

Sweden fines pirate $650,000 for illegally sharing a single film - madhukarah
http://engadget.com/2013/12/18/sweden-pirate-fine/

======
kken
This should be put in context. This is no unassuming teenager who downloaded a
film via a file sharing network and was caught "distributing" it, due to the
nature of file sharing.

He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise, thereby
causing significant damage to the original producers. Furthermore he got fined
extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging reputation.

~~~
Maakuth
> He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise,
> thereby causing significant damage to the original producers. Furthermore he
> got fined extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging
> reputation.

What the... I find this highly amusing, as copyright holders have previously
argued that high quality copies are also damaging.

~~~
thaumasiotes
You remind me of two things:

1\. I have read (and don't take this as trustworthy; my memory could be
failing or my forgotten source could have just been making it up) that after a
PR campaign to get mexican prostitutes and their patrons to use condoms,
condom use was no more prevalent, but prostitute earnings were up. The
campaign had gotten men to ask for their preferred mode, and the prostitutes
acted as if they preferred the other mode and charged more for the
"accommodation".

2\. In the first Myth Adventure book, Skeeve is taught the concept of the
"magician's choice". As illustrated in the book, it's used like so: Skeeve
has, say, a horse and a lizard. The only magic he can do is an illusion to
make the lizard look like a horse. So, to prove to some important individual
that he's a mighty magician, he brings his horse and his horse-that-is-
secretly-a-lizard. He asks, "would you be so kind as to choose one of these
horses?" The dupe points to the real one. "Very good. By your word shall that
creature be spared." And he dispels the illusion on the lizard, taking credit
for the fearsome ability to curse horses (and, presumably, other things) into
lizards. Since that was the only thing he could do, the "magician's choice"
consisted of asking his dupe to choose an animal, so that they felt in
control, but without specifying any consequences of the choice. Had the guy
indicated the fake horse, Skeeve would have cursed "the creature you have
doomed with a word".

Sadly, I think copyright holders as a class will be able to get away with
talking out of both sides of their mouth as long as they don't make both
complaints (low quality is _especially damaging_ because it damages the film's
reputation, and high quality is _especially damaging_ because it depresses
demand for the official product) in the same case. Personally, of those two
theories, I think the argument for high quality being more damaging is much
stronger.

~~~
lisper
Speaking as a filmmaker myself, you are overlooking an important point: timing
matters. A lot. Releasing a low-quality bootleg after a film has already been
officially released through normal channels is very different from releasing a
low-quality bootleg as the film's de-facto premiere. You only get one chance
to make a first impression, and in this case the pirate took that opportunity
away from the filmmaker.

~~~
DanBC
I was about to disagree with you and say that anyone downloading pre-release
low quality products know that they're getting low quality product and know
that the film will be better.

But then I remembered the people with beta OS access who file reviews for
software that doesn't work with that beta product yet, even though the
software producers are not allowed to incorporate those fixes yet.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I don't think the Beta OS users software review situation carries over to the
other context.

If it's a low quality then you're relying on the story. If the story of the
movie is good then there's no harm - people will be more keen to see it. If
the story is OK but the visuals are clearly harmed by the quality of the copy
- then people will be more keen to see it in a better
definition/encoding/format.

Some movies you just know you want to see at the cinema even if you've bought
the DVD just because you know you'll appreciate the scale more. I've never
watched a movie with a good story and said "I wouldn't watch that if the
visuals were _better_ ".

YM[as a movie distributor]MV.

~~~
MichaelGG
Anecdote: I torrented Ponyo when it first came out, before the English version
was available (it never had a theatrical release where my kids live), right
during the Japanese theatre release. It was a terrible screener, complete with
people getting up in the middle of it. And a rather funny attempt at
subtitles. Even so, my kids watched it on repeat for weeks.

------
e_proxus
Here's a nice write up of the actual, bizarre details of how the sum was
calculated:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&u=ht...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fcomputersweden.idg.se%2F2.2683%2F1.540098)

Complementary dictionary:

Hittepåsiffror - made-up-numbers

filmbranschräv - a sly old movie industry fox

ickebevisade - non-proven

svajjiga - shaky

------
orjan
This isn't a fine. This is the damages he's been sentenced to pay to the
rights holders.

~~~
Dylan16807
So if the damages for thousands to millions of copies of the movie are being
blamed on the initial public seeder, does that mean nobody else in the torrent
is responsible for any damages?

~~~
gizmo686
The damage that a single peer causes is roughly that they themselves are less
likely to purchase the movie. There is an aggravate effect of having such a
large swarm enable additional people to enter this group, but the contribution
of any individual to this is small. In contrast, the initial uploader is what
enabled the entire thing in the first place.

------
dspillett
Fines are not _just_ to recompense the apparent victim of an action, they are
intended to deter others from repeating the action. If the risk of getting
caught is small the fine needs to he high enough that
ChanceOfGettingCaught*Punishment is far enough from zero that it figures in
people's minds.

Unfortunately this only seems to apply to individuals: companies seem to get
slap-on-the-wrist fines were individuals get send-you-to-the-poverty-line
fines.

~~~
tspiteri
I find the thought of having punishment inversely proportional to chance-of-
getting-caught disturbing. Because if the risk of getting caught is very small
(which is the very case the system would be addressing), the punishment would
necessarily be disproportionately huge. I can never agree with a
disproportionately huge punishment.

~~~
3825
I wonder if gp would call for people to be hanged, quartered, and drawn for
treason.

~~~
dspillett
I wasn't calling for, agreeing with, or supporting _anything_. I was simply
stating how such a fine value would likely have been arrived at.

------
bberrry
He actually admitted to sharing 13 films illegally (accused of sharing a total
of 517 films). He was an uploader on a private Swedish tracker called
Swebits.org which is where the alleged crimes took place.

------
drdaeman
It's not the first time something like that happened. So, I wonder, what are
reactions to such cases except for discussion on Internet forums? Were there
any petitions to governments, maybe even some civil protest actions or, on the
other hand, initiatives to replace non-anonymous BitTorrent with anonymizing
networks?

------
MichaelGG
How was he caught? A specially leaked watermarked version? It seems that if
you're in the scene, you'd want to take a lot of network precautions.

