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.'"

Comments

Re:bets?

[TheChromaticOrb]

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.

Re:Maybe I'm Wrong

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Am I alone in actually paying the programmers, musicians, and directors for their work? If you're actually paying the programmers, musicians, and directors then, yes, you probably are pretty close to alone.

From the Constitution:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries Current copyright law does nothing to prevent original authors and inventors from profit seeking businessmen.

Re:Maybe I'm Wrong

[Mathinker]

> especially since the GPL relies on copyright law

Yeah, we see the FSF lobbying for copyright extension all the time. Face it, in the eyes of the FSF, copyright is an evil which they have decided to pervert for good.

> Am I alone in actually paying the programmers, musicians, and directors for their work?

No, I pay them directly, it's just the (big) labels which don't get my money. Of course, this seriously limits the kind of media I watch and listen to, but I'm not a big media consumer, and there's a lot of interesting indie content out if you look for it.

> 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

Frankly, judging by how they treat the artists, I have the impression that they feel any jerk they pick off the street can be marketed into the next big hit. And because they are most likely using research on the current market preferences to decide what to push, it's no wonder that their product evolves very, very slowly.

And yes, I am on the side of The Pirate Bay, considering that what they do is, as far as I know, perfectly legal in Sweden.

Re:Maybe I'm Wrong

[bberens]

I take it that it never occured to you that Sweden has copyright laws? As does nearly every other country on Earth?
It occurred to me. It also occurred to me that if the Pirate Bay had broken the swedish copyright laws that Sweden would deal with it. It would NEVER occur to me that if someone in Sweden broke an American law that the Swedish government would prosecute them for it. Does that mean that whenever I see someone spit gum out on the sidewalk I can cane them because that's the law in Singapore?