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A convicted software pirate has been handed an unusual punishment. The man, named only as Jakub F, will be spared having to pay hefty damages - as long as a film denouncing piracy he was made to produce gets 200,000 views.He came to the out-of-court settlement with a host of firms whose software he pirated after being convicted by a Czech court. In return, they agreed not to sue him. The 30-year-old was also given a three-year suspended sentence.
The criminal court decided that any financial penalty would have to be decided either in civil proceedings or out of court. The firms, which included Microsoft, HBO Europe, Sony Music and Twentieth Century Fox, estimated that the financial damage amounted to 5.7m Czech Crowns (£148,000). But the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represented Microsoft, acknowledged that Jakub could not pay that sum.
Instead, the companies said they would be happy to receive only a small payment and his co-operation in the production of the video. In order for the firms' promise not to sue to be valid, they said, the video would have to be viewed at least 200,000 times within two months of its publication this week. A spokesman for the BSA told the BBC that the stipulation was to ensure that Jakub would help share it as widely as possible. But, if the video did not reach the target, the spokesman said that - "in theory" - the firms would have grounds to bring a civil case for damages.
The YouTube film, currently at over 450k views means Jakub should avoid any further legal action.
[Editor's note: SiKing also submitted this, but not quite in time to get it merged with the other already in the queue.]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday November 27 2015, @09:30PM
Warning! This video is copyrighted! by default! Even though it is on YouTube, you are making a copy in your computer's Random Access Memory (if only sequentially), and no doubt this is all part of the plan! When almost all of the imaginary property companies want to to download something from the 'net, you should listen to Adm. Ackbar: "It's a trap!"
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday November 27 2015, @09:46PM
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 27 2015, @10:45PM
The War on Piracy has been a farce for years now. The intellectual property extremists lost a long time ago. I think they know it too, but am not sure-- they could be that stupid. These days, they're really only making loot runs into a burning house. For so long as there are politicians and judges who bought their propaganda or bribes (or both), they can keep guerrilla fighting. They have traction with those groups because they tend to be of older generations. Most younger people laugh at them now. Give it another generation or two, and hopefully they won't be able to hurt anyone any more and have to quit.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday November 28 2015, @01:08AM
Except that a lot of people in the younger generations seem to be copyright maximalists. Maybe the thought of the possibility that there won't be as many DRM-encumbered proprietary software games (Talk about stockholm syndrome...) has them fearful. Even the ones who don't support draconian copyright laws tend to repeat industry propaganda ("intellectual property", "piracy", etc.), which doesn't help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2015, @08:37PM
There is a difference between being "copyright maximalist" and being in favor of some copy protection laws while being opposed to our currently corporate bought laws. I do find that most people tend to support IP laws to some degree and I don't necessarily oppose them altogether but it's our currently corporate bought system that I oppose.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday November 28 2015, @09:16PM
See, this is what [gnu.org] I mean [gnu.org]: People willingly repeat the propaganda of the corporations, even if they do not agree with many of the things corporations do. I don't see why people need to help multi-billion dollar companies spread propaganda; they have more than enough power to do that on their own.
As for there being a difference between copyright maximalism and supporting the existence of some form of copyright, I know that. However, the fact remains that there seems to be quite a lot of copyright maximalists, even among younger generations. You can usually tell because these sorts of people tend to use all sorts of propagandist terminology to describe copyright infringement and even organizations like the EFF which fight companies that violate people's rights using copyright laws ("theft", "stealing", "freetards", etc.). None of it makes sense in that context and is often just a straw man used to dismiss people who are concerned about liberty.