[Mrluvaluva]

A teenager in Hong Kong has been arrested on suspicion of uploading 2,000 songs to a website for free downloading.

The boy, who has not been named for legal reasons, is accused of uploading Chinese language pop songs illegally and then advertising them for download on various internet forums, reports The New Zealand Herald.

Michael Kwan, a divisional commander of Hong Kong's Copyright Investigation Division, told a news conference that the boy has been released on bail while the investigation continues.

The maximum penalty for copyright infringements in Hong Kong is a four-year jail sentence and a fine of HK$50,000 (£3,495) for every item violated.

This means that, theoretically, if this teenager is found guilty he could be fined a total of nearly £7 million along with jail time.

In 2005, a Hong Kong man was successfully prosecuted and sentenced to three months in jail for sharing movies on the internet using the software client BitTorrent.


Original article here

[Lauren]

I'd love the authorities in general to give this much attention to crimes with a victim (rape... murder... etc).

[Chemicle]

Originally posted by Lauren
I'd love the authorities in general to give this much attention to crimes with a victim (rape... murder... etc).

Exactly, they're wasting their time with this crap.. get onto the real stuff would you !!

[Mrluvaluva]

They make me laugh how they come up with these ridiculous fines that no one ever could pay.

[Captain.Remy]

What a stupid little geek: 2000 !! But what he thinking ? And more important than that, he advertised them on a website.

I agree with Lauren too, I guess the authorities haven't anything better to do than giving attention to such minor things.

[Mrluvaluva]

I have downloaded files but never shared them. That was a long time ago too.

[MR.K!]

Thats ridiculous ! So basicly they cant be bothered catching the real criminals so they nail teenagers for downloading !?

[Mrluvaluva]

Originally posted by MR.K!

Thats ridiculous ! So basicly they cant be bothered catching the real criminals so they nail teenagers for downloading !?

YOU ARE NEXT!!!

[Tom]

You'd face prison for shoplifting .... why is this any different? Having said that, I do illegally download (just like I imagine everyone else in this thread does). I do think the punishments are a bit daft and should be more realistic and they do spend too much time on it.

[hannah.]

The kid was a bit stupid to advertise it on forums wasn't he? Should have just spread the word through MSN where it's much harder to look back at. Like you could probably have found him posting it everywhere on google and arrested him, what a div!