Smooth criminals spared the clink for hacking Sony's Jacko archive

Two hackers were spared jail after admitting breaking into Sony's network and lifting unreleased Michael Jackson songs among 7,900 other files. James Marks, 27, of Daventry, Northants, and James McCormick, 26, of Blackpool, also swiped songs by acts including Elvis, Beyonce, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears as well as …

[QuinnDexter]

Smooth Criminals

How good is it that common sense has seen these two blokes, who stole and were likely to distribute (though actually hadn't yet), unheard MJ tracks (pretty big news) got community service for their crime. If they had been in America they would have been shipped off to Guantanamo Bay and fined a few million dollars. Wonder how Sony feel about that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Smooth Criminals

Were the stolen goods recovered and returned to their rightful owner?

A perfectly civilised sentence for a victimless crime.

[Steve Evans]

Re: Smooth Criminals

The goods never left the possession of the owners. They didn't steal anything, they copied the files. The owners were never deprived of the files.

Still an amazingly low sentence. How they avoided extradition hearings I will never know.

[sisk]

Re: Smooth Criminals

Still an amazingly low sentence.

I disagree. For once the punishment for copyright infringement fits the crime.

Better to give these guys community service and save the jail space and taxpayer dollars for real criminals. Like politicians.

[Steve Evans]

Re: Smooth Criminals

Sorry, yes, I meant amazingly low compared to what we have become accustomed to seeing. Not amazingly low for what they had actually done.

I agree. For once the punishment actually looks right for the crime.

[john 103]

"The hacking pair were then tracked down by officers of the UK's Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)."

I'll sleep easier tonight knowing that these 2 hardened criminals have been apprehended.

I dread to think what might have happened if their dastardly deeds had gone unpunished.

[BigAndos]

Amazing what qualifies as a "Serious Crime" these days!

[Ralph B]

Help Me Out Here

So, it's $222,000 for 24 songs or 100-hour community service for 7,900. Is that right? I thought I was getting the hang of Copyright Math(s), but now I'm confused again.

(Hmm, it looks like one hour of community service is worth $730,750, so Jammie could pay her dues in just over 18 minutes. Who knew?)

[No, I will not fix your computer]

Re: Help Me Out Here

The difference (while still seeming disproportionate) is that they didn't share or sell, it appears they intended to, but as they didn't actually do it, there was no statuatory damage - no actual "loss" to the copywrite holder, whereas sharing 24 songs (she actually shared 1700+, it's just that 24 were the subject of the case), potentially copied directly many times, and those copies then copied many times again (as per their claim) is an actual loss.

It's perhaps reasonable to say it's unfair that Jammie was unaware of the potential cost and damage (and that should be taken into account), whereas a deliberate hack and theft is far worse (and of course it is), but that's purely the criminal activity, not the civil restitution, if you carelessly throw a ball through someones window you might be liable for a new window, or a multi-million ming vase, your intention is irrelevant with respect to the damage you caused (although it might mitigate a criminal case).

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright maths

Unlike your backwards corrupt legal system in the US, the punishment here did fit the crime.

[Michael Habel]

We'd have likely been subjugated to more of what passes for Mr. Jacksons' music.

Yes the World can rest easy tonight.

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious and Organised Crime Agency

I always thought serious and organized crime were murders drug trafficing child molestation etc, not stealing a few songs they never planned to release. Perhaps it should be renamed.

Media Entertainment Department for Intimidating Anyone

Media for short.

[Thomas 4]

What kind of half-assed punishment is this?!

6 months suspended is nothing for releasing more of Ms Spears garbage on the world.

[Meerkatdorg]

Sony's security breached yet again...and a punishment for what?

Jacko's music had been guff for years before his death. Anything as yet unreleased is going to be even worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony had an SQL injection on one of their main pages for months/years and never did anything about it.

So much the servers were slowed down by people dumping the databases..

[Crisp]

This reminds me of that time that Sony snuck a rootkit onto my machine

And no one was arrested.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: This reminds me of that time that Sony snuck a rootkit onto my machine

Quite, that would have been interested seeing Sony fined $7000 odd for each and every infringement on a persons pc. Seems the bigger you get, the easier it is to break the law and get away with it.

[ukgnome]

What kind of idiot

would pay for these songs - ha ha, only kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your name have to begin with MC (McCormick, McKinnon) to be allowed to hack America based servers then get caught? :)

[Andus McCoatover]

TARGET!!!

McDonalds!!!

(Starts with Mc???)

[Simon B]

Yet more shite justice, rob and get a slap on the wrist. Off to find a shop!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowt As Queer As Folk

No accounting for taste!

[Tiny Iota]

Copyright

Its almost as bad as nicking someone else's joke…

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/03/05/jackson_catalogue_hack_charges/#c_1335862

[JaitcH]

No free trip to the USA?

That's a pleasant change.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a waste of resources

Two chumps downloading some files from a company with a notoriously poor reputation for security of any form get the full SOCA treatment at the expense of the UK taxpayer.

This hardly falls under the remit of serious or organised crime.

More and more SOCA appear to be the copyright police for big media rather than actually dealing with the real serious and organised crime.

[Arachnoid]

Lucy they didnt find the secret files on UFOs or they certainly would have been deported to Kitmo