The £240 million kid

November 25, 2015 12:07 PM

The story of Kane Robinson, the man who supposedly stole £240 million from the music industry. Kane Robinson was a kid who loved the web and the Arctic Monkeys. His music forum Dancing Jesus became the target of the largest anti-piracy case ever seen in the UK.
posted by jontyjago (5 comments total)

Interesting read.

(may the olde-tyme record companies continue their slide back into the primordal ooze)
posted by Artful Codger at 3:14 PM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Poor bloke. I thought this was going to be about Oink's Pink Palace, which is mentioned in the article - I'd never heard of Dancing Jesus.

Anyone interested in this should read the excellent How Music Got Free which is a great account of the history of digital music piracy
posted by DanCall at 2:58 AM on November 26, 2015

Just outrageous, what was done to this kid. Fuck the BPI, and the elements of police, legal system, and parliament that enable them.
posted by Dysk at 4:15 AM on November 26, 2015

This is why I dread the thought of ever stumbling into the crosshairs of the criminal justice system. "The banality of weasels" might be an over used phrase but it seems appropriate.
posted by Pembquist at 10:28 AM on November 26, 2015

I don't know why we don't take this approach to more low-level crimes that aren't economical to punish individually. Surely if we summarily executed a few shoplifters -- purely to encourage the others to behave, you understand -- that would have a salutary deterrent effect.

Oh, wait a minute, yes I do know why we don't do this sort of thing more often.. because it's barbaric and doesn't work to select an individual by lot and make them the designated party to pay for all of the sins of the community. At least when primitive societies decided to do this they generally used livestock instead of people to serve as the scapegoat.
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:03 PM on November 26, 2015