Pirate Bay Raid Investigation Finished

A Pirate writes "The Swedish Ombudsmen of Justice (JO) has finished the investigation of the Pirate Bay raid where close to 200 servers were confiscated. Just a fragment of these were actually Pirate Bay's and this led to both the police and prosecutor being charged with official misconduct, but the judges dropped the cases. In the report published by the JO he concludes that the judges were right, but there is also some very interesting information about how the MPA, IFPI and the American embassy tried to push the Swedish Minister of Justice and Secretary of State into influencing the police and the prosecutor to act upon The Pirate Bay."

Comments

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Anonymous Coward]

We did get those "morons" out of office, only to replace them with other "morons."

I assume "moron" means politician.

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Office of JO is officially non-political, but thanks for trying to play. Any more ignorance about the world around you feel like sharing?

There is a precedent for US internet meddling

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

That precedent was Scientology busting anon.penet.fi remailers. The US does not control the internet and hopefully as time goes by legal jurisdictions around the world will rule against heavy handed American tactics.

Re:There is a precedent for US internet meddling

[Anonymous Coward]

The US does not control the internet and hopefully as time goes by legal jurisdictions around the world will rule against heavy handed American tactics.

Oh but they are trying. If they gain control of the root DNS servers they are going to fucking ruin the Internet as we know it.

Good.

[SatanicPuppy]

Legal or not, a raid that takes down a ton of sites as collateral damage is a fricking joke. What's the worst case scenario? They actually have to do an investigation, rather than just whacking a whole data center?

If I owned a site that was taken down for the crime of using the same host as TPB, I'd be assembling a team of rabid attack lawyers, and training them to go for the wallet.

Re:Good.

[dinodipp]

In Sweden (where I live) there is little point of sueing for money. You really won't get much if you do. I think that is generally a good thing since it means that there is not much point in sueing unless you feel you really need to. I also think that the looser of the trial pay the winners trial expenses but i can be wrong.

Re:Good.

[zappepcs]

I don't want to seem like I think you are ignorant, but could you please point out, in great and precise detail, how TPB has *ACTUALLY* deprived an artist, or group of artists (name them all) of money they would have received if TPB did not exist, and exactly how much money that would be?

Your comment is as much crying wolf as that of any RIAA lawyer.

Re:Good.

[Overzeetop]

and training them to go for the wallet.

I thought that was an innate ability of all lawyers. Attacking the govenernment with little chance of seeing hard cash - now that would take some real training. If you could do that and manage to train them to ignore the money in your wallet - now that would be quite a trick!

Re:Good.

[Farmer Tim]

I'd be assembling a team of rabid attack lawyers, and training them to go for the wallet.

You don't need to train lawyers to go for the wallet, that's the instinct that makes them lawyers in the first place.

Re:Good.

[Oxygenswe]

trying to sue the Swedish government will only be a long meaningless process which generally results in you paying them a lot of money

Re:Good.

[mungtor]

So what you're saying is that if only one person will stand up and say "Yes, I would have purchased product XYZ but I downloaded it instead" you'll admit that piracy actually does cause monetary damage to the original creators of the content? I'm pretty sure there are a few people who would admit that they took the cheaper option.

In a lot of TPB cases we're not talking about $0.99 per song either, but about somebody who would rather not pay $700 for Photoshop. Maybe Adobe wouldn't have gotten the money, but it's very possible that MacroMedia (bought JASC) is out the $150 they get for Paintshop as an alternative. So even though there is no monetary damage to Adobe, somebody else also loses a sale.

Re:Good.

[AusIV]

So if a company suffered financial damage because a careless raid took down their website, they have no recourse? Perhaps America's not so bad after all.

Re:Good.

[zappepcs]

Well, got another scenario for you... As a legal *OWNER* of PaintShopPro 7, when it came time for a new version, I'd already switched to Linux and now use the free software that is available. In this case, neither of them got my money. So how did the existence of TPB deprive them of anything?

In the case of music, you might have a point, but mine is that no one can prove that anyone has lost money, only that it looks like it. If in fact there were no free downloads of any kind I wonder what they would blame their declining profits on?

Re:Good.

[dinodipp]

I'm not a lawyer and the only contact i've ever had with one was kissing one on new years eve a few years back (she was tall and downright swedish girl cliche beautiful). I think i might have sidetracked, anyways. To answer your question, yes. I think US companies have more protection when it comes to these sorts of things than we do but that's not the same as saying that normally a company would be without compensation, just not millions of dollars.

Re:Good.

[theRiallatar]

Maybe JASC is out the $150 they would've got for PaintShop by my using GIMP instead.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey...no complaints about the sidetrack here! This is /., and your sidetrack is PORN to us!

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if the FBI took down a company's website, they'd be able to sue the FBI?

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ask Steve Jackson Games in the US. They were raided for selling a "hacker handbook" (which was in reality rules to a cyberpunk pencil-and-paper RPG), and had all their computers seized along with property destroyed.

It's been almost 20 years since then, and they've yet to get all their computers back, let alone damages...

Re:Good.

[mungtor]

So if there was a Linux version of PaintShop, would you buy instead of using GIMP? Why were you a legal owner of PaintShop to begin with? What if you were stuck with Windows because of other software constraints? Even if you are a responsible person who would rather buy the software you use, not everybody is.

It is nearly impossible to prove that piracy costs money since you can't prove the sale wouldn't have happened anyway. You also can't prove that somebody didn't simply move to a new product. But you also can't assume that everybody who downloads pirated software does it because they are unable to pay the retail price. Having a "high-quality" product like PhotoShop out there for free has to hurt the smaller players. In fact, if people choose to download PhotoShop over buying something else, they are just solidifying Adobe's market dominance (not that Adobe will see it that way). Would you rather pay $49 for something that does most of the job in a difficult way, or download something that does everything you need easily?

Re:Good.

[mungtor]

Possibly, but given the option of getting either one for free, would you still use GIMP? Maybe there's a feature that you need that GIMP lacks but both *Shops have it. Then, do you spend the $150 or download?

There is nothing wrong (obviously) with choosing a different software package when all of them are available on their own terms. Adobe should be able to price PhotoShop at whatever they think the market will bear. If they price it too high, it allows other companies to come in and undercut them. But, if PhotoShop is free then there's no incentive to buy _any_ product. Just because it isn't hurting Adobe, it may be causing indirect damage. It's impossible to prove it tho, and the only way the playing field can be "leveled" is to allow each company to distribute it's product under terms that it sees fit. PhotoShop being ridiculously expensive drives people to look for alternatives and may actually increase the exposure of GIMP.

Re:Good.

[fishbowl]

"So if a company suffered financial damage because a careless raid took down their website, they have no recourse?"

For recourse, they have the letter of the law as it pertains to the language in their contract. Unfortunately, the contract probably has a clause that makes an exemption for damages that result from compliance with lawful orders of law enforcement authorities.

If you don't want this exposure, don't sign a contract like that.

If that language is *not* in the contract, seek damages.

I don't see where anyone has lost legal recourse that they did not volutarily surrender.

Re:Good.

[cHALiTO]

Yeah, well. you know.. things are not always so simple. See, I got a Wii a couple of days ago, and I was really thinking of getting some original games for it (I had read that they were like 50 dollars each, thought I could get used ones for less), however, It happens 50 bucks is for the US. Here they're selling for 75/120 dollars (depending on the game). That's US dollars in argentina. To give you an idea, 100 dollars is like 300 pesos. Now consider that I make around 3000 pesos a month.
I'm certainly NOT paying 10% of my salary for a game, just because I live down at the end of the world and some companies think we're not worth as a market for their products (hence the imports and higher prices).
However, I'm a gamer, I like games, and I want to play them, so I have no choice other than get copies and a modchip, or not play at all.
The funniest thing is when company execs saying things like they don't do business here because of the piracy.. I truly believe it's all the way around, piracy is so high, because these kind of things have to get imported from wherever you can, at high costs.

If you think of it it's funny: in the countries where people have less money, things cost even more than where people might actually afford them.. ironic, isn't it?

Re:Good.

[SatanicPuppy]

Eh. The theory is great: Give people recourse when they get screwed by other people/companies. These days, however, almost everything is actionable and the awards are way out of proportion to the injury.

So people sue for things that are just ridiculous. My mother died of brain cancer last year, and one of the neurosurgeon's did a procedure which was completely needed, but which ended up causing problems down the line, and wasn't quite covered by my instructions vis a vis her care...I'd talked to the guy, and it fell within the guidelines I'd set in our conversation, but it didn't fall within the stuff I'd signed in writing, and the hospital went nuts trying to do C.Y.A before I came in and confirmed that he was doing what I'd told him he could do if it were necessary.

Everyone's reaction in the situation was just so surreal. They were absolutely convinced I was going to sue over a necessary procedure which I'd verbally agreed to which had gone in one of the ways I'd been informed it could go. Blew my mind.

Re:Good.

[guruevi]

It's absolutely funny, but you get modded insightful? For no good reason? Something is wrong in the world...

Re:Good.

[OverlordQ]

I don't want to seem like I think you're a self-entitled douche bag, but please point out, in great and precise detail which law was passed saying you get anything you want for free, just because you don't want to pay for it. Because I could use a new car right now.

Re:Good.

[mungtor]

You're right. That isn't simple. In theory, you have an excellent opportunity to create lower cost games and start your own business. Undercutting the "big guys" will allow you to grow until you can produce like them. Since we're talking about the Wii here, I have no idea what it takes to get development materials and kits for it and that is probably an insurmountable barrier seeing that a single game is 10% of your monthly income.

Prices and piracy are linked right now. If you invested the 300 pesos in a new game and decided to become a small time pirate, would you be able to sell more than 10 copies at 30 pesos in the first month? It would probably be easy since the modchips are freely available. I was thinking that enabling the piracy was actually hurting the "little guys" more than anybody else, but console games are pretty much dominated by the big players.

Re:Good.

[MrManny]

How about imports? Aren't there any retailers that'd happily send you a copy? Or what about eBay? Shipping fee and delivery time might become a pain in the ass, but it should be more favorable than paying 75-120 USD around the corner.

Re:Good.

[packeteer]

As a legal *OWNER* of PaintShopPro 7,

You dont own PaintShopPro 7, you license it. This is a key distinction that many people forget.

Re:Good.

[stewwy]

your logic in the first case is probably correct
In the second case you are in error, think about it, companies would far rather you pirated their software than used or bought a competitors product.

Re:Good.

[Afecks]

If you drive a car off the lot there are less cars to be sold. Please point out where it says you can only make limited copies of an MP3.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

> If I owned a site that was taken down for the crime of using the same host as TPB,
> I'd be assembling a team of rabid attack lawyers, and training them to go for the wallet.

You're skirting over a bigger issue. If your business depends on the web hosting or if people's financial lives depend on your service (e.g. you have an online trading service and because of the raid, you're unable to sell stocks that are going bankrupt) or actual lives depend on the service (e.g. you have a web based home security monitoring system that's fully on line and because your site is gone, people are vulnerable), then it's certain that you'll be sued or at least lose a significant portion of your business.

A real world analogy would be to close down a city because someone, somewhere in the city, may be selling bootlegged liquor. There are cases where closing down a city indiscriminately is appropriate even if the innocent have to suffer (e.g. quarantine of a really bad virus), but in this case, it just isn't justified.

Re:Good.

[Zephyros]

+1 Funny doesn't add to karma, so people who want to give a little boost might mod +1 Insightful (Funsightful!) or Interesting...

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Intellectual property" is a European construct, not American. In fact, if you care to peruse Article 2 Section 8 of the US Constitutioon, you will see that "Intellectual property" is, in fact, unconstitutional and therefore unAmerican.

So go back to WWII Italy, you damned facist, and take your damned multinational foreigners from Universal and Sony and Paramount with you!

Re:Good.

[zappepcs]

funny... but the point is still salient. The fact that there is illegal downloading is not the sole reason that software businesses are suffering declining profits. We'll see if there is more of a causal link if EMI starts turning a profit with their new DRM free deal.

I do pay for software, donating to OSS as well. I pay for my music, donating to Internet radio stations I like as well. Still, I'm not spending money on MS, PaintShop, and other expensive programs when there is an alternative that works as well for me. This makes me believe that the current decline in revenues is more to do with other things than downloading where people can afford it. Note, the RIAA/MPAA only get money for my entertainment when someone buys me a gift from their products... and that doesn't even happen often.

As was pointed out much piracy occurs because of the pricing structure used in some countries. The try before you buy thing is quite handy, and being able to get just the songs you want rather than the whole CD including the crappy songs are strong motivators. As much as the **AA don't want to admit it, they are woefully behind the times and creating the biggest part of their mess. I give EMI and Apple some respect for trying things the 'new' way.

I will NOT believe any company that claims P2P or downloading has caused their company damage because it simply is impossible to determine where their previous revenue stream has gone, whether that is to F/OSS, other competing products, simply gone away (not upgrading), or lost to file sharing. Additionally, it is impossible to determine the difference between losses via the Internet and losses via sneaker-net. There has ALWAYS been piracy. The Internet simply made it possible to do so on a larger scale. The claim that P2P has hurt their businesses just is NOT provable.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't pay $700.
I wouldn't pay $150 either.
Commercial graphics apps/workshops/studios are SICKENINGLY overpriced. They aim for professional studios, setting prices for them, not the regular consumer/hobbyist.

If a "free-er" version of the current standards weren't available, I'd go use Gimp again, or somesuch other open source app.

You can bet your cigs on open source apps skyrocketing in quality in the graphic workshops department, if there was no option (or far too high a risk) for a 'less insane' pricing on a commercial workshop.

Re:Good.

[cHALiTO]

I only pirate stuff for personal use, but 30 pesos a copy wouldn't fly here. Most small time pirates (there's plenty) sell copies between 5 and 15 pesos each. Buyers tend to be either parents who couldn't care less about piracy and IP (They're just buying a game for the kid, plus 15 pesos vs. 300.. well, there isn't much of a choice, and 3000 pesos is a pretty good salary, many many people do much less a month), and kids who either don't have a cd/dvd burner and broadband or can't/don't know how to use it.

Re:Good.

[pseudorand]

First off, you don't have to train lawyers to go for the wallet. That's just instinct. It's getting them to go for someone else's wallet that's the tricky part.

And as for the "collateral damage", if your hosting provider is supporting sites with illegal content, then doesn't the government have a responsibility to take them down? And won't the government probably have to disconnect everything to preserver evidence and separate the legal from the illegal? It seems only reasonable to me that you would sue your hosting provider for breech of contract (assuming you had some uptime clause in the contract), or, better yet, check that they're picky about their customers before you sign up to prevent the whole problem in the first place.

Re:Good.

[honkycat]

It is nearly impossible to prove that piracy costs money since you can't prove the sale wouldn't have happened anyway.

I think that's why they simply use the rule "number of copies" x "retail price." This is not quite the real true value, but I think it's consistent with a physical theft of unsold merchandise. I think the theft would be valued at the selling price rather than the wholesale price that the merchant paid to acquire them. The argument that software piracy has no monetary damage because it's "number of copies x "marginal cost of production" (or whatever) and the second number is $0 is not really consistent with ordinary theft. (Note of course that it's not quite same thing, but it's similar)

I'm not saying I agree with the numbers you come up with through this method as the most honest, fair numbers to use, but I do note that people wouldn't argue that, say, stealing a new Corvette is only a $5000 theft since that's all it costs (marginally) to build the car. Insert whatever number you want for the $5000, I have no idea what it really is, except that it's far below the MSRP).

Re:Good.

[808140]

It's been almost 20 years since then, and they've yet to get all their computers back, let alone damages...

Wikipedia disagrees...

Re:Good.

[cHALiTO]

Shipping is only free in the US. To get something sent down here, it costs a bit. It's been some time since I bought something from them but using some service you can track (say UPS or DHL) will cost around 15 dollars. Add to that the 21% VAT on customs, and there you have, from 50 to around 90. Imagine most import shops also have to make a (small) profit out of it, so even if they lower the shipping costs (volume), they also have to make a profit on the sales, plus I believe there must be some extra customs costs, and the price easily goes above $100.
I love my country, but sometimes it sucks for this kind of things.
For example, I got my Wii paying only 315 dollars, because a friend from Panama was returning to Buenos Aires, so I asked her to buy it for me there (they have some sort of tax-free zone or something) and she brought it here in her baggage (luckily she didn't get searched in customs). If I had to buy the console here, I wouldn't have bought it at all. In mercadolibre.com.ar (ebay the argentine way), it's selling for around 650 u.s. dollars. There's absolutely NO WAY I'm spending 2/3 of my monthly salary on a console. 315 dollars hurt enough already.

Re:Good.

[Urza9814]

Not at all.
I woulda spent the $700 for Photoshop, but I decided to pirate it instead. But then I decided that was too much trouble, so I just got The Gimp. Then I actually used Photoshop in school, and I'm soo glad I didn't bother to pirate it. You couldn't pay me to use that over Gimp.

Re:Good.

[Mercedes308]

First of all, I'm sorry for the loss of your mother, I actually mean that and not just automatically offering empty sympathy. It's tough losing loved ones.

Unfortunately the hospitals conduct is entirely a result of the practices of many people needed their services or are family of such people. While your conduct was straight forward and practical (you and the surgeon were just doing what you could) it just leaves the hospital too vulnerable to legal recourse. Sad but true. While I believe the hospital should be held accountable for gross misconduct, they are sued far too readily at present for results that are too ambiguous to be clearly their fault.

Re:Good.

[Mercedes308]

That last sentence I meant hospitals in general in regards to misconduct, not the hospital in your case. :) One day I will actually get into the habit of proof reading.

Re:Good.

[dbc001]

I just bought an iPod. By your logic, maybe Creative wouldn't have gotten the money, but it's very possible that Microsoft is out the $300 they get for a Zune as an alternative. So even though there is no monetary damage to Creative, somebody else also loses a sale.

This isn't logic, this is marketing. It's PR that Intellectual Property interests (BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc) have been working on for quite some time. It simply doesn't hold up to rational discourse. Monetary damages due to pirated intellectual property are nothing but myth. And as community-shared intellectual property matures, the myth just becomes more and more absurd.

Re:Good.

[SatanicPuppy]

I wasn't looking for sympathy, but thanks.

That was pretty much my point...I mean, things didn't work out...That happens. Sometimes doctors make mistakes, and as long as those mistakes aren't driven by negligence and neglect, then that just has to be accepted as a fact of life...If this stuff was easy, then anyone would be able to do it, and we wouldn't need doctors. There wasn't anything to be done for my mother regardless of the skill or lack of skill for the people involved (and they were damn skilled, I was crazy impressed), so why would I hold her death against the hospital?

I guess what bothers me is people suing for things that are either no one's fault, or their own fault, and trying to pin the blame anywhere but on themselves. Just makes me mad. Take some damn responsibility.

Re:Good.

[StikyPad]

...a raid that takes down a ton of sites as collateral damage is a fricking joke. If I owned a site that was taken down for the crime of using the same host as TPB, I'd be assembling a team of rabid attack lawyers...

Remind me not to tell any jokes around you.

Re:Good.

[erikdalen]

well, except it didn't contain any illegal content. just a bunch of .torrent files.

Re:Good.

[dryeo]

To balance this are examples like me. I own one pirated video (The Fellowship of the Ring) which after watching I bought all 3 Lord of the Rings (last 2 the expensive cut) and went to the movies to watch the last 2.
This is all my new video (and music and computer program) purchases for last 3 years excepting some cartoons that were out of copyright and cost less then a dollar each.
So due to pirating the MPAA made at least $150 from me that they wouldn't of otherwise.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Corel bought Jasc, not Macromedia. Just felt like being a dick and pointing out that insignificant detail.
Have a nice day.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "wouldn't have", not "wouldn't of".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood

Re:Good.

[sabernet]

PaintShop was bought out by Corel from JASC. Macromedia(no middle capital) created Flash and was subsequently bought out by Adobe.

MetaCreations(middle capital) created Painter, which was also bought out by Corel.

Just wanted to get that cleared out.

As for the 'intellectual property' thing, your argument is ridiculous. Piracy has and will continue to exist. The only solution is to provide more then just the raw binaries with the sale. Linux distros are a prime example of this: You can download them off the web, but you pay if you need ongoing support with them(which is damned handy).

Equally true for many FPS games where very little protection is applied to the single player game, but checks are done while using the online system. Steam does it very well in terms of anti-piracy, though I imagine they lose many players who would like something more lan-party-friendly(as it is difficult to get everyone synced up in terms of software and sometimes it's just easier to temporarily, at least, loan your CD to your buddy).

iTunes/iPods work because they provide a mechanism that's quick and easy, while not denying you the ability to use your device for other things. You could go torrent or Gnutella a song, but iTunes guarantees a clean sound, quick download and automatic sorting and integration with your library. And now, finally, you get to do it without DRM too.

Is Pirate Bay doing that which the spirit of the law wishes? No. But the law was not necessarily written by the little guy. And the little guy is getting pissed at what the big guy's been cramming up his anal sphincter so rogue groups like TPG get popular. People side with the rogues in the presence of the bully. And there are generally more people then bullies.

And tell me why, after more then a decade and a half, PS still costs over 700$ for new versions come out when only a handful of features get added? Simple: nothing out there is as good yet. So they tabulate the value of the product based on the fact that no project has been able to keep up, or use strongarm tactics to keep the cheap or free ones down(CMYK legal issues, lawsuits against Macromedia pre-buyout, etc...). This applies double to Windows. So the consumer doesn't feel as 'wrong' about screwing them over in return.

Nice guys who have the money to spend will spend it. The assclowns won't. It's naive to think that you can get every single penny from your product without some piracy bleeding.

Ideal capitalism is based that if two farmers have two crops of the same type of wheat, one will find a way to make their farm better or sell things cheaper to gain an edge on the other guy and the consumer wins.

Unfortunately, present day capitalism involves one farmer poisoning the other farmer's field instead, as poison is cheaper then a new combine harvester, and then charging more for their wheat due to supply and demand.

Re:Good.

[rifter]

For recourse, they have the letter of the law as it pertains to the language in their contract. Unfortunately, the contract probably has a clause that makes an exemption for damages that result from compliance with lawful orders of law enforcement authorities.

But these would not seem to be lawful orders. In any case this would not be legal in the US, because a warrant for one company's equipment would not cover other companies that are unrelated, and even if a judge issued a warrant broad enough to cover an entire data center it does not meet the standard for a warrant and would likely be invalidated in a higher court.

In the case of Sweden, no Swedish laws were being violated. In fact, no US laws were being violated. It is absurd that any action was taken at all, and it is just another example of Corporations ruling the US without regard to rule of law or the Constitution, then using the clout of the US military and economy to assist in their control of other countries as well.

Re:Good.

[DaAdder]

I think what was implied here was that you're not about to see fantastic sums of money. You'll be compensated for a sum of money based on what your losses might have been. The punitive damages are a lot lower here than they are in the US. When you separate the punitive damages from the actual compensation for loss of income etc, the sums are much more equal between the countries. Which would make sense.

You might not be able to bancrupt anyone who ever made a mistake, which has it's charm, but I think you would still mostly get what you deserved. I think I prefer it this way rather than having to spend most of our time and resources better spent elsewhere, trying anything possible not to get sued.

Not to not do bad, mind you, just not to get sued. Thats a sad state of affairs.

Re:Good.

[powerspike]

I'd be assembling a team of rabid attack lawyers, and training them to go for the wallet.

No need to train them to go for the wallet, there born that way !

Re:Good.

[cpt kangarooski]

If anyone could peruse Art. II, sec. 8 of the federal constitution, I'd be pretty impressed. There is no such section in Art. II.

Re:Good.

[Kjella]

Or based on Occam's razor, beyond +/-1 the mods are oblivious. You can post a pure opinion piece and get +5, Informative while a straight up facts-quote with no added insight can get +5, Insightful.

Re:Good.

[Kjella]

This isn't logic, this is marketing. (...) Monetary damages due to pirated intellectual property are nothing but myth.

If and only if you truly never ever would pay for anything, even if you were unable to pirate anything, would that is true. If tomorrow you couldn't pirate Windows, MS Office, Photoshop or any other software and every piece of pirated software you have is gone, would you go cold turkey and use only Linux, OpenOffice and GIMP? Or would you pay for a legitimate version of something, which is the monetary loss you claim doesn't exist? Even if you're the mythical 2% that can do without, but 98% of the world's dekstops runs a commercial OS.

Yes, there is a market distorting effect here, for example if couldn't pirate Windows you might buy a Mac, StarOffice and PSP instead, so technically the ones hurt need not be the same as the ones you pirate from, but you're really grasping at straws to defend yourself here. The market is hurt every time you avoid paying money through piracy. Maybe in your world that doesn't happen, but in the real world it does.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a legal *OWNER* of PaintShopPro 7, You dont own PaintShopPro 7, you license it. This is a key distinction that many people forget. Nope, he owns a copy of it. The EULA doesn't meet several of the requirements for a valid contract.

Re:Good.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

This isn't logic, this ismarketing

It isn't marketing, it's opinion. It's his opinion that there is a distinction between losing a sale to a competitor and losing a sale to copyright infringement (piracy is such a misleading term). One benefits the music industry and is legitimate competition, the other is illegal and does not support the industry that created and supported it. Taking what you want when you want is generally unhealthy for industries and the economy.

And that does hold up to rational discourse. It is perfectly rational to feel moral obligations to reimburse the creators of things for their investment. It is also rational to assert that the industry will suffer because of the selfish people who download in the place of buying.

It is not particularly rational to consider copyright infringement just another competitor for the record industry, since it simultaneously hurts and relies upon the industry. It's not like we can solely rely on P2P; there needs to be labels to back 'em up. If the indie labels allow you to share their songs, so be it. But if the content creators (like the RIAA) don't want it, that is their right, and copyright law says that we should honour that.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. That's how it works.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Punitive damages are low but actual damages get fully compensated.

Also in special cases such as these, in order to get the raid okayed, the company making the accusation must provide a certain amount of money (typically 100k++) as an insurance that they aren't just trying to screw over the defendant. If the allegations turned out to be correct, they get to keep the cash. If it was unsubstantiated, the money will be used to reimburse the defendant.

Re:Good.

[Farmer Tim]

Worse than that, I've seen posts that are factually incorrect modded up as Informative. I think the moderator guidelines should include the dictionary definitions of each moderator type, because there does seem to be some confusion.

FWIW, I don't think my post was insightful either; there's nothing bad you can say about lawyers that isn't blindingly obvious.

Re:Good.

[ulzeraj]

You're right Hermano. :) The same situation happens here in Brazil. The strange thing is that games get overpriced because of ridiculous high fees imposed by the government. These fees are imposed to protect national companies, but there aren't any game companies here... we don't produce games! So, I wonder why games importing suffer the highest taxes...

Re:Good.

[Farmer Tim]

I know you are a farmer...

Yes, I own a large render farm for GCI. I'm unaware of any other possible meaning of "Anonymous Coward", though. ...but before you attempt to use a word in your sig you should make sure it's spelled correctly.

Try changing your spell checker to UK English. Congratulations, you just demonstrated your ignorance.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid for PaintShopPro 7 and then I tried to pay for an update countless times. No reply from the customer service.

As days passed, I got tired of waiting for a reply and simply droped this software.

Re:Good.

[Slashdot Parent]

I think that you'll find in America your only recourse would be to hire a lawyer and have him try to get your equipment back.

Or did you think you could sue the police for damages? Well, it turns out you can, but you will lose.

Re:Good.

[Yer Mom]

People don't RTFA. What makes you think they'd read the moderator guidelines? :)

Re:Good.

[Farmer Tim]

/me slaps forehead.

Re:Good.

[msouth]

It's been almost 20 years since then, and they've yet to get all their computers back, let alone damages...

Wikipedia disagrees...

...at the moment.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

In a lot of TPB cases we're not talking about $0.99 per song either, but about somebody who would rather not pay $700 for Photoshop. Maybe Adobe wouldn't have gotten the money, but it's very possible that MacroMedia (bought JASC) is out the $150 they get for Paintshop as an alternative

Well, an alternative to your alternative is: The GIMP.

So even though there is no monetary damage to Adobe, somebody else also loses a sale.

The GIMP: $0.00

So how much money are Adobe and MacroMedia losing again?

PS. Allow me to congratulate you on spelling "loses" correctly. This is becoming a rarity on slashdot.

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Officially and actually are two different words. Everyone is political just like everyone can be bought.

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[drinkypoo]

The Office of JO is officially non-political

And here in America, the government is officially by, of and for the people.

Any other spectacularly ignorant insights you want to share with us?

What did you expect?

[Infinityis]

Of course they dropped the case. Now that the Pirate Bay servers operate out of North Korea, it's out of Swedish jurisdiction. Plus, they probably don't want to provoke the wrath of Kim "I've got nukes!" Jong-Il...

Re:What did you expect?

[kannibal_klown]

Umm, April Fools?

Re:What did you expect?

[NC-17]

No, he can't be joking - it's the 2nd!

Re:What did you expect?

[Anne Thwacks]

Thus proving the old pirate saying "Its an Il Jong that blows no-one into pieces!" -Arrgh Jim, Lad

Re:What did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moved to North Korea? That was an April Fools' joke on their blog...

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Eudial]

You are tall, well-fed, healthy people in a free land. Are you going to let yourselves be herded by shit that does the bidding of Mafiaa ?

Why yes, we are. It's a long Swedish tradition to be herded by idiots.

Not the main issue either way

[Anonymous Coward]

WRT the confiscation of unrelated servers etc. my impression was that JO basically said that the police acted kind of stupid, but that it's not their fault that they are morons.

Well, that's how I read anyway. The official statements were worded differently.

Either way, it has no real effect on the real issue, which is whether PB are guilty of copyright infringements. I think that ones going to trial.

Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[apathy maybe]

"[P]olice and prosecutor being charged with official misconduct, but the judges dropped the cases"

And this is why the police and prosecutor will continue to break the law. This happens everywhere, unless the police are required to actually obey the law, there is no incentive to. Even when they are punished, it generally amounts to a slap on the wrist.

The police can and will arrest people who have done nothing wrong (I and a number of others at a protest during the Forbes conference in Sydney in 2005 for example, all the charges were either dropped or thrown out of court, except those people who pleaded guilty).

It isn't just illegal raids or arrests either. In Queensland an Aboriginal man was killed while in police custody. It was latter shown that he shouldn't have even been arrested, and that he was beaten to death. The police officer responsible continues in his duties (though he has been transferred from Palm Island). Actually, apparently he has now been charged, with manslaughter, after a former NSW chief judge examined the evidence.
(See this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Island,_Queensla nd#2004_death_in_custody_controversy_and_riot or do a search.)

So, it is obvious that the police need to be held accountable for their actions. While it is possible in most places to sue them (in the civil court), and this is what the various owners and users of these seized servers should do, the judge often finds that the police "were just doing their duty". No they fucking weren't! They were going beyond their duty.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[CastrTroy]

. In Queensland an Aboriginal man was killed while in police custody. It was latter shown that he shouldn't have even been arrested, and that he was beaten to death.

That doesn't surprise me considering that Aboriginals where considered part of the "flora and fauna" until 1967.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[jeffeb3]

(Score 1: unjustified blanket statements)

Who exactly is "the police and prosecutor"? Is this the same entity that arrested you?

The one example you backed up, for one specific case, actually disagrees with your statement that "the police" aren't required to obey the law. He was charged with manslaughter. Hooray, the system works!

I might agree with what you say, I might not. The point is, there needs to be evidence that supports your general conclusions. To support these general conclusions, evidence does not include examples of single events that support it. Supporting a claim that police in general don't have hard enough punishment might include a study concluding that police convicted in crimes while on the job are given 50% less jail time than others convicted of similar crimes (not actually true, I just made that up).

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[apathy maybe]

Well, as this is Slashdot and not an academic paper, I really can't be fucked doing such a study or finding evidence to support my position. However, I have read and been told of a number of cases where the police have used excessive force when arresting suspects or shooting people (black people who have wallets for example). The Rodney King case is an example, or numerous cases during the civil rights movement in the '60's.

The case where I did provide evidence to the contrary, I only found out that the cop was being charged after looking for information on the case. And it was only after an independent person examined the evidence.

Also, as a comment somewhere above points out, in Sweden you basically have no recourse when suing the government. The another comment in the same thread talks about the Steve Jackson games case.

As to your question about the police and prosecutors. I simply quoted that from the summary. But they work together. The police arrest you and attempt to find evidence to convict you, the prosecutor attempts to convict you. They both have an interest in having guilty verdicts.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[FunWithKnives]

Ugh. Come on, dude. Google is your friend when it comes to this kind of thing. It is not horribly difficult to find the incident that the GP was referring to. Even if the sources are biased, it serves as a launchpad to discover the truth. As for your "one isolated incident" rhetoric, that also happens to be one of the great things about the internet. You can find out things that some people don't necessarily want you to know. As for what to make of it all, you have to judge the evidence and draw your own conclusions.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[Anonymous Coward]

This happens everywhere, unless the police are required to actually obey the law, there is no incentive to.

And that IS the problem. The police in general DO NOT obey the law. Go watch a Police station and on a spring day watch the officers that leave the parking garage in their personal cars that Rip out of there burning rubber while waving to their buddies. 9 times out of 10 the guy driving like an asshole is an off duty police officer. (Look at the FOP emblem on the license plate) They KNOW they are above the law.

Honestly I believe that any officer that even get's a speeding ticket needs to be throw off the force and told he cant be a part of policework ever again. These assholes PROMISE to serve and protect, yet they only serve themselves and protect their buddies.

This is why most police are not respected, police are looked down upon by most of the population because we see the fuckers breaking the law. ANY LAW.

Cops are assholes, The power goes right to their head. Posting anonomous, because I am a cop, I see many "officers" get off for brutality or lots of really really wrong behaivoir and they are PROUD OF IT.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[Anonymous Coward]

When demonstrating an issue that should never be allowed to happen, only one case of it happening should need to be produced.

If the position is that sometimes we should let people break the law with impunity, then the implicit admission is that sometimes it is ok to murder, rape, and steal.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[killjoe]

If you have ever been to australia you would know that racism is rampant over there. Not just against aboriginals but also muslims and all kinds of "pacific islanders" (meaning assorted brown people).

If you hear an Assie say anything nice about any brown people mark it on your calender as a banner day.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[apathy maybe]

Hey, I'm an Australian, and while I understand your point, I disagree.

There are lots of racist scumfuckers around, but there are also lots of people who hate the racist scumfuckers.

None of my friends are racist, and I only know a few people that are openly so.

The existence of FightDemBack also disproves what you are saying.

So the point, you shouldn't make generalised comments like what you did. That is just like say that all Aboriginal people steal. It is unjustified and bigoted. I always like to say, you shouldn't make generalisations, generally. And this is one of the majority of cases you shouldn't.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, if you are a good cop, get out. Get a real job. Get a better job. Become a whistleblower as well.

It isn't worth your time to remain in a place where you are going to get so much crap. Cops aren't loved, cops do do shitty things, and you are tarred with the same brush.

Unless you like protecting the property of the rich, get out.

http://www.lyricstime.com/frenzal-rhomb-who-d-be-a -cop-lyrics.html

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[Simon Garlick]

I'm an immigrant to Australia -- I've lived here for going on eight years -- and Australia is the most racist place I've ever been in my life. Racism is everywhere here, you can't deny it.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[strider44]

Some of the nicest people I know are muslims, my favourite sports player is aboriginal and I've dated a couple of asian girls. Do I now get my own day?

Definitely in Sydney apart from a couple of bad idiotic cultural gangs of both white and "brown" descent (see the cause of the Cronulla Riots) there really isn't that much racism around.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[apathy maybe]

I'm not denying that many Australians are racist. I am saying that not all Australians are. Which is what the person I was responding to (basically) said.

I can only speak form my personal experience, and that is limited I admit. But around the Uni I was going to, I rarely encountered openly racist people. But we all know that Uni's are full of left-wing radicals, I guess in the real world it is different.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where in Australia are you located?

I've lived in Brisbane, Queensland all my life and I've not seen any significant racism. I'll admit I've heard the occasional bigot, but they've been fairly evenly distributed among many races.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you know how hard it is to prosecute a cop?" Quote from a Dirty Harry movie and it wasn't Inspector Callahan saying it. You could have videotape of a cop butt-raping a little boy and nothing would come of it in some places.

The police chief of Welch WV should be sitting in jail today, instead he's still walking around with a badge and a gun merely facing a wrongful death lawsuit instead of man-2. All this redneck did was deny a gay man in cardiac arrest any life-saving measures until he was good and dead. The civil trial this summer should be interesting.

Re:Police and prosecutor should be prosecuted.

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] prosecutor attempts to convict you No. Prosecutor in Scandinavia does not attempt to convict you. S/he has the responsibility to not to pursue the case if the person is innocent "enough" (the evidence is not strong enough or the act was very minor).

They both have an interest in having guilty verdicts. Neither has. Neither police nor prosecutor lose any money/credibility/... by losing (or dropping) cases. As said above, prosecutor has the responsibility to get just verdicts, not "guilty".

If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"...

[mi]

If the Ten Commandments were a "living document" (as some claim, US Constitution ought to be), it would've been found to contain the "Thou shall not violate copyrights" by now...

Synzronvg zl nff...

They do this all the time

[Threni]

The US poke their noses into the business of countries around the world. They're currently also trying to get the Dutch to follow the disastrous drug prohibition policy that's failed so badly in the US, instead of the Dutch policy of allowing the sale of cannabis and magic mushrooms which has worked well for decades now.

Re:They do this all the time

[Monkeyman334]

... Maybe use a better example. I can't imagine the US trying to push that policy except because they think it works (even if they are wrong). Use one that involves the US just trying to keep power, there are plenty of them.

Re:They do this all the time

[Threni]

> ... Maybe use a better example. I can't imagine the US trying to push that policy except because
> they think it works (even if they are wrong). Use one that involves the US just trying to keep
> power, there are plenty of them.

I just got back from Amsterdam - it was mentioned in all the papers that covered a drugs story there last week, that I bothered to check. The US fears a good example of a drug harm reduction policy which doesn't involve making up victimless crimes and then sending the 'evil (wrong) drug takers' to privately run prisons.

Re:They do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years ago it was pretty cool for all us college guys to take a trip to Amsterdam and smoke a couple joints over there; but than I went back last year and things have changed a little since than.

There seems to be a lot of abusers in that country that are all over now and they just sit around staring because they are all on methadone; its creepy kind of sometimes but the people are pretty nice and you can avoid some of the weird alleys.

Re:They do this all the time

[Threni]

> 10 years ago it was pretty cool for all us college guys to take a trip to Amsterdam and smoke a
> couple joints over there; but than I went back last year and things have changed a little since
> than.
>
> There seems to be a lot of abusers in that country that are all over now and they just sit around
> staring because they are all on methadone; its creepy kind of sometimes but the people are pretty
> nice and you can avoid some of the weird alleys.

I felt perfectly safe in those weird alleys - far safer than I could in London or New York, for instance. I never saw any of those people you describe, but perhaps they were on some of the legal mushrooms and other psychedelic drugs openly on sale there, or maybe just strong grass. I prefer people staring to people drinking too much and turning into fucking idiots.

Re:They do this all the time

[Monkeyman334]

I thought Americans didn't care what the rest of the world did? har har. I still think that's pushing it. Americans are broadly against any kind of drug legalization (a couple states don't, still not a mandate). So maybe a congressman is abusing the mandate to prop up prisons, but it's more of a conspiracy theory than fact.

Re:They do this all the time

[Threni]

> I thought Americans didn't care what the rest of the world did? har har.

The Americans interfere all over the world all the time, and have done so for decades. I have no idea who you're quoting there.

> Americans are broadly against any kind of drug legalization (a couple states don't, still not a
> mandate). So maybe a congressman is abusing the mandate to prop up prisons, but it's more of a
> conspiracy theory than fact.

It's not a conspiracy theory if it's true, is it. What does `a congressman` have to do with it - it's current drug policy. Imprison users. Where's the conspiracy?

Americans as a people are pretty much split over drug policy:

http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/major_proposals _detail.cfm?issue_type=illegal_drugs&list=7
http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/major_proposals _detail.cfm?issue_type=illegal_drugs&list=8

And that's after billions of dollars of anti-drug propaganda. But it doesn't appear to be working, does it?

Re:They do this all the time

[Grishnakh]

The US poke their noses into the business of countries around the world. They're currently also trying to get the Dutch to follow the disastrous drug prohibition policy that's failed so badly in the US,

This begs the question, why are these other countries allowing the US to poke their noses in?

Honestly, if someone comes to my door trying to convert me to some stupid religion or something, I just slam the door in his face. Why are the Dutch even entertaining the notion of listening to the US on this? Why don't they tell the US ambassador or whoever to go to hell?

Re:They do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, if someone comes to my door trying to convert me to some stupid religion or something, I just slam the door in his face. Even if he is packing an uzi? Or simultaneously poking $100 bills through your mail slot? Or gathering your entire neighbourhood (who have already "converted") on your front lawn for an "intervention"?

Re:They do this all the time

[Grishnakh]

Some good points. However,

1) I don't think the US is threatening the Netherlands with violence. After all, .nl is part of the EU and NATO, which have a rather large amount of military power.

3) I don't think the US is doing very well with "converting" the other EU countries on anything at the moment. I don't think their opinions of the US are very good right now.

2) This is about the only thing I can think of that's probably at work here. Hopefully .nl has enough internal protections against corruption to deal with any that might be happening here.

Re:They do this all the time

[RealGrouchy]

The US poke their noses into the business of countries around the world.

And ironically try their best to avoid regulating the businesses in their own country.

- RG>

Re:They do this all the time

[barry99705]

They're all too stoned to notice.

Re:They do this all the time

[Rakarra]

Because usually other countries want something that the US has. More favorable trade, relaxation of tariffs, etc. Things that come with strings attached. Politics is very much a "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" game.

Re:They do this all the time

[Grishnakh]

While I don't doubt your assertion, I think maybe these countries' leaders should start looking out for their own countries, and how to be more self-sufficient, instead of worrying about how to get things from other countries.

Moreover, the Netherlands is part of the EU now. As a bloc, the EU should have a lot more bargaining power in these international matters (tariffs, etc.), and the USA shouldn't even be dealing directly with member nations any more. Drug laws inside the Netherlands are an issue for the EU only, not any outsiders. Does Japan talk directly to the governor of Montana about trade restrictions and tariffs?

Lastly, for the ultimate model on how a country should behave with respect to other countries, look to Switzerland. I don't see them kowtowing to the USA or any other country, not in their internal laws or in anything else, and their economy seems to be doing just fine in spite of it. You don't need to grovel at the US's feet to have a successful country.

Looks like the man won

[mochan_s]

Wow, this sounds like hassling that has worked against TPB.

You host TPB servers. We will just randomly take the servers to the police station and shut down your business for weeks. And, you can't touch us with misconduct charges or anything.

Re:Looks like the man won

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah the TPB is such a hot potato nobody will touch it now. The website is not available at thepiratebay.org at all.

Re:Looks like the man won

[phasm42]

I wonder how the JO would feel if he were kicked out of his house or lost his car or his paycheck for a week because his neighbors were under investigation.

Re:Looks like the man won

[Blue Stone]

You call it "hassling"; some might call it "terrorism".

Re:Looks like the man won

[D4rk Fx]

This page (http://thepiratebay.org/) has been classified as a Hacking, Criminal Skills site and has been blocked per $CORPORATEPOLICY

Doesn't look like it's there to me!

Re:Looks like the man won

[Anonymous Coward]

TPB a business.... boy thank god a lot of slashdotters are grunt programmers and not running their own business.

Re:Looks like the man won

[Anonymous Coward]

And, you can't touch us with misconduct charges or anything.

I know, it's like they think they're MC Hammer or something.

Get it? Get it? "Can't touch us"?
Eh, you don't know what funny is.

I disagree with the tactics.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anyone should have the right to perform massive raids that effects many 3rd parties with little or no evidence. However, what's the end game for Pirate Bay? If one person buys the DVD and distributes it to the world does anyone really believe that movies will keep getting made. Just because there are currently enough honest people subsidize the copiers (NOT THIEFS) doesn't mean it will stay that way. Especially if the Pirate Bay gets their way and it is offically codified in law as an accepted action to just copy every movie ever made and never pay for anything.

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[91degrees]

If one person buys the DVD and distributes it to the world does anyone really believe that movies will keep getting made.

Of course they will. They just won't be sold on DVD.

But do you think it's likely that that will happen?

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[cdrguru]

It is certainly within the power of people on the Internet to eliminate all profit associated with DVD movies. Almost overnight.

The question that people need to think about is "We have the power. Should we use it?" This was done in the 1980's for the Apple platform - nobody produced games for this after around 1984 or so because pirate BBS were so prevalent that it was impossible to make any money selling a game. The same can be done for DVD movies.

It can also be done for music. Books are a little harder, but as soon as Google Books is cracked there will be little need for anyone to actually do something hard to acquire the text of a book.

Why isn't this happening? Mostly, laziness I feel. And lack of organization.

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[Anonymous Coward]

This was done in the 1980's for the Apple platform - nobody produced games for this after around 1984 or so because pirate BBS were so prevalent that it was impossible to make any money selling a game.

Then why did people continue to produce games for other computer systems?

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone still think the world would stop revolving if the MPAA decided not to make anymore movies? If every RIAA artist stopped releasing new music?

Sure, there would be a period of adjustment.

Then we'd all go on with our lives.

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[Bat Country]

Actually, people continued producing games for the Apple][ long after the Macintosh came out (in 1984, one might note) although they were largely educational titles.

You may find MobyGames enlightening on the subject.

Over a hundred games were produced for the Apple][ after 1987.

The only problem was that the *good* games at the time were either being produced for the major game consoles (for the superior interface and faster load times), arcade machines (greatly enhanced power and graphics), or the PC (far greater home market saturation.)

So in short, your point on video games is completely off-base.

Finally, there's no way in hell that net piracy could at any time in the near future make it unprofitable to sell video - even if it were legalized - for the simple reason that the downloads are nonpermanent (even if you burn them), not easily loaned to friends, prohibitively slow (hours to download a movie, faster to get to the video rental store), and nontechnical people can't do it easily (and we've seen that most nontechnical people don't like doing ANYTHING that isn't easy - including voting.)

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they provide a high quality movies with a fast download speed, people will buy it. Why bother with random file sharing networks where you don't know what quality you get or when the download is completed?

Give us a box that we can put under our TVs with cheap movies that we can burn to (HD-)DVD later if we want.

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's like if someone wrote computer programs that were circulated around the world free of charge...
Seriously, though... Those who really want to make/watch movies would get together and make them and we'd just loose the people who are in it for the money. Same goes for all culture. No more hollywood bullshit, no more pop music that sucks. Boo-hoo.

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[innocent_white_lamb]

Books are a little harder, but as soon as Google Books is cracked there will be little need for anyone to actually do something hard to acquire the text of a book.
 
Eh? There are all kinds of books of every sort available for download. Text, PDF, Palm format, Sony Reader format, you-name-it. You haven't been looking very hard if you haven't run across them.
 
I think that it's a lower profile thing than movies, music and the like, becuase there seems to be a smaller market for a major novel than there is for a major motion picture. (Insert comment about what this says about the state of modern society here.)
 
Just like movies: it only takes one person to crack the copy protection. It takes only one person to scan-and-ocr a book as well.

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[quincunx55555]

nobody produced games for this after around 1984 or so because pirate BBS were so prevalent If this were true, games would have completely disappeared after the Internet became a mainstream concept. The more notable reason why games weren't produced for the Mac was due to Apples coding standards.

See, in the earlier days of Apple, you could write whatever program you wanted to, however you wanted to. Then Apple issued a coding standards book for any software claiming to be compatible with their machine (this might have coincided with the Mac coming on the scene). The book was several inches thick.

Now, if you were itching to get your game idea into reality, or perhaps a company with over-head, would you want to waste time (and money) reading and adhering to those standards? Or would you rather make your game for a DOS PC? Pretty darn easy choice at that time.

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[Anonymous Coward]

If one person buys the DVD and distributes it to the world does anyone really believe that movies will keep getting made.

It doesn't worry me at all. There aren't enough hours in a person's life to watch all the movies that have already been made. I doubt there would be much suffering if the supply of new material was suddenly cut off in your scenario. People would just rediscover plenty of existing stuff.

Re:I disagree with the tactics.

[Dunbal]

If they provide a high quality movies with a fast download speed, people will buy it.

      Oh they'll do that. The problem is they will want to charge you $10 to watch it, each time you want to watch it. This is what they just don't get. There's no excuse anymore, people know just how cheap the media and bandwidth have become.

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I really think this new communism type thing will be the wave of the future.

It don't mean butt if it ain't got that jut.

Sidenote

[dinodipp]

Ombudsmen is taken from swedish and it's one of i think two words that english has borrowed from swedish (the other one being smorgasbord) Ombudsmen = (sort of) messenger smorgasbord = (sort of) buffee

Re:Sidenote

[bwcarty]

They've also given us the ever useful "bork, bork, bork!"

Re:Sidenote

[soilheart]

I have also heard that eiderdown is stolen from the swedish ejderdun.

Re:Sidenote

[Anonymous Coward]

It's taken from Norwegian, not swedish ...

Re:Sidenote

[Anonymous Coward]

close enough, Norwegian and swedish are pretty much dialects of the same language, well... by some standards anyways.

Jag tycker att du måste läser mer om Svenska och Norska.

Re:Sidenote

[Anonymous Coward]

Norwegians spell it ombudsmann. Anyway, both of the words ombud and ombudsman are Swedish in origin.
And this discussion is stupid and decidedly -1, Offtopic. :/

Re:Sidenote

[deoxyribonucleose]

Jag tycker att du måste läser mer om Svenska och Norska.

Offtopic nitpick: "läsa", not "läser" ("att" marks infinitives); and the names of languages are not capitalized. But otherwise, good show! Another nitpick: the distance between the languages is more like between German and Dutch, unfortunately for the Nordic consensus...

"Ärans och hjältarnas språk, hur ädelt och manligt du rör dig!"

Re:Sidenote

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ärans och hjältarnas språk, hur ädelt och manligt du rör dig!" .. kinky stuff :-)

Re:Sidenote

[Svet-Am]

just thought that I'd point out the English also borrows the word "sauna" from Swedish.

Re:Sidenote

[Anonymous Coward]

Ombudsmen is taken from swedish and it's one of i think two words that english has borrowed from swedish (the other one being smorgasbord) Ombudsmen = (sort of) messenger smorgasbord = (sort of) buffee

And "buffee" is borrowed from old Tranlyvanian = "vampire slayer"

Re:Sidenote

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be Finnish my good friend.

Re:Sidenote

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they are old norse of origin, i.e. pre-Swedish.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=ombudsm an&searchmode=none

In response to the pressure...

[pulse2600]

...the Swedish Minister of Justice was quoted as saying "BORK!!!!" "BORK BORK BORK BORK BORK!!!!", made a rather obscene hand gesture, and walked away.

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[Billosaur]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Constitution of the United States is a "living" document. However, that said, the amount of life in it is only equal to the interest of the People of the United States in maintaining and safeguarding it. The Federal Government's task is to interpret the will of the people and create consensus (not just majority rule), the modify the document accordingly. This has been done in the past to rectify the injustice of slavery, provide women their given right to vote, and even to limit the power of the President of the United States by limiting the number of terms possible to serve in the office to two.

If there's a problem with a "living" document, it's that it has been alive so long, that provisions contained within it have outlived their original intent and have not "evolved" to stay current with the progress of society. I think it's safe to say this is true of a great many non-Constitutional laws as well. I think a new breath of life needs to be applied to the Constitution if it is to continue to server the people in this century and those to come.

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[ComputerSlicer23]

Just a point of order, if the US Constitution were not a living document, there'd be these 10 things right at the end that'd be missing. Most of us refer to them as "The Bill of Rights". The constitution was ratified *WITHOUT* those amendments if I remember my history correctly. We've got a long ways to before I'd say I'd rather have the original constitution as written without the first 10 amendments.... It's a very good thing that Constitution is a living document that can be changed, and re-interpreted as appropriate. A number of just vile interpretations have happened over the years, most of them were the first interpretation.

Kirby

Swedish Constitutional Law 101

[Hackie_Chan]

The reason why it is such a big deal that the American embassy tried to push the Swedish Minister of Justice and Secretary of State into influencing the police and the prosecutor to act upon The Pirate Bay is because of this: according to the Swedish law it is not permitted for the Minister of Justice to tell what the police should do (in Swedish we call this 'ministerstyre'). The minister is not even allowed to speak on individual cases. To you guys in the US or Britain this might seem weird, but that's how things work over here.

What happened with the raid on Pirate Bay could very well be a constitutional offense. That is of course after the Committee on the Constitution have properly investigated it. This is serious business.

Re:Swedish Constitutional Law 101

[glwtta]

What happened with the raid on Pirate Bay could very well be a constitutional offense.

Holy crap, other countries still have those?

Re:Swedish Constitutional Law 101

[emjoi_gently]

Separation of Powers.
The UK, and Australia also run on that principle.
The Politicians make the law.
The Police enforce the law.
The Judges decide who has broken the law.

And those 3 groups should never get involved in the others duties.

Re:Swedish Constitutional Law 101

[Dunbal]

What happened with the raid on Pirate Bay could very well be a constitutional offense.

      Yarr, string the minister up on the yard arm for treason, boys! I'll be seein him dance the hemp fandango before breakfast arrr!

Re:Swedish Constitutional Law 101

[smchris]

OK. But from the U.S. standpoint I'd say it was a pretty innoxious day in the Foreign Service. When my wife and I took the orals, it seemed like the roleplaying scenarios were intentionally designed to highlight that allegiance was to country and not to bleeding heart causes like the environment or human rights. And that you could rise to the occasion and defend the unpopular. The different scenarios we had to defend were almost cartoonish in their uncoolness.

Re:Swedish Constitutional Law 101

[rtb61]

Most democratic countries run the same way, it is called the separation of powers. This basically ensures that all people are treated equally under law. So it is the normal course of action and any political leader in a properly democratic country that attempts to alter the due process of law would be subject to political censure and criminal proceedings for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The simple principle being, one group writes the law (politicians), another group interprets the law (judges), and of course law enforcement does it's bit. You can't have politicians acting as judge, jury and executioner because history has shown they first people they consider guilty of a crime is any one who has a different opinion to them or threatens their personal hold on power.

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[unity100]

with sufficient public power anyone can be made resign their office. be it politician be it bureucrat

Yanking 186 servers for a week is not misconduct?

[Dekortage]

FTA: "...a total of 186 servers were confiscated from PRQ's server rooms. This led to that a big number of companies and a lot of small and large websites lost their servers and in many cases their primary livelihood. ...It took them over a week before they decided to give back some of the servers that was not related to Pirate Bay."

If this were in the U.S., all the affected businesses would probably sue the government over lost revenue. Alternatively (or additionally) they would sue PRQ for co-hosting them with known criminals that made them vulnerable to such police action. Then they would sue the vendor who made PRQ's servers (e.g. Dell or whoever).

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Andre_PC]

I actually think this is a worldwide trend.

What if

[DJ Jones]

Imagine the backlash that would have resulted had one of those wrongfully confiscated servers belonged to Halliburton or another large American firm. - This is why the international community despises America.

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Thexare Blademoon]

No, "politician" means "moron", but "moron" doesn't always mean "politician".

It's like the Square/Rectangle thing.

Napster II

[Anonymous Coward]

I punched "top gear past episodes" into Google (honestly looking for a way to pay someone for the content) and among the results was a link to PB's site; Seasons 1-8 available in a single 29GB torrent. Eight years of BBC copyrighted material plus Clarkson's movie in a single download. All festooned with adds I'm pretty sure the BBC isn't getting a cut of...

Whatever you think of the policy and practice of the copyright police, there is no way in hell that is going to be tolerated indefinitely by media producers and distributors. PB can buy all the Sealands they want; Hollywood and the rest will just sue the ISPs for providing the bandwidth. The rest of the world will continue to be more than happy to let the US legal system do the dirty work.

If you've been pulling stuff from PB don't be surprised when you get a letter a year from now with a bill attached. It's been a few years since the Napster hubbub and both new arrivals and recalcitrant veterans need to (re)learn how it works.

Posted AC due to the vanishingly small number of Slashdot moderators that earning a living making or distributing media.

Re:Napster II

[lilomar]

Posted AC due to the vanishingly small number of Slashdot moderators that earning a living making or distributing media. The problem isn't that the state of copyright infringement is keeping people who earn a living making media from profiting. It's that it is keeping people who make a living distributing media from profiting. The distributors don't pay the makers any differently whether the film is pirated or not. The real problem is that we no longer need the distributors; And they don't like it. It is time for a paradigm shift.

Re:Napster II

[slicenglide]

Sue all they want, under U.S. law, internet providers are not held accountable for the content of their servers. -IANAL

Re:Napster II

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is that we no longer need the distributors; And they don't like it. It is time for a paradigm shift. Son, Pirate Bay is a distributor. Bandwidth is not free. Servers are not free. Electricity is not free. Keeping all of your equipment and people dry is not free. An example, from an article by Forbes on YouTube:

Meanwhile the site's bandwidth costs, which increase every time a visitor clicks on a video, may be approaching $1 million a month--much of which goes to provider Limelight Networks. Never mind hardware costs (think massive, expensive storage devices,) software licenses (it's not all Open Source,) facilities costs, labor...

The only difference between Pirate Bay and Netflix is that so far Pirate Bay has gotten away without giving the content owners a cut of the revenue.

Re:Napster II

[Juzzie79]

Son, Pirate Bay is a distributor. If I knew of a guy who was handing out pirated DVDs, and I told my friends about him, does that make me a distributor? Because in effect, that's what TPB is doing. They distribute .torrent files. Those files contain absolutely no copyrighted material, they just tell your Bittorrent client where to find other people who have the material. So while you might like to think TPB is a distributor, the data that actually comes off their servers contains no copyrighted material whatsoever.

The only difference between Pirate Bay and Netflix is that so far Pirate Bay has gotten away without giving the content owners a cut of the revenue. Yep, you do work in the media industry, because they're unable to identify the obvious difference either. Netflix sends you a DVD with material that is copyrighted. TPB can't do that, because the copyrighted material isn't on their servers. When I download a torrent, I get the material in tiny chunks from hundreds of people all over the interwebs. TPB itself doesn't send me any of those chunks - they all come from other evil pirates like me. Meanwhile, media conglomerates steal from me constantly. Every year, works that were supposed to pass to public ownership are retained under copyright due to American politicians being bought by large media companies. I'm in Australia, and yet those same crazy laws apply thanks to Team America. Life+75 is just ridiculous. In a world where content makers have instant, cost-free duplication and distrobution, 10 years of copyright is more then adequate for a creator to make some money off a work. And yet, I'm sure we'll see Life+125 come in as soon as Mickey Mouse comes up for expiry again. You are supporting the theft of my culture on a daily basis. Don't expect me to respect your "potential loss of profits". I'm all for copyright, as long as it's fair. Right now, it's not. So I'm not prepared to abide by it. I'll find alternitive ways to encourage the artists I enjoy to keep creating art.

Re:Napster II

[Dunbal]

there is no way in hell that is going to be tolerated indefinitely by media producers and distributors.

      TPB carries torrent files, not the actual content. This is not illegal in Sweden. Considering the MAFIAA just got their asses handed to them by the Swedish legal system I doubt very much they are going to go for even more bad press.

Hollywood and the rest will just sue the ISPs for providing the bandwidth.

      The IP for TPB is well aware of what that site does. Again, it's not illegal. And TPB doesn't carry kiddie porn.

If you've been pulling stuff from PB don't be surprised when you get a letter a year from now with a bill attached.

      They can bill me all they want. I don't live in the US and the DMCA doesn't apply here, either.

It's been a few years since the Napster hubbub and both new arrivals and recalcitrant veterans need to (re)learn how it works.

      Hey Joe, just because you found out about TPB today doesn't mean they're newcomers. I suggest you have a look at their "legal threats" page. And the dates on some of those e-mails. From "small" companies like Apple, Microsoft, EA, Warner Brothers, etc?

      Short of bombing the servers, the MAFIAA can't stop this.

Re:Napster II

[evilsofa]

"If you've been pulling stuff from PB don't be surprised when you get a letter a year from now with a bill attached. It's been a few years since the Napster hubbub and both new arrivals and recalcitrant veterans need to (re)learn how it works."

Apparently you need to learn how torrents work. It's nothing like Napster. You don't "pull stuff" from PB. They don't serve any content. PB has no idea what content you downloaded, nor do they have any idea who got content from whom, any more than a phone book company knows who you called or what you talked them about.

Since you could download a torrent file from PB and then delete it without ever opening the file with a bittorrent client, data collected from PB about who downloaded torrent files is therefore meaningless and legally useless. You have to collect evidence on the actual transfer of content, which never touches a PB server. And, in case you haven't noticed, the RIAA is turning out to be terribly incompetent at doing that.

Re:Napster II

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pirate Bay also runs the trackers for the torrents. I haven't studied how the torrents work, but I do know a site I signed up for to get torrents tracked my share ratio, which must mean the trackers can store data about what the users download. I do howver doubt that anyone other that TPB will get access to the data since what they are doing is legal, however RIAA/MPAA and equivalents could just download the torrent themselves and get IP addresses from those uploading.

Re:Napster II

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if it's BBC material then, as a licence fee payer (albeit a reluctant one), I've paid to have this content made and I've personally got no problem with other people viewing it. The people who made the content have already been paid for their work so there's no point in it not being available.

Saying you have to pay every time you wish to view BBC content is like paying some to build you a shed and them expecting you to pay a fee every time you want to use it.

It's just a shame I don't like Top Gear or I'd go and get a copy right now :)

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[lilomar]

a new breath of life needs to be applied to the Constitution if it is to continue to server the people in this century and those to come. Here, Here!

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[Kandenshi]

Well, a large number of American's don't believe in that newfangled "evolution" thing. Don't see why you'd expect them to want the Constitution to evolve when they don't subscribe to the concept in other areas. :P

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm jutting it, commissar...

There is a difference between...

[MyNameIsFred]

In my mind, there is a significant difference between the US government meddling in a country's political processes, and some religious group taking someone to court. You should not equate the US population, its government, US corporations, various religious institutions, and other organizations under one banner of "US meddling." Its not like there is one master brain that controls all of those groups and people.

Re:There is a difference between...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so fast, Fred. The population is ostensibly represented by the government and as such are able to demarche whomever they like in the name of our country. John Q. Public is not serving in an embassy overseas and there is no diplomatic protocol for him to gain audience with foreign governmental entities and issue an official statement (i.e. demarche) nor would there be any precedent for considering its validity.

As for corporations, the business of America is business. If something is deemed harmful to a domestic US industry then the officers in the State Dept.'s commercial and economics cones serving in residence at the concerned embassy (along with the US trade rep) have the obligation to confront the host government. That's what they're there for and what they do. They are only prohibited from acting in the interests of a single company and giving an unfair advantage to one. Economic health is a national security issue and as such entire industries are effectively officially represented overseas, and it is generally a good thing. It has just become perverted in this case.

As far as religion goes, that is not an accurate description of Scientology. Scientology is a registered corporation and that is how they've attempted to legally protect (with varying degrees of success) they're "hidden" doctrines as trade secrets. Wacky but true, check it out.

Re:There is a difference between...

[Anonymous Coward]

What does this have to do with, well, anything being discussed here?

Re:There is a difference between...

[loganrapp]

Don't start that bullshit up again. We're sick of it just as much as we are of our current president.

Re:There is a difference between...

[Woldry]

Its not like there is one master brain that controls all of those groups and people.

Oh yes I do... I mean ... there is...

Re:There is a difference between...

[Anonymous Coward]

To kill this master brain, shoot rockets into the hole as you go up the lift

Re:There is a difference between...

[RealGrouchy]

Its not like there is one master brain that controls all of those groups and people.

Not controlled by one brain; rather, by one dick.

- RG>

Re:There is a difference between...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gleemax? Is that you?

Re:Yanking 186 servers for a week is not misconduc

[raynet]

And then they would sue their customers :)

Re:Yanking 186 servers for a week is not misconduc

[fishbowl]

>If this were in the U.S., all the affected businesses would probably sue the government over lost revenue.

Before doing that, they would make claims of personal liability for the individuals who actually confiscated the equipment. These people probably were not specifically bonded against liability stemming from their actions, and if brought to court, would require the people who gave them orders to do what they did, to give their reasons under oath. That testimony would then be most valuable when "suing the government" later, especially if everyone involved does not give the same answer.

Equipment returned?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the equipment confiscated in the raid been returned?

A Bit Premature

[rueger]

From TFA ... The Pirate Bay was the target of one of the most talked-about raids of the 21st century in Sweden.

Ah, with another 93+ years to go in the century it would seem a bit much to make claims like that. It seems entirely likely that the Pirate Bay raid will be forgotten in three years, much less thirty.

Execept of course on Wikipedia....

Re:A Bit Premature

[ashmon]

That may be true, but _so far_, in this century, it IS one of the most talked about raids that has happened. It's also the most talked about raid from this decade, this half-century, and this millennia, so far.

Re:A Bit Premature

[kinglink]

Considering most people outside of people who would visit Pirate bay (aka hackers/crackers/pirates/ what ever you want to be called) and people on sites like Slashdot (cool people) don't even know a raid happened. I'd say it'd be forgotten in a month.

It's not waco. No one died, a bunch of computers got seized... Sadly no one cares no matter how many rights are brought up.

Re:A Bit Premature

[Anonymous Coward]

I dare say it's true that it isn't talked about much in your little corner of the world, or in most corners of the world, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been news in Sweden. Which is what the claim was.

I know this is going to come as a shock to you but the overwhelming majority of the world's population don't give a shit about Waco either.

Re:Yanking 186 servers for a week is not misconduc

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Alternatively (or additionally) they would sue PRQ for co-hosting them with known criminals

TPB are criminals now? I thought they within the boundaries of the law. If they were criminals they should have been convicted right now. But they're not. So apperently they're not criminals. Also even before the raid they (TPB) were not convicted criminals, so how could PRQ co-host clients with known criminals when they are not known criminals?

Hollywood vs. Sealand

[Ungrounded Lightning]

PB can buy all the Sealands they want; Hollywood and the rest will just sue the ISPs for providing the bandwidth.

Given their budgets they could also hire some mercenaries and mount an attack on Sealand themselves.

If they filmed it they might make a profit on it, too.

Copyright (c) 2007 by me writing as "Ungrounded Lightning Rod".

Leave a followup to any posting in my journal with a firm offer if you want to do the movie. Otherwise I may sue for copyright infringement if such an attack is made, filmed, and the film shown for profit - even on a news operation under the same umbrella corporation. B-)

Living Document? Please no sir.

[Venner]

I, for one, don't buy in to the 'living' document idea. It is too wishy-washy for me. While I believe the courts need leeway to interpret and enforce the laws, I am a textualist at heart. What the Constitution says should be the law, not what people say it says. Where there is ambiguity or just a plain lack of subject matter covered, the solution should be to amend the document, not construe it far beyond the original wording. The fact that the US Constitution is hard as heck to amend is another matter in iteself.

An epic example of "interpretation" is the Roe v. Wade decision. Regardless of which camp you fall into, the Opinion is a horribly written hodgepodge of judicial interpretation.
The way the Commerce Clause has been used to vastly expand the powers of the Federal government in the 20th centurty is another example.

Are things any better in Civil Law nations?

Re:Living Document? Please no sir.

[Billosaur]

What the Constitution says should be the law, not what people say it says.

The problem with that is, just whose definitions do you use? The Constitution, like any written document, is subject to interpretation simply because while individual words have a limited range of meaning, their many and varied combinations can be interpreted along a wide spectrum. That's why we have a court system: to try and create a reasonable definition of a law in any given circumstance. Two opposing sides in an argument will generally insist on an interpretation biased toward their definitions. It's up to the court system to try and create consensus, and where not possible or practicable, to enforce a definition based on the court's definitions. And so then you have appeals, as people disagree with the court's definitions, all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter in most legal cases.

The same problem exists with the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Seems straightforward. But thou shalt not kill what? Men? Women? Dogs? Cat? Ameobas? Fetuses? You can take a simple 4-word phrase and interpret it in myriad ways, all because of what it doesn't say as much as what it does say.

Re:Living Document? Please no sir.

[Anonymous Coward]

What the Constitution says should be the law, not what people say it says. Wiggum: Hey, it says that as chief constable I'm entitled to a pig every month. And "two comely lasses of virtue true."
Quimby: Keep the pig. How many broads do I get?

Re:Living Document? Please no sir.

[Venner]

I'm not arguing that the documents doesn't need interpretation, I'm just arguing to what degree. The historical judicial interpretation of the 11th amendment, for example, is arguably contrary to the plain reading of the text.
"Between a state and a citizen of another state" has been construed to include a person and their own state.

The US Constitution is one of the briefest and most broadly written of such documents in the world, and thus necessitates more interpretation. The downside is that it gives the party in power even more power to dictate the interpretation of the document. ("Animal Farm" is the worst-case scenario.) I'm a big fan of Justice Black in many ways, as I like his "interpretation" of the first amendment.

"All I am doing is following what to me is the clear wording of the First Amendment that "Congress shall make no law ... abridg[ing] the freedom of speech or of the press." These words follow Madison's admonition that there are some powers the people did not mean the federal government to have at all. As I have said innumerable times before, I simply believe that "Congress shall make no law" means Congress shall make no law." Is he 'interpreting'? Clearly so, he says as much, but He isn't reading in to the words what isn't there. "Congress shall make no law [except when we feel like it, such as with the Alien and Sedition Acts]"

Re:Living Document? Please no sir.

[Rakarra]

The same problem exists with the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Seems straightforward. But thou shalt not kill what? Men? Women? Dogs? Cat? Ameobas? Fetuses? You can take a simple 4-word phrase and interpret it in myriad ways, all because of what it doesn't say as much as what it does say.

It's even worse in this case because you also add the ambiguity created when you translate words from one language to another where sentence constructs may have different meanings or words don't map perfectly between the two languages. Does it mean "thou shalt not kill" as in our 21st century conception of what the word 'kill' means or does it mean "thou shalt not murder," sanctioning capital punishment or even any other killing allowed by law? The 2nd amendment of the US Constitution is also interpreted differently depending on which camp you're in. What does the word "militia" mean? Does it refer to organized state forces? Every able-bodied man? (but not women?)

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[Billosaur]

What we believe and what is true can be two very different things. This is not to denigrate anyone's belief system -- as the Constitution of which I've written states, the government of the United States will not establish a national religion, (i.e. national belief system). If belief in something brings you comfort, helps you make it through each day, and creates peace for yourself and other like-minded individuals, so be it. Whether your particular belief system bears any resemblance to reality is a subject for philosophical debate, not law. As long as the stricture against establishment of state belief systems holds, no group should fear reprisal against their belief and in the inverse, no one group's belief system should be made to dominate the country as a whole.

Re:Yanking 186 servers for a week is not misconduc

[Dekortage]

I meant to put "known criminals" in quotes. Sorry about that.

But the concept is like renting you a self-storage unit right next to the unit full of live surplus munitions. Maybe it's legal for the guy next door to store his explosives there, but if they explode and wipe out your stuff, you'll be wondering why they didn't tell you. IANAL but this kind of "in harm's way" or "undisclosed risk" stuff seems to come up now and then in the U.S.

Re:Sidenote And -1 offtopic

[dinodipp]

I'm pretty sure that you are not natively swedish, I think it's cool that you speak sweeeeeeeedish!

MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL

[Any Web Loco]

Yeah it's funny, but it's actually true too. Interesting, and Insightful.

And now for TPB's reaction

[ravenspear]

Check out their current PTR record.

dig thepiratebay.org
> 83.140.176.146
dig -x 83.140.176.146
> IN PTR hey.mpaa.and.apb.bite.my.shiny.metal.ass.thepirate bay.org.

Re:And now for TPB's reaction

[The MAZZTer]

[blockquote]C:\>dig 'dig' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file, you insensitive clod![/blockquote]

Sweden plays by the US rules

[Anonymous Coward]

This country has some flaws, one, it's the US's lapdog. Second, it's police technicians are (if the prosecutor isn't lying of course) the slowest in the world as it apparentely took more than 24 hours to just copy a harddrive.

This was quoted as one of the reasons why the servers where and are being held for so many months.

But the prosecutor wouldn't be lying to cover his own behind now would he? Silly of me to think that.

Out of context

[Anonymous Coward]

Your quote was out of context. Here's the full quote:
"When asked what he thought of a Justice system that allowed lazy for-hire police to close down hundreds of innocent e-commerce sites and causing they and their customers to suffer financial loses,
the Swedish Minister of Justice was quoted as saying [the system is] "BORK!!!!" "BORK BORK BORK BORK BORK!!!!", made a rather obscene hand gesture, and walked away."

Oops, I meant...

[The MAZZTer]

Oops, I meant...

C:\>dig
'dig' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file, you insensitive clod!

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[MonkWB]

The Federal Government's task is to interpret the will of the people and create consensus (not just majority rule), the modify the document accordingly. This has been done in the past to rectify the injustice of slavery, provide women their given right to vote, and even to limit the power of the President of the United States by limiting the number of terms possible to serve in the office to two.

think a new breath of life needs to be applied to the Constitution if it is to continue to server the people in this century and those to come.

First you praise the fact that it is living then you say how it should live a little more, change more easily...
What people need to realize is that it is hard to change the constitution of the US on purpose. The ideal situation would be a quickly evolving state constitution that has its base/core in the US constitution.

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[The Angry Mick]

I wish the RIAA would agree to resolve their cases the same way the old Swedish kings used to settle their wars:

1. RIAA rows out into the middle of a fjord in a boat filled with all of their money.
2. Defendant rows out in a boat filled with all his money.
3. Both sides bash each other about the head with large cudgels.
4. Boats sink due to critical imbalance.
5. Money sinks to bottom of fjord, never to be seen again.

Defendant, goes home, gets a job and returns to a steady bill payer's lifestyle.

The RIAA . . . well . . .

Nevermind. I really don't care what happens to them.

RAID?

[c0d3r]

They should just simply replace their RAID controllers, rather than investigate.

M

As usual...

[mengel]

The analogy is horribly broken, because if you steal a Corvette from a dealer, they do not have the unit to sell it.

So let's say the recording industry has 150,000 copies of Brittany's Greatest Hits on the shelf, and someone makes a digital copy of same. How many copies does the recording industry have? 150,000 -- just like when they started.

So when you come up with a way to make a copy of a Corvette on a car dealer's lot, but leave the original one there on the lot, you will have an analogous situation. Otherwise you've fallen into the trap of equating copyright violations with theft, the very mistake the *IAA are trying to talk everyone into.

Re:As usual...

[Macadamizer]

if you steal a Corvette from a dealer, they do not have the unit to sell it.

Agreed.

So let's say the recording industry has 150,000 copies of Brittany's Greatest Hits on the shelf, and someone makes a digital copy of same. How many copies does the recording industry have? 150,000 -- just like when they started.

Agreed. But if they had 150,000 copies, and 150,000 people ready to purchase, and one makes that digital copy, now they can only sell 149,999 -- they are left with one copy. Since they are (presumably) not in the business of collecting CD's, that one unsold copy on the shelf has a cost associated with it that the seller has to bear -- either by reducing the price so that it can sell, or by destroying it, or whatever -- but it has a cost. The seller is NOT in the same position as he was before the digital copy was made -- he is worse off. Maybe not worse off by a whole unit of the CD, but he is worse off nonetheless.

So when you come up with a way to make a copy of a Corvette on a car dealer's lot, but leave the original one there on the lot, you will have an analogous situation. Otherwise you've fallen into the trap of equating copyright violations with theft, the very mistake the *IAA are trying to talk everyone into.

Even in the Corvette case, if you make your copy, the dealer still has to sell the original -- and if the person who made the copy is one who would have purchased in the first place, then maybe that "original" Corvette doesn't sell -- that's a cost that the dealer will have to bear.

The idea that copyright infringement is equivalent to theft is not completely analagous -- but that doesn't mean that copyright infringement has NO costs, either. Unless the unauthorized copies are going SOLELY to people who would NEVER purchase the original, the creation of the digital copies has some impact on the market for the original. It's certainly not one-for-one, but it is an impact.

Re:As usual...

[honkycat]

Yeah, yeah, I know. I was trying to avoid touching this point other than tangentially.

I agree that it's a somewhat flawed analogy, but it's not quite that simple or as "horrible" as you make it out. If you steal a Corvette from the dealer, you will be charged with a theft appropriate to the retail value of the car, which is substantially higher than either the dealer's or manufacturer's cost to acquire or produce that item. There's an assumption being made that the car would have sold at the retail price or it'd have been valued at the lower prices.

There's a similar assumption being made with valuating piracy. Is the cost zero? Absolutely not. That's a ridiculous characterization. Is it MSRP x number of instances? No, that's also ridiculous. It's somewhere in between. You can argue that any method is flawed, but at least the latter is straightforward to calculate and of probably the right order of magnitude.

Re:As usual...

[bonhomme_de_neige]

Agreed. But if they had 150,000 copies, and 150,000 people ready to purchase, and one makes that digital copy, now they can only sell 149,999 -- they are left with one copy.

No, from the start they didn't have "150,000" copies. They had one master copy, and a potentially infinite number of digital copies to sell. The cost of producing the master copy has nothing to do with the number of copies sold. So, who decided that the "number of people willing to buy" was 150,000?

The missing piece is this: price. They had, say, 50,000 willing to buy at $1, another 50,000 willing to buy at $0.50, and another willing to buy for $0 (that is, willing to download and listen to the song - not the same as someone who just doesn't like the song, or movie or whatever).

Although it might seem like that last group adds no benefit to the recording industry, that's not the case. Those people might tell others about the song ($billions are spent on advertising every year - so you can't just ignore the value of this), or the might go to concerts, or they might by other merchandise which is not digitally reproducible (you can't download a Metallica t-shirt, at least not without investing some time and equipment in printing your own).

So - no problem if everyone buys at the price they're willing to pay. This is an example of "differentiated pricing", which is taught about in an introductory economics course as a good thing, something industries strive for (examples cited in your textbook will be "child tickets" for movies and events). The only problem is if the people willing to pay $1 get the song for free instead. (Back to the original point - this is the only source of "lost revenue" due to piracy in the equation).

This problem is easily addressed as follows: those people who are willing to pay more place a value on their own time. To them, the opportunity cost of spending 20 minutes to look for a torrent is more than paying $1. Thus, they would rather spend 2 minutes and pay $1 to get the song than spend 20 minutes and get it for free. It might seem hard to believe such people exist if you're not one of them, but believe me they do. These people pay $3 for a bottle of spring water at the service station instead of walking to the supermarket next door and buying the same thing for $1.50 (and there's nothing wrong with that - just pointing out the non-digital analogy in this logic).

To a rational person it would then seem the solution is to provide an option that allows them to do this. The more business minded people of the world (eg. Apple) have already done this, with great success. If I can explain this in 5 minutes, it can't be difficult to understand. So why is the RIAA still not putting their efforts into this wholesale? Well, I guess you all know the answer to that question.

As for a site going down as 'collateral' for being hosted at the same datacenter as some illegal site, this is definitely grounds to sue for compensation. An online business that relies on its website as a primary sales channel loses all the sales they would have made that day if the site is taken down - this is the reason that SLAs even exist. To take the car analogy up again: let's say you bought a (completely legit) Corvette from a dealer. Later (or earlier), unbeknownst to you, the dealer (had) sold a stolen Corvette to someone else. As a result, your Corvette is siezed by police. Reasonable? I think not.

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[StikyPad]

a new breath of life needs to be applied to the Constitution if it is to continue to server the people

I believe you meant "sever the people."

No.

[DrYak]

It's just funny.
It's funny, because some american politician are pathetic how they try to actually take over the net.

If anything happen to the root DNS, the history will just follow the same path it did with any open-source or other open- projects : fork.

Just like when CDDB2 became comercial, poeple just switched to freedb.org (which contained the last public copy of the data), if the root DNS gets pwned by politicians with agenda, most probably a couple of alternative server will emerge. And because this is usually handled by the ISP itself (they just change which DNS server their servers have to ask), the users won't even notice the change.

Maybe there may be some initial fragmentation, as people try to settle for 1 single root-DNS-replacement (and not a dozen of non-synced-between servers). But as mot countries administer their own domains only com/org/net and such will be affected.

In fact there are already some alternative root DNS that exists, in order to provide new top-domains not provided by the official root.

So, no. The loss of the root DNS will not be the end of the internet as we know it. It'll be only a way to produce a lot of pissed administrators.

Re:No.

[Pfhorrest]

And because this is usually handled by the ISP itself (they just change which DNS server their servers have to ask), the users won't even notice the change.

And this is where your otherwise pretty picture breaks down, for us Americans at least. All the broadband ISPs here are major telecom conglomerates who are happily in bed with the nice governments who so generously give them legally enforced local monopolies, lots of public funding to expand their networks, and the use of eminent domain to run their lines. Why would those ISPs ever use any other root DNS but the one that Washington tells them to? And if the government did fuck with the root DNS, and the ISPs played along and didn't care, why would any Joe Average User switch away from their two nice, fast broadband options to the only remaining choice - slow-ass dialup?

Re:No.

[AVee]

So we and up in a situation where americans are screw by there own government, which is fine, they should be used to it by now. And perhaps, just maybe, it will cause them to think before they vote for a change, who knows.

And the rest of the world will just continue to use the internet as usual, on an internet with less instead of more influence from the US. I'd say, go for it.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need to switch ISPs, just switch your own dns settings. Switch to servers other than your isp's... problem solved.

Re:No.

[Pfhorrest]

There is no need to switch ISPs, just switch your own dns settings. Switch to servers other than your isp's... problem solved.

True, there is no technical need for users to switch ISPs to use a new DNS, but only the saavy advanced users are going to know to do that, much less how to do that. The point I was responding to was the one that if the US govt messes with the current root DNS, then all the ISPs will just switch to a better root DNS and all the users won't need to do anything. That, it seems to me, is false - the broadband ISPs have no incentive to use any other DNS besides the root one, and no reason to mind if the US government somehow does something to it.

On a side-note, to whatever mods are listening, how is any of this off-topic? (It seems someone has modded most of the posts in this subthread Overrated of Off-Topic). It's tangential, sure, but the progression of discussion is perfectly natural.

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[Kjella]

If there's a problem with a "living" document, it's that it has been alive so long, that provisions contained within it have outlived their original intent and have not "evolved" to stay current with the progress of society. I think it's safe to say this is true of a great many non-Constitutional laws as well. I think a new breath of life needs to be applied to the Constitution if it is to continue to server the people in this century and those to come.

While you quote some excellent examples of that, principles go out of date much more seldom than those in power wish to betray those principles because they are inconvienient. Without the constitution every administration could change the nation at their whim. If you gave them free reign to give a "new breath of life" to the constiution, it would take men of principles and ideals not to destroy it.

Where do you suppose they are, in the unwashed masses? In the ranks of the professional politicians? They haven't fought for those freedoms, they have not died for those freedoms. If you want someone to write a modern constiution, you should ask those who liberated eastern europe and broke down the soviet union. I don't think anyone else fully appriciates what freedom from a totalitarian government (not occupation, that's different) means.

Reply Plan?:There is a difference between...

[OldHawk777]

I agree there is not a master brain, but maybe there is a master plan with many little bush brains working together like an ant-mind collective.

Never very bright, but effective maybe ... (as I say, PTFL), and no one pays much attention to the growth and/or increase in the number of ant-hills.

Remember, there was a Hitler, Mussolini, Joe McCarthy, Stalin ... need I continue ....

Take GOOGLE to the cleaners!

[lindseyp]

You mean to say google provided you with a link (an http: link) to another link (a .torrent) which in turn pointed to copyrighted content?

Since google is the one with all the money, why not set the lawyers on google?

Oh right.. because google has enough money to blow your 'copyright infringement' claim out of the water, since they're not providing you with any copyrighted content in this case, (and neither are PB).

Raiding!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see that Leeroy didn't mess this one up for you guys!
Get any good Blues or Purples? :D

Re:Yanking 186 servers for a week is not misconduc

[Dunbal]

they would sue PRQ for co-hosting them with known criminals that made them vulnerable to such police action.

      IANAL but I'm sure an argument can easily be made here. After all, the case against TPB was dropped. Therefore they are NOT criminals (and this is a civil matter, btw). Therefore your case gets thrown out too. QED. The REAL culprit is, of course, the MAFIAA. THAT's who you need to sue for wasting police time, government resources, defamation and lost income.

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[mi]

This has been done in the past to rectify the injustice of slavery, provide women their given right to vote, and even to limit the power of the President of the United States by limiting the number of terms possible to serve in the office to two.

These changes to the Constitution were done in accordance to the Constitution. What I was ridiculing, were attempts by some people (including some high-ranking judges) to find in the document, what's not actually there, by putting forth arguments like: "If if were written today, it would've contained such-and-such..."

They thus attempt to push in changes, which they know to have no chance (for better or worse) of getting through via the lawful (that is, Constitutional) way of modifying the Constitution...

Re:If the 10 Commandments were a "Living Document"

[Dunbal]

a large number of American's don't believe in that newfangled "evolution" thing. Don't see why you'd expect them to want the Constitution to evolve when they don't subscribe to the concept

      Of course we might get lucky and have it evolve several noodly appendages and a couple meatballs... see you in the volcano!

Well, SOMEONE has an agenda here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just regular /. trolling.
I do hope that whoever rated this informative gets his mod license revoked for good. :)

I got into a debate about this with a friend

[Solandri]

"Poking their nose into someone else's business" implies the party doing the poking has no vested interest in the outcome. I would argue that the U.S. does what it does because it does have a vested interest in the outcome. The U.S. see the Netherlands as a haven for drug traffickers (true or not) exacerbating a domestic drug problem (so it believes), so they pressure the Dutch into implementing certain policies. The U.S. sees music and software piracy as detrimental to industries based in the U.S. (true or not), so they pressure other countries into cracking down on copyright infringers. If you think about it, it's totally unreasonable to expect an entity (individual or government) to not advocate the things it wants. He who buys high and sells low does not stay in business for long.

The other aspect of this is that any agreement has to be reached by the mutual consent of two parties. AFAIK the U.S. has not resorted to threats of physical violence in these cases (Iran, Iraq, North Korea excepted). So the agreement is entirely socio-economic. The U.S. says if the Dutch don't do what they want, they'll take their ball and go home. While that's certainly immature behavior on the part of the U.S., it is well within its rights to do so. The Dutch do not have a fundamental right to play with the U.S.'s ball, and their rights are not being violated if the U.S. decides to take the ball away.

So then the question is simply one of negotiation and price. The Dutch evaluated what the U.S. was offering for complying with the U.S.'s requests, and decided it wasn't worth it. The Swedes did the same, and decided it was worth it to them to comply with the U.S.'s requests. The Swedes are the ones you should be mad at - they sold out. The U.S. did not hold a gun to their heads, they simply offered certain things (including possibly the threat to take away existing socio-economic relationships). The Swedes were the ones who decided it was worth it to them to do what the U.S. wanted. You do the same kind of decision-making when buying a car, unless you're one of those people who always pays whatever the dealer asks for.

Yes, the U.S. may use its economic clout to bully others. But those policies are what allowed it to gain that economic clout in the first place. It's irrational to believe it would spontaneously give up that which allowed it to become powerful (and indeed one could argue that it remains powerful because it adheres to those policies). Like all bullies, if you want to get rid of them, you have to stand up to them. The world's economy is 3x larger than the U.S.'s. The U.S. needs the world more than the world needs the U.S.

Re:I got into a debate about this with a friend

[dkf]

The Dutch do not have a fundamental right to play with the U.S.'s ball, and their rights are not being violated if the U.S. decides to take the ball away.

On the other hand, remember that you have to consider things the other way round when it comes to inter-country relations too. Thus: "The US does not have a fundamental right to play with the Dutch ball, and their rights are not being violated if the Dutch decide to take the ball away." Just as true.

Now, justify again why you believe the US should dictate drug policy in the Netherlands or IPR policy in Sweden? Should Sweden be able to dictate nudity policy in the USA? Or the Netherlands tell them how to regulate firearms?

Mod Parent Up

[fyoder]

That's a nice breakdown. Another difference between material objects and copyable files is that there's a sort of coercive element to the material -- we've got it, if you want it, you gotta pay what we're asking. Files can, with some effort, be gotten for free. The value of the commercial product is in quality of the files and overall packaging, as well as ease of access. These are things worth paying for, even if you could get the content for free, though as you outline, what people are willing to pay will vary. However, the lower the price, the more people there are who will be willing to pay.

For myself the only exception is music sold by RIAA member labels (EMI, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, others). As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter how they price their product, they aren't going to get one red cent from me until they stop suing their customers, especially the weakest amongst us like children, single mothers, people on disability.

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that what Tomas Bodström did was the last straw for many people. The people who cared about the issue let the rest of the nation know what was going on even if the newspapers tried to ignore it for a long time.

The Swedish people voted for another political party/parties so now the person (and party) in question is no longer in power.

Power To The People

Re:Hey Swödige ! Act up !!

[unity100]

wow really ?

thats nice to hear. i didnt hear of any recent swedish national election however

Huh?

[Slashdot Parent]

Monetary damages due to pirated intellectual property are nothing but myth. And as community-shared intellectual property matures, the myth just becomes more and more absurd.

This is an absurd statement.

Let's say I go purchase the latest and lousiest pop CD I can find, and then make it available to the world on The Pirate Bay. 10,000 people download it. Are you trying to tell me that none of those 10,000 downloaders would have purchased the CD had it not been available free of charge?

Copyright holders really do suffer losses due to piracy. Most people (including myself) believe that the losses are drastically overstated by the record labels, but it's a little naive to think that piracy doesn't cut into their revenue stream at all.