Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Angry
Chris,
Copyright infringement can warrant a criminal offence - especially secondary infringements with regard to distribution.
From the Act.
Offences
107 Criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing articles, &c
(1) A person commits an offence who, without the licence of the copyright owner—
(a) makes for sale or hire, or
(b) imports into the United Kingdom otherwise than for his private and domestic use, or
(c) possesses in the course of a business with a view to committing any act infringing the copyright, or
(d) in the course of a business —
(i) sells or lets for hire, or
(ii) offers or exposes for sale or hire, or
(iii) exhibits in public, or
(iv) distributes, or
(e) distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,
an article which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of a copyright work.
The penalties are 6 months and / or £5,000.00 fine - as per here. No "BPI dirty PR misinformation" required. |
I know ... that's what I was alluding to when I said 'long scale'. At the bottom of it are the p2p people, at the top are the major-league money-making pirates, and somewhere in the middle are those who would be affected by your bold paragraph.
I'd be sceptical of anyone suggesting that p2p downloaders could find themselves on the receiving end of one of the Act's criminal sanctions though, because of the need (1) to prove beyond doubt that they actually did it and (2) to demonstrate prejudicial effect. A downloader isn't selling a direct physical alternative to the real thing. If you go down the Barras in Glasgow and buy a ripped off copy of GTA, there is something you can actually point to and say 'that represents a lost sale'. But it is well known that people download things online that they would never contemplate buying, simply due to their ready, cost-free online availability. It isn't the case that every downloaded copy of a game or movie represents a lost sale - despite those industries persistent attempts to quantify lost sales by simply putting the RRP value on every downloaded copy. If you can't quantify the extent of the effect on the copyright owner, to the standard of proof required in a criminal prosecution, then how can 'prejudicial effect' be shown?
And on the subject of industry misinformation, when I said 'dirty PR misinformation' what I meant was their persistence in the use of the term 'copyright theft' which does not exist as an offence.