Man Gets 7 Years for Software Piracy 296
mytrip writes to mention a C|Net article about the largest sentence for software piracy ever handed down by a U.S. court. Nathan Peterson of Los Angeles has been levied with an enormous fine after selling millions of dollars worth of software between 2003 and 2005. "U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III on Friday ordered Peterson to pay restitution of more than $5.4 million. Peterson pleaded guilty in December in Alexandria, Va., to two counts of copyright infringement for illegally copying and selling more than $20 million in software. Justice Department and industry officials called the case one of the largest involving Internet software piracy ever prosecuted. "
Sold $20 returns $5.4 = Profit! ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
Richard Stallman often encourages the sale of Free Software (a position which many people unfamiliar with his ideology find confusing).
Why shouldn't third parties be able to sell the things they own for profit? Or are we bound to this idea that "For Free is good, but for profit is bad". Businesses are not, by their nature, bad. Much like a loony tunes television episode I recall watching as a child "It's not the automobile that's evil; it's the driver".
There are many piracy groups which are often seen as charities which almost aren't; pirate bay for example are most certainly profitable. Whether they are a business by the letter of the law I'm not entirely sure.
Other "piracy groups" are very obviously web startups. Isohunt, for example, provide a very useful service, and, I expect profit from it.
If something is bad to do for profit, it is normally bad to do it for free also. I think that piracy is neither. Binary is the property of whose media it is on, and to hell with anyone who wants to say otherwise.
Re:A tad harsh (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure that this man had sold this software at prices far below what any legitimate retailer could afford. With that being a reasonable assumption (since he sold so damn much of this software), the people he sold it to would probably have been unlikely to purchase the software at all had it not been at such a deep discount. If they would not have purchased the software otherwise, there is a net damage of almost zero to the manufacturer of the software. There is no lost supplies, real property, or investment. They did not have to do the advertising for this person's business either. If anything, the pirated software he did sell made for great PR to those software companies. The people who would've not otherwise purchased the software at regular or semi-discounted prices are probably pleased with their purchase, and will now be far more likely to buy the new improved releases of that product later on.
Re:A tad harsh (Score:3, Interesting)
In the American system crimes of violence are almost always prosecuted at the state and local level. Prisons are crowded, courts are stressed, and there is pressure to cut a deal. When the Feds do claim jurisdiction the gloves come off.
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
But what about movies? Each of the LOTR movies cost over 100 million dollars to make. If you took away the profit incentive, there would be no way that anyone would go into such an undertaking for free, just because it's "inatly humam or fun". Your argument may hold for small projects but not large ones, and if large projects like the LOTR movies were taken away from us (because there was no profit incentive to create them), then that would be a loss for society in general. Society can live with just "small" projects, but why should it? Large projects have their place as well, and those require ROI to make.
(As a side note, I question whether the LOTR *books* would even have been written if there were no profit incentive at all. Or maybe they would've been written, but not with the epic-scale that they have.)
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tolkien had been writing his Middle Earth sagas for decades. He showed them to a publisher early on who told him they were unpublishable. He continued writing anyway. Eventually of course a publisher did turn up who took a risk. Of course there was a profit motive in the publishing, but not the writing. And if it had happened today, perhaps JRR would have written it as a blog and not bothered with publishers at all. He had endless trouble with their changes to his text, both deliberate ("elvish" to "elfen") and accidental.
Re:A tad harsh (Score:3, Interesting)
I know you chose "child rapists" for your comparison to provoke a specific emotional response, but let's think about what happens to those people when they're caught.
Convicted felons might not have much honor, but the unwritten prison code deals pretty harsh justice onto people who hurt children. A molestor is much more likely to be killed my another inmate than a software pirate. And even one does survive prison, he has a lifetime of mandatory registrations, surveillance, and harassment from neighbors to look forward to.
No, I don't feel like we're coddling child abusers in the current system.