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An American served a year in prison for copyright conduct that is legal in EU
- dest 9y agoTL/DR: Jailbreaking the Wii lead an American guy to prison, while it would have been legal in Europe, according to the EUCJ.
- gear54rus 9y agoPity those vultures found him. Another hero we don't deserve goes down...
- beefhash 9y agoIt might be worth making it precise that you mean "legal in the EU". Assuming that every legal system in Europe that is not in the EU would reach the same conclusion as the EU Court of Justice may be dangerous. As this article demonstrates, opinions about copyright can differ wildly.
- charlesdm 9y agoEven in the EU, local courts might not always reach the same decision due to differences in local law. But at least the ECJ has set some standard as to what is acceptable.
- masklinn 9y ago> Even in the EU, local courts might not always reach the same decision due to differences in local law. Same as in the US, but ultimately the EJC is Europe's Supreme Court, if it decides to take a case and rule, its rulings supersede local decisions.
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- Matt3o12_ 9y agoIt should be added, and this is important, this sentence is not punished equally because of the country‘s laws, it is because of an international trade agreement which both Europe and America have agreed to. Specifically Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. A EU court ruled that it is not illegal to provide a mod chip for the Wii because of “how often [the] devices are in fact used in order to allow unauthorised copies … and how often that equipment is used for purposes which do not infringe copyright[.]“ (from the article). The US court meanwhile ignored the question whether they could have legitimate purpose at all and just saw it as “a device to circumvent copyright“. What is interesting here is not that two countries have different laws, it is that an “international“ law is interpreted completely different for an almost identical case by two countries and thus punished completely differently.
- wereHamster 9y agoIsn't there an international court (the one in Den Haag?) that could be used to clarify this difference in interpretation of international law?
- barry-cotter 9y agoThe International Court of Justice does not have compulsory jurisdiction, cases can only be referred to it by agreement between state parties, whether such agreement is expressed before or after the dispute. I'm unfamiliar with the Berne convention but I think it sets a minimum standard for copyright. States are free to go above the minimum. States are definitely free to decide whether a crime is civil or criminal and how it is to be prosecuted and punished. There're a series of excellent EdX courses on International Law by the Université Catholique de Louvain if you're interested. https://www.edx.org/micromasters/louvainx-international-law https://www.edx.org/micromasters/louvainx-international-law Don't use endonyms like Den Haag or Torino for The Hague or Turin for developed countries. Use the traditional exonyms.
- masklinn 9y agoThe US withdrew from the ICJ's "compulsory jurisdiction" following Nicaragua v. United States and accept the court's jurisdiction "on a case by case basis" (not to mention enforcement of ICJ rulings are performed by the UN Security Council on which the US have veto rights). The court mostly deals with disputes between states — which is not the case here as a USian was imprisoned by the US following US interpretation of treaty rules — and the US would have to allow its jurisdiction for this case which I wouldn't see happen normally, and even less so under the current jingoistic administration.
- JohnStrangeII 9y agoTo be 'fair', this merely reflects a known major difference between the US and Europe. Just about any felony is associated with a maximum sentence that is roughly 10 times higher in the US than in Europe. The US justice system is all about retribution, this is so ingrained in the US psyche that ssemingly normal people who think they are humane and have good moral compass will make "don't drop the soap jokes" and basically accept prison rape as normal way of dealing with felons, provided they dislike the crime enough. Even US judges occasionally state in public that they hope that the defendant will die in prison. People in Europe tend to be more civil in such matters.
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- eeZah7Ux 9y ago...not to mention death penalty, including states where the family of a victim were allowed to watch the execution and even cheer.
- mtgx 9y agoPlus, I find the idea of "sentence stacking" absolutely absurd. It just encourages prosecutors to throw the book at you and scare you into taking a "shorter" sentence with a plea deal.
- jimnotgym 9y agoI find the idea of plea deals absurd. They seem to encourage results before justice
- Sacho 9y agoThe costs of the US justice system are already exorbitant, with plea deals being the norm. Public defense offices are overworked and understaffed, judge calendars are overbooked, quality representation costs millions... I forgot which justice said it, but basically the justice system relies on plea deals as it stands. I don't know what kind of sweeping reform would be required to change that. Edit: "That is what plea bargaining is. It is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system." Scott & Stuntz, Plea Bargaining as Contract, 101 Yale L. J. 1909, 1912 (1992). " Quoted in Missouri v Frye before the Supreme Court(https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16929683133924452834 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=169296831339244...)
- rco8786 9y agoOpinions about the law itself aside, I’m confused why this fact is consider r material. If someone in the UK was arrested for having a gun would we write about a “British man serving time for something that’s legal in the US”?
- dvno42 9y agoThat's nerve wracking and I feel for the guy. As a kid in 7th grade, helping others install mod chips was definitely a big spark in my then still young tech journey. So what if he makes a couple hundred dollars here and there, how does that equate to spending a year in prison. If nothing else, he's now spent a not insignificant time with felons in his more formative years...
- Feniks 9y agoEven if it had been illegal nobody would be sent to prison over it. Just a fine and probation.
- tluyben2 9y agoWeird to send people to jail for something like this. How is that proportional to the ‘crime’ even if found guilty? More people in jail is a lovely plan anyway...
- charlesdm 9y agoHey, those corporate prisons need to make their profits somehow.
- tluyben2 9y agoYeah I did not want to mention that; most people in the EU do not know that privatized prisons exist; when I tell them they simply do not believe it until they look it up. There are not many ideas worse and more perverted than that on this earth.
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- Tharkun 9y agoHere's a fun fact: when the US abolished slavery, they lost out on a lot of cheap/free labour. Guess what bridged the gap? Forced prison labour. Guess who filled the prisons? Former slaves. The old bait 'n switch. Guess who's filling the prisons all these years laters?
- Sacho 9y ago...criminals? See https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5869 https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5869, quoting from the summary: "More than half (53%) of state prisoners were serving sentences for violent offenses in 2014 (the most recent year for which offense data are available), compared to 19% for property offenses and less than 16% for drug crimes." Also to parent's point: "Almost 7% of state prisoners (91,300 inmates) and 18% of federal prisoners (34,900) were held in private prison facilities in 2015" The evil corporate private prisons trapping the poor pot smokers to extract money from them is a nice fairy tale. The reality is more complicated and forces us to grapple with the fact that there are some pretty bad people out there, and we're apparently OK with treating them inhumanely when we seek retribution.
- scotty79 9y agoWhy do we need this NAFTA thing again? And why does involve copyright? It would be much easier to enact NAFTA if it skipped copyright entirely.
- djmips 9y agoThese trade agreements are used to project rules and circumvent laws decided by democracies.
- zombieprocesses 9y agoWe don't need NAFTA. Corporations need NAFTA. Free Trade Agreements exist to expand/remove borders for corporations. While it disadvantages citizens who are "trapped" in their own borders.
- drakonka 9y agoHaving lived in the US for 6 years when I was younger I became very acquainted first hand with Americans' touted importance of freedom, and their pride in the freedom they get as Americans. At the time I was too young to question this, and just thought of Americans as very proud and free people - I even got the bug myself and felt a great sense of pride and appreciation about having the privilege to live free in America. That was a long time ago and I am now on my fourth country of residence. Now the espousing of "freedom" some Americans often express when discussing living in Europe vs the US is sort of baffling when there are so many examples of Americans being the opposite of free. This is one example of greater restrictions on their lives which Americans are forced to accept. It seems like freedom in the US is crippled at so many turns, either by corporations or lack of government support when you really need it in a bad financial situation. You're not free to expect your health to be taken care of no matter what your financial situation; you're not free from living in often astonishing debt just to to get a higher education; you're not free to feel any sort of real sense of job security when an employer can fire you at will with little protection; you're not free to make a mistake, maybe like this one, without facing overblown charges and/or prison sentences; etc...Living in the US now just seems like it would be so stressful. Europe has its problems, but having lived in both places I know where I personally feel more "free".
- maxxxxx 9y agoTo me it feels like American freedom is more and more about the freedom of doing business for big companies without any limitations and not much else. The regular citizen is just there to consume what these "job creators" provide.
- indigochill 9y agoI haven't lived in quite that many different countries, but also find having been born in the US and emigrated to Europe that I find Europe to feel more "free". In fact, I actually moved because I wanted to do unpaid programming work for my company to prove I was ready for a software engineering role. The US office said it would be illegal, but the European office said it would be legal there, so I got a transfer (and shortly after, the promotion I was after).
- MistahKoala 9y agoIt irks somewhat that even an article bearing the Harvard name can't make the distinction between 'Europe' and the EU. Using them interchangeably in casual conversation is one thing, but doing it whilst making a reasoned case is just sloppy handling of the detail.
- ballenf 9y agoHow many countries are in one but not the other? Switzerland, Liechtenstein and ? Or is there another reason for remembering the distinction?
- rainingmonkey 9y agoAlbania, Andorra, Armenia. Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Gibraltar, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, The Isle of Man, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vatican City State (Holy See). From 2019, the UK will be part of this list. Furthermore, "Europe" as an organisation could mean the European Union, The Council of Europe or even minor entities like the European Broadcasting Union depending on the context.
- Ngunyan 9y agoTurkey is an Asian country. Just because they own a slice of land in Southeastern Europe does not make them European. Otherwise, Spain would be African, France would be Latin American, and Egypt would be Asian.
- jcranmer 9y agoIstanbul is (by far) the largest city of Turkey and is mostly on the European continent. If you include the coasts of the Aegean (that were historically Greek-speaking), then you get several more major population centers. And historically, the Ottoman Empire was very much a major European power, controlling as it did most of the Balkans. If Cyprus can claim to be a European country, then so can Turkey.
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- qwerty456127 9y agoForbidding hardware/software owners from exploring and/or modifying the device or the copy of a program they have legitimately bought whatever a way they want and selling their legitimate property (even after they have modified it) just ought to be banned completely IMHO.
- Zanni 9y agoWhile I sympathize with your viewpoint--I hate artificial restrictions on my own property--I think your statement is overly broad. There are a lot of things that should not be modifiable by the end user. Car odometers, aircraft transponders and the software in self-driving cars leap immediately to mind. I'm sure there are more.
- SomeHacker44 9y agoYou can have laws that criminalize activities after modification without criminalizing victimless modifications. Such as: Illegal to sell a car with a modified odometer - but you can screw with yours all you want. Wait, I think that is already illegal. Illegal to fly an aircraft in the NAS with unauthorized modifications to the transponder. Wait, that is already illegal. :)
- ivanhoe 9y agoExactly, it's already illegal to use any such modifications, so it's just a lame excuse to own the customers.
- AnthonyMouse 9y agoAnd the obvious problem in the DMCA case is that the modifications are also necessary to do things that aren't copyright infringement, like side loading apps on iOS, or creating a screen reader for the blind, or making useful third party improvements to the media device in general. It's as if the problem was people rolling back odometers and instead of passing a law against rolling back odometers they passed a law against making any modifications whatsoever to a vehicle that has an odometer. There is already a law against copyright infringement. What is the DMCA anti-circumvention law adding to that other than to prohibit things that aren't copyright infringement?
- hudibras 9y agoThis was a 22-year-old guy who made $50 profit selling a modified Wii to an undercover cop, by the way.
- kakarot 9y agoThat's illegal? Are you serious?
- Moru 9y agoYes, in the land of the free.
- tptacek 9y agoThat's not quite true. Selling the Wii to the cop was the predicate to his indictment. But he was prosecuted for running a business selling mod chips. They found something like a dozen waiting to to be installed and sold in his workshop, and presented evidence of his ongoing commercial venture at trial. What really happened here is that he got royally screwed at sentencing. Criminal History Category I, at effectively the base sentencing level for criminal DMCA infringement, and they decided to make an example out of him.
- wnevets 9y agoa dozen of them at $50 a pop? Lock him and throw away the key!
- emanreus 9y agoI would really be ashamed of myself if I sent a 22yo in prison for that. Laws and everything aside, you really have to be shamelessly cruel and without conscience.
- whatyoucantsay 9y agoThe one thing about this topic more infuriating than America's draconian and absurd intellectual "property" law is the vigour with which they force it upon the rest of the world. This is an area where China is clearly the freer country.
- totalZero 9y agoI'm not sure legalizing IP theft makes a country freer, because the person who owns stolen IP is deprived of the opportunity to profit from his own ideas. This applies to other types of theft too. Would you say that a country where people can legally steal food away from each other is freer than a country where this is not the case?
- deadbunny 9y agoBreaking DRM on a device you own does not imply IP theft.
- CaptSpify 9y agoHow is stealing a physical object at all similar to "stealing" an idea? These are two very different things, and I think the fact that we even call it "theft" and "stealing" is bullshit, because it clearly isn't.
- Armisael16 9y agoSo should Penguin Books be allowed to copy every book published by Doubleday if they give all the copies away for free?
- CaptSpify 9y agoI guess I don't understand the question. If one publisher gives away books for free, should another publisher be allowed to copy it?
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- kakarot 9y agoI love the art Nintendo produces and the company has been an integral part of my childhood, but I find their stance on piracy to be some of the most detestable in the industry. Fuck them for sending some poor guy to prison for modifying hardware he owned. Almost makes you want to pirate their games in protest.
- gumby 9y agoThe "legal in the EU" part distracts from the true injustice of this kind of activity being criminalized. Countries have different laws. You can be convicted in most EU states of saying things which are protected speech in the US. Or for getting an abortion. But this law is an example of the primacy of corporate activity over human rights.
- Tech-Noir 9y ago> The "legal in the EU" part distracts from the true injustice of this kind of activity being criminalized. It also creates unnecessary confusion since it implies an American was jailed in Europe for something that's legal in Europe. For the reason you give - countries have different laws - there's no reason to mention Europe otherwise. > You can be convicted in most EU states [...] for getting an abortion. I'd love to know where you got this from.
- monksy 9y agoIreland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_Republic_of_Ir...
- gumby 9y agoSorry, that sentence was structured poorly and it's too late to edit my comment. Let me split it in two: 1> In most EU states, some speech which is protected in the USA is illegal (e.g. pro-nazi statements which are understandably forbidden in certain countries). 2> Another example of something legal in the USA is abortion, while some countries in Europe are more restrictive (Malta 100%, Andorra, Italy, Ireland and Poland almost so, usw).
- Tech-Noir 9y agoAh okay. I thought at first you may have meant something illegal in the USA, but not Europe, but that didn't really make sense. Although, the first Google result for "convicted for having an abortion" is this sad case: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/appeal-indiana-woman-convicted-having-abortion http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/appeal-indiana-woman-convicted-ha... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purvi_Patel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purvi_Patel
- puppetmaster40 9y agoIs this Hollywood, related to Reddit founder Aeron? Or New Zeland Kim?
- Molaxx 9y agoFun to be a corporate under Trump. Big surprise
- hoffs 9y agoAnd another person in Eu is serving 10 years for weed where it' would be completely legal in part of US. So what's the point of such stupid title...