According to digital-digest.com, The UK Government’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) seized the music blog RnBXclusive.com, and put up a message on the site threatening anyone who downloaded music from the site that the face up to 10 years in prison and a “an unlimited fine”.
Authorities have arrested the owners of the site for allegedly defrauding the music industry.
As you know when ICE seizes a domain name it puts up its logo and warning on the site
This site now says:
“SOCA has taken control of this domain name.
The individuals behind this website have been arrested for fraud.
The majority of music files that were available via this site were stolen from the artists.
If you have downloaded music using this website you may have committed a criminal offence which carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine under UK law.
Not content with that, the site then displays the IP address you are using, and goes on:
SOCA has the capability to monitor and investigate you, and can inform your internet service provider of these infringements.
You may be liable for prosecution and the fact that you have received this message does not preclude you from prosecution.
As a result of illegal downloads young, emerging artists may have had their careers damaged. If you have illegally downloaded music you will have damaged the future of the music industry.””
Love it.
Do the crime
Do the time
why not add torture? 🙁
SOCA rhymes with SOPA
Well – the SOCA are certainly going after a VERY SERIOUS crime here. I can really sleep well in my bed at nights now. Never mind about murderers, muggers and rapists. Let’s go for something nice and easy.
This is total twaddle and out-and-out scaremongering by someone who obviously doesn’t know what they’re talking about. It’s my understanding that copying/sharing only becomes a criminal case if there is a profit made. Otherwise it’s a civil matter. Oh – and, by the way, shouldn’t: “Arrested for fraud” be: “Arrested on suspicion of fraud”. This sounds like a case of guilty unless proven innocent to my untrained eye, not to mention slander or libel. The whole page looks amateurish and containing the sort of threats that might appear on a phishing mail. It’s already been stated that an IP address doesn’t identify a particular person and what have “young artists’ careers” got to do with any law enforcement or alleged criminal aspects? It’s not up to the SOCA to make statements like that. I read elsewhere today that private companies have been paying police to make investigations. Makes you wonder, eh? The whole thing is a travesty.
is this for real?
the are trying to put the genie back in the bottle with scare tactics.
flash forward another 10, 20 or 30 years. what is the more likely future:
hundreds if not thousands of people doing jail time for “illegally downloading music”
or
the end of the “music industry” racket (total lifetime: less than 50 years) and the return to the days when music was art and not a “business”.
the second option seems more reasonable.
in the meantime this effort to try to stop technology just gets more surreal every day.
What is most disturbing here isn’t that they’re enforcing IP laws.
I mostly support those.
What’s so disturbing is how openly a government office is acting as an agent for a private industry… When on one sentence, you’re threatened with arrest- you know, warrant, kick in the door, drag you from your home in hancuffs, fingerprint and photograph you, then release you on bail until your court date, when you learn your ultimate fate- then not a couple sentences later, they’re changing industry dogmas about ‘harming young artists’….
It’s very, very troubling and shows how private influence can be employed to control public systems. This happens with other things, too.
asdf: exactly. ip law has traditionally been mostly a civil matter. in the technology sectors it goes something like this: you infringe my ip and maybe i threaten you with litigation. it’s my choice whether or not to sue you. usually, we come to an agreement, otherwise known as a license. and life goes on.
if these stories about criminal penalties were only about targetting mass market infringers, it would be easier to accept the increasing criminalisation of ip law.
e.g.
if a kid opens up his xbox and modifies it, should he do jail time?
but what if he sets up a business modifying xbox’s for a fee? then maybe criminal penalties might be worth considering. arguably because there is the possibly of intentional, for-profit, systematic mass infringement.
many of these stories, whether they are about the riaa, mpaa, or bsa members (e.g. microsoft, adobe, etc.) are concerned with intentional for-profit infringers who seek to engage in mass distribution.
but some of the stories are not. they are just cases of kids doing what they’ve always done long before the internet: share music with each other. and how many kids ever went to jail for that? cassette recorders and vhs were not outlawed. and sharing some music or video with your friends was not a criminal offense. it wasn’t worth any company’s time to sue kids under civil law.
hopefully people can see the difference between the intentional mass infringer and the average kid who wants to share music. because the industry propaganda machine will not acknowledge this difference. they treat every case the same.
ip law is generally _not_ criminal law. and it’s still not worth a company’s time to sue kids- if they do, it’s only to scare others. imposing jail time for isolated acts of ip infringement is a industry dream, not reality.
the “problem” for these companies is the internet and it’s power for inexpensive, nonexclusive mass distribution. not kids sharing music.