Re: Verdict: The Pirate Bay Guilty

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ethan Ackerman <eackerma () u washington edu>
Date: April 17, 2009 12:08:06 PM EDT
To: Andy Oram <andyo () oreilly com>
Cc: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Verdict: The Pirate Bay Guilty
Reply-To: eackerma () u washington edu

Greetings Andy, Dave

Some hopefully helpful corrections about the U.S. criminal copyright  
laws.

Certain copyright infringements have been a criminal offence in the US
since '97 - 1897 that is.  I think Andy's correct about what should be
a crime, and he's also correct about some significant expansions to
the criminal laws that happened in 1997.  The US, however,  has had
criminal copyright enforcement for over a century.  An excellent
summary from the copyright office is at
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/2265_stat.html

(Not that that should matter much or at all for what other countries
want to criminalize or decriminalize  ;)

-Ethan




On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 9:28 AM, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Andy Oram <andyo () oreilly com>
> Date: April 17, 2009 9:17:46 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] Verdict: The Pirate Bay Guilty
>
> Up until 1997, copyright infringement in the US was a civil matter.  
> If you
> hurt me in some way, I can sue you; it doesn't have to be a criminal  
> act.
> That view was applied implicitly to copyright infringement. If someone
> abuses your copyright, you sue.
>
> It's a different matter when something is a crime: now the  
> government is
> forced to police the territory and expend precious resources  
> enforcing the
> law. I reported on this change in the US in a 1998 article (I don't  
> know the
> history in Europe):
>
>  http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/ar/copyright_theft.html
>  The Gifts That Keep On Giving--Copyright Revenues
>
> I do believe that massive unauthorized sharing of copyrighted  
> material is a
> crime. But we drug runners murdering people in the streets,  
> thousands of
> workers being cheated out of wages by scufflaw employers, and all  
> kinds of
> serious crimes that really threaten lives. It's not in the public  
> interest
> to turn copyright infringement from a civil offense to a criminal  
> one. And
> it leads to violations of privacy and civil liberties in ever-more  
> desperate
> attempts to enforce laws.
>
> Andy
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com