Hacker wrists slapped for stealing Lady Gaga songs Two German hackers have been convicted of stealing unpublished songs from some of the most popular recording stars, including Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake, and selling them for a tidy profit. The unidentified youths, aged 18 and 23, used phishing attacks and trojans to plant malware on the computers of the …
So... 18 and 23, not really youths considering the DDR's age of majority. I guess 15K in fraud and sexual extortion and blackmail is typical of the average German freshman or grad student? I suspect if an Octoberfest addled frat boy walked into a Dorm and stole 15k in computers and stereo equipment, and used a polaroid photo to blackmail one of the coeds, it would make international headlines for how the perps would be reclining in a German goulag for a nice long stretch.
Electronic crime should be treated the same as terrestrial crime.
The usual "IP" bullshit & retardation applies , "stealing" is to be understood in a rather relaxed way. No actual good went anywhere nor are the incomes of anyone threatened or even diminshed.
Next: Why saying hello is not actually "sexual harrasment".
Internet addiction? How about that they are asocial little crims?
Throw the book at them, I'm really starting to get sick of people getting off on crimes because of these types of "mitigating circumstances." I may not like Kesha, but this little shit DAMN well knew that he was doing something both illegal and immoral when he blackmailed her. If Kesha came to his house and beat him every night, THAT would be a true mitigating circumstance. This is not.
As these are US artists, why aren't the pair being extradited to the US as with the British CS student
(Not that I want that to happen, though)?
The pair blackmailed, planted malware and went on a phishing rampage for financial gain by selling copyrighted material, yet the CS student merely linked to copyrighted material?
Some inconsistencies going on.
> As these are US artists, why aren't the pair being extradited to the US as with the British CS student
oh for fuck's sake! it was the uk government that signed a stupid extradition treaty with the americans. the germans had more sense. so if the feds want these two crimininals, there has to be an extradition hearing in the german courts. which could be tricky. keeping dirty pictures of kesha out of the newspapers is a noble public duty, not an offense.
These guys steal the stuff and resell for profit and get wrists slapped.
Joel Tenenbaum downloads 30 songs and shares them on P2P. No resale, no profit. He gets nicked for $675,000 (later reduced, but the point is, that was the original sentence).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/10/p2p_damages_reduced/
No further comment.
Given she's got writer/producer credits for pretty much her entire catalogue, I'd call that a swing and a miss. Though you may be confused where it states the name as "Stefani Germanotta". You can carry on doubting if she wrote them, but she certainly owns or co-owns them.
Keep on trollin' though.
Elvis also got a writing credit on a lot of his songs, but he never wrote a song in his life. It was done to get him (well, Colonel Tom) a bigger share of the money.
Also, whether she was involved in the writing or not, I'd be loath to describe her repetitive garbage as "songs".
The IT angle? That would be the auto-tuning software.
I finally figured out what a "lady gaga" was[1], and now you hit me with a "kesha"?
I realize this is a redtop, but Shirley all y'all at ElReg are trying to reach out to folks with at least a tiny little bit of an education?
[1] Basically, a later-day Ms. Ciccone, only with far less talent. The mind boggles ...
Actually, in this case, I would say that "stealing" is the correct verb. The accused "stole" revenue from their victims by releasing previously unreleased work thus depriving them of the income that releasing that work in their own time frame may have generated.
"Theft/stealing" is also an informal verbal shorthand used for some crimes against property.
One facet often ignored by freetards is that the "mere copying" of a song and then distributing it to others is permanently depriving the owner of their distribution rights to that song. The idea that theft must involve a corporeal presence that one is deprived of is simply a shallow justification for one to not have to pay for something the rights holder wishes to be paid for.
Note that these offenders did not redistribute these songs out of the goodness of their hearts. They charged people for the songs. The money they made from the illegal distribution of this media is in and of itself direct proof of depriving the artists of something ie: that same income.
...omg, you're right! I hadn't noticed before that the banner at the top of El Reg articles is in white text on a red background! Jesus! This means that The Register is exactly the same as The Star, which is exactly the same as The Daily Mirror, which is exactly the same as The Sun. And that means that every article in The Register is actually written by Rupert Murdoch (except the ones written by Murdoch's secret love child Lewis Page, of course).
Colour me enlightened.
If I ever get nicked for doing anything clearly illegal and driven by greed on the internet, I want everyone here to know that I'm highly addicted to the internet. I shall henceforth call you as witnesses whenever convenient, kthx.
Also, I'm not retired, so do I also qualify as a youth? Add that to my mitigation list please.
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