Hong Kong man loses Internet piracy appeal
The first person in the world to be convicted of distributing movies over the popular online BitTorrent network on Friday lost an appeal against a jail sentence in Hong Kong.
Chan Nai-ming will have to serve the three-month prison term after the five-member Court of Final Appeal, the city's highest court, handed down its unanimous verdict.
The unemployed 38-year-old, who used the screen name "Big Crook", was sentenced in 2005 after being found guilty of infringing copyright.
He had distributed three Hollywood movies on the Web using the peer-to-peer file-sharing technology.
Chan's lawyer argued that he only uploaded the movies and did not distribute them.
But the judges dismissed the argument, saying Chan's actions enabled people to download the movies.
"He plainly succeeded in distributing... copies of the films in question and was correctly convicted," said Justice Robert Ribeiro.
Tam Yiu-keung, Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Excise, welcomed the ruling, saying it would have "a strong deterrent effect on Internet piracy activities."
BitTorrent allows downloads from multiple sources, each supplying a small part of the file -- making it much easier and faster to share large files like films and software.
Chan was charged in April 2005 for uploading the movies "Daredevil", "Miss Congeniality" and "Red Planet" without a licence. He has already had an earlier appeal rejected.
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