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If Disney had been found to be doing this with their own films, would the CEO of Disney be in jail? This case always felt extremely punitive due to the content

by jmpman 7y ago

If Disney had been found to be doing this with their own films, would the CEO of Disney be in jail? This case always felt extremely punitive due to the content and the size of the company.

save_ferris 7y ago
It seems pretty agreed upon that the legal system bends towards wealthy and powerful in the US. The current Jeff Epstein scandal highlights this double standard pretty well. That said, we should absolutely be going after the rich and powerful more than we currently do. These guys committed fraud and money laundering, significant financial crimes and potentially ruined other people's lives in the process by forcing victims into settlements of thousands of dollars. That's incredibly disgusting behavior and absolutely worthy of a significant prison sentence. What specifically about this case makes you think they were punished too harshly?
- rayiner 7y ago
  Fun fact, the number of billionaires currently in prison is about what you’d expect statistically.
  - ant6n 7y ago
    You mean given that the probability that billionaires are more likely to engage in crime?
- jmpman 7y ago
  Were they the legal owners of the copyright? Yes. Did they post the material themselves, yes. Have other companies posted their own works in slightly corrupt form to thwart pirates? I expect yes. Do other companies sue pirates for downloading their material? Yes. Do those companies typically sue for an amount less than a value which would cause the pirate to go to trial? Yes. The only difference I see is that Prenda uploaded “good” copies and sued. Had they uploaded corrupt copies, with a link to their website where you could download the files for $1, and a third party then uploaded the non-corrupt file to BitTorrent, it seems very close to what the large corporations are doing.
  - jmpman 7y ago
    Taking it to the next level, someone should patent the business model of doing this, and then just sue Prenda 2.0 for violating their patent.
  - save_ferris 7y ago
    Again, I'm not saying that large corporations don't do stuff like this, I entirely believe that they do. What I don't understand is how that's a valid argument for why these guys got too harsh of a punishment. Just because big, powerful people get away with this stuff doesn't mean that it shouldn't be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Should laypeople not be prosecuted for the same crimes that big corporations also commit but fail to be held accountable for? Just because someone does it and gets away with it doesn't make it right. And if we excuse everyone who does what big corporations do, then what's the point of having a legal system? Sure, big corps absolutely need to be reigned in. But arguing that these guys were punished too harshly for committing crimes simply because other, more powerful people commit crimes too is illogical. If every layperson were let off on something that a rich, powerful person got away with, then there'd be no one to punish, because all behavior would be acceptable.
    - jmpman 7y ago
      I agree they broke the law. I’m just trying to understand what small change needed to happen so they wouldn’t have broken the law. Paying their taxes - after Al Capone, you’d think any one skirting the law would at least cover that base. What else would they need to change?
- jmpman 7y ago
  What if Prenda just mined BitTorrent to find adult videos which were already being pirated at high volume (2 Girls, 1 Cup), and found the legal copyright holders, and bought the rights, then sued? Would that have been legal?
  - saltminer 7y ago
    They evaded taxes with their out-of-court settlements, so unless they changed their settlement practices, they'd still be running afoul of the law.
commandlinefan 7y ago
Slightly off-topic, but I worry about the “you should have known better” standard that the law applies to copyright violations that allowed these folks to get away with this in the first place. The logic seems to be: everybody knows that movies you have to download from BitTorrent are only up there because they’re copyrighted, so you knew that you were engaging in piracy, so you’re guilty. In general, I agree that’s probably true - anybody who would deal with something as user-unfriendly (relative to, say, Netflix) as a torrent site probably knew they were engaging in copyright violation. On the other hand, there are enough user-friendly, ad-supported sites like crunchy roll, popcornflix, tubi TV, etc. that your average web user has no way of distinguishing rights against.

by jmpman 7y ago

If Disney had been found to be doing this with their own films, would the CEO of Disney be in jail? This case always felt extremely punitive due to the content and the size of the company.

save_ferris 7y ago

It seems pretty agreed upon that the legal system bends towards wealthy and powerful in the US. The current Jeff Epstein scandal highlights this double standard pretty well. That said, we should absolutely be going after the rich and powerful more than we currently do. These guys committed fraud and money laundering, significant financial crimes and potentially ruined other people's lives in the process by forcing victims into settlements of thousands of dollars. That's incredibly disgusting behavior and absolutely worthy of a significant prison sentence. What specifically about this case makes you think they were punished too harshly?

rayiner 7y ago
Fun fact, the number of billionaires currently in prison is about what you’d expect statistically.
- ant6n 7y ago
  You mean given that the probability that billionaires are more likely to engage in crime?
jmpman 7y ago
Were they the legal owners of the copyright? Yes. Did they post the material themselves, yes. Have other companies posted their own works in slightly corrupt form to thwart pirates? I expect yes. Do other companies sue pirates for downloading their material? Yes. Do those companies typically sue for an amount less than a value which would cause the pirate to go to trial? Yes. The only difference I see is that Prenda uploaded “good” copies and sued. Had they uploaded corrupt copies, with a link to their website where you could download the files for $1, and a third party then uploaded the non-corrupt file to BitTorrent, it seems very close to what the large corporations are doing.
- jmpman 7y ago
  Taking it to the next level, someone should patent the business model of doing this, and then just sue Prenda 2.0 for violating their patent.
- save_ferris 7y ago
  Again, I'm not saying that large corporations don't do stuff like this, I entirely believe that they do. What I don't understand is how that's a valid argument for why these guys got too harsh of a punishment. Just because big, powerful people get away with this stuff doesn't mean that it shouldn't be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Should laypeople not be prosecuted for the same crimes that big corporations also commit but fail to be held accountable for? Just because someone does it and gets away with it doesn't make it right. And if we excuse everyone who does what big corporations do, then what's the point of having a legal system? Sure, big corps absolutely need to be reigned in. But arguing that these guys were punished too harshly for committing crimes simply because other, more powerful people commit crimes too is illogical. If every layperson were let off on something that a rich, powerful person got away with, then there'd be no one to punish, because all behavior would be acceptable.
  - jmpman 7y ago
    I agree they broke the law. I’m just trying to understand what small change needed to happen so they wouldn’t have broken the law. Paying their taxes - after Al Capone, you’d think any one skirting the law would at least cover that base. What else would they need to change?
jmpman 7y ago
What if Prenda just mined BitTorrent to find adult videos which were already being pirated at high volume (2 Girls, 1 Cup), and found the legal copyright holders, and bought the rights, then sued? Would that have been legal?
- saltminer 7y ago
  They evaded taxes with their out-of-court settlements, so unless they changed their settlement practices, they'd still be running afoul of the law.

commandlinefan 7y ago

Slightly off-topic, but I worry about the “you should have known better” standard that the law applies to copyright violations that allowed these folks to get away with this in the first place. The logic seems to be: everybody knows that movies you have to download from BitTorrent are only up there because they’re copyrighted, so you knew that you were engaging in piracy, so you’re guilty. In general, I agree that’s probably true - anybody who would deal with something as user-unfriendly (relative to, say, Netflix) as a torrent site probably knew they were engaging in copyright violation. On the other hand, there are enough user-friendly, ad-supported sites like crunchy roll, popcornflix, tubi TV, etc. that your average web user has no way of distinguishing rights against.