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Prosecutor Announces Charges Against Pirate Bay
paulraps writes "Almost a year after a police raid on the Pirate Bay's servers, a Swedish prosecutor has announced that he intends to press charges against the individuals behind the file-sharing giant. They will be prosecuted for various breaches of copyright law, reports The Local. But a Pirate Bay spokesman was defiant, saying, 'I think they feel they have to do it. It would look bad otherwise, since they had 20 to 30 police officers involved in the raid.'"
Almost a year after a police raid on the Pirate Bay's servers, a Swedish prosecutor has announced that he intends to press charges against the individuals behind the file-sharing giant.
So if the charges are thrown out because there is no real law in Sweden precluding their activities, could they sue the prosecutor for malicious prosecution, or attempt to get him disbarred (much like the prosecutor in the Duke rape case)?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Maybe they have presumption of innocence until proven guilty? Wish we had that over here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why, do you think calling it the `offshore backup factory` or `bob's world of random numbers` would have resulted in anything different happening? This is just another example of the US meddling with the affairs of foreign countries.
If that were the case then I think BayOfPigs.com would have been much more appropriate.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I've used TPD, we all have. However, you really cannot argue that they aren't facilitating the trade of copywritten media. If I build a building and call it "Thieves Depot" and intentionally provide an area for thieves to trade their ill-gotten wares, I'm helping their cause. /what is this NNTP jazz.... //!holy! NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG!
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Another 3 or 4 groups will form from the leftovers. Happens when a big company goes down. The scapegoat goes to jail, and the ones who remain free start anew. From the ashes of the Pirate Bay I foresee, in the rare event that the lawsuits go far, "The Ninja Village" where stealth and privacy are first.
Give Kashyyyk back to the Wookies
They would be prosecuted by the American military's satellite-killer missiles.
Sadly, I'm not entirely sure that I'm joking...
While this case may well end up bad for TPB (unless they can show that the MPAA was involved) it won't stop the next group from starting a TPB-like service. It will take more money than its worth to keep shutting down copyright infringement systems and people who use them.
In the end, DRM does not work, won't work. What the entertainment industries need to do is come up with a better product, better pricing, or both. They are trying to sell content to an audience that has about a 16 second attention span, and they haven't really done anything to deserve that full 16 seconds never mind something to convince people to spend their money in the way that the **AA wants them to. Despite any legislation that might be enacted or in place now, people will keep doing what they are doing. Until the entertainment industry changes their business plan the only thing that they have to look forward to is more court time and cost, more loss of face to the public, ever decreasing revenues.
Whether that is fair or not is now a moot point. It's happening, and all the **AAs of the world seem to be doing is fanning the flames that are lapping at the foundations of their business. There have been a few positive changes so far, but that is far outweighed by the harm they are doing to their own businesses. IWaM(tm) won't ever work, it's a suckers game, not much better for the player than 3 card monty. Sure, TPB might be in for some 'rough seas' in the coming months, but while everyone is busy with that case, more file sharing will continue unabated. Until the entertainment industries learn that they are behaving very foolishly and get on with creating real value products to earn revenue with, they will continue to burn bridges with the public, their customers, and their shareholders.
Good luck to them, they are going to need it to avoid having to learn the 'did you want large fries with that' sentence.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
No, you don't get your TV shows from them, as Pirate Bay is "only" a bittorrent tracker. It would be like saying you get all your take-way food from the yellow pages.
Note to self: get a sig.
I always enjoy reading stuff like this. They raid the data center of TPB and take all the servers even if they weren't related to the torrent site. This caused a lot of grief and promoting it as a victory against illegal downloading. But really how long was TPB down for? Two or Three days at the most and now they likely have a few backup sites ready to go live if they try to take them down again. Now fast-forward a year from then and they are only now wanting to press charges, give me a break. All they are doing now is going to waste money to say "Hey, look **AA, we are actually doing something about the problem!" but realistically lets call this what it really is, a dog and pony show.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that Slashdot, and the majority of its readers, are on the side of the Pirate Bay. I know Digg is--it's full of high school age readers who do nothing but download music and games all day while bashing the RIAA to justify it. But why do so many Slashdotters seem to be in favor of ripping off artists, programmers, writers, directors, and so forth? All I ever see in response are lame critiques of copyright law (especially since the GPL relies on copyright law) or more bashing of the RIAA ("The RIAA made me do it!").
Am I alone in actually paying the programmers, musicians, and directors for their work? Or am I outnumbered by the freeloaders who contribute nothing back to the artistic community, furthering its descent into homogenization and sequel-itis as studios are forced to rely on tried-and-tested money-makers because piracy makes risky investments not worth the cost? Haven't you guys made the connection as to why popular music today sounds the same, movies are sequels or generic snoozefests, and software is the same repackaged sports game from EA or expansion pack for the B-level game you already bought last year?
"Sufferin' succotash."
Whilst I certainly understand why you say that, it's sad that that is something that is said.
I'm not particularly old, I'm 24, but even in my lifetime, in the last few years since I've started taking notice of the world I've seen free speech on the internet as something that's slipped away at a worrying speed.
To get to the point, naming a site like "The Pirate Bay" doesn't necessarily infer that they're guilty of any crime. If I were to make a site with a tongue in cheek name "The gun murderers hideout" which could contain information about various guns and such should I be arrested for killing someone with a gun? The argument holds with TPB, just because they're providing materials that can potentially aid infringement doesn't mean they're necessarily guilty of a crime.
Perhaps what I find the most worrying about this change in people's view is that I wonder if perhaps the MPAA/RIAA have achieved more than we'd like to believe, with their attacks on piracy, coupled with many media outlets being incapable of correctly reporting on the issue people are beginning to give ground to the corporations who are slowly taking away our right to free speech.
For a good example of the media's misreporting see The Register's coverage of the HDDVD fiasco - they even make the mistake of suggesting it's all about piracy, it's a sad state of affairs when a site that previously understood the problem now unfortunately is part of the problem.
There is some hope however as the HDDVD key situation has proved, there's still plenty of people out there willing to fight the good fight, coupled with the RIAA's increasing amount of failures in court we're slowly pushing back.
I could classify you as a "lawful good" person who always abide by the law but unfortunately doesn't see beyond "lawful / unlawful".
The RIAA and MPAA have become somewhat an evil empire where they only care about money. They rip off the artists they hire because they're a monopoly. If an artist doesn't want to sell his soul to the RIAA and produce / sell his own music, he'll be forgotten into oblivion.
Why? Because he gets no publicity, no tours, no airtime on the radio, no nothing. Simply because he didn't want to accept to get only 0.2 cents per CD sold.
It's something called the Status quo. Regarding myself, I am against the RIAA for various reasons:
1) They're the devil incarnate for their monopolic practices
2) They don't let us record our music CD's into MP3
3) They have pushed the congress to make anything that helps 2) Illegal
4) They abuse their economic power to force OTHER COUNTRIES to adopt their twisted view of the law
5) They don't give a **** about our property when they install rootkits in our computers
6) HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THAT THEY'RE SUING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE FOR THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS EACH?
In my personal opinion, anyone who buys RIAA-sponsored CD's is doing evil. I would rip a CD of my favorite group and deposit 1 dollar to the artists, which is much more than they get from the RIAA per disk. But guess what, that's why there are LEGAL DOWNLOAD SERVICES. Unfortunately, the revenues of these also go to the RIAA and not to the groups directly.
"majority of its readers, are on the side of the Pirate Bay"
And why shouldn't we? The industry is harassing a entity in a DIFFERENT COUNTRY for doing things that ARE LEGAL there. No different then us supporting someone's freespeech here who is being harassed by, lets say Australia. ( another recent story here )
Or do you suppprt some corporate entity enforcing their perverse ideas onto people somewhere else, and acting like they are some sort of twisted law enforcement arm?
And if you truly believe that copyright piracy really makes a dent in the obscene profits they make by shaking down and intimidating the artists, then you got your facts a bit backwards and are buying into the falsehoods being spread by the industry.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The United States forgot to put in that it's not terrorism if you are on the payroll. ex. Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, Palestine, Iran, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, Haiti, Hawaii, Florida, Saudi Arabia, Italy all suffered from American terrorism.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD