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Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars

arstechnica.com

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

#31

Post by arethuza »

tptacek wrote: post #28
arethuza wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems odd to me that in other countries individuals can't bring criminal cases - leaving everything to the "official" prosecutor (e.g the Procurator Fiscal here in Scotland).

How, exactly, do pleas and charge reductions work when the person conducting the prosecution has none of the incentives for leniency that the state does?

Good question - it is perhaps worth noticing that private prosecutions are rather rare and typically only happen when the "official" prosecutor appears to have made an error of judgement and appear to be taken by victims (or their families) as an act of desperation.

For example:

http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/155/When_worlds_collide...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence

What happens in other countries if the "official" prosecutor chooses not to prosecute a crime?

NB I'm not intending to imply that I think the various approaches to private prosecutions that we have in the UK are a good thing - this case brought by FACT does look a bit worrying.

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

#32

Post by vacri »

tptacek wrote: post #28
arethuza wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems odd to me that in other countries individuals can't bring criminal cases - leaving everything to the "official" prosecutor (e.g the Procurator Fiscal here in Scotland).

How, exactly, do pleas and charge reductions work when the person conducting the prosecution has none of the incentives for leniency that the state does?

There are similar incentives - a 'not guilty' plea lengthens the case, which increases the cost to the prosecutor. I also understand that the if the prosecution loses, they pay the defendant's court costs, and a guilty plea means they win with no risk of that payout.

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

#33

Post by epo »

A thought experiment: What if he was facilitating access to child pornography rather than Hollywood films would people be as outraged? More so? Less so?

If the suggestion of an income of up to £50,000 per month is even in the correct ballpark then this character was in the business of profiting hugely from copyright infringment and the jail time is appropriate.

The outrage about this is just windbaggery from thieves bemoaning the fact that they can't steal with impunity. And yes, depriving people of income is theft. Don't want to pay for a movie? Then watch something else.

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

#34

Post by vacri »

jrockway wrote: 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"?)

.torrent files make that content available. The simplest counterargument is that if his actions didn't make that content available, what were all the visitors to his site doing?

Should a person be able to successfully defend with "What's the problem, I was only giving copies of the vault key to the people who I knew would burgle it. I never handled any of the vault contents myself!"?

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

#35

Post by pdx »

Off Topic

   At the site's peak in mid-2009, STC attracted hundreds of    
   thousands of users per day, earning Vickerman up to 
   £50,000 ($78,500) per month in advertising revenue.
Let's say he did 999,000 users/day (to stay in the hundreds of thousands). That's still only $30K per month, if we assume a CPM of $1.00, which seems reasonable for a site like this.

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

#36

Post by Ralith »

rprasad wrote: post #29
lumberjack wrote: post #2

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?

U.S. copyright laws and enforcement are not as bad as nerdom make it out to be. Indeed, the U.S. is frequently the opposition to extending copyright durations and other copyright regimes (ACTA, etc., notwithstanding). In the U.S., copyright infringement is only a crime if done for money (because there is an element of fraud, i.e., selling goods that you do not own). Outside of the U.S., copyright infringement can be…

> the U.S. is frequently the opposition to extending copyright durations

Except when Mickey Mouse comes up for expiration.

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

#37

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

metatronscube wrote: post #5
lumberjack wrote: post #2

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.

That's not true. Certain politicians have been "lapdogs", though. You think we voted for the Iraq war?

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

#38

Post by tptacek »

arethuza wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How, exactly, do pleas and charge reductions work when the person conducting the prosecution has none of the incentives for leniency that the state does?

Good question - it is perhaps worth noticing that private prosecutions are rather rare and typically only happen when the "official" prosecutor appears to have made an error of judgement and appear to be taken by victims (or their families) as an act of desperation. For example: http://www.firmmagazine.com/features/155/When_worlds_collide... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence What happens in othe…

In the US, if the prosecutor with authority over the offense chooses not to prosecute, and no other venue exists to prosecute the offense (for instance, there's no federal angle to the offense that would get the FBI involved), that's where the matter ends. And that's exactly how things do end, all the time.

This is mostly a good thing. If anything, we need more discretion over charging cases.

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

#39

Post by hahainternet »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #37
metatronscube wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not true. Certain politicians have been "lapdogs", though. You think we voted for the Iraq war?

Tony Blair was re-elected, so I'm not even sure that this argument has merit.

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

#40

Post by adrr »

pdx wrote: post #35

Off Topic At the site's peak in mid-2009, STC attracted hundreds of thousands of users per day, earning Vickerman up to £50,000 ($78,500) per month in advertising revenue. Let's say he did 999,000 users/day (to stay in the hundreds of thousands). That's still only $30K per month, if we assume a CPM of $1.00, which seems reasonable for a site like this.

CPM is by viewed ad and not unique visitor. Probably each user has 4 or 5 page views, then each page view counts for 3 or 4 ad views.
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