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Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars

arstechnica.com

1–10 of 56 posts

Re: Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars

#4
post #3

I can't believe what I've just read. A civil case yeah why not but criminal charges and imprisonment from a private entity after the CPS have basically said its not worth it? Scary.

Ah but in an ironic twist, I'm sure some film maker will create a movie about this. Oh wait, I think they have...

Re: Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars

#5

Somebody once pointed out that such link aggregation sites that operate outside the US seem to be getting in more legal trouble than similiar sites operating under a US domain and possibly on US soil. Is this true and if so, why?

The UK 'Government' is just a lapdog for US interests and they are scared of pissing them off. So they can get away with it. The English courts in particular are weak compared to others in the UK as well. I think they need a change of Government.

Re: Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars

#6
That is bizarre. The government is, in theory at least, non biased towards any particular private interests. The fact that a private entity can launch its own investigation using its own methodology and then use said evidence to take away someones freedom is downright terrifying.

Re: Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars

#8
The UK has a spectacularly weak judicial system for an industrialized country.

From the lack of judicial review of primary legislation ([1]) through a huge abundance of archaic haphazard laws, to lack of representative judges, to the ease with each political, police, partisan and private organisations can influence the judiciary, the UK system is ripe for abuse and disruption by any industry. It is also fertile ground at this time due to the dual US/UK government focus around issues of "Intellectual Property".

From a general perspective, the only saving grace, which is a relatively minor one in practice (by volume not significance), is that EU laws normally have precedence and judges are therefore unable to act completely unilaterally without risking being overturned.

Just think: what other industrial country permits unilateral criminal prosecution from private entities with explicit support from one of its judges?

[1] Yes, I am aware that without an arms-length written constitution, this would potentially make things even worse.

Re: Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars

#9
post #6

That is bizarre. The government is, in theory at least, non biased towards any particular private interests. The fact that a private entity can launch its own investigation using its own methodology and then use said evidence to take away someones freedom is downright terrifying.

It's increasingly becoming clear that the practice is very different. There's several cases, most notably Assange and the current Megaupload trial that indicate that private entities are putting pressure on governments, who in turn put pressure on their peers in other countries. And it can't all be written off as conspiracy theories anymore.

Re: Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars

#10
post #7

Especially ridiculous is that the judge complains that he has no remorse for "making available" content that "infringes copyright". But of course, he didn't make any such content available. (Do .torrent files "infringe copyright"?)

For something like a movie they mostly consist of a hash list which is clearly a derivative work based on the original so probably. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrent_file

EX: A 4GB file using 4MB pieces would have 1000pieces x 20 byte hashes or 20k of 100% derivative work. And ~2k for all other meta data.

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