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US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

torrentfreak.com

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Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#31

Post by JoeAltmaier »

dchest wrote: post #26
lachyg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? I think most people know it's illegal when they go to download (or view) a movie on the 'net. Obviously photographs and text is a lot harder, but movies are pretty clear due to the cost that goes into production.

I think most people know it's illegal when they go to download (or view) a movie on the 'net. What about hulu.com? Should we have a list of "approved" websites somewhere? Also, how do you know that hulu has proper licenses for their videos? There was a recent case when Amazon licensed (remember, that we're dealing with licensing in case of copyright laws, not selling) "1984" for Kindles for which they didn't have the…

Kind of straying from the mark. She was convicted because she ran the site, not because she uploaded one movie. In that example, its Amazon at 'fault'.

Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#33

Post by VMG »

realo wrote: post #10
lachyg wrote: post #6

My comment doesn't directly relate to the issue in the article (how she's being put in jail early) but I'll go ahead anyway. Does anyone honestly think piracy should go unpunished? People that upload movies, music, games etc should be punished, as they are doing something illegal and and the people downloading should also be punished as they are getting the content without paying the creators. I'm curious if anyone h…

Picture this for a moment: It's your Birthday. Your friends invited you to the nicest restaurant in town. Very nice venue, food is great. End of meal... time for dessert. Your friends love you and, together, singe you the nicest rendition of 'Happy Birthday To You' you ever heard. Life is good. This was an illegal performance. Secret police comes in, puts your friends in prison (they stole & performed the song) and a…

What's Orwellian is your comparison of singing "Happy Birthday" to what this woman did:

Mid-2010, nine sites connected to movie streaming were targeted by the U.S. government. They included NinjaVideo.net, at the time one of the Internet’s most prominent video streaming sites.

One of her co-founders admitted to making 58k$ off ninja-video.

Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#34

Post by oelewapperke »

toyg wrote: post #28
lachyg wrote: post #6

My comment doesn't directly relate to the issue in the article (how she's being put in jail early) but I'll go ahead anyway. Does anyone honestly think piracy should go unpunished? People that upload movies, music, games etc should be punished, as they are doing something illegal and and the people downloading should also be punished as they are getting the content without paying the creators. I'm curious if anyone h…

I'll bite: do you honestly think people should be sent to prison for copyright offences? Monetary damages, yes; bankruptcy, maybe (if the infringement was on mass-scale and resulted in direct profit for the guilty, say, above 1000$); but prison ? Prison is not about punishment, in a civil society; it's about isolating individuals with the potential to irreparably harm their community. Unless the copyright holders go…

Nobody goes to prison for copyright violations. That's civil law. It has the exact properties you desire it has.

So what happened in this case ? I don't know. Maybe she violated a direct court order. Once a judge tells you to do something, after hearing you out, you have a limited time to get a case started in a higher court, or comply. If you don't go to a higher court, the decision of the judge actually takes precedence to any law for you personally.

If you don't obey that court order, force can and will be used to make you comply. The law states that this force should be reasonable considering the offence (the offence in this case would be disobeying a judge, not copyright infringement. This is a very serious offence, and it's a criminal offence, not a civil one). If a certain amount of force does not work to make you comply, stronger force will be used until you comply.

E.g. enforcing a restraining order. Starts with a polite request. That doesn't work, they do it in writing. If you still don't, the police is authorized to stop you physically a few times (like pulling you over). If this doesn't help, they will imprison you for progressively longer periods.

Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#35

Post by nicki_easy »

ajuc wrote: post #24
waltersilva wrote: post #11

You're all getting insane on these copyright c*ap. Soon you will be killing people for/against this anti-copyright cause. As IP is not a human right, non-IP is also not a human right.

Free speech is a human right, and people were already killed in the conflicts about it. BTW - if IP is not a human right, then it's reasonable that people are unnverved by imposing it on them. Look at it that way - "Do not eat pigs" is also not a human right, and eating pigs is not a human right. It's neutral. Yet some religions demand that you respect this law. All is OK. But when this law is made universal, and peo…

Brad Burnham said something recently that encapsulated it perfectly for me:

"I believe that downloaders are making a moral calculation and coming to the conclusion that the content industry immorally perpetuates an artificial scarcity to maximize their profits at the expense of users and artists. They understand that content is a non-rival good, that unlike an apple, they can consume it without diminishing anyone else’s ability to consume the same thing. They know that the content owner paid nothing to reproduce or distribute the content on the Internet. They also know that the artists who created the original content get a tiny fraction of the revenue. So they are making a moral judgement that the content owners are pricing their product to extract unjustifiable profits and they feel morally justified taking the content they find out there on the web." http://bradburnham.tumblr.com/post/12739727902/i-believe-in-...

File sharing has just been recognized as a religion in Sweden too and all.

In any case, something is very, very wrong here. This should never be a jailable offense, let alone one receiving such a disproportionate sentence (Naval Academy Student Sentenced To 6 Months For Rape http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/09/30/naval-academy-stude...). And then she's just whisked off to the detention center for speaking her mind about it on the Internets.

I've taken to calling the states the United Police States of Homeland Tragedy. I get really sad about how deeply disturbed things have become.

Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#36

Post by dchest »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #31
dchest wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people know it's illegal when they go to download (or view) a movie on the 'net. What about hulu.com? Should we have a list of "approved" websites somewhere? Also, how do you know that hulu has proper licenses for their videos? There was a recent case when Amazon licensed (remember, that we're dealing with licensing in case of copyright laws, not selling) "1984" for Kindles for which they didn't have the…

Kind of straying from the mark. She was convicted because she ran the site, not because she uploaded one movie. In that example, its Amazon at 'fault'.

I was replying to the comment that "doesn't directly relate to the issue in the article" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3464128

Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#37

Post by intended »

Xlythe wrote: post #14
Zirro wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it is illegal, it is technically correct for them to be punished. Some laws, however, are too absurd to remain. Piracy, for me is certainly not about not wanting to pay. It's about the feeling that the money I pay mostly doesn't go to creators, but to the companies in-between who doesn't deserve it. I don't want to support such an industry. It also the fact that I want to push for legal alternatives which…

Isn't it up to the creators to fight for more compensation? We, as consumers, shouldn't be justifying our actions by picking up a fight we were never asked to join. We've provided the technology to circumvent the middlemen, proven its preference among users. However, as it stands now, less money goes to the creators when you pirate than when you play by their game. Don't claim to be fighting in their name. I agree, t…

Whats interesting is that they have the funds to still fight.

This, to me, sounds like an inefficient business model.

When you have the funds to fight both your customers and pirates, lobby the government, and constantly man a PR machine, while losing market share, I have to wonder - how much cash are they sitting on?

Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#38

Post by lachyg »

toyg wrote: post #28
lachyg wrote: post #6

My comment doesn't directly relate to the issue in the article (how she's being put in jail early) but I'll go ahead anyway. Does anyone honestly think piracy should go unpunished? People that upload movies, music, games etc should be punished, as they are doing something illegal and and the people downloading should also be punished as they are getting the content without paying the creators. I'm curious if anyone h…

I'll bite: do you honestly think people should be sent to prison for copyright offences? Monetary damages, yes; bankruptcy, maybe (if the infringement was on mass-scale and resulted in direct profit for the guilty, say, above 1000$); but prison ? Prison is not about punishment, in a civil society; it's about isolating individuals with the potential to irreparably harm their community. Unless the copyright holders go…

Oh god no, definitely not. Monetary damages, yes. Prison sentences for a non-violent crime, definitely not.

Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#39

Post by cschwarm »

lachyg wrote: post #6

My comment doesn't directly relate to the issue in the article (how she's being put in jail early) but I'll go ahead anyway. Does anyone honestly think piracy should go unpunished? People that upload movies, music, games etc should be punished, as they are doing something illegal and and the people downloading should also be punished as they are getting the content without paying the creators. I'm curious if anyone h…

There's probably no good answer to your question, since it depends on your choice of axioms. Given certain axioms, you might be able to logically derive the answer that "piracy" should not be punished.

If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that piracy is illegal, and prevents authors to be payed.

But just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it's right. Provided a law is morally wrong, for instance, punishment for breaking said law would also be morally wrong, and should not be supported. You'll probably also cheer to the freedom fighter breaking laws to overcome a dictator.

Interestingly, most Americans would probably deny that anybody has a right to have income, or a minimum level of wealth and health in every other profession (for this would be "socialism"). So, why should authors and investors in creative works have that right?

After all, the authors of most works have been payed. Most of the time, even the investors in these works have been paid as well. What you argue is basically that authors and investors haven't been paid 'enough'. But how do we rationally determine what payment is 'enough' or not?

Of course, these "pirates" are fooling themselves if they think their moral arguments hold. Most of them don't do anything constructive (unlike, say, Open Source developers, or the Creative Commons community).

Re: US Authorities Silence NinjaVideo Founder, Rush Her to Prison

#40

Post by cschwarm »

noonespecial wrote: post #29

The interesting thing about Ninja Video is that it was exactly like the netfix-itunes-amazon of the future would do best to look like. The categorization, notes, and search were all fantastic and a huge community of people enthusiastic about the content organically grew around it. All it needed was a few dollars a month subscription fee and it would have dominated the market. The lost opportunity has become a sardoni…

You don't happen to have screenshots, do you? Google image search found nothing.
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