[free-sklyarov] Fox letter about the DMCA to ISPs

[Seth Finkelstein]

On Tue, Jul 24, 2001 at 03:01:34PM -0700, Jon O . wrote:
[quoting Fox]
>> The Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and other civil and criminal
>> statutes provide for severe penalties (including prison sentences of up
>> to 10 years, forfeiture of equipment, and fines of up to $2 million per
>> incident) against persons who record and post pirated copies of films on
>> the Internet.
>
> Tom wrote:
> are they for real?

	Yes, they are for real. Take a look at

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1204.html 

(a) In General. - Any person who violates section 1201 or 1202 willfully
and  for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain - 
  (1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not 
  more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and 
  (2) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for 
  not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense. 

	So while I just see one million, not two million, that's a quibble.
That's the maximums, in the "financial gain" condition. But still, as
we've just seen, it's not exactly unthinkable to be charged there ...

> is there anything besides 1st degree murder that carries a higher penalty?

	Sure, e.g. drug crimes. In California, you go to prison for
LIFE on the third conviction of certain type of felonies, and those
aren't rare at all. Also, check out all the stories on, for example,
"Families Against Mandatory Minimums"  http://www.famm.org

	Even the old Communications Decency Act had penalties of two years
in prison.

	It's called being "Tough On Crime".

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at sethf.com  http://sethf.com
http://www10.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html