes you will be arrested for your mere mentions of the crimes.
Something is rotten (Score:3, Funny)
What about this is criminal (Score:1)
If PopcornTime is an authorized streaming service, then he is simply reviewing a service. So in Denmark you can't write reviews about software that streams movies?
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You evidently didn't read the article. Basically, his website was a guide to illegally pirating PopcornTime content, complete with how-to's, links to pirating software, and so forth.
Whether that should be illegal or not is another question, but his activities were not as innocent as writing reviews of streaming software.
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I read the summary, which said PopcornTime is an "authorized" service. Being authorized means per definition it is not illegal and calling it a service means someone else is running/providing the service and you're paying ($0 or more) to consume it. If it's a service, you can presume to be paying for the licensing.
Socialist Utopia (Score:1)
Isn't Denmark one of the go-to nations that American liberals use as a shining example of socialist government done right?
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Denmark still has a working economy and liberals are pushing for a more Soviet Socialist government.
The SJW liberals would like the thought crime part. Spreading information as a crime is something a SJW would covert for their go-to nations.
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Hi troll. We see you and aren't falling for it.
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Oooooh burn!!! Ah, I have one too: I know you are but what am I?
I know, it's all part of the plan to antagonize and sow hate. It's okay we get it. We understand your motives. I just hope your getting paid for it because it's a pretty pathetic way to spend your time.
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"Hi troll. We see you and aren't falling for it."
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But Denmark does have great social services, among the best in the world.
As an example their health services are ranked 2rd. in Europe.
https://healthpowerhouse.com/p... [healthpowerhouse.com]
From personal experience I would say their legal system is rather sparse, for example they have 'just' a parliament but no senate or similar.
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Re:Socialist Utopia (Score:4, Informative)
Should we mind that entirely made up tax rate?
The Danish income tax is just around the EU average. E.g. in 2013, the average single Dane paid an effective income tax of 38%, compared to 31% in the US, 49% in Germany or 56% in Belgium. (Source: OECD [keepeek.com])
(Many people in the above mentioned countries will react with disbelief when they see these numbers, but then, it really shouldn't surprise anyone that OECD understands the tax systems of the respective countries better than most citizens.)
Incidentally, that Belgian average tax rate of 56% is the same as the Danish marginal (and thus also maximum) rate.
Maybe you're thinking of the OECD "tax burden" (total tax revenue, including VAT and fees, as a percentage of GDP), which is sometimes brought up by politicians campaigning on tax cuts? But even that is only 46% [oecd.org], and while it is indeed (barely) the highest in OECD, it's also a largely meaningless number, as revenue-neutral changes to the tax system can have significant impact on it. (E.g. in Denmark, people pay taxes on welfare checks. If instead we did like most countries and just paid out equivalent tax-free – but smaller – checks, the OECD tax burden would drop an estimated 4% points, and six OECD countries would suddenly be ahead of us.)
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But you forgot to add 22-25% of kommuneskat (Local tax) to the 38% income tax...
Denmark also has the highest VAT allowed by the EU, 25% on anything you buy.
And please don't forget the tax on cars that is up to 198%.
I asked the Danish skat (tax man) what I would have to pay would I decide to take my (Dutch) pension in Denmark, a nice round 50%!
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The recent changes in car taxation are an example, the smallest cars were made more expensive...
Re: home-made explosives (Score:1)
Barbara strikes again (Score:1)
Streisand Effect... having the man arrested, imprisoned etc is doing MORE to spread information about Popcorn Time than the guy they are imprisoning. Go figure. I wonder if the prosecutors get the irony here... /me goes to look up Popcorn Time
Authorized? (Score:2)
an authorized on-demand movies and TV shows streaming service
Authorized by whom? Or do you mean unauthorized? We have to ask these questions, given Slashdot's lack of competent editing.
Bad news for the entertainment industry (Score:2)
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Many modern book, TV series, movies, and video games tell people how to commit murder, i.e. "Point gun, pull trigger!"
Historically, that is why the puritans c1600 were opposed to theatres, even ones putting on "serious" plays, like Shakespeare's. Bernard Cornwell describes the situation well in his book "Fools and Mortals".
Appeal (Score:2)