Australian Police Caught Pirating Movies
Written by Ben Jones on April 07, 2008A recent audit of computer systems belonging to the South Australia Police has found that hundreds are being used to “share” films. In a move smacking of hypocrisy though, officers involved will not be charged.
According to The Australian, during an audit of computer systems by the South Australian police force’s IT branch, police computers belonging to hundreds of police officers were found to contain movies.
The origin of these movies is not clear, but it is probable that they’ve been downloaded via p2p at some point, either on these systems, or on the personal systems of officers and transferred over.
Senior officials of the SA police force have been made aware of the findings, including its commissioner Mel Hyde. However, police sources have told press that there will not be any investigation into this, citing the large numbers of police officers involved.
The Australian Federation against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has said it will write to the commissioner to seek an explanation, presumably as to why the police officers are being let off with what it considers a heinous crime. Quite ironically, AFACT boasts of “working closely with police” – perhaps this closeness has shown the police officers involved just how unimportant and meaningless this so-called ‘crime’ is in the grand scheme of things.
If the officers do go unpunished, it could create a favorable precedent for filesharers in South Australia. If police officers, who are expected to be held to a greater level of accountability regarding the law, show this level of contempt for the current copyright laws, are unpunished, it will make it harder to convince a court that regular citizen should be punished for similar acts.
On the other hand, if the officers are punished under the law, which allows for upto AUS$60,500 (About US$55,700 or 35,500Euro) per infringement and up to 5 years imprisonment, the ability to effectively police the state will be severely diminished.
Either way, this case will bring to a head the vastly disproportionate penalties for an act that, as yet, has never been proven to be even financially damaging. One thing is certain, when even the police officers join large numbers of citizens in flouting such laws, the law’s place in society should be called into serious question.
The South Australian police force had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Previously: BitTorrent Tracker Sends Takedown Request to Torrent Indexers
Next: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk14)
84 Responses
Lulz
lol
Fuck AFACT (& alla it’s derivatives) &, as NWA so succinctly put it, fuck the police…
;D
Crap, only live in WesternAus.. hope word doesnt spread overseas …. last thing we need is amerikanised companys dictating us.
Lol… owned
As one of my friends so eloquently stated: “I’m moving to Australia.”
‘Nuff said.
Whoops.. our bad!
lol yeah right
GO AUSSIES! :D
Why is this suprising? Most police do illegal activities , worldwide.
LOL
Now i know why unwired sucks
cheers.
Shows how many people arn’t using Peerguardian then. They wouldn’t have been able to connect being donut munchers and all.
Hahaha
I work for the Northern Territory police in Australia and know of guys doing this even as far as the computer crime guys doing it.
Mostly its TV eps we get them 2-4 years later if at all. They wonder why we would download them?!?
[quote comment="333922"]Shows how many people arn’t using Peerguardian then. They wouldn’t have been able to connect being donut munchers and all.[/quote]
As I said, in the entire 3rd paragraph, it’s unclear if they downloaded the films throught he police network, or at home. If the latter, than Peerguardian wouldn’t have worked at all. This is the main reason why it doesn’t work.
There is only one way to have peerguardian actually work, and thats to have it block the range 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 – anything else just doesn’t stop people, because you never know who’s behind a home IP address. Thats the fatal flaw bluetack’s supporters keep conveniently forgetting. More on this topic through soon.
I have a friend who works at an german police station. He said that the filesharing with external drives etc is even worse than in schools etc.
this just shows how pathetic and unwanted the anti piracy people are
Mostly movies and TV eps…There is a good reason why. Unless it’s a blockbuster movie or TV show/series, Australia won’t get it for anywhere up to 1 month – 5 yrs later. Even if it’s a blockbuster it can on occassion take up to a few months for it to be shown in Australia.
The most popular afternoon soap opera drama in Aus is some american thing, and what’s shown in Aus is 4 yrs behind what is in america.
A number of hollywood movies i’ve been waiting to see in Aus in the last year have been shown in Aus up to 6 months later than not just america, but most of the world. Had to wait 6 months longer than most of the world for a big budget hollywood Jet Li movie to show in Aus. After a few months I just went and downloaded the damn thing in DVD quality before it even reached cinemas in Aus.
Even when we do get them in a reasonable time and can even get the DVDs, who is going to pay upwards of AU$100+ for a boxed set of 3-4 eps of a popular tv series? If you wait a year then maybe you’ll be able to get a whole season of said tv series for the same price…if they still sell the thing
So what? They’re all corrupt anyway. Nothing will be done, they’re police. They get away with anything, including murder. I don’t hold movie sharing against them though. They know that if the law was strictly adhered to, people couldn’t do anything, and so they bend the trivial and push boundaries.
One good thing is when they choose not to prosecute those who they feel acted fairly or appropriately even if against some minor law. This is humaneness and how they live their own lives anyway. For example if some guy raped their daughter they would be shot undoubtedly, but also we may even get away with it, or especially if we only went and punched him out.
AFACT and NZFACT (the new zealand version) do just about as much as the cops if anyone here was to get a letter most would probly laugh it off then when the cops came round they would be chased off with a crate beer in hand no one cares about copyright here as we only have maybe 5 movies that are worth pirating (3 lord of the rings king kong and good bye pork pie) its treated as a joke
Lmao, instant classic.
Hope them filesharing pigs get away with it ;)
Everyone in SA does it anyway as this shows. It keeps the ISPs in business and DVD hirers don’t care, as they get more business from hiring out. So it’s good for all concerned. It’s good advertising too and all those who can’t download or copy a DVD or can’t be bothered, or who can afford it, will see it at a theatre or buy the DVD if it’s good enough, but that’s limited to the wealthy, as they’re like $AU40 or so ($US36) or 30 euros, and piratted ones are near impossible to find for the average person.
I’ve been to South Australia and Im not surprised…you can even smoke weed there…
[quote comment="334003"]I’ve been to South Australia and Im not surprised…you can even smoke weed there…[/quote]
ahahahaa NO!!
marijuana is illegal throughout Australia in any shape or form. You are not allowed to have any part of the plant at all and you can be issued on the spot fines for the tiniest substance. It’s not even legal for medicinal use
I already hear the AFUCK spin doctors going like “Hey let’s promote the idea that file sharing is endangering national security! Imagine, we take out the police force, who actually deserved it. Who’s gonna protect us from the really evil people?”
Just curious as to how many movies were being shared. And when it comes down to any illegal activity that was done the So. Aussie police were sharing. Bottom line: They’re all guilty of sharing. If they can get off so should all p2p users. Freedom and justice for all. Nuff said.
[quote comment="334034"][quote comment="334003"]I’ve been to South Australia and Im not surprised…you can even smoke weed there…[/quote]
ahahahaa NO!!
marijuana is illegal throughout Australia in any shape or form. You are not allowed to have any part of the plant at all and you can be issued on the spot fines for the tiniest substance. It’s not even legal for medicinal use[/quote]
You obviously have no idea what the law is :)
http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/NDARCWeb.nsf/resources/NDARCFact_Drugs4/$file/CANNABIS+AND+THE+LAW+FACT+SHEET.pdf
or if you can’t be bothered clicking on he link:
SA (1987) 100gram plant / 20 grams resin / 1 plant allowed.
ACT (1992) 25 gram plant / 2 plants allowed.
NT (1996) 50 grams plant / 10 grams resin / 1 gram oil / 2 plants allowed.
WA (2004) 30 grams plant / 2 plants.
Hey! The link doesn’t work! This one does:
http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/NDARCWeb.nsf/resources/NDARCFact_Drugs4/$file/CANNABIS+AND+THE+LAW+FACT+SHEET.pdf
Farkenel! That doesn’t work either! Let’s see if this one will.
http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/NDARCWeb.nsf/resources/NDARCFact_Drugs4/%24file/CANNABIS+AND+THE+LAW+FACT+SHEET.pdf
Hey Torrentfreak! The site is cool but it seems to not like dollar signs in URLs! :D
“In a move smacking of hypocrisy though, officers involved will not be charged.”
In a move smacking of hypocrisy, you are perpetuating this myth that piracy is a criminal offence.
Aussie ftw!
Bent Fukin Cops, Bent fukin laws.
Thats why both police and major copyright holders deserve no respect.
hahaha…. I thinki might move to SA!!
[quote comment="334126"]“In a move smacking of hypocrisy though, officers involved will not be charged.”
In a move smacking of hypocrisy, you are perpetuating this myth that piracy is a criminal offence.[/quote]
No-one said CRIMINALLY charged. charges ccould refer to restitutions of fines imposed, OR even disciplinary charges made internally within the force. As I believe your post atttempted to point out, there are more types of charges than just criminal.
#24
maybe he is talking about Nimbin, it’s not allowed but they even got a hemp bar, and they sell it on the streets whit the police just walking by, No worries
[quote comment="333942"]Mostly movies and TV eps…There is a good reason why. Unless it’s a blockbuster movie or TV show/series, Australia won’t get it for anywhere up to 1 month – 5 yrs later. Even if it’s a blockbuster it can on occassion take up to a few months for it to be shown in Australia.
The most popular afternoon soap opera drama in Aus is some american thing, and what’s shown in Aus is 4 yrs behind what is in america.
[/quote]things are changing…. more films are being released outside America first(Sunshine, 88 minutes….) though its better to be in the USA(if out in movies first, watch in movies…. if out in other countries first, p2p_
Not surprised at all – every man, woman and child who taped ANYthing off the TV was violating our copyright laws until they were changed last year.
The 6 month to 5 year wait for content to be officially released in Australia is the killer here. The big question is WHY DOES IT TAKE SO DAMN LONG? Aussies are grabbing torrents of American and British shows within minutes of the broadcast finishing, so why the f*** can’t our TV stations do the same and air the show the following day?
It’s NOT legal to do drugs in SA. If they find one hemp plant in your backyard they will confiscate it (for their own use presumably) and issue a fine.
wow, incredible SCOOP.
I want to tell u about another fact. Even the children of record industry bosses, use Filesharing Softeare to download songs.
SA police commisioner : err…ummm…..to catch…..to catch this…the file sharers,errr…..we have to think,…and…errr to act like file sharers,yeay,that’s right,and that what we are doing.
police? FILE SHARING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL?
of course they do. everyone does.
haha awesome cops, they’re normal people like everyone else, i hope they get away with it. i hope they fix the fucked up laws.
in brazil not only the police but the army and govermment uses pirated SOFTWARE. not all, but some of them
[quote comment="333928"][quote comment="333922"]Shows how many people arn’t using Peerguardian then. They wouldn’t have been able to connect being donut munchers and all.[/quote]
As I said, in the entire 3rd paragraph, it’s unclear if they downloaded the films throught he police network, or at home. If the latter, than Peerguardian wouldn’t have worked at all. This is the main reason why it doesn’t work.
There is only one way to have peerguardian actually work, and thats to have it block the range 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 – anything else just doesn’t stop people, because you never know who’s behind a home IP address. Thats the fatal flaw bluetack’s supporters keep conveniently forgetting. More on this topic through soon.[/quote]
Gettum!! Fucking pricks at BlueTack know this bit of info but they still swear up and down that they are the best program to use to protect your self. People don’t be idiots. They are liers and theifs. Making us Pirates look good. As for the pigs and the movies… even if they did download them… we go back to the bit about Downloading for personal viewing is not illegal. Now if their was evidence showing that the officers were UPLOADING, then we can laugh and start thinking of defences we can use for such. But at the same time im sure that all the officers didn’t put that on their systems… Infact their is a small yet unconfirmed rumor that it was the IT’s that planted it.
i live in south Aus, and all of a sudden i feel the burden of guilt lifted. :D
The aussies are quite reasonable, remember when sony TOLD the government stop allowing ps mod chips, or we will stop shipping the ps to you. And sony were promtly told, If your gonna stop the shipping of the ps, then you can stop shipping ALL of your products to here. Sony said…. errrmm!!! can you not take a joke. Come on boys we were only kidding.
Back on topic, exactly where were these so called files stored. In a folder named SHARED FOLDER or simply on the HDD under MY PERSONAL VIDEO folder.
And why is it so surprising? The police are just people. And no man in his right mind can seriously consider filesharing a crime.
They do what everyone does and why shouldn’t they? :-)
I dare someone to say it doesnt matter where the files were stored!!!!
@21 Yeah, but there is so much empty space to monitor you could have a big shed somewhere and noone would ever question what was in it.
Nice to see some news from home.Doesn’t surprise me at all!!!!.
South Australia is the best place to be,even though i’m not there at the moment,after all we are the cannabis capital of Oz so why the fuss about d/ling some vision or some sound.Let’s hear it for the crow eaters mighty boys in blue
[quote comment="333942"]
A number of hollywood movies i’ve been waiting to see in Aus in the last year have been shown in Aus up to 6 months later than not just america, but most of the world. Had to wait 6 months longer than most of the world for a big budget hollywood Jet Li movie to show in Aus. After a few months I just went and downloaded the damn thing in DVD quality before it even reached cinemas in Aus.
Even when we do get them in a reasonable time and can even get the DVDs, who is going to pay upwards of AU$100+ for a boxed set of 3-4 eps of a popular tv series? If you wait a year then maybe you’ll be able to get a whole season of said tv series for the same price…if they still sell the thing[/quote]
This is a very pertinent point. ‘The Industry’ and its distribution networks neglect to address in the age of the ‘Global Village’. If they could sort their act out maybe so-called ‘piracy’ would not be so much of an issue.
Give us what we want, when we want it.
So? I pirate too, and I’m sure many more do so – but that doesn’t make it legal. You can’t possibly want stealing (yeah, yeah – protest as much as you want that they still have it – you’re stealing their product) to become legalized!
Before long we’ll have people stealing each others blueprints and whatnot.
The police officers should not have gotten off so easily.
You approach this the same way every legalization propaganda group approaches it: “If they can do it, why can’t we?”. Instead of this, bring arguments to its contribution to society. Laws are laws, and should be followed.
Beliede dat five-oh po-po mo-fo’s fo’ sho’
Gotta love it when the cops don’t follow the laws they enforce themselves. This news is an important part as far as demoralization and defamation goes. I just hope more high profile people get busted so that file sharing can get it’s face it’s supposed to have: yours.
[quote comment="334649"]So? I pirate too, and I’m sure many more do so – but that doesn’t make it legal. You can’t possibly want stealing (yeah, yeah – protest as much as you want that they still have it – you’re stealing their product) to become legalized!
Before long we’ll have people stealing each others blueprints and whatnot.
The police officers should not have gotten off so easily.
You approach this the same way every legalization propaganda group approaches it: “If they can do it, why can’t we?”. Instead of this, bring arguments to its contribution to society. Laws are laws, and should be followed.[/quote]
yeah, i agree. all those police who file-shared should be jailed so that real(physical) criminals can come out and commit REAL crimes such as gran theft auto,robbery,rape,murder.
and i bet the existing prison warden had thier fair share in file-sharing too,and should be jailed too,and to avoid prison overcrowding,existing prisoners who were not piracy-related should be released,including xxxxxmolesters and serial murderers.
thank u konfusion.
[quote comment="334649"]So? I pirate too, and I’m sure many more do so – but that doesn’t make it legal. You can’t possibly want stealing (yeah, yeah – protest as much as you want that they still have it – you’re stealing their product) to become legalized!
Before long we’ll have people stealing each others blueprints and whatnot.
The police officers should not have gotten off so easily.
You approach this the same way every legalization propaganda group approaches it: “If they can do it, why can’t we?”. Instead of this, bring arguments to its contribution to society. Laws are laws, and should be followed.[/quote]
Blueprints and whatnot are the first pieces of information that get stolen, or copied to be specific. Or what do you think your countrys intelligence agencies are doing the whole blessed day? They steal as much as they can and it is written down in the law that they have to do it to keep your country from falling behind.
Industrial espionage is not much different. It’s just not as legal as governmental espionage. But it is state-approved nonetheless. Do you really think that all the technology that is used around the world has been invented independently over and over again?
And what about the entertainment industry? Did they invent “Romeo and Juliette”, “Frankenstein” or any other concept that has been recycled and reflected throughout the centuries? They take the blueprint, build a contemporary story on it and copyright it. Er, hello?
It is my responsibility as a citizen to trample all over the copyright and make the material available so that those who come after us can build on some cultural foundation.
Why shouldn’t police officers be able to release their stress from watching pirated movies lol… Better this, then tasering undeserving suspects and the like…
[quote comment="334649"]So? I pirate too, and I’m sure many more do so – but that doesn’t make it legal.[/quote]
Quite the contrary, pal, it does. It’s called democracy in case you didn’t know.
[quote comment="334649"]You can’t possibly want stealing (yeah, yeah – protest as much as you want that they still have it – you’re stealing their product) to become legalized![/quote]
Filesharing isn’t stealing. Protest as much as you want, but we still don’t steal anything. *Prove* that I’m wrong or it’s your word against mine (and by facts of reality mine has more weight. :-)
[quote comment="334649"]Before long we’ll have people stealing each others blueprints and whatnot.[/quote]
I see no logic. Theft of a *physical* object is always theft, regardless of what the object is. Sharing, on the other hand, is never theft. Pretty easy to distinguish, no?
[quote comment="334649"]Laws are laws, and should be followed.[/quote]
Laws, if you don’t mean laws of physics, are nothing more than mere words written on a piece of paper by people. These people can be incompetent and often they are. There’s human conduct, pal, ever heard about it?
Aussies are, generally speaking, a friendly, laid back bunch so in this case I say fair play to the coppers on this one – I have no problem with them getting off scot free. Hopefully now that they’ve gotten a taste for pirating they’ll keep it up. Does anyone remember “The Paul Hogan Show” – fucking great it was – and Hogan’s a real man too, not like that ponce Beckham and his stick insect with a fuck-hole that he calls a wife.
[quote comment="333928"][quote comment="333922"]
There is only one way to have peerguardian actually work, and thats to have it block the range 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 – anything else just doesn’t stop people, because you never know who’s behind a home IP address. [/quote]
THANKS _o_
I just added this range to peerguardian and have now SUPER GREAT download speeds, and have no NULL filled piece senders anymore ;)
╣=uck u g.a.y ¶pirates
! ╣=uck u g.a.y ¶pirates!
Just dropped in to copy my comment from the site i first found this article.
As humorous as i find this, honestly the coppers who were doing this have little to fear.
The only reason it was illegal is because they were using the police computers to download, and the police force is a business interest.
Had they done the same activity on their home computers they would have not been in breach of the copyright law.
Take this as serious warning though. If you happen to download on your work computer, stop now. The company you work for is a for-profit business and cannot be involved in filesharing. Your work, not you, will be taken to court. They will be found guilty, and of course they will pass the blame to you. You will be fired and possibly have to go to civil court.
Downloading and copying is completly legal here in australia, but only for civilians in a non-profit situation, not for government agencies or corporations.
Since im here and the topic is up.
I know a person who was recently charged with growing weed (he had 4 plants grown indoors, thats 4x the limit, he was given a $500 fine and no criminal record)
At his courtcase the judge told him he should have had one single plant, planted outside, then he would have never have been brought to court.
Lol !!!
So, basically, either
a) charge the majority of police officers with a crime and punish most of the provinces police officers by throwing them in jail for up to five years, or
b) let them get away with it, and only a token fine???:)
Okay, okay, there’s middle ground and other ground, but its still pretty funny:)
On a more serious note, while many police don’t have to deal with much, others have to deal with the most vicious, disgusting, vile street-level inhumanity in the country; death, and rape, and abuse, and molesting, and wife-beating; drug-addicts either freaking out or funding their habit; self-destruction and other-destruction. Compared to this, they probably don’t consider
not for profit file-SHARING
to be that big of a problem.
GO RON PAUL !!! He’s still in the race, and he will stay there until voting day !!!
aww, silly coppers – you need to use external hard drives when using your work compy at home; even at work, if you can somehow do it there.
Right on, anyway. I’m sure many members of many authoritative agencies do the same thing (hopefully not using their work computers).
“though, officers involved will not be charged.”
Priceless. Does this set some kind of precedent for civilians?
[quote comment="334287"]
The 6 month to 5 year wait for content to be officially released in Australia is the killer here. The big question is WHY DOES IT TAKE SO DAMN LONG? Aussies are grabbing torrents of American and British shows within minutes of the broadcast finishing, so why the f*** can’t our TV stations do the same and air the show the following day?[/quote]
They need the extra time to properly translate the films and TV shows into your language. :)
come to toptorrents forum invites
good list of PRIVATE TRACKERS THAT ARE OPEN FOR REGISTRATION
http://www.toptorrents.org
list FILM TV MUSIC GAMES APPS
irc.p2p-network.net – #toptorrents.org
arr gotta love the SA police
-> yep something else we know for :/ <-
Hahaha Australian police :)
P.S – Very well written article
[quote comment="334096"][quote comment="334034"][quote comment="334003"]I’ve been to South Australia and Im not surprised…you can even smoke weed there…[/quote]
ahahahaa NO!!
marijuana is illegal throughout Australia in any shape or form. You are not allowed to have any part of the plant at all and you can be issued on the spot fines for the tiniest substance. It’s not even legal for medicinal use[/quote]
You obviously have no idea what the law is :)
http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/NDARCWeb.nsf/resources/NDARCFact_Drugs4/$file/CANNABIS+AND+THE+LAW+FACT+SHEET.pdf
or if you can’t be bothered clicking on he link:
SA (1987) 100gram plant / 20 grams resin / 1 plant allowed.
ACT (1992) 25 gram plant / 2 plants allowed.
NT (1996) 50 grams plant / 10 grams resin / 1 gram oil / 2 plants allowed.
WA (2004) 30 grams plant / 2 plants.[/quote]
I’m sorry, but you’re the one that doesn’t understand the law, even with that fact sheet. That fact sheet also states that cannabis is illegal throughout Australia. What you have pointed out are states that have DECRIMINALISED minor cannabis possession. Decriminilisation does not mean “made legal”. It means it’s not treated as a criminal offense. Those amounts you pointed out from the fact sheet actually mean it is treated as a MINOR offence up to that amount. Anything exceeding that amount is then considered a criminal offense, where you can be locked up etc.
It’s like speeding fines. A speeding fine is not a criminal offense, only a minor offense, so you only get a ticket, or a warning if you’re so lucky. A minor offense against the law is still breaking the law, i.e illegal.
After typing this I just noticed in that fact sheet you so helpfully provided…
“Some states have decriminalised minor cannabis offences, such as the possession of a small
amount of marijuana for personal use. THIS MEANS that the offence can be dealt with by a CIVIL PENALTY, such as A FINE, rather than by receiving a CRIMINAL CHARGE. SPEEDING IS A GOOD EXAMPLE
of an offence that is commonly dealt with by a civil penalty.
If an offence is DECRIMINALISED, it DOES NOT MEAN that it is LEGAL.”
The very first line of your fact sheet even says “It is ILLEGAL TO USE, POSSESS, GROW OR SELL CANNABIS IN AUSTRALIA”
Geee….I typed what I knew above, then actually read the entire fact sheet you provided, to find out that it said exactly what I had originally said, even the examples I gave. Talk about coincidence. So you yourself are the one that obviously doesn’t understand the law, even after reading a simple fact sheet that tells you
Sounds about right, it was my ex-cop step-dad that got me into file sharing with Atari ST games he used to get from work.
Not surprised. Even bush downloaded and shares all the classic Andy Griffen shows. Record company execs share as well. Their only gripe is that way too many people share and now they’re all p/o because they can’t force consumers to pay roughly $20.00 per cd with a couple good songs. Musicians share as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if George Lucus was sharing classic episodes of Star Trek and Doctor Who. Oh and what is Prince Williams doing in his spare time besides having truffles with a cup of hot earl grey tea? Looking for classic episodes of Logans Run and Blakes 7. Grandma’s out there sharing millions of episodes of soap opera’s like Days of Our Lives and General Hospital. Shigeru Miyamoto ( Mario Bros. creator ) sharing classic episodes of Dragon Ball Z and probably looking for old classic transformer episodes. Stan Lee still trying to locate an original online version of Fantastic Four number 1. Doctors and surgeons sharing ER episodes. And don’t even be shocked if Internal Investigations are aware that 99.7% of the F.B.I. is sharing all 9 seasons of The X-Files including the first movie and the new screener copy. The point to all this? Many people from around the world regardless of their occupation shares and its quite all right. Just don’t get caught. And please no hit and runs. Thanks.
[quote comment="335617"]“though, officers involved will not be charged.”
Priceless. Does this set some kind of precedent for civilians?[/quote]
Not at all. Besides, I don’t see what’s wrong with sharing and downloading movies or TV episodes. We record them legally anyway. What’s the problem? Coz we don’t have to watch the ads? I never do and don’t know anyone who doesn’t hate them.
[quote comment="335596"]aww, silly coppers – you need to use external hard drives when using your work compy at home; even at work, if you can somehow do it there.
Right on, anyway. I’m sure many members of many authoritative agencies do the same thing (hopefully not using their work computers).[/quote]
Why should they tie up their home PC when they have much better faster ones at work, it’s free, and they can control what they do with it.
The fact that they would not be charged was brought out earlier by another poster.
Anyway they should be left alone. They leave filesharers alone, and don’t proscribe to all the RIAA crap . They’re not stupid, they know what’s going on.
[quote comment="335413"]Just dropped in to copy my comment from the site i first found this article.
As humorous as i find this, honestly the coppers who were doing this have little to fear.
The only reason it was illegal is because they were using the police computers to download, and the police force is a business interest.
Had they done the same activity on their home computers they would have not been in breach of the copyright law.
Take this as serious warning though. If you happen to download on your work computer, stop now. The company you work for is a for-profit business and cannot be involved in filesharing. Your work, not you, will be taken to court. They will be found guilty, and of course they will pass the blame to you. You will be fired and possibly have to go to civil court.
Downloading and copying is completly legal here in australia, but only for civilians in a non-profit situation, not for government agencies or corporations.[/quote]
So all this time I was led to believe that it’s illegal here when it’s actually not? But the fact that I thought it may have been but downloaded anyway I guess makes me dishonest. But no. If I believed that I’d have no music or movie collection now instead of the huge one I have but don’t know where and how it will ever end
Nice but they won’t manage anything….
http://funnyhack.blogspot.com
Yay, I live in South Australia =D
“The origin of these movies is not clear, but it is probable that they’ve been downloaded via p2p at some point, either on these systems, or on the personal systems of officers and transferred over.”
I’m as pissed off at the copyright cartels as the next guy, but it’s hard to take an article like this very seriously when it’s built on one huge assumption. Without evidence that those movies got there illegally there is no crime here.
But having said that, the SA police get even less respect for simply not bothering to investigate.
aussie, racist, usa-lite, fuck wits.
kangaroo fuckers.
I hate asstraylyuns.
go boongs!
another poorly researched article from Ben Jones claiming that trivial civil filesharing in Australia is illegal when it certainly is not
Ben how much damage to the filesharing cause can one little boy do? why does Ernesto even permit your posts?
aarrgh you pirate you. you are the stand up criminal
piss your pants and wear yellow the color of cowardice
A couple of years back my house got broken in to, after the forensics officer was done dusting he noticed a spindle of CDs on my desk and asked me if I was downloading stuff. What followed was me giving about him a 10 minute description of how to use bittorrent and a few relevant links (slyck, suprnova, etc).
[quote comment="335655"][quote comment="334287"]
The 6 month to 5 year wait for content to be officially released in Australia is the killer here. The big question is WHY DOES IT TAKE SO DAMN LONG? Aussies are grabbing torrents of American and British shows within minutes of the broadcast finishing, so why the f*** can’t our TV stations do the same and air the show the following day?[/quote]
They need the extra time to properly translate the films and TV shows into your language. :)[/quote]
lol ..
They should use Bablefish’s ‘From English to English’ option. lol
[quote comment="335655"][quote comment="334287"]
The 6 month to 5 year wait for content to be officially released in Australia is the killer here. The big question is WHY DOES IT TAKE SO DAMN LONG? Aussies are grabbing torrents of American and British shows within minutes of the broadcast finishing, so why the f*** can’t our TV stations do the same and air the show the following day?[/quote]
They need the extra time to properly translate the films and TV shows into your language. :)[/quote]
Ummm….they’re TV shows and movies….In that sense it’s pretty much English is English 95% of the time. In terms of written language then yes ok Australian ENGLISH is only very very slightly different to British ENGLISH, unlike american English which is pretty much just wrong in terms of written English :P
But hey, I here so much about how the american education system is so bad, so I suppose it must be difficult to teach people proper english, let alone how to translate not so good american english into what-everyone-else-speaks english :P
So I guess I totally agree with you on that point….lol
“heinous crime” that is a rather strong word for just downloaded movies
The article on DVD pirating interests me. Tell me, please, how many private individuals, collectors, film buffs, those sorts of people NOT PROFESSIONAL DEALERS have been prosecuted in Australia?
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