Movie piracy is an interesting subject matter these days. Many folks believe piracy is some form of god-given right of theirs to watch / obtain / steal digital content from the web. They seem to always have interesting reasons for their deeds also:
- I live too far away from the movie complex.
- I wanted to preview it before buying it.
- They won’t lose money from just little ‘ol me doing it!
- I hate the movie experience.
- I hate waiting for the release date.
- Yes, it is illegal, but it’s not wrong.
blah, blah, blah. Those that are ethics / honor bound don’t circumvent the intended entertainment system, while others find fascinating methods to abscond with their digital entertainment. The rationalizations go on, that is except for one website owner over in China.
Huang Yangshen was running a website that sold illegal / pirated copies of Hollywood DVD’s. His clientelle had purchased more than 6,000 movies from his website, netting him just under $15k from 2006 to 2008.
The MPA (Motion Picture Association) initiated a copyright infringement complaint against the website that this keen-minded entrepeneur blatantly ran for all to see and after what seemed to be an overly lengthy due process, Mr. Yangshen was finally sentenced to 14 months in prison and fined for his deeds.
MPA: 1, Citizens with millions of self-incribed rights: 1,000,000. But watch out. Once a precedent is set in the legal system, that opens the doors for other, like cases.
As for me, I want to try out that new car down the street. So I’m grabbing my slim-jim and headed down to the dealership tonight to take it for a test drive for a few months before I decide if I want to buy it or not. LOL.
source: Variety.
