MPAA Scores First P2P Jury Conviction

An anonymous reader writes "The MPAA must be celebrating. According to the BitTorrent news site Slyck.com, the Department of Justice is proclaiming their first P2P criminal copyright conviction, against an Elite Torrents administrator. The press release notes, 'The jury was presented with evidence that Dove was an administrator of a small group of Elite Torrents members known as "Uploaders," who were responsible for supplying pirated content to the group. At sentencing, which is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2008, Dove faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.'"

Not "really" P2P

This was a release group, and altho they were releasing onto p2p, this is NOT the same thing as all those other cases where the **AA is demanding 3000$ tributes to ignore wrongdoings.

Re:Not "really" P2P

In other words... these guys were using P2P at the technical level, but they were really doing the uploading of the content. **AA has a long win streak against uploaders, it's downloaders that they've had so much problems with.

Trickle down theory?

So, maybe the Warez scene should sue, too, if they're so upset about people stealing their stolen goods.

Insanity

10 years in prison? I realize that's a maximum, but the reality is he's done nothing that should be even closely considered to being a danger to society.

This hangup about defending our bullshit economy which truly only services the "haves" in the first place is being taken to extremes and I'm getting tired of it.

I say pirate everything, convince your friends, family, etc. Let's see what they do when EVERYONE is downloading their shit. Are they going to throw us all in jail? Then where will they be?

Fuckers.

Re:Insanity

I can see how you got the flambait mod, mainly for the last sentence.

However, you do have a valid point about just what danger to society this person poses and whether or not 10 years is a punishment that fits the crime.

It would certainly seem that the powerful in this country are pushing for stronger and stronger criminal punishments for what would otherwise be a civil matter between 2 entities.

Re:Insanity

A stiff fine would seem to be in order, and civil damages. Jail time is pretty harsh for this kind of IP crime though.

Re:Insanity

Jail time is pretty harsh for any kind of IP crime. That's just it though; It's INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY crime. It's not tangible.

A copyright defines rights which are granted to somebody from the government. They use these rights to diminish competition and allow them to have an advantage to collect profits for a reasonable period of time. The period of time is certainly no longer reasonable IMO, but that is up for debate.

What is not really up for debate, is that violating these rights falls within the jurisdiction of the civil courts. It was never supposed to be a matter for criminal courts. The GP of your post tried pointing out that seemingly corrupt government entities have been responsible for turning into a criminal matter, what has always been a civil matter. Simply to give them the upper hand. They don't need to spend money in the court systems defending their intellectual property against minor violations.

I recently watched a special about prison systems. I am 32 years old right now. I can remember being 22 years old, but that seems to be as far away from me now as being 11 years old. 10 YEARS is a very LONG time. Assuming that you get 60 years of adult life in this world, 1/6th of that being taken away is a huge punishment.

It's easy to forget that. I'm all for the death penalty and harsh criminal convictions, but only for violent crime. IP infringement is not a crime that we need to take 10 years from somebody for. Let's not forget that we will spend anywhere between 300K and 400K as taxpayers to do it too. Is is really that cost effective for us to do this? To protect big media companies? To protect society, or our values?

I just don't think so. Maybe huge fines and 6 months in jail or prison might be adequate.

I am more concerned by the fact that turning this into a criminal matter has provided government and corporations the impetus to do away with our privacy and rights altogether simply to provide protection for a few companies profit margins.

Re:Insanity

Well, if someone steals the secret designs for the new Widget(tm) that a company has then they should get jail time and that is an IP crime, although you could argue it's industrial espionage. We agree on this matter though. I would think probation would be enough even (plus a fine), not even six months. Six months in jail can totally ruin a person's life, whereas if they get probation they might just be able to keep their job/house, etc.

Re:Insanity

Well, if someone steals the secret designs for the new Widget(tm) that a company has then they should get jail time

I disagree. If they are in jail they are costing society money. If they are given a massive fine that won't go away with bankruptcy then their life will be dedicated to contributing money back into society in one way or another. They might not like it, but it sure beats jail time, and it's not like they are at a high risk of hurting anyone.

Re:Insanity

Maybe we should just build Imaginary Prisons for those who "steal" Imaginary Property? Then the punishment could truly fit the crime. :)

Re:Insanity

I totally agree, the punishment does not fit the crime. 10 years in prison should be reserved for things like rape, manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes of similar severity. Music/Movie/Software piracy should not be put in the same category.

Re:Insanity

Clearly it already is in that category -- as "pirates" are regarded to have committed "assault with a deadly modem".

Re:Insanity

Huh? Your not even CLOSE in your stupid analogy.

First, someone uploading a copyrighted item is NOT the same as "turning someones life upside down". Sorry, it is just not even close. Can you tell me that one high-paid exec of the RIAA/MPAA has had their "life turned into hell" because someone uploaded "Spiderman 3"? No.

Please get some perspective.

Oh, and spare me the "little artist" crap. The MPAA/RIAA take away the copyrights of those "little artist" and then do "creative accounting" to basically pay them shit for their works of art while trying to maximize their profits.

I have an idea, how about no corp can buy a copyrighted work from someone, they can only exclusively lease it for a period of no more then 5 years. This way the TRUE artist still holds the copyright. If the work is great and makes great money, THEN the real ARTIST has the corps by the balls after 5 years and can get a real fair deal for their work.

Not this "creative accounting" deal where a popular artist seems to have made NEGATIVE money in the first few years.

Yeah, this will never happen as long as the MPAA/RIAA are allowed to bribe our "representatives". Mickey Mouse needs another 200 years!

Re:Insanity

They don't want nasty violent people in there, they want nice malleable workers who will do what they are told because they are too shit scared to move. You know, white colar recreational drug users.

Re:Insanity

Please. Your not even close. If someone takes my 42" HDTV, I have lost a physical possession that I cannot get back, unless it is recovered by the police.

If someone COPIES Spider man 3, guess what, no physical property was taken. Someone copying spider man 3 doesn't take away the ability for other copies of spider man 3 to be sold.

I am not saying it is right. However, there is a HUGE difference and it should be treated as such. Maybe the cost of the movie/video/game/etc X 10?

So illegally upload/download spider man 3, and get fined $20 X 10 = $200. Sounds fair. The copyright holder would not have gotten a sale so now they get 10 sales! How more freaking fair can you be?

Oh, wait. Yeah, lets charge $1,000's for that copy AND put the person in jail for a long ass time.

Ah, the laws bought by Corporate America!

It might be a good idea...

...to NOT name your group on a torrent site something that allows information about structure to be gleaned.

Sure, uploaders may be only uploading only legal content blah blah blah, but there's no reason to publicize your role in the organization unless you can sure as hell sheild yourself while these lawsuits are bounding about.

Even the mob knows to call people "freinds of ours", not money launderers, assasins, gun runners etc. Please don't flame me because this is "security through obscurity".... because sometimes it works i.e, I still don't know where angelina jolie lives. Well played angelina, you hot little baby collector.

Re:It might be a good idea...

Please don't flame me because this is "security through obscurity".... because sometimes it works i.e, I still don't know where angelina jolie lives.

Ok, I won't flame you. However I will mock you mercilessly.

If you want to give an example of security through obscurity working, next time you might want to go with something that's obscure, or maybe something that's working, or better yet maybe even go with something that is obscure AND working. LOL.

Château Miraval. 83570 Correns, France.
Google Maps Satellite Photo. [google.com]
Article with close aerial photo. [hollywoodgrind.com]
The WIKIPEDIA page for Château Miraval. [wikipedia.org]
Château Miraval's own website. [miraval.com]

And no, don't even think of suggesting what is Angelina Jolie's bra size? [google.com] as a better example of obscurity than her address. 36-C.

Ahhhh... yeah.... the next time you want to say security through obscurity sometimes works, you might want to go with a slightly different example. In fact never ever ever again attempt to use Angelina Jolie in the same sentence with the word obscurity. You're punished. Go sit in the corner.

And no, you can't take pictures of Angelina with you. You're punished means you're supposed to sit in the corner thinking about how bad you've been, not thinking about her being a naughty naughty girl.

-

Darknet, GO!

The Uploaders have doubtlessly noted that this never would have happened if they were using an encrypted darknet for initial distribution.

Quite possibly things may evolve to the point where you aren't allowed to join without proving your identity and uploading something illegally. Compare Russian Business Network, who do this for the same purpose: you won't betray the group if they have the dirt on you also.

Mix that with segmentation among darknets to prevent inevitable compromises from taking everything down and you're golden once you set up trusted peers between different subdarknets to diffuse data between them.

NOT P2P

You gotta love these people. They are trying to make it sound like P2P itself is criminal, or certainly criminal by association.

This piracy group merely chose P2P as a medium to transfer it's files.

That would be like government catching a bunch of whatchamacallit smugglers on bicycles and then announcing "the first bicycle whatchamacallit criminal conviction". Ummm, yeah right. What the hell does bicycles have to do it?

It's not surprising that piracy groups have chose P2P to transfer their files. It is most efficient transfer medium with the highest market share. It used to IRC DCC transfer, and then before that it was FTP. A long time before that, it was file transfers through BBS. Bootleg copies used to be made on cassette tapes as well. Did that mean cassette tapes were also inherently "evil" and predisposed towards piracy? I think not.

Sorry, I guess I just can't get over how completely full of shit some people are. We can argue about piracy and intellectual copyrights all day long. That's fine. Let's just not be intellectually dishonest doing it.

10 years? Please USA, get a grip

I've seen cases of murderers getting less than this.

p2p yeah u know me

banner ads from eharmony
Dave drop a load on 'em

P2P, how can I explain it
I'll take you packet by packet
To have y'all nattin' while we be seedin' it
P is for peer, 2 is l33t for "to"
The last P...well...that's kinda simple
It's sorta like another way to call a client an equal
It's the server that be missin' here
You get on a torrent and be leechin' from the swarm
And your movies and shows appear gotta start to explainin'
Bust it
Hosting movies direct will get the feds to say hello
They get your IP and address and your knees fee like jello
And if not for feds, the hosting costs will eatcha alive
There's gotta be a better way to distribute and survive
Imagine there's no hardware, hosting or bandwith fees
just a torrent to download and and trackers to see
Every peer has a piece to share with every other peer
Reducing the burden and increasing redundancy without fear
Who thinks it's wrong 'cos I'm downloadin' and uploadin' at
Well if you do, that's P2P and you're not down with it
But if you don't, here's your membership

Chorus:
You down with P2P (Yeah you know me) 3X
Who's down with P2P (Every last IP)
You down with P2P (Yeah you know me) 3X
Who's down with P2P (All the IP's)

Worst idea evar!!!!!

Despite how bad it may sound, this is more or less not a big deal for the average person. It is like video game companies going after people who host ROMs of copyrighted games... Not that bad. Now if they won for a downloader or innocent uploader... That would be different.

No this is horribly bad. First, it is a basic travesty of justice. Prison time for P2P? Unless he was putting nuclear weapon designs on P2P, there is no reason for this. lets put people in jail for twenty years if they steal a loaf of bread. That's progressive thinking!

Second, the legal system loves basing later decisions on prior landmark cases. this has just told every judge for the next fifty years that criminal punishment id ok for civil infractions.

Third, the economy is in the dumps, and every peerson we imprision for piddly ass crap like this is costing taxpayers $$$. Ten years is not cheap. The people responsable should be dragged into the street and tarred and feathered for such frivilious use of taxpayer money.

Finally, bad laws erode respect for good laws. The more people become acoustom to breaking laws that are poorly written, the more acoustom they become to breaking laws in general.

Very bad ruling.

Re:Those types of people legitimise the MPAA effor

Sadly, when you are pushing prerelease stuff, you cross a very firm line into illegal territory. There is no grey area. They *are* costing the studios money,

I don't agree that distribution of pre-release content costs the studios any more than distribution of post-release content. The MAFIAA do not have a business plan that is significantly based on release of content. I.e. they do not use something like the "ransom" model where they charge money for the release of content rather than the distribution of content. Thus illegal distribution of pre-release content is not significantly any more costly to the MAFIAA than illegal distribution of post-release content.

Re:Those types of people legitimise the MPAA effor

If you'd like to come over with your car-duplicating equipment and make an exact copy of my Ferrari without damaging it, you're welcome to do so.

:-)

Re:Intellectuals

I agree,

Theft of imaginary property should be served in an imaginary jail.