Only goes to prove that rapists are being let off too lightly, not that someone profiting from movie piracy got the wrong penalty.
Yes. Although I think they should be somewhat more dissimilar.
If he got half the time as a rapist, does that mean the rape is equivalent of 2,000 pounds?
That’s one way to look at it. Another may be that the rape victims didn’t pay nearly enough to lawmakers to ensure that the perpetrators got heavy sentences.
Did the choice of movie weigh heavily on sentencing? That’s another explanation.
While it can certainly be argued that this punishment is too harsh or inconsistent with punishments for other crimes, I’d say that selling pirated copies of stuff and making a profit on someone else’s copyrighted material is categorically different from file sharing where no money changes hands. The former is the kind of behaviour that copyright laws are meant to prevent, whereas the latter is something that fell under the same category because technology advanced faster than laws could adapt.
Well what if those were the nice rapists and they only raped a little bit? Context is everything. Frankly, I think bootlegging Fast and Furious 6 should be punishable by death. Wait, there’s a 6?
This guy gets 3 years, and yet Michael Bay is still a free man?
Victor Hugo couldn’t write this crap.
You guys are burying the lead here. Someone managed to make ÂŁ1000 selling copies of Fast and Furious 6.
I think that was his real crime. Anything seen to promote those movies should be dealt with harshly.
Copyright violation? My God, that’s worse than murder!
He also received a sentence of less than four years. He got 33 months.
That said, the fact the rapes and rapists are woefully under prosecuted and serve too little time, isn’t really related to what happened here.
It turns out that back in March the police and FACT raided him, and were going to walk away from it. At the time, he was sure he was in clear specifically because he had so little money that he wasn’t a good bet for suing. (The problem is, losses aren’t counted by what you gain through theft, but the named value of what you took. Conservative industry loss estimate was £2.3m not £1000.)
“Also what can they possibly sue me for? I have no job, no savings and no means of paying any compensation regardless of the outcome. Is it simply going to be a waste of everyone’s time?” he concludes.
Then he decided to keep sharing the movie - after the raid - and gloating about it. On Facebook, he told his friends, “Seven billion people and I was the first. F*** you Universal Pictures.” (He was the first person to video the film in theatre and release while it was still playing in theater.) So, he went ahead and did it again knowing that the police had already raided him for the action, and that they’d be back again if he continued. We really shouldn’t be up in arms about a person knowingly breaking the law, and being let go, and then continuing to do it and being given a sentence.
Unless, perhaps, those 134 of 984 rapes were merely statistical? A consenting sixteen year old sleeps with eighteen year old, parents find out and call the cops, eighteen year old jailed for several years for a victimless crime, that sort of thing?
Unfortunately we don’t have that information, so it’s impossible to know.
That said, this guy wasn’t jailed for pirating, he was jailed for bootlegging. Bootlegging has always been illegal. If you make money off someone selling else’s work without their permission, you’re a thief. That’s never been a topic of debate among even the most rabid piraters.
The thing is, context is everything. You forget that there is such a thing as “statistical rape”, and that a person can be a “rapist” for having consentual sex with someone practically their own age, but on the wrong side of the age of consent line.
Now, is that the case with the 134 of 984 in question? We don’t know - because we lack that contextual information. It’s entirely possible that they’re all a bunch of monsters who deserve to be locked away forever. But it’s also entirely possible they’re all a bunch of horny teenagers who hooked up with other horny teenagers and had several years of their lives stolen from them for it, because they are technically “rapists” under the law.
But hey, “context lol”, amirite? Dismissively sarcastic #notallrapists, roflmao.
Not in most jurisdictions. There’s an exception for teens with less than a four year age difference, which among teens is enormous. Speaking as the father of a teen.
You…you need to read this.
I met my wife five days before I turned 18. She was 16. I don’t know how she put up with me, but I was downright nearly a saint…for about 8 months. Then we said to hell with it, knowing full well that if her mother caught us doing anything, she could ruin my life. And yes, it happens. I have no idea how prevalent it is, but it happens. And nowadays, not only would I get a rape conviction, I’d be on a list for life for being a “pedophile”.
And there’s no statute of limitations. Here I am, nearly 40, and I could get in big-time trouble for consensual relations (but then, most people here probably could, too 
EDIT: I took out the stuff about race and false rape claims. That would be a good discussion for another time, in a pertinent thread. All I’ll say is that race is also a contributing factor in my racist corner of America…
we only do it for personal use. most movies aren’t worth paying to see at a theater.
As far as I know, statutory rape prosecutions like that aren’t really a thing over here, mind.
Fair enough. But my argument is in favor of context on principle, rather than in specifically defending or attacking the 134 cases I honestly don’t know nearly enough about.
Nothing is black and white. Context can confirm or deny your expectations, but to dismiss the need for context entirely is absurd.
