The story of one "violation" of copyright. Part 1
In this post I will tell you about the real case of criminal prosecution under article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and at the same time, 273 (copyright infringement and the creation / distribution / use of malicious software). I was a direct participant in this story, first as a defendant, and then as a defendant.
It all started in 2007. The Internet in our region was slow and expensive (64 Kbps for 1100 rubles per month and 128 Kbps for 2500 rubles per month), there was no normal competition to the monopolist provider. On traffic charges, the price for 1 megabyte was in the region of 2-3 rubles. However, the provider had an internal network with no restrictions on speed and traffic - Intranet. A number of services were deployed on this network, some were supported by the provider, some by users. In our history, there is one provider service — a local file sharing service and one user service — a fairly popular information portal.
Unknown persons placed distributions of a number of Adobe, Autodesk, ASCON, Microsoft products on the file hosting service. And the user under the pseudonym Peter posted on the information portal descriptions of these products and links to file sharing. Visitors to the portal were pleased to see fresh software on the Intranet and actively voted for the user rating Peter. As a result, Peter became the leader in rating for two months in a row, for which he received invitations to the entertainment club twice. It is not clear what prompted Peter to write this news, maybe he was hoping to get money for it, maybe he wanted to get two kilograms of good sausage, or maybe he thought it was good to share information, because the information is not an apple :)
Only now the nightclubs did not attract Peter, so he just gave the tickets to his friends.
It all happened in the spring of 2007, and in the summer of 2007, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to Peter's place of residence, namely: an investigator from the district ROVD, three operatives of department K, two witnesses. Service certificates and a court order were searched for an apartment search. In a court order, it was written that Peter was suspected of distributing several software products using the Intranet, which caused damage in the amount of 112 thousand rubles. (article 146, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code). Peter voluntarily provided all computer equipment and storage media in the apartment. The system unit, keyboard, mouse and a pack of CDs were seized, for which a protocol was drawn up and signed by all those present. Then we drove to the ROVD, where the design of all kinds of papers began.
There was a question about a lawyer. Peter had one good acquaintance, a lawyer who, like Peter, was fond of computers and StarCraft. Naturally, there was no doubt in choosing a lawyer. The investigation did not like the version of his lawyer, of course, however, Peter still called the lawyer. The lawyer recommended refusing to testify on the basis of art. 51 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, until the contents of the criminal case become known. The investigator naturally recommended not to use Art. 51, but to testify. Peter, judging logically, considering that he did not know what the investigation has, refused to testify.
After that, the department C operative reached home with Peter. Along the way, he argued that it was necessary to cooperate with the investigation, said that other people, when faced with department K, were cooperating, got off well, got a good job, etc. At the same time, he called specific names (more precisely, nicknames on the network). He also said that a lawyer is interested only in money and quickly get rid of this case. Peter listened attentively to all this, but did not take a specific decision, the operative said that he would think about everything, and perhaps he would cooperate.
The next couple of days, Peter talked to people who came across department K. Those who the operative called and those whom he knew about. It was not nearly as rosy as the operative described. People received suspended sentences and fines, they did not provide any good works. In general, everything was a lie. The investigation simply wanted to close the case quickly. Now, without any doubt, Peter gave a categorical refusal to cooperate with the investigation, which practically declared a cold war.
The investigator was a man who wasted no words. He simply explained: “By your decision you will ruin our lives, which means we will ruin your lives.” The operative, it seems, has begun to go mad: anger, aggression, threat flows. Fortunately, Peter quickly got used to ignore him. At that time, Peter finished the penultimate course of study, worked at the place of study as a laboratory technician and was soon going to get a job with a cable television provider who planned to start providing Internet access. The investigation did everything possible to ruin Peter’s life. At the place of study, they wrote letters, reported that he was a criminal, asked to work with students to reduce the crime rate. There were also personal repeated visits to the leadership of the educational institution, in which they asked: “Why have you not yet expelled the criminal? Why is the criminal still working as a lab technician for you? ”, Threatened with computer checks.
Peter was lucky, the management was on his side: “We will not deduct him, he has excellent performance. We will not fire him; he does an excellent job. Checks spend, we have everything clean. " Later, the teachers said that the operative behaved like a patient, was very angry, broke into threats. After some time, Peter resigned at his own request from the post of laboratory assistant and got a job at the provider. The last course of study he combined with this work. The operative was also at the new place of work, but again the management sided with Peter. Of course, Peter was asked to monitor the licensed purity of the software used in the work and not substitute the company.
The investigation, meanwhile, was actively interrogating all Peter’s entourage, friends, relatives, and other Intranet users who might have known him. Besides the pile of positive characteristics, the investigation found nothing. Peter did not transmit or install any programs to anyone, nobody saw Peter distribute any software. After a couple of months, an examination of the system unit, taken from Peter, was ready. The amount of damage increased by 413 thousand rubles. Accordingly, another episode of the charges under article 146, paragraph 3c of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation appeared - a violation of copyright on a particularly large scale, which threatens to last up to 6 years. As well as crack and keygen programs were classified as malware and the third episode of the charges under article 273, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was added - the use and distribution of malware. The investigator kept his word and worked for glory :) Now Peter’s crime was qualified as serious, and in total he was threatened with up to 9 years. In reality, it would be a suspended sentence, and Peter was ready to receive it.
Examination was largely inadequate. For example, an expert called a certain distribution kit counterfeit based only on the fact that it was downloaded from the network, and she learned about the fact of the race from the investigation. Another expert compared the file allegedly provided by the investigation with the file on Peter’s computer only by name and size. But this file was not provided to the expert at all. There were many such moments in the examination. Peter and his lawyer put additional clarifying questions to the expert, half of the questions were dropped by the investigator, explaining that they were answered. For other questions, the expert gave answers similar to the examination.
Peter's lawyer, of course, understood that he would hardly be able to “bomb” the examination in court with the words of him or Peter, so they turned to two general acquaintances who could appear in court as specialists. These two acquaintances were declared as witnesses for the defense, and Peter and his lawyer were actively preparing for the trial. Here, the investigators again used their dirty tricks, the witnesses for the defense were brazenly pulled out of their workplaces and interrogated, and the interrogation protocols were backdated. Thus, the investigation tried to find out what the defense has, what points to pay attention to in the criminal case. According to the results of their interrogation, the expert was asked several more clarifying questions, but this did not add adequacy to the materials of the criminal case :)
After that, the investigator finally got ready to take the case to court. Peter and his lawyer finally got acquainted with the case file. The case was initiated on the basis of the report of the operative himself, screenshots of posts on the information portal, files on the file sharing service, a disk with distributions downloaded from these links were presented. Also, the provider was requested data on the links to the file sharing service, traffic data from Peter. The data provided by the provider was, fortunately, reliable. From the heap of links to the file hosting service in the request, only 4 files were placed by Peter, these were patches and localizers. In the details on the services of the provider, it was clear that Peter had consumed less than 1 Gb of traffic all the time, which is much less than the total volume of distributions. These data were obtained by department K before the criminal case was initiated, it was on the basis of these data that Peter became suspected of distributing counterfeit software, and it was on the basis of these data that the judge wrote down a search decision on the apartment. The situation turned out to be delusional: a criminal case was initiated on the basis of evidence that testified in favor of the suspect :) Unfortunately, in Russia this is in the order of things, the expert’s computer qualification level hardly reaches the advanced user, what to say about the law enforcement agencies it was more real, some software was actually installed on the computer that could be considered counterfeit.
Peter decided to fight with a lawyer in full force and exercised the right to a panel of three judges, because the crime was qualified as grave. Familiar lawyers called the lawyer a suicide, the investigator said that “you will have a slaughterhouse there,” but they were already ready for the slaughter. The panel of three judges on the one hand gives hope for a more thorough consideration of the case, on the other hand this is an unnecessary creation of problems for the court, usually they do not exercise this right.
After that, the investigator repeatedly (10 or more times) tried to transfer the case to the prosecutor for sending to the court. Each time the prosecutor returned the case for one reason or another. After returning, the investigator questioned another acquaintance of Peter, or wrote a pack of some papers and tried to send the case (already 4 volumes up) again. All this lasted until October 2008.
To be continued...
It all started in 2007. The Internet in our region was slow and expensive (64 Kbps for 1100 rubles per month and 128 Kbps for 2500 rubles per month), there was no normal competition to the monopolist provider. On traffic charges, the price for 1 megabyte was in the region of 2-3 rubles. However, the provider had an internal network with no restrictions on speed and traffic - Intranet. A number of services were deployed on this network, some were supported by the provider, some by users. In our history, there is one provider service — a local file sharing service and one user service — a fairly popular information portal.
Unknown persons placed distributions of a number of Adobe, Autodesk, ASCON, Microsoft products on the file hosting service. And the user under the pseudonym Peter posted on the information portal descriptions of these products and links to file sharing. Visitors to the portal were pleased to see fresh software on the Intranet and actively voted for the user rating Peter. As a result, Peter became the leader in rating for two months in a row, for which he received invitations to the entertainment club twice. It is not clear what prompted Peter to write this news, maybe he was hoping to get money for it, maybe he wanted to get two kilograms of good sausage, or maybe he thought it was good to share information, because the information is not an apple :)
If you have an apple and I have an apple, and if we exchange these apples, then you and I have one apple each. And if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
')
George Bernard Shaw
Only now the nightclubs did not attract Peter, so he just gave the tickets to his friends.
It all happened in the spring of 2007, and in the summer of 2007, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to Peter's place of residence, namely: an investigator from the district ROVD, three operatives of department K, two witnesses. Service certificates and a court order were searched for an apartment search. In a court order, it was written that Peter was suspected of distributing several software products using the Intranet, which caused damage in the amount of 112 thousand rubles. (article 146, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code). Peter voluntarily provided all computer equipment and storage media in the apartment. The system unit, keyboard, mouse and a pack of CDs were seized, for which a protocol was drawn up and signed by all those present. Then we drove to the ROVD, where the design of all kinds of papers began.
There was a question about a lawyer. Peter had one good acquaintance, a lawyer who, like Peter, was fond of computers and StarCraft. Naturally, there was no doubt in choosing a lawyer. The investigation did not like the version of his lawyer, of course, however, Peter still called the lawyer. The lawyer recommended refusing to testify on the basis of art. 51 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, until the contents of the criminal case become known. The investigator naturally recommended not to use Art. 51, but to testify. Peter, judging logically, considering that he did not know what the investigation has, refused to testify.
In the end, cooperation with the investigation should have ended in a special order. This means that the accused admits his guilt, the court does not investigate all the evidence, but immediately makes a decision, and more lenient than in the usual way. This is convenient for the investigation, if it knows that there are any flaws in the case, or simply does not want to waste too much time, and it is convenient for the accused if he knows that there is a lot of evidence against him.
After that, the department C operative reached home with Peter. Along the way, he argued that it was necessary to cooperate with the investigation, said that other people, when faced with department K, were cooperating, got off well, got a good job, etc. At the same time, he called specific names (more precisely, nicknames on the network). He also said that a lawyer is interested only in money and quickly get rid of this case. Peter listened attentively to all this, but did not take a specific decision, the operative said that he would think about everything, and perhaps he would cooperate.
The next couple of days, Peter talked to people who came across department K. Those who the operative called and those whom he knew about. It was not nearly as rosy as the operative described. People received suspended sentences and fines, they did not provide any good works. In general, everything was a lie. The investigation simply wanted to close the case quickly. Now, without any doubt, Peter gave a categorical refusal to cooperate with the investigation, which practically declared a cold war.
The investigator was a man who wasted no words. He simply explained: “By your decision you will ruin our lives, which means we will ruin your lives.” The operative, it seems, has begun to go mad: anger, aggression, threat flows. Fortunately, Peter quickly got used to ignore him. At that time, Peter finished the penultimate course of study, worked at the place of study as a laboratory technician and was soon going to get a job with a cable television provider who planned to start providing Internet access. The investigation did everything possible to ruin Peter’s life. At the place of study, they wrote letters, reported that he was a criminal, asked to work with students to reduce the crime rate. There were also personal repeated visits to the leadership of the educational institution, in which they asked: “Why have you not yet expelled the criminal? Why is the criminal still working as a lab technician for you? ”, Threatened with computer checks.
Peter was lucky, the management was on his side: “We will not deduct him, he has excellent performance. We will not fire him; he does an excellent job. Checks spend, we have everything clean. " Later, the teachers said that the operative behaved like a patient, was very angry, broke into threats. After some time, Peter resigned at his own request from the post of laboratory assistant and got a job at the provider. The last course of study he combined with this work. The operative was also at the new place of work, but again the management sided with Peter. Of course, Peter was asked to monitor the licensed purity of the software used in the work and not substitute the company.
The investigation, meanwhile, was actively interrogating all Peter’s entourage, friends, relatives, and other Intranet users who might have known him. Besides the pile of positive characteristics, the investigation found nothing. Peter did not transmit or install any programs to anyone, nobody saw Peter distribute any software. After a couple of months, an examination of the system unit, taken from Peter, was ready. The amount of damage increased by 413 thousand rubles. Accordingly, another episode of the charges under article 146, paragraph 3c of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation appeared - a violation of copyright on a particularly large scale, which threatens to last up to 6 years. As well as crack and keygen programs were classified as malware and the third episode of the charges under article 273, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was added - the use and distribution of malware. The investigator kept his word and worked for glory :) Now Peter’s crime was qualified as serious, and in total he was threatened with up to 9 years. In reality, it would be a suspended sentence, and Peter was ready to receive it.
Examination was largely inadequate. For example, an expert called a certain distribution kit counterfeit based only on the fact that it was downloaded from the network, and she learned about the fact of the race from the investigation. Another expert compared the file allegedly provided by the investigation with the file on Peter’s computer only by name and size. But this file was not provided to the expert at all. There were many such moments in the examination. Peter and his lawyer put additional clarifying questions to the expert, half of the questions were dropped by the investigator, explaining that they were answered. For other questions, the expert gave answers similar to the examination.
Peter's lawyer, of course, understood that he would hardly be able to “bomb” the examination in court with the words of him or Peter, so they turned to two general acquaintances who could appear in court as specialists. These two acquaintances were declared as witnesses for the defense, and Peter and his lawyer were actively preparing for the trial. Here, the investigators again used their dirty tricks, the witnesses for the defense were brazenly pulled out of their workplaces and interrogated, and the interrogation protocols were backdated. Thus, the investigation tried to find out what the defense has, what points to pay attention to in the criminal case. According to the results of their interrogation, the expert was asked several more clarifying questions, but this did not add adequacy to the materials of the criminal case :)
After that, the investigator finally got ready to take the case to court. Peter and his lawyer finally got acquainted with the case file. The case was initiated on the basis of the report of the operative himself, screenshots of posts on the information portal, files on the file sharing service, a disk with distributions downloaded from these links were presented. Also, the provider was requested data on the links to the file sharing service, traffic data from Peter. The data provided by the provider was, fortunately, reliable. From the heap of links to the file hosting service in the request, only 4 files were placed by Peter, these were patches and localizers. In the details on the services of the provider, it was clear that Peter had consumed less than 1 Gb of traffic all the time, which is much less than the total volume of distributions. These data were obtained by department K before the criminal case was initiated, it was on the basis of these data that Peter became suspected of distributing counterfeit software, and it was on the basis of these data that the judge wrote down a search decision on the apartment. The situation turned out to be delusional: a criminal case was initiated on the basis of evidence that testified in favor of the suspect :) Unfortunately, in Russia this is in the order of things, the expert’s computer qualification level hardly reaches the advanced user, what to say about the law enforcement agencies it was more real, some software was actually installed on the computer that could be considered counterfeit.
Peter decided to fight with a lawyer in full force and exercised the right to a panel of three judges, because the crime was qualified as grave. Familiar lawyers called the lawyer a suicide, the investigator said that “you will have a slaughterhouse there,” but they were already ready for the slaughter. The panel of three judges on the one hand gives hope for a more thorough consideration of the case, on the other hand this is an unnecessary creation of problems for the court, usually they do not exercise this right.
After that, the investigator repeatedly (10 or more times) tried to transfer the case to the prosecutor for sending to the court. Each time the prosecutor returned the case for one reason or another. After returning, the investigator questioned another acquaintance of Peter, or wrote a pack of some papers and tried to send the case (already 4 volumes up) again. All this lasted until October 2008.
To be continued...
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/108484/
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