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NEWS: U.K. Man Sentenced to 4 Years for Linking to Pirated Works for Profit


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Crystal



Joined: 03 Jun 2004
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:13 pm Reply with quote
Wow, 4 years seems really harsh . . . was he not able to surrender what he made from that (I'm guessing maybe I'm being kind of naive on this)?

I did find it kind of unfair that someone can make this kind of money off of other peoples' work but people who upload their own work (i.e. webcomic artists) don't make nearly that much off stuff they made themselves and put a lot of effort into.
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oblivious247



Joined: 16 Oct 2011
Posts: 242
PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:42 pm Reply with quote
Harsh? Guy got exactly what he deserved.
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Fletcher1991



Joined: 14 Apr 2009
Posts: 514
Location: Long Island, NY
PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:57 pm Reply with quote
oblivious247 wrote:
Harsh? Guy got exactly what he deserved.
People have served less time for worse.

I as well think it is a bit harsh. Although I agree that it is absurd that he was gaining such a revenue from a site that was only promoting illegal viewing of videos. If anything he should be fined a huge amount.
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Echo_City



Joined: 03 Apr 2011
Posts: 1236
PostPosted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:58 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Prosecutors asserted that Vickerman accumulated £35,000 (about US$55,000) a month in ad revenue on his website.
Did he actually make that amount? The language leaves it open, and it doesn't necessarily have to have been proved for him to be so sentenced. The lawyer dramas told me so Wink

This does seem pretty harsh, prison should be for criminals of violent or especially heinous crimes. Linking to pirated works isn't one of them. He's just a middleman, what do the people who actually put the pirated content on the internet get if he gets 4 years in the clink? I thought they had prison overcrowding, just like the US, and if so, couldn't they find better use for the space?

I'm sure the UK has better uses for its prisons than this, but then again, thinking back to their arrest of a teen for posting to twitter during the Olympics, perhaps not. This is the nation that put "Thought Police" into the lexicon, though it's not as though other nations are immune to the same insanity (sadly).
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egoist



Joined: 20 Jun 2008
Posts: 7762
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 12:17 am Reply with quote
Jail situation here is fairly complicated... It's funny how keeping a single inmate costs 50% more than the average salary. I need to check it out later, because it makes absolutely no sense considering that most people live with less than half of that.

£35k a month? I want him in jail purely out of envy. Laughing
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Hardgear





PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 1:48 am Reply with quote
I feel the need to point out HOW he got convicted.... and by who...

After this little stunt, Hollywood isn't getting a single cent from me ever again. If this is what my money is going to be spent on, I can think of a lot better uses for it.
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BorgmanJayce



Joined: 11 Feb 2004
Posts: 298
Location: Hades via UK
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 2:07 am Reply with quote
oblivious247 wrote:
Harsh? Guy got exactly what he deserved.

I don't know if you're really that serious or being ironic or being a troll or all three (BTW, love the irony in your handle here! Very Happy), and I take it that you don't live in the UK, but if you don't live in the UK (as I do), then you should know that true scum like rapists, thieves and paedophiles either get a lot less than this guy did or in some extreme cases, actually get away scott-free with their crimes!

I wish I was joking, but I'm not, and not only that, most of the judges, magistrates as well as most of the right-wing members of our current government (which is definitely going to be voted out in 2015, the way things are going with the constant screw-ups that they're doing!) are all idiotic self-centred fecktards!

Anybody with an iota of common sense can see that this wasn't in the interests of the government and was in effect a private case brought by FACT who can go and get bent for what they've done.

I take it you haven't downloaded anything illegal yourself in the past? If you have, then that makes you one big, fat hypocrite.

I can't believe there are people out there who think that copyright infringement (especially supposed copyright infringement) is such a crime that the infringer should get a sentence that's more than what a rapist or paedophile should get! Evil or Very Mad
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Cecilthedarkknight_234



Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3820
Location: Louisville, KY
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 3:06 am Reply with quote
Hardgear wrote:
I feel the need to point out HOW he got convicted.... and by who...

After this little stunt, Hollywood isn't getting a single cent from me ever again. If this is what my money is going to be spent on, I can think of a lot better uses for it.


woah woah woah... I just sat down, it took me a full 1hr to go over all that legalese and that was some damn bull-shit holly-wood pulled off with FACT. I can not even begin to comprehend my words for the amount of b.s. they pulled off to bring him down.

I have a feeling if this was in america all of that evidence would have been thrown out and the amount of counter law-suits would bitch slap them in face. There wouldn't be need to hire a lawyer because I could sniff the amount that would do this pro bono for just the publicity alone.
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oblivious247



Joined: 16 Oct 2011
Posts: 242
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 3:09 am Reply with quote
BorgmanJayce wrote:
oblivious247 wrote:
Harsh? Guy got exactly what he deserved.

I don't know if you're really that serious or being ironic or being a troll or all three (BTW, love the irony in your handle here! Very Happy), and I take it that you don't live in the UK, but if you don't live in the UK (as I do), then you should know that true scum like rapists, thieves and paedophiles either get a lot less than this guy did or in some extreme cases, actually get away scott-free with their crimes!

I wish I was joking, but I'm not, and not only that, most of the judges, magistrates as well as most of the right-wing members of our current government (which is definitely going to be voted out in 2015, the way things are going with the constant screw-ups that they're doing!) are all idiotic self-centred fecktards!

Anybody with an iota of common sense can see that this wasn't in the interests of the government and was in effect a private case brought by FACT who can go and get bent for what they've done.

I take it you haven't downloaded anything illegal yourself in the past? If you have, then that makes you one big, fat hypocrite.

I can't believe there are people out there who think that copyright infringement (especially supposed copyright infringement) is such a crime that the infringer should get a sentence that's more than what a rapist or paedophile should get! Evil or Very Mad


I don't believe copyright infringers should be getting more severe sentences than rapists. When did I ever say that? But if that's what's happening here than rapists need more severe sentences. This guy's sentence is appropriate, theirs is not.

I have downloaded things illegally. And the majority of that stuff I now own. Most of what I don't own, has never been made available to me. Legally that may be wrong, but morally I have no problem with it. I pay for everything I can, and I certainly don't aim to profit of pirated material. If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.
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Dante80



Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 218
Location: Athens Greece
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 4:07 am Reply with quote
Quote:
This guy's sentence is appropriate,
I have downloaded things illegally.

If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.


Well, it indeed makes you one. It does not matter though.

A question, does anyone know how the judges justified mens rea in the case?


Last edited by Dante80 on Sun Aug 19, 2012 5:04 am; edited 1 time in total
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 4:42 am Reply with quote
egoist wrote:
It's funny how keeping a single inmate costs 50% more than the average salary. I need to check it out later, because it makes absolutely no sense considering that most people live with less than half of that.


Most people don't run away from home if you fail to lock em in. Wink
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egoist



Joined: 20 Jun 2008
Posts: 7762
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:09 am Reply with quote
ikillchicken wrote:
Most people don't run away from home if you fail to lock em in. Wink


That's not the money to build jails, just to maintain. Unless those guards are getting paid twice as much as a normal cop, it's hard to think they spend that much per convict. I know that there's a lot of money to be spent, but £38k is luxury hotel level. Our average salary is around £25k, but then we have taxes and national insurance on the top which brings it down to less than £20k which is about half of that. It's an absurd.

Meanwhile education and security funds are being slashed.
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Blue Chocobo



Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 10:29 am Reply with quote
Dante80 wrote:
Well, it indeed makes you one. It does not matter though.


The thing is, oblivious isn't making a profit by what he's doing. You don't need to be opposed to piracy to be opposed to making money from piracy.

You can definitely debate how much punishment he deserves, or the motivations of the people who were trying to get him convicted. In the end though, I don't feel too sorry for this guy if he was making a profit off of others' works without their permission.
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kanechin



Joined: 21 Jan 2012
Posts: 447
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 3:14 pm Reply with quote
He didn't not deserve this, if google and other search engines can do it then why aren't they in jail.
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Chagen46



Joined: 27 Jun 2010
Posts: 4377
PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 3:32 pm Reply with quote
Did all the defenders of this guy not realize that he made $55K a month? He's profiting off of the work of others. I don't really care about pirating--I try not to excessively do it, though I do pirate--but when you're making money off of someone's else's work without license there's a problem.

Inb4 all the internet anarchists and libertarians who spend all their time ranting against capitalism while also benefitting from it act like I'm worse than Satan
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