James Delahunty
18 May 2007 19:09
The first person to be convicted for uploading movies (or technically chunks of movie files) using BitTorrent software has lost an appeal against a jail sentence in Hong Kong. Chan Nai-ming was sentenced to three months in prison in 2005 for uploading Daredevil, Miss Congeniality and Red Planet using P2P software. It was "distributing" and not "downloading" that got him a jail sentence.
Chan used the screen name "Big Crook", which probably didn't help his case and is presumably why he was such a good candidate to pursue as an example. The lawyer for the 38 year old said that he uploaded the movies but did not distribute them. The five-member Court of Final Appeal did not agree with that claim and handed down its unanimous verdict.
"He plainly succeeded in distributing... copies of the films in question and was correctly convicted," said Justice Robert Ribeiro. An earlier appeal had also been rejected. Chan Nai-ming will now have to serve the three-month prison term.
Source:
Yahoo