Sweden fines pirate $650,000 for illegally sharing a single film
engadget.com
engadget.com
He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise, thereby causing significant damage to the original producers. Furthermore he got fined extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging reputation.
What the... I find this highly amusing, as copyright holders have previously argued that high quality copies are also damaging.
1. I have read (and don't take this as trustworthy; my memory could be failing or my forgotten source could have just been making it up) that after a PR campaign to get mexican prostitutes and their patrons to use condoms, condom use was no more prevalent, but prostitute earnings were up. The campaign had gotten men to ask for their preferred mode, and the prostitutes acted as if they preferred the other mode and charged more for the "accommodation".
2. In the first Myth Adventure book, Skeeve is taught the concept of the "magician's choice". As illustrated in the book, it's used like so: Skeeve has, say, a horse and a lizard. The only magic he can do is an illusion to make the lizard look like a horse. So, to prove to some important individual that he's a mighty magician, he brings his horse and his horse-that-is-secretly-a-lizard. He asks, "would you be so kind as to choose one of these horses?" The dupe points to the real one. "Very good. By your word shall that creature be spared." And he dispels the illusion on the lizard, taking credit for the fearsome ability to curse horses (and, presumably, other things) into lizards. Since that was the only thing he could do, the "magician's choice" consisted of asking his dupe to choose an animal, so that they felt in control, but without specifying any consequences of the choice. Had the guy indicated the fake horse, Skeeve would have cursed "the creature you have doomed with a word".
Sadly, I think copyright holders as a class will be able to get away with talking out of both sides of their mouth as long as they don't make both complaints (low quality is especially damaging because it damages the film's reputation, and high quality is especially damaging because it depresses demand for the official product) in the same case. Personally, of those two theories, I think the argument for high quality being more damaging is much stronger.
But then I remembered the people with beta OS access who file reviews for software that doesn't work with that beta product yet, even though the software producers are not allowed to incorporate those fixes yet.
If it's a low quality then you're relying on the story. If the story of the movie is good then there's no harm - people will be more keen to see it. If the story is OK but the visuals are clearly harmed by the quality of the copy - then people will be more keen to see it in a better definition/encoding/format.
Some movies you just know you want to see at the cinema even if you've bought the DVD just because you know you'll appreciate the scale more. I've never watched a movie with a good story and said "I wouldn't watch that if the visuals were better".
YM[as a movie distributor]MV.
The OS parallel is somewhat similar, but as regards movies the reality if that with an unreleased film, you don't know that the official product will be better. Films with good stories or acting sometimes have shitty production values or run out of money at the post-production stage, leading to technical corners being cut. The general public is not literate in the technicalities of filmmaking so they're apt to misjudge things badly.
There's a truism in the industry that 'if your sound is bad, people will say the film has terrible lighting.' Most people don't know or think much about sound and so they literally can't articulate what they dislike if the sound is inferior in some way that isn't immediately obvious (bits missing or badly distorted). So if a poor-quality copy of an unreleased film hits the torrents and word goes around that it looks amateurish, most people are not going to say 'well hold on, are you sure that's a production issue and not just compression artifacts?'
When I say "not good" I mean with hard coded Mandarin subs or with people walking out half way through or someone eating popcorn next to the shakily held cam.
It's a moral rights [1] issue. While moral rights are essentially unheard of in the US (outside of the Visual Artists Rights Act), they play an important role in continental Europe with its much different theory of copyright.
You may recall, for example, that Michael Ende sued to have the movie version of the Neverending Story pulled (while he lost, the judgement saw its share of criticism) and that the French courts sided with the estate of John Huston in not allowing the colorized version of Asphalt Jungle to be shown in France. Both were about the right of the author to the integrity of their work.
If I give away a low-quality copy of your unreleased movie, and that is the only copy extant, then people may decide the film itself is of low quality (ie bad lighting, sound, camerawork - things which are degraded by generational loss) and lower the reputation of the film before release.
Context matters a lot. Ignoring it leads to a lot of fallacious arguments.
The movie was already released as SweBits only (with some exceptions) allowed scene releases. He was sentenced for the "uploading" to SweBits and not for releasing it onto the scene. It's fairly clear in the verdict.
The numbers in general in the judgement are just made up and full of bad math.
swedish: http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.540098/hittepasiffror-bakom-rekor...
Contrary Anecdote: The VCD Z Screener of The Matrix is terrible quality and was widely distributed prior to the release of the film, but didn't hurt the reputation of the film at all.
Complementary dictionary:
Hittepåsiffror - made-up-numbers
filmbranschräv - a sly old movie industry fox
ickebevisade - non-proven
svajjiga - shaky
Unfortunately this only seems to apply to individuals: companies seem to get slap-on-the-wrist fines were individuals get send-you-to-the-poverty-line fines.
Fines and damages are two different concepts, because one is about restoration (damages), while the other is about punishment and repentance. The first is about the victim, and the second is about the state.
In this case, the court decided on $650,000 damages to be repaid to the rights alliance, and as punishment gave a suspended jail sentence and 160 hours of community service.
> If the risk of getting caught is small the fine needs to he high enough that ChanceOfGettingCaught*Punishment is far enough from zero that it figures in people's minds.
Thats not the point of either fines or damages. In a historical perspective, fines exist because other more inhumane punishments like beating, lashing and shaming were deemed inappropriate. In today's theory, (see http://www.criminology.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.74227.1328107386!...), it's more about providing a standpoint in society about what is acceptable and what is not.
It should also be mentioned that fines have a maximum of $600 per crime, or 150 days of a person's current income.
Damages on the other hand are only about restoration, and is not allowed to be issued as punishment. It is illegal for the court to issue damages as a form of punishment.