[digitalengineer]

These IMAGiNE members were charged with several counts of criminal copyright infringement and they eventually received prison sentences ranging from 23 months in prison up to five years". ... "

“... he mentions that in his opinion the case should have been a civil one, and he doesn’t see why copyright infringement is a federal offense."

Can anyone elaborate why is it a Federal crime, like say kidnapping or bankrobbing?

[Spooky23]

The Constitution specifically gives congress the power to regulate copyright. It makes sense for it be that way, as allowing States to meddle with copyright would create chaos and barriers to commerce. Kidnapping is a Federal offense when there is a reasonable expectation that the criminal will cross state lines. Bank robbery is a Federal matter because the robber is defrauding the FDIC, who insures the deposits.

The law was originally written with printed material in mind. In those days, it's obvious that someone going to the trouble of setting up a printing press to duplicate a book or pamphlet was infringing copyright on a "commercial scale" -- which is where you cross the line from civil to criminal liability.

Digital media has been a grey area. RIAA/MPAA sits on one extreme, and the "information wants to be free" crowd is on the other. Today, I think that there is a consensus that a private citizen downloading a copy of a copyrighted work isn't a crime in most cases.

The grey area is around distribution. Is somebody seeding a torrent committing a crime? Most people would think no, if they think yes, not to the extent that it is worth prosecuting. Is someone sourcing and distributing unlicensed material at a reasonably high scale, branding it with a distintive mark (IMAGINE) committing a crime? The Feds think so.

[belorn]

Calling it a grey area between RIAA/MPAA and the "information wants to be free" crowd might do it a disservice. The goal of criminal law is to give out punishments and incapacitate those who violate a subset of laws, while civil law emphasis victim compensation.

If someone is redistributing information without a license in a not-for-profit manner, what is more important. Retribution and punishment, or victim compensation to the individual who produced the information?

Digital media, or someone printing out a pamphlet. Does the technology really matter when deciding what the goal of the law is? To me, it sound obvious that non-profit redistribution of information without a license is at most a civil law crime. That has nothing to do with "information wants to be free", and all to do with common sense in regard to the fundamental design of laws.

[Spooky23]

I gave those examples as polar extremes. RIAA's initial, extreme, position in 1997 was that you will pay $25 for a CD or $5 for a single (with selection limited by the publisher), period. Time passed, and now you have a broader array of choices (iTunes pay for a perpetual license, the Spotify-style subscription model, etc).

It depends on your point of view. If I paid a sports league millions of dollars for the right to broadcast a game, and you decided that you would take my broadcast and re-broadcast it for free, you are damaging me to the tune of millions of dollars -- dollars that you cannot possibly repay.

Technology is key here, because it lowered the barriers to reproducing content. Printing a pamphlet in 1850 was a big deal -- you needed a printing press and specialized workers. Today, you need 5 minutes and a $50 printer. Same story with vinyl records, or projector film.

At the end of the day, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. If I were King, I'd say that copyright holders are entitled to fair compensation, but in return for that compensation, society is entitled to have things enter the public domain in a reasonable period of time as well.

[Dylan16807]

No matter how many millions it should still be a civil matter unless there's some kind of fraud going on.

Also a single person rebroadcasting is probably only making a handful of copies. You can't say that they are personally damaging you for all those millions of dollars. Unless you want to exonerate everyone else in the swarm.

[belorn]

But that leaves my question unanswered; The question on whats is the goal. Is the goal that the copyright holders should be compensated, or that violators get punished? I law can only be in one of those two camps.

[chewxy]

I'm not American, but doesn't federal crime simply mean that the crime does not fall under the jurisdiction of states?

I can totally understand why it is a federal crime - copyright has to be enforced across the country. It'd be rather senseless to enforce copyrights by states.

Now, the real issue of course is as what he said: Why is this a crime? Shouldn't this be a civil issue, to be settled between the two parties? This is the part about copyright enforcement laws I don't get: how is it a crime?

[zokier]

> Shouldn't this be a civil issue, to be settled between the two parties

I kinda understand at least one reason why it's not that simple. In high profile cases like this, you could have hundreds of copyright holders wanting action. Coordinating all those people could be impossible, and thus legitimate cases would fall flat on their faces just for lack of cooperation.

[chewxy]

If the copyright holders are unable to form a class action suit against one tiny group... I don't see why they should be entitled to going 'one level up' and getting federal involvement and making it a crime.

[pyre]

You're saying that they should be Federal crimes due to logistical reasons. You do realize that making them Federal crimes includes prison sentences, while civil cases do not. Just because it would be logistically difficult to get a civil case organized is not enough of an excuse for adding jail time to the punishment.

[belorn]

Aren't that always the case with class action suits? I would also like special criminal laws to be added each time a company do something that result in a class action suit. It would make things so much easier.

[scarecrowbob]

Not that I agree with this, but there are a range of factors that make infringement a criminal offense:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506

Specifically: "(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution."

[seanc722]

Hmm good question. I cannot see why it is not civil... When I think about civil lawsuits it seems to fit in. Individual wanting compensation and a cease of the acitivities... I don't understand why there is jail time involved...

[martinced]

"Can anyone elaborate why is it a Federal crime...?"

Because the golden rule is that the one who has the gold makes the rule?

Seriously now: it's when I see crazy stuff like that that I'm happy to live in Europe. Even if not everything is clean here: especially with all the ones who have the gold trying to lobby hard and use insiders to push crazy EU laws in.

Another really serious issue is that "TV on demand" can often be really sucky: I'm using a TV+Internet provider that sells movie but the offering is really lame. I mean: it's terribly lame. As a result I'm sometimes asking friends who are into piracy to give me copy of some movies I'd be fully willing to pay 4 or 5 Euros for (the typical price at which my provider sells me the movie).

Going to the DVD store to rent a DVD? I used to that and pay for my movies. But these stores they're dying one after the other (due to the competition of both "tv on demand" and piracy).

So for some movies I "need" to pirate them if I want to see them, which is sad.