Is Selling Counterfeit Software Worse Than Bank And Identity Fraud?
from the equivalencies dept
There's a story making the rounds about a guy who's apparently going to jail for selling unauthorized copies of software on eBay, and the software industry is trumpeting what a huge victory this is over "counterfeiting," by claiming: "The Mondello case demonstrates that these pirates won't simply get a slap on the wrist when caught. They very well may end up doing serious time in federal prison." Right, but if you read the details, the conviction wasn't just for copyright infringement, but for identity fraud and mail fraud. That is, as part of his operation, he illegally obtained peoples' bank account info. That would appear to be a lot worse than copyright infringement, but the press seems to focus only on the "counterfeiting" angle, because that's the story the software industry association seems to be feeding the press. They want people to think that they'll go to jail for piracy, when that's quite unlikely.
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Filed Under: counterfeiting, ebay, identity fraud, mail fraud, software
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Nope, it's worse.
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Selling counterfeit software isn't just piracy, though - it's profiting from piracy, a wholly different kettle of fish, and while it shouldn't give jail, the fine should be substantial.
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Gray? Not So.
Maybe you have a point when somebody is actively misrepresenting themselves in order to sell software. In this case, you don't.
It may be wrong accordingly to the laws, but it doesn't necessary mean it is an illegitimate economic activity. Sometime the law is itself immoral.
In this case, these software monopolists are trying to maintain their reproduction monopoly privileges at the expense of the economy and the public.
That is not to say that illegal reproduction of software is the best way to stick it to the "man". Rather, it is probably the worst way to protest these monopolies(and it also benefit these monopolists also).
A much better way is to boycott these monopolists and use alternative software(such as Firefox, GNU/Linux, Apache) that respect the public's right to ownership of software.
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Always about the Agenda
If you download something for yourself, unlikely you'll even get a slap on the wrist. If you are creating many copies, and selling them, for profit, then you can get some fines, and possibly jail time, if really unlucky.
So just keep your downloading to personal use, don't sell it, and you're unlikely to even get looked at.
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jail?
fraud etc i.e. non violent crimes should be handled via fines and other punishments
to be honest maybe even fraud etc shouldn't be jail time.
why should the tax payer _pay_ to house these people? a large fine and probably some community service type work. even if just breaking rocks.
fail to keep those conditions and then prison maybe.
give judges and courts the power to be a bit more inventive with punishments. locking people up is just not cost effective for non violent offenders.
and to think you can get a longer sentence for not paying taxes than drink driving... priorities people.
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Re: jail?
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Re: jail?
And to think that you can also get a longer sentence for drunk driving than yakking on a cell phone while driving even though the latter is more dangerous. It's all about politics, not reality.
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Of course, once a matter enters the criminal justice world prosecutors look for anything and everything that can possibly be leveled as charges.
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Real Problem
> "counterfeiting" angle, because that's the
> story the software industry association
> seems to be feeding the them.
The real problem here isn't the software industry. Of course they're going to spin things in their favor. That's to be expected.
The problem is the media, which no longer ever bothers to really do its job and investigate a story. They just parrot press releases from various industry and government groups without actually checking to see if they are accurate or not.
Remember when we had real journalists and not just PR hacks?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Real Problem
> "counterfeiting" angle, because that's the
> story the software industry association
> seems to be feeding the them.
The real problem here isn't the software industry. Of course they're going to spin things in their favor. That's to be expected.
The problem is the media, which no longer ever bothers to really do its job and investigate a story. They just parrot press releases from various industry and government groups without actually checking to see if they are accurate or not.
Remember when we had real journalists and not just PR hacks?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]