Austrailian student may go to jail for creating MP3WMAland
Posted on 11/11/03 15:04 by Dan Bell                             
Austrailian student may go to jail for creating MP3WMAland
Mr. Belvedere used our news submit to tell us about a story he saw on SMH.com.au concerning a 20 year old University of NSW science student Charles Ng. Charles may soon be jailed for his creation and operation of a website, MP3WMAland. It seems three university students met on the internet, then combined their computer and music skills to create an illegal website containing, you guessed it, copyrighted materials from the music industry. The young men are now awaiting sentencing for Australia's first criminal prosecution for online music piracy. Ng ran the Napster-style website from his bedroom at his family's home in Blacktown, and while none of the students made any money out of the site, the music industry alleges the pirated music cost it at least $ 60 million.

Counsel for the Commonwealth, Paul Roberts, SC, said Ng was well aware he was acting illegally. Not only was the site camouflaged - the web space had been let to him by a teenage boy in Perth - but Ng had co-written an essay for his information technology law course on "open source software licensing".

Mr Roberts said the offences carried a maximum jail term of five years or a fine of $ 60,500. He said the seriousness of the criminality and the deterrence factor demanded a full-time jail sentence for Ng.

He said one of the co-accused, UTS information technology student Peter Tran, 19, was less culpable, having met Ng on the internet then assisted running and operating the site.

He said the Commonwealth did not seek jail for UTS computer science student Tommy Le, 21, who has pleaded guilty to breaching copyright by mixing music and distributing his compilation tracks on the site.

Very sad indeed, I hope that something can be done so as not to ruin these young peoples lives. What they did is wrong, but the punishment to me is extremely harsh. Lets all keep an eye on this and hope there is a civil outcome. I am having a hard time understanding how a website that was so well camouflaged an investigator had to be led there could have a 60 million dollar impact on the labels. 

Surely, there has to be an equitable solution to this situation. Please do not put a young human being with no prior criminal record, in a cage, for the illegal use of music.

Source: smh.com.au

Reactions
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By GristyMcFisty, Tuesday 11 November 2003 18:02
GristyMcFistyHey, $60,000,000 of wealth re-distributed to the masses! Were these guys modern day Robin Hoods or what? devil
By spacegrass, Wednesday 12 November 2003 03:46
Well, life in Australia can be harsh. Haven't you ever seen "Welcome to Woop-Woop?"
By Sherrif, Wednesday 12 November 2003 05:41
In australia approximately 80% of the wealth is controlled by 5% of the population........I wonders what percentage of that 5% is made up of scumbag lawyers getting richer prosecuting people who are in contravention of what is really a frigging goober home law.......isn't there some planet the americans can take over and ALL move there...leaving the rest of the world here ...to wallow......happily........cool
By Warped, Wednesday 12 November 2003 06:19
I seriously doubt it cost the music industry 60 million. I mean i downloaded a bit of stuff there and i was never intending to buy any of it b4 i downloaded it. I believe this would be the same for the vast majority of people.
By chsbiking, Wednesday 12 November 2003 14:18
What people need to do is start keeping track of what these articles say it's costing them. Like this one is 60 mil. Everytime you hear about a music lawsuit just write down how much that lawsuit supposdly costs the music industry and then at the end of the year. The RIAA or BSA or somebody will give you a number and say ok, this is how much we lost to piracy this year. If those numbers don't match up. Somebody is lying.
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