Man gets 15 Years for Piracy

Frank · Nov 13, 2012

http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-celebrates-15-year-jail-sentence-for-movie-and-music-pirate-121112/

In Mississippi, a man just got sentenced to 15 years for selling 5 counterfeit dvds and one cd to an undercover police officer.

15 years.

Now, was it a harsher sentence because the man had a previous record? Don't know, only that 17 years prior he served 5 years for assaulting a police officer. Selling bootleg dvds is apparently a much, much worse crime.

strawman · Nov 13, 2012

If you sell pirated movie discs, and police find you have over ten thousand ready to sell pirated movie discs at home, they can charge you with very significant copyright crimes. This wasn't a kid in his bedroom, he had equipment for copying the discs, printing accurate disc art, and cover art.

Fifteen years seems excessive, but if that's what the law allows, he should have considered another line of work before risking it.

Frank · Nov 13, 2012

stienman said:
If you sell pirated movie discs, and police find you have over ten thousand ready to sell pirated movie discs at home, they can charge you with very significant copyright crimes. This wasn't a kid in his bedroom, he had equipment for copying the discs, printing accurate disc art, and cover art.

Fifteen years seems excessive, but if that's what the law allows, he should have considered another line of work before risking it.

According to the article, he wasn't charged for the equipment, just for the selling of the dvds to the undercover officer. As far as I know, it's not a crime to be in possession of a bootleg dvd (it isn't here).

Azurephoenix · Nov 13, 2012

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2012/11/06/calgary-red-deer-thompson-decision.html

And this guy who pled guilty to manslaughter (should have been 2nd degree murder) gets five years for killing his 4 month old daugther.

15 years for selling some bullshit bootlegs... 5 years for murdering a defenseless baby. WTF IS WRONG WITH SOCIETY?!!!!!

strawman · Nov 13, 2012

It demonstrates means and opportunity, which can affect sentencing. If they found nothing, and he claimed he bought them from someone on the street, the sentence wouldn't have been fifteen years.

sixpackshaker · Nov 13, 2012

Hell in Mississippi it is likely a lesser sentence to stampede women and rape cattle.

Ravenpoe · Nov 13, 2012

stienman said:
Fifteen years seems excessive, but if that's what the law allows, he should have considered another line of work before risking it.

Archaic or excessive laws for nonviolent crimes aren't worth addressing so long as you just don't run afoul of it. Death sentence for stealing bread? Just don't steal bread.

GasBandit · Nov 13, 2012

The entire copyright system is broke as hell. But guy is a dumbass for trying to sell pirated stuff on physical media. That's almost as dated as actual high seas piracy, with cutlasses and parrots.

Gilgamesh · Nov 13, 2012

GasBandit said:
The entire copyright system is broke as hell. But guy is a dumbass for trying to sell pirated stuff on physical media. That's almost as dated as actual high seas piracy, with cutlasses and parrots.

Back when I was working in the restaurant business we had a busser who made 4x his regular income by selling bootleg DVDs on the weekend. Outdated maybe, huge income anyway? Yep. Sell to the ignorant masses who go to Flea Markets etc and you'll make a killing.

GasBandit · Nov 13, 2012

Gilgamesh said:
Back when I was working in the restaurant business we had a busser who made 4x his regular income by selling bootleg DVDs on the weekend. Outdated maybe, huge income anyway? Yep. Sell to the ignorant masses who go to Flea Markets etc and you'll make a killing.

At least until you get busted for triplemurder.

Covar · Nov 13, 2012

Well considering the cost of piracy on our economy, it sounds like he got off light.

sixpackshaker · Nov 13, 2012

Or is legitimate album and download prices a drag on the economy because they are an oligarchy with extremely high prices.

Yoshimickster · Nov 13, 2012

Fifteen years for bootleg DVDs and 5 years for assault...the U.S. Justice system everybody!

Seriously though, 15 years is way too much for a few stolen movies.

strawman · Nov 13, 2012

If this were a corporation stealing from comic book artists people would be out for blood.

Gilgamesh · Nov 13, 2012

stienman said:
If this were a corporation stealing from comic book artists people would be out for blood.

Despite what unnamed politicians would have you believe, Corporations are not people

GasBandit · Nov 13, 2012

stienman said:
If this were a corporation stealing from comic book artists people would be out for blood.

I personally wouldn't, but even I can see how it is a different situation. There's a lot more people that have to be complicit in a corporation stealing something than an individual.

strawman · Nov 13, 2012

You obviously have difficulty with the dictionary definition of "incorporated".

Gared · Nov 13, 2012

Yoshimickster said:
Fifteen years for bootleg DVDs and 5 years for assault...the U.S. Justice system everybody!

Seriously though, 15 years is way too much for a few stolen movies.

But he could have bankrupted the movie studio that produced those movies. Don't you get it? Every time someone sells a pirated DVD, those companies lose Trillions and Trillions of dollars worth of revenue! Think about the economy! That one man could have brought the country, no, the world, into a depression never before seen, deeper even than the Great Depression; as he would have destroyed global commerce! I mean, if every single person in the world doesn't buy at least seven copies of every single release of a movie (VHS; laserdisk; DVD; DVD director's cut; DVD director's cut with cast interviews; DVD director's cut with cast interviews and alternate endings; DVD director's cut with cast interviews, alternate endings and new special features; DVD director's cut with cast interviews, alternate endings, new special features, and mini-game for children; DVD director's cut with cast interviews, alternate endings, new special features, mini-game, and bonus DVD-Rom content for the PC; Blu-Ray; Blu-Ray with... etc.), then those studios will never be able to afford to make a movie again, and the entire world will devolve into a barren wasteland after global nuclear war breaks out when none of the studios can pay back their loans from China!

Surely you can see why it's so important that we make an example of this man's behavior, in order to prevent this from ever happening again!

Or, you know, maybe we should stop giving Hollywood so much damn power over our country.

Frank · Nov 13, 2012

stienman said:
You obviously have difficulty with the dictionary definition of "incorporated".

The past tense of including something as a part of something else?

strawman · Nov 13, 2012

Eh, I should have looked up the definition, as I'm using a much older definition which no longer applies today. To incorporate is to create a body or person from many parts, usually other people. It's a fictional person that makes it easier to apply existing laws that cover humans to a corporation without having to set up essentially the same set of laws for corporations as apply to people.

Yes, there are differences between corporations and people, but corporations are a convenient legal fiction.

Regardless we could take out the corporation bit and say that one person did this to another, and depending on the two people chosen for example one could probably sway people to one side or the other.

Yoshimickster · Nov 13, 2012

Not gonna lie, whenever I read something like this I IMMEDIATELY think of that scene from Hackers where the CIA just barges into that kids room. Probably the only accurate thing about hacking in that movie.

GasBandit · Nov 13, 2012

Yoshimickster said:
Not gonna lie, whenever I read something like this I IMMEDIATELY think of that scene from Hackers where the CIA just barges into that kids room. Probably the only accurate thing about hacking in that movie.

That, and the kid smoking a pack a day.

Zappit · Nov 15, 2012

Gilgamesh said:
Despite what unnamed politicians would have you believe, Corporations are not people

You see, I just can't see how conservatives buy into that notion. You can't imprison a corporation or strap it down and inject it with a lethal cocktail.

If they are, does a corporation's life begin with the permit, or at the IPO filing?

Eriol · Nov 15, 2012

Zappit said:
You see, I just can't see how conservatives buy into that notion. You can't imprison a corporation or strap it down and inject it with a lethal cocktail.

If they are, does a corporation's life begin with the permit, or at the IPO filing?

Please don't paint conservatives this way. Some do "believe" this for some insane reason, and enough people in the USA at least believed it to get it into your constitution, but I'll go with whomever said "I'll believe a corporation is a person when Texas executes one."

Gared · Nov 15, 2012

Just remember, every time a corporation gets a business license, but doesn't survive long enough to file an IPO, it's because un-American, anti-Christian terrorists have aborted it.