A pirate needs to score 200,000 hits on YouTube, or he faces a huge fine.

The 30-year-old Czech pirate Jakub F., who was accused by the representative of the copyright holders of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) of illegally copying and distributing software, including Microsoft Windows, got into trouble . For eight years, Yakub uploaded to various forums links to download unlicensed programs from file hosting sites.

Punishment was inevitable. BSA experts have calculated his personality - and reported to the police. After the search, they confiscated the computer, external HDD and DVDs. The case was taken to court, the hearing took place in September. The court sentenced the accident to three years conditional and confiscation of equipment. But the story did not end there. Various corporations affected by the actions of Yakub, including Microsoft, HBO, Sony Music and Twentieth Century Fox, have estimated the damage in the aggregate at $ 373,000, with Microsoft alone billing at 223,000.

Apparently, the judge was shocked by such a large amount of compensation, or he understood the obvious fact that the guy would pay with corporations for the rest of his life. One way or another, but the parties eventually concluded an agreement on alternative punishment.

Instead of paying compensation, Jakub F. agreed to star in an anti-piracy campaign video (see below) entitled “The Story of My Piracy”. For the film, he opened a separate site http://www.mojepiratstvi.cz/ .
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“I had to open this site because for eight years I distributed pirated software, and then they caught me. I thought I was doing nothing wrong. I thought it would not hurt big companies. I did not even do it for the sake of money, but only for entertainment, ”the pirate repents of the crimes committed.

He talks about the pleasure of communicating on warez forums, distributing content to please other people. But everything ended with arrest and the demand to pay the sum that Yakub never collected.

The defendant seemed to have fulfilled his part of the agreement, but representatives of the BSA questioned the popularity of the video. They put a condition: until he gets 200,000 views, the requirement of financial compensation remains in force.



At this moment, the video scored 85,000 views. Let's see if the offender can atone.

UPD. As rightly noted in the comments, the BSA employees themselves helped to make the video and it is most of all similar to the video taken by the terrorists.