If someone has admitted to committing a crime, am I legally or morally obligated to report them?

[Holly3278]

Hi everyone. If someone has admitted to me that they committed a crime, am I legally obligated to report them? I ask because one person I know has told me that he has illegally downloaded music (and I consider illegally downloading music to be a mortal sin) and I need to know if I should report him or not.

 

[Rascalking]

In my opinion-and this just my opinion, it depends on the crime.

Downloading music is illegal, but I don’t think you should report it. To whom? Can you prove it?

I’m not supporting downloading music illegally, it’s a crime. But it is (obviously) up to you.

 

[curlycool89]

Just for the record, I would also consider downloading (copyrighted) music to be mortally sinful.

First, it does depend where you live. For example if you lived here in Canada, we’re not really sure what the law is (and the RCMP isn’t about to waste resources on it in any case). If you live in the US, then yes I believe it is illegal.

Now this is just my own opinion. I would say no. The reason has to do with the idea of justice. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is known to launch lawsuits against people for copyright infringement for downloading music, and the decisions are often in the range of $100,000 per song downloaded. Like I absolutely respect their right to defend their copyright and if the law allows then they should be able to recuperate damages, but when you get into even thousands of dollars per song it’s not justice anymore. Like, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.

But again, it is your own choice.

 

[thistle]

Hi everyone. If someone has admitted to me that they committed a crime, am I legally obligated to report them? I ask because one person I know has told me that he has illegally downloaded music (and I consider illegally downloading music to be a mortal sin) and I need to know if I should report him or not.

It may or may not be a crime and it may or may not be a mortal sin.

Some countries, like Canada and Holland for example, legally allow anyone to download anything from the internet (including music and movies). In other countries the law is unclear so you cannot simply assume its a crime.

Second, you did not state if the person is Catholic or not or even a believer. What is considered a mortal sin by a Catholic would not be a mortal sin to an atheist or even a non-Catholic Christian.
Even if the person is Catholic they may not know if what they did is in fact a grave sin. If they did not then it cannot be a mortal sin.

Thirdly, how do you know this person did what they said. You simply take what they said at face value?

Frankly, I think this is none of your business as far as reporting this person is concerned and you should say nothing!

 

[Holly3278]

It may or may not be a crime and it may or may not be a mortal sin.

Some countries, like Canada and Holland for example, legally allow anyone to download anything from the internet (including music and movies). In other countries the law is unclear so you cannot simply assume its a crime.

Second, you did not state if the person is Catholic or not or even a believer. What is considered a mortal sin by a Catholic would not be a mortal sin to an atheist or even a non-Catholic Christian.
Even if the person is Catholic they may not know if what they did is in fact a grave sin. If they did not then it cannot be a mortal sin.

Thirdly, how do you know this person did what they said. You simply take what they said at face value?

Frankly, I think this is none of your business as far as reporting this person is concerned and you should say nothing!

It is a crime because both of us live in the United States and it is a crime in the United States. He is a believer but he is not a Catholic. Also, I know this person did what he said he did because he admitted to it. Also, I probably am not going to report him. I don’t see it as being my business to do so. If he had admitted to murdering someone then yes, I would report him but he did not do something that serious.

 

[Zatzat]

I’m not supporting downloading music illegally, it’s a crime. But it is (obviously) up to you.

It’s a violation of copyright law, although it is in violation of a law…it is not a crime. A crime is an offense that falls within the boundaries of criminal law.

Speeding is a violation of a law, the highway traffic act, but it is not a crime.

If someone rolls through a stop sign without completely stopping, they have committed the offense of ’ disobey stop sign, fail to stop’…they’ve broken the law. Yet, do you call them criminals?

As far as your having knowledge of someone downloading music in violation of copyright law…I suggest you mind your own business.

Who are you going to report the person to? Do you think police departments have special file sharing units?

 

[Zatzat]

Some countries, like Canada and Holland for example, legally allow anyone to download anything from the internet (including music and movies)

Common mis-perception…

File sharing and downloading of copyright material is very much illegal in Canada. However, in 2004, due to a ruling in court ( that was later appealed) it was legal for a short period of time.

Here’s the reality;

“Piracy for personal use is no longer targeted,” Noël St-Hilaire, head of copyright theft investigations of the RCMP, said in an interview with Le Devoir. “It is too easy to copy these days and we do not know how to stop it,” he added.

St-Hilaire explained that they would rather focus on crimes that actually hurt consumers such as copyright violations related to medicine and electrical appliances, as well as ones that affect organized crime.’

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_Canada

 

[puzzleannie]

Hi everyone. If someone has admitted to me that they committed a crime, am I legally obligated to report them? I ask because one person I know has told me that he has illegally downloaded music (and I consider illegally downloading music to be a mortal sin) and I need to know if I should report him or not.

what does the criminal code in your state say, not your personal opinion, is it defined as a crime?. What does the Church say, and I am not sure she considers downloading a few songs a mortal sin. It could become a mortal sin for instance it the volume became greater, pirating CDs wholesale for big bucks, but my opinion makes it neither a sin nor a crime. To whom would you report it? Do you seriously want to fill out a police report about his? Yes there are some crimes that must be reported, capital crimes for example, and child abuse, and something that is recent and ongoing. Would you report someone who told you they shoplifted a CD 5 years ago, no.

 

[rodomonte]

justice.gov/usao/can/press/2008/2008_07_10_urie.sentenced.press.html

I investigated this Nigerian organized crime gang for several years after a “friend” of mine told me he worked for them on two fake purchase order scams as the pickup man. This was before they were arrested for similar attempted thefts elsewhere involving millions of dollars. He worked on two they were never charged with.

I spent several thousands of dollars of my own money to get my “friend” to divulge details about these people as he grew to trust me more and more. All I asked was for the FBI to provide me with recompense for the money I spent in return for the information I had developed, information which might save the government hundreds of thousands of dollars in re-prosecuting one of these Nigerians who had an original conviction overturned.

The FBI would not even reimburse me for my expenses, so I never gave them the information, although two US Attorneys said they were interested in it. Since the FBI effectively ruled that my information was not important, I concluded I had no obligation to provide it to them. These guys got a lot of prison time, so it’s not like they got off scott free. My “friend” got caught for the second job he did for them and served time.

I also investigated an illegal bookmaking operation by different people, and I couldn’t give that information away to law enforcement. That case was very touchy politically, since it involved a law enforcent agency not doing their job in investigating this. There was another case I gave the FBI information on, but they had no interest in that either, since it involved corruption by local sherrif’s deputies. These three cases have destroyed any confidence in law enforcement I might have had.

Since the OP’s original case was about copyright infringement, I will relate a story about the first Superman movie back in the 1970’s. There was a segment about the video piracy of this movie on CBS’ 60 Minutes called, “Who Stole Superman?” I had information from someone in the know that “Superman” was made available to radio/TV stations by the filmaker, Warner Brothers, so they could run it through a filmchain to make copies and sell them. This was done so they would promote Warner Brothers records on their radio stations. This was just a sophisticated form of payola. The hypocrisy by Warner Brothers in this matter is mind boggling.

This country is corrupt thru and thru. Most people just never see it.

 

[_L]

I stumbled upon this search, and I have an interesting situation to say the least.

around a year ago, I was conversing with an online friend, and she mentioned to me that a friend of hers killed a man and was never caught who knows how long ago that took place prior to her mentioning this. understandably I didn’t ask any more questions, but I know his name from her facebook. Now, would I consider her a trustworthy person? For the most part, yes…i think; she has told couple of outrageous stories before, but I wouldn’t say she is a compulsive liar, but I am now concerned that I may in some way be obligated to act on this information. I don’t know for sure whether she is telling the truth, I don’t have any evidence, I don’t know when or where this supposed crime took place, if this did occur I have no idea of the circumstances around it whether it was self defense or something else who knows, she and her friend live like halfway across the country with really no tangible way for me to verify any of this, I don’t even know the friend. Is this something I am obligated to act on? I really don’t even know how I would go about doing this. Or should I just leave it to the proper authorities to do their job and sort it all out if this is indeed even true at all?

I found the story to be a little far fetched that a teenage boy would be able to kill someone and not get caught. I dunno what to do

 

[puzzleannie]

Hi everyone. If someone has admitted to me that they committed a crime, am I legally obligated to report them? I ask because one person I know has told me that he has illegally downloaded music (and I consider illegally downloading music to be a mortal sin) and I need to know if I should report him or not.

what is the criminal code in your area regarding this? what kind of crime is it? in most places it is not criminal until one tries to profit from the illegal download. Better be sure of your facts before reporting in any case.