[WikiEN-l] Criminal copyright infringement

[Michael Snow]

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> Actually, as the occasional outraged victim is more than happy to 
>> remind us, copyright infringement can be considered criminal under 
>> certain circumstances, at least in the US. For example, willful 
>> infringement for commercial advantage, private financial gain, or of 
>> works with a total retail value of more than $1,000 over any 180-day 
>> period. See 17 U.S.C. §506. The safe harbors for online service 
>> providers and the requirement of willfulness make it difficult to 
>> apply to the Wikimedia Foundation, but I can imagine situations in 
>> which it could theoretically apply to the person uploading the material.
>>
>> The section also provides, among other things, for fines for 
>> fraudulent removal of copyright notices. This might be worth pointing 
>> out to those users we find modifying images they've clearly copied 
>> from other websites to remove such notices.
>
> A key thing for the copyright paranoiacs to remember is that criminal 
> infringement requires that the infringement must also pass the test 
> for being a civil infringement, and it must be "willful".  The 
> standard of proof is also much higher.  The only thing that goes the 
> other way to making it easier is a longer statute of limitation: 5 
> instead of 3 years.
>
> In other words, things need to get pretty bad before there is a US 
> criminal prosecution.  There would be plenty of warning before things 
> got that far.

Oh, criminal copyright prosecutions are rare enough, all right. In 
addition, it's not the copyright holder who gets to decide whether 
criminal charges are pressed. That decision is for the prosecutor in 
conjunction with a grand jury. Most federal prosecutors have more 
important matters to attend to.

--Michael Snow