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.
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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
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