Feds Demand Prison For Guns N' Roses Uploader 590
Defeat Globalism writes with this excerpt from Wired:
"Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are pursuing a 6-month prison term for a Los Angeles man who pleaded guilty in December to one misdemeanor count of uploading pre-release Guns N' Roses tracks, according to court documents. Kevin Cogill was arrested last summer at gunpoint and charged with uploading nine tracks of the Chinese Democracy album to his music site — antiquiet.com. The album, which cost millions and took 17 years to complete, was released November 23 and reached No. 3 in the charts. The sentence being sought — including the calculation of damages based on the illegal activity of as many as 1,310 websites that disseminated the music after Cogill released it — underscores how serious the government is about punishing those for uploading pre-release material."
Shouldn't this be a Civil matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm confused: all the merits of the case are civil in nature. How in hell do they justify prosecuting this man in criminal court? I don't understand: can someone please explain (and prove I'm just dumb)?
(My logic is that he made no money off his actions, and they were of absolutly no benefit to him.)
Re:Shouldn't this be a Civil matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. And that is why we have moved out of the US to a more civilized country. We release all of our material--audio, video and written--under a Creative Commons license, and urge both artists and consumers to boycott the mainstream content providers. They are simply trying to maintain a business model that has been obsolete since Napster. Just let them die.
I't just like that Babylon 5 guy said (Score:4, Interesting)
Like J.Michael Straczynski said:
First, having talked to distributors, I can tell you straight up that
if a show [or music album] has had too much online exposure and too many downloads, if it's too much out there, they won't distribute it because the market that would want to see it already has. Second, when you download a show, it's not just that you're denying the producers/distributors of that movie or TV show the "price" of the DVD... you're also having a direct impact on the creative people who made that show, and taking from them as well. Actors, writers and directors get paid a fee to make a project, and then they get residuals, which are not a bonus, they are deferred compensation.
Free downloading ultimately destroys the financial structure for artists of all kinds, and will, if left unchecked, eventually make it impossible for any artist to make a living doing what they do. Downloaders think there's no difference between data and entertainment, that everything should be free. Great, it's free to YOU. Now, how do you propose paying the people who need to put food on the plate when they are getting nothing in return?
jms [/quote] From: "jmsatb5@aol.com"
Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:36:27 -0700 (PDT)
Re:Shouldn't this be a Civil matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
What do you mean by "deal with those who have taken your creations without compensating you for your labor"? That's the whole point of releasing under a CC license - if people choose to compensate you, great; if not, they wouldn't have bought your material anyways so suck it up.
The record industry is just a promotional vehicle anyways - you only make money on concerts after getting famous. Even bigger artists are usually lucky to break even on CD sales. Releasing under CC removes that overhead, though obviously at the expense of losing the industry's promotion skills. Word of mouth is still king.
Re:I really don't care what you call it (Score:5, Interesting)
Its still industries buying laws. Its still misuse of public funds/resources.
You know, I'm pretty strong anti-current copyright, I think the copyright lengths are way out of whack; DRM circumvention laws are wrong; fair use should allow more sharing than the industry wants, etc.
But I also think that (were everything to reach a reasonable compromise one day) that uploading an unreleased album to wide availability (where even its sale hasn't yet been permitted by the rightsholder) could reasonably be called a misdemeanor theft on the level of shoplifting, and that (minor, short-term) incarceration rates could be reasonable as a maximum penalty. Whether or not a judge should grant the maximum sentence on first offense is another matter.
Re:Shouldn't this be a Civil matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pre release of copyrighted works, or release of limited distribution works (like a movie still only in theaters), has always been considered criminal, both in case law and the law as written. The logic is that in these cases the amount of damage is substantially more than more mundane piracy, since it creates a single point of release (he is responsible not just for the people he distributed it to, but every single person who downloads it prior to release).
Re:I really don't care what you call it (Score:2, Interesting)
See, i don't see a problem with offering a file ( or downloading it after its offered ), and don't equate it to shoplifting in the least.
Now, if he was selling access or making $ off banner ads due to the downloads, then we would be on the same side of the fence. Tho i would still argue against a *criminal* charge since the original object was not harmed and is still in 'sale-able condition', I fully agree its illegal in that case.
Re:I't just like that Babylon 5 guy said (Score:2, Interesting)
Pot kettle black.
One entity of leeches is video pirates. They have no lawyers, and can't hire JMS, and have a short memory.
2nd entity of leeches is the MPAA members. They have lawyers, might hire JMS in the future, and have long memories.
JMS has commented on the games Hollywood plays with DVD sales--how they avoid turning a profit--to avoid paying creative royalties.
One of the two entities mentioned has little power, so he blasts them.
Some future model of low-cost video downloads might eliminate the MPAA middlemen and cut way down on piracy. When that happens the creative types stand to earn far more than they do today.
It seems to be happening (albeit slowly) with music.
Re:Gun Point? (Score:5, Interesting)
Our country really needs to take a look at the purpose of government before we do anything else. We are becoming closer and closer to a dictatorship, we already have (basically) a one-party system (for all intents and purposes, democrats and republicans are the same party), government-censored media, in some cases government controlled media, our constitution is becoming nothing more then an illusion, the bill of rights seem to be disappearing faster then ever, and our government is pursuing part-ownership in several businesses (the media calls it a bailout).
Re:I't just like that Babylon 5 guy said (Score:5, Interesting)
I lost some respect for JMS when he wrote that. The thread was in connection with some scripts that he had written for Crusade episodes, which had not been produced. He was complaining about people distributing them online, even though the only studio that had the rights to produce them, wouldn't. His email basically said to me 'I have no more creative output to contribute. Don't advertise my talents as a writer and demand more shows written by me, because I can't create anything new anymore.'
Babylon 5 was created by someone with a story to tell, who was willing to work hard and struggle to tell that story. Crusade was created by someone who wanted to make money from a franchise. That the two were the same person is a tragedy.
Re:I't just like that Babylon 5 guy said (Score:1, Interesting)
Free downloading ultimately destroys the financial structure for artists of all kinds, and will, if left unchecked, eventually make it impossible for any artist to make a living doing what they do.
No downloading destroys the current middle man business model which would destroy the current version of a studio and the current distribution channels but there are plenty of ways to make money off of free content distribution. Hell, network TV has been doing it for 50 years or more. I'm not pro IP theft, I'm not a "data wants to be free" guy but I hate this kind of dishonest assessment of facts.
federal prosecutor, what? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm confused, why is a federal prosecutor involved at all, copyrights are a civil matter. I know there are some cases where its criminal but I thought that was more into the bootlegging category.
Filesharing never included commercial gains so had neatly side stepped the criminal aspects of the law. Or at least thats what I'd thought.
Not prison, that would be jail (Score:1, Interesting)
If you are sentenced for under a year, you go to jail, not prison. The author apparently was mistaken.
Re:I't just like that Babylon 5 guy said (Score:1, Interesting)
So he chooses to ignore the DVD sets he's sold of his very cheap to make B5 show, that would not have been sales had a younger generation not been able to download a few episodes. People are no longer dumb enough to blindly purchase DVDs or albums. The novelty days went a decade ago. We won't buy products by name any more. You're audience is far wiser than when JMS pissed around on a few Amigas making B5.
Re:He should go to prison, but not for... (Score:3, Interesting)
And don't get me wrong, I am not against "the police", I have a family and thank god for the Police men/women that brave the streets everyday..... but you have to admit when they pull up to someguy on the street and grab him and force against their cruiser before he says or does anything, well, lets just say it would be fun to see it just one time to one the corporate guys that 'actually' destroy hundreds of peoples lives.
Re:Skewed Priorities (Score:3, Interesting)
Democrat Party
Its called the DEMOCRATIC party [wikipedia.org]. I don't know where this "democrat" party meme came from, but I'm sick of it. All it does is make the speaker sound uninformed and ignorant of the thing they rail against so jingoistically.
Perhaps I should start calling the republican party "wepubwican party", that would make me sound mature, and make all the attached arguments so much more worthy of attention.
As to the meat of your statement, I half agree, people should be held responsible for their loans, they signed the paper work, therefore they agreed to the consiquences. I can see some issue though, were individual problems quickly balloon and become a serious problem to the rest of us, though. I'm rather tossed on the issue.
No, the Democrats of the Democratic party are not wholly to blame, though they must accept some share of it. Republicans deserve a decent share too for deregulation. The whole corporate ethos deserves even more blaim, since they decided that untenable short-term greed was more important than the long term health of their own companies (much less the economy as a whole). More so the very idea that our whole economy can be based on debt and not real funds.
Blaming on party is rather idiotic. Yes, being partisan is easy, and doesn't require much thought, but it also leads to making silly statements. I personally have a grudge against anyone who sits around regurgitating sound bites emanating from any side of our political system.
The only rational people are independents and moderates. The second you buy a whole proper-noun ideology, you probably divorced yourself from reality.
Re:Skewed Priorities (Score:1, Interesting)
I refuse to call them anything but the Democrat Party after they decided that they weren't actually going to bother allowing their own delegates to vote during the convention.
Had they actually decided to be even slightly democratic and COUNT the votes, Hillary would easily have won the nomination.
Instead, they stopped the vote count and just appointed Obama.
Which is amazingly ironic when you consider all the whining about Bush "stealing" the election.
That's not where the meme started, but that's why they'll always be the "Democrat Party" to me - full of people who call themselves "Democrats" but won't stand for democracy in their own party.
Re:You should (Score:1, Interesting)
I dunno, I thought the ironic part was that this is the punishment for pirating an album entitled 'Chinese Democracy'
Uploading a pre-release is not piracy/infringement; it is actual theft. You are usurping the right of first publication and denying that right to the legal owner. In this case, the owner is actually being deprived of something real and monetizable.
I've got no sympathy for these thieves. They have no excuse. Unpublished works are private property.
Re:He should go to prison, but not for... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You should (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a matter of debate; power in the US congress tends to get wielded by people supported by less than 20% of eligible voters. That's on par with what former one party system rulers tend to get when countries move to democracy.
We should be blaming ourselves for electing politicians
With first past post systems there isn't enough choice to put much blame on the voters. With only two or three realistic choices any candidates with a chance can easily be bought, and any unbuyable candidate smeared enough to not make it.
Perhaps the blame should be for not applying enough tar and feathers to get the system fundamentally changed...
Re:You should (Score:3, Interesting)
You are correct in just about every way but you do not state the problem strongly enough. In almost every state and district, the laws related to how people get on the official ballots are heavily slanted to favor the two big parties and work very hard to prevent third parties from appearing at all. Typically, the highly twisted laws are used to aggressively prevent or to remove candidates of third parties and independents from ballots. In the last election cycle, however, we saw attempts at turn-about where third parties attempted to remove either or both of the two big parties from ballots and in EVERY case, those attempts failed. In Texas, especially, the violation of the rules were clear and obvious -- the two big party presidential candidates failed to meet their filing deadlines and the Texas state government simply decided to ignore the law and literally gave no explanation for it at all.
This is not a failure of the voters. This is a failure of the system at large and I find it is quite typical. The law only applies when those in charge feel it applies and does not when it is not convenient.