This should be put in context. This is no unassuming teenager who downloaded a film via a file sharing network and was caught "distributing" it, due to the nature of file sharing.
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.
> 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.
What the... I find this highly amusing, as copyright holders have previously argued that high quality copies are also damaging.
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.
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.
Speaking as a filmmaker myself, you are overlooking an important point: timing matters. A lot. Releasing a low-quality bootleg after a film has already been officially released through normal channels is very different from releasing a low-quality bootleg as the film's de-facto premiere. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and in this case the pirate took that opportunity away from the filmmaker.
I was about to disagree with you and say that anyone downloading pre-release low quality products know that they're getting low quality product and know that the film will be better.
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.
I don't think the Beta OS users software review situation carries over to the other context.
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".
Anecdote: I torrented Ponyo when it first came out, before the English version was available (it never had a theatrical release where my kids live), right during the Japanese theatre release. It was a terrible screener, complete with people getting up in the middle of it. And a rather funny attempt at subtitles. Even so, my kids watched it on repeat for weeks.
anyone downloading pre-release low quality products know that they're getting low quality product and know that the film will be better
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?'
whoa wait. Most people don't care that much. see how long VHS lasted, or how awful US NTSC was.
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.
That's not the point. They knew that VHS provided a poor copy of the original film. But if someone saw a copy on video before the movie was in theaters or on TV, they would almost certainly consider the whole thing to be of lower quality.
That they (and anyboy else) can get away with that is one more simptom of a deeply flawed legal system. The honest integrants of this system should be ashamed, but they live in a parallel universe, where such things are considered good.
Both can be true. If I give away or sell cheaply a high-quality copy of your movie, people have less incentive to purchase an official copy. If I give away a low-quality copy, people know that the official DVD (or whatever) offers a higher quality.
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.
> He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise
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.
> Furthermore he got fined extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging reputation.
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.
So if the damages for thousands to millions of copies of the movie are being blamed on the initial public seeder, does that mean nobody else in the torrent is responsible for any damages?
The damage that a single peer causes is roughly that they themselves are less likely to purchase the movie. There is an aggravate effect of having such a large swarm enable additional people to enter this group, but the contribution of any individual to this is small. In contrast, the initial uploader is what enabled the entire thing in the first place.
Fines are not just to recompense the apparent victim of an action, they are intended to deter others from repeating the action. 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.
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.
The word "fine" here is a mistranslation of the judgment. The court rewarded damages to be paid by the one sentenced. They did not issue any 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.
I find the thought of having punishment inversely proportional to chance-of-getting-caught disturbing. Because if the risk of getting caught is very small (which is the very case the system would be addressing), the punishment would necessarily be disproportionately huge. I can never agree with a disproportionately huge punishment.
He actually admitted to sharing 13 films illegally (accused of sharing a total of 517 films). He was an uploader on a private Swedish tracker called Swebits.org which is where the alleged crimes took place.
It would have been important if it had been correct. In the verdict it is made clear that the damages are only awarded for "Beck, Levande begravd". So it is 650k per movie. Punitive damages are also illegal in Sweden so the fact that he shared multiple movies does not matter here.
EDIT: My theory for why they only targeted one movie is to make the trial simpler, and they would not be able to get more money than this anyway. They will charge you with enough movies to reach what you reasonably can pay off.
It's not the first time something like that happened. So, I wonder, what are reactions to such cases except for discussion on Internet forums? Were there any petitions to governments, maybe even some civil protest actions or, on the other hand, initiatives to replace non-anonymous BitTorrent with anonymizing networks?
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.