NinjaVideo Admin Phara Gets 22 Months In Jail, 500 Hours Of Community Service & Has To Pay MPAA $210k
from the well,-well... dept
Today was the sentencing for Hana "Phara" Beshara, the admin for NinjaVideo who has received plenty of attention in the last few months. Just a few hours ago, she was sentenced to 22 months in prison, another two years probation after that, 500 hours of community service and she has to pay back the $209,896.95 that she supposedly made from NinjaVideo to the MPAA. I'm sure they'll be passing that along to moviemakers, right? Either way, what's telling here is that the judge appears to have given Beshara significantly less than what the government asked for.After receiving what appears to be some pretty bad legal advice, Beshara was indicted, and quickly realized that she was left with little choice but to plead guilty in the case. Just a few weeks ago, we wrote about the fantastic and detailed American Prospect article by Rob Fischer, which detailed Beshara's story in a way where she certainly made it clear that she didn't agree with the reasonableness of the charges against her. Once again, it seems as if Beshara has been on the receiving end of bad legal advice (talking to the press post-guilty plea, but pre-sentencing... not so smart).
The US Attorney, Neil MacBride (who, it's important to note, spent years as the Business Software Alliance's "anti-piracy" boss), asked the judge to throw the book at her, using Fischer's article to repeatedly claim that Beshara's "substantial ego" and "inflated sense of self-importance" justified sending a strong message with the sentencing. Who knew that having a big ego was illegal? MacBride -- as he used to do with the BSA -- totally overplayed the claims of "losses" to the entertainment industry -- insisting that, every week, the MPAA alone was harmed to the tune of $1.5 million, "resulting in a staggering sum if the figure is extrapolated" to cover the 120 weeks that the site was in existence. Here's a tip, Neil, if extrapolating leads you to "a staggering sum," perhaps it's because your assumptions are wrong.
Either way, the judge appears to have decided not to completely buy into these claims of harm. While the government "agreed to limit the loss" to just $1 million, even though "the harm was certainly far more than $1 million," the judge seems to have capped the financial restitution to just her salary from NinjaVideo. The judge appears to have chosen not to also include a fine (which sentencing guidelines would allow between $10,000 and $100,000). On top of that, the judge gave Beshara less time in jail then either what Beshara claimed she expected (3 years) or what the sentencing guidelines and MacBride suggested (46 to 57 months). It seems that the judge didn't buy into all of MacBride's assertions.
Either way, expect the government to play this up as some huge victory against the scourge of online infringement and use it to justify continued censorship of websites.
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Filed Under: copyright, hana beshara, ice, infringement, jail, neil macbride, operation in our sites, phara, sentencing
Companies: mpaa, ninjavideo
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How on earth can she owe the MPAA anything?
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Do you think there are a lot of criminals who agree withe the reasonableness of the charges against them?
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I guess the girl deported to Columbia was her own fault for giving a fake name.
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Re: How on earth can she owe the MPAA anything?
If we were not in such economic hard-times, I'd suggest collecting cash from citizens and buying the politicians back. You'd need roughly 1 dollar from each American and you'd have 312 million dollars, so you could theoretically buy 312 politicians on Congress and the rest... fire them and replace them with non-zomby-like people.
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If sharing is a crime, the whole of humanity is criminal.
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Then you have the deniers that will rail against any charge.
Then you have the ones that are guilty of a lesser crime (whether in their minds or reality) railing against a trumped up charge.
Then you have the innocent who will also rail against any charge.
In any case, the charges should be true, accurate and the punishment should fit the crime.
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Please try not to confuse Hollywood movies (where criminals are always dragged to prison screaming "I'm innocent! I'm innocent!") with reality.
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You mean the reality where Hollywood tries to drag innocent people off to prison?
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Re: How on earth can she owe the MPAA anything?
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Yes.
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Yes, go figure. You'd solve most problems associated with drugs if you'd just legalize them. Not all of them, but most.
Remember, Alcohol was illegal during the prohibition. Remind me how that turned out?
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Yeah, that's fair.
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Problems with extrapolating...
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Outrageous
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Because lawyers are so cheap. The difference of the High Court and Low Courts continues.
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I know why. Because the only true principle here is F-R-E-E-dom. It's all about the freeloading. This high-minded bullshit about censorship and freedom of speech is a huge, steaming pile of bullshit. Where were the ad networks? They paid NinjaVideo hundreds of thousands and in turn must have made even much more. WHy didn't they step up either? The answer is always the same.... money. That's all this fight has ever been about. And here's a shining example of what could have been a principled stand for all of those who claim it's about free speech and what happens. Freeloaders looking at their shoes, hands clamped tightly on their wallets. You all are a bunch of frauds.
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P.S. I guess I kinda lied about not even beginning to address your rambling nonsense because a legal defense fund was mounted for her and she raised $10,000 from her own forums (which you would know if you actually read the linked articles). By your description those forums must be full of freeloaders. I guess their hands weren't clamped as tightly on their wallets are you suggest...
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You're not seriously suggesting that justice being contingent on a third party like Techdirt, Masnick, ACLU, EFF, CDT, PK, Google, or my personal wallet is acceptable are you? Because when people point out to you there's no justice without proper funding your response is 'well why didn't you give her money' as if that's how justice should be served and that's ok. As if it's our fault and not the fault of the justice system itself that she got no justice due to a lack of funds.
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Feel free to resuming laughing at injustice while the rest of us rightly consider the fact that doing so is indicative of sociopathy.
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Excellent!
Hope she has fun with her community service. Maybe she'll get to feel like what it is to work for FREE.
The law CAN work in the USA. Now time for against against foreign thieves.
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http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/6/150152
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Re: Excellent!
If you are working for free it is because you're not creating what people want or given them a reason to buy.
Ever stop and eat the "FREE" sample at the grocery store but never buy? You were not hungry either, but you ate it because it was free. HUMAN nature. You would NOT have bought that product being sampled either.
See how fucked up your logic is? See how free samples provided by companies does NOT make them bankrupt despite people not being hungry or intending to/actually purchasing their products?
And on the flip side, people who are NOT hungry but DO LIKE the product will BUY it BECAUSE OF THE FREE SAMPLE!! Not a lick either, you get to eat it! No where is there a regurgitation bucket where you only get a taste. You get to leave with that FREE item in your stomach, no police, no court time, no abuse of the law.
Odd concept I bet.
Thanks for coming out!
PS If you try to claim that digital media and free samples at the food store are "unrelated" then you also discount that whole "if you steal a candy bar or download a movie for free" argument too!
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Re: Excellent!
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Probably a lot more than you ever would. But I'm not expecting a lobbyist for bad laws to actually adhere to civility in a debate.
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Yeah, except the rightful owner wasn't providing samples Phara was. And it wasn't samples, it was entire movies.
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Didn't think so.
Any more baseless, misinformation you wish to share with us today?
Perhaps you could share on the funding to abuse the legal system? Maybe share which judges were paid off (and politicians too) to ensure anyone trying to better society IS LEFT HANGING?
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Point being, as you seemed to have missed, FREE != ripping people off. Free CAN and DOES equal to increased sales, as does sampling. If people enjoyed the sample, they will buy more. If people have no intention of buying, they can still enjoy the sample.
SO FREE IS NOT ALWAYS a loss, and in fact improves chances of revenues!
And if you want to argue "rightful owner providing samples" you should look at the benefits of those WHO DO provide samples! Compare that to the companies who do not and see how much their revenues increase? Try alienating customers, yeah that works.
Have Humpty Dumpty stand there casting insults for those who sample and buy (or sample and not buy) Frito-Lay chips. See how many people buy Humpty Dumpty after that!
You're as blind as Cary Sherman and Mitch Bainwol.
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And if it bothers you SO MUCH to "suffer" then stop reading and troll somewhere else. How about Faux News, they would love you over there. Or maybe Lamar Smith or Capcom forums?
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Really AC? You really actually don't believe anyone against copyright abuse donated money to her defense fund? Let me guess, you have no way of proving it. Oh well, that was your big chance prove that you're not simply a shill who can talk the talk but little else.
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Side question about shell companies
Can I just pay some $2k registration fee or something, then pirate to my hearts content, then when a law suit comes down, I claim it was the company that did it and dissolve the company...
aka "get out of jail card"
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So do you. In fact, Mike even allows you to disrupt intelligent attempts to solve problems and benefit people (aka find the better solution so artists get paid and content creators create and release things WORTH BUYING!)
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We know they won't but has anyone investigated where the money goes after it reaches the MPAA?
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Get off you high horse. How can you ever expect to see the other side of the argument if you think every on that side is less than human.
Stop filtering the whole world through your point of view and stop pretending you have the right to act better than anyone else. I know what you do to yourself at night.
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What you believe is irrelevant to the facts. Ahmadinejad doesn't believe in the Holocaust either, just as an example of people who don't believe despite facts. The facts, before you claim there are none, are the $10k in donations to her fund.
Who donated is irrelevant and I'm not interested in going back and forth.
You're just as fucked in the head as the idiots who want to see the long form of Obama's birth certificate. Who the fuck cares.
We ask you and your shills for actual proof of damages because your math is entirely bullshit and what do you do, spew the same useless crap and hide your data.
But accuse us of lying because we don't share our personal receipts so you can send your paid-for cop friends and lawyers after us for supporting people's rights for due process.
Go back under your rock.
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How much have you contributed to Righthaven's defense fund?
You just gonna leave them hanging after they have worked so hard to stretch the limits of copyright law towards your way of thinking?
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We all knew you were full of shit, straw-man fallacies, no data to back up your shill claims, piss-poor logic, etc... based on your first few sentences.
But rather than be blind like you, we at least gave you a chance to prove you're full of it.
NOTE: Saying you are full of shit is not the same as calling you names, ad-hom attacks like you choose to argue with.
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Thanks for explaining that saying that I'm full of shit is different than calling me a name. It's nice that all of those years in high school of staring at people from inside your locker has made you so sensitive to others feelings.
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Months later...
MPAA worker: Sir, why am I getting laid off...? You said that our paychecks would increase when that bill became a law...
MPAA CEO: It's those evil pirates! They've managed to trick us into helping them! If you're willing to work as an astroturfer again, I'll give you your job back!
MPAA worker: Of course, sir!
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Nor discussing why you didn't contribute either, apparently.
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One one side your freetards, which must include everyone you disagree with here as we all must spend the night searching for torrents and other places to pirate the ohhhhhhhh so wonderful products the RIAA and MPAA come up with these days.
On the other hand you don't like it when outfits like Rightshaven go overboard in the other direction, at least after they've decided to cut and run after being just a touch shady. But if the *AAs of the world are gonna protect their copyrights then they're also gonna have to employ the lawyers you love so little.
Another nice knot you're tying of yourself.
It's just staggering how you keep it up day after day after day after day after day.
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My point is the self-righteous, loud-mouthed free speech advocates at Techdirt did nothing to help this woman. Neither did the so called free speech advocacy groups like the ACLU , EFF and company. Nor did Google whose Adsense network profited handsomely from her "free speech". Talk's cheap Jay. And a failure to back talk up with tangible action by so-called advocates is simply despicable and very revealing as to the degree of fidelity to the stated purpose.
Google doesn't give a flying fuck about freedom of speech. It's a convenient stalking horse to allow widespread infringement to continue to enable them to profit from eyeballs on ads. The apologist groups are as weak and flat as day old Coors Light. Google is delivering cash in wheelbarrows and they get to make serious speeches to the press and members on the Hill about censorship and free speech. All along they know that with a nip here and a tuck there- Google will go dark after it gets a better (for them) bill. Techdirtbag Nation is nauseatingly hypocritical. Everyone's willing to pontificate, sign petitions and send e-mails- but did nothing to help this kid. I didn't help her because I don't believe in her cause and what she did. But you guys do, and you didn't do shit- because it would have required a measure of self-sacrifice. And the innate sense of entitlement that leads you (Techdirtbags) to believe that it is somehow OK to take the creative output of another without compensating the rightful owner is the same is precisely why this kid is going to spend the next couple of years in jail.
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Unfortunately this point of light will be locked away in a dungeon for 22 months, her sentence satisfying only the empty suits whose jobs became redundant years ago and who are now strangling the entertainment industry in their bid to stay relevant. Sad.
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If by rightful owner you mean the public yes I absolutely believe they should be compensated with free access to it.
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A legal defense fund for a cause you believe in or person you support is a bit different than wanting to fix up you hovel. I suggest you contact Habitat For Humanity.
This is why you can just suck a cock.
You must have me confused with your boyfriend. Sorry. However that may be a solution to pose to your plumber or flooring man.
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That doesn't change the fact that I view copyright as fundamentally unjust whether infringement is done for profit or whether it is not. I don't care about freeloading, whether people infringe for money or whether they don't.
Perhaps publicly we might talk a good game about creators getting their fair share, but I personally don't care whether creators get paid or not unless their creations mean something to me (and I decide to support them by purchasing a copy or, in a copyright-free future, by giving them a contribution). If creators want to get paid, they shouldn't produce until they have a promise of payment.
Ideas are naturally free. If you want to restrict who has access to an idea, keep it secret and don't release it to the public.
I view copyright as an artificial coercive unregulated state-granted monopoly privilege. I view it as looting and mooching on a large scale.
I don't care whether or not the music and movie industries live or die. I want to see them stop infringing on the rights of the private property owners of the Internet to peacefully enjoy their property. That's the thing: the Internet is private property, and just wants to be left alone. The movie and music industries can't leave it alone and are trying to use the government to destroy it. The RIAA and MPAA are serial moochers and looters - the real freeloaders in the equation here.
We aren't going to change our views. You're welcome to post here, but I don't see what good it accomplishes. Perhaps you should go elsewhere. Thanks.
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So I write a script. I borrow $1 million and direct my own film. I offer it for sale to anyone who cares to buy it... or not. WTF? If you want to watch it, pay me for my investment and labor or if not, don't bother watching. And I am looting and mooching?
Either you live in a mud hut in some God forsaken backwater or are an embittered, failed creator who simply couldn't cut it.
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Yes, you are, if you try to use government violence to extract a rent from me, which is what copyright is.
I don't really want to have anything to do with the MPAA or RIAA. I don't buy their product - on purpose - their entire business model is built on government force, and am not interested in it.
I only ask they keep off my private property online and not try to mess with DNS or other Internet infrastructure so as to prop up their failed government monopolies.
The Internet doesn't need government. It just needs to be left alone. Stop using government force to steal from private property owners, looter.
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Option One: View my film. Pay for the experience.
Option Two: Don't watch my film. Don't pay.
You choose, loser.
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Except, of course, if you use government force, which is what you're about.
Typical looter - goes running to his government protectors when the market rejects his business model. What a loser.
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The Sellout of Phara
“Perhaps you are affiliated with the ACLU, Google, Youtube, MegaUpload, Rapidshare, The Pirate Parties around the world. Perhaps you are financially comfortable and you feel passionately about the issue at hand. We need… NEED… legal sponsorship in addition to legal donation,” she pleads.
“We are up against the Federal Government of the United States. They are petrifying. PETRIFYING,” says Phrara.
“They want to cage us. They most likely will,”
“Please don’t let them. All it takes is $1 from each of you.”
A dollar?..... for shame.
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Re: The Sellout of Phara
Should have worked to get the law repealed so you looters have to get real jobs rather than mooch off of others.
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Judging from the stories involved, she was making an online library and ICE shut it down.
And all you can do is point to Google and try to extract money from them for the politicians they have to buy. Bravo.
But let's make a few things clear here. I do give money to Techdirt. The amount is none of your business. Same with if I gave money to Ninjavideo, the Salvation Army, or the Red Cross. If you want to tell how much you give to charity, or to another group for a viewpoint, be my guest. But far be it for me to tell you my personal choices. What I will tell you is that the $10,000 they received was an amassed donation from a lot of people that felt they could find good legal counsel to help them. Unfortunately they didn't.
So going on and on about this is specifically your choice, but it's a misleading argument. People donated what they could to a site they liked to find good legal representation. The point that I've made (there's a difference between the high court of Righthaven and lawyers vs the low court of the Ninjavideo admins) still stands. The other point (the law is being twisted in order to criminalize innocent people) about CCI being a misleading misnomer here is also something you love to ignore.
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Option 4: Wait until it's available for nothing as part of the streaming package I pay for, or legally on a free site
Option 5: Buy a 20 disc box set of crappy movies that failed at the box office, and watch it because it was bundled in with the movies I actually wanted
Option 6: Wait until it's on free-to-air TV
Option 7: Catch it round a friend's house, turn off after 5 minutes and be thankful I didn't pay a penny for that crappy movie.
You just LOVE to pretend that the world operates in a black-and-white binary fashion, don't you? It's so much easier than addressing reality.
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Mooching off of others is so good.
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I'm not paying you for your excesses, go try and earn a million honestly.
You can't just force others to obey artificial limits that endanger the foundations of social norms and society.
You are not entitled to a monopoly I don't care what is for, nobody is and you shouldn't have one either.
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And BTW, viewing it IS taking it. Because that's how you consume the product in the case of a movie...LOL. Not every director "goes running to his government protectors." Ever heard of indies who actually give their fans reasons to buy through sites like gofundme or kickstarter? But I guess you think they don't have a right to ask for payment either. (even though most indie productions are probably on your side about how stupid things like sopa and DNS blocking are...freetard logic!)
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The only good prosecutor is a dead one!!! ;)
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In the case of content creators though, it's not just a "sample" being taken; it's the entire damn product. Not to mention that it certainly isn't authorized by the creator or company who made the product in the first place. I agree samples would be a good idea; (and this is coming from a musician btw) but people don't just want to dl the first 5 mins of a movie or the first minute of a song. Thanks to the industry moronic fatcats dragging their feet, people have actually become USED to getting the entire product for free with no consequences at all. So for those of us that actually DO cwf+rtb, it's still annoying as fuck to watch your youtube/other free resource views&dl's to be in the millions, while your sales don't reflect the same numbers. All because people want to enjoy "samples" without actually buying it, just because it's readily available for free illegally.
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Phara sucked anyways
Part of me feels bad for Phara for how it turned out. There's another part of me that thinks karma is a bitch.
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HAHAH
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