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terpfan1980
terpfan1980
Join Date 08/2004
+13

Man Fined $300K for Bootlegging 'Samurai,' 'River'

November 24, 2004 12:44:19 PM from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
I really wish that I could choose more than one category, as this one belongs in several. (Business / Entertainment / Politics).

Link follows: Man Fined $300K for Bootlegging 'Samurai,' 'River'
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - A man expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for aiding movie piracy has been fined $300,000 for his crime.
Actor Carmine Caridi, 70, is paying Warner Bros. the maximum fine allowed under federal law, $150,000 each for leaking "screener" copies of "The Last Samurai" and "Mystic River" to another man involved with the bootlegging of movies for sale online, reports the AP.
In an FBI raid in January, videos, copies and duplicating equipment were discovered in the Chicago-area home of Caridi's acquaintance, Russell Sprague, 51. Sprague had received the screeners from Caridi via FedEx.
Both Caridi and Sprague were sued by Warner Bros. Pictures and Columbia Pictures for infringing upon the studios' copyrights by duplicating and distributing copies of the films on both VHS and DVD. The Columbia lawsuit against Caridi is still pending.
Sprague is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in April to one count of copyright infringement for bootlegging about 200 Oscar screener copies.
It's reported that Caridi became the first member of the Academy to be expelled in February under its new anti-piracy agreement, although the member expelled was never named.
Caridi is known for his character acting and recently appeared in the upcoming "Runaways." His resume also includes roles in the second and third parts of "The Godfather" series and 1991's "Bugsy."


Thanks to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and other copyright related laws, these folks could be in trouble for quite some time to come, even with the fine already at the max.

Not that these folks didn't break the law, but it would be nice to think that the punishment really fit the crime and the amount of money in fines and retribution would really be commensurate with the real loss of revenues that the movie studios might incur thanks to any distribution of pirated copies of the materials. (Of course they look at potential loss of income, not real loss of income that would factor in that many people that obtain and/or watch the pirated materials might never have watched the materials as long as there was a cost associated with same).
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terpfan1980
Dr Guy
Join Date 09/2004
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Reply #1 November 24, 2004 12:55:32 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

You expect sanity from the DCMA, Hollywood and congress?  What have you been smoking!

No person, NO PERSON, is safe until that abortion of a law is rescinded!

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terpfan1980
jeblackstar
Join Date 06/2003
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Reply #2 November 24, 2004 1:06:33 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

No person, NO PERSON, is safe until that abortion of a law is rescinded!


The abortion of a law?  First off that metaphor doesn't make any sense.  Second off, as someone who's written items that have been published, I'm happy to have copyright laws.


Cheers

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terpfan1980
Dr Guy
Join Date 09/2004
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Reply #3 November 24, 2004 1:15:04 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

The abortion of a law? First off that metaphor doesn't make any sense. Second off, as someone who's written items that have been published, I'm happy to have copyright laws.


And I am happy for you!  We are not talking copyright (and indeed not really written work), but the ability of a private organization to institute gestapo tactics agains private citizens.


have you read the DCMA?  Have you seen what the hell RIAA is doing?  I wish I could brand this a liberal thing, but the truth is it is a political one.  Both sides are guilty of selling our rights down the river for nothing!


Phraseology of "Abortion of a law":  Once you about the foetus, you are left with the afterbirth. Capish?

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terpfan1980
terpfan1980
Join Date 08/2004
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Reply #4 November 24, 2004 1:24:05 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Actually I'd call the DMCA an abomination of a law, but that's just semantics.

Either way, it's a horrible law, which was pushed through by the MPAA and RIAA and which protects large corporate copyright holders without real regard to individuals and their rights -- including individual copyright holders.


Do I want to see copyrights abolished? Hell no!

Do I want to see copyright law reforms? Hell yes.

Bring back reasonable periods of copyright protection. Bring back fair use and codify it so that everyone knows the rules in advance and consumer rights are balanced against copyrights.

I want people that create intellectual property to get their fair and just rewards, but I also want consumers to be able to use content that they pay for (some would say pay a license fee for the use of) in ways that make sense for the consumers and in manners that keep rights fees at reasonable levels so that everyone can afford content (which in turn will hopefully lead to creators of content being fairly compensated).
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terpfan1980
Dr Guy
Join Date 09/2004
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Reply #5 November 24, 2004 1:42:14 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Either way, it's a horrible law, which was pushed through by the MPAA and RIAA and which protects large corporate copyright holders without real regard to individuals and their rights -- including individual copyright holders.


Bingo! You just nailed it with this.
BTW: Jeblackster, Janis Ian is against it for the simple reason she cant make a major label, and wants people to hear her music. And in case you forgot, she did the song "At 17". One of my favorites since I was that age when she did it! (I know it was about a girl, but it had truth!)

Like Terpfan said, it is not about copyrights. It is about rights.
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terpfan1980
messybuu
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Reply #6 November 24, 2004 7:50:42 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
I think it'd be easier to make a case against the DMCA and other laws with examples of people who did nothing wrong, but these are bootleggers who are trying to make money off other people's work. They deserve what they receive.
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terpfan1980
terpfan1980
Join Date 08/2004
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Reply #7 November 24, 2004 7:55:13 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Reply #6 By: Citizen messybuu - 11/24/2004 7:50:42 PM
I think it'd be easier to make a case against the DMCA and other laws with examples of people who did nothing wrong, but these are bootleggers who are trying to make money off other people's work. They deserve what they receive.


Make no mistake, I don't condone what the two people mentioned in the article did. Both were wrong, and both should (and are being) be punished.

Still, these people would have been commiting a crime with or without the DMCA. The DMCA simply made it easier to punish them and possibly will add to the penalties that they face.

Either way, the DMCA is a bad law, much more so than the Patriot Act. It should never have been passed, and unfortunately it looks like it may never be repealed or corrected to be more favorable to user rights.
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terpfan1980
jeblackstar
Join Date 06/2003
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Reply #8 November 29, 2004 1:36:54 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

If you're ranting against redundant laws, I totally agree, there needs to be only one law criminalizing a certain behavior.


Cheers

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terpfan1980
terpfan1980
Join Date 08/2004
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Reply #9 November 29, 2004 3:00:41 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Reply #8 By: Citizen jeblackstar - 11/29/2004 1:36:54 PM
If you're ranting against redundant laws, I totally agree, there needs to be only one law criminalizing a certain behavior.


Ranting against redundant laws, and laws that criminalize behavior that shouldn't be. The DMCA makes it illegal to reverse engineer, to try to defeat copy protections and to discuss those activities. It's had a chilling effect in areas where it wasn't supposed to because it was a poorly written law, made overly broad, and so loosely targetted that it affects activities that were formerly legal and grants powers that never should have existed.

Our old copyright laws were probably bad for intellectual property protection, but the DMCA was not the answer. It's just a new problem that has been introduced to cause problems for everyone but the MPAA and RIAA and their members.
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terpfan1980
jeblackstar
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Reply #10 November 30, 2004 3:50:37 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

However, reverse engineering, trying to defeat copyright protections and discussing those things, ought to be illegal.  I have a feeling Brad would back me up on those.  There's nothing worse for a software engineer, my sister in law is one, for her software to suddenly end up being sold on the market with no royalties going to the engineer.


Cheer s

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terpfan1980
terpfan1980
Join Date 08/2004
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Reply #11 November 30, 2004 4:21:54 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
Reply #10 By: jeblackstar - 11/30/2004 3:50:37 PM
However, reverse engineering, trying to defeat copyright protections and discussing those things, ought to be illegal. I have a feeling Brad would back me up on those. There's nothing worse for a software engineer, my sister in law is one, for her software to suddenly end up being sold on the market with no royalties going to the engineer.


Not entirely true.

Buy a product from a company that goes out of business, and run your own business in a way that depends on that product. If the product fails because of some copy protection that no longer functions, what is the legitimate purchaser of the product left to do?

How are people supposed to learn coding techniques but to try to imitate and improve upon what others before them have done?

Thanks to a badly corrupted patent and copyright system in this country, we have companies like Microsoft and IBM (and Intel) patenting so many different things that it's possible that even typing a few words or symbols together might somehow come out with a formula or algorithm that is protected under some overly broad patent or copyright, and from there we find that someone that never intended to break the law has just become a master criminal.

I personally despise copy protection systems. I work (or worked) in the Intellectual Property arena. A past employer used hardware copy protection to protect their product. The problem was that the hardware copy protection more often than not interfered with the product that we sold and made systems unstable. For businesses that were were using my past employers product without paying for it, I have nothing but scorn and disdain, but that doesn't mean that our paying customers should have to suffer with poor products because of the stupidity of those that decided that protecting our product was more important than making sure the product actually worked without problems.

Copy protection systems rely on the assumption in advance that all customers are potential thieves. That is wrong on so many levels as to be indefensible.

Discussing any programming techniques should be something that can take place in a free and open manner, where everyone can benefit from the material that is developed. It works fairly well in the open source community, despite the efforts of a few (namely SCO and Microsoft as an example) to derail the movement.


Again, I want creators of intellectual property to be fairly compensated. I don't however want them to have more rights to tell me how I can legitimately use their product if I've paid for the product. I shouldn't be forced to pay multiple times for different formats of a product. I should be able to move songs to a digital format on my PC, and from there transfer them to my PDA or other portable music device. I should be able to take content to my car audio/video system if I choose. All of which should be granted to me thanks to my payment of the original price I paid for the product.


Rest assured though that your view is the one that is now represented in the DMCA, and my views are not. Please be careful of what you wish for though, as it may very well bite you in the butt at some point down the road.
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terpfan1980
jeblackstar
Join Date 06/2003
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Reply #12 November 30, 2004 4:28:33 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

I doubt it, I write books, we are already defensely against the evils of Xerox.  On the plus side, the only people who buy my books are college students, typically ones in my class, I'm half convinced.


Cheers

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