19 Charged in Alleged Software Piracy Plot 311
Brainsur writes "
A federal grand jury has indicted 19 people on charges they used the Internet to pirate more than $6.5 million worth of copyrighted computer software, games and movies.The indictment outlines an alleged plot by defendants from nine states, Australia and Barbados to illegally distribute newly released titles, including movies like "The Incredibles" and "The Aviator," and games like "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005."
Its just a .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not some super secret terrorist organisation out to destroy america's economy.
IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:3, Funny)
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:3, Funny)
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:3, Interesting)
The argument goes that the release groups are providing material for the people selling pirated goods on the street.
It's much harder to get rid of the street corner dvd guy, compared to killing a release group.
IMHO, in the long term, neither problem has a solution. One group does it for free fun, the other for money. You could wipe out the physical pirates by lowe
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess that comment is just another scare tactic, I suppose they think that claiming links to terrorism may stop people buying pirate software.
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:3, Insightful)
Terrorists DO recieve money from oil.
LK
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:3, Insightful)
Every day during the commute to work on the NYC Subway, there's always an Asian woman who walks from train to train (in between the trains when they move) selling ripped DVD's in fake cases. If you can buy pirated DVD's in the subways (and Battery Park on the weekends I believe) then I'm sure somewhere in the world, someone is selling pirated software.
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:3, Insightful)
It's been proved that billions of dollars from oil is the major funding for ME terrorist groups. Most warez is freely distributed online. That which is sold is mostly for hardly more than the cost of media (as that's the bottom line in cost to the pirates, competition quickly brings the price down to close to that). I'm sure you can do the "Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation" from my buy
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:5, Funny)
Therefore we need to treat pirated software / mp3's as WMD's.
We begin bombing in 5 minutes!
Re:IN CAPITALIST AMERICA (Score:3, Insightful)
In Capitalist America, the economy destroys you!
Re:Its just a .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Its just a .... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if you criminally conspire to evade taxes, to murder someone or to infringe on copyrights.
Conspiring to break laws is a crime and the police should deal with them as criminals.
Re:Its just a .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Its just a .... (Score:2)
Right, and a keg party is a conspiracy to commit felony DUI.
Re:Its just a .... (Score:3, Insightful)
The main charge is criminal conspiracy.
It doesn't matter if you criminally conspire to evade taxes, to murder someone or to infringe on copyrights.
Conspiring to break laws is a crime and the police should deal with them as criminals.
Hmmm...so if you invite some friends to share a little grass you should get five years? Man, this country has been down this road a number of times and the people don't take kindly to the government throwing their kids in jail for stupid shit. Look, these aren't drug runners try
Re:Its just a .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Its just a .... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got news for you mate, just because it's law doesn't mean it's *right*, and just because a kid broke the law doesn't mean you should ruin his life for it.
Re:Its just a .... (Score:3, Insightful)
I still have no idea what the OP's point is, and now I have no idea what your point is, or how they relate to one another.
Re:Its just a .... (Score:5, Interesting)
The OP's point was they were criminals who knew what they were doing was wrong and had serious concequences if they were caught, but chose to continue doing it. He actually supports artists who use the Creative Commons license and the local music scene.
The chap you responded to believes that because he believes copyright law is wrong, that those violating it on a grand scale are actually commiting "civil disobedience" and should be celebrated as heros and let free. Notably, he is a leech on the P2P networks, downloading from others but blocking incoming connections from fear of enforcement; a P2P leaf node
Personally I think the article was posted to let the community know it will take longer before the latest movies are available for download on their latest P2P network. Any other questions?
Re:Its just a .... (Score:2)
Do I? Am I?
All I was trying to say (ahem I admit albeitly badly) was that I thought that even though yes they knew it was illegal I'm sure they w
Re:Its just a .... (Score:2, Troll)
Taken literally, that would mean that kids shouldn't be punished for rape or murder either; after all, they're against the law.
Now, I don't think you meant it that way, but unless "You did the crime, now do the time." applies to everybody, nobody's going to pay any attention to the law.
Re:Its just a .... (Score:3, Insightful)
You just made that up, or, no, I take it back, you weren't that creative. You're just repeating what you've "heard." Civil disobedience as a form of public protest is done publicly, but civil disobedience is a matter of conscience, not public display.
Thoreau said, "Break the law."
He didn't say "Break the law, but make sure you get caught."
Damn near every pot smoker hiding in the basement is being civilly disobedient simply because they know in their
Re:Its just a .... (Score:2)
If everybody who is now in locked up because they WERE in posession of contraband would suddenly be set free, our prisons would become rather empty. This would be true even more so, if those who committed a crime in the effort to obtain some contraband were released also. What percentage of thefts are committed by those wanting the money to obtain some "controlled substance" which absent of being "controlled" would be dirt cheap?
Vast numb
Re:Its just a .... (Score:2, Interesting)
Make everyone either an inmate or a guard, for the economy.
KFG
Re:Its just a .... (Score:2)
What, do you think everyone just sat around in the speakeasy asking the cops come and raid the place? Mass disobedience, whether "civil" or not is what it takes to get unpopular laws changed.
Re:Its just a .... (Score:2)
They're just trying to blur the distinction between the two, once you do that, its easy to blur it furthur.
Seriousy, its mostly about getting in the news and saying, "see what happens when you pirate?!?!" Its an attempt to stop the unstoppable. That's why every now and then you'll see a huge drug bust on the news. It doesn't actually stop drug trafficing, it makes it look like the people in government doing the legwork are being productive/useful.
Re:Its just a .... (Score:2)
6.5 million? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:6.5 million? (Score:2)
Re:6.5 million? (Score:2)
6500000 dollars
let's say 50 bucks MSRP
130000 units
13 years
10000 units per year
60 members
166 units per member per year
365 days per year
0.45 units per member per day
Those guys didn't have much of a bandwidth bill for a l33t warez group.
Re:6.5 million? (Score:2)
it's late, my homonyms fail me.
Re:6.5 million? (Score:2)
At $250k a pop, they would only need to pirate 26 things to hit that mark otherwise. Given they are "from nine states, Australia and Barbados", that seems a pretty small figure.
That's the amount... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's the amount... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:6.5 million? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm guessing that it's the "value" of the merchandise, as reported by the companies who made it.
As I understand it, companies over-inflate their products' value so it looks like they're giving you a great discount. That's why the Ronco Six Star Plus Cutlery Set [asseenontv.com] has an $850 value but is yours for only $39.95 (plus Shipping and Handling), and why all that crap they had on Wheel of Fortune [wheeloffortune.com] cost so much.
Re:See Reuters Article (Score:2)
It doesn't matter. As co-conspirators, they are liable for the acts of all members of the conspiracy. If I say, let's start collecting warez, we set up a bare server, and then you stock it full of pirated software, I'm just as guilty as you, even if I never touch it again.
Re:See Reuters Article (Score:2, Informative)
they said 23,000 CD's, which are 700 Mb each... 23,000 * 700 = 16,100,000 Mb
Divided among all 60 people... 16,100,000 / 60 = 268,333.33
all being converted into Mb/Gb or whatever it ends up being around 262 gigabytes each person.... Personally, I know more than 10 people that have 200 Gb hard drives that arent even in the computer field.
one IT person could grab a couple 200 GB hard drives or a 400GB Hard drive and easily rack up 260+ GB in music
I'm guessing (Score:2)
Re:See Reuters Article (Score:2, Insightful)
A movie is only one DVD disc, but several CDs.
See how the game is played? The exact opposite of what you doing by fitting an appropriate form of data to the disk.
See how well it worked on you? You completely lost track of what the real issue was and started thinking in terms of analogous strawmen, even to the point of
Ahh, sweet conspiracy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ahh, sweet conspiracy... (Score:2)
WAREZCO at your serViZ (Score:5, Funny)
Long live darknets! A thousand more spring up...
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
~S
Image from TFA (Score:5, Funny)
Just in case, ya know... You didn't know what a computer connected to the internet looked like.
Re:Image from TFA (Score:2)
Apparently it is connected to the internet, but not going anywhere.
Re:Image from TFA (Score:2)
That's a lot of money... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's people like these who make it more and more difficult just to use software because of the security features they add. I can't tell you how many times iTunes has spontaniously wiped all the files on it.
Re:That's a lot of money... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's people like the ones that make decisions in the companies that produce the software stupidly thinking they can make something that nobody will break, and sacrificing usability of the end-product for the concept.
Consider how many times it's kept a product from being pirated. Then consider how many times the companies have been majorly burned by it backfiring on them.
Smart decisions, huh?
Re:That's a lot of money... (Score:2)
The grandparent was right though, if these twats weren't pirating so much do you really think anti-piracy measures would be necessary? Businesses generally don't do things for the hell of it.
Re:That's a lot of money... (Score:2)
but the real question as to whether or not this is civil disobediance will be how they act from here on out. If they were doing this because they hated the copyright system, then they now have an international forum to say this and defend the position as a way to fight something they didn't believe in. of course, I highly doubt that is why they
Nice stock photo there (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nice stock photo there (Score:2)
Re:Nice stock photo there (Score:2)
Warez Is Now An Extraditable Offence (Score:5, Interesting)
As a shareware developer, I could care less about kids cracking my software, but I'm getting damn sick of the charade going on as the BSA cries (to its own benefit only) about the evils of piracy.
Barbados (Score:2, Interesting)
also we did not worry about drinking and driving because they rummer was there was no law against it as the police had no breathalyzer equipment.
Not a waste of money (Score:2)
Re:Warez Is Now An Extraditable Offence (Score:2)
The reality is, you have be a major player in the warez game to attract the DOJ's attention: Deciding Whether to Prosecute an Intellectual Property Case [cybercrime.gov] (Revised 2003)
The NET Act (No Electronic Theft) eliminated the profit motive as an element of the offense in 1997. Criminal Intellectual Property Laws [cybercrime.gov]
As a shareware developer, I could care less about kids cracking my software
The world loo
From the Article (Score:4, Funny)
"Online thieves who steal merchandise that companies work hard to produce"
I though he was saying:
Online thieves who steal products that companies work hard to merchandise
Great start! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great start! (Score:2)
What do you mean? Australia does have a population of twenty million, but only one of the accused is an Aussie.
We're also convicts, not pirates, Arrrr!
I suppose it's amusing that in the media here the Australian Wheat Board's corrupt dealing with Saddam are in the spotlight, yet the seppos are after some warez-weenie. Good thing the kid didn't speak out against intelligent design or something or they would have sent a team of deniable assets to take him out.
Re:Great start! (Score:2)
sounds like the war on drugs....
Re:Great start! (Score:2)
sounds like the war on drugs....
Not really. They aren't making nearly that much headway on that war. Maybe that's why they're starting a new one. Fresh start and all that. It'll be another 20-30 years or so before people really start questioning that one.
Bait? (Score:4, Insightful)
Take a look at used software for sale on ebay. Thousands of used titles with no takers. The bottom has fallen out of software business long ago. Next to go was the music business, and then the movie business. Its not even worthwhile to duplicate them and list them.
There is such a flood of media and digital data, that its very hard to sell such a thing anymore. Ask any music artist or band trying to sell their cd. There just are no takers. Its gone long ago.
To think that PGA Golf and The Aviator are items in hot demand is laughable... me thinks we are being baited.
WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone care to explain why conspiracy attracts a harsher sentence than the actual crime? I mean, leaving aside the whole moral quagmire surrounding the criminalization of copyright infringement, how can thinking and talking about doing something carry a harsher penalty than actually doing it. Does this type of duality apply in traditional crimes like assault, murder and larceny?
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Conspiracy also implies premeditation, which automatically makes any crime worse.
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
Now that these nutty cyber terrorists are gone... (Score:5, Insightful)
The frustrating/disappointing thing about all these lawsuits and 'victories' over piracy is that with every win, groups like the MPAA/RIAA only feel more firmly that their new business model (CRUSH, SUE, EXTORT, EXTERMINATE!) is a successful and long term one. Each time a major 'piracy bust' hits the news it only further propagates the myth that Piracy is what's driving declines in Movies, Music, Software and Games. When the real culprit (though, obviously Piracy does play some part) is Quality, Price, and the Media (DRM disks, copy once CDs, Theaters, Star-Force, ect).
But then again, I'm preaching to the choir here...
Re:Now that these nutty cyber terrorists are gone. (Score:2)
No, no, no! That's EXTERMINATE! ELIMINATE! DISTROY! Don't you know anything about how those Daleks work?
This is a misleading headline (Score:5, Insightful)
The defendants, many of whom worked in high-tech jobs, were members of "RISCISO," a "warez" community founded in 1993, according to the indictment. Warez groups are underground associations that use the Internet to illegally distribute copyrighted software.
Okay, right. A warez group got busted. Great. But the headline reads 19 Charged in Alleged Software Piracy Plot. Piracy plot? And the worst part, by far, is the opening of the article- A federal grand jury has indicted 19 people on charges they used the Internet to pirate more than $6.5 million worth of copyrighted computer software, games and movies. To the untrained eye, this seems just like every day Bob who downloaded a film or two...
I think it's a scare tactic. I don't like it. But then again, maybe I'm paranoid and stuff...
- dshaw
Untrained eye? (Score:2)
It'd take more than an 'untrained eye' to conclude "$6.5 million worth of copyrighted computer software, games and movies" was "a film or two".
It would take a moron. Or an MPAA lawyer....
Re:Untrained eye? (Score:2)
Or a Congressman. Don't forget they set the value at $250,000.
Re:This is a misleading headline (Score:2)
Yes, the everyday Bob who download a film or two wort $6.5 million. Believe it or not (an you won't 'cause this is
Re:This is a misleading headline (Score:2)
Ever copy a copyrighted work for a friend? Ever install software off someone else's CD (even a video game)? Ever sing "Happy Birthday" in public?
These are all pretty common, and not considered to be terribly heinous offenses. The fact that the penalties for these offenses ranges from fines of thousands of dollars to multi-year prison terms isn't terribly reasonable.
Re:This is a misleading headline (Score:3, Funny)
You will. And the company that will make it happen? AT&T.
*cough*
free software (Score:3, Insightful)
Extraditing for warez (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone else find it ridiculeous?
It's something (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly, it should be pretty low on the priority list as far as the FBI or any government agency is concerned, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored when hard evidence can be brought against large-scale criminals, as these 19 supposedly are.
The problem with warez is that it's easy. While cracking DRM and copyright may not be simple, once that's done, it's easy for anyone and everyone to download it. It isn't even limited by speed- a fairly patient person could download, say, a Doom 4 ISO if they wanted.
Because of this ease, and the much lower risk of being caught (hence its prevalence), it is biting into income of companies. The numbers that they throw out may or may not be exact, but you can just shrug them away and say it hurts noone.
However, the penalties placed against some of these people are a bit odd. A slap on the wrist and a $100 fine doesn't really cut it for large distributors, but some of the jailtime and fines that I've read about seem unrealistic. After all, they are copying something, not taking it, so they aren't depriving the original owner of anything (assuming that the original owner didn't intend for the download.) Downloading a CD should bring far less of a penalty than stealing a physical CD from a store.
Re:It's something (Score:2)
Er, CAN'T just shrug them away...
And I previewed, too. Dammit.
Its just a thought.... (Score:3, Insightful)
All the money spent by the US government lately has achieved exactly what? There just have been no successes in all this, and I think that they (you know who 'they' are) are looking for successes as the election nears. I know that the *AA will be proud of how their 'campaign contributions' were spent... I am just wondering what the American public will think of how the dollars were spent... hunting down grandmas and wiretapping anyone and everyone...
Makes me think there just might be a conspiracy in here somewhere?????
Re:Its just a thought.... (Score:2)
I imagine there is. Unfortunately, "conspiracy to commit stupidity" is not illegal, so they're off the hook.
Sometimes I wonder.... (Score:4, Funny)
``Ragnarok
How many items (Score:4, Funny)
I didn't know there was that much current software in existence.
Thought Police- How many lives have you saved? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this how humanity evolved? Is this how we will be able to retain knowledge in the future? What the fuck are libraries but mass piracy collectives?
Here is the truth of it, and it will piss off pretty much everyone in this non-manufacturing based economy.
You either know something or you do not. It is either secret or it is not. And in the end, all things are known.
You cannot own knowledge. It was never yours to begin with. The language I am speaking now was giving to me by thousands of years of other English speakers. It is not mine to own. The word "fkucherry" that I just made up does not belong to me. It is a contruct of what I've learned from others. It is knowledge.
When this understanding is realized, say after a catastrophic event, then Linux will no longer need the GPL along with all other proprietary software/entertainment data. And the data that will be able to survive at that point will be open data, as Linux is today. It will save our asses- mark my words. Windows and all those shit programs that those people copied won't be worth a drop of piss. Nobody will be able to modify it. It will be useless.
And so here is what I think of arresting very smart people in high end technical positions. Maybe they know something that you don't? Maybe they aren't paid by people that get their money from PAC funded politicians. Maybe they are archiving data educating more people than your broken government ever could. Maybe we should all think about what this means.
I have to tell you that the moment Intellect and Knowledge became legal property is the moment that you have no "lawful" rights to your own thoughts. That does not serve anyone and never has.
Pirates finance terrorists? (Score:3, Interesting)
Old News? (Score:2, Informative)
Economics (Score:2, Insightful)
Excellent idea! (Score:2)
Yes, if you charge $0 for software, than your piracy losses are $0, and you have nothing to worry about from piracy.
Thank you for protecting us! (Score:3, Insightful)
It Make her and myself feel so much safer knowing that the goverment(s) are spending millions of dollars a year to help these companies keep evil software pirates behind bars.
Slashbot says.... (Score:5, Funny)
What are they thinking?!? This is as petty as a crime gets! Don't they have anything better to do?
DOJ busts spammers for conspiring to find people's email addresses and send email to them
ROCK ON!!! Hang the motherfuckers! Burn them at the stake! It's too bad we can't bust them all!
Corporation infringes on copyright, redistributes modified GPL'ed work without source
Assholes! Somebody take them to court! Sue them for every cent they're worth!
Re:Slashbot says.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem seems to be that you are confused from the get-go:
The problem here is that these guys were NOT selling illegal copies. Go back to the few stories
Those who make movies stole their games too... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've used tens of thousands of dollars worth of code over the years on a variety of platforms from the Tandy CoCo to my current PC which I simply could not afford to have bought at the time. I don't feel guilty about this in the slightest. Now that I'm grown up, I turned around and now provide a lot of content to the world which has also been borrowed by people who haven't paid. Gee whiz. Life goes on, and the wheels keep spinning and there's still food on my table. How many software makers are starving? I'm serious. --If people are good at what they do, if they produce with passion, then if their work doesn't sell, it has nothing to do with piracy.
I'd also be curious to know. . . How many of those people who today make movies and software haven't also pirated a few dozen software titles when they were kids at home with their C64s, or Amigas or whatever? I didn't know a single computer-owning kid who wasn't also a software pirate. Not one.
What comes around, goes around. That's Karma and everybody pays. It's the credit card system of the Universe.
See, I've also bought a lot of software, and unless you are a giant dork, so have you.
Now that I am an adult with an income, I particularly enjoy buying software from small companies similar to the ones I ripped off as a kid. Not out of guilt or any sense of repayment; Motivation is much more pleasing when it stems from passion rather than pain. --And I genuinely enjoy making on-line purchases and downloading cool and clever bits of code. I understand the creativity and work required to create something, and how much encouragement and joy comes from seeing a sale made. I think it's wonderful to encourage passion and wit and creativity and bravery in those individuals who are willing to buck the system and listen to their souls. It feels great!
Look at "Doom". The first version was free! And does everybody remember what the end result was? Did people lose jobs and starve? Goodness, no! --The excitement generated from creating something new and truly clever creates energy, enough energy to feed and employ thousands of people.
The trick is making sure that you stay connected to the loop. There's nothing wrong with that. Being willing to Give energy freely means nothing if you don't also allow yourself to Take energy freely. The conduit must not be stymied at either end of the flow. "Give and you shall receive," is one of the truly valid, really good sayings in this reality, but it needs one little addendum I think. . , "Give and you shall receive, --but don't be silly about it."
The "Information Wants to be Free" saying is also a good one. It's so very true, but it works in ways a little more clever and mysterious than the laws of direct commerce allow for.
-FL
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Bring a good, detailed argument about why non-profit copyright violators should be punished to the fullest extent of the law and then we can have a more reasonable debate.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Bring a good, detailed argument about why non-profit copyright violators should be punished to the fullest extent of the law and then we can have a more reasonable debate."
But if he said, these guys got railroaded, it also brings nothing to the table but wouldn't have been modded down. As for a flamewar, you presuppose that
Re:Who's responsible? (Score:2)
Hell most highschools arent educating kids the right way, so we're going to punish them when they take the initiative to learn something they're interested in?