IRS Also More Than Willing To Steal Money Under The Pretense Of Crime Fighting

from the because-involuntary-taxes-aren't-thieving-enough dept

The Department of Justice and its underlings (the FBI and nearyl every law enforcement agency in the nation) have turned the ideal of asset forfeiture (defund drug dealers; return money to the defrauded, etc.) into a free-roaming, many-tentacled opportunistic beast, one that "liberates" any amount of "suspicious" cash from tourists, legitimate business owners or anyone else who just happens to have "too much" cash in their possession.

The IRS is in on this as well. The agency doesn't need to prove anyone is guilty of anything before seizing assets. It just needs to feel that things aren't quite right.

For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away — until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000.

The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report.

The person whose money has been seized isn't necessarily guilty of anything. Hinders hasn't been arrested, nor does there appear to be any sort of ongoing investigation. The IRS hasn't hit Hinders with tax liens for unpaid taxes or subjected her to an audit. All it did was look at records for her deposits and decide that because none of them surpassed the $10,000 mark (which triggers automatic reporting), everything in the account must be somehow illegal.

Here's the brain-bleeding explanation of IRS's civil forfeiture program.

Civil forfeiture is an in rem proceeding against the property itself, not the owner of property. Civil forfeiture is a process that is separated from, and not dependent on, a criminal prosecution. Civil forfeiture can proceed administratively or judicially.

Hinders never needs to be charged. In fact, she never needs to be heard from again. The IRS can seize and hold this money indefinitely and decide whether or not the $33,000 is "guilty" without any input from Hinders. To opportunistic agents, any sub-$10,000 deposit is "evidence" that the depositer is deliberately avoiding reporting requirements, rather doing so for any number of more mundane, less criminal reasons.

Take this IRS seizure from last year, for example.

Since he bought it in 1978, Terry Dehko has owned Schott’s Supermarket in Fraser, Michigan. His daughter, Sandy, began working at the store when she was 12 and now helps her father run it. The IRS has not argued before a court of law that Terry and Sandy have committed a crime, but that has not stopped it from seizing their entire bank account, worth over $35,000. The IRS claims that Terry and Sandy violated federal anti-money laundering laws by making regular deposits of cash in amounts less than $10,000.

But the IRS has offered no evidence that money laundering has occurred. In fact, it has done nothing more than seize Dehko's money. The explanation for Dehko's deposit patterns make perfect sense, but perfect sense won't fund further IRS activity.

Their insurance policy, aimed at small businesses like their grocery store, protects them from theft, but only up to $10,000. Since any dollar over 10,000 left in the store is liable to uninsurable theft, Terry and Sandy make sure their revenues are deposited in their bank account before accumulating above $10,000.

Anyone nailed by an IRS seizure can fight for the return of their money, but there's nothing resembling due process here. Those choosing to do so would have to file a lawsuit intervening in the IRS's forfeiture case. In other words, the situation must be forced. Simply showing up and defending money from accusations of wrongdoing isn't enough. In fact, it isn't even a possibility, at least not in this case. Prosecutors for the Dehko case offered the them a "deal:" an implicit admission of guilt via a plea bargain (presumably on behalf of the guilty money) and the return of 20% of the seized funds.

There are more stories like this. A dairy had $70,000 seized by the IRS after a string of deposits following the sale of farm equipment raised bank eyebrows. Again, prosecutors offered a pennies-on-the-dollar settlement to the couple whose assets were taken. A 27-year-old vending business, heavily reliant on cash flow, had nearly $450,000 seized. Again, "structuring" of deposits was the excuse used to justify the government's theft of earned income. The IRS civil forfeiture system is every bit as crooked as the one being abused by law enforcement agencies. Perverted incentives have demolished restraint and fairness and turned it into an extremely efficient way to stockpile cash.

According to the Institute for Justice, the Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture Fund held $93.7 million of seized assets in 1986. In 2008, that fund was greater than $1 billion…

Fortunately for the Dehkos, they won their battle against the government and had the seized funds returned. The IRS was ordered to produce proof of wrongdoing or release the funds. It chose the latter and was additionally held responsible for $71,500 in attorneys' fees. Dropping the case also allowed the IRS to walk away from the debacle without further legal examination of its civil asset seizure policies. So, while the Dehkos obtained a win, the IRS ultimately learned nothing from the experience. The fact that the average forfeiture battle racks up over $20,000 in legal fees means that more often than not, the IRS will get to keep nearly everything it seizes.

Filed Under: cash, civil forfeiture, government, in rem, irs, stealing

NYPD Officer Takes Cash From Man During Stop-And-Frisk; Pepper Sprays Him When He Asks To Have It Returned

from the oh,-these-aren't-weapons,-these-are-ANSWERS dept

Here's a very short clip involving the seizure of funds by police and pepper spray as the answer to all questions.

In a video obtained by the New York Times, an unnamed officer forces 35-year-old Lamard Joye against a fence surrounding a Coney Island basketball court and removes what appears to be a handful of cash from Joye's pocket at the six-second mark.

"You see this? You see this?" Joye says, before demanding his money back. The officer replies, "You're gonna mouth off?" and begins to discharge pepper spray into Joye's face.

Joye's sister also gets pepper sprayed after asking the officer to state his name.

Joye was not arrested and has yet to receive his money back. He claims Officer William Montemarano took $1300 from him during this "stop-and-frisk."

The NYPD has issued a statement in defense of Officer Montemarano.

Following accusations that a New York City police officer stole $1,300 in cash from a Brooklyn man during a stop-and-frisk, the department said all the man had was $62, which has been vouchered.

“No one stole $1,300,” Deputy Commissioner Stephen Davis told the New York Daily News Thursday.

Apparently it's OK to take money from uncharged individuals during stop-and-frisks as long as it's: a) not very much money, and b) it's vouchered at the station.

What went unaddressed was the officer's use of pepper spray to shut up both Joye and his sister, who were both asking for the return of the money taken by Montemarano.

Between the asset seizure and the low-level brutality, there's not much about this that's all that surprising. Small abuses of power like these happen every single day. The only thing that's changed is the likelihood that someone will record the incident.

Gothamist's coverage of the story adds this very enlightening comment, presumably left by a fellow cop at Thee Rant, a forum frequented by law enforcement officers.

I know this cop and he is a solid guy with (if not) 20 years, very close to it.

It is possible that he has even more than 20 years.

I cannot fathom why he is still running around on Patrol. Truly unf u c k i n g believable.

[One possible reason? Officer Montemurano was recently named in a police brutality lawsuit alleging that he and another officer beat an arrestee with their nightsticks and kicked him in the throat. The city settled for $25,000.]

From an OBJECTIVE point of view and NOT KNOWING WHY the cops were called to this scene, I do not know WHY he would remove a wad of money from someone's pocket.

MONEY is not contraband and UNLESS you are collaring someone for robbery, GL or narcotics sales and are going to voucher the money as proceeds of a crime, you have no business WHATSOEVER removing money from a mope's pocket.

I repeat, you have no business taking money out of some mope's pocket because he is a loud mouth involved in a large dispute, which is what this situation appears to be.

That said, I would bet my house that this officer returned the money or vouchered it - he did NOT steal this money.

[Which seems to have been confirmed by the NYPD statement, but doesn't explain why money is being taken from someone who wasn't arrested.]

Spritzing the crowd with mace a la DI Bologna* is the cherry on top of the Sundae. In the current climate, that is going to be a problem.

I must say, the daily videos and the daily wholesale suspensions and modifications of MOS have left me exasperated.

It is as if the cops are completely OBLIVIOUS.

Do they read newspapers, do they ever watch TV, do they speak to other cops, do they ever see the Finest spitting out these 'change of duty' statuses?

It would appear that they do not.

It would appear that they are blissfully ignorant of what is going on in the world around them.

It appears that the PBA says and does nothing to raise their awareness that there is an anti-cop feeding frenzy in progress.

I am bewildered as to how this all continues.....

*Refresher link for Deputy Inspector Bologna's love of pepper spray.

This forum member makes a point that very few within the law enforcement community will ever raise. It's no longer business as usual out there. People are watching.

It's as if a majority of law enforcement agencies view the current "anti-cop feeding frenzy" as some sort of a fad -- something they can just muscle through without changing officer behavior, altering their training or even holding those caught in the act accountable for their misconduct.

Everyone has a camera these days. Anyone with a cell phone also has a recording device. YouTube gives everyone a platform to lift local incidents into the worldwide consciousness.

It's not just the ubiquity of cameras, though. It's the interconnectedness the internet provides. Brutality or misconduct lawsuits filed in small towns used to only be covered in local papers. Now, even the smallest of local news websites can be swept into basic searches for information.

And yet, the pace of these incidents doesn't seem to be slowing. Officers are still acting as though their worst behavior is still largely unobserved. They're not learning from the past mistakes of countless others. Even those who have been "burned" previously continue to act as though they can abuse their power to harass and intimidate people. Just read through the numerous postings at Photography Is Not A Crime. Many of the posts deal with the same law enforcement entities and the same accountability activists, and yet, there's no indication that policy changes or previous bad press have had any deterrent effect on the officers involved.

As the forum comment points out, there's no apparent sense of self-awareness evident in officers like Montemarano. He notes that the PBA (Patrolmen's Benevolent Association) isn't doing anything to help officers be more aware of public perception. I don't know why he's surprised by this. The PBA, like many other police unions, is one of the first entities to protest any changes in policy meant to address police misconduct, and actively fights additional accountability efforts like the use of body cameras. These unions are also instrumental in returning fired cops to their former positions, showing that even when local PDs finally make an effort to shed the worst in their ranks, their efforts can often be undone by entities that put an officer's employment well ahead of the public interest and the police department itself.

It's not that there aren't any positive signs. It's that there are so few, compared to the amount of citizen documentation piling up. This isn't some temporary change in public perception. It's ongoing, and it's not going to get any better if law enforcement officers remain insulated from accountability and wholly oblivious to the implications of their actions.

Filed Under: money, nypd, pepper spray, stealing, stop and frisk

Dumb Criminal Posts Facebook Photo Wearing The Dress She Stole Earlier That Day, Is Summarily Arrested

from the dress-to-impress dept

At some point, it might become useful for Facebook to release some data on exactly how many dumb criminals have been brought to justice via some aspect of the social media giant. For reasons I can't fathom, it seems like we see this all the time. Criminals share the police station's status update implicating themselves. Fraternities vomit their crimes all over their Facebook pages. Fugitives from the law occasionally post pictures from their vacations, alerting police to their exact whereabouts. It's a brave and utterly stupid new world out there for criminals and they're just not handling it well.

The latest example is Danielle Saxton, who thought it was a good idea to steal a distinctive leopard-print dress (very tasteful) from a clothing boutique and then post pictures of herself wearing the stolen property to Facebook mere hours later.

Police say 27-year-old Danielle Saxton stole from a downtown boutique last week. Then, she posted pictures of herself wearing the merchandise. Investigators say Saxton shared the pics just a few hours after the theft. The images quickly spread on Facebook, and led officers straight to her. Police say the pictures are evidence of shoplifting committed by Saxton. The theft happened at Mortie's Boutique in West Frankfort, where multiple items disappeared last Friday.

It takes a special brand of hubris to put stolen property on display in this manner. Why not just steal the Hope Diamond and dangle it from your ear like the world's most obnoxious earing? The shop's owner, Kert Williams, had security cameras on the premises and posted about the theft on the shop's own social media page. The enterprising, facebook-ing public did a Perry Mason and alerted the authorities, who picked Saxton up for theft. An arrest she feels is grossly unjust, mind you, with some rather impressive reasoning.

“Her excuse was there was nobody in here. We were in the back working, and that she could just take it. You know, not really much of an excuse there,” Williams told News 3.

Well, no, it isn't much of an excuse, but we're not dealing with Carl Sagan here, if you take my meaning. Enjoy those court dates, Danielle. Try not to wear any stolen merchandise to the courthouse, mmkay?

Filed Under: criminals, social media, stealing

Surprise: MPAA Told It Can't Use Terms 'Piracy,' 'Theft' Or 'Stealing' During Hotfile Trial

from the a-bit-of-good-news dept

I knew that Hotfile had been pushing for this, but I'm somewhat happily surprised to see Judge Kathleen Williams of the US district court in Southern Florida grant Hotfile's motion to bar the MPAA from using "pejorative terms" in its copyright infringement case against the company. Among the words that the movie studios cannot use in describing Hotfile's activity: "piracy," "theft" and "stealing." We've been pointing out for many years how the industry has been using these kinds of misleading terms to influence pretty much everyone to their side, even though the terms are not even remotely accurate. Hotfile had reasonably argued that such terms could negatively influence the jury:

In the present case, there is no evidence that the Defendants (or Hotfile’s founders) are ‘pirates’ or ‘thieves,’ nor is there evidence that they were ‘stealing’ or engaged in ‘piracy’ or ‘theft.’ Even if the Defendants had been found to have directly infringed on the Plaintiffs’ copyrights, such derogatory terms would add nothing to the Plaintiffs’ case, but would serve to improperly inflame the jury.

The MPAA tried to argue that these were commonly used, but apparently the judge realized that using these misleading words really would be unfair. Hopefully other courts follow suit.

Filed Under: copyright, infringement, juries, pejorative, piracy, stealing, theft
Companies: hotfile, mpaa

Prometheus, Meet Thomas Jefferson: On Fire, Stealing And Sharing

from the an-xkcd-parable dept

Meet Prometheus:

Zeus... assigned Prometheus the task of forming man from water and earth, which Prometheus did, but in the process, became fonder of men than Zeus had anticipated. Zeus didn't share Prometheus' feelings and wanted to prevent men from having power, especially over fire. Prometheus cared more for man than for the wrath of the increasingly powerful and autocratic king of the gods, so he stole fire from Zeus' lightning, concealed it in a hollow stalk of fennel, and brought it to man.

Meet Thomas Jefferson:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

And... take it away xkcd: You cannot steal that which cannot be stolen.

Filed Under: ideas, prometheus, sharing, stealing, thomas jefferson, xkcd

How Do You Know If A TSA Agent Stole An iPad? There's An App For That

from the gimmie-that dept

While the TSA has already declared themselves this nation's official Humor Police, all while likely profiling based on race, the agency constructed to keep us safe while we fly has another problem to deal with: the thieves that wear the uniform.

ABC News recently conducted an investigation in which they packed travel bags with cash and iPads and took them through security at several major airports, while also going out of their way to leave iPads behind at security checkpoints as well. As the report notes, the bags went through without a problem and most of the iPads were returned per TSA policy. But not all of them.

In case you can't see the video, a TSA agent was taped at work handling the iPad ABC had left behind, and simply decided to take it home with him. When confronted at his home by ABC's Brian Ross, Agent Andy Ramirez denied he had the device until Ross initiated the iCloud application used to track the iPad and its audible alert. Ramirez then produced the iPad and valiantly blamed having it on his wife, who was kind enough to stand next to him and not punch him repeatedly in the testicles on camera.

It may be tempting to simply write this off as the occasional occurrence of bad actors in any sector of any industry, but theft by TSA agents is likely more widespread a problem than you realize. Nearly 400 TSA agents have been fired specifically for theft since 2003. One would expect, of course, that the number of agents fired represents a fraction of those that have actually stolen something.

And to think, they've done all of this thieving without managing to catch a single terrorist.

Filed Under: ipads, stealing, tsa

Guess What? Copying Still Isn't Stealing

from the just-saying dept

Every time you think we're done seeing totally ridiculous arguments about file sharing, the old really silly ones pop back up. Musician Logan Lynn has written a pretty silly rant on Huffington Post entitled Guess What? Stealing Is Still Wrong. And, indeed, it is. But nowhere in the article does he actually discuss stealing. He discusses infringement. In silly black and white terms that assumes that every single download is absolutely a lost sale, that no one who downloads ever gives him any money and that his biggest fans are criminals. Crazy stuff.

The music industry has been ravaged by the digital age, the primary culprit being illegal file sharing on websites with practically zero regulation. The past two decades have been something of a Wild West on ye olde Interwebs. No rules, no accountability. By the time the music industry reacted to what was happening, it was too late.

Almost nothing in this paragraph is true. It's a nice fiction that the RIAA/MPAA have been telling the world, but it's simply wrong. The music industry? Growing. Zero regulation? Try 15 anti-piracy laws passed in the last 30 years. No accountability? Should I list out the tens of thousands of lawsuits that copyright holders have filed against those who were file sharing? If you can't get the basics right, it's kinda difficult to take your complaints seriously.

While performing at and attending the CMJ music conference in New York City in fall 2009, I learned that at that time, 91 percent of all new music was downloaded illegally over the Internet instead of purchased. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Record stores are closing, music rags are shutting down, and the glory days of rock and roll are over...

Actually the popular stat at the time was 95%, and it was bogus. And, there's a lot of evidence that the number has actually been dropping, not rising. Record stores closed because they sold CDs which are increasingly obsolete. Music rags are shutting down because music blogs are running rings around them online. The glory days of rock and roll were never quite as glorious as you think...

which I actually don't give even half a shit about. In fact, I'm glad the music industry got destroyed. It was fucked-up anyway, so who cares? Poor (filthy rich) record executives making hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of artists. Boo-hoo. I'm crying for you. Really. I am.

It sure seems like you're complaining.

What pisses me off is having over 91 percent of my personal intellectual property stolen, often before it even has the chance to be finished and released to the world. As a professional musician, a lot of time, hard work, and money goes into making a record. As an independent musician, that money comes directly out of my own pocket. Being a starving artist honestly isn't all it's cracked up to be anymore, people, and getting ripped-off has always sucked.

You didn't have 91% of your intellectual property "stolen." First of all, the number -- whatever it is -- was a general number across the entire global market. That doesn't mean it's the same for all artists. This is basic stats. Second, if tons of people are downloading your works it's because they like your music and that's a good thing and then there are all sorts of ways to get paid.

Even when I was on a major label, I got totally screwed because so much money was put into the recording, printing, PR, and distribution side that trying to recoup from consumer sales based on that 9 percent of people obtaining the album legally was almost impossible. Everyone had the record months before it came out anyway, because of file sharing. The week before it was released, one site that posted download counts on files reported over 18,000 illegal downloads of my record before my lawyer had them take the file down. That alone comes out to $180,000 -- for my songs -- of which I saw $0. My record deal was a 90/10 split at the time, but guess what 90 percent of $0 is? You guessed it! Still $0.

First of all, the "numbers" posted on those sites are usually made up, not real. Second, assuming that every one of those 18,000 people would have paid $10 for the album is simply delusional. Some of them might have. Others might have downloaded first and then decided to buy later. Others might have downloaded, and then told 20 of their closest friends how awesome you are and told them to go buy your album. Or go see a live show. The assumption that this is $180,000 gone is simple fantasy.

Think of it this way: if you were a painter and were putting the finishing touches on your pieces for a show, wouldn't you be upset if someone broke into your studio, took your unfinished paintings, and hung them in their public gallery without your permission? Let's say you had some finished work hanging for sale in your own space, but every time someone saw something they liked, they removed it from the wall, tucked it under their arm, and left without paying for it? What if 100 people came to your show opening and 91 of them decided to steal one of your paintings off the wall? Then what? Paint faster to keep up with the demand?

Think of this way: if you were a painter and were putting the finishing touches on your pieces for a show, wouldn't it be awesome to find out that thousands of people were so eager to find out about your works that they were clamoring for copies online? Let's say you had some finished work hanging for sale in your own space, but every time someone saw something they liked, they made a copy and told a bunch of others about it -- and then paid you to do more paintings? What if 100 people came to your show and 91 of them liked you so much they decided to make copies and find out more about you and how they could support your future work? Then what? Things would be pretty good, right?

I know this is the part where all the kids and hipsters start to roll their eyes and say things like, "You just don't get it, grandpa," and, "It's freedom of speech," but I don't actually believe that stealing my intellectual property is your constitutional right. Sorry, everybody.

If you're going to mock those who are arguing against you, it helps to actually understand their argument. The free speech argument is not that infringement is free speech. It's that ridiculous laws like SOPA create massive collateral damage that do serious harm to free speech.

Next time you hear a song you like, I encourage you to purchase it instead of stealing it. Supporting independent musicians just feels better than robbing us of our livelihood. I promise! Hell, you could even go to your favorite local record store, buy a CD, and look at the cover art for hours. You know, for old times' sake.

Next time you have a fan come to your site, I encourage you to offer them proactive reasons to buy instead of just demanding that they hand over cash. Treating your fans as fans and giving them lots of ways to support you just feels better than treating your biggest fans as criminals. I promise! Hell, you could even offer up cool products and bundles, or try a name your own price offering, or any number of other cool new ideas. You know, for modern times' sake.

Filed Under: copying, entitlement, infringement, logan lynn, pipa, sopa, stealing

Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft

from the must-we-do-this-again dept

Ah, gotta love the MPAA and their gleeful sophistry. We wrote about how MPAA comms person and former Congressional staffer (note the revolving door...) Alex Swartsel went way, way overboard in attacking GigaOm's Janko Roettger for noting, accurately, that the entertainment industry's anti-consumer behavior, combined with a potentially worsening economy, could mean that more people switch away from authorized options for watching movies to unauthorized options. This is a pretty reasonable analysis, and it's hard to see how you could disagree with it. However, in the minds of Swartsel and the MPAA, anyone who even dares to acknowledge that unauthorized file sharing exists must be condoning the practice, and Swartsel wrote one of the more intellectually dishonest pieces we've seen in a long time, going after Roettger, pretending he was telling people that it was fine to infringe on copyrights.

We responded on a bunch of points, including Ms. Swartsel's repeated incorrect use of the words "steal" and "theft" to describe infringement. Swartsel has now responded, with a post so full of sophistry, you have to wonder if the MPAA might not be better off sending her back to remedial talking points training. It seems clear that Swartsel is jumping into a debate for which she is woefully unprepared -- though, of course that explains why the MPAA, yet again, has turned off comments on its blog. The main point of the blog post appears to be to simply repeat the words "steal" and "theft" so many times that readers are driven into submission. Of course, most people aren't stupid, though the MPAA seems to presume that's the case.

By my count, the post uses a form of "steal" six times and a form of "theft" another six times. That's a dozen incorrect uses of those two words in a mere seven paragraphs. Impressive.

Even worse, nowhere does Swartsel admit that she totally and completely overreacted and irresponsibly attacked Roettger for accurately reporting what's going on in the world. Instead, she doubles down on the this claim that merely stating what's happening means we all think that it's okay:

In other words: movie and TV theft is inevitable. Why? Because it’s easy to steal something that, in physical form, exists only as data, and easy to justify stealing it as a result? Because information wants to be free, no matter the cost it took to produce or its creators’ judgments about how best to disseminate it? Because anything is fair game once it’s on the Internet? Because if I rip a movie file off of a DVD or camcord a showing at a theater, I have created that movie with my own labor and can do whatever I want with the file, including posting it online and making money from ad sales or subscription fees? Because by stealing films and TV, or watching stolen films and TV, I’m just exercising my First Amendment rights to freedom of speech? All those are arguments we’ve heard before.

Oh gosh. Where to start? Notice how she intermixes the fact that making a copy and sharing is easy with the idea that people need to "justify" it. Poor Ms. Swartsel. No one ever shared a DVD with you? No one ever invited you over to their house to watch a TV show together? Sometimes "sharing" is just that. It's not stealing.

And, no, no one -- not me, not Roettger, not Torrentfreak -- ever attempted to "justify" the actions that are infringement. None of us said that it is "fair game." None of us said that "information wants to be free." None of us said that it's a First Amendment issue. It seems that, rather than respond to the actual points all of us raised, Swartsel and the MPAA are simply throwing out a ton of strawmen -- every false caricature she can come up with -- to describe the "scary" people who argue that maybe, just maybe, the MPAA is going about this the wrong way.

Mike Masnick wrote that we need to “adapt and deal with reality,” and actually, I think he’s right – depending on which reality we’re talking about. Is it the reality that the Internet and the explosion of mobile technology have opened up vast new ways for us to communicate with one another and for film and TV-makers to offer their work to people who want to watch it? Because as Julia blogged last month, there are “more options than ever before to get movies and TV shows online safely and legitimately” – we have a list on MPAA.org here, and the creative minds in our industry are working on even more as we speak.

And yet... and yet, as folks like Wil Wheaton recently pointed out, those efforts are still at about the 1997 level of fan friendliness. They still treat most people as if they were criminals who need to be limited and contained. For the most part, they do not offer the same level of convenience and user-friendliness of other options that are out there, even if they are illegal. Historical evidence has shown time and time again that what Swartsel thinks of as "theft" is not in any way similar to "theft," but is merely her industry's best customers expressing how they would like to be offered content.

And sometimes, indeed, the industry does get it right -- but it's usually with a lot of kicking and screaming as they're dragged there by a much more innovative tech company. Netflix, of course, is a great example. Yet, every other online movie offering is horribly limited. Things like only being able to watch a movie within a 24 hours period, forcing people to watch previews (and the silly FBI warning for something they paid for) isn't fan friendly at all. It just drives more people to unauthorized means.

And, as for Netflix, which actually does seem to be about as consumer friendly as they come (and has done quite well because of it), well, then along comes the MPAA and the Hollywood studios with plans to kill the golden goose, by doing everything possible to strangle it. They're ratcheting up the prices, they're limiting the selection (drastically). They're trying to demand further restrictions.

Honestly, it's quite easy to show that the MPAA and its member studios have done much more to drive people to infringement than any mere reporter who simply points out the reality of the market.

Is it the reality that some people do steal content online? Unfortunately, it’s clear that’s true – otherwise we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. But do “many, many people” really intend to engage in theft just to watch a movie or TV show cheaply or for free? We doubt it, particularly if legitimate, better alternatives are available; if they know it’s wrong; and if they understand it’s not a victimless crime.

Ah, my favorite bit of sophistry, which really shows that Swartsel is somewhat new to this particular debate. Look, the industry has been screaming about "education" and "victimless crimes" for decades ("home taping is killing music!"). And it's totally bogus and everyone knows it. Even bringing it up is an admission that you have no real argument. Both significant research and basic history show that this is not an "education" issue. Telling them "file sharing is bad," doesn't change anyone's mind. And these people are more than willing to pay, as is seen time and time again by study after study after study after study.

While Swartsel and the MPAA sit back and claim "but we are offering legal options!" they're totally missing the point (again). They're not offering the legal options that people want. In some cases they are, but every time they get close, they try to make those good services worse, and drive more people to alternatives. The people are willing to pay if given a reasonable option that doesn't treat them like a criminal and put ridiculous restrictions on them.

That's not "theft," that's frustration that the industry is so clueless that it can't offer a good service after all these years.

But if what Masnick means is that we need to throw up our hands and look the other way while people who had nothing to do with making a movie or a TV show steal and profit from it, that is a reality to which we do not care to adapt, period.

In what world does "learning to adapt" mean looking the other way? Seriously, if you're going to make ridiculously false statements about my position, at least make them appear logically consistent. I'm not saying throw up your hands. I'm saying stop being stupid and start offering services that don't treat people like criminals and which actually compete on value with the services that people want. It's not that hard, but if you're going to go around calling your biggest fans criminals a dozen times in the course of seven short paragraphs, I guess it's little surprise that you wouldn't be able to comprehend such basic things.

Filed Under: alex swartsel, business models, mpaa, sharing, stealing, theft
Companies: mpaa

The Absurdity Of Comparing Copying To Stealing

from the preach-it dept

This is certainly a point we've probably made hundreds of times on this site over the years, highlighting that infringement is different than "stealing" in some very important ways. And yet, industry folks, politicians and law enforcement continue to make the claim that one is "no different" from the other. We had already called out US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who's heading the prosecution of Aaron Swartz for making the bogus "no different than stealing" statement about Swartz's actions:

"Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar and whether you take documents, data, or dollars," US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said in a statement. "It is equally harmful to the victim, whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away."

Reader jjmsan points us to Matthew Yglesias' wonderful two paragraph debunking of this absurd statement, and the fact that US law enforcement continues to make such obviously false equivalency claims:

This is absurd. I wrote a book once, titled Heads In The Sand. I both own physical copies of the book and own the copyright to the content of the book. It is obviously not equally harmful to me if you break into my house and steal my physical copy of the book than if you were to somehow go to the library and make a photocopy of the book. The difference, not at all subtle, is that when you steal something of mine (be it my book, my iPad, my shoes, my money, my immersion blender or whatever), I don’t have it anymore. If you copy something that you’re not allowed to copy without my permission, that’s a very different issue. Perhaps you deprive me of income I would have had if you hadn’t done that, or perhaps you don’t deprive me of anything. As I’ve said before, I sometimes beg online for someone to send me a copy of an academic article that I can’t get free access to. It’s never the case that my fallback option in this situation is to purchase an extremely expensive academic journal subscription. Nobody is harmed when this sort of copying occurs, and even in the cases where there is a harm the nature of the harm is quite different from the harm incurred in actual cases of theft.

I’m not really sure why the people charged with enforcing copyright law are obsessed with obscuring this fact. The laws against stealing are hardly the only laws on the books. There is a perfectly sound public policy rationale for requiring cars to have license plates, but nobody would say “stealing is stealing whether you take someone’s car or just drive your own car without license plates.” The regulations against copying are supposed to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” That’s a good reason to have a set of rules, but it’s a reason that has nothing to do with “stealing.” The question is whether the rules we currently have are actually good ways to achieve this goal.

It's that second paragraph that's really the crux of the issue here. We've all argued way too many times over the issue in the first paragraph. But there's simply no good reason at all for officials to use such language when it comes to copying, because copyright laws are entirely unrelated and have a totally different purpose than laws against stealing.

Of course, it's also worth pointing out a key point that Yglesias seems to skip over which makes Ortiz's statements here even more ridiculous. For all the "stealing" talk regarding Swartz's attempts to copy JSTOR documents, he wasn't even charged with copyright infringement. The "stealing" claim rings even more hollow than usual because he's not charged with either "stealing" or "copying." He's charged with hacking into a system, against their terms of service. Now, I guess someone could try to claim that's some sort of "theft of service," but even that claim doesn't hold up to much scrutiny, because anyone who had access to the MIT network -- which allowed guest access, as Swartz was using -- had free access to JSTOR.

Filed Under: copying, stealing