Bad News for File Sharers: DOJ Wants Jail Time
As if The Pirate Bay criminal trial in Sweden and the Mininova trial in the Netherlands were not bad news enough for file sharers and torrent site fans all over the world, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) comes with a piece of news that should send shivers up your spine: the DOJ wants to put a man behind bars for sharing music online, for noncommercial purposes.
The file sharer in question is blogger Kevin Cogill, and the music in question is a pre-release leak of Guns N’ Roses’s latest album “Chinese Democracy”. It was back in the month of August 2008 that the US authorities took Kevin Cogill in custody (at gunpoint); two month’s later he pleaded guilty to the charges brought against him (making the album available for download before it was officially released). The DOJ is now asking the court to issue a 6 month jail sentence in the case.
“The government believes a 6-month sentence satisfies the dictates of the relevant provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Restitution is also mandatory in the case. The RIAA estimates that defendant’s conduct resulted in a loss of approximately $2 million. The RIAA would also be willing to accept, in lieu of this amount, the lesser sum of $30,000 in restitution if defendant was willing to participate in a public service announcement designed to educate the public that music piracy is illegal,” says the sentencing request (download PDF).
That is a bit harsh. They are putting it all on Kevin Cogill, they are saying that he is the “master leaker”, the one responsible for a total of 375,376 file downloads. It is no wonder then that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was quick to respond.
“At the heart of the DOJ's case is the assumption that Cogill was the original source of the album leak, and therefore bears full responsibility for every subsequent download of the album until its official release in November 2008. In fact, it appears that leaks of the tracks in question had been available for many years before Cogill posted his copies in June 2008. A quick search of popular BitTorrent trackers reveals that a torrent of many of the tracks in question was available in March of 2007, a full 13 months before Cogill's supposed initial leak. We urge the judge not to add jail time to the long list of unreasonable penalties for sharing music,” said the EFF.
Tags: P2P, File Sharing, Trial, EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, DOJ
The file sharer in question is blogger Kevin Cogill, and the music in question is a pre-release leak of Guns N’ Roses’s latest album “Chinese Democracy”. It was back in the month of August 2008 that the US authorities took Kevin Cogill in custody (at gunpoint); two month’s later he pleaded guilty to the charges brought against him (making the album available for download before it was officially released). The DOJ is now asking the court to issue a 6 month jail sentence in the case.
Advertising
“The government believes a 6-month sentence satisfies the dictates of the relevant provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Restitution is also mandatory in the case. The RIAA estimates that defendant’s conduct resulted in a loss of approximately $2 million. The RIAA would also be willing to accept, in lieu of this amount, the lesser sum of $30,000 in restitution if defendant was willing to participate in a public service announcement designed to educate the public that music piracy is illegal,” says the sentencing request (download PDF).
That is a bit harsh. They are putting it all on Kevin Cogill, they are saying that he is the “master leaker”, the one responsible for a total of 375,376 file downloads. It is no wonder then that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was quick to respond.
“At the heart of the DOJ's case is the assumption that Cogill was the original source of the album leak, and therefore bears full responsibility for every subsequent download of the album until its official release in November 2008. In fact, it appears that leaks of the tracks in question had been available for many years before Cogill posted his copies in June 2008. A quick search of popular BitTorrent trackers reveals that a torrent of many of the tracks in question was available in March of 2007, a full 13 months before Cogill's supposed initial leak. We urge the judge not to add jail time to the long list of unreasonable penalties for sharing music,” said the EFF.
Tags: P2P, File Sharing, Trial, EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, DOJ
I Hope you LIKE this blog post! Thank you!
What do YOU have to say about this
blog comments powered by Disqus
Popular News
By George Norman on 28 May 2012
Mozilla introduced a new program meant to educate millions of people, the Mozilla Webmaker program.
By George Norman on 26 May 2012
Piriform updated its products, making CCleaner less annoying and Defraggler a lot faster.Related News
By George Norman on 17 Jan 2012
House Bill 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA for short), poses a real threat to the freedom of the internet. The bill was introduced as a means of expanding the ability of US law enforcement andAdvertising
Hot Software Updates
Top Downloads
2.
Opera5.
Trillian8.
AIM9.
Skype10.
Ad-Aware12.
Nero13.
Google Earth14.
Picasa15.
Winamp16.
iTunes17.
RealPlayer18.
uTorrent19.
eMule20.
WinRAR21.
BitComet22.
WinZip23.
Shareaza24.
CCleaner25.
Recuva26.
Tweak UI27.
CuteFTP Home29.
Adobe Reader30.
NewsPiperBecome A Fan!
Link To Us!
Bad News for File Sharers: DOJ Wants Jail Time
HTML Linking Code
HTML Linking Code