
Torrent Site Founder, Moderator and Users Receive Prison Sentences - chewymouse
https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-site-founder-moderator-users-receive-prison-sentences-160915/
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laurent123456
That they jail and fine the founders is somewhat understandable, if only for
tax evasion and for making money off other people's IP, but jailing regular
users is going too far. There aren't making any profit from watching films,
and since we don't know if they'd be ready to pay for that content, it's not
clear at all that the film industry is losing anything.

~~~
brian-armstrong
Jailing them does seem like going too far, but I can see where it makes sense
to at least fine the top users. The top users pay monthly to run seedboxes.
They are investing in the infrastructure of the site in a measurable way. That
does make them seem involved in its operations, at least to an extent.

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appleflaxen
Copyright law is too draconian.

At this point, the US should repeal the law completely, and let the chips fall
where they may. Hollywood says we'll see a loss of culture (fewer movies,
songs, books).

Let's find out.

~~~
maxxxxx
Copyright and IP (and probably real estate) are pretty much the only way for
capitalists to make money the more things like internet, 3D printing, AI,
robotics and so on are available to the masses. To me it's the only way to
keep the current power structures intact so for a lot of powerful people
copyright laws are probably the most important laws. They don't need the state
for personal protection (they can pay for security guards instead of police)
but they need the state for protecting their livelihood.

~~~
pdkl95
> They don't need the state for personal protection

"The Hamptons is not a defensible position."

~ Mark Blyth (prof. of Political Economy at Brown), on the recent rise in
populism rejection of traditional politics (e.g. Trump, brexit, etc)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE)

~~~
maxxxxx
That's why there is a call for more military while cutting everything else.

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wrigby
After studying copyright law for music business classes in college, I think
that most conversations about piracy could be enhanced by a common
understanding of some concepts that current (US) copyright law is based on.

The most important, I think, is an understanding of the first-sale
doctrine[1], and how it differs from reproduction and distribution rights.

Many advocates for piracy argue that distributing copyrighted materials on the
Internet is no different than reselling a DVD they previously bought. However,
the distinction becomes more clear when we consider that by distributing a
movie or song through the Internet, we are also making a copy of it. Modern
computers have made it incredibly easy to make a copy of a work, to the point
that it doesn't even feel like we're copying something. Because of this, it
doesn't feel wrong to share a song or movie.

The actual amount of lost sales is immaterial when addressing the binary
question of whether or not someone should be allowed to share a movie publicly
on the Internet. The right to reproduce and distribute a copyrighted work to
the public is solely that of the copyright holder - whether your doing so
results in them losing money or not.

The question of appropriate penalties, though, is much less clear, and I think
it's a shame that prosecutors and rights-holders have pursued defendants as
viciously as they have. In many of these cases the judgments are unfairly
strict (or at least appear that way), which just makes the MPAA and RIAA look
more evil, and hurts everyone in the long run.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-
sale_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine)

~~~
doozy
The public library doesn't seem to care about your theories.

They've been lending books, mags, cds, movies, etc. for longer than I've been
alive

~~~
wmf
And the first-sale doctrine is why libraries are legal. (I imagine that book
publishers once waged an MPAA-style war against libraries.) But libraries
really have nothing to do with P2P piracy.

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fataliss
Every time there is a copyright law debate I think about this:
[https://github.com/philipl/pifs](https://github.com/philipl/pifs).

As far as we understand the number pi, every single combination of digit is
part of it at some point. So technically Pi already contains a copy of any of
your work and your future work even before you think of making it!

Doesn't that make digital copyright laws completely obsolete?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating pro-piracy or anything. I just
think that our laws made in the 17-18-1900's and monkey-patched to these days
are not prepared to handle digital matters. We should reboot our legal system.
At least it's digital-matter version.

~~~
myle
We don't know whether Pi is a normal number. We assume so.

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dleslie
And the site is back up; but the odds of it being a honeypot are high.

What happens in France when you are fined damages far in excess of your
wealth, do they garnish future wages?

~~~
gerby
An "unknown third-party" has it back up as a public torrent index. I think
it's a honeypot too. Don't use this service ever. Many people will still use
it though..

~~~
314
What is the danger if you connect through a VPN?

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a1a
Technically speaking they could target VPN users by infecting uploaded files
with a simple trojan that pings home to a server, I assume you disable VPN
after the download is complete.

~~~
314
It's been a few years since I've downloaded a torrent. Spotify and Netflix are
more convenient for me. My own routine was a VM purely for running a client in
a VPN-only environment, tables to drop all non-VPN traffic and file transfers
using shared folders. The VM was "virgin" to prevent any identifable info
leaking out. It is possible that this is slightly more hardened that a
"typical" use if a VPN. I was thinking in this context when I posed the
question.

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tombert
I find the entire law on this to be pretty nebulous. Torrent sites inherently
don't host the files people are stealing.

~~~
PieterH
The law is clear: complicity in copyright violation, for profit. It became a
criminal offence across Europe in the last decade. This puts costs for
prosecution on the state, not rights holders, and it allows for jail time.
Whether the law is fair or right, that's a different question. Many people
lobbied hard against criminalisation of copyright and patent violations, and
lost. The movie industry is just too powerful and had too many friends.

But it's not nebulous. Help others commit a crime, you are an accessory and
you are liable for fines and prison.

~~~
DanBC
I can understand (but don't agree with) jail time for the site owner.

I don't know if I understand that for the mods, unless they got some money
from the site.

I really don't understand it for the users, unless again they got money from
the site.

As I understand it copyright infringement is only criminal if it's part of
trade.

The article describes those users as downloaders, which to me means the rights
holders can sue for damages as a civil action, but not that the state can
prosecute as a criminal case.

~~~
SuperGent
They charged them with receiving stolen goods. How this relates to French Law
I'm not aware tho.

~~~
kodt
Can we not charge all of the ISPs involved with transporting stolen goods?

~~~
thesimpsons1022
the mods knew what they were doing. difference between someone who builds a
road and someone who drives a truck full of drugs on that road.

~~~
0xfeba
But is copying a copyrighted movie "stealing" in that it deprives the owner
(who still has the movie) of profits of that movie?

Yes, potentially some people will go out to see the movie if they cannot
pirate it. But not all. And it's hard to prove either way.

That's not the same as "stealing a car".

~~~
thesimpsons1022
didnt say anything about stealing a car?

~~~
kodt
I think he is referencing this old anti-piracy ad that used to air in movie
theaters.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_vHwfDNGdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_vHwfDNGdg)

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bobthechef
The non sequiturs rationalizing piracy (most likely as a proxy for
rationalizing their own) in the comments is amusing, to say the least.

~~~
M_Grey
Can you point me to a few of these "non sequiturs rationalizing piracy"? I
can't find them, and I'm just reading people criticizing the state of the law
and its penalties.

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zigzigzag
The arrested guy's spoutings are quite funny because they're _exactly_ what
the people on the receiving end of piracy tend to say:

 _“To all the [anti-piracy groups and authorities]: You are a lot of vile
shit, destroying lives of people who are already struggling to pay their rent,
their food, their bills,” he said._

Right, it's only pirates who have bills to pay. The people who make content
get their homes for free!

 _“Why all this? Because they wanted to watch and because they didn’t
necessarily have the capabilities to buy a DVD / BluRay or go to the
theaters.”_

If you own a computer and an internet connection good enough to torrent
blurays then you can afford a DVD and a cheap player, certainly a theatre
ticket. "Didn't necessary have the capabilities" is pure rationalisation -
it's a fantasy entirely divorced from reality, intended to let him tell
himself that he's a good person really.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Just a thought: what if I only ever buy secondhand DVDs. I can only afford
(read: justify the expense of) secondhand DVDs and CDs.

The content makers / publishers / distributors never see a cent of the
secondhand DVD market.

Downloading pirate films is similar in that sense.

Ok, the argument could be made that the secondhand market props up the primary
market, but I don't buy it. I don't think people buy new DVDs with the thought
of "I'll be able to sell this for $2 to the pawn shop after I've watched it"
as a motivating factor.

And, there is no secondhand market for digital media. Media piracy _is_ the
flea market of digital downloads. So an argument could be make that media
piracy severs that sector of the market we would only buy secondhand DVDs
anyway.

Also 2x adult theatre tickets, AUS25 each, costs as much as my monthly
Internet connection bill. I know there are a lot of Australians who would not
be able to justify that expense.

~~~
DanBC
> The content makers / publishers / distributors never see a cent of the
> secondhand DVD market

1) Japanese games publishers did want to prevent second hand sales, so your
question isn't as bizarre to the rights holders.

2) They do see some of that money. I can afford to buy some new games, but
only if I can sell my old games. I can only sell my old games if someone buys
them.

I agree with you, though.

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grondilu
Is the industry winning the war against piracy? I know some people -cough- who
told me -cough (damn what's wrong with my throat?)- that lately it's been
extremely hard to find new stuff on bittorrent networks.

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bdrool
People who actually understand information theory know why that argument is
facile.

~~~
setra
Really? Why not explain why this is wrong instead of just attacking. I could
very well randomly generate material "owned" by someone. As the size increases
the chance goes down to being very low of course.

~~~
novaleaf
if I understand the concept correctly, basically it's wrong because your
index/seed values will be much more complex than the data you are supposedly
extracting. So basically you have to already know the data you want in order
to "find" it in pi.

