"Cam" movie pirate issued record 5-year prison sentence

Four members of prolific illegal file sharing group iMAGiNE have been ordered to serve prison terms after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. The group's leader Jeramiah Perkins, 40, managed to receive the longest sentence ever handed to a...

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The chronicles of narnia the votdt: Budget 140-155 million - World sales 415 million

Captain America: The First Avenger: Budget 140 million - World sales 368.6 million

Little fockers : Budget 100 million - World sales 310 million

Avatar ( even I was shocked.....) Budget 246 million World sales : 2 Billion 782 million

As far as I can tell these are box office nubers only, and do not include merchandise ect.

Such a shame that the movie companys hands are so far up the politicians jacksies, that a fitting sentence was not given for what is obviously a victimless "crime".

They have never been able to prove that pirating does significant damage (or much at all) and yet they treat it like physically stealing copies? Man, things are getting ridiculous.....

This is a conspiracy? Dafaq? Is it raining irony today?

Do we really need to waste tax money imprisoning these people?

These are the same facts that make them care so much. If these movies can make that much money that fast, think of how much more money they would have made if no one pirated it?

The law isn't different if the people you steal from have tons of money. Pirating stops the reduces the money the content owners make, so it doesn't feel like stealing because the perpetrator doesn't get the cash, but to the victim is feels the same regardless.

And yes, they feel like a victim, or they wouldn't spend the time and money prosecuting.

Don't get be wrong, I think it's stupid to put people like this guy in prison. He'll probably be out long before his term is up, but they're not going to change the law on this anytime soon. If anything, it's only going to get tougher.

I for one would be less likely to buy a movie before I watch it than I would after I watch it. And never trust the trailers you watch, they are usually fixed to be deceiving.

They don't have to prove it... if a movie brings in $300 million then even 1 tenth of 1 percent would be $300,000. That's a LOT of money. The entire business of hedge funds using computerized trading is based on making fractions of a penny on every trade. Even if only 1 out of every 100 people who downloaded a pirated movie did it as an alternative to going to the theater the numbers would be significant.

Think of it this way... they're not suing because they're angry, they're suing because they getting bent over financially. Look at the way patent trolls make money; they set the price for out of court settlement lower than the legal fees and people just pay up, no matter how stupid the lawsuit. And these movie studios can't even get money from the pirates! They watch their movies get pirated AND have to pay the legal fees without ever getting any money in return, even when they win. Considering that evidence, I've gotta believe pirating hurts them, or they wouldn't go through all the trouble.

That's assuming that all those people would ever legitimately pay to see the movie. Which they probably would not, meaning that they would never see most of that money in the first place. But 1 out of every 100 people is too big an exaggeration. They would have to botch something big to piss people off that much...

And if you're bringing in hundreds of millions (in the theaters alone), $300,000 would look like pocket change...

I guess the biggest concept here is that every penny counts. So they are spending dollars to try and protect their pennies.

Incorrect, to the best of my knowledge. A conviction at the federal level, requires the a minimum of 85% of the full sentence be served.

Besides, you could conceivably do 5 years on the conspiracy charge alone. The charge can sometimes pull more time the the crime itself. It's a way the government can enhance the sentence, just tack on conspiracy.

You do have money changing hands here, at least according to the article. In copyrighted works as in drugs, the dealer always pulls more time than the junkie.

You get close to this amount of time for rape. Where is the justice in that?

Rape is a state crime, so Federal sentencing guidelines don't apply. I would suggest not raping your friendly neighborhood female mail delivery person during the course of her duties (*). I guarantee you'll get a whole lot more than 5 years for that.

You can do life if you have enough reefer under the federal system. In general though, the conditions in prison are way better than those at state or county level. Hence the old joke, "Club Fed".

(*) Or even the "mailman", depending of course, on your persuasion.

Maybe a fifth plus the total price with piracy. Doesnt matter though, when a movie gets hundreds of millions of dollars in profits all your doing is making the rich richer. In the end south park put it well. Maybe if people cared more about the music they were producing or the movie they were creating who really cares about piracy? Also, "Here's Britney Spears' private jet. Notice anything? Britney used to have a Gulfstream IV. Now she's had to sell it and get a Gulfstream III because people like you chose to download her music for free. The Gulfstream III doesn't even have a remote control for its surround-sound DVD system. Still think downloading music for free is no big deal?"

What are you all surprised about? Everyone knows piracy will continue. Everyone knows news articles like this do not deter people.

But, it has to be done to show 'the people' that it is wrong. If nothing was done at all, the piracy rates would skyrocket.

In my country they shoot pirates.

Your country must not have a government, because thats all a government is.

Except if you're from Somalia, then the U.S.Navy has to come over and shoot them for you.

Next thing I will get the death penalty for letting my friend borrow one of my DVD movies. Borrowing and coping a movie are the same. As long as they watch the same movie at a different time than when I'm watching it. There is no difference. All the MPAA and RIAA want is for everyone to have a per person license to watch or listen to their products. If 4 people want to watch the DVD movie I just purchased I would have to buy the same movie 3 more times. Also I say their DVD because even after you hand over your hard earned money (their don't understand the meaning of the word hard work) you still don't own it. At any time they can take away their product without and refund.

So should a car manufacturer get paid by a how many people sit in their cars? Or if the car is going to be used for a business? What happens when the owner wants to sell their car. Should the manufacturer get a cut of the money the owner got for selling it? Or should the owner be jailed for wanting to sell his car when the buyer should have purchased a new car instead? Remember the car manufacturer has to make each and every car. They don't have the luxury of what the movie and record studios have..... hmmm I think I'll order 1000 copies of that song...... CTRL + C & CTRL + V. If you are in it for the money then I don't want to listen, read or watch your product. Music, writing and movie making is a art. If you get money from it, then good for you. But you should never go into a business model based on art and then cry about why you are not making money from it.

To me a lost sale only means a lost sale if the Musician has to sing every song on every CD every time they make a CD. The Writers have to write every word on every page of every copy of the book they sold. The Movie Maker have to recapture every frame of the movie again for every copy of that movie seen or sold. Remember we are only purchasing the write to watch, listen to or read a copy of the original.

The only reason the MPAA and RIAA are pissed is that people worked out how easy the MPAA and RIAA can make a copy. So there is really little work to be done.

But if I HAD TO buy it I wouldn't buy it anyway.. so what's the diff??

Don't forget the original is not a copy and it does have production cost, before the copy process begins. In essence you are not paying for a copy, you are paying the bill on how much it cost to create the very first production.