Youth, 16, faces 5 years in jail
p2pnet.net News:- Big Music’s RIAS (Record Industry Association of Singapore) sicced local cops onto a 16-year-old they say was sharing files.
The youth and two others, the oldest of whom was 22, were arrested in Singapore and charged with distributing digital music files “in the city-state’s first crackdown on illegal file sharing,” Singapore police said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
“Under the amended Copyright Act, anyone who illegally downloads files on a ‘commercial scale’ could face criminal charges, including five years in jail and fines of up to S$100,000 (33,322 pounds or about $60,000).”
Police were “tipped off” by the association “representing local and foreign record companies,” says the story, adding, “The suspects used an Internet chat programme as well as a music-sharing programme to distribute the music files.”
Reuters neglects to say it’s never been demonstrated, let alone proved, that file sharing equals even a single sale lost.
Nor does it point out that with file sharing, nothing has been stolen and no money changes hands.
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See:-
Reuters – Singapore cracks down on music file-sharing offenders, August 18, 2005
August 18th, 2005 at 5:03 pm
People should have understood by now that it’s better to rape and murder than to share files for free.
I think if anyone goes to jail for file-sharing it’s a clear case of political prisonner, call Amnesty International !
August 19th, 2005 at 1:52 am
Well well well. I would never have expected the Singaporean govt to kowtow to foreign corporate interests in this way.
I wonder how much they got for doing it?