AfterDawn: News

BitTorrent user gets jail sentence

A man in Hong Kong has been sent to prison for copyright infringement for uploading copyrighted movies using BitTorrent. He was handed down his three month sentence for uploading Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality. He is the first person in the world to be prosecuted for sharing files using BitTorrent according to authorities. The movie industry hopes that this case, which managed to gather large media attention, will deter other BitTorrent users from continuing this activity.

The man, Chan Nai-ming, who's nickname was "Big Crook" was arrested in January for his offenses. The MPAA estimates that the film industry loses more than $900m in Asia alone anually due to piracy. The Hong Kong authorities hope that the case will deter other users, but the BBC's Hong Kong correspondent Chris Hogg said that since the man was first charged in April, there has been no noticeable impact on file sharing.



There also is the problem of the time it takes to build a successful prosecution, making it impossible to carry out an effective crackdown on Internet pirates. Last December, the MPAA filed several lawsuits against BitTorrent trackers to attempt to undermine the ability to swap movies quickly and easily.

Source:
BBC News

Written by: James Delahunty @ 7 Nov 2005 14:22

• Previous article

• Grokster dumps P2P service

• Next article

• Soribada P2P service shuts down

• 42 comments

• lxfactor

  old news..

  7.11.2005 15:20 #1

• lxfactor

  oh sorry i didnt read all the way

  7.11.2005 15:20 #2

• borhan9

  I would count him lucky cause those movies are really bad :) hes lucky he did not get more just on how bad those movies are :)

  7.11.2005 15:52 #3

• Rudeboi

  I thought that was pretty stupid..arresting ONE man out of 1 billion users (what a number lol) until i read that they lost almost 1 billion dollars just from Asia

  7.11.2005 17:17 #4

• spooky2k

  does anyone know where they get these crazy numbers from?if they made 900million from these 3 bad films, wouldnt they be so damn rich they could buy a planet and move there now?
  This doesnt make sense. we all know their jerks, but fuck, they're LYING.
  Dan x

  8.11.2005 02:17 #5

• akkuma

  yeah that kinda doesnt add up. damm liars say anything just to get attention to their cause.

  8.11.2005 06:36 #6

• OzMick

  HAHAHAHAHAHA! Sent to jail over Miss Congeniality... Actually liking that movie should be a crime in itself :P

  8.11.2005 12:21 #7

• tmaas77

  I agree.... who does these studies anyways? I think it's sad that they spend MILLIONS of dollars on studies like this to prove how much money they are losing.
  
  I have a simple solution to this problem. Legalize p2p, and stop paying money for these stupid studies. I realize that these studies don't cost 1 billion dollars, but come on!!! you give a grant to a college kid for 100 million dollars to do this study and crunch the numbers (mind you, they only did this in Asia, what about America?) so by the time you do this same study in 100 countries...... doesn't that equal a billion? yeah, I think it does....
  

  8.11.2005 14:27 #8

• bldbounca

  No matter what they say. Bleep Hollywood! They make sooo much money that even if everyone used bittorrent, they would still find a way to make money. i don't feel sorry for them in the least. i am sorry for the chinese man though.

  9.11.2005 11:54 #9

• Ludikhris

  This is really really old news, I think I read this over a month ago it seems. At least a couple weeks ago somewhere else.

  9.11.2005 23:54 #10

• Lethal_B

  Quote:The movie industry hopes that this case, which managed to gather large media attention, will deter other BitTorrent users from continuing this activity.Ha, that's the biggest laugh I have heard in ages. Best I stop incase I am the second person out of about 15-20million to get sued...
  
  
  

  10.11.2005 04:33 #11

• mystic

  Again the word must be put out to the masses that all those who are convited for uploading or downloading needs to pay is the going rate untill they put movies on the net to download there shouldnt be a way for them to do this the music industry has shown us that if they willing ly put music on web sites consumers will pay for it look toward ITunes for the example now the movie industry needs to fallow and then they could go after the bootleaggers but if they put movies for stream or download no one will be bootleging their stuff case closed... it problum is they dont want us to to be able to download stuff so we can keep it but I can record to a ddr unit and then burn it to dvd then keep it anyway so they cant win why not make it so cheap that it cost more to bootleg then to buy and hten they will have the market.....

  10.11.2005 05:15 #12

• mystic

  oh yeah sorry the going rate is what I would pay at walmart or the closet retailer to my house still under 20.00

  10.11.2005 05:16 #13

• scifi105

  I have used P2P services before and mostly what I like I buy (I downloaded Rush's Moving Pictures but it was so good I had to buy it and you should too) but there are some movies that could use the money that they loose from P2P. One movie in particular is Serenity, coming to DVD on Dec. 20. The movie only made $25 million US and Universal spent over $10 million in ads alone. I thought the movie (and the show firefly) kicked ass as so I want them to at least break even so that there is an extremely small chance, but still a chance, to get a sequel. They can't get money from us P2Per's.
  
  P.S.:
  If the FBI is reading, I lied. I'd never use P2P services ;)

  10.11.2005 17:21 #14

• mr_magnon

  Hollywood has enough $$$ as it is! Stars making 30 million dollars a movie! Thats crazy while people like teachers and doctors and firefighters helping people all the time make peanuts for cash and our far more useful than some sleezy Hollywood actor.

  10.11.2005 20:16 #15

• URADope

  Spooky, are you retarded? They're talking about the industry losing $900M in Asia because of PIRATING in general, not pirating of only THOSE THREE MOVIES.
  QUICK MATH LESSON FOR SPOOKY THE CHUKLEHEAD:
  Last time I used Kazaa (years ago) there were about 2 million users. Now assume that each user downloads about 20 movies (a very low estimate). Multiply that by $10 (a DVD on sale)That's $200 per user. Assuming you all graduated middle school, you'll know that $10 x 20(movies) x 2,000,000(users) = $4,000,000. That's just 2 million users on ONE P2P Program. AND THAT'S JUST COUNTING DVD REVENUE, not theatrical releases.
  
  basically, if they want me to buy, they're going to have to do what they did for the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. RE: PUT EXTRA FEATURES ON THE DVD.

  10.11.2005 21:21 #16

• jwilsny

  URADope I agree with you to some degree. Your math is correct, however I do think Hollywood's numbers are seriously inflated. If you had to pay $10-$15 per movie, I suspect that you wouldn't have nearly as movies in your collection. Neither would the movie collections of the millions who have access to P2P or BitTorrent. Call me crazy, but instead of being downloaded, those movies would just be sitting on the shelves.

  11.11.2005 05:13 #17

• arunie

  First of all, everyone needs to read the article properly. It says they LOST 900 million overall, not just on those movies. 900 million is a lot, but Hollywood is a multi-billion dollar industry. People get paid extremely high prices in Hollywood for acting...aka...being fakes. I do admit they do provide us w/ quality entertainment. I do feel a little bad that Hollywood is losing money...but not very much since entertaiment revenue is at an all time high. That means there are way more people going out and buying tickets or DVDs than pirating. So to all the people who are complaining about piracy, get over it.

  11.11.2005 07:33 #18

• iz0nlee

  are we to believe that before p2p no hollywood movie ever lost money. Are we to believe that some of the movies they put out would even be watched if not for p2p.
  If I was a hollywood producer I'd be looking for a huge number of torrent seeders or p2p sharers for my movie or I'd be very dissapointed, a better barometer than any of the worlds press I bet and I'm sure they worry if they don't see the movies being downloaded, the same with music producers. If nobody wanted to download YOUR latest album how would you feel. If your stuff is so crap nobody will even have it for free then it must be a major ego buster.
  On another track how would Sony etc feel if they defeated the p2p sharers,pirates, whatever you want to call them, and then found sales of CD and DVD writers and media falling off the edge of the flat earth they live on. They must make a fortune in disk media alone. never mind burning equipment, labeling and crystal cases.
  Am I going on a bit, I could write a book but I better leave it there
  better watch my blood pressure

  11.11.2005 08:03 #19

• GiDiMan

  BTW,The extras on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy DVD (yeah, I saw the film in the theater, and bought the DVD) were equally as disappointing as the film itself. Should have left it alone, or let the BBC take care of it by itself. Let Terrence Dicks or somebody finish the screenplay instead of the guy that did Chicken Run. Shameful, shameless, and marginally better than Miss Congeniality.

  11.11.2005 10:27 #20

• 074kev

  They're lying about how much they've lost in Asia. Those people there who download the movies aren't going to buy them anyway. You think they make enough money over there to buy movies? Ha Ha!! Those people can barely buy the clothes on their backs man. Pirating is exploding over there because of poverty. Hollywood would make less money in America if people couldn't download it first before they buy it. What are these people thinking? I always download a movie and if it's good, I'll go buy it at Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Why spend $20 on a movie that you might not like if you can watch it first for free? Here's what they can do to get everybody to buy their dvd's instead of downloading:
  1. Nobody minds a really long movie if it's a good one. Make movies better and longer. Few will want to download a 4 hour movie. And if it's good, they'll buy it instead.
  
  2. Add features to dvd's that intice the consumers that you can't get from downloading.
  
  3. Lower prices so poor people can afford them.
  
  4. Quit making cardboard sleeves with covers identical to the one beneath it. It ticks me off to slide the cover off a dvd and find the same cover underneath it. It's redundant and a waiste of money. Make them different, or don't make them.
  
  There's hundreds of ways they can persuade consumers to buy instead of download. Why they don't bother? I don't know.

  11.11.2005 11:30 #21

• TriXy

  oh yeah, we all know Hollywood... oh boo-hoo i have to wait a month until i can afford my 2 story private jet because people are downloading my stuff! i have to wait a year until i get a 500 foot yaut because people are burning my movies!!!! its not really a big deal in canada, but really, why bother even trying to arrest 1 billion people??!arresting 1 person isnt going to scare eveyone else into stopping!!!

  11.11.2005 12:01 #22

• BURN-MAN

  I have to agree with 074kev in one respect, a large percentage of the population who downloads movies would have never bought them in the first place, so those numbers are very unfounded and skewed greatly in the MPAA's favor. Secondly, I remember my friend asking me why do you copy games for so many systems and such, and my answer is always this,..."I was reading an article a while ago in where John Romero, one of the eggheads behind ID Software (Doom, Wolfenstein, Quake, etc.), was being interviewed by a major video game publication. Anyway, it was the end of the interview and the guy asks..."hey John...what kinda car do ya drive?"....the answer was...and I quote, "I own several...actually, I have a different color Ferrari for evey day of the week." At that moment, I realized I did'nt want to support John Romero's habbit for collecting exotic sports cars. I also don't believe I should contribute to Jay-Lo's 5 people who take care of her fucking eye-brows or a professional nipple-twister when she needs to look...er...."perky". Sorry people, you are crying poverty to the wrong bunch of lads smart enough to not to believe that line of garbage you spew. And when you feel you have done your job and caught one of us...there are a million more behind him. If you loved your jobs so much...why do your fucking paychecks look like a small country's national debt?!?!?! Your apparently crying poverty to someone you may beleive actually gives a stinkin' shit.

  11.11.2005 19:54 #23

• Zerg

  I agree with 074kev as well. I really believe the vast majority of people who download movies, music and games would probably not have bought those things legally anyway!
  
  It's ludicrous to estimate how many copies of a film is being downloaded and then multiply that by the DVD price and say, "oh, look how much money we're loosing! Something must be done!" The film industry is not going out of business. Actors, right to the lowliest stage hand are not starving.
  
  People who download stuff for free, most of the time could not afford everything they download. Overall it seems difficult to see why downloading free stuff is serious unethical. Its not like hijacking a car or robbing someone. We're expected to believe that computer users around the world are bad people and criminals? Gimme a break.

  11.11.2005 21:43 #24

• Nephilim

  bldbounca
  
  Let's watch the language ;)
  

  
  
  Forum Rules! http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487
  
  My movies! http://www.intervocative.com/dvdcollection.aspx/Rephaim
  
  "And there we saw the giants, and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight" - Numbers 13:33

  12.11.2005 04:37 #25

• 074kev

  I'd like to see them put a million people in prison for 3 months in the U.S. for downloading. They barely have room for real thieves, you know, the ones who relocate your property so that it's not in your possession anymore (if you catch my drift). Also, I don't recall Steven King being broke because people check his novels out of the library for free instead of buying them. Maybe people who go to library's should be arrested too. Maybe Tom Clancy should press charges against anybody who reads his books for free instead of buying them. They should shut down the libraries all over the world because they're STEALING!!! I'm being sarcastic.

  12.11.2005 11:55 #26

• Sheariah

  I've seen so much bad stuff in movies: foul language & sexual content even on the children's movies!!! That I would not even consider buying a DVD of a movie I have not had an opportunity to preview. Then it seems unfair to have to pay for the movie twice - like to rent it, then buy it. Can't risk going to the theater much, afraid to take my kids to see something that I may not want them to see and I certainly not going to pay theater prices twice for the same movie.
  
  I think these greedy *@#$%s are shooting themselves in the foot with all these lawsuits - maybe one day they'll forget to remove the foot from the mouth before firing.
  
  They can't possibly know how much $$ they may be losing to file sharing. Those that download & don't buy wouldn't have bought to begin with, and then there are those who download just to see if something is descent enough to buy. And isn't the cd & DVD sales at an all time high? If they want to sell more, they should stop with the lawsuits that alienate customers, and make better movies. Take some of the money they waste toward reducing prices.
  
  And please, please, stop teasing us with trailers 2+ years before the movie comes out - then disappointing because the scenes in the trailer are not even in the final movie. Besides misrepresenting the content of the movie, isn't that like an "attractive nusiance"?

  14.11.2005 09:48 #27

• nelson69

  hows all
  
  i have been using torrents sites for two weeks, jst got my first p.c (sad but true). we all must cost the music, film indst a fortune, not that they cant afford it but the good times cant last for ever. Its only a matter of time before microsoft will be forced to help with problem of free downloading , they can and in time will stop! us all, until that day
  
  leach! leach! leach!

  14.11.2005 13:41 #28

• 074kev

  Has anybody checked a book out from the library? Sure you have. Anybody test drove a car before they bought it? Sure. Have you looked at an apartment before signing the lease? Everyone does these things, they're a part of everyday life.
  
  We now have the ability to listen to music and view movies before we buy them. We're no longer forced to pay $20 on a whim that we might like the cd or dvd and then find out that we don't like it at all. I believe that if the government removes this right we have, then they must also eliminate other rights, rights like the ones in my first paragraph.

  14.11.2005 14:24 #29

• Lethal_B

  074kev
  
  Difference is, though, is that with downlaoding, you get to keep the music and movies you download and most of which bear the exact resemblance to the actual product.
  
  Yo get to see the house/book/car. But if you don't want it, you are no better or worse off whereas with ditributable media on the internet, you can gain masses of free copyrighted material that you don't have the ownership of.
  
  Not saying that it is a bad thing, mind... :)
  

  
  Lethal's "Converting video to iPod" Guide - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/244629
  Lethal's "Creating Torrent's" Guide - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/251607

  14.11.2005 14:40 #30

• tednor

  Before we start calling people chuckleheads we might want to figure out how to use a calculator. Last time i checked 10 times 20 times 2.000,000 was 400 million, a substantially larger sum than four million. It's okay- we ALL hate math, n'est pas? The ridiculous sums of money film stars make is nothing compared to what the studios REALLY rake in (they hide their earnings in "amortized" accounting structures that make the above mentioned calculation error seem legitimate -in courst of law no less!) Has anyone ever read about the guy who plotted the first Batman movie from WB in the eighties? He settled for "net points" on the films earnings and it took several lawsuits to prove the film had ever earned a profit, even then it was a paltry sum he was paid based on these accounting tricks! What the stars earn is nothing to what the executives pocket even after running the studios into the ground and lavishly spending on themselves the entire time. Peter Guber and Michael (mr. ex-Streisand) Peters made a joke of Sony when they briefly helmed it and ran it into the red before golden-parachuting their way out. But it's okay, they can sue a few teenagers here and there and solve the world's problems.

  24.11.2005 16:58 #31

• joonbugg

  Who cares about these people getting in trouble for uploading/downloading stuff? I mean, most people (myself included) will just keep downloading stuff until they get caught, and in most of those cases, they will probably still continue to download. It doesnt phaze me one bit to hear about these people getting sued and stuff. Obviously, if I were ever caught, then maybe I would have a different perspective on things, but until then, I will keep uploading and downloading.

  24.11.2005 22:07 #32

• elminster

  The $900 million is only a forcast amount.
  They estimate how many movies or music is downloaded from P2P and say that they lost those sales.
  These downloads would not have been bought in a store anyways.
  Sales have actually risen in the movie and music industry, from previous years.
  
  The industries are using the media to control everyone - they totally control the media.

  25.11.2005 12:57 #33

• skopas

  Al-qeada is on the loose with threat written all over their actions. Yet, lets focus our attention on the individual who figured out a way to get free soda out of the vending machine. Place him behind bars. Should we be worried???

  12.12.2005 14:07 #34

• dufas

  Laws are usually upside down....It was not too long ago that a criminal could sue his/her victim because the criminal got injured during the commission of the crime..
  
  If an average person stole $5,000.00 worth of jewels from a store, that person, if caught, would usually be sentenced to a multiple year prison stretch, yet a movie star recently did this not once but three times and only got probation. A normal person would be looking at a three strikes offense and life in prison.
  
  Another star physically assaulted a police officer during a traffic stop and only got a lecture from a judge. Try that next time your stopped by a cop and see what happens to you.
  
  There have been untold numbers of movie and music people arrested for drugs. Very, very few of them have anything serious happen to them in a legal sense.
  
  All these MPAA and RIAA law suits are in the same catagory as the above. The laws are generally for the control of the small person, the rich, famous and the powerful can do pretty much as they want.
  
  The only consolling fact is that these self absorbed, holier than thou sicofants need us more than we need them...Now, if we can just get the majority of 'us' to realize this fact, things could be a lot better.....

  30.1.2006 06:57 #35

• snige

  As many have said mny of those who download the film wouldn't buy them. I have about 100 ps2 games which i have dl'd. Out of those I would ( and have I might add ) I have bought only about 15 or 20. The rest I wouldn't have come close to buying. so the industry wouldn't of got my money anyway.
  
  I rarely download films as you can't always trust the quality. I have just spent £1000's on my new home cinema and if a film has a lot of compression it looks crap on a plasma or LCD.
  
  But, no way is this going to stop me from using bit torrent. Why go after someone who uploaded just three films!!? There are thousands out there who have done sooooo much more. Hollywood sod off. You make millions and charge way too much for cinema tickets. I know this is TV but look at FRIENDS. The last two series they got paid £1m each episode!!! How on earth can you complain about piracy when you pay people that much?

  30.1.2006 08:47 #36

• 074kev

  Because they can.

  30.1.2006 10:56 #37

• RatedA

  Hey I think someone has probably answered this but how often do people get FINED for Bittorrent? (Not Jailed) And how do u avoid it, is it the size of all the crap u download that matters or is it the time u spent downloading?

  4.2.2006 10:06 #38

• newtype06

  so.. how do you avoid getting caught? will Peer Guardian 2 work?

  14.2.2006 00:59 #39

• borhan9

  Yes PG does work
  

  "THE MEDIOCRE TEACHER TELLS.
  THE GOOD TEACHER EXPLAINS.
  THE SUPERIOR TEACHER DEMONSTRATES.
  THE GREAT TEACHER INSPIRES."
  
  -"William Arthur Ward"
  
  Ace
  
  My Profile: http://my.afterdawn.com/borhan9/

  14.2.2006 01:10 #40

• newtype06

  Quote:Hey I think someone has probably answered this but how often do people get FINED for Bittorrent? (Not Jailed) And how do u avoid it, is it the size of all the crap u download that matters or is it the time u spent downloading?actually i wanna know too.. any help?

  8.3.2006 04:29 #41

• barilboy

  as long as there is a charge for anything, people will find a way out of shelling ou the money for it. and who doesn't want to save a couple (hundred) bucks by downloading for free?
  :)

  8.3.2006 09:26 #42