BBC reports that computer programmer Philip Danks for has been jailed for 33 months after recording Fast And Furious 6 from the back of a cinema after a judge in Wolverhampton ruled that the defendant uploaded the movie, which was downloaded 700,000 times. As well as putting the film on the internet, Danks offered to sell copies of the film using his Facebook profile.
The judge who sentenced Danks said his behavour was "bold, arrogant and cocksure". Police said that Danks had continued to illegally distribute movies after his arrest in May last year. Fraud investigators quickly traced him after they noticed his online ‘Thecod3r’ tag attached to the video was identical to his profile on dating site Plenty of Fish. Danks was arrested by police after a special ‘webwatch’ team was set up by LA-based Universal Pictures, who raided his home in Bloxwich, Walsall on May 23 – less than a week after the video surfaced online.
The court heard that despite making some money from sales of the film on Facebook and by personal delivery his real motive was ‘street cred’. "The first person with a pirated version attracts much kudos," said Ari Alibhai, prosecuting on behalf of the Federation Against Copyright Theft. "He wanted recognition from the community."
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:02AM
Jesus, look at that guy's Plenty of Fish profile. That guy is beta to the max.
Although I don't agree that somebody should get 33 months jail time for videotaping and uploading a movie, I do agree that somebody stupid enough to advertise publicly doing so and then offering to sell copies should be sent to jail for the heinous crime of ridiculous stupidity. And the best part was that the link to the profile lands you to a picture of him singing to some fat old maid with a caption reading, "Me on a karaoke last year singing on my mums friends lap, because im cool like that :D "
Well done, Hugh Pickens. I haven't laughed out loud this much in a long time. Did you intend for us to to get all mad that somebody was put in jail for recording a movie, or was the comic relief of this article intentional?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by calzone on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:24AM
Without commenting on the appropriateness of the sentence, I will say that there's (1) Copyright violation because you want to make things easier and more accessible considering how horribly encumbered with DRM and usage restrictions Hollywood's crap is, when you can even get it (different formats and regions get different release dates and prices... some titles are impossible to find at all); (2) Copyright violation because you think Hollywood's stuff is overpriced so you make it available free to all... and then there's (3) Copyright violation for profit.
Those are in order of "justifiability" with the last being a clear, and heinous, violation of rights -- deserving of penalties significant enough to either deter future violations or recoup losses for the injured. Someone else invested a lot of time, money, creativity, team-builing, and effort to bring these works to life. Say what you will about the end result being overpriced or delivered on crap media... if you think they have no right to make money off of it, then surely you have no right to make money off of it either.
Time to leave Soylent News [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday August 24 2014, @06:02AM
Whoa, hold on here. Pirates are NOT, repeat, NOT saying that artists have no right to make money. That's propaganda from the entertainment industry. What reality and everyone is saying is that they must change their business model. Abolish copyright and make money in a way that does not need copyright. There are many ways. Do not demand that the public give up the Internet, the personal computer, flash drives and memory chips, and everything else ever made that makes reproduction easier. They know the only way copyright can work is if creating copies takes all kinds of expensive and massive equipment. Copying is very democratic now, anyone can easily do it with equipment that fits in a hip pocket.
There would be no copyright violation, and no profit from making copies, if there was no copyright law. And I will comment on the sentence. It is wildly inappropriate. Recording a movie shouldn't be a violation of the law at all, but not only is it, it's criminal. Who got hurt? No one. Who is beimg protected by this guy being in prison? Again, no one. Can't prove that the entertainment industry lost anything at all, suffered any harm whatsoever. It might have even increased their profits by serving as advertising.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by calzone on Sunday August 24 2014, @07:00AM
If you're seriously defending this guy for trying to sell copies he made of a movie someone else made that you think we should't have to pay for in the first place... you're delusional.
Time to leave Soylent News [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by chris.alex.thomas on Sunday August 24 2014, @08:34AM
the problem here is that at the end, it's the seller who decides the price and the market which gives the seller an expectation of what to sell for.
But the terms of sale sometimes are not a negotiation, but a price they want and what right does anybody have to tell them "you should change the price or terms"
If they want to sell it ONLY at cinemas, then release it onto a DRM encumbered format which restricts your rights and makes them more money, that is up to them, not up to you, if you all decide to stop watching and they make no profit, perhaps they will change their behaviour, but you change your behaviour when somebody want to do it and not because somebody else is telling them to.
If you don't want to pay the price, don't, go play in the fields with the critters and make some awesome open source software, but stop complaining, they put the price, you dont wanna pay, you get to do other things.
If you think it's extortion, make a decision and stand by it and if you want, get your friends to join in.
But you have absolutely no right to insert yourself into the price or delivery equation, because you did nothing which helped in the production of whatever it is you're buying.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tathra on Sunday August 24 2014, @09:01PM
the problem is that a lot of people support the works by buying them, because they want to see more of them in the future, but only hate the heavy-handed restrictions (so they download the DRM-free version so they can actually enjoy the product they have purchased). if they stopped buying, the customers would be punished because the works they wanted would no longer be created, but the restrictions would continue in all future creations, until the company went completely out of business.
"voting with your wallet" doesnt work when the creators can't understand to which part you're objecting, and its not like sales reports come with reasons why people are buying or not buying.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday August 25 2014, @12:47AM
If you think it's extortion, make a decision and stand by it and if you want, get your friends to join in.
But you have absolutely no right to insert yourself into the price or delivery equation, because you did nothing which helped in the production of whatever it is you're buying.
Capitalist entitlement! What could possibly make you think that the producer gets to set a price? Just because you were stupid enough to produce Fast and Furious 6 or even worse Expendables 3, that does not mean you are entitled to make back whatever you foolishly spent on it. The market sets the price, not the producer, and if you have not noticed, it is purchasers that make a market. And in some cases, that means that products have zero price. In this case I would argue that they should have a negative price. The guy should be jailed for making copies of a movie that never should have been made, in effect spreading cultural pollution and being a nuisance to society.
So what do you say that we haggle? Ten shekels for that? Are you mad? Its not even worth one! (Monty Python, Life of Brian)
(Score: 4, Informative) by SlimmPickens on Sunday August 24 2014, @08:39AM
Abolish copyright
Are you aware that the GPL and Linux rely on copyright? I won't repeat my previous post, but Snowden was right when he told Spiegel that intellectual property is the basis for the modern economy.
I don't support harsh consumer laws however, the way those companies have treated both artists and consumers means they are at the bottom of the non-existent list of companies that deserve special protection.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday August 24 2014, @01:39PM
Yes, I'm aware that the GPL relies on copyright. RMS addressed this issue, saying he is not in favor of abolishing copyright. He would rather reform copyright, not abolish it. The brilliance of copyleft is that its strength is tied to copyright's strength. The real abusers of copyright have always tried to have it both ways, demanding that we pay for every copy, and then trying to cheat their way out of their own obligations in the copyright system they helped make. They have all kinds of tricks to get out of having to pay artists. Work for Hire. But if they can't get the artists to agree to that, they have other ways. Their cheating is so bad and so common that we have a term for one form of it: Hollywood Accounting. Law suits and strikes are all too common in Hollywood. In their eternal quest to take in and not pay out, they sometimes try fiddling with copyright law. But when they do, they also strengthen copyleft, which they do not want to do. Copyleft helps expose their hypocrisy.
What I think is that the necessary reforms would change it so much that it should no longer be called copyright, because it would no longer be about the right to make copies. So why not abolish it? The name causes much confusion, as there is no distinction between uses. They're trying to punish ordinary citizens for sharing a few files, treating the file sharer as no different from the operator of a factory that produces counterfeits. That is how Jammie Thomas ended up socked with a $1.92 million dollar fine for making available 24 songs. Even the industry was a little scared by the extremity of the verdict, fearing that the punishment was so over the top it would undermine, not strengthen their cause.
Where I think the law could go is towards things that are not naturally private or anonymous, such as paid public performances, and other public uses. Forget trying to sweep up file sharing and lump that activity in with other uses that can be proven. A restaurant that plays music for the patrons cannot hide. I haven't thought of a good, catchy name for it, in part because I haven't figured out what it should cover, and the name should reflect that. Performance Right? But what of people who do free performances? The Star Wars Kid can't hide what he did, and it certainly was a public performance, but should he have to pay? Maybe the name should be Profit Right? In any case, I am also not at all sure it's a good idea. Maybe restaurants should be able to play whatever recordings they want, without having to pay anyone. What if a patron brings a music player and speakers to a restaurant, should he or the restaurant have to pay someone something? Will take much thinking to work it out.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Sunday August 24 2014, @10:31PM
LOL, one of those posts is "better" than the other!
How about this:
1 - Works are copyright by default for a period of one year.
2 - At any time copyright can be converted to copyleft, which decays over ten years but is refreshed every time a new version is released. There is no limit to the number of refreshes.
3 - Copyright works can have their one year period refreshed by a fee that is set by the CPI. As soon as it's no longer profitable and the fee is not paid it becomes part of the commons. The number of "refreshes" has a maximum limit equal the decay period of copyleft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 25 2014, @02:36AM
It was not meant to be a public performance. If he had remembered to take the tape with him, no one would have ever known about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Kid [wikipedia.org]
The schoolmate who found the tape should have given it back to Raza or quietly erased/destroyed it. What was done impacted negatively on Raza and his family and ultimately invaded their privacy in spite of all the subsequent publicity!...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jbWolf on Sunday August 24 2014, @12:53PM
I've been working on an epic fiction novel for a long time. When I decide to publish it, how do you propose I make money off of it? I don't want to sell toys and I don't want to sell T-shirts. I am not a business man. What do you propose that I should do to make money on that book? This is a serious question because if I can release my novel to the world for free and make money off of it, I'll do it.
Until I hear a good idea, I prefer having copyright laws. I am also a fan of making those laws sane, though. I keep peddling my idea on SN and point to my website [jb-wolf.com] because I think the idea is solid. Here's the gist of the idea quoted from website:
I also talk about trademarks too and putting some sanity into that as well since all of those topics are interconnected.
I will fully agree with you about one thing, though. This man has no business being in jail. He has not physically nor psychologically harmed anyone. If there are any penalties to be had for what he did, they should be financial in nature and not at the scope that the RIAA always propose.
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by bzipitidoo on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:34PM
Patronage. If you're thinking that our patronage system, such as it is, is too small, weak, fragmented, and disorganized, you're right. It will get better. I really do not think this is a matter of choice. Copyright cannot be saved, not in anything close to its current form. The only reason it works at all right now is public sufferance. People could pirate far more, but do not for a variety of reasons, not least a feeling that doing so is unfair to authors. But I don't think it can last much longer. Because we also see that it is unfair that we are expected to ignore the benefits of technology. We should keep buying audio CDs, when downloading has so much less overhead? No plastic disc, no wrapper, no manufacturing, transportation, shelving and storage costs. Why should we continue to use CDs? Because they are superior in at least one way? No. To prop up an obsolete business model, no other reason. Therefore, if we want to promote art and science, we will have to move to other ways, and I think patronage will have to be the main one.
But that doesn't help you right now. I suppose you are not an English professor at a publicly supported university, as Tolkien was, and so you do not benefit from that form of patronage.
In the meantime, is there any chance the Humble Bundle would put your book in their next offering of ebooks or audio novels? Or, I understand Amazon does a lot of ebook publishing, maybe accepting their deal would work for now? I do not know what else is out there, as I am not an author, nor have I done much reading of fiction lately. Used to be a regular at the bookstores, but that was years ago. Now I seldom even go to a used bookstore.
(Score: 2) by RaffArundel on Monday August 25 2014, @02:24PM
If you're thinking that our patronage system, such as it is, is too small, weak, fragmented, and disorganized, you're right. It will get better.
Actually, I'm thinking about the last time patronage wasn't small, weak and fragmented. I am seriously wondering if that is in fact substantially better. So, instead of having the industry you have the Church and the rich/powerful deciding what is created and therefore consumed like we did during the Renaissance through the Enlightenment. I'm not defending the industry - I'm seriously wondering if that solution is viable and not worse. I'm also a little surprised you mention Amazon after their history of removing eBooks and delaying Hachette publications in what appears to be spite. Patronage consolidates power over the works, so with or without copyrights, I suspect it will have a detrimental effect.
Perhaps you mean more "crowd funding" patronage? I have no idea how much Subbable contributed to keep youtube channels in business nor how much the kick-starter honeymoon has maintained steam, but I have heard the "go to the show and buy a t-shirt" for decades now. How do you do it so that you don't strangle the new guy (or gal) and/or the stuff that is truly original, neither of which have an audience now? You are trading "big break by being discovered" for "big break by going viral" - and again, I wonder if that is any better.
In summary, sane copyrights is a laudable goal, but I don't see this (abolish and feed the artist through patronage) as being the answer.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 25 2014, @09:45PM
Crowd funded patronage is exactly it. The hope is that modern technology can make patronage much more public, and therefore better, than in past centuries. Under such a system, enabled by our vastly improved communications, the people should have far more weight than a few elites.
As to the problem of getting the big break, going viral is one way. Most people want something more. I wonder if a bit of "patronage redistribution" is in order. Can some of the extra from massively overfunded projects be sent to struggling projects? Just how to decide which projects are worthy would be a huge problem. There are some interesting studies that show the first contribution to a Kickstarter project is absolutely critical. Apparently that makes the project look more worthwhile to the rest of the potential donors out there.
Yes, I know Amazon isn't an upstanding corporate citizen. Who is? Google? I'd like to hear what organizations are the best e-publishers. Is there a sort of equivalent to arXiv for works of fiction?
Patronage has problems. Fraud leaps to mind as a big one. But Copyright has far worse problems.
(Score: 2) by RaffArundel on Tuesday August 26 2014, @01:21PM
First - thanks for the civil discourse, it is a shame this has fallen off the homepage as it has spawned some interesting discussion.
Can some of the extra from massively overfunded projects be sent to struggling projects? Just how to decide which projects are worthy would be a huge problem.
You can't - or rather the first time you funnel my money for your make-life-better-for-everyone project to gweg_'s psychotic eat-the-rich project without my express consent is the last time I give money to any kick-starter type project. In reflection, I'm pretty sure if that was possible, I wouldn't even give you the money in the first place. It also makes me wonder if you are still on the hook for the rewards - so I want your first edition deluxe smells-like-mahogany game, but you pawn me off to someone else, and I get a t-shirt... All really bad ideas in my mind. The closest I can come to a working solution is that the original project can "release" your funds and you have the option to (easily) apply it to another project or (with a little more difficulty) get it refunded. If you make the latter as simple as the former, no one would probably bother with the former - so yes I am manipulating the user for your idea.
Is there a sort of equivalent to arXiv for works of fiction?
First, from wikipedia on arXiv: Most are copyright to the author, and arXiv has only a non-exclusive irrevocable license to distribute them.
Near as I can tell, the answer is - the entire blogsphere if you are just going to give away your work of fiction. Since we are talking crowd funding patronage, I am unaware of anything like Subbable on YouTube for books, unless Subbable allows you to "subscribe" to blogs.
Patronage has problems. Fraud leaps to mind as a big one. But Copyright has far worse problems.
I'm not convinced, because of this one simple issue - I can own a copyright, but I cannot be a sole patron. That means I have to compromise my vision for the masses (or for the Industry) because they own my well being.
I'd rather beat the stupid out of copyrights than throw them out. I'd start with the expiration issue - clock starts when the work first appears, no more "X after death" and we definitely need a time period that is reasonable, say 10 years since it is a nice round number. Next, only the creator can hold the copyright, but they can choose to licence it however they want - just get it in the contract. You like CC(something) - go for it. You want a NO USE EXCEPT WATCHING/LISTENING/READING - write it up and use it! Do something with the trademark laws so that companies (ehm... looking at the Mouse) stop subverting copyrights to protect their brand.
Once upon a time, the Publishing and Distribution Industry was the only way to get works out there in front of the consumer - that is still true today if you consider YouTube or Steam or Amazon the "publisher" or at the very least the "distributor". This industry also did a lot for the work (editing, production, shipping, marketing etc.) so it wasn't unreasonable to be compensated for it. The problem is TFS is pretty damning - that moron went way beyond reasonable use so even discussing this topic of better copyrights under the conditions let alone abolishing them.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday August 26 2014, @02:55PM
Where I'm coming from on redistribution is that people are too focused on super stars. A few big names get disproportionately rewarded while the field scrapes by. Star athletes owe a lot to all the other athletes. Can't look good in a competition without someone good to compete against. But people don't want to hear from the guys who never won a championship. Like the song says "no time for losers". Sadly, this sidelines and buries a lot of excellent work. Neither patronage nor copyright are solutions to that problem. Redistribution is an ugly bandaid for it. What else can be done? Perhaps in education, make history more balanced and broad. It would also help if the media didn't focus so much and so exclusively on The Leader. Our entire government sometimes seems a one man show with a President doing everything, and getting blamed for everything no matter how ridiculous, while no one else accomplishes anything. Anyway, I think I shouldn't have talked about redistribution at all, it's getting away from my main point that copyright is bad, bad, bad.
What really bothers me about copyright, even more than the waste of publishing in obsolete formats, and holding us all back on being able to have the digital public library, is the "mother may I" attitude of the whole system, the default "no". It's even worse for patents. Can't do anything without permission. Have to get permission first. Check that you aren't stepping on someone else before you do anything, because that would be so unfair to them. And if you go ahead without permission, you will be punished. Intentionally or not, that advocates and promotes a submissive attitude in the public, which is terrible for initiative and drive. I would rather have a system in which the default is "yes". Yes, do it, and we'll work out appropriate compensation afterwards. Even better if compensation can be calculated and paid out by impartial 3rd parties, from funds collected through levies or taxes. Free artists from having to deal with business matters. Take that camcorder into the theater and go for it. Especially, edit it too, if you like. Perhaps many box office bombs could have been turned around if fans were free to make alterations.
And, back to human nature again. Another big thing that makes copyright so bad is it plays into our instinct to avoid loss. So also does our language. What does it mean to say "my idea"? That I thought of it first? Is "my idea" the same as "my car"? No, but because we use the same words for these 2 different meanings, we confuse ourselves. Patents and copyrights get us thinking possessively, thinking that an idea can be owned, exclusively owned. Then we easily get all worked up that somehow, we're suffering a loss, that a copy is a harm no different than a theft. So we all go nuts, jealously trying to guard "our" works from "thieves", hiring mercenary lawyers to go after the pirates. We'll forgo a gain of 10 to avoid a loss of 1. The consequence is that we all lose. It's like the old argument for disarmament. Two mutually hostile nations would both be better off if they made peace and didn't devote so many resources to their militaries.
While I think reform would help, and the ideas you suggest of shortening copyright to 10 years, and making them not so transferable are good ideas, I think abolishment is both better and ultimately unavoidable. Even if I wanted to save copyright, I really don't think that's possible.
(Score: 1) by CirclesInSand on Tuesday August 26 2014, @05:59AM
Why not 9 years, 364 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes of copyright? Why 10 years? You are the one claiming to be "sane". Give me a sane reason why 10 years exactly is the correct answer.
(Score: 1) by jbWolf on Wednesday August 27 2014, @10:40AM
Actually, I answer that question (sanely) in two different ways on the page that I linked to in my website. In the second to last paragraph under the introduction, I state:
Under "Additional Reading" at the very bottom, I even throw in some science. Dr. Rufus Pollock of Cambridge University states that he thinks the optimal copyright is 15 years and he's done a mathematical analysis.
I short, I stated ten years so there was a good starting point for discussion and debate. Actually, if you read the introduction in its entirety, you'd have a good idea of what I was after. If you have better ideas (even if it means abolishing copyright entirely) please do tell! I'm all ears!
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @04:15AM
His lawyers should have argued it was a parody etc. He taped the performance on screen and whatever else might have gotten in the way? How is that different from photographing a work of art? Is it not another separate work of art? No? Arrest the Paparazzi! When is there not something in your viewfinder that isn't copyrighted? Probably not as often as there is.
Mind you, he is still a dipshit for trying to sell such a piece of junk.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Lagg on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:47AM
Forced and awkward style of speaking about something that's already a downright lie ("cams" as it were are generally disliked and intended for people desperate), that's like, most uncool dude. I know, I know, the guy who said it is actually one of the few within his right to talk like that given that I'm pretty sure he's indian but come on man. I've met indians that speak little english at all that have less bad-to-the-point-of-surfer grammar than that.
Anyway, there's no one that hates how there is literally "piracy police" and that these sentences are worse than very real instances of assault more than me but to be quite frank I don't care in this case and in fact I could go as far as saying he fully deserved it. The summary makes him seem like enough of a jackass as it is but the article, especially with the pictures of his post, make it that much more apparent. Not only is he pretty blatant about it but he's actually making posts and laying out cover art and poster sets like a magazine to select from. There are also a few other gold nuggets like what ethanol mentioned with him sitting on someone's lap looking like an idiot, playing poker with dyed orange hair looking like an idiot and sitting on the hood of a sports car flipping pseudo-gang signs and looking like someone who makes me want to dust off the term I otherwise hate: douchebag.
This guy is not someone who was just backing up a video or trying to share something he liked with people and perhaps get a bit of traffic to his website as a reward. This guy was actively trying to sell this stuff en masse and being insanely flamboyant about it. This is the guy that the morons at MPAA and RIAA see everyone else who shares files as. He has no right whatsoever to whine about how his sentence is worse than assault. He's the exact sort of person who is going to enable more of it when the time comes that they send in SWAT because someone leeched a movie. Because when the majority of the population sees this loser they're going to lose sympathy pretty goddamned quick for people who just want to share stuff.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Funny) by jasassin on Sunday August 24 2014, @07:12AM
At $200,000 per infringement, and 700,000 infringements... Looks like he owes the MPAA $140,000,000,000. Yes, that's right, (pinky to the side of the mouth) 140 billion dollars!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 3, Interesting) by present_arms on Sunday August 24 2014, @09:39AM
Be glad he's in the UK then, Sentanced for 33 Months, he'll do half. I thing 33 months is fair for being a twat. Not for camming movies, or for uploading them, but for openly bragging and selling his wares. To quote a famous book "10/10 for style, Minus several million for good thinking"
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @08:04PM
being a twat is punishable with jail now? I know a few that would rightfully serve some time then
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Dunbal on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:17AM
The amazing thing about this story is that 700,000 people are willing to watch a shitty cam version rather than wait a month or two for a nice DVD rip...
(Score: 1) by Vokbain on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:45AM
Or wait an extra couple months for Netflix/on-demend/etc.!
There's quite a few movies these days I won't even bother to pirate because they look so bad! (The new Ninja Turtles looks that way!)
(Score: 1, Troll) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:50PM
Until copyright hurts average, everyday people, no one will care about reform. I've always hoped that crackdowns would be brutal and have a real impact on the everyday lives of just average, ordinary people. I wanted to see the day when fathers are dragged out of their houses at dawn by the police and taken to jail, leaving their families and neighbors to wonder what happened. Until copyright enforcement hurts people, no one will care about the issue. They don't care about walled gardens and how the public domain largely ceased to exist after 1930. It just doesn't have an impact on anyone's daily life, so it's a non-issue. Some day it will be too late and a few copyright-industry companies will control all of culture and knowledge.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by CirclesInSand on Monday August 25 2014, @02:04AM
33 months for recording and distributing a crappy copy of a movie.
20 months for being a cop and almost killing 2 people, getting your cop friends to help, and lying in court to try to get away with it.
I happen to be against copy law. But I think everyone should agree that there is a major problem when copy law advocates can get larger sentences for their favor than citizens getting beaten most of the way to death.