Following up on Torrent Shutdowns

dantheman82 and others have submitted a number of links about the recent closure of torrent mega sites like suprnova and torrentbits. The Unofficial Suprnova Closure FAQ comments that some torrent site maintainers have been arrested and that Suprnova was closed over fear of similiar fate. DeHavilland notes that the finnish police raided an unnamed torrent site. There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.

Comments

Did anyone NOT expect this?

[mOoZik]

I mean, c'mon. They were ostentatiously peddling links to illegal stuff. It was only a matter of time until the MPAA got its act together to scare these sites into shutting down, with little more than a threat. The submission of these sites (pun unintended) is what's scary.

Not that scary

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding."

Well, I'm not sure how it's scary. If I'm the owner of some digital item that has a copyright on it and some other country where copyrights are valid has people breaking it I hope the police would do something about it.

Doing their bidding

[nwbvt]

Thats what law enforcement agents exist for. To enforce the law. If in these cases the law was indeed broken (I don't personally know the details), then they were doing their job.

What did you think they were paid to do, pull over and beat minorities?

Re:Doing their bidding

[Martin Blank]

There is the issue of civil vs. criminal law. Police should not, IMHO, be involved in enforcing civil law to any greater extent than ensuring compliance with court orders (sheriffs or marshals accompanying people seeking to get property returned, for example, if violence is a reasonable possibility).

Until recently, copyright law in the US was a purely civil matter (I cannot speak for other nations). While I shed no tears for the sites that have shut down whether under actual or possible threat of litigation, I do object to using the police to enforce these kinds of things. They should be working on other things related to public safety, and even in the safe cities of Europe, I'm sure there are open cases, and even cold cases, that could be worked rather than sending them to do what the lawyers should be doing.

copyright is not american only

[harlows_monkeys]

There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding

Generally, those "American copyright owners" are also the German copyright owners, and the French copyright owners, and the Japanese copyright owners, and the Russian copyright owners. About the only place they aren't the copyright owners is Gilligan's Island.

Re:Irony?

[lothar97]

Isn't it slightly ironic a site, outlining the demise of a site to enable IP violations, is worried about someone stealing their IP?

No it's not. Getting the word out that the 'official' FAQ is located at one address, then it's made known that other versions located elsewhere could be modified, changed, etc. I imagine there's a lot of disinformation flying around about this topic right now, and they want to make sure everyone knows where the proper resource is located.

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be scary, if you think that taking sites down was not just and legitimate.

No, it's scary full-stop. The problem isn't that the sites were shut down, it's that police have been arrseting people. This should be a civil matter, not a criminal one. I was under the impression that copyright infringement was only a criminal matter in the USA - what are local police doing getting involved? It should be lawyer letters to their ISP, not people with guns coming to take you away.

Re:Irony?

[Tassach]

If you wish to make the point that "copyright infringement" is less worse than "stealing", use your time to say *why*.

If I steal your CD, you no longer have it. I've deprived you of the use of your property.

If I copy your CD without your permission, YOU STILL HAVE IT. You've been deprived of *nothing*, except the highly speculative "loss" a sale (which presumes that I would have paid your asking price in the first place, and that I won't buy a "legitimate" copy later)

Checking a book out of the library and scanning the contents is fair use.

Capturing a song or TV show off the air neither stealing nor copyright infringement, it's fair use.

Giving away your fair-use copies CAN also be legal fair use as well in some circumstances; it can also be illegal copyright infringement in others. It is a legal grey area -- giving a copy to a relative is unquestionably OK. Giving a copy to 10 casual accquaintances is probably OK. Giving a copy to everyone in a class you are teaching might be OK. *SELLING* a copy is *NOT* OK.