The case had unusual hallmarks from the start, not least since SAFACT admitted it had engaged the services of a “certified ethical hacker” to identify, profile and trace the uploader. Adding to the intrigue, SAFACT also refused to name the uploaded movie, although it was later revealed to be Four Corners, a local gangland film that was yet to be officially released.

Initially, the identity of the uploader was also shrouded in mystery but he was later revealed to be 29-year-old Majedien Norton. The IT engineer was reported to have uploaded the movie on November 21, 2013, although there is no sign of it now, which suggests that the father of two later deleted the file. Norton later admitted to buying a ‘screener’ copy of the movie off the streets and uploading it to Pirate Bay.

As in many countries, relatively minor and non-commercial instances of copyright infringement are dealt with via the civil courts in South Africa, but from fairly early on it was clear that this case would be different. The overall anti-piracy tone was that an example needed to be made and a precedent set for those tempted to make the same kind of mistake in future.

Today the case concluded in the Commercial Crimes Court in Cape Town and it seems that SAFACT largely achieved its aims. After being arrested under the Counterfeit Goods Act and facing a fine plus up to three years in jail, Norton came to an arrangement with the state, pleaded guilty, and was handed a five-year suspended jail sentence.

“It’s a huge relief for me and my wife,” Norton told local news outlet htxt.africa. “I’m just glad we can put this behind us now and move on.”

But while SAFACT and the rest of the anti-piracy lobby will be pleased with the harsh albeit suspended sentence, in a recent interview the director of Four Corners was philosophical over the piracy of his movie.

“I think the way people think now ­ digitally ­they don’t see piracy as piracy any more. They see it as sharing. We will definitely not get as many people to the cinemas as we would have if the film were not pirated,” Ian Gabriel said.

“At the same time, there are people who have seen the film who would never have got to the cinema. I’m pleased the film is reaching those people because there’s a message of pride and self recognition and of choice for ordinary people that the film is delivering and its important that message be heard.”

And while SAFACT clearly believe that the threat of criminal punishments will help solve the piracy problem, Gabriel sees things from a different angle. Noting that movies cannot exist without money, the director says a more considered approach to piracy is required.

“I suggest in order to continue to enhance our quality of life, creative rights of origination need to be secured on some consensual level, probably not through aggressive policing, but rather through a common sense approach to the protection of creative endeavour for the benefit of all,” the director concludes.

SAFACT are yet to comment on the conclusion of the case.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft (SAFACT) clearly appreciated the significance of the development, with their CEO Corné Guldenpfennig explaining they had caught the man by employing a hacker. The group further clarified via a piece on their own website.

“The senior investigator on the E-Task Team is an internationally accredited CEH, or certified ethical hacker. This team was able to identify, profile, and trace the uploader based on their investigation on the Internet,” SAFACT wrote, adding:

“When asked about the significance of the case, Guldenpfennig said that it is a first for South Africa and that they made extremely certain of all the rights issues around this situation.”

Unfortunately, making sure “of all the rights issues” wasn’t something carried out by SAFACT in respect of their own website. Let’s take a look at an excerpt from the SAFACT announcement currently displayed on their site, with the focus on the last few lines.

Funnily enough, it turns out that the much of the SAFACT article, minus a few alterations that would identify the source, was lifted from an article written by Jan Vermeulen for MyBroadband.co.nz.

But lifting the text from a news outlet and passing it off as their own work wasn’t the end of the matter for SAFACT. HTXT.africa has noticed some other issues which for a major pro-copyright group should be a major source of embarrassment.

The problem relates to the image the anti-piracy outfit published alongside their ‘version’ of the MyBroadband piece. Courtesy of Google cache, here it is:

As can be seen from this Google reverse image search, the center photograph is actually related to the arrest of a LulzSec member carried out by the Australian police and published without the necessary Reuters credit.

The fact that the police were Australian was hidden, however, after someone working for SAFACT took the image (from a video shown on The Guardian) and Photoshopped out “Australian Federal” from the officer’s coat leaving just “police” behind. (Original below)

In an email to htxt.co.za, SAFACT CEO Corné Guldenpfennig laid the blame for the image (not the article) at the feet of their web design company.

“I wish to confirm that SAFACT would never intentionally infringe on any individual or company’s intellectual property rights as it is the mission of SAFACT to protect and enforce IPR,” Guldenpfennig said.

But things really take a turn for the weird when one notes that although SAFACT later removed the unlicensed image and replaced it with the image here, they have since taken that down and replaced it with a new version of the unlicensed Reuters image.

Quite bizarrely SAFACT has animated the graphic in a way that only highlights the fact that they ‘shopped the original image. You can see it here, but we’ve included it below for reference.

Quite possibly the most bizarre response to a copyright issue this year.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.