UK Internet Pirate Goes to Jail for Long Time

[Twilight_guy]

I'd think you'd want to use the site to follow the links and shut down illegal websites, but whatever. Also, If the guy's wife left him then that's his problem, It's not like the law said 'raw, I'm taking your marriage!'

 

[Ledan]

The guy was making money out of theft even if he wasn't stealing, but 4 years is excessive. A big fine and maybe a month or two in jail would have sent the same message without appearing so draconian that he turns into yet another pirates martyr.

Not sure how the system works over there, but I foresee parole rather quick for the dude.

As for 'Pirate Martyr'... Seems that way. (making $50,000 a fucking month. Boo Hoo)

EDIT: Judge Evans branded the defendant the most arrogant he had encountered in his career, said Vickerman knew full well what he was doing was unlawful, despite his protestations of innocence.

He sought legal advice from top lawyers which consistently warned that his site was operating contrary to the law, the judge said.

It was also seven week trial.

Just sayin.

Oh yeah, and his wife was originally charged too, but the judge believed, had he told his wife about what he was doing, she would have done her best to stop him.

Also, google is stepping up a bit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/aug/10/google-algorithm-hollywood-lobbyists-copyright

Do you mind reading this http://surfthechannel.com/?
Just y'know, to get the other side of the story. Thanks.

 

[Ledan]

And the only thing that people will take away from this?

£35.000 a month! I need to get some of that action!

And they forget that he lost it in legal fees, and was unable to charge the private company that was prosecuting him for fraud in the appeals court. It seems a pretty clearcut case, they witheld a letter and lied in an appeals court. But because the guy didn't have enough money he couldn't call them out on it.

Some people, eh?

 

[Baldr]

Most people on the Escapist use avatars which infringe copyright
The Escapist gets ad revenue
Ergo the Escapist should go jail?

Fuck no.

The Escapist staff would remove any avatar if asked by the IP owner. Most of these sites that get in legal trouble refuse to remove stuff when requested by the IP owner/lawyers.

You have no way of knowing whether or not this man would have removed any links if asked to by the rightful IP owners.

The guy was putting adverts on his site that he knows no savvy browser isn't going to see anyway, because it's pretty much the only way to make money off of a website. I'm assuming he didn't have a particularly large site, so the options of what he advertised were probably pretty limited. I'd imagine porn sites and torrent searchers would be the only ones willing to pay for a small site to advertise for them. He said legal streaming and downloading places too, but I don't really know who he means by them. Apple or BBC maybe, although that seems highly unlikely?

The point is this is the little guy gets fucked over because the people enforcing the laws are impotent. They can't go after the people are the route cause of the problem so they go after whatever they can to tick boxes and justify their salaries.

It's a pretty good analogue for the war on drugs. Guy sells a bit of weed to his mate. Criminal record and no chance of a decent future. Guy runs an organised crime syndicate halfway across the word. Has a pool big enough to race Yachts in and a villa the size of Disney Land.

Actually it was a big website, it was well known and had several requests by media companies in court records to remove the links to pirated stuff, his company refused.

 

[Ledan]

The guy was making money out of theft even if he wasn't stealing, but 4 years is excessive. A big fine and maybe a month or two in jail would have sent the same message without appearing so draconian that he turns into yet another pirates martyr.

Not sure how the system works over there, but I foresee parole rather quick for the dude.

As for 'Pirate Martyr'... Seems that way. (making $50,000 a fucking month. Boo Hoo)

EDIT: Judge Evans branded the defendant the most arrogant he had encountered in his career, said Vickerman knew full well what he was doing was unlawful, despite his protestations of innocence.

He sought legal advice from top lawyers which consistently warned that his site was operating contrary to the law, the judge said.

It was also seven week trial.

Just sayin.

Oh yeah, and his wife was originally charged too, but the judge believed, had he told his wife about what he was doing, she would have done her best to stop him.

Also, google is stepping up a bit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/aug/10/google-algorithm-hollywood-lobbyists-copyright

Do you mind reading this http://surfthechannel.com/?
Just y'know, to get the other side of the story. Thanks.

After skimming the 21 page blog of a guy going to prison, I take away from this that other pirates turned him in.

And??

Both sides had weeks in court. Tin Foil hats aside, you wanna tell me what I should glean from his 'final day of freedom' blog?

He's trying to cry about 'server locations' as his defense. Trying to dodge his fault by a technicality.

"if I have got the law wrong then don´t worry ladies and gentlemen of the jury, because a higher court than me will put that right". - da juj

Well if you actually read it you'll find that he thought the court case was unfair. The judge was not impartial. FACT Ltd committed fraud in an appeals court, but due to a lack of funds he was unable to call them on it.
How was he at fault? He had a website that was a search engine. You put in "The Avengers" and there was a link to another site, where someone else had uploaded that content. Like Google. You put in "DJ Earworm- Summer 2010" and you get a link to several perfectly legal torrents.

The UK courts had previously ruled that the location of the servers does matter. I'm guessing from your other posts that you have already decided that he is a heinous criminal that deserves what he gets, and anything presented otherwise you would probably call lies. Read through it and you find that FACT Ltd openly "lost" important documents, admitted to bribing a witness, and used several dirty tricks.

Yup, I really hope that a higher court looks into this. An open and impartial one.

Seriously though, this guy's life was ruined because he made a search engine. How in the world is that fair?

 

[Signa]

This is enraging. Yes, some people have said that he was profiting from piracy, but I disagree fully with this being a punishable method.

See, the reason profits from piracy is bad is because it takes a customer away from EVER buying a product. They have a "close enough" copy of the original work, and the artist never gets to see a dime of that transaction. Even if the copy is shit, the customer isn't going to feel the need to buy it again unless they REALLY want it. Getting someone to buy something once is hard enough, getting them to buy it twice is very rare.

In this case, the guy wasn't taking money from IP holders. He was just being more or less gifted money by people that wanted to get their own names out too. Any potential customers that went through him could still see value in buying a product they saw through his service. He didn't take their money, and if they wanted to spend it, they still had it.

 

[mike1921]

Damn right, send em to jail.

When will you people learn that you shouldn't make money from IP theft? Probably never.

1) Reread the second paragraph.

2) I think there's a bigger need to lock you up than him;

1) Why would I care what a piracy sympathizer (that has nothing to do with the case) has to say?

2) *see answer #1

I hate the way people fucking think that if you find there are punishments for a crime that are too harsh than you're a sympathizer. No, I'm not a fucking robbery sympathizer because I think the death penalty is too harsh for stealing a twix. This is everything that is wrong with peoples' attitudes towards criminal justice. What he did was possibly a financial crime, one with not that much impact on anyone he should be fined. Jail time should not even be on the table.

 

[Ledan]

Well if you actually read it you'll find that he thought the court case was unfair. The judge was not impartial. FACT Ltd committed fraud in an appeals court, but due to a lack of funds he was unable to call them on it.
How was he at fault? He had a website that was a search engine. You put in "The Avengers" and there was a link to another site, where someone else had uploaded that content. Like Google. You put in "DJ Earworm- Summer 2010" and you get a link to several perfectly legal torrents.

The UK courts had previously ruled that the location of the servers does matter. I'm guessing from your other posts that you have already decided that he is a heinous criminal that deserves what he gets, and anything presented otherwise you would probably call lies. Read through it and you find that FACT Ltd openly "lost" important documents, admitted to bribing a witness, and used several dirty tricks.

Yup, I really hope that a higher court looks into this. An open and impartial one.

Seriously though, this guy's life was ruined because he made a search engine. How in the world is that fair?

I'm not calling anyone a liar... yet.

But yeah, I think he deserves what he gets, after making $50k a month linking shit for pirates. Don't pretend he didn't know what was going on, cuz that I won't believe. I also am not sure how he couldn't afford an appeal when you say 'FACT Ltd committed fraud in an appeals court, but due to a lack of funds he was unable to call them on it. ' How does that make any sense unless it's all just a big conspiracy riddled frame job by a judge on the take?

FACT Ltd said that they did not know why the CCP had dismissed to prosecute the case, in an appeals case in which I think he was trying to get his property back from FACT Ltd. Later FACT Ltd disclosed a letter in which the CCP clearly states that they do not think that this case warrants prosecution and explains their reasons. They had received this letter long before the appeals case. At this point in time he did not have enough money to take FACT Ltd to court for this obvious fraud.

It is not illegal to provide links to people. Otherwise Google would be taken to court. I also don't believe in a conspiracy, but I do believe in negligence and the use of dirty tricks.

 

[Mr Companion]

The worst crime of all is anything that damages corporations. Drink and drive at high speed endangering lives here and you get a slap on the wrist and a £50 fine. Potentially be a cog in the piracy machine and you better not let them take you alive son! I still think piracy is pretty bad, but comparatively worse crimes get punished far less.

 

[antipunt]

More heinous crimes are punished much less severely.

Why? Because this kind of thing is backed by -financial- incentives from ppl with more money/power.

That's just how justice works. /cynicism

 

[mike1921]

Damn right, send em to jail.

When will you people learn that you shouldn't make money from IP theft? Probably never.

1) Reread the second paragraph.

2) I think there's a bigger need to lock you up than him;

1) Why would I care what a piracy sympathizer (that has nothing to do with the case) has to say?

2) *see answer #1

I hate the way people fucking think that if you find there are punishments for a crime that are too harsh than you're a sympathizer. No, I'm not a fucking robbery sympathizer because I think the death penalty is too harsh for stealing a twix. This is everything that is wrong with peoples' attitudes towards criminal justice. What he did was possibly a financial crime, one with not that much impact on anyone he should be fined. Jail time should not even be on the table.

I can understand that. It just irked me how he (the person who quoted me) added, the last part to his initial post, telling me that I should be in jail...

As far as this case goes, I don't believe the numbers the movie companies come up with, but I do believe it hurts to have your product pirated, at least a little bit. This guy was making around $50k a month for however many years, and ran out of money at the end of his trial supposedly keeping him from appealing. Even tho he states he has soooo much evidence of fraud, bribery ect ect

So he couldn't pay any fines, so he does the time. How much of a fine should he have gotten for the tens of thousands he received each month, and how much is a year in prison 'worth'?

Thanks for being civil ; )

it's probably because it looked like you were mitigating jail, taking away years of someone's life.

Quite frankly I don't think they're interchangable for any number that a normal person will ever see. Although it seems the real problem here is that you could even manage to spend a $50k a month income on a legal defense and run out of money .I still wouldn't support jail time for a crime of that nature for anything that's not at economy sinking level (which is the sort of thing that ruins livelihoods). Like if he legitimately did lose all of his money what threat is he? And if all he did was provide a hub to other things is what he really did all that bad? Like did they even try to do something about the hosts which are actually keeping the content up?

 

[I.Muir]

A huge fine yes but jailtime is just extreme. This man has lost everything and he will never get it back over something I would consider a grey area in the legal system.

It's alarming that copyright can cause a person to be jailed in the first place without even having personally broken it. What's next, cooperation's enforcing their own laws, the breakdown of the state?

 

[legendp]

Ok wait wait wait.
Who advertises on a site devoted to people who aren't willing to pay money for things? That just seems odd.

well you can't exactly torrent a chair, downloading something is a lot easier than physically stealing it. so theirs your answer

I understand fining him but sending him to jail, but for four year is just ridiculous! sending him to jail at all is ridiculous. it seems he has already lost most of what he has and has to declare bankrupt, And in reality the people who asked for links to illegal stuff would have found it anyway, so it's not like he made them do it