AP reports that University of Arizona student Parvin Dhaliwal was convicted of using peer-to-peer networking software on his computer to illegally download copyrighted movies and music off the Internet.
From the AP:
“The FBI found more than $50 million in music and movies on Dhaliwal’s computer. The illegally copied property included movies that, at the time of the theft, were available only in theaters. They included Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Matrix Revolutions, The Cat In The Hat, and Mona Lisa Smile.”
If I were an FBI agent, just reading that list would justify arresting this guy for crappy taste in movies.
In all seriousness, intellectual property is an important right afforded by the U.S. Constitution and if Dhaliwal stole The Frank J. Happy Dance and put in on the Internet, I’d ask prosecutors for nothing less than the death penalty.
First! Frank, when does the Happy Dance become common property, 50 years?
It’s “life-plus-70 years” under current law.
Actually, it’s only a felony if you get caught, prosecuted, and convicted.
Slight, but important difference.
Frank,
Agree with the other 3 crappies, but Eternal Sunshine was easily one of the best 5 movies of last year.
Illinois actually just went through with an execution for someone accused and convicted of downloading the Happy Dance. It was a lot of fun to watch, the RIAA has done a great job getting rid of the “cruel and unusual” restriction for punishment when it comes to downloaded intellectual property. It was terribly ironic, too. He, the soon to be executed, had to train an army of hamsters to do the Happy Dance, then, for his execution, they danced on him until he died! It took about 57 hours, so even if you missed the beginning, you still got to see a legion of hamsters doing Frank J’s Happy Dance…And I didn’t even have to pay for it!
Heh, no respect, eh Scott? People keep callin’ ya Frank…
There is no happy dance…there was never a moon landing, Ward Churchill is an Indian, and there is no happy dance.
If Dhaliwal posted the Happy Dance, wouldn’t it be a public service to order a cease and desist?
Downloading crap may be a felony but playing with crap is just plain gross.
Wow, those are some valuable movies and songs he downloaded.
$50 Million, assuming every single song and movie retailed for $50 US would yield 1 Million songs and movies.
Assuming he has GREAT compresssion that none of the rest of us do and he has an average file size of 6MB, that’s 5.7 TB of material. That’s Terabytes, not Gigabytes. In other words, he has an entire rack of servers on his laptop.
I call bullshizzle.
More likely they’re using the copyright statute’s maximum damages which are either $600,000 per violation or $200,000 per violation, I can’t remember. That means a maximum of 250 files.
Wooooow, big stealer.
Now the first one of you with no copyright-violations on his or her hard drive can cast the first stone.
I thought monkeys LIKED to throw crap?
No offense to Scott, but… where’s the funny?
Is Scott the IMAO straight man?
HeatherF: make no attempt to use your jedi mind tricks on me, I am resistant to all such weapons and tactics.
I have no copyright violations on my computers and will now tell you why the $50 million figure is probably correct:
Producing recorded media such as movies and music can be considered a one-time expense, but the purchase of recorded media by consumers is not a one-time expense.
Ticket sales for movies and CD sales for music accumulate over a period of time just like traffic on a blog: When Frank posts something funny on Tuesday morning, the traffic for that post spikes that morning, levels off by late Tuesday, and starts to drop after Wednesday.
Just like a blog, ticket sales for a movie or CD sales for a singer spike during the initial release and then drop off after a period of time. If the public enjoys a movie, they will see it in the theater multiple times.
The $50 million figure was undoubtedly arrived by calculating the damage done by Parvin Dhaliwal’s illegal downloading and (if you read the article) selling of the copyrighted movies before they were released for public viewing.
If millions of people have already seen Jim Carrey’s new movie for free online or have Dhaliwal sell them a pirated CD of the movie for $5, there is no good reason to see the movie in the theater. The person that says: “I only download the low-quality version of a movie or song for free on my PC before I pay money to see the real thing in the theater or buy the full CD from the music store” is what we like to call in Texas a “liar.”
Unless you are the copyright holder of a song or a movie (meaning you are the songwriter or the movie producer), you do not “own” that song or movie and therefore have no legal right to put a song or movie on the Internet. Period. End of story.
I don’t expect lefties to grasp this simple concept outlined for hundreds of years in the U.S. Constitution and other European law documents, but conservatives should get it immediately…
Yes, but if you wouldn’t have bought the CD whether you downloaded the songs or not, they haven’t lost any money on you. If you are say, a poor student who doesn’t want to spend an obscene amount of money on a CD you’ll only like one or two songs on, then downloading is not the difference between whether the store gets paid or not, just the difference between whether you get to hear or not, something that doesn’t harm any one… or does it? Thoughts?
Amber, I know this shows what a fossil I am, but back in the day we borrowed someone else’s record, played it, and gave the record back.
If you want one song, you buy it off of Apple iTunes (99 cents per song), Wal-Mart Music (88 cents per song), Buy.com BuyMusic (79 cents per song) or any of the other per song downloadable music services. If you can’t find the song you want on those services, you buy the whole CD at a deep discount from a used music store. Anything else is stealing.
The bottom line is you cannot support the arts by stealing from artists. That’s as idiotic as saying “I oppose the war but support the troops.”
I’m sorry “The Real Scott” … you had me nodding until you reached “support the arts by stealing from artists”. Are you trying to say that the RIAA gives a rats patoot about the artists, or the writers, or the second string sax player on the third cut?? After years of reading about artists trying to get their rightful share of profits from RIAA members … or not, in the case of CCR’s lead …. I have a real problem believing this has anything whatsoever to do with the artists …. I think it has everything to do with profits for Sony and the other RIAA members … and most especially their lawyers.
And I can cheerfully say that the only MP3’s that you’ll find on any of the computers in my house were all ripped from cd’s that I purchased … I’ll be getting to the old vinyl “real soon now” ….
I find the “lost sales” for CD’s as ludicrous a statement as I do for illegitimate software. Like that 3rd world guy using XP wouold’ve ever been able to pay full retail for it … LOL … but, hey, it sounds so good when daddy warbucks (the legendary billygate … or is that goat?) says it … LOL
Hey, SpookyKGB, you’ve confused your terms.
Its always a “felony.”
You are only a “felon” if you get caught, prosecuted, and convicted.
Yes, you’re right: It’s perfectly okay to steal from the rich because they never did anything valuable to society and don’t deserve their money.
Yes, you’re right: Artists are all too stupid to make money using their talent and are forced to sell out to the rich companies.
You don’t like the music, don’t buy it. But don’t steal it and try to justify yourself by saying the “big evil corporation” doesn’t deserve the money–you only end up hurting the artists who can never get a break because those “big evil corporations” have lost so much money through theft that they can’t take chances on new innovative artists anymore.
There are consequenses of the Class War…