I get the feeling this is nothing more than the regular (continuing) fear mongering campaign. They can't go after the bootleggers or tougher folks, so they'll settle for the "easier to target" folks. (Its like the "drive by cracker"...If someone's too tough to break into, go to the next, easier target...That's for Port Scanners are for!).

Its one thing to be fined for sharing copyright material and such, but its getting over the top when someone goes to jail for it. Its hashes FFS!

But hey! If it scares people from doing it, then who cares!

Does it stop people doing P2P? (or any other number of ways to transfer files?)

Of course not! Taking legal action against filesharing is as futile as herding ants. They know it, and we know it.

Looking from the outside, it seems if you want to control the world in some way: go to America, become really successful, develop "political friends" via campaign contributions...And then, when the chips are down, or you're too stupid to adapt to the changing face of technology, use your political friends to change the law so you can get your way!

Don't forget to hype things up a bit...You need to scare average Jane/Joe PC user into line! :)

Basically, it feels like the US Govt isn't working for the people anymore, its working for anyone who pays them well.

But then again, if you have people in charge, that believe the Internet is a "series of tubes", well, you're in serious sh*t, aren't you?

Oh one of several millions. I bet while they jailed him a hundred new people started filesharing.

Filesharing on the peoples conditions is the future, the companies cant stop that. Filesharing is good for the society.

The question is how can we optimize the possibilities and gains of filesharing while still keeping the companies abilities to make profits on their investments. One important point is that many, if not most filesharers believe that filesharing does not lead to lower profits but rather just better decisions from the consumers about whats worth to buy. And their has been a danish investigation treatise on the subject showing just that filesharing hasnt lead to lower consumption, just different. Other believe that the copyrightlaws are just aged and needs to be rewritten to suit best the society we live in today.

Of course u should have the right to say u made this product, and to sell it. But that doesnt have to mean that you have to restrict other persons lifes and what they do. In other words either all people can have the right to fileshare what the producers sell, but only the producers have the right to sell the product (becouse the big problem with piracy, i sugest, isnt the free filesharing on the net, but its when people sell pirated products). Or there could be an yearly filesharerfee that a specialized filesharingauthority handles, and depending on which products have been downloaded the most, gives the money to those companies.

One thing should be clear though, people still buy things! People tend to think, and especially in their unlogical reports about the billions of losses filesharing is supposed to have caused different companies, that if you downloiad 2000 songs and 20 movies u would actually buy all that if u werent be able to download it for free. Of course thats not true so those reports are not sensible. So if we would have a filesharingfee it wouldnt be that large per person but together it would be enough to substitute the supposed losses of those companies.
And again, all people wouldnt like that becouse many feel that filesharing is just and doesnt cause any losses to companies. Becouse those who actually make good products get things sold becouse people will pay for that. In other word higher quality competition.

But becouse of cultural and intellectual positives of filesharing people will never give up on this. Becouse we the filesharers know our history and we wont give up on the future.

Those laws just don't make any kind of logical sense, I don't understand how it's ok to download or 'possess' something that is illegal to upload or 'distribute.' The downloads necessarily come from a source that is defined as illegal...it's just strange to say it's ok to have goods from an illegal source.

Regardless of the reason why it still doesn't make sense and there are surely ways to keep companies from suing people (although people could just not break copyrights in the first place der) that don't seem so silly.

brownlee, you just made 5 million more torrent trackers active! thank you and GFY!

Damn those evil corporations for employing people from low skilled to highly skilled, funding the social security system (employers have to match what employees pay in taxes for that) creating things like the computers we use to post. And they want to get paid for their work, bastards! I hope all the anti-corporate 'it's ok to infringe copyright' people work for free - if they even do work instead of living off a welfare state - otherwise they are hypocrites. I know, we should all just go back to being substenance farmers or hunter/gatherers! How many of the 'corporations suck omggg' people ever really thought about what a corporation is on a human level instead of as a big vague something-or-other? And how many can trace your money back to corporations in one way or another? I'm betting a lot of you.

And before anyone calls me a 'corporate bitch' again, no I'm not at all. When it comes to politics and corporations I am displeased with things which is why I am pleased to see things like Arizona's and Maine's publicly funded election systems and am looking very hopefully toward the results of California's proposition 89 vote being 'yes.' Look it up because I'm not going to explain it here. But the problems don't make corporations inherently bad.

He should move to ascandinavian country and create a site. There it would be legal and he would be able to give them the middle finger gesture.

Thank god! the studio profit margins are safe

Minor quibble with the topic wording...Cyril says Mr. Stanley posted a "print" of Episode III on the net. Impossible. A print is an analog medium made from the negative or interpositive. ;)

The lesson is clear: don't be an ass and confess to a crime which would not exist if you didn't confess to it.
A tracker does NOT send copyright information to anybody and therefore is not illegal, but if you admit to a crime nonetheless yeah then you nicely set yourself up.
This makes me wonder if the guy didn't get payed by the MPAA/RIAA to artificially create a unlawful precedent, I hope somone checks this guy's bankaccount out to see if he doesnt't suddenly gets a large bonus.

EDIT: was posted in the wrong place.

I wonder what kind of time people are currently serving for assault and theft.

firstly, being sentenced to 5 months prison means hes going to min prison, not the orifice enlargement joints, and any time he served already is required to be deducted from his sentence

second, the fine is probably the killer, not the jail time, $3,000 is a lot, probably get a loan or hawk the car for it

third, if he actually fought it, he probably would have had the jury nullify it since no jury outside of hollywood would convict since he is entited to a jury of HIS peers, not the terrorist's (aka mpaa/riaa) peers

the release almost sounds like an ad for piracy, get an unlimited selection of movies, games, cd's, etc. and usually before it comes out in theatres or the streets

Wow, I feel so much better now that I know my nation's copyright laws are a little bit safer.

Uhm sounds lil bit of scaremongering. I reckon this guy won't see the jail, since it's just 5 months and I believe it has to be at least a year.

For facilitating the unlawful distribution of over 2 million movies, he got off with a slap on the wrist. Of course, if he gets sent to a federal pound-you-in-the -***-prison, I'm sure he won't see it that way. ;)

This was the first sentence of this kind? Wasn't there another person jailed for his same thing?

It's hard to feel sorry for the guy. However to be honest, I wish the entertainment giants and law enforcment would spend a little less time worrying about P2P, and more time worrying about the real leeches: bootleggers. Especially the ones on Ebay -- who rip off unwary noobs who think they're getting the real thing, and screw the artists at the same time. Even Amazon is full of them in zStores. Those guys are the ones that should be going to jail.

[Nelson] Ha ha! [/Nelson]