There are murders, rapists, corrupt government officials and other heinous criminals doing less time. How much is it going to cost to build prisons to hold a million downloaders?
How long before the US government becomes the enforcement arm of a group of private companies? (Please ignore the Mid Eastern oil wars, the FCC chairman’s comments, and other obvious examples of protecting ‘American interests’–government code phrase for ‘American business’)
Two years in prison for downloading latest film
Germans risk two years in prison if they illegally download films and music for private use under a new law agreed yesterday. Anybody who downloads films for commercial use could be jailed for up to five years.
The measures, some of the toughest in Europe, were announced after an aggressive campaign by the film industry in Germany, the largest market in the EU and one of the most computer-literate populations.
Günther Krings, the Christian Democrat legal affairs spokesman, said: “There should be no legal distinction between stealing chewing gum from a shop and performing an illegal download.”
Finally… a real punishment for what is really theft.
Dave sez: “There are murders, rapists, corrupt government officials and other heinous criminals doing less time. How much is it going to cost to build prisons to hold a million downloaders?”
These are old arguments. First off, they are maximum punishments, I doubt 1st offenders will do any time. Secondly, the point that there are more heinous crimes is completely irrelevant…. the justice system has to address all crimes, not just big time ones. I don’t think you’d want the police to take 5 days to respond to your call about being pick-pocketed, or someone who stole a blank check from you and cashed it for $100. Remember, this is downloading for COMMERCIAL use, not to just watch the film.
So is Günther Krings saying that stealing a pack of chewing gum in Germany is also OR should be a crime punishable by UP TO two years in prison?
Lou, infringing copyrights is NOT theft. Really. The supreme court held exactly that in DOWLING v. UNITED STATES, 473 U.S. 207 (1985).
When you steal something, you deprive the victim all rights associated with it. He cannot re-sell it, he cannot use it, he cannot lease it, etc.
When you infringe, all you do is deprive a potential lost sale. Absolutely nothing more. The copyright holder can still watch his movie, sell his movie, lease his movie, etc.
Which leads me to my second point, why is infringing a criminal charge in the first place?! Why should our government be protecting potential lost sales for Disney?!
SN –
If your last name was Disney, maybe you’d understand…
Max, I hope you’re kidding. Because it is my sincere hope that no one actually believes the purpose of government is to protect lost potential sales of businesses.
I had a friend who had a yard sale. He put up numerous signs from the main road leading into his subdivision. Someone between him and the main road threw up her own yard sale “stealing” all of his potential customers. Do you really think the police should have thrown the woman in jail on the charge of interference with potential lost sales?!
“Remember, this is downloading for COMMERCIAL use, not to just watch the film.”
Reread the first sentence of the article.
“Germans risk two years in prison if they illegally download films and music for private use under a new law agreed yesterday. “
So what are the penalties for uploading the movie?
If downloading gets you 2-years, donloading for commercial purposes gets you 5-years, making the movie available to millions of people would get you… what? Life?? 🙂
“Lou, infringing copyrights is NOT theft……”.
1. It’s just semantics… There is no common sense point to the fact that if someone goes into my bank account and illegally transfers $25, it is “more” of a crime than taking my intellectual property (I’m a programmer) and putting it on the web for ‘free’. If I can prove actual losses in sales (which is at least theoretically possible), and it is for more than $25.00, than it is more of a loss to me, and should be punished more (call it infringement, call it theft, I don’t care).
2. We are moving to a world where much of the value of everything, including physical objects, will be intellectual property, not the ability to manufacture it. (Think a star trek type replicator). Ok I’m stretching here, but think of China as a kind of replicator for us. Send in the Int. Property / Program (lets say a designer dress) and out it comes from a Chinese factory for $5.00. Can you honestly say that it is not a real theft to the original designer?
It’s a brave new digital world, and the laws will have to change with it.
“It’s just semantics… ”
No, it’s the law. I already cited the case law for that as proof.
“If I can prove actual losses in sales”
How can you prove “actual” losses in sales?! That’s impossible. Just because someone downloads a movie does not mean that he or she would have bought the movie. It’s pure conjecture.
“Can you honestly say that it is not a real theft to the original designer?”
Where is the theft?! I’ll repeat myself. When I steal something I deprive the owner of that something. When I infringe, I might deprive a potential lost sale. The copyright owner still has his content. Let me repeat this, THE CONTENT OWNER STILL HAS HIS CONTENT!
“It’s a brave new digital world, and the laws will have to change with it.”
Why take old words and devoid them of meaning (theft where there is no theft?!) when there is already a word that is more than adequate?! It’s called infringement. That’s what it is.
Of course the content industry loves to use the words like “theft” and “piracy” to get sheep interested in its cause. People can relate to theft, but it’s harder to grasp the concept of potential lost sales. Doing this sort of this is call propaganda and you fell for it big time.
SN – Especially as most studies prove that people who pirate music and films buy MORE than other people.
As for the lost sales – It’s impossible to prove that, because sales are a quantative measurement, but the intent to buy a product is a qualitative measurement. You can’t compare them.
There are many movies and CD’s I have bought because I wasn’t convinced by the marketing (or, conversely, hadn’t actually heard of them so I was trying the product out). If I know I want something I will buy it – if I can afford it. If I can’t, or don’t want it, then I was never going to buy it. So there is no lost sale.
Basically – Lou, your arguments are old, stale, and have been proved wrong, outdated, or both.
Fine, its infringement.
My main point is that the punishments must be appropriate and fair, and not based on the semantic differences between theft vs. infringement.
Judges and juries determine values on concepts like “lost sales” all of the time. Aren’t damages for “pain and suffering” and “lost consort of spouse” even harder to measure? Isn’t every breach of contract case an exercise in proving “lost revenue”? Aren’t some of the concepts related to 1st vs. 2nd vs. 3rd degree murder/manslaughter ultimately based upon “intent” and what was going on in the mind of the defendant?
If someone has I.P. and an illegal action causes that I.P. to lose value in a juries mind, the action must be punished, and in some appropriate circumstances, this should include prison time.
Contrary to what you think, us sheep have a very good idea of the concept of “lost sales”, “lost reputation”, “lost opportunity” and many other not easily measurable concepts.
Please give me your take on this analogy. I get a copy of the X-Men movie that is to come out in May, and I print up 200 million DVD’s of it and distribute it free throughout the country. The first week the movie comes out in theatres, it tanks at the box office (less than $1 million in sales). Would you say that this infringement resulted in a theoretical loss? Would you say that this deserves a token fine?
Your serve, sir…
ps: as for the extreme amounts in the analogy, I will remind you first of Mr. Shaw’s comment on the woman who says she would sleep with you for a million dollars. When asked if she would for for one dollar, replies “What do you think I am?”, he replies, “we already know what you are, now we are just trying to agree on price.”
“Especially as most studies prove that people who pirate music and films buy MORE than other people.”
Well that’s certainly true in my case. I’m old now and I was old in the 90s. The first thing a white man does when he gets old is stops listening to new music. Which is an easy thing to do as radio and MTV stopped playing new music worth listening to about 20 years ago.
From about 92 through the late 90s I bought probably four CDs total, and those were CDs I had previously owned.
Then Napster came out. Suddenly I was buying about three CDs a month. I was exposed to new music for the first time in about a decade and I loved it.
With Napster when you found music you liked, you could look through the person’s entire collection and find other music. You’d think, “Well, since we both like Funkadelic, I’ll try this other stuff. I’ll probably like it too.”
Napster was the greatest thing for being exposed to new music since the radio was developed several decades earlier.
Then Napster went away (well, the REAL Napster went away). Every so often I’ll hear about a new group or singer, etc. I’ll download a few songs and if I like them, I’ll buy the whole CD. But it’s just not as fun as it was with the original Napster. And I buy a lot less because of it.
Well, I’ll first add that “pain and suffering,” “lost consort of spouse,” and “breach of contract” are all civil terms. I totally agree that copyright holders should be allowed to sue infringers in civil court.
“and in some appropriate circumstances, this should include prison time.”
When is it ever the government’s job to protect potential lost sales?! Even the most extreme breach of contract cases are handled in civil court without any criminal punishment.
“Would you say that this infringement resulted in a theoretical loss? Would you say that this deserves a token fine?”
Yeah, and both of those could be decided in a civil lawsuit.
“as for the extreme amounts in the analogy…”
Great joke!
I get a copy of the X-Men movie that is to come out in May, and I print up 200 million DVD’s of it and distribute it free throughout the country.
Since that is a textbook example of Usenet in action, who in your example is the thief?
You for distributing 200-million free copies, or the 200-million people who accepted free copies?
Of course, I expect your answer to be: “both” 🙂
I would prefer that the media ower’s put their time, energy, and money into identifiying the up-loaders – that is the group they want to deter and intimidate, not their “potential” customers.
SN: I agree with you, it needs to be handled in Civil Court. I only meant in the most egregious of cases should criminal punishment happen. The uploading of 200M DVD’s was my example. Or to put in another way, I don’t think the inability to pay damages should allow you to continuously flout civil law.
As to “mild” infringement actually benefitting the IP holder, it is true in some cases (especially in the computer software industry). That being said, the new ability to stream (but not save) music, and the ability (in some cases) to download low-res versions of things, lessens the need for true Napster like sharing.
Lou, I guess we have to agree to disagree. I don’t think it is ever the job of government to lock people up for interfering with potential lost sales. No matter how egregious the interfering was.
The main purpose of jail/prison is to keep dangerous people away from the general population. If you continue to drink and drive, the state will lock you up. If you murder. The state will lock you up. If you steal money. The state will lock you up. That’s exactly why violent crimes generally have the most punishment. The more of the danger you are, the longer you’ll get locked up.
But where is the danger to society when someone interferes with a potential lost sale? Heck let’s imagine that Disney goes completely out of business because of movie downloading on the net? Where’s the danger to society?! Sure, some people would get laid off. But people get laid off all the time. We don’t put people in jail for laying people off.
And countless businesses have went out of business due to breach of contract issues. Those businesses were completed wronged by the breaching party. People lost their money and their jobs. But it was still completely a civil matter.
The uploaders are the thieves. The downloaders are the ones who buy 32″ LCD tv for $100 or jewelry for a fraction of the cost. So the uploaders are stealing and selling stolen property and the downloaders are knowingly (on the most part) buying and possessing stolen property. C’mon they both know it’s hot.
When you setup your newgroups with your ISP. They download the available newgroups to you. Mine is in the 13,000 approximately by last count. I can honestly look through there and see software, mp3s, movies, etc. uploaded on to these news servers located who knows where. Yet the ISP allows me to go there. Isn’t that like someone giving me the keys to a stolen car?
…Accessory before the crime.
I don’t think the inability to pay damages should allow you to continuously flout civil law.
But does that happen?
There is an earlier post on this site about a guy being jailed for years because of failure to cooperate with a civil proceeding.
Bernie Goetz, O.J. Simpson, and Robert Blake were all aquitted in criminal trials, but driven into backruptcy by civil judgements…
Civil law should have more than enough “teeth” to disuade people from infringing, whether egregious or not.
It seems only the “little people” would be able to “flout” civil law, if they could only be sued for “potential” lost sales of… $3000.00 [$25 per movie times 120 movies downloaded]
Rhetorical question:
Why does the German government want to send the “little people” to prison?
This is big in Germany at the moment. Well big on the German internet sites but not big in the media. The first version of this new law had an additional paragraph that stated that people who did not download / shared a lot were not to be punished at all.
This has been removed I suppose due to extensive lobbying efforts of the major companies.
So what some of you are saying is that the gouverment has to do the film/music industry’s job at protecting their IP.
Suddenly it’s a crime! But if you think at the reason for their “potential losses in sales” you will see that it’s actualy because thei can’t make things good and cheap enough to actually sell it! So here come the gov’s to make sure only he can sell it , at whatever price!
Laws are made to protect the people , they now serve the comercial purpouses of some corporations!
I’m not downloading movies for free. I’m paying my ISP about $50 a month to download material, same as I pay my cable provider $40 a month so I can watch movies on HBO.
“My main point is that the punishments must be appropriate and fair”
Your main point is that the government should force people to give you money that they would not give you in a free market.
No matter how badly you want them to be, abstractions are not property, and electron flows are not theft.
” Isn’t that like someone giving me the keys to a stolen car?”
No, because the “stolen” “car” is still sitting in the owner’s garage. As has been pointed out numerous times. There’s a term for ignoring critical points like that — intellectual dishonesty.
If someone removes a book from the library without checking it out, that’s theft from the library. If they check a book out, copy it, and return it, that’s a violation of the author’s copyright. They are radically different infringements, against different parties. They have very little in common.
Suppose that, instead of distributing the movie, you wrote a scathing review that was picked up all over the internet, and other movie reviewers echoed it in their columns, and as a result the film tanked. Should you be thrown in jail for two years?
The government does not exist to guarantee the movie companies a profit. In the U.S., there is a specific body of law that applies — copyright law — and it’s motivation is not to make coke snorting studio execs rich. The motivation is spelled out in the Constitution:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Legislatures would do well to keep in mind that it’s the interests of society, and not those of megamedia corporations, that they are supposed to protect.
Horrible. This is not the Germany I was born into anymore, and that did occur just 14 years ago. Maybe I’m moving France.
I wonder what the comment from this CSU-politician really means; maybe he wanted to express that he thinks that illegal downloading is a theft, and should be punished as such? That would clearly not result in 2 – 5 years of prison, with my definition of an object of theft. Well, the prisons in Germany are not that hard and depriving of rights as they are in the US, but this is stil, as could be translated from German, tough tobacco. I am not that well wandered in law, but I feel that this is a very sudden change in the copyright-laws with fatal consequences. O tempora, o mores…..
god, some people are so bloody annoying, Lou youre a fuckin tosser, get off your high horse and fuck it, you righteous fuck! Long live piracy…fuck these multinational corporations, since when do they give about ethics etc…so why should i?
how about jail times for
– manipulating the development and release of new technologies in order
to maintain a stranglehold on the market and using to engage in ant-competitive practices.
– continuous and pre-meditated exploitation of consumers and artists
– destroying the global culture by promoting high profit trash at the expense of independant artists and distributors
– using the courts and legal system to prop up a out-moded business model.
The music and movie industries have been ripping people off for so long, its their own fault that they are getting themselves in trouble now. Anytime you artificially inflate prices to a higher level than the market will bear, a black market springs up.
price your product reasonably, make it available conveniently. see what happens.
Lou says ” the point that there are more heinous crimes is completely irrelevant…. ”
Well Lou, I hope you get raped and see how you like it
If anything, I believe that downloading promotes sales more than anything. More than often, I watch a downloaded movie only to buy it on DVD a short time later. I have a vast collection of bought movies. All were a result of making a informed decision on how to spend my hard earned money.
#23 – How do you know the stolen car is in the owner’s garage? Many people leave their keys in the ignition going to a convenience store or somewhere else, sometimes with the engine running. That’s a common place where cars are stolen, just ask the police.
I do agree with your library book analogy.