Slashdot Mirror
European Piracy Crackdowns
DigitumDei writes "The British
Phonographic Industry has been busy over the last half year. Their recent success which netted them £50,000 in out of court settlements is certainly not going to be the end of it with the UK courts forcing 6 ISP's to release information on a further 31 file sharers. The ISPs have 14 days to comply. And once located will be offered the opporunity to settle out of court. 'We would particularly advise parents to check what their children are doing on the internet and make sure that they are not breaking the law by filesharing illegally,' said Geoff Taylor, BPI General Counsel." And in other news, the oldest and largest ISP in Sweden, Bahnnof was the subject of a raid that netted what looks to be the biggest results in Europe ever; as well papper writes "The Swedish organization Antipiratbyrån, which has nothing to do with Swedish goverment, recently got hacked. This was both revenge for and an attempt to stop similair raids like the one who took place this friday, against the ISP Banhof. During the raid several FTP-servers were seized. On the hacked site the responsible group, AUH, posts some private e-mails about an alleged informer and makes threats to release more information and of course there is the mandatory braging. The site is located at Antripiratbyran with a mirror elsewhere and a translated verison also online (although it seems unreachable at the moment). "
A man in Rodez, France has been cleared (in French, sorry, use the fish) Of piracy charges; the court determined that since he did not mass redistribute the movies he downloaded, he was not guilty of what the movie studio accused him. Furthermore, the court said that given the copy-tax people pay on media and computers, they are entitled to private copy, JUST AS THE LAW ALLOWS.
Good idea. Hold 11 year old children responsible for their own actions, not the parents. While we're at it, let's issue them credit cards so they can pay for the PC and the 'net access they need to illegally fileshare. Oh, but they'll need money to pay it off... well, other countries use child-labor, why not the good 'ol U.S. of A? I mean, are we really any better than Cambodia, really?
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
Anyway, if you really plan on doing this (and getting enough people to do it), then be sure to really let them know why you aren't buying their stuff... otherwise you'll just give them ammo (hey, sales are lowering, that's because of piracy, we need more lawsuits!!!)
That's bahnhof, not bahnnof or banhof.
I'm a bit split at how to take this. APB (Translated: "The bureau of anti-piracy") is using illegal methods and a lot of money to track down and convict pirates. I believe we all agree that APB generally sucks. Right?
But defacing the website to publish information about private citizens is in my view worse. There's currently several campaigns going on which aims at terrorizing Pontus Pontén (chief asshat of the APB) by sending hate SMS, e-mail, snailmail. His own kids have gotten several death threats for fucks sake. What kind of message does that send?
There have also been several attempts to break into the APB locales, in at least one case using heavy tools.
APB uses methods thate are questionable to say the least, but this response will only strenghten the public view that pirates are evil anarchists that ought to be hung.
Sweden is a democracy, and we have freedom of speech. I'd like to encourage everyone to protest openly.
Has the RIAA or the MPAA ever provoked this kind of responses?
I'm sure this will all end up the same old discussion all over again, but this case with Bahnhof actually goes beyond "piracy", it's a question of judicial security.
What seems to have happened is this; APB (these are an umbrella org. for Sony and the other big giants) went to a court to get a warrant to search against Bahnhof. They listed the material they were after; Lisa Miskovsky, Kylie, Peter Jöback, Rebecka Törnqvist, Santana, The Ark, Totta Näslund(!!) and Ulf Lundell were some of the artists they mentioned. Anyhow...
They went in, shut the company down for the whole day (no one was allowed to use their computers for the rest of the day -- you can imagine how easy it is to run an ISP when you're not allowed to touch a computer) and found, they say, nothing of the material they used to get their warrant. Nothing!
Now, they did find other material, which they tipped off the police about (seeing as that would have to become a criminal case) the servers.
Now the question is; is it now basically acceptable to lie or just make up material for the search warrant? Should a consortium of large companies be allowed to put a million SEK in escrow, and then shut down another company while looking for anything illegal?
I don't think I've adequatly expressed all the problems (and known details) here, but this is big.
Swedes should look here (JO-anmälan) and here ("Piratjaktens Faror -- Om balansen mellan personlig integritet, rättssäkerhet och upphovsrätt")
Belief is the currency of delusion.
If they can't make money selling their product, the'll make it by collecting "piracy" settlements. The margins are probably better, too!
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Is the money these lawsuits still giving them a net profit after paying for the lawyers, the labour to track down the pirates, etc.? Or is the purpose of this just to set an example and scare all the other pirates away? Maybe it's the coffee, but I for one see a future where the music industry becomes almost dead due to pirating and music becomes opensource, like *BSD or Apache. Musicians no longer are paid significantly by percentages of record sales. Instead, music is freely and legally downloaded. The musicians perhaps will get their money some other way, like commercials and live performances.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
I think that there are many parents that don't have even the slightest idea that downloading songs or movies from the internet could be illegal.
I know some and they don't believe me when I tell them.
A lot of people claim to live by the line of "If I like what I downloaded, then I'll buy it" which is complete crap. Very few people I know that download a lot actually buys what they like. I'm not saying this kind of person doesn't exist, I'm saying that they're rare.
I am in no way defending the APB. Breaking in and using up a lot of public money for a relatively trivial crime is redicilous.
I would have to agree with you here. Just because I like a song, and chose to download it, does not mean that if I couldn't download it that I would run out and purchase it.
So therefore, I was not a real sales loss. I think that most people fit in to the same category as myself.
Also, Y is the guilty party. X only provided the oppertunity for Y, X didn't make Y a Y, Y did.
Totally crazy and confusing, reminds me of calculus...
Civilization, the death of dreams.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe the suing of illegal file sharers and, in particular, the suing of Sharman networks, may not be a good thing.
Follow my logic here, and in particular, I'm going to concentrate on Sharman networks, but the same also sort of applies to anyone accused of sharing files.
Sharman is basically being sued for providing the means by which people are illegally trading files. Thus, Sharman is likely going to be held legally liable for the actions of its users. In the same way that if I make files available on my machine and you download them illegally, I am really being held liable for your illegal actions.
Now why is this a good thing? Well, IANAL, but it seems to me this opens a terrific can of worms for other industries. By the same analogy, can we not now make gun companies legally liable for gun related deaths? Can we not make cigarette companies legally liable for smoking related deaths? I mean, really, it's the same thing isn't it? Holding the product supplier responsible for the actions of its users?
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing these two industries sued out of business. So, if some clever lawyer can make the coming precedents cross over into these industries and form the basis for some really major class action lawsuits, I might not see all of this as such a bad thing. I mean after all, why should big business have it both ways. Producers liable when it's in their interests and consumers reliable when it's in their interests. Surely we have to decide, as a society who's actually responsible. Either way, the consumers win, I think. Either sharing files (but not downloading them) becomes legal or cigarette and gun manufacturers are liable and thus pretty much out of business.
So, don't buy another CD, don't see another film, dont rent another DVD and don't buy any programs from the companys sponsoring "Antipiratbyrån" until they stop this foolishness!
Or, maybe go back to actually paying for expensively produced entertainment so that the entire industry doesn't feel the need to bother with this crap and will look silly when they do. Every time someone decides to "punish" them for protecting their rights by declaring "I wouldn't normally ever pirate anything, but now I'm going to, just to make a point!" (such sophistry) all they're doing is making the suits and enforcement seem more rational to the average news consumer. Alert: people that get large portions of their music and movie entertainment for "free" by copying somone else's paid-for version are not the average person. There's millions of them, sure, but they're not the ones reading the newspaper, talking with other soccer moms, and periodically voting for people who simplisticly indicate that they'll enforce the law when it comes to property rights. No one runs on a campaign theme of "elect me and I'll make sure you can keep getting free entertainment without consequence," so their political opponents are just indirectly propped up when downloaders become shrill, tantrum-having "activists." That's activism in the name of preserving not the right to free stuff (which doesn't exist), but the expectation of not being vigorously pursued for avoiding the price. Sure, there are real intellects who actively engage in the periphery of this area, focused on real issues of fair use, etc., but they are completely drowned out by (and will be smothered by the backlash against) the "let's act like it's noble not to want to pay for movies" crowd.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
When translating for Slashdot, did you ever stop to think if it was the right thing to be posting the personal id number, home address, email adresses etc of the people involved?
This isn't some law enforcement agent we're talking about. It's a greedy little worm, offering up his "friends" for money. He's a mercenary; and mercs are paid money for risk.
I say screw him.