Spring Break
Bandido's sentence will fail to reduce piracy
OPEN TECHKNOWLEDGY
By: Dennis Mongello
Issue date: 6/29/07 Section: Ed-Op
Originally published: 6/28/07 at 11:48 PM EST
Last update: 6/28/07 at 11:47 PM EST
Originally published: 6/28/07 at 11:48 PM EST
Last update: 6/28/07 at 11:47 PM EST
So, Bandido got sentenced to 51 months in a U.S. federal prison, over three years of which will be waived because of time he served in Australia. His crime? Pirating software back in the 90s.
Hew Raymond Griffiths (known better to the Internet by his tag "Bandido") was one of the leaders of the warez group "DrinkOrDie" which is most famous for releasing Windows 95 a whopping two weeks before its official release date (Vista was released months before its release date).
Griffiths knew what he was doing was illegal, but I have to disagree with this arrest for two reasons. First, Griffiths is not a US citizen, never broke any laws in the U.S. and never even stepped foot on U.S. soil, yet he was extradited to the U.S. to serve time here. The second is the fact that this represents nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory in the war on piracy.
Griffiths was born in Great Britain and lived in Australia since he was young. Though the raid in which he was arrested occurred back in 2001, he could only be extradited recently, due to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.
The agreement itself is really outside the realm of my knowledge, but I think it is a good thing to keep relations good with Australia. However, I really believe it breaks the spirit of the law and is a gross misuse of jurisprudens to use this legislature penned in the name of creating a deeper friendship between the U.S. and Australia not for that, but to extradite an Australian citizen to a country in which, by its laws, he committed a crime.
The most disconcerting part of all this is that he was extradited despite the fact that he was not a fugitive and never made any money whatsoever in the midst of his crimes. This makes Griffiths unique as the first person to be extradited under those conditions. It looks like the U.S. government is really going out of their way to make an example of him.
This might seem like it would scare the swashbucklers of the silicon seas straight, but this is not even a ripple in the pond of piracy. There are countless groups out there operating in every country, even those without any type of trade agreement with the U.S.
Hew Raymond Griffiths (known better to the Internet by his tag "Bandido") was one of the leaders of the warez group "DrinkOrDie" which is most famous for releasing Windows 95 a whopping two weeks before its official release date (Vista was released months before its release date).
Griffiths knew what he was doing was illegal, but I have to disagree with this arrest for two reasons. First, Griffiths is not a US citizen, never broke any laws in the U.S. and never even stepped foot on U.S. soil, yet he was extradited to the U.S. to serve time here. The second is the fact that this represents nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory in the war on piracy.
Griffiths was born in Great Britain and lived in Australia since he was young. Though the raid in which he was arrested occurred back in 2001, he could only be extradited recently, due to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.
The agreement itself is really outside the realm of my knowledge, but I think it is a good thing to keep relations good with Australia. However, I really believe it breaks the spirit of the law and is a gross misuse of jurisprudens to use this legislature penned in the name of creating a deeper friendship between the U.S. and Australia not for that, but to extradite an Australian citizen to a country in which, by its laws, he committed a crime.
The most disconcerting part of all this is that he was extradited despite the fact that he was not a fugitive and never made any money whatsoever in the midst of his crimes. This makes Griffiths unique as the first person to be extradited under those conditions. It looks like the U.S. government is really going out of their way to make an example of him.
This might seem like it would scare the swashbucklers of the silicon seas straight, but this is not even a ripple in the pond of piracy. There are countless groups out there operating in every country, even those without any type of trade agreement with the U.S.
Jack Sparrow
posted 7/04/07 @ 11:56 AM EST
Excellent article. The US is essentially stripping away the sovereignty of an independent nation with moves like this. Note the original judge denied extradition, and after being embarrassed in the media as a result, American prosecutors went back before another (more favorable to their line of thinking) judge in an appeal that is/was extremely questionable. (Continued…)