UK Internet Pirate Goes to Jail for Long Time

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Sep 14, 2009
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Signa said:
This is enraging. Yes, some people have said that he was profiting from piracy, but I disagree fully with this being a punishable method.

See, the reason profits from piracy is bad is because it takes a customer away from EVER buying a product. They have a "close enough" copy of the original work, and the artist never gets to see a dime of that transaction. Even if the copy is shit, the customer isn't going to feel the need to buy it again unless they REALLY want it. Getting someone to buy something once is hard enough, getting them to buy it twice is very rare.

In this case, the guy wasn't taking money from IP holders. He was just being more or less gifted money by people that wanted to get their own names out too. Any potential customers that went through him could still see value in buying a product they saw through his service. He didn't take their money, and if they wanted to spend it, they still had it.
agreed, he had extra space and basically said "hey, wanna get your name seen? feel free to hammer your sign in right here, finders fee of course"

I mean really, since the beginning of time people have made money with smart advertising, I don't see how this is any different, not to mention it's not like movies/tv shows kill or physically hurt people, so don't go playing that extremist crap card I've seen thrown out there a few times.

My goodness... I'm not sure if i'll ever agree with some of the wonky paragon republican boy scouts on here. Definite overkill on his sentence/court case.
 

Smooth Operator

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Meanwhile you can get away with less for manslaughter...

And no he was not profiting from piracy he was profiting from ads, just like 99% of free sites, and he was linking to other sites just like every search engine does.
This is a clear case of bending law by sheer bullying, the guy didn't have the money to defend himself and he goes to jail for it.
 

ResonanceSD

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Dec 14, 2009
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legendp said:
sethisjimmy said:
Ok wait wait wait.
Who advertises on a site devoted to people who aren't willing to pay money for things? That just seems odd.
well you can't exactly torrent a chair, downloading something is a lot easier than physically stealing it. so theirs your answer

Actually with a large enough 3D printer and a downloadable design, yes, yes you can download chairs.


Even if the guy didn't do anything technically illegal, it's like if he's the one telling people to go get the anarchist's cookbook or something, someone in power is going to get annoyed. And this time around, I'm pretty sure I agree with HM's government.
 

Reaper195

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Why the fuck is no one arresting Bill Gates? Most pirates use Windows. Gates should be arrested for creating an OS and then pointing to the world and saying "Here, you can do illegal shit on it."

For fucks sake...the media seem to portray piracy as the worst crime ever. Like it's as bad as real piracy, which actually ruins peoples lives/kills them. But no, because internet pirates take tiny amounts of money from people that can make fucking castles out of dollar coins, they're the worst thing since the crucifixion.
 

Bloodysoldier

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Jun 9, 2009
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Sober Thal said:
McMullen said:
Sober Thal said:
Damn right, send em to jail.

When will you people learn that you shouldn't make money from IP theft? Probably never.
1) Reread the second paragraph.

2) I think there's a bigger need to lock you up than him;
1) Why would I care what a piracy sympathizer (that has nothing to do with the case) has to say?

2) *see answer #1
Did you get permission to use that image as your avatar good sir? What no you did not? Well my good man your going to jail for a long time. Hope you rot in jail pirate.
 

Blood Brain Barrier

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What I'd like to know is how can you blame the case for 'losing your marriage'? His wife abandoned him because of the court case?

Anyone making a moral case out of his 'crimes' is just being moronic. The guy simply happened to do something entrepreneurial (which society encourages) which went against the 'big guys' (which society discourages). A trickle of water against the flow of a turbulent stream.
 

Vault101

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Sep 26, 2010
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hold on a sec.....did he only get in trouble for linking to 3rd part video streaming sites like youtube?

if thats the case then say I post a youtube video on a blog..could I get in trouble for that?
 

lapan

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Agow95 said:
Loop Stricken said:
And yet, Google do the same thing, and no doubt profit far more from advertising whilst doing so.
Isn't Google a American company though? FACT is based in Britain, and it's most likely only capable of arresting sites based in the UK, like the one that got this British guy arrested, FACT trying to arrest the head of Google would be like the FBI launching a full-scale assault on a fat man in New Zealand.
Didn't some british guy get extradicted to the US in a very similar case, even though neither his page, nor he himself were ever on american soil?
 

Strazdas

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May 28, 2011
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sethisjimmy said:
Ok wait wait wait.
Who advertises on a site devoted to people who aren't willing to pay money for things? That just seems odd.
Porn. Lots of porn.

Damn, surf the channel, the only streaming website i ever gone to (beside the obvious being linked to youtube all the time by random people thing). It had a lot of legal content too you know.
 

tkioz

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May 7, 2009
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/sigh

And yet all those bankers that ruined hundreds of millions of lives around the world are still living the high life free as the birds...
 

Griffolion

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Kordie said:
So... he directed people on where to go to watch tv including legal and illegal places...

This is rediculous that a mans life is ruined over sharing information that is already freely available. Also, how is generating ad revenue for this wrong? Wouldn't that make youtube punishable? and google? If I made the same website and just listed the illegal places under a seperate heading of BTW avoid these specific sites as they are not legal sources, would there still be a problem?

Nothing about this case seems on the level. I can agree that piracy is bad, but this is not the way to stop it.
Not just sharing, but profiting from. As the article said, had he just shared them without a view to being paid, he may have not even been taken to court. FACT, no matter how evil, sniffed him out and sent him packing, which they are in their rights to do under the law as it stands.
 

piclemaniscool

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I don't see how this is hurting anyone. Yeah the guy profits from it, so what? He get money from ad revenue it's not like the money he gets is taken from the movie studios. There really isn't an act here worthy of punishment besides the pirates themselves. The only person being ruined is the guy who's in jail now. If I were to sell a picture, yes I would be mad at the person putting it on display in his house. But I would NOT ruin the life of a guy that says "hey, did you see this thing here?" pointing to his home. Of course the analogy falls apart here because theres no real world equivalent to ad revenue.
 

arc101

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May 24, 2009
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Carsus Tyrell said:
4 years for some sodding internet links and adverts. We can't deport a fucking Al-Qaeda soldier because "human rights" yet we can sling someone into our already over-crowded prisons because of things you can easily find on youtube?

Fuck this country, as if I needed more reasons to GTFO.
They are two entirely different things there. You just compared murder to digital theft, two things that have totally different series of laws regulating them and they have different legislative paths to go through before any charge or deportation can be carried out.

This veiw is becoming far too popular in Britain and it's massively flawed.
 

arc101

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tkioz said:
/sigh

And yet all those bankers that ruined hundreds of millions of lives around the world are still living the high life free as the birds...
Those bankers were, unfortunately, not breaking laws. They were trading unethically and lending money to people they couldn't guarantee would pay it back. Unethical yes, illegal? No. Those that were acting illegally have been fined and some have faced prison sentences. Still Douche bags though
 

arc101

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Mr Companion said:
The worst crime of all is anything that damages corporations. Drink and drive at high speed endangering lives here and you get a slap on the wrist and a £50 fine.
And a suspended sentence, suspended license. Sometimes even get your license revoked indefinitely. 6 Points on your license too if you were speeding.
 

Lyri

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Fappy said:
Another example of how the battle is being fought on the wrong front with the wrong strategy.
Could you explain your point please? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
 

Fappy

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Lyri said:
Fappy said:
Another example of how the battle is being fought on the wrong front with the wrong strategy.
Could you explain your point please? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
I think they are wasting time and resources prosecuting people like this. He may be exacerbating the issue of piracy, but he is in no way the root cause nor is his absence going to impact piracy rates in any tangible way. Wasting tax payer money and throwing some guy in jail for far longer than that kind of crime should warrant does nothing to slow down piracy.

Call it justice if you want, maybe even making an example, but we won't see any real change if they continue down this path. Just wasted money and more people in jail.
 

Lyri

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Fappy said:
I think they are wasting time and resources prosecuting people like this. He may be exacerbating the issue of piracy, but he is in no way the root cause nor is his absence going to impact piracy rates in any tangible way. Wasting tax payer money and throwing some guy in jail for far longer than that kind of crime should warrant does nothing to slow down piracy.

Call it justice if you want, maybe even making an example, but we won't see any real change if they continue down this path. Just wasted money and more people in jail.
You have to start somewhere, it isn't the ideal situation of course but pulling in someone who is making £35k a month is a pretty good haul.
A lot of people are defending him I guess because he's only linking you to torrents/links but I really don't believe that should excuse him, he's a part of the problem and is just a middle man in the grand scheme of things.

With that kind of figure PCM then he has probably got some networking behind him and isn't just operating some website, solo.
I'd say he was a pretty decent pick up, certainly not a waste of tax payers time.