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ThePirateBay.org Raided and Shut Down
An anonymous reader writes "ThePirateBay.org, a longtime fixture of the BitTorrent community, is currently under investigation. Slyck.com is reporting their servers have been seized by the Swedish police." What's really interesting about them is the strange political power that they held in their homeland. There was much discussion even of a political party. This will be interesting to watch unfold.
Seeing as trackers don't actually have any copyrighted information on them... how can they be illegal? Sure they are illegal in the US due to the DMCA, but here in Sweden there is no DMCA.
It is illegal here in the United States, but it sure isnt illegal in Sweden. You would do well to not assume the whole world has the same laws as the United States.
No, it isn't. That's the point. Where TPB is/was located, hosting torrent files is not illegal because torrents -contain no copyrighted data-. If these guys ever traveled to the USA, they'd probably be arrested (hell, they'd probably be called "enemy combatants" by the *AA and incarcerated for life without trial). But as long as they stayed where they are, and kept their servers where they are, they should have been fine, provided the local law did not change.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
This is basically the same as American cops raiding Bell because the Yellow Pages lists the phone number of a paper mill, and paper can potentially be used to write harassing letters.
I think a better analogy would be cops raiding a house because the guy was distributing directions on where to buy [drugs,hookers,whatevers illegal].
I can sort of believe that they had no illegal copies of anything in the office where The Pirate Bay was located. It makes it easier for them to wipe their hands of any wrongdoing.
However, as the main goal of the pirate bay is to facilitate copyright infringement, I find it very hard to believe that none of these guys had any illegal copies of stuff at home, on their laptops, etc.
Since their homes apparently also were raided, this is probably a way for the authorities to get to them, even if the Pirate Bay itself does nothing illegal. When you are involved in something like The Pirate Bay, it is too tempting to use it yourself.
Of course, if Swedish copyright law allows for downloading copyrighted material for personal use, then this will be fine as well.
Wow, 50 police men... That's more than we have on duty in our city, and they're too few. And they're supposed to handle, you know, abuse and stuff. Something here feels pretty wrong.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
"I'm getting really tired of this "Not in my country" defense. It doesn't hold water."
So you'd prefer another country to have hold over what is and is not legal in your own?
What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if the law being violated was, for example, Iranian, and the website was American? I'm sure there are thousands of porn sites hosted in California that are just as blatantly illigal in repressive countries as TPB is in America. Would you be so quick to say "It doesn't matter what country they're in, it's still illegal in the prosecuting country, so that makes cracking down on them OK" ?
And no, it doesn't matter that the prosecuting country in question is "unfreindly" - in case you missed the memo, what matters legally are local laws and possibly extradition treaties. Plus, many Swedes would undoubtably view American law as repressive on IP issues, just as many Americans would view Iranian law as oppressive on free speach issues.
The "not in my country" defense is otherwise known as national sovereignty. Don't like it? Tough. You either abide by it, or accept the idea that another nation can enforce it's laws upon you remotely. If you wish legal sovereignty for your own nation, you must allow others the same right. To grant them any less makes you little more than a hypocritic shill.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
It's more like reading books in the store without buying them. You got the content without paying, but the original media is still there to be sold.
Maybe if you could vote "No" to candidates there'd be a higher turnout.
A "No" vote = -1. "Yes" = +1.
The candidate with the most positive total or lease negative total wins.
In current "popular" systems if you don't like a candidate you have to vote for some other candidate or don't vote at all - this distorts stuff significantly - you could have a situation where a candidate wins even though hated by the majority, because the voters spread their votes amongst the other candidates. After a while the voters might end up just flip flopping between two fairly hated candidates, or give up entirely.
With my proposal if people really hate someone they get to "pull them backwards", rather than trying to figure out who else to "pull forwards" and hopefully the hated one doesn't win.
The popular method probably works fine if the _majority_ actually _like_ the candidates and want to _vote_for_ them, but it doesn't work if the majority don't. And perhaps the latter is true in the USA?
What about Libraries? I can go to my local library, check out any books I want for no money read them and if I truly like them go out and buy them. Have I dramatically reduced the value of the book? If noone bought any books but everyone went to the library to read said books, would the library be considered pirates and be responsible for the "loss of income", raided and all the stacks confiscated?
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
It's more like photocopying the entire book and taking the copy home with you. You get to enjoy the content any time you want without going back to the store. And although reading the book in the store might be legal (but rude), photocopying the whole thing is certainly copyright infringement and against the law.