RIAA nails U of Arizona student
p2pnet.net News:- University of Arizona student Parvin Dhaliwal has been sentenced to three months in jail, three years’ probation, 200 hours of community service and $5,400 fine for the “possession of pirated movies and music” on his computer, says the U of A’s Arizona Daily Wildcat.
Dhaliwal was 17 when the alleged offence took place, but the Big Music cartel-owned RIAA held a juvenile prosecution off so Dhaliwal, at 18, could be sentenced as an adult.
Judge Gary Donahoe was in the chair.
In April last year, in an entertainment industry instigated operation, FBI agents raided schools in Arizona, looking for ‘pirate’ music and movie contraband.
This time around, the FBI, “found more than $50 million in music and movies on Dhaliwal’s computer,” according to says Krystal Garza, director of communications for the Maricopa County attorney’s office, quoted by the Wild Cat’s Cassie Tomlin.
The Big Music cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) was behind this particular bust, but it isn’t explained how it arrived at the extraordinary $50 million figure.
However, the RIAA routinely tries to equate file sharing with lost sales, a relationship which has never been even vaguely demonstrated.
Garza said Dhaliwal won’t serve jail time, “unless he violates probation, but if the case had been prosecuted on a federal level he would have probably received a definite jail term”.
Lucky Dhaliwal.
He, “must also take a class on copyright infringement at the UA and pay a probation fee of $50 a month, Garza said".
It seems appropriate that a class on ‘copyright infringement’ is listed as part of a punishment.
RIAA spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen wasn’t able to divulge the specific processes of investigating cases but, "Generally, our process is entirely legal and non-evasive," the Wild Cat has her saying.
She said the RIAA formed the Joint Committee of Higher Education and Entertainment Communities with about 40 universities, which encourages colleges to partner with legal fire-sharing programs.
Translated, this means Big Music cartel backed and supplied commercial applications, with Napster II and iTunes up front, are ‘inserted’ into schools under the pretext of protecting students from lawsuits launched by the RIAA. School staff act as unpaid sales assistants.
However, the UA is not involved in this partnership, says the story.
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See:-
Arizona Daily Wildcat – RIAA prosecutes UA student, March 7, 2005
FBI agents – FBI raids Arizona schools, p2pnet, April 22, 2004
March 8th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
he must not have had a very good lawyer.
March 8th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
$50 million at $1 per 4 mb song = ~200 terabytes! i want this guy’s computer! and so does google!
But.. in the case of this person.. careful investigation will show he was actually selling bootleg products.. not simply sharing files..
I love the extremely inflated $50 million figure though.. how did they come up with that one?.. if you assume a retail value of 1$ for each song.. and 4 mb per song… then that comes out to.. roughly 200 terabytes.. give or take a few gigs.. You’d be able to buy yourself a luxury car for the cost of the hard disks alone… and i doubt there’s a raid controller or motherborad capable of controlling that much data storage from a single machine.. or any but the most expensive industrial server.
it’s even more space if you use movies.. which take up much more space per retail dollar.. assuming full dvd value.
It’s not particularly surprising that the fbi lies so blatantly. After all few people understand these dynamics.. those that do have too few a voice to be heard amidst the din of continual blatantly false criminal accusations..
So now we have two technical fallacies about computers to go with legal fallacies of copyright… one is that bandwidth is somehow unlimited (i wish it were true) and “a single mouse click” can somehow distribute to millions of people instantly.. the other is apparently that people can right now economically build systems capable of storing hundreds of terabytes of data.
Again.. i wish both of these were true, then it would be impossible to actually detect and track the transfers, as they would be instantaneous, and one would be nearly guaranteed to have enough space never to need removable media storage again. In the words of brian wilson.. “oh wouldn’t it be nice”
March 8th, 2005 at 6:14 pm
She said the RIAA formed the Joint Committee of Higher Education and Entertainment Communities with about 40 universities, which encourages colleges to partner with legal fire-sharing programs.
Yep, I bet the schools get a portion of the revenue through signup bonuses and referrals.
March 8th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
Dhaliwal was 17 when the alleged offence took place, but the Big Music cartel-owned RIAA held a juvenile prosecution off so Dhaliwal, at 18, could be sentenced as an adult.
Isn’t that illigal to hold off a case just so that you can be tried as an adult?
March 8th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
Probably not illegal, but definitely unethical. The RIAA/MPAA are the biggest cowards around. Trying to sue people while they routinely “steal” from artists who are enslaved with their written in blood contracts. Artists have to sue them to deliver the royalities they are entitled to. Imagine having the gall to actually say that the reason you never sent a check to Cher was because you didn’t know where she lived.
March 8th, 2005 at 7:08 pm
FWIW, they said he had movies too, so they also used that in their exaggerated dollar value.
March 8th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
That is a deferred sentence of 3 months. If he does everything else the community service pays the fine and stays away from p2p programs the sentence is waived. However if he gets caught again he get the re months plus whatever other thing they decide to throw at him.
March 8th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
What kills me about this story (and the Associated Press coverage of it), is that the statute he was convicted under, ARS 44-1453, (which you can read for your self here: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ArizonaRevisedStatutes.asp)
is regarding the “intent to sell” any item that bears a “counterfeit mark”.
Some versions of this story mention that the FBI had been tipped off because this guy was selling the pirated material. This means what this guy got nailed for was selling the crap he downloaded. He did not (as far as I can tell from the court records available online, case CR2004023152, http://www.courtminutes.maricopa.gov/) get nailed just for downloading. The infraction for which he was convicted was in burning the music to disc and putting a counterfeit “trademark, service mark, trade name” on the disc. That’s just plain stupid. I dislike RIAA and MPAA as much as the next guy, but I cannot blame them for going after someone who is attempt to profit commercially from illegal activity.
March 9th, 2005 at 1:22 am
wow great thinking or is it preharps that unless his father is a multi millonare there is no chance that he could even get a lawyer that could rival the RIAA power team of lawyers
March 9th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
i’m not familiar with the american law, but let me think this path to the end. as far as i know, the american law is based on precendents and this seems to be one. so, if he got away with this low punishment for trying to sell, what could the poor souls, who signed the RIAA settlement get if they would go to the court? their penalty should be less than the amount they accepted to pay by signing the settlement.
correct me if i’m wrong.
March 10th, 2005 at 9:32 am
ok, i’ll correct you. i think you’re wrong.
for a fulltime student, 200 hours of community service is a lot of time. if he has only a few hours free on the weekends, that could take a couple of years. a fine of $5,400 is possibly equivalent to a student loan for 2 semesters. taking the copyright laws course for a semester (and receiving a passing grade) is adding more time, effort and homework on top of his other scholastic requirements – if he’s not expelled from the university for this FELONY CONVICTION. plus possible jail time of several months. all of which will be on his permanent record.
this is hardly a “low pubishment”.
the other cases by RIAA and MPAA were merely threats to take the people to court and never reached a courtroom. the fines (i’ve seen reports of several thousand dollars to upwards of $10,000) were agreed out of court with a judge’s authorization. if these cases had gone to trial, the penalties – if indeed there were to be any – would probably have been much higher. but no one knows what would have happened in a full trial. just the threat of a trial and the real possibilty of jail time and huge fines scares people into settling out of court. no one has yet been convicted for filesharing. they’ve only been threatened into submission.
recent other cases involving large-scale boot-legging and selling have gone to court and the punishments have been much harsher – longer jail time and much higher fines. that’s the precedent. but this kid in university might not see the inside of a jail cell because he is a student and probably didn’t profit even a fraction of what the larger, organized pirate groups have by selling.
these punishments are often made by the discretion of the judge, each case on it’s own merits. so no one can know beforehand what a judge might decide. a lot of judges don’t want to set a precendent in either direction for merely filesharing what a person owns and has the rights of fair use to do with one’s own property what they will.
i’ve read that this student put counterfeit trademark symbols on what he sold/intended to sell, and when it comes to selling for profit especially with counterfeit trademark symbols, there are already many legal precedents on the books. people who have sold copies of films, music, software, etc. on ebay and other online/offline sales points – including flea markets and car boot sales – have been severely punished by courts because they actually advertised and sold their goods as if they owned the copyrights. selling them is just a stupid thing to do, and apparently what this student was doing/intended to do, even if he was just selling to other students on campus and not even advertising anywhere. selling a used, store-bought copy f an item is one thing: copying it and selling it as the real thing is another.
so if you’re looking for precedents, there are many you can research and find.
March 10th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
i agree, that it’s still a hard punishment, but my point was, if he gets away with only 5400 for trying to sell the material, the others, who only used p2p software, should get away with much less. because they were not trying to make profit out of it like he did.
March 10th, 2005 at 10:25 pm
ahh good thing I am going to quit pirating before going to the UofA. I have never been afraid of the stunts the movia and riaa are and have pulled. Just a ploy to try to get up to give them more money. As is were once I quit pirating. I am just going to rent movies and copy them. Have more than enough games and music. But alas if one does not protect oneself they eventually get caught. Luckily the many that have not will stay free from lawsuits.