UK Movie Pirates Sentenced To A Total Of 17 Years

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Holy cow, an average of four years in prison each for piracy? Makes you wonder how much time they would have got for physically stealing 800 movies from a video store? Well, if they still had video stores.

Five men who released thousands of movies onto the Internet have been handed sentences totaling more than 17 years. The men, all from the UK and members of release groups including 26K, RemixHD, DTRG and RESISTANCE, were accused of "putting at risk" more than £52m in Hollywood revenues.
 
The men, all from the UK and members of release groups including 26K, RemixHD, DTRG and RESISTANCE, were accused of "putting at risk" more than £52m in Hollywood revenues.
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And what random horse's ass did they pull that figure from?
 
Well.. that random number pulled from the horse's ass.
is not really random.
if 226,000 movies has been downloaded and one disc costs £18. then that is the first £40m
the other £12m, is probably for their mental anguish, for loosing £40 mil in the first place xD
 
17 years for a crime where nobody was hurt? A year, ok. But this is ridiculous. Non-violent crimes shouldn't have sentences like this.
 
Notice the wording. Not £52M in damages, but simply "putting £52M at risk".
 
xorbe said:
Notice the wording. Not £52M in damages, but simply "putting £52M at risk".
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Indeed. Thats even worse. The fact that it is impossible to put up a number for actual damages is also disconcerting. They can't prove that these downloads were lost sales. They can't prove that maybe someone already owned the disc and wanted a digital copy for their mobile device or to put on their HTPC(super slim chance, but it is arguable).
Then again, that's how court works. A jury of your "peers" (read:people that don't know shit about technology) getting convinced by a Hollywood government puppet that you led to a $60m loss to Hollywood and caused numerous people to lose their jobs.
 
Releasing new copies of a movie online without authorization from the owner is risky at best. Dumb dumb they should have known they'd get caught eventually.
 
alxlwson said:
17 years for a crime where nobody was hurt? A year, ok. But this is ridiculous. Non-violent crimes shouldn't have sentences like this.
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What about white-collar crimes that put the entire country "at risk?"
 
Studies demonstrate that pirates actually spend more on media than those that don't. Bravo, yet another example of industry punishing their audience instead of increasing service.
 
dmonkey said:
What about white-collar crimes that put the entire country "at risk?"
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Harm was very evident there. People lost their homes, businesses, livelihoods, etc...
There was tangible and absolute evidence there. That's not the case here.
 
Judging from the UK 'interceptors' TV show the cops arrest you, threat with all sorts of stuff and then court lets you walk without punishment even though being guilty on film.
 
It's amazing how you can get more time for stealing a Movie than killing someone. The media moguls certainly have governments and the legal system under their thumbs, don't they ?
 
TechLarry said:
It's amazing how you can get more time for stealing a Movie than killing someone. The media moguls certainly have governments and the legal system under their thumbs, don't they ?
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Math is hard?
Murder someone = 25- life per killing.
Criminal Copyright Infringement= UP TO 10 years.

You're going to have to explain the math there. UNLESS, of course, you're talking about something like involuntary manslaughter. But then we're comparing apples and oranges; intentional and unintentional.
 
In Canada today a man got 4 months for running over a little boy. He refused a breathalyser and claimed he wasn't drunk. They charged him for refusing the breathalyser. Since nobody could prove he was drunk, it was chalked up to be an unfortunate accident and he basically walks. So there you go, if you're ever drunk and kill someone in Canada, refuse the breathalyser.
 
akaliel said:
In Canada today a man got 4 months for running over a little boy. He refused a breathalyser and claimed he wasn't drunk. They charged him for refusing the breathalyser. Since nobody could prove he was drunk, it was chalked up to be an unfortunate accident and he basically walks. So there you go, if you're ever drunk and kill someone in Canada, refuse the breathalyser.
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See, here's the thing, there are so many holes in the facts there that SOMETHING is missing. Did they not do a field sobriety test? Why didn't they get a warrant for his blood? Was it intentional? Was he speeding? What kind of road was it on?
Was there a plea deal involved? Were the charges part of some kind of settlement?

Also, Canada.
 
Dwango said:
And what random horse's ass did they pull that figure from?
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Every download on a file is equal to a possible sale that was missed. That's how they figure it, or at least that's how these Brits figured it.
 
alxlwson said:
17 years for a crime where nobody was hurt? A year, ok. But this is ridiculous. Non-violent crimes shouldn't have sentences like this.
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Nobody was hurt, this ignorant thinking again. For the companies involved you see this only as profits, but for people who work for these companies it's salaries and raises, bonuses, Christmas time off, and all the other ways that companies reward their employees. It's not just the copyright holders either, those missed sales are streamed or physical media sold via Amazon or bought at Best Buy. That's taxes that aren't payed into the States for State Services. You see it as this little thing cause you only see it from your end, from the other end it's a hell of a lot of money.

Now you can argue that not all of those downloads would have been a sale instead. But what you can't argue is that none of them would, or that if it just wasn't possible to download movies and other content that these companies wouldn't have made more then they have or that it has no effect. There is just no basis in reality for that kind of argument.
 
alxlwson said:
Indeed. Thats even worse. The fact that it is impossible to put up a number for actual damages is also disconcerting. They can't prove that these downloads were lost sales. They can't prove that maybe someone already owned the disc and wanted a digital copy for their mobile device or to put on their HTPC(super slim chance, but it is arguable).
Then again, that's how court works. A jury of your "peers" (read:people that don't know shit about technology) getting convinced by a Hollywood government puppet that you led to a $60m loss to Hollywood and caused numerous people to lose their jobs.
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I think they proved a law was broken cause these Brit shitheads actually joined a freaking club that wears this like a hat and they're getting 17 years for it.

Nothing about this hard to understand.
 
And this is how the Brits treat mudrer;

There is only one possible sentence for murder - and that is a life sentence. Everyone who receives a life sentence is given a minimum term that they must serve - and the average for that in murder cases is 15 years. After that they can be considered for release on licence if the parole board finds they are not a threat. However, they remain on licence until they die.
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Ha, ha.

So many of you are not understanding the key difference in stealing a movie yourself and watching it... or downloading it yourself and watching it...

To, say, these guys who may have belonged to a release group but none the less RIPPED AND RELEASED movies for others to pirate.

Release Group != Download Movies at home
 
These are professional pirates who all pled guilty and were involved in the uploading of thousands of titles. Once of them continued to upload while he was on bail. These are hardly garden variety individuals torrenting a couple of titles. Also, their sentences could have been much much worse if they were professional pirates who sell movies (a group of those who made millions from the sales was fined millions and received more than 10 years in the USA).
 
Modred189 said:
See, here's the thing, there are so many holes in the facts there that SOMETHING is missing. Did they not do a field sobriety test? Why didn't they get a warrant for his blood? Was it intentional? Was he speeding? What kind of road was it on?
Was there a plea deal involved? Were the charges part of some kind of settlement?

Also, Canada.
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The police that showed up tried to but he refused the test. Which is illegal in itself but can't be enforced by the officers onscene, apparently. I have no idea why a blood test wasn't done at the station, but that is curious. It wasn't intentional. Don't think he was speeding. He swerved off a city street and into the patio of a restaurant where the boy and his family were eating (claimed he hit the gas instead of the brake by accident). No plea deal. He pled not quilty, went through the whole trial. This was the sentence. The judge chose to believe that he was not drunk, essentially in a he said, she said story.
 
akaliel said:
The police that showed up tried to but he refused the test. Which is illegal in itself but can't be enforced by the officers onscene, apparently. I have no idea why a blood test wasn't done at the station, but that is curious. It wasn't intentional. Don't think he was speeding. He swerved off a city street and into the patio of a restaurant where the boy and his family were eating (claimed he hit the gas instead of the brake by accident). No plea deal. He pled not quilty, went through the whole trial. This was the sentence. The judge chose to believe that he was not drunk, essentially in a he said, she said story.
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You sure it was a bench trial? That kind of thing is usually a jury trial.
Do you have a link? As an attorney, I'm interested, and through no fault of your own, some of what you are saying is contradictory.
 
akaliel said:
Yup bench trial.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/accused-in-edmonton-toddler-s-patio-death-gets-4-months-1.2704848

There's also a weird twist where some vigilantes kidnapped him a few months ago and cut off his thumb.
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WOW. That interesting REAL quick. But I see what happened.

1- 65 years old
2- An attorney told him to decline the test
3- He'd been beat to hell by bystanders by the time the cops got there which means a field sobriety test was out of the question
4- Abduction?! Thumb amputation!? WTF!?
5- Canada. The judicial system up there is craziballs when it comes to criminal law. BUT, I'm not sure what the charges were and what this trial was for. Was that trial JUST for the failure to take the breathalyzer? Was it the manslaughter trial too?

I suspect that this is one of two trials, and that the trial for the actual killing is a separate jury trial.
The Crown had recommended a three-year prison term. The defence suggested a fine.
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In Canada, "the Crown" is the prosecutors. And they only sought 3 years for killing someone? And the defense only sought a fine for killing someone? Not likely. I think this was just for the " failing to provide a breath sample in a death" not the death itself.
 
That ^ would also explain the bench trial. Since it's an administrative criminal charge, no jury would be required, particularly since he plead guilty.
 
3 men abducted him, they were dressed as cops and got him out of his house. Drove him to a field, cuffed him and cut off his thumb. Then left. They caught one of these guys on an unrelated crime and he's no vigilante hero. Something about carjacking and shooting at a police officer.

This trial was only for the refusal of the breathalyser.

But there isn't going to be another trial for the death of the child, he wasn't charged for that at all. It's all over.

We're pretty weird up here with major crimes. It was the same court that took a woman named Alyson McConnell, who had killed her 3 children and was found not guilty under the insanity defense and had been living in the mental hospital. They just deemed she was fit for the public again and released her back to her home country of Australia. Even her own lawyer said she was definitely not ok. A few weeks later she killed herself.
 
akaliel said:
3 men abducted him, they were dressed as cops and got him out of his house. Drove him to a field, cuffed him and cut off his thumb. Then left. They caught one of these guys on an unrelated crime and he's no vigilante hero. Something about carjacking and shooting at a police officer.

This trial was only for the refusal of the breathalyser.

But there isn't going to be another trial for the death of the child, he wasn't charged for that at all. It's all over.

We're pretty weird up here with major crimes. It was the same court that took a woman named Alyson McConnell, who had killed her 3 children and was found not guilty under the insanity defense and had been living in the mental hospital. They just deemed she was fit for the public again and released her back to her home country of Australia. Even her own lawyer said she was definitely not ok. A few weeks later she killed herself.
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Yeowch. Sounds like California.
How can they not be charging him with the death of the kid? Even unintentional manslaughter?! Something seems off here...
 
akaliel said:
In Canada today a man got 4 months for running over a little boy. He refused a breathalyser and claimed he wasn't drunk. They charged him for refusing the breathalyser. Since nobody could prove he was drunk, it was chalked up to be an unfortunate accident and he basically walks. So there you go, if you're ever drunk and kill someone in Canada, refuse the breathalyser.
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WTF does this have to do with anything?

Are you imagining that there is some sort of connection between this event in Canada and the one under discussion?
 
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