Overseaction here? Gestapo state anyone?

[The_Professor]

Man charged with uploading movie
Facing felony charge for copying ‘Flushed Away’ from Oscar voter
The Associated Press
Updated: 7:43 a.m. ET Feb 23, 2007
LOS ANGELES - A man who allegedly uploaded a copy of the film "Flushed Away" onto the Internet after getting a copy from an Oscar voter faces a felony charge.

Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, was charged with copyright infringement and faces up to three years in prison if convicted. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1.

Prosecutors said he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advanced to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put "Flushed Away" on the Internet, and a digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.

When interviewed by FBI agents, Nunez acknowledged he uploaded "Flushed Away" and the Oscar-nominated film "Happy Feet" onto the Internet, court documents said. However, investigators only found a copy of "Flushed Away" in his computer hard drive.

"Flushed Away," won four prizes on Feb. 11 at the Annie Awards, honoring achievements in feature film and television animation.

It wasn't immediately known whether Nunez has retained an attorney. His home phone number was not listed.


© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17295088/

[Plane]

It is a theft.


But is it a theft of a movie worth about $15,

Or a theft of thousands of copys each worth $15?

[The_Professor]

Or is this being used as an example to others?

[Michael Tee]

plane's right.  It's theft. 

The only real issue is selective punishment, which I think is implicit in the Professor's reply to plane. 

There's also a broader issue similar to the issues raised by Prohibition - - if a law is widely flouted in a democratic society to the point where every prosecution can be looked at as a symbolic prosecution, how deleterious to society is it to continue to enforce the law and when does the law have to give way to the popular pressure of the large mass of citizens (arguably the majority)who will not observe it?

[kimba1]

the thing is he did it the worst possible way by movie industries eyes
he took an advance copy from his sister who is a voter and uploaded before the dvd is available for sale
risking future sales of that movie
good chance his sister ain`t getting anymore advance copies from now on.
it`s this situation thats may ruin other voters chance of getting advance copies now.
I think this is truely the first case I`ve read of a guilty guy finally caught
usually it`s people without computesr that get in trouble.

[Plane]

Or is this being used as an example to others?

They shut down a merchant at Smileys recently , he had pirate CDs , but he was just a reseller.

This is a big problem because the second most valuable export of the US is entertainment poducts.

People don't take entertainment  seriously unless they are feeding their familys with it.

[Henny]

They shut down a merchant at Smileys recently , he had pirate CDs , but he was just a reseller.

This is a big problem because the second most valuable export of the US is entertainment poducts.

People don't take entertainment  seriously unless they are feeding their familys with it.

I never realized how big the bootlegging problem is internationally until I lived abroad.

In Jordan, it isn't easy to get a legitimate copy of a movie. When you can buy it, it's usually imported from the States in Region 1, and most people don't have a multi-region DVD player (or know that you can request the codes from the manufacturer to unlock the DVD player as we did).

Then, even if you can play it, do you want to pay for it? The price of the movie is jacked up with luxury taxes, plus the 16% GST... all in all, you end up paying $60 - $75 to buy a new copy of a movie. There are no rentals here like Blockbuster.

So in the end, you can go into nearly any store off the street selling media and buy a bootlegged copy of any movie. If you're watching it on the big screen in America, people are watching it here on DVD for about $1.00 each movie.

I believe the problem has been addressed in China by selling new copies of movies for $2 or $3 each to discourage bootlegging. I'm curious as to when that tactic will be applied to other countries that pose similar problems?

[Michael Tee]

<<People don't take entertainment  seriously unless they are feeding their familys with it.>>

Amen to that.  We have a couple of songwriters in our extended family, one belonging to my kids' generation.  They happened to be at the same party when the conversation turned to downloading, which I gather everyone at that particular party was heavily into, and the songwriter really freaked out.  Nobody had the heart to tell him that his songs were not on their download lists, but there's really a Robin Hood issue here - - nobody is going to feel bad ripping off the Rolling Stones but what if it is some young guy just getting his foot in the door, or a bunch of ageing one-hit wonders now working in the janitorial field who could probably use the few bucks?

Given the prevalence and unavoidability of unauthorized copying, I'd say the copyright laws are due for a change.  The reason being, some artists are being made obscenely rich by their royalties, the wealth being way out of proportion to any benefit they have conferred on society at large.  Others struggle and if they don't get any financial encouragement, will never bother to produce works for future generations to enjoy.  Why not limit copyright protection not in time but in dollars?  Royalties on a given item become unenforceable after generating X dollars.  The X can be in the millions but not in the hundreds of millions.  I am trying to think of any artist whose work became better after his first ten million.