Magnus Anderson is Seeking Asylum

Social Forums Non-Philosophical Chat
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I am facing a prison sentence of up to 3 years for copyright infringement.

What I did is upload some digital material that belongs to the academy I am currently enrolled in on a private Facebook page used by those of us who have enrolled in this one particular course. We all have the legal right to own this material for ourselves, but we do not have the right to share it “publicly”. Apparently, I made a “mistake” here.

The reason I uploaded this material despite the fact it was available to all is because there were times when people could not gain access to it. This was a common problem that used to be resolved through private communication. I uploaded all of the material as a way to say “thank you” to those who made an effort to send it to me when I needed it the most.

As a consequence of this, I am now facing a prison sentence of up to 3 years. Also, I will be disenrolled from my current program.

I am not really seeking an asylum, I just needed a catchy title. Though if there is anyone out there who likes me in the sense that he agrees with my general way of thinking and would like to grant me asylum, that would be nice, but that’s not the reason I am opening this thread.

Use this thread to discuss the morality of what I did here. Did I do anything wrong? Suppose this material was leaked to people who did not enroll in the academy, am I to be blamed in such a case?

There is more to this. For example, the educational material itself is a plagiarization of popular American books. But I do not want to disclose everything right away. Let’s discuss the question of morality first.

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You are a ignoble hedonist who deserves to die in prison.

Unfortunately you will probably not go to prison unless they have room for a copyright infringer for three years. I doubt it. Research your countries prison system and see if there is a high number of violent criminals in prison. Check the ratio of white collar crimes to violent and drug related crimes.

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… the lower the number of non-violent crimes proportionate to violent crimes, the lower the probability of you going to prison. Something like that.

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He will become a radicalized Muslim in jail.

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Males here convert to Islam in prison to get better food… joke is, it’s only for the food :laughing:

I would think that if material is already in the public domain then it should be fine to share that information, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here… it seems to be under the ownership of the educational establishment, but I do think that they are being unnecessarily hard on you.

Perhaps you are being made an example of…

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In basic training, I broke my ribs, but wasn’t allowed off the starvation diet everyone goes on, so started going to a different religious service every Sunday… the waffle at the Catholic church wasn’t enough calories, and the Mormons set up some weird sheet tents, but the Jews… patadise. They had full blown buffets and a library on Jewish philosophy, and because it was stamped by them, no drill Sargent could take it from me. It was fucking great. I love Jews. Doubt that translate to prison too well. I also took massive amounts of salt and sugar with my bland rice shit they fed me, I was nearly skin and bones before I figured that out.

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Have you been charged? Are you in the US?

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Wait… you said no right to share it publically. Thats not Bern Convention wording.

What is the actual clause they invoked against you? Was it electronic copyright infringement? The EXACT wording (with translation into English if your foreign).

Many courts won’t recognize certain contractual clauses as valid in court if they are shown to be absurdly broad in scope, and if there was no intent to knowingly violate rules, or if the rules are absurdly demanding and too strong in punishment.

It is extremely important to note if anyone NOT enrolled in that course, NOT having a copy if that text through legitimate means, was in that group. I would also make friends with people in a law forum for your country…

They might be Bullshit charging you on a very flimsy basis, not checking to see how well grounded their actual case is. Look at Carleas, he comes up with stupid excuses all the time, guaranteed to fail in a law court (he didn’t even know what the Bern Convention was)… he seems scary cause he is a lawyer, but let me tell you this… 50% of the time, when up against another lawyer, one lawyer always loses. They are remarkably skilled at getting their ass reamed in court, comes second nature to them.

If your the university’s first case of copyright prosecution (find out if you are), get those case files fast, look at the exact language used to prosecute. If yoyr the first, you got a solid shot of intimidating them. Don’t back down just yet, act shocked and indignant, yet restrained and aware you have legal options. Yoyr academy’s Dean is undoubtedly putting out feelers.

Who put this text together? How much was it priced? Is it easily available in the library? Do you have financial difficulties in accessing all materials?

You gotta think about this stuff now, cause clearly you were not thinking before.

Also do a mockup of how much money the university is expected to make off you if you graduate, vs. not. Offer to do a plea bargain of sorts via contract, you’ll be their bitch working off any calculated sum thsy presume they lost (its very impirtant to get them to admit to a financial fifure they think they lost). If your rich enough, pay it off.

The jail time is unlikely to happen, but you can be expelked and academically blackballed for what sounds to be a shoddy constructed textbook that was half public domain to begin with. That doesnt invalidate copyright, but it does open up a pressure tactic with the media.

A concept from Just War Theory “You don’t need a sledge hammer to crack a walnut.” Is the threatened punishment in measurement with the crime? Does it cause undue hardship?

If the university doesnt back down, I would do a flyer blitz, hit the local news paper. Talk about how very limited the pool of people who had access to this material, how you all purchased it already, how much is being paid to the university.

Or, become a hobo riding the trains, sucking off truckers in bus stops for food money, eternally impiverished, with a face tattoo and hands twisted with pain, all because you put papers on facebook.

Don’t suck a dirty trucker for a sandwich… think this one through.

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I can’t really judge the morality without knowing more specifics. It sounds like 3 years is just silly, but I also doubt, from the outline of information, that you would end up getting 3 years unless you’ve been in court before. What exactly is the nature of the material? What is the academy? Academies are often for minors. But I assume you are not one.

AGain it would help to know the context more specifically, I would need to know more about the kind of material, how it was supposed to be used and then what the context of this thanking is. Could you be construed as having made money off this in any way? Was there some kind of hacking involved to make the digital copy?

How would it hurt the academy to have the material leaked?

And of course don’t committ a new crime in response to these questions, but it’s hard to get a take without more information.

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3 years of imprisonment and dis-enrollment does not seem proportionate to the offense, as you first described it. Could there be a misunderstanding about who you shared the material with? Did you have prior offenses?

However, if you had leaked the material to masses of people outside of your particular university course, depending on the nature of the material and the extent of the leak, that would be closer to warranting such a harsh sentence.

Is the judicial process ongoing or have you already been sentenced?

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Fuse, laws often unfairly favor companies and corporations. If walmart sells you a piece of crap, it’s entirely up to them as to whether to make it right or not. They can steal from you in that sense. But if you steal something from them, they prosecute to the full extent of the law. Not to mention that he could be under mandatory minimums. In some cases, punishments are disproportionate, but if the statue prescribes a mandatory minimum punishment, then you’re just fucked in the event of a conviction.

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If it was a private page, how was it noticed? I only use FB because I have to for academic reasons, and we have this group that is private and everything posted and uploaded in it is only visible to the members.

Ever since I turned 18 I had this uncomfortable feeling that I might accidentally break some minor law that I’m not aware of, endure a Kafkaesque trial and get sent to prison. So I promised to myself I’ll read the law fully as soon as I have enough time. As it usually goes, I never had enough time, iow, I always had more interesting things to do than read page upon page of tedious laws. So something like this could easily happen to me as well. I don’t think the law cares whether we were aware of it or not, and how ‘innocent’ our actions seemed to us at the time.

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Just memorize some proudhon and bakunin and when you speak to the judge, tell him that property is theft and that man is born free and yet everywhere he is infringing.

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Did you upload a course text so that your classmates wouldn’t have to buy it?

That’s the only thing I can think of, about what their POV might be. You all have a right to it… i.e., to buy it…

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Who is the fuckstain who pressed charges on you, and why?

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it is estimated by the FBI that it would take 25,000 years to read every american law, if one read 700 pages of law a week.

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My guess is that they are shat off because they spent ages putting course material together and here it is, available to all their competitors. I used to write course material and it’s a fuking slog. I’d be mighty pissed if I found my material online.

I don’t believe in capital punishment but sometimes… I come very close to changing my mind.

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You’re preaching to the choir, my friend - my prior response was my moral opinion (not only legal), as per Magnus Anderson’s initial question.

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I’m not really sure how copyright infringement law works but it seems that it allows copyright holders to prosecute for maximum possible damages, or all potential revenue/royalty losses. Yet potential losses hardly line up with realistic losses. For instance, many people who pirate do so because they are bored and want to watch a movie or they want to try an artist’s discography etc. etc. Lacking the means to pirate the goods, many people would simply do something else. They were never going to pay for it - but if they can get it for nothing, they will. This really can’t be counted as a cut-and-dry loss for the copyright holder, especially because the digital copies pirated cost the C holder nothing in terms of manufacturing or production. Digital goods are reproduced in a matter of minutes with common free/consumer software.

Jail sentences and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for sharing a digital textbook or a music album with 10 people is really an absurd powertrip - not justice.

The U.S. has some of the most severe laws for criminal copyright violation.
I thought these two U.S. cases of mass piracy that resulted in jail time were an interesting juxtaposition to Magnus’s predicament:

Music piracy case sends Charlotte man to federal prison for 3 years
charlotteobserver.com/news/l … 62635.html
Record 5-Year Prison Term Handed to Convicted File Sharer
wired.com/2013/01/record-fil … ring-term/

Not sure how course material file-sharing can get somebody 3 years jail time, unless it was intentionally leaked on a massive scale.

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He’s in Eastern Europe somewhere as I seem to recall.