Man Busted for File-Sharing While House-Sitting

[gm0n3y]

[citation][nom]happyballz[/nom]What stolen goods!? He did not steal anything... He never physically went to a store and stolen anything, what he has on his computer are nothing more than zeros and ones.I do not know about sweden or wherver this happened and their laws but how can you be automatically be labled as "stealing movies" by simply having movie or torrent files on your computer!? For all they know he actually have all of these damn movies at HIS own house and ligally wanted to get a copy for his viewing on the computer without carrying all the damn DVDs.[/citation]
I wonder if a person gets caught with say 100 stolen movies, could they just go out and buy those movies and claim that they already owned them? And since even if you have 100 movies, you're likely only being sued for 20 or so of them by whatever publisher, you could probably find those movies used for ~$10 each. $200 is pretty cheap.

 

[stromm]

Wow, do people still not have a clue about piracy?
FACTS:
Duplication of DIGITAL media is illegal unless you have the permission of the copyright holder.
It is illegal to download/upload digital media without express permission of the copyright holder.
"Fair Use" does not apply to digital media.
Duplication for "backup purposes" is not legal for digital media without the copyright holder's permission.

Does that make it clear? Basically, any copyrighted media since 2000 can not legally be file shared. And any "reprints" (digital) of older media also.

 

[stromm]

Interesting points about his laptop being confiscated and used against him. It's all going to come down to the wording of the warrant. It appears the warrant was for the building at that address, not the person. And for all computers in that building.

Just because one happened to not be owned by the address's registered occupant, doesn't mean crap.
Same as if you are sitting in your buddies car and get pulled over and the copy find drugs under your seat. You're busted, not him. Or you borrow someone's coat... CYA people, that's what life is about nowadays and no one is above that.

 

[Guest]

I'd bet that if one took a survey of file sharers, one would find that their income levels are below average. Enforcement isn't going to turn those 200 illegally copied movies into 200 movie sales. This war on piracy is just a ridiculous attempt by big money holding entertainment companies to maintain an obsolete business model by purchasing legislation that they hope scares people into buying their products. Time will show that you cannot stop information sharing. Over time new business models that function within the new paradigm of information freedom will be created. Indeed such business models are already showing up. In any case, you won't squeeze blood out of impoverished turnips. Furthermore, I don't see the value in restricting information from the impoverished that they couldn't pay for anyway.

 

[grieve]

Stromm... Different countries have different laws.
In Canada it is 100% legal to download/upload music. Movies can not be up/downloaded, it IS illegal.

------------------------------------
You said "Duplication of DIGITAL media is illegal unless you have the permission of the copyright holder.
It is illegal to download/upload digital media without express permission of the copyright holder.
"Fair Use" does not apply to digital media.
Duplication for "backup purposes" is not legal for digital media without the copyright holder's permission."

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]distanted[/nom]If you need more apples to wrap your mind around: how about sneaking into a theater without paying to watch a movie, or hiring someone to clean your house and not paying them? You haven't physically stolen anything, but you have received other people's services without the required compensation. And, that so-called argument that 'I wouldn't have bought the movie anyway' has absolutely zero merit. If you can't or won't pay the cost...don't watch it. And if nobody pays, why have large crews working for months producing products just to give them away?[/citation]

Excellent way to explain the point. While I think the MPAA & RIAA are full of it in many ways, people SHOULD buy what they want / like. The new music system of buying by the song for $1 is better than $12~15 for an album to get 2-3 songs. DRM restrictions are a pain thou. What I buy, should be flexible.

But yeah, all those people in the MOVIE CREDITS, make their living by people BUYING the tickets and DVDs. Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Transformers, etc could NEVER be made if nobody paid to watch them... A good example of a NO-budget sci-fi flick that is free... watch a SyFy original movie on any Saturday night!

When a person can AFFORD to spend $1000+ on a computer system with several TB HDs, can't they buy a $10 DVD or $15~20 BR? I bought TRON:Legacy for $20, for the 2disc Blu-Ray DVD combo (A better deal than $15 for JUST the DVD). After 6~9months, the discs are half off... or they will be on HBO/SHO part of your cable bill. If I remove my internet & phone service, I pay $80 a month for DVR service with HBO, SHO, MAX, Stars, Encore etc.

People tend to NOT WORK for free. We have to pay our bills, feed our kids, put gas in our cars (while the oil companies make record profits and GET $millions back in tax refunds).

I dropped a long term client because she didn't pay for my work in full. One of the computers wasn't doing its job very fast. Which, is nothing *I* could do about it... running a crappy DOS program from 1992 in an XP-Window on a 2.4Ghz 4yr old PC may run like crap. I spent 3 hours rebuilding, updating the WinXP box and making this crap program work as best as it'll ever run. That was MY time I could have spent on a paying client or quality time with my family.

So yeah, my time was stolen. Told them they can call GeekSquad for $50 more an hour and deal with them.

Now, there are all kinds of theft or unfair pricing.
MS overcharges for their OS. $100 for an upgrade disc, $100 for an OEM, $200 for retail version? It makes upgrades/repairs a pain. $100 for retail is at the worst for Win7Pro should be. Linux is free, Apple charges about $100 for a 5 user license for OS-X.

TowTruck companies... nuff said.

Utility companies = complete rip-off.

Intresting thou, the competition and market forces has made MS create a home version of MS-Office for $100~150 (3 user license) which is a much better price than the old $200~250 for a single user purchase.

PS: never EVER buy OEM Office 2010 or online edition. That price is for a single license.
Pay about the same price and a user is able to install on 2 or 3 computers.

 

[Kamab]

[citation][nom]distanted[/nom]There will always be those who can't be bothered to understand why just because the item is easily reproduced it isn't legal or right to do so. If you need more apples to wrap your mind around: how about sneaking into a theater without paying to watch a movie, or hiring someone to clean your house and not paying them? You haven't physically stolen anything, but you have received other people's services without the required compensation. And, that so-called argument that 'I wouldn't have bought the movie anyway' has absolutely zero merit. If you can't or won't pay the cost...don't watch it. It is that simple. If not paying was a valid option, then why should anyone pay? And if nobody pays, why have large crews working for months producing products just to give them away? Hope you like free-ware games and youtube videos.[/citation]

I'm pretty sure what's "right" and "wrong" is defined by society. A very large percentage of people in our generation have downloaded music through peer-to-peer software or torrents. But that wasn't my point.

If you get caught sneaking into a movie they will throw you out, but I honestly don't think they really care that much. There is value to them for you being in that movie theater. Your analogy with a house maid doesn't really make sense. Also, who really feels good about giving a bonus check to the record label CEO's that are exploiting hundreds of artists who might see a fraction of a percentage of a settlement.

Downloading a movie without paying is pretty lame, but again its free promotion, and a number of those people will end up buying the dvd for bonus content, better quality, or if the movie was any good. I've bought books that I discovered purely through downloading copies of them first.

My point was that this is a social grey area. Sure you can come at us all high and mighty defending the poor labels/producers that you think are losing money from a practice that the government has no ability to control. My point was that in this digital age it doesn't take much creativity/time/money/ or effort to still make money with people sharing your media, or spending the petty cash it costs to have a software engineer come up with a complicated method of securing your digital media against copyright infringement. The drawback to this will always be a drop in circulation, which they DON'T WANT.

These companies are greedy and want the best of all worlds.