Slashdot Mirror
First Swede Prosecuted For File Sharing
praps writes "The Local reports that a 27-year old man who allowed people to download a film from his PC has become the first Swede to be charged with illegal file sharing, after a tip-off from the country's notorious Anti-Piracy Bureau. It's a critical test case, as prosecutors say that anything less than a prison sentence would make future prosecutions unlikely." From the article: "The case was brought after a tip off from Antipiratbyrån (APB), a lobby organization set up by the media industry to combat illegal downloading in Sweden. Since the man was reported APB has found itself in hot water, with an Internet company accusing the organization itself of illegally downloading films and games.
The file sharer was heard to say: "I cupy zee-a feeles und shere-a muosic vit my friends. Policee breek duon my duor und keeck my kittee. I im nut heppy. Bork Bork Bork!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
A prison sentence for copyright infrigement? Are we loosing the sense of proportion here?
What about murderers? Oh right, they also get prison sentences.
are they really trying for a 2-year prison term for one (each?!) file?
Karma: Negative (Mostly affected by dorm trolling)
Ugh, for crying out loud. I can only hope that the judges are more sane than the persecutors.
It is still a question if that's "stealing" at all but they just have to put someone in prison for it anyway.
Seems like what they're hoping for is that the whole P2P is a bad dream and if they POP it hard enough, it will all go at once. Next aim would be to put a man on an electric chair, I guess?
So... How hard do they need to abuse the next victim for you to stop downloading? Prison? Ass rape? Work camps? Sheesh.
I thought the headline First Swede prosecuted for sharing files on net was fairly ominous but then I felt better after I read down a bit...
Here's a quote from the prosecutor:
"As these cases do not involve criminals, but instead quite ordinary people who share their files, any prison sentence would certainly be suspended," Rudström said.
Is it just me or does this sound like something that would be said by a defense attorney?
I'm a big tall mofo.
I don't know about everyone else, but copyright violations seem like they should ONLY be civil. This criminal prosecution is just taken to far: congress was even attempting to pass a bill that would make copyright violation a criminal offense in the US! (I dont think it passed though..)
Won't putting these people in jail prevent the copyright holders of collecting damages? (Isn't that the point: that they are supposed to be reimbursed for lost money?)
If this happened in the US, the end result would be that everyone that is ever convicted of copyright violation is going to be punished twice: jailtime plus civil lawsuit...
Both web site and tracker working for me at the moment.
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
From the article: "It is, for example, a breach of copyright laws to copy a music book, but it is not illegal to receive or use the copied book," said the party's legal affairs spokesman, Johan Linander. "It should be no more complicated than that in the digital arena," he added.
Hopefully, this sort of more sane attitude will prevail. How is this different than if he lent a copy of the DVD to a friend?
In many countries, it would be acceptable to view it, copy it, or parts, while it's in the borrowers possession.
This should be the case here. The whole world is surely watching this case! Use your heads Sweden!!!
Oh my gawd, they killed kenny's mod points!!!!
tip off from Antipiratbyrån
My file døwnløåding sister wås bitten by an antipiratbyrån once...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Hmmm, yes - the website's back now. I guess that was just a momentarily glitch then (although still an eerily-timed one).
;)
There's still no new "legal threats", though. Pity - I always enjoy reading those (even though I don't use ThePirateBay otherwise).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Since the man was reported APB has found itself in hot water, with an Internet company accusing the organization itself of illegally downloading films and games.
More exactly: for paying a person to infiltrate an ISP to download and spread copyrighted files there, and later sue that ISP. I don't think the infiltrator was actually employed by the anti-piracy bureau; he just got some money to do the job. Also, it's not known anyone else at APB has in any case done this themselves. It's still of course quite dirty tactics to sue an ISP, and I hope they're not getting away with it.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Almost every artice I read involving IP law in Europe shows that the legislative and judicial bodies in Europe display far more common sense than the their American counterparts, which appear to be motivated only by "good ol' boy" corporate greed and a misplaced sense of righteousness. It's readily apparent to me that the real innovations in contentent delivery and IP law reforms that are soreley needed will come from Europe, not the US.
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
This could be the end of the low ratio of torrents deleted vs. the law suits...
I wish I had mod points!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Carrots and parsnip are every bit as bad when it comes to file sharing.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The Swedish Anti Piracy Agency and The Swedish Enforcement Administration and legislation (aka Kronofogden) went and broke the law with the help of the police. Im proud to be swedish.
In yet another critical test case, prosecutors say that anything less than a prison sentence would make future prosecutions of people exceeding the speed limit by 16 km/h(10mph) unlikely.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
"accusing the organization itself of illegally downloading films and games."
Downloading ? No its uploading they are accused of. One informant they hired was the main one responsible for uploading films, music and computer programs to a computer at a ISP who they later got the police to raid and take for evidence.
The thing is a whole mess with basically everyone involved having been accused of misconduct or unlawful activities - ISP, police and the APB.
Just saying it like it are.
i-own-everything
Is that a new Apple product?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Just under a week ago the district procesutor in Malmö, Sweden's biggest city, closed a case, Involving three filesharers from that region, cause "The government should not use more force then nessasary". Your IP-Adress is protected under our official secrecy act. And if the procesutor traced the ip-adresses he would be in volation. And had therefor no case.
Now is the time to move to Africa - the animal and music pirate sanctuary!
From the article: Yet Justice Minister Thomas Bodström has made it clear that enforcing the new law will not be a priority area for the police.
It is not his job to decide what should be a priority for the police and what should not. That is for the police to decide. It is even illegal for him to try to control the police.
Really. Not from what I see in this story.
My question is this, isn't entrapment illegal in Sweden?
If not then I think the need a major overhaul in there laws.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
That's exactly what fair use is for, meaning appropriate excerpts not a full length, bit-for-bit copy. Or, you can take it literally and call it Word-of-Mouth advertising. Here's how it works: "I like Foo Movie. I think you would like it also." See, no copy or even excerpts required.
I'll grant you a distinction between for profit piracy and "free" unauthorized distribution if you will take responsibility for all the distributed copies. Were any of them later sold? If so, you get the for profit piracy prison term. Seems reasonable to me since you did facilitate the piracy. Deal?
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
The Bush administration has effectively turned
what was once considered to be a civil case
(copyright infringement) into a criminal case.
Of course, since Federal prosecution under the
auspecies of the USA Patriot Act (I) may not be
permitted to be publicized, the full value of the
impact upon P2P file sharers (to change their ways)
might get lost. Publicity, especially very bad
publicity, can go a long way toward influencing
change in behaviour (beneficial to **AA).
When a recent case (that should have been "civil"
only) of the webmaster of a P2P server was charged
under criminal law, the charge was "conspiracy".
"Conspiracy" is a bit like "prayer" -- two or
more people united together in the purpose of
communion. A very handy catch-all charge for an
administration bent upon total police state power
and world domination. The defendant pleaded guilty
to the conspiracy charge, no doubt largely because
he didn't have a prayer of a chance to beat the
rap. Good lawyers cost big money, which is the
only way to get justice in the USA any more.
The Swedish government and their minions in the
prosecutor's office have found that the threat of
a prison term can be an effective deterent, even
without the USA Patriot Act (I) or Guantanamo Bay
as their "sticks". Dubya is a good teacher, yes?
This is the typical attitude of most Slashdoters.
Not two days ago almost everyone agreed with Apple about the lawsuit against the guy who leaked a *beta* of Tiger. Now suddenly there are 3/4 comments questioning if this Swede was even stealing...
And in the typical Slashdot philosophy this comment will be modded down and all the rest arguing wether this was stealing will be modded Interesting/Insightful.
This is a good example why I don't even argue here about copyrights and just skip those news items (apart from this).
Why is GPLed code any different than the one distributed under a proprietary license???
They are both license and allow and prevent you certain things you can do with the software you own. I don't like the idea that I should "give my code away". That's not freedom. Under the term freedom (in software meanings) I understand that with that code I am granted to do whatever I want with it, period. But this post is not about this. Everyone can agree and disagree with a license, but until Slashdot starts acting maturely against copyrights this site will always be a joke.
Treat every license and software the same way or STFU!
btw, this text is distibuted under the 'do whatever the fuck you want with it' license.
My post was not flamebait nor stupid. I was just trying to make a joke, but I obviously did strike on a sensible point. You need to relax, I am not of the ??AA...
;-)
has it ever occured to you that it's possible to just *look* at a website
Yet, I usually look at websites whose subject I'm interested in. Maybe you don't
But in some jurisdictions in the U.S., similar behavior by the police/corporation and a moderately sophisticated defense lawyer would get the judge to dismiss the case, and stare down the prosecutor while say, "Are you Nuts???!!"
Hopefully, Sweden will work out the same way.
One law for everyone, not one law for the corporations, another for individuals.
If they jail this guy, they should jail those involved in the APB operations.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I'd wait before making that statement until these things are sorted out. This year will be interesting for Sweden's part, since the July 1st, the new law making downloading of copyrighted files illegal will become effective. How much they're going to harrass individuals will probably show in the end of 2005 or so.
So far, the swedish police have said they're having resources to investigate copyright crimes of individuals ("Joe User"), although that doesn't really mean anything special, as lobby organizations are normally trying to bypass the police.
The swedish Minister for Justice Thomas Bodström has however said that these new laws aren't there to simplify going after minor crimes, but to prosecute larger cases of copyright crimes. The question is how much the lobby organizations will care for that.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Boing Boing reports that File Sharing has a statistically negligable effect on CD sales.
_ up_p2p_.html
h 2004.pdf (i.e. facts and figures not industry lies and bleating) you see that it CLEARLY demonstrates that filesharing doesn't harm Music Sales
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/24/record_sales
if you read the serious academic study http://http//www.p2pnet.net/zero/FileSharing_Marc
and
for very popular music it may even benefit those sales.
Seriously though how is it any different from Radio Play which also doesn't pay the Record companies but the original composers of the songs not the recording artists.
Radio boosts sales and directs entertainment $ or £ to CD sales.
So does File Sharing.
The only difference is Radio has a sensible compulsory liscensing scheme in place and they **AA have invested heavily in controlling Radio Playlists to exclude non Big-5 Label Music.
In the UK File sharing is widely attributed with revitalising the CD Single market and keeping CD sales high.
If anyone is to blame for poor sales it is likely the lack of a competitive market - without P2P to liven things up the Industry Bosses would have sat on their Monopoloistic Cartel Asses and killed music and their own markets dead.
Monopolistic Cartels ALWAYS lead to stagnation, that is what happened.
C'mon all you piracy is theft trolls, get real, the labels abuse their market leverage to not pay artists, to control artists output, to keep prices artificially high, to restrict the variety of music available.
Do they encourage young bands with funding, resources, college courses, mentoring? NO - they do not plant trees, they just fell timber.
Sharing is naturally intuitively good.
Any industry that wants to be a success in the future will do well to leverage community support.
The nature of publishing is changing - if society can avoid kneejerk cash grabs then maybe the industry of culture flourish.
Here is an excellent text which has many examples of how incumbent industries destroy their very lifeblood in a luddite fashion.
http://kembrew.com/books/
E.G. how exhorbitant liscense fees for tiny samples cripple Modern Music.
It is clear from such that a lot of music hasn't been made and has been diminished by greed.
Grr!
Correction:
So far, the swedish police have said they're not having resources to investigate copyright crimes of individuals
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Sounds like a good name for a gouvnerment official.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
Because the national pasttime in America is shouting your moral values at other people. Sometimes you even have to exaggerate a little to get your point across. Making file-sharers out to be dirty villains deserving of jail time or worse is completely expected.
Are they kidding? Putting this guy in jail will be the informational age equivalent of being a martyr! Someone should tell the prosecutors: "If you strike him down, he will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine!"
Can I trade these?
If I make 8 movies and don't sue anyone for pirating them, can I trade that for killing someone?
Nobody important, I accept that Gates is worth at least 20 movies....
Now this will certainly crack you up, but it turns out that Swedish public access radio (SR) channel P3 did an interview with Antipiratbyrån (APB) a while ago. APB then went ahead and published this interview on their website. Naturally, republishing a recording from radio is an obvious copyright violation.
Somehow, SR discovered this. They brought their legal counsel into the studio, rang up APB, and confronted them. APB's response?
* Firstly, they try to claim that they only link to the audio clip, and not a copy of it. The legal counsel shoots this down immediately citing a court decision where linking directly to a file is equivalent to sharing a copy.
* Secondly, APB claim that what they are really looking for are pirates who make a lot of money from their piracy. As has been discussed pretty heavily in Swedish media, this kind of piracy is virtually nonexistent in Sweden.
* Thirdly, they dismiss the whole thing, because, and this is the best thing: THEY ARE TOO BUSY HUNTING DOWN PIRATES!
This news hasn't really broken yet, and because of easter holdays I believe it won't until early next week.
Skip
Actually, I think he mostly speaks in Swedish, since he's from Sweden. That's a large Country in the north of Europe (an area called Scandinavia), boasting one of the world's best education systems, an extremely well developed technological infrastructure (far better than the US, for example) and very strict ecological standards. The people there have got a language that is different from English (although remotely connected, both being germanic languages). English -- since you might wonder -- that's the language you've just used. Or, well, tried to. Swedish sounds quite different when compared to English. It is much more melodic. "Bork" is not a very common word in Swedish, as far as I know.
Surprisingly enough, the swedish people, despite having this beautiful old language, try very hard to learn and speak English, because it happens to be a very popular language all over the world. It might be that a few of them have a rather strong accent, but you should hear how ridicolous native english speakers sound when they try to speak _any_ other language.
Sorry for ranting. I know you where joking. But jokes about other people's lack of english skills mostly come from persons who have never mastered a foreign language (we don't even talk about their own...), that pisses me off.
And, by the way: I'm not swedish. But all (8) the swedish people I know are extremely proficient in English.
see this post for proof that it was Clintons fault, not Shrubs. http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=143718&cid =12046012
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
...it was always explained to me by lawyers back when I first started writing programs that copyright and patent and trademark were only supposed to be civil constructs for the early protection of the originator, giving them a chance to make first fair use of their creations.
They were NOT supposed to be used to create monopolies on things like calling "dibs" on the front seat of the car in perpetuity when you were a kid. The onus was on the originator to take steps to protect their turf at the outset, and from then on. It was up to the originator to perform due diligence in enforcement of their transitory rights in the matter or lose them. These were NOT rights in the same sense as freedom of speech and so on, these were legal constructs based in laws and not presupposed natural holdings recognized in the US Constitution.
Now it's at the point that various associations are unilaterally taking it upon themselves to do the due diligence on behalf of the originators and in most cases with no legal agreement to perform that representation on their behalf. Only the parties directly affected have any standing and they must do their own work short of legal assignment of rights and/or responsibilities by binding contract.
You cannot merely imply that a third party has standing simply by virtue of the subject matter. IOW, you can't simply have the RIAA do your copyright enforcement for no better reason than they are a recording association and you made a recording. You have to enter into an agreement or they have no business doing your enforcement for you. That's the way it was explained to me when I wrote my first program and like an adult, I accepted my responsibilities.
Moving it from the civil side to the criminal side is the next level of lunacy. As most every lawyer I've ever spoken with agrees, we already have some several hundred times more laws than we can possibly enforce, causing us to reduce more and more criminal offenses to de minimus status, where they aren't worth the time of the authorities to go after.
If we continue on this path unabated, we will get to the point that the police will have to either put all this crap on the back burner and ignore most of it, or they will have to become a weird combination of the firemen of Fahrenheit 451 and the thought police of 1984. Is this really what we want?
The other consequence is growing civil unrest and here in the age of the global Internet, with cryptography and hacking knowledge being so freely availible, and the growing anti-corporate socialistic mindset combining more and more with basic human cynicism, we're looking at more and more subversive and reactionary fighting back.
Does it only seem like the future is going to end up like some techno-future anime? I am all for growing rabid peaceful noncompliance, fighting them to a standstill, until a peace treaty of sorts can be worked out if only in terms of a gentlemens' silent agreement. We need to come to an accomodation somewhere in between before it is too late.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I just noticed that the mplayer site had a 'shut down' notice, now it's not responding at all, altho google has a cached
version of the "closed for patent infringement" statement. Hmmm, it was just updated with a redirection to the closed notice.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It was all fun and games as long as it was U.S. citizens, but now that they've rolled a Swede, the streets will run red with blood!
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
I did it because I loved the Muppets character called Swedish Chef. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Bork" is not a very common word in Swedish, as far as I know. "
Refer to aforementioned Muppet chef.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Maybe rather a Microsoft rip off?
Sorry... I mean... "innovation".
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.h
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/index.html
Modded +4 Insightful for bashing the muppet "Swedish Chef"!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Just because a law has been passed doesn't mean
that it will be enforced, right?
Isn't it amazing that there is such a stark contrast
between one 2 term President and the next 2 term
President? One that united with NATO allies to
bring peace to the Balkans, that honored the rule
of law (international law), and was a good stewart
of the American taxpayers' money (with a $500M
surplus, versus a President that has fragmented
the NATO alliance over Iraq, breaks international
law as a matter of course, and has virtually
bankrupted our children and grandchildren with
debt.
The process has been called (by conservatives
within the Bush administration) "starving the beast".
The one truly effective way to destroy 75 years
of populist government's social safety net (SS
and Medicare) is to bankrupt the country, effectively
forcing the government to abandon that safety net.
At a time when more and more jobs are shipping
overseas, the Bush administration's plan for the
destruction of the USA's labor unions, and of the
Middle Class could not be complete without importing
more cheap labor into the USA -- L1-A & H1-B visas
are up more than 300% since Clinton's regime, and
in spite of perceived domestic terrorist threats,
illegal immigration into the USA has increased by
50% since 9-11-2001. Prosecution of employers
hiring illegal aliens is down, except for a few
PR-related prosecutions like WalMart (the $11M
USD fine represented what percentage of the labor
costs saved by WalMart, perhaps 25%?)
Dubya is spending more than $200 Billion on a non-
working "Star Wars" missile defense program, while
unwilling to add 2000 US Border Patrol, or to
effectively secure our seaports and air cargo.
Actions speak louder than words, and the Dubya
regime has used "terrorism" as a patriotic ruse.
The Dubya propaganda machine is now working at
full tilt (including hiring shills in the press,
and generating TV ads for the networks) in order
to convince the American people that SS is failing
at the very same time that Bush is proposing the
granting of SS pensions to millions of illegal
aliens. All while the real "crisis" is with
Medicare, not SS, which has been sandbagged by
this very same regime with the Medicare Rx plan -
a plan that would never have passed Congress had
the administration been truthful about the costs
to begin with. (How does a $385 B USD plan turn
into a $675 B USD plan in the course of 1 year?)
The insiders who knew the truth before the vote
were muzzled with threats to their jobs.
Let's see exactly how much longer this regime
continues to blame either (1) the Clinton
administration, or (2) terrorist threats from
militant religious fundamentalists for their
misdeeds, mismanagement, and corruption.
Individual users downloading via P2P pays no one.
You forgot about the worlds highest taxes.
Other than that its mostly same, same but different.
But jokes about other people's lack of english skills mostly come from persons who have never mastered a foreign language
Most americans can't even speak English properly.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
now this is kinf of nit picking...
but.. almost every show and movie nowadays has TONS AND TONS of product placements. that's advertising, that was paid for by the companies whos products are being advertised. not just accidental products being used but blatant advertising. seen blade 3? it stops to drool over itunes/ipod at several places for no good reason at all.
now.. it's entirely another thing if p2p viewers were counted into the viewer amount approximation the movie producing company had that it used when selling those advertisement spots..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
looking for someone to say "fun fact: he really is Swedish, and he really is a chef".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Next thing, I will mention Kermit the Frog, and will get flamed for bashing the French and swamp-dwellers.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
If you want to see how different Swedish is from English, go to Stockholm.
If you want to see how similar Swedish is to English, go to Helsinki.
"It is, for example, a breach of copyright laws to copy a music book, but it is not illegal to receive or use the copied book," said the party's legal affairs spokesman, Johan Linander. "It should be no more complicated than that in the digital arena," he added.
That's the smartest comment I've seen on the whole P2P fiasco.
He was sharing "a film" as in one film, and can get jail for that? I hope no one will ever tell on me for what I and everyone else did when we were kids; copying each other's music tapes and CDs.
I have a plan that would remove all this nonsense and that is an insurance for people who use p2p. People can pay a small sum per month and if a company sues that individual for copyright theft the money from the insurance pays up for the lawsuit and damages. And as companies only sue a minor number of people an insurance company would also make money.
What happened on Mar 7th was that an amended directive was passed without a vote or discussion by the European Council (not the European Commission). That amended directive would allow almost unlimited patentability of software and computer-supported business methods.
But the directive is not yet European law. It still needs a second reading in the Parliament.
And even after the directive has become European law it may take up to 18 months more before it becomes national law in the EU member states.
Maybe if we STOP doing a Country X vs Country Y pseudodebate we'll reach some interesting conclusion ?
...that's perfectly fine because that allows me to call RIAA "an handful of legalized thieves, profiteers and parasites who collect more money and steal more resources then any petty thiefs will EVER in 1000 thousand lifetimes" which pretty much describes them.
That OR let's keep focusing the outrage on the evil filesharers or how RIAA calls them "pirates"
Meanwhile, granpa Bush was busy dealing with Nazi businessmen. Oh yeah, mod me down in flames if you like.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
anti-American beer commercial to get Canadian's all patriotic about their country.
And before you pass me off as yet another jealous American, I too am Canadian, but one who is sick and tired of our national identity being instilled by a manipulative corporate agenda.
Go ahead, mark me off-topic.
And if you ever want to visit all 24,978 "cities" in Sweden (maybe to sell something) this is the tour to take.
don't you mean "PERSECUTION," and not prosecution?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Wow, know-it-all-ism AND a slashdot reader, I bet you're a hoot at parties.
Well... we got free healthcare too.
No, you have healthcare which is paid for by collecting tax dollars, it is certainly not free. In fact, if you're of average health and see the dr once a year for a checkup, you have the worlds most expensive health care.
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
No, you have health care which is paid through mandatory contribution (taxes), you don't see a bill from the doctor, but it is most certainly not free.
I'll go so far as to say that if you're of average health, and just visit the dr for a checkup once per year, you have the world's most expensive health care package.
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
Okay, look at it like this... we pay tax for health care, so it is not free (as some people already mentioned.)
Still, there is a queue for operations that can be months long. My mother who recently died of cancer was RUSHED to treatment... yeah... it only took TWO MONTHS after it was discovered that she was in extreme need of immediate care.
That is why a lot of people is startign to take health care insurance, which makes sure you get QUICK healthcare, from better doctors than some of those that work for the swedish health care system.
So, here we have a situation where we effectivly pay for a sub-standard service, and have to pay for it again if we want it to be any good.
Nah, I'd rather have low taxes and pay my own dang insurance just as I have to anyways.
C'mon - you're giving us Swedes a bad rep as humorless stuckups. Bork Bork! / Döbeln
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22130
(Saw it somewhere else also -- can't be bothered to find the other source. Yes, I AM lazy)
In a joint statement yesterday, the Canadian ministers of industry and women said the government would shortly introduce legislation to implement the provisions of the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaties, clarify liability for Internet service Providers and facilitate the use of the Internet for educational and research Purposes.
A person can not get persecuted for downloading a file, because it's not illegal. Sharing that file on the other hand is.
Error: No error occurred
A life is worth more than every car ever made; any punishment for grand theft auto that includes jail time is out of proportion.
This is really interesting, can you point to more information on this subject? When I lived in the UK I always assumed that copyright was a bargain between the public and creators, but maybe the UK is different in this regard from the US. I certainly think the US approach is far more sensible on this issue if what you say is correct.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Mr. Viscusi argues that using a flat value discriminates against young people. A study he conducted puts a $7 million value on a human life. But applying that figure to both the 12-year old saved by an auto-safety rule and the 70-year old whose life has been slightly prolonged by clean-air rules "creates a severe inequity," he says.
1 human == $7 million (that's a lot more than the UK government says a human costs).
Now, the MPAA would say a DvD costs about $20, and a downloaded movie directly relates to a lost sale.
Do the math and it works out that a human life is worth about 5000 downloads of all seven movies.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
You insensitive clod! Some of us are actually americans!
Trite maybe (or certainly!), but you are batting 0 for 0 on the political part of it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
Tax dollars? You are way off here...
This knee-jerk reactionism says a lot more about you than it does about me. Lighten up.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Good point. Americans are so badly overtaxed; it is a sore point with us.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I agree with you, but this is a difficult matter since it conflicts with basic human emotions - greed and lazyness. A software company for instance, can put a lot of manhours on producing a product. They then want to earn back what they've put into it (you have to feed even the programmers sometimes, you know). The easiest way to do that is sell it on a CD. You just cram out a shitload of cds and put those in stores and if the product is any good, people will buy. Easy money.
// no I don't have a sig
Now you say that anyone should be able to distribute copies for free. That means that I can buy a CD, then make a shitload of copies and put them in piles outside the store. Nobody would then buy the product from the stores, since it's available for free right outside. The company wouldn't make any money out of it and all the programmers would starve to death. Another one bites the dust.
The solution is ofcourse to implement a different buissness model. For instance as http://www.mysql.com/ is doing - give away your product for free and charge for professional support. This is far from easy and requires good managing skills, something that many company-leaders lack.
What about music? A successfull artist could live of giving concerts to the fans, that download and share the music. Movies? The movie-hiring buissness would dissapear, so the only thing left would be movie-theaters. Wouldn't people stop going to theaters if you could download the movie? Not if you have reasonable prices and give a good experience. What experience? Well I don't know, it doesn't exist yet, cause nobody cared to come up with one since what we have now is "good enough". Myself, I'd even be happy with the current one, if only they'd lower the prices. As it is, I almost never go to movies.
With the old model, you can make lot of money fast. With the new one you have to struggle to make your living. The result? Big lazy companies lobbying for laws that will make it possible for them to continue to make loads of money fast and easy.
But I have a feeling that it will not last. If everybody on this planet were lazy stupid bums, the big companies would win and we would get lousy products for a high price and people would still eat it, since nobody cared. But obvously there are many that care and do something about it and I think that is enough to make sure that we are on the right track to the "Free Information" future =)
"If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it's free."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Did George Orwell write it?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I bet you watch the Muppets and say "is this supposed to be funny? It's just a bunch of socks."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
(Yeah, it took me a while to notice they meant "swedish person"; seeing everything else they've gone after, my initial thought of "vegetable" didn't seem improbable...)
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Clarification: Are you including all of Europe, all the way to the Urals? Or just picking and choosing those few countries with the good statistics?
If you include all of Europe, it probably looks pretty bad (there are such things to consider like tens of thousands of rapes committed by Serbian invaders in Bosnia and Kosovo very recently during the 1990s, which must really mess up the stats. Chechnya, a part of Europe, has been a bloodbath for a while now. Or did you leave that out, too? Europe has hosted a few genocides in very recent history. Is that "justice"? At least the United States hasn't hosted any of those for close to 100 years.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
iTMS prices are not really competitive to buying CDs in the store, when you look at the price of an album (too close to Wal-Mart's price). The markup/profit margin is way high considering the overhead and they don't have to bother with the CD and packaging.
Something like 50 cents per track would be a lot more realistic. Even better, have a price difference. 50 cents for the hot new Moby release, and 10 cents for the old moldy "Snoopy and the Red Baron" song someone might want.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Learn your own continent!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
A life is worth more than every movie ever made; any punishment for copyright violation that includes jail time is out of proportion.
As a consequence no film whose making runs a non-zero risk of killing someone should ever be produced, right? Also, punishing ordinary theft with prison time is always out of proportion?
Your thinking is based on the popular error, that a human life should be valued higher than any finite amount of money.
Government continually has to make trade-offs between saving lives and improving efficiency. Surely you would not approve of speed limits so low that nobody can be killed in a car crash? But how can one find the point of balance when the weight on one side equals infinity? If you postulate that the value of a life isa infinite, you cannot have a consistent theory of economics and hence, rational decision-making becomes impossible.
So, how does one value a life? Of course, we cannot simply ask a man, how much money he wants for his life, as that would again give us infinity. Instead we must ask what the compensation for a (small) risk to one's life should be and extrapolate from that. For example, if Joe is prepared to run a one percent risk of losing his life in exchange for a gain of ten thousand dollars, then we should value Joe's life as (at most) one million dollars.
Of course, one arrives at different values for each life with this method. Since law, culture and religion require that each life should be treated as equally valuable, it seems appropriate to simply take the average, or perhaps the median.
If you have followed me to this point, you understand that it is both necessary and possible to determine a conversion factor between lives and dollars (and I would say that one million is about right). So treating someone who steals a million dollars like a murderer is not wrong.
A different way of arriving at the same conclusion is to reflect that a loss of one million dollars is enough to destroy the livelihood of maybe 5-10 families. Surely this creates an amount of anguish comparable to a murder.
. . . Is there something wrong with me?
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
See also this map and page. Chechnya is part of the green Russian territory that is in Europe. Considered to be part of Russia itself, it is found to the north of the north Georgian border inside the Russia area.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Yes, all very true. Actually, why not try a holiday in Sweden? See the lovely lakes. The wonderful telephone system. And many interesting furry animals, including the majestic moose. Now how about it, huh?
What are we going to do tomorrow night? The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
ring.....ring....ring....
Hello?
(staticy voice in phone) Bork! Bork! Bork!
(click)
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Alter Schwede!
I just had to say it, Karma be damned.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Thanks. Some show Chechnya in Europe, some show it in Asia. The best answer is "yes" to both, as it is in a borderland area that geographers give to both "continents".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There is a reason I made the comparision. Speeding by a few km/h is officially considered something that is "prosecuted" by fining the offender.
The slashdot article made that statement that prosecution of illegal file spreading would stop, while it is a criminal prosecution, not just a fine.
Regardless of which side of the fence you sit in this dispute about illegal sharing, the statement propagated by slashdot does not make sense.
You point out why it doesn't make sense if you consider illegal filesharing a non-criminal activity, but when you believe it should be punished, then just stopping prosecution completely doesn't make sense either, because one has to wonder why the instrument of fines like for speeding are not being considered.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
About a fifth of my customers say "Leighman", "Lamar", or "Linux" when they mean "Lexmark". :-\
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
I agree it is more like a free advertisement.
Last week I was in a bookstore thumbing through a copy of O'reilly's "Knoppix Hacks." I decided $29.95 was too much for a book I could get for a lot less online. I didn't buy it and when I got home I decided to look for a copy with P2P and I got lucky.
After a week of perusing my free copy I decided I was learning a lot and wanted "the real thing." I didn't want to wait for an online order to arrive. I wanted it now. I went back to the bookstore and paid the list price, and it was only because of the "free advertisement" that I became sold on the idea to buy. Without the ability to try first I am sure that book would still be in the store.
I believe many who download music and movies probably come to a similar conclusion, especially if they really like what they download. If they don't really like it they probably wouldn't have bought it anyway, and if they bought it and hated it they would bad mouth it all over the place; the artist would have been better off if there had been no purchase, at least to that person. We are less likely to criticize if we haven't suffered a loss.
On this note, if they know they like it they will probably buy it and probably convince others it is worth buying. If they could never have afforded to buy it they are still more likely to recommend it to others whom in turn may be more likely to purchase after hearing raves from peers.
In the mid 80's "try before you buy" was the rule rather than the exception. Now it has become just the opposite, at least where issues of intellectual property are involved. I think content producers need to rethink their strategy and appease the public even if they only allow the free download of a 96 bitrate tune or a 320x240 movie. This would give the people a chance to try it for free and buy it if they really like it. I think the difference in quality would be a huge motivating factor and more people would buy if they had a chance to sample the full content.
They have higher life expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate. So yes, their health care is better.
Not having insurance does not mean not having health care. If this was the case, everyone would be starving: "A crisis! 100% of Americans do not have food insurance!!!"
"Now about the publicly funded (tax-based) health care system: the cost of healthcare is going to be lower, because instead of many, many independent clients (the patients), the health care providers have only one customer: the government" That can make things more expensive, inefficient, and inhumane, because there is no accountability and no incentive to have better service. This is a failing of monopolies, and what you are describing is a monopoly.
"At least in Bulgaria when I go to the emergency room they do not make me fill out ten different forms which state that I am not going to sue them if they happen to confuse my liver for my kidney."
This is a problem with the American system. Frivolous lawsuits drive up the cost a lot, and they are quite common. This is why there is a movement for reform to keep baseless lawsuits out of the system.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Isn't thare a problem with "rights" that are based in greed (such as "you must pay me this or give me this!") as oppose to real rights which are based in innate human freedoms to be able to do something?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The reason the practice does not work is due to forgetting the idea of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and deciding to trust the rulers to do more and more "for us". This is why communism looks like a utopia in theory, but in practice you get the Killing Fields of Cambodia. There's something about human nature, and if you trust the rulers with too much power, they tend to use it to enrich themselves.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.