BitTorrent user's conviction and three-month prison sentence upheld on appeal
The first BitTorrent user in the world convicted for pirating and distributing movies on the internet began serving a three-month jail term yesterday after his appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
In delivering her judgment, Madam Justice Clare-Marie Beeson noted that Hong Kong laws aimed to give additional protection to copyright owners to help the city maintain its important and hard-won position as a responsible member of the global trading community.
The judge upheld the conviction and three-month jail sentence passed by Tuen Mun Court in November last year on Chan Nai-ming, 38.
Chan, whose internet alias was 'Big Crook', had been on bail pending yesterday's verdict.
He was convicted for attempting to distribute three Hollywood movies - Daredevil, Miss Congeniality and Red Planet - using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing technology.
He was found to have created and activated the 'seed' files for the movies that had enabled other BitTorrent users to download the movies from the internet on January 10 and 11 last year.