AfterDawn: News

Hong Kong man appeals Internet piracy verdict

The first man to be convicted of distributing movies illegally over the Internet using BitTorrent software, has appeared in Hong Kong's highest court on Wednesday to appeal the verdict. Chan Nai-ming was sentenced to three months in prison in 2005 for uploading Daredevil, Miss Congeniality and Red Planet using P2P software. It was "distributing" and not "downloading" that got him a jail sentence.

Chan used the screen name "Big Crook", which probably didn't help his case and is presumably why he was such a good candidate to pursue as an example. The lawyer for the 38 year old said that he uploaded the movies but did not distribute them. Interestingly, his lawyer seems hopeful that the court will determine whether the uploading done by Chan can really be considered as distribution.



He said that if any distribution took place at all, it was the downloaders who initiated the process. Since sharing of files on BitTorrent is done in chunks, users may have downloaded only very small amounts of any movie from Chan. An earlier appeal from Chan was rejected.

Source:
Yahoo

Written by: James Delahunty @ 10 May 2007 15:33

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• 8 comments

• PeaInAPod

  Quote:Chan used the screen name "Big Crook"lol, cocky bast**d!

  10.5.2007 18:06 #1

• borhan9

  LMAO!!! This whole article proves that they can not really outlaw p2p sharing of any kind cause both sides say the other is to blame. The down loaders say that the up loaders are to blame cause they upload them to be downloaded and the up loaders say the opposite.
  
  Never Ending cycle.

  10.5.2007 18:50 #2

• 8ert

  "The lawyer for the 38 year old said that he uploaded the movies but did not distribute them."
  
  As far as I am concerned uploadeing is the same as distributing. If they really want to get at the piracy then they need to get the uploaders. Without the uploaders, there would be no downloaders.
  
  Its funny how the farther we go with technology, the smaller the human brain gets.

  11.5.2007 16:26 #3

• Gnawnivek

  Hmmm, Sert, common sense-wise, i agree with you, but it's not that simple. By using your analogy, then gun makers/providers are murderers. It's not our brains getting smaller, it's getting more complicated.
  
  You said that uploading is pretty much the same as distributing, but you know that while you're downloading you're technically providing more uploading muscle in P2P network?

  14.5.2007 06:12 #4

• PeaInAPod

  Originally posted by Gnawnivek:...then gun makers/providers are murderers...Well no, they can't. Their are other uses for guns. Hunting, Target Shooting, etc. None of which involve killing another human being.
  
  Now this part...
  Quote:You said that uploading is pretty much the same as distributing, but you know that while you're downloading you're technically providing more uploading muscle in P2P network?Well their is only one reason to upload a file and that is to let others download it. And the only one time in P2P downloading that a person is required to upload is when using a protocol like BitTorrent. Networks like Gnutella (limewire), FastTrack (kazaa), all permit downloading with out uploading. And then we come upon the part that is all P2P isn't bad I use P2P to share files with my friends and family, photos of family get togethers etc. It's a lot faster than sending out 50+ emails. So like this news post said...
  Quote: It was "distributing" and not "downloading" that got him a jail sentence

  14.5.2007 13:33 #5

• Gnawnivek

  Quote:Originally posted by Gnawnivek:...then gun makers/providers are murderers...Well no, they can't. Their are other uses for guns. Hunting, Target Shooting, etc. None of which involve killing another human being.
  
  Now this part...
  Quote:You said that uploading is pretty much the same as distributing, but you know that while you're downloading you're technically providing more uploading muscle in P2P network?Well their is only one reason to upload a file and that is to let others download it. And the only one time in P2P downloading that a person is required to upload is when using a protocol like BitTorrent. Networks like Gnutella (limewire), FastTrack (kazaa), all permit downloading with out uploading. And then we come upon the part that is all P2P isn't bad I use P2P to share files with my friends and family, photos of family get togethers etc. It's a lot faster than sending out 50+ emails. So like this news post said...
  Quote: It was "distributing" and not "downloading" that got him a jail sentence*sigh* first, i'm not defending the guy in the article. Secondly, i'm trying to explain the difference between uploading and distributing. Of course, i might gave an inadequate explanation, but nevertheless there are differences. If not, do you think the lawyer actually going through with it?
  
  Okay, the gun example, you said it can be used for hunting, target shooting etc... So does "upload," you can share photos, you can share ideas etc... the bottom line is, by uploading something doesn't mean distributing (as in get-in-deep-crap distributing) as to making gun doesn't means to killing (as in go-to-jail shooting).
  
  Now, as to P2P downloading, i don't know about downloading w/o uploading stuffs, since i'm not all that technical in that area. However, the bottom line is, w/o some kind of "uploading" muscle, you can't really distribute something illegal to the point you raise a read flag can you? If that did happen, the lawyer probably won't use the defence in the article...
  
  I don't have a thing against P2P, hell, i don't have a thing against anything in the article. Just the wording in the posts...
  
  Murder, Killing, Hunting, aren't the words pretty mean the same? But yet, you can argue for ages...
  
  All i'm saying, it's pretty much the same thing with "uploading" and "distributing." As to those of you still defending "downloading" is not "distributing" or "uploading" i don't know what to say... Come on now, if you download something, you're telling me you won't distribute it? Or you won't upload it? Oh, you will keep the content to your self, i c... even then, you still upload/distribute the content to your discs/mem cards/devices/hard drives etc... And if you ever show the content to other people, that's F2F (face to face) distribution.

  15.5.2007 05:11 #6

• PeaInAPod

  @Gnawnivek
  
  True uploading a file/files is not always illegal. But were not talking about the world/public in general were talking about this one specific incident with a man who's alias is "Big Crook". And he uploaded the files in question as a torrent file to presumably multiple torrent trackers. There is no way you can honestly believe he had good intentions when he was doing this. When you upload to any network that is not secured/run by you you really have no idea who is downloading from you. So again uploading copyrighted material to a BitTorrent tracker = intention to pirate

  15.5.2007 14:34 #7

• Gnawnivek

  Originally posted by PeaInAPod:@Gnawnivek
  
  True uploading a file/files is not always illegal. But were not talking about the world/public in general were talking about this one specific incident with a man who's alias is "Big Crook". And he uploaded the files in question as a torrent file to presumably multiple torrent trackers. There is no way you can honestly believe he had good intentions when he was doing this. When you upload to any network that is not secured/run by you you really have no idea who is downloading from you. So again uploading copyrighted material to a BitTorrent tracker = intention to pirateWell, in a nutshell, yes, i agree with you common sense-wise. Well, crooks often got away with punishments. If they know a way out, they will hang on to it (well, call it survival instance, it's in every one of us). Unfortunately, the defense used in the article seems to be a good way for the guy to wiggle his way out. The fact that he's using the upload-is-not-distributing defense is pretty cocky too, but hey, at the end, it just might work for him. Of course, there are many other factors we don't know about, so there's not much to discuss. Whether he win or lose, i don't really care, but i'm sure he'll learn a lesson or two.
  
  Honestly, i don't understand why people bother with the crappy pirated materials. Yeah, even the quality is comparable to dvd, but so? To me, it's all about opportunity cost... I mean, if i have to spend 120 mins watching a movie, i rather want to watch a good quality movie (picture, sound and usually the actual content). Most of the times, i want subtitles too, since i'm anal about every words spoken by the characters in the film. Anyhow, time to wrap up, thanks for reading...

  16.5.2007 05:26 #8