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Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

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Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#181

Post by chmod775 »

tpmx wrote: post #18
DeathArrow wrote: post #14

What was the crime he was sentenced for?

https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-re... [2003] > announced today that Shane E. Pitman, age 31, of Conover, North Carolina, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison by the Honorable James C. Cacheris, United States District Judge, for conspiring to violate criminal copyright laws as the former leader of the oldest game software piracy ring on the Internet. Btw: Coming from Europe - this who…

> and I'm honestly not quite sure we're doing it right in northern Europe with our extreme privacy for convicted people...

The result will be that convicted people are additionally punished and shunned by society after their release. That's essentially just inviting vigilante justice and also makes it more difficult to live a crime-free life. But I suspect you knew that.

I wonder what balance you have in mind? Right now only famous people are the exception in northern Europe - their crimes and the result of their trials are generally published.

However in many of these countries the results of trials of ordinary people also often appear in publications, they just aren't mentioned by name. It seems to be mainly consumed as entertainment and publishing names is not really needed - any society that needlessly ruins people lives for the entertainment of others would be sickening.

You may ask: how to do background checks then? In many countries you can ask the police to certify that you did not commit certain kinds of crime. Your employer can't just check somewhere. These kinds of certifications are often required for jobs involving large sums of money and/or working with children, but cannot be required for other work.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#182

Post by worrycue »

eek2121 wrote: post #167
worrycue wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the penalties of many laws weren’t made with fairness in mind but deterrence. The penalty goes up until crime rate comes down. It makes sense I guess, it’s not meant to be a trade - much less a fair one - but to stop/reduce crime. Edit: That said, super heavy penalties for what are often victimless crimes might not be good for society overall - might be better to allow the existing offence rate for that crime…

"Discovered" crime rate goes down. Many folks actually got better at covering their tracks. The ones that didn't? yeah...

It’s still a factor in a potential offender’s mental calculation.

If the penalty is very high you will still think very hard about it even if you are good at evading detection.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#183

Post by Dalewyn »

worrycue wrote: post #141
marcodiego wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined." I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. Eager to hear opinions.

I think the penalties of many laws weren’t made with fairness in mind but deterrence. The penalty goes up until crime rate comes down. It makes sense I guess, it’s not meant to be a trade - much less a fair one - but to stop/reduce crime. Edit: That said, super heavy penalties for what are often victimless crimes might not be good for society overall - might be better to allow the existing offence rate for that crime…

>I think the penalties of many laws weren’t made with fairness in mind but deterrence.

It's a very common misconception that laws prohibit a given action. Getting straight to the point, they don't and can't: Mere words on paper can't stop a swinging fist, per se. The pen is not mightier than the sword.

Rather, the point of laws is deterence by consequence. You can swing that fist, and no piece of legalese can stop you in your endeavour, but that piece of legalese can and will stipulate the consequences for swinging that fist. The hope being the consequences will convince you to not swing that fist. The pen is not mightier than the sword, but the gavel can be mightier than the sword.

Obligatory IANAL.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#184

Post by bigDinosaur »

marcodiego wrote: post #84
codezero wrote: post #62

I was a member of Razor back in the day. I noticed that he mentioned he wouldn't say how he got Quake released before release date. I can share how I participated in an early release: I had befriended the manager of Electronics Boutique because I bought frequently there for many years prior to getting into pirating games. He would give me games that arrived but weren't on the shelf yet. From there, it was uploaded to…

"...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined." I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. Eager to hear opinions.

Even under the ancient - and extreme - jurisprudence of 'an eye for an eye' then this is clearly not fair unless a cracker actually ruined people's lives.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#186

Post by SideQuark »

Raydovsky wrote: post #166
worrycue wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the penalties of many laws weren’t made with fairness in mind but deterrence. The penalty goes up until crime rate comes down. It makes sense I guess, it’s not meant to be a trade - much less a fair one - but to stop/reduce crime. Edit: That said, super heavy penalties for what are often victimless crimes might not be good for society overall - might be better to allow the existing offence rate for that crime…

Yet , countries with the highest crime rates have the toughest punishments.

Depends on the crime and the punishment. I'd like to see the data you used to make this claim, since looking at many single cases it is certainly not clear that your claim is true.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#187

Post by nullc »

varispeed wrote: post #161
projektfu wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but S-corporation profits are only taxed once, regardless of distribution, and C-corporation profits are taxed on the corporate tax bill even if distributed in a dividend to shareholders. It's a little peculiar.

Still. The corporate tax rate is way lower than personal tax. In my country some workers pay over 50% tax on their income, while corporation they work for pay 10% or less if they have good accountants.

In the US we've historically arranged thing so that the corporate tax rate + long term cap gains rate is approximately equal to the income tax rate.

If the combined rates were much greater it would create an incentive against creating c-corps.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#188

Post by masfuerte »

contingencies wrote: post #152
kingforaday wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This to me feels like the folks that call their router a rooter.

This is normal pronunciation outside of the US.

Over lockdown I watched a lot of films from the 40s, 50s and 60s. This was a common pronunciation in America back then. The current pronunciation becoming standard is quite a recent thing.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#189

Post by orangepurple »

varispeed wrote: post #161
projektfu wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but S-corporation profits are only taxed once, regardless of distribution, and C-corporation profits are taxed on the corporate tax bill even if distributed in a dividend to shareholders. It's a little peculiar.

Still. The corporate tax rate is way lower than personal tax. In my country some workers pay over 50% tax on their income, while corporation they work for pay 10% or less if they have good accountants.

Every US person pays for taxes on capital gains and income tax at some point and those taxes ain't zero for executives of large corporations. Not even close. This extreme focus on taxation of corporations is bizarre. Eventually corporate profits need to be used by people. Companies cannot buy houses and living properties for executives either unless there is a legitimate business purpose rolled in somehow. You can try to bullshit the IRS but they will come down on you like a bag of bricks if you feed them a load of crap.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#190

Post by rootw0rm »

shmde wrote: post #13

My childhood hero. Sad to read what he went through in prison. The warez scene is still active and there's no slowing down so this bust doesn't really mean shit. Shoutout to the OGs RELOADED, SKIDROW, RAZOR, PARADOX,CODEX.

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