Another EliteTorrents Uploader Facing 10 Years in Prison

**TheFoX** · 11-18-2007, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by Sextent

Let's get some perspective here. A possible 10 years (no way) for this type of crime is not the same as being put in a high security prison for murder.

That may be so, but in the UK it is a well known fact that the police are not interested in the bulk of domestic crimes, unless they are of a serious nature, such as murder or serious wounding.

I have been burgled once, and some of my friends have also been burgled. It's amazing that they can DNA a suspect for murder, but such detection techniques, which would easily identify a burglar, are not applied (apparently the cost outweighs the benefit to the legal system).

I find it amazing that some 17 year old toe rag can steal one car after another, yet all the judicial system does is to ban him from driving (only enforceable if a copper happens to see you breaking into your next car).

A local estate near me was recently plagued by young tearaway's who felt it was their god given right to steal other people's cars, yet the police are powerless to do anything about it.

The misery caused to many by society's delinquents is out of control, yet we have a legal system geared towards keeping this misery makers out of prison.

So, how can prosecuting a file sharer, who isn't making any money from their sharing habit, be proportionate to those arseholes who make day to day living a burden?

Of course, I forgot to mention that Execs don't live in normal areas and probably have security to ensure their Bentley remains where it is...

**Sextent** · 11-18-2007, 12:37 PM

How do you know he wasn't making money from his crime?

People make the assumption that everyone involved in filesharing is just like them, a guy sitting in his room sharing music, movies etc. That's simply not true. At the heart of it there are people making loads of money. Particularly where it involves movies or music which haven't even been released yet.

Yes chaps, your "donations" can go to funding organised crime and terrorism.

I'm not going into your dna argument. It's a distraction from the point and it doesn't really work the way you think.

**Roark** · 11-18-2007, 03:14 PM

sk0t got 5 months + 5 months house arrest. I doubt this guy will get much more. I've never believed nonviolent crimes should get prison time, but this sentence does not seem that disproportionate. Suffice it to say, a movie worth hundreds of millions is naturally not going to garner as much attention as your friend's valuables. And even in the filesharing space, when one considers the actions the police could take (prosecute every IP on mininova for example), these once a year prosecutions are almost halfhearted.

**Sextent** · 11-18-2007, 05:29 PM

Good points well made. However may I remind chaps that in the UK copyright theft is for the most part a civil matter. i.e. the Police would not be involved and the copyright holder would sue the copyright thief.

It's only when piracy is for financial gain that it becomes a criminal matter and the Police and other prosecuting authorities become involved. In addition the Police would only really become involved when there were substantial gains involved.

**TheFoX** · 11-18-2007, 07:47 PM

Your right for the most part. The only time that copyright theft becomes criminal is when material is stolen prior to release (pre-release) rather than simply copied from available sources (DVDs or CDs). That then is considered a criminal matter.

With regards to 'donations' and organised crime, while the bit torrent world is fairly organised, I would not say that SysOps or tracker owners are criminals who are utilising another form of scam. Most people who set up trackers do it out of a desire to share, and not to defraud.

I should point out that there is a big difference between a group of people who share, and a group of people who mass produce DVDs then sell them at car boot sales. The second group is, by definition, scamming the public, whereas the first group just wants to share.

Now we also know that of the file sharers, there are those who try to earn an extra buck out of sharing, by burning, then selling, the material they have gained. This is criminal, as the simple act of selling something that does not belong to you is classed as fraud, or selling something as something else (selling a bootleg as a genuine article).

There will always be undesirables around.

As for whether OiNK is a criminal, remains to be seen. If he, as stated in the media, forced members to donate for access, then he would be guilty of extorting money for material that was not rightly his to charge for. On the other hand, if donations were purely voluntary, and he can prove that (which he probably can), then no one can charge him for selling a service.

This is a grey area of the law. His site hosted only links, but he does stand accused of facilitating filesharing, but he did NOT charge for his service. Any money received was done on a purely voluntary basis, and no goods were exchanged for the money.

I won't comment on the funding of terrorism issue, as that is best left to another thread completely.

In both cases though (Elite Torrents and OiNK), bother were considered criminal simply because they hosted pre-released material, which should not have been public. You quite rightly point out that copyright theft is a civil matter, but pre-release is criminal because someone has physically removed a copy from private storage and made it public, unlike normal copyright theft where someone is making something that is already public, free for all...

**Sextent** · 11-18-2007, 09:02 PM

"Your right for the most part. The only time that copyright theft becomes criminal is when material is stolen prior to release (pre-release) rather than simply copied from available sources (DVDs or CDs). That then is considered a criminal matter."

I'm afraid that's simply not true, the criminal aspect is in relation to the commerciality of the piracy, not the nature of the material. The fact that it is pre-release would be taken into consideration but it is not an essential element of the offence.

"This is criminal, as the simple act of selling something that does not belong to you is classed as fraud"

Again that isn't true, fraud requires an element of deception, it is rare that someone buying a pirated DVD will be deceived into thinking it is anything else.

"As for whether OiNK is a criminal, remains to be seen. If he, as stated in the media, forced members to donate for access, then he would be guilty of extorting money for material that was not rightly his to charge for. On the other hand, if donations were purely voluntary, and he can prove that (which he probably can), then no one can charge him for selling a service."

He didn't force people to "donate" he lied about the levels of donations he received. Where he claimed that he had only received a few hundred pounds for "server costs" he was actually receiving thousands and making huge profits. I'm also confused with your use of "extorting" as no-one appears to even have hinted that he did that.