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The Pirate Bay Files Suit Against Big Media

Join the Pirate Party writes "Having found the necessary proof via the leaked MediaDefenders documents, the Pirate Bay is filing suit against the big record and movie labels operating in Sweden who have allegedly been paying professional hackers, saboteurs and DDoSers to destroy their trackers. They also claim to have filed a police report."

42 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Finally by kaos07 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's taken long enough but it seems these corporations who employ mafia-like tactics will finally get what they deserve. Kudos to the whistle-blowers within MediaDefender, The Pirate Bay for having the guts to file a lawsuit, and Sweden's Communistic copyright laws allowing this happen.

    1. Re:Finally by Slorv · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So while not understanding it you simply called it 'Commmunistic'?

      Is there anything else you do not not understand, like what communism really was about?

      Borrow a couple of books in economics history at the library, read'em and then we can have a discussion.

      --
      Bikers.....The only people that understand why a dog hangs his head out a car window.
    2. Re:Finally by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sir, I was talking in jest. My point was that Sweden's apparent relaxed attitude to copyright laws harks back to Marxist ideas of sharing and community-owned property.

      Uh, no, a "relaxed" attitude towards copyright may merely indicate a recognition of the fact you can't "own" information like you can physical property.

    3. Re:Finally by prelelat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not only are they getting what they deserve they are also brining more and more un needed attention to this form of downloading and sending a message that it is okay. If they had just ignored the pirate bay a number of people would have thought it was wrong and ignored it. Now you have media attention saying they have been wronged and what they are doing is acceptable. Sometimes it's better if you just hide under a rock and if you really want to make a propaganda campaign. Now the pirate bay has been legitamized and has the backing of more people then it would have without all the attacks against them by record, and movie companies as well as the government.

    4. Re:Finally by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Considering people "own" the land, I'm yet to see the point in this.

      What ?

      "Land" is a physical object. It is *fundamentally different* to information (or "data", or "ideas", or whatever else you want to call "intellectual property").

      Also, it is possible to copyright a novel, or a business trade secret. How about that secret recipe for turning bullshit into aluminum ? All of those can be defined as "owning" information.

      I'm not quite sure I see your point.

      I agree they don't have a communist attitude toward copyright but you sir, certainly have.

      How's that, exactly ? Communism dicates that physical property is not owned by the individual, but the collective. This is an intrinsically different position to take than "information cannot be owned".

    5. Re:Finally by ManifestAmbiguity · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."

      Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson, Monticello, August 13, 1813

      Please feel free to refute this flawed logic he is using, if you can. And I don't believe this Thomas was a communist, but I could be wrong there.

    6. Re:Finally by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exactly. What gives you the right to own the land ? Did you create it ?

      I can stop anyone else having it.

      "Land" ownership is just as arbitrary as "intellectual property".

      Untrue. "Land ownership" - indeed, the "ownership" of any piece of physical property - is based on the "might makes right" principle. If you can stop someone else having it, it's yours.

      Modern property law is, of course, much more formalised and the government exercises the might on your behalf, but that's ultimately the basic principle - there's a limited amount of X and if you have an X then, by definition, that means no-one else can - so it's yours so long as you can prevent anyone else taking it.

      Specially "ownership" of an IP one didn't create.

      You can't stop someone "taking" your idea. Nor can you "take it back". These are the fundamental differences between actual pysical property and made-up "intellectual property" that mean the two concepts cannot be equated.

      There is no such thing as physical property.

      Yes, there is.

      Communism dictates that is is not private property. Physical or not. Since you believe in "ownership", you can't claim something cannot be owner. The best you can do is to say it should be "owned by everyone", or "by the public", whatever.

      You are conflating physical and "intellectual" property. Two things which are fundamentally different (ie: the whole point).

      Also, you need to brush up on what Communism actually is. I'm guessing, like most Americans, you don't really know anything about it other that "communism == socialism == un-American == bad".

      Btw, can you please give US your phone number, SSN, bank account data and PIN ? Those are just information and, by your definition, you can't own them.

      I'm not American.

    7. Re:Finally by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Are you an artist ? Have you tried to make a living out of your art without the "backing" of some RIAA-like group ? Specially early on your career.

      Have you considered this is simply a reflection of how the market (society) values the production of the average "artist" ?

  2. Cyberterrorists. by haeger · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Using illegal tactics to shut down a legitimate site has to be cyberterrorism, right?

    Animal rights activists who hack and deface sites seems to get that label. I'd find it quite hilarious if "Big Media" would be labeled as such too. They'd be in some interesting company.

    .haeger

    --
    You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
    1. Re:Cyberterrorists. by erroneus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well there are those rootkit incidents... you know, the ones one the music CDs and the games?

    2. Re:Cyberterrorists. by Geekbot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's sad. When I was a kid I read all those postmodernist cyberpunk novels where the criminal was the hero and the government and (non)respectable businesses were the bad guys. I thought that sounded pretty cool, pretty scary, and I thought it would happen one day.

      I didn't really believe it would happen to this extent by the time I was 33. The government launching wide spread secret surveillance on US citizens, reading their emails, xray machines to see them naked at airports, mega-corporations that are given free reign by the FTC going on to hack citizens computers as well as competitors. And now, an evil corporations secret documents shared over computer networks allowing the underdog to fight back? William Gibson should have written this book.

  3. Re:Heh by Sprite_tm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With the difference that what The Pirate Bay does, actually is legal in Sweden.

  4. Re:Heh by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is like the drug dealer calling the cops because someone stole his stash.

    This is like the Amsterdam coffee-shop proprietor calling the cops because someone keeps trying to break into his premises, and stalking his customers.

    Remember, The Pirate Bay is doing nothing that is illegal in Sweden.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  5. with the difference, that the drugs is legal by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what you are basically saying, this is like a doctor calling the police because his drug cabinet was smashed.

    Granted, this is also like a slave owner reporting a runaway slave to the police or the citizen who turned in Anne Frank just doing his civic responsibility (Oh hi godwin, how you doing.)

    The simple fact is that the law isn't always "right". Some big media do not like swedish law, just as some hard drug users do not like swedish law, or as same slaves did not like eh slave laws etc etc. The problem is that if you then fight that law by disobeying it, you run the risk of the police coming around and talk sternly to you (or if you are black gun you down as you reach for your wallet, somethings never change).

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  6. Murdering a drug dealer is still murder by Overzeetop · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is that not true?

    Whether the drugs happen to be legal (caffeine, alcohol, pot, hash, pseudoephedrine...) or not is irrelevant. A crime committed against an unpopular person/group is still a crime.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  7. legality by arikol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As has already been shown, Piratebay is a legal service (in Sweden) hosting no copyrighted material. Swedish law does not condemn faciltating copyright infringement.
    Swedish law does however not really like sabotage, vandalism, unautorized access and other sauch malarkey.

    That said, I didn't see that one coming, laughed out loud.
    It's about bloody time that someone took big media and smacked them a little for all these strongarm tactics.
    Hopefully the media coverage on this will highlight some of the issues, like HOW the media companies think business should be run. If small businesses tried this they would immediately be taken down (in almost any country) for much more serious crimes than copyright infringement.

    And please try not to call it "pirating". That's a term coined by the mpaa (if I remember correctly) to try to make it sound really bad. If we, the geeks, are careful to call it what it is, copyright infringement or illegal copying, we can perhaps change public perception of the issues a little.
    The ONLY thing that bugs me about thepiratebay is the name. Yes it IS cool but also makes us all look a bit like rebelling teenagers, even those of us who have thought deeply about copyright issues and realised that the system needs fixing to work in the modern world.

  8. Re:Heh by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Distributing drugs is illegal

          Oh goodness me, what am I going to do with all that morphine, fentanyl, diazepam, and ketamine I have under lock and key at my clinic?

          Distributing drugs is not ALWAYS illegal.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  9. Re:Heh by ultranova · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is like the drug dealer calling the cops because someone stole his stash.

    No, it's like someone who has told someone else that a third party has a certain file calling the cops and telling he has had his home vandalized by Mafia thugs and corrupted cops and government officials working for foreign financial interests.

    It's not the Pirate Bay which is criminal, likely treasonous and has connections to organized crime (not to mention has emulated their business model) here.

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  10. Re:Heh by Orange+Crush · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The site is a bad egg that is up to no good in the hood!

    Copyrights are protected by law. Trackers and checksums pointing to outside sources of copyrighted material are not illegal in Sweden. Yes, they encourage copyright violations. This may be "bad" in the moral sense (depending on your morals, I tend to side more with Trent Reznor myself).

    Now, hacking a legitimate (in the legal sense) website is very much illegal and I certainly feel it's immoral. If my next door neighbor put a giant arrow in his yard pointing to my house proclaiming "STEAL FROM THIS GUY!" I'm still not allowed to go burn his house down.

  11. Re:what revolution? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    false argument about 'media companies going out of business' and stopping production of films.

    nature hates a vacuum. once some 'in it for the money' studio exits, another will pop up to take its place. maybe even a lower cost OUTSOURCED studio. hmmmm.

    its not only engineers that lose their high paying jobs to overseas workers. I hope, if there's a god, that the movie studios get their share of pain in return for all the harm they've done to their own industry and mostly their customers!

    I would lose no sleep if the crappy movie studios went out of business. we kno that will never happen (sadly).

    its laughable that the content industry is trying to scare us "just WHAT would you spend your time on, if we didn't provide you the suitable life-distraction we call 'entertainment'?"

    they seem to think we'll all fall into some mad-mad situation, with society crumbling. this won't happen and any movie studios that fail deserve to fail. but they certainly won't take society down with them. its JUST MOVIES, folks. its not a life support system!

    once the 'in it for pure profit' guys all exit the market, we can renew the market with quality folks who are in it for the art! (remember when that was the case?)

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  12. Re:Illegal evidence? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I wonder if by the time they finally give in my generation simply wont care having become used to 'stealing' all this content; which in reality is not what any one wants.

    horse has long left the barn. too late to lock the door, now.

    I'm a middle aged guy and I'm 'mad as hell' at the media companies. I can only imagine the amount of hate that the current young generation has toward this 'business'.

    I say - let whatever happens, happen. equilibrium time. price stuff too high and piss off your customers by taking them to court? they'll fight back and, in your words, steal from you. same as if you buy a dog and kick it every day. it won't be very kind to you, given that treatment.

    I hope kids today steal all they can from the media companies. steal stuff you don't even WANT or NEED. just steal. steal steal steal. until the media companies get a big enough bloody nose and yell 'uncle'.

    it is a war. and its escalating. I hope the kids today don't drop the ball and keep fighting the Good Fight(tm).

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  13. Re:Heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's like a guy's rented car being slowed down by a speed limiter even though the guy is driving within the speed limit.

    No wait, that would be DRM.

    Okay how about this:

    Imagine there's a public road with lots of houses on both sides. And there's the starbucks coffee shop. The big corporation is selling coffee to the residents every morning, who badly need it. Now some residents need to drive far to get to the coffee shop and in the wrong direction (opposite of work). A guy figures out the formula for his favorite starbucks coffee and decides to open his own specialized little coffee shop at home. Because he has a little house, he can't sell the coffee to many people at once and being low budget has no money to advertise, but some close neighbors who like the same type of coffee are spared the tedious trip to starbucks for getting their fix. Soon many more such coffee shops open, but it's still all garage type, low profile and very few people know where to get their favorite coffee besides starbucks.

    Then a smart guy buys a big truck and fills it with lists of the small coffee shops. He drives up and down the road and people who ask are given a list of all the shops that sell their favorite type of coffee so they can pick the nearest to buy the coffee there.

    Now less and less people go to starbucks and starbucks likes it not. So they decide to make sure no more formulas are stolen from them. They put up rules for how, where and if you can drink the coffee you bought from them and on your way out you get a retinal scan.

    Also starbucks now hires gangsters to force the advertising truck from the road, shoot the driver, flat the tires, jam the road etc...

    Today there are many drivers advertising the little coffee shops and secret letter correspondence between starbucks and the gangsters has leaked to the public recently. A pissed off driver who has been a victim of gangster harassment has now called the police and the special execution forces of the justice department.

    Making the same coffee as starbucks is illegal, advertising fowhere to buy it is not.

    To be continued...

  14. Re:Big ones by Tom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hopefully their government will have balls as well when the IP merchants finally bribe the government to take the kid gloves off... Government officials' first priority is to get re-elected (so they can continue stealing, if you're the cynical kind), and the last attempt to turn the swedish government into a part of the US police force turned very badly against them. I never heard anything about the criminal charges that were brought against the then minister of the interior, but the shit-storm hit fast and hard and very publicly - the #1 thing politicians try to avoid.

    I doubt they'll be making that mistake again.

    They'll probably bully the ISP next time.
    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  15. Re:Heh by badspyro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What if the verdict was wrong? what then? You have just taken away something that can never be given back. A human life. It is more valuable than gold or anything known to man, as nothing can buy you another one.

  16. Re:Heh by Seumas · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, this is nothing like the drug dealer calling the cops because someone stole his stash. This is like a law abiding citizen doing something that another citizen does not like and the citizen who does not like it taking illegal actions to stop the law abiding citizen.

  17. Re:Heh by weirdcrashingnoises · · Score: 2, Insightful
    guess what he will do?

    While I'm not entirely sure, I doubt it will be "3) Profit!"

    --
    sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
  18. Re:Heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    and is really only used in severe cases where other bronchiodialators can't be used

    Which would explain why he still keeps some around...

  19. Re:Heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's 'wrong' with the death penalty? It certainly sounds a lot better than sitting in a cell for 40-60 years and making people waste millions of dollars on you during that period.

    Oh great. Killing people for the sake of the bottom line is not only acceptable but also preferable! Hooray to capitalism, by which the blackness of any bottom line comes first in front of the life of a human being.

    I'm all for the death penalty, I also think that anyone given life in prison should be able to *ahem* 'opt out' for sake of money and mind.

    If someone wishes to commit suicide then he should be free to choose it. A civilized state does not commit murder. Ever.

  20. Re:Illegal evidence? by gordo3000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    so in other words be just as childish and stupid about how you live your life because someone else is?

    how about people today take the high road and just boycot all big media? you want to give them a real fuck you? one hwere the government won't step in and help them constantly? Don't buy, download, listen, or watch any of their stuff. support independent labels and independent movies or find something else to do!!!

    your idea is stupid. people have been doing it and it's not giving the media companies a bloody nose. It's giving them massive government support around the world, direct tax revenue flowing towards them, and a reducing of our legal rights because they can make a legit complaint.

    I hope kids around hte world finally realize that you don't harm a media company by downloading their stuff; you only make them more powerful by giving them powerful allies in various governments and legal precedents around the world. The person who downloads rampantly is doing them the greatest favor imaginable.

  21. Re:what revolution? by gordo3000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    once the 'in it for pure profit' guys all exit the market, we can renew the market with quality folks who are in it for the art! (remember when that was the case?)

    no, don't remember at all.... when was that? what fictitious history books have you been reading?

  22. Re:Heh by Lane.exe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The legal definition of theft is appropriation of another's property with the intent to deprive that person totally of the use of that property. In other words, I steal your car when I take it, and drive away with no intent to return it. If I take your CD to my house, copy it, and return the CD, I haven't deprived you of any property so totally as to bar your further use of that property. So I haven't committed theft. I may have violated the copyrights on the CD, but not theft.

    --
    IAALS.
  23. Buy more TPB hoodies!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I don't know about anyone else but I got out of bed this morning not feeling particularly upbeat about anything. Then I read the article on the pirate pay and now I can't stop laughing.

    To those who think badly of the TPB remember that vigilante justice is illegal and people rightly need to be held legally accountable for their actions...at least in this case :-)

    From TPB's board they no longer have a poison fruit provision like the USA so admitting the documents as evidence may not be a problem.

  24. Re:Heh by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    seriously dude, ketamine has been replaced by numerous less-harmful drugs for literally all of it's applications.

          In the United States. You are making an assumption that I am in the USA. I am not.

          As for ketamine being "pretty damaging" - lol. You can't learn medicine by reading wikipedia. It has less risk of cardiopulmonary depression than diazepam, has a longer half life than midazolam, has none of the serious depressing/nauseous effects of opioids, and is PERFECT for sedating small children for an hour or so while certain procedures are performed (ultrasound, CT, etc). It's dissociative effect prevent it from being used as a mainstream anesthetic for surgical procedures but for sedation it's great.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  25. Re:Heh by Oktober+Sunset · · Score: 5, Insightful

    of course not, pirating music and movies costs multinationals money, molesting a child costs them nothing, it's obvious what is more evil.

  26. Re:Heh by fredklein · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What if the verdict was wrong? what then?

    Rarely happens.

    When it does, I think they should find out WHY the verdict was wrong. Did a cop not do his job right? Withhold evidence? Did a lab tech screw up an analysis? Did the Prosecutor ignore an alibi? Then they hold THAT person for trial- charge: Murder.

    Think about it: would a cop try to frame someone for murder if they knew they would be put to death if the frame-up was discovered?? Would a prosecutor ignore evidence if they kney they would end up getting the death penalty??

  27. Re:what revolution? by Nullav · · Score: 4, Insightful

    here all the media companies go out of business, and all music, software, TV and movies become free for everyone? Also known as the day that mass culture died
    That's not culture, that's manufacture.
    --
    I just read Slashdot for the articles.
  28. Re:Heh by Oktober+Sunset · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now less and less people go to starbucks and starbucks likes it not. Now more and more people go to starbucks and they are making more money than ever before and starbucks likes it not.

    Fixed it for ya.
  29. Re:Heh by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What's 'wrong' with the death penalty? It certainly sounds a lot better than sitting in a cell for 40-60 years and making people waste millions of dollars on you during that period.
    Here in Illinois alone, there have been enough cases of DNA evidence completely exonerating prisoners sitting on Death Row. In Texas, where a line of bloodthirsty governors (one of whom is now a bloodthirsty president), hurried so many cases through "fast track" executions, there is evidence that dozens of innocent people were executed.

    Is that enough "wrong with the Death Penalty" for you? Or are you so "pro-life" that state-sponsored murder of innocent people isn't a problem for you? I mean innocent people who have already been born.
    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  30. Re:Heh by Greg.Rodden · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I mean what are they going to do? Sue me?

    heh bad joke, sorry

    --
    I have ridden the mighty moon worm!
  31. Re:Heh by heinousjay · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well one hurts a child. Potentially. I don't have access to any of these children to ask them.

    The other hurts a lot of people, some of whom are rich. Since we all know the rich aren't actually people, it hurts no one.

    --
    Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
  32. Re:Big ones by jc42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Extradition treaties don't allow the US government to apply US laws to Swedish nationals acting completely in accordance with Swedish law on Swedish soil

    The current US administration uses the term "irrelevant" for such things. What they do is send someone in to kidnap you, and fly you off to some hidden part of the world where they work you over for a few years. Then, when they tire of you, they fly you to some other part of the world, kick you out of the plane, and leave you to find your own way home.

    Y'all know what cases I'm talking about, right?

    There's no reason to expect the Bush administration to honor Swedish law any more than they honored, say, German law.

    --
    Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  33. Re:Heh by RodgerDodger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1) They're already off the street - they're in jail. Killing them doesn't take them off the streets any better. (Assumption - if they weren't getting the death sentence, they'd have life without parole)

    2) I personally don't go for the religious argument, I admit - just thought I'd throw it in there.

    3) High security prisons can still make money, you know.

    4) You always have rights. Prisoners have some of their rights suspended, not all of them. Go re-read your constitution.

    5) Problems with the law also apply to the penalty - the penalty is part of the law after all

    6) I pointed out that death-row prisoners are high in minorities even compared to the population of prisoners who commit similar crimes. This isn't about how commits more crime; it's about the fact that a half-decent lawyer gets you off a death sentence unless you've done a really nasty crime.

    7) Again, problems with the system apply to the penalty. You shouldn't have a penalty that is so unevenly applied.

    I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God, I don't apply any special value to life other than mine. OTH, I believe in humility (you obviously don't, you arrogant nosewipe), avoiding making irreversible mistakes (last time I looked, nobody ever came back from the dead, not even Jewish carpenters), and a belief in the adage (that originated in the US) that "it's better to let a guilty man go free than send an innocent one to jail". And at no point did I say "People are special" or "Life is sacred".

    Actually, my biggest problem with the death sentence is that it doesn't work. It's always put in as a "tough on crime" measure - but it doesn't provide any deterrence. It doesn't save any money - the appeals process for most death row cases costs more than the life-with-no-parole option. It doesn't just get the guilty - too many death row victims have been vindicated after their deaths, and even the ones who get reprieved during the appeals process shows the problems with the system. And without exception, in the US, it's put in (and taken out) as a political stunt, rather than a serious law enforcement measure, with set goals for success or failure that would lead to rational debate.

    And, BTW, as someone advocating for a violation of the US constitution (the whole "lack of rights" bit), you are technically guilty of treason. Unfortunately, in the US, treason is only a capital crime for military members, so if you want to see yourself put to death, you'll need to self-enforce, so to speak.

    --
    "Software is too expensive to build cheaply"