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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."
This is like the drug dealer calling the cops because someone stole his stash.
If the media want a war, perhaps we should give them one.
They blame the "pirates" for poor media sales, they prosecute the "pirates" and now that they have gone astray from the law the "pirates" are going to win a big legal battle. The circle of life is complete.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
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.
It would be very interesting if this evidence they propose will be accepted by any judge as legally obtained evidence.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
If the suit was lodged on talk like a pirate day...
Task Mangler
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.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Pay us to "protect" you..from us...no payment? Then we will send Fingers, Lucky, and Guido after to to cause harm.
#include bier;
When I read things like this, it makes me wish that I lived in Sweden.
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.
Tthe single shot heard around the world and the Internet to start the revolution... Alright boys, load the cannons and OPEN FIRE!!!!! *Dr Evil laugh here*
The existence of Pirate Bay raises some serious issues. I don't know the answers.
But the situation makes me laugh.
What revolution will that be then? an anarchist or communist one? where 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, to be replaced by endless crappy youtube videos of cats falling off chairs, because that is what you get when you demand that media is produced for free.
Like it or not, even the media that slashdot geeks love (star wars, heroes, firefly, star trek, matrix) is produced by big companies that take a big risk in producing content that will sell. Many companies lose a fortune trying to do this. Not every TV series is a hit, many movies lose money, software companies fold all the time, and most new acts promoted by record companies lose money.
Yet there are people who campaign to actively do away with the whole system and replace it with 'free media' which is basically youtube.
I prefer things the way they are. Its a pain not being able to copy a DVD to my laptop to watch in bed, but I can deal with that. If thats the price of making sure the whole software and entertainment industry sticks around, I'm all for it.
And while we are on the topic, lets not kid ourselves that the owners of the pirate bay give a fuck about freedom, music, DRM or music. Those guys host a site that makes millions in ad revenue off providing a search engine to steal other peoples hard work. ALl those guys give a fuck about is money, its just sad to see so many people fall for their pseudo-political justifications.
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?
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.
Yes, like an owner of a Cofee Shop in the NetherLands calling the police that some guys broke their Windows (the physical ones).
AFAIK it's not illegal anywhere. If what TPB is doing, indexing links and allowing people to add comments, wouldn't that make Google, or even Wikipedia, illegal?
/. or ANY site you could add your comment to.
How would you like it if the whole legal force of the planet decided "Displaying a link is illegal" and "Commenting on linked material is illegal"?
Rings no bells? How about me spelling it out - what if Google is deemed illegal due to indexing, and Slashdot is deemed illegal due to allowing comments. Now imagine a world without Google, and without
Gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling, doesn't it.
...if it would happen in Soviet Russia.
http://thepiratebay.org/blog/86
The link given by slashdot works today but will not after new stories fill the blog. In the future please make some effort at link permanency, I won't always be here to save the day.
BS. It's not legal under international law, specifically the Berne Convention. And Sweden is a signatory.
Using illegal tactics to shut down a legitimate site has to be cyberterrorism, right?
It's not only illegal, but they also display very immoral business practices. Reading the leaked emails it surprised me to see internal emails that proudly declared that mediaprotector were employing tactics to successfully use and leech off mediasentry's resources, so they wouldn't have to use their own. They are also using unregistered shareware to generate statistical graphs. You can also read very negative comments from management about employees and ex-employees in the leeched emails. I think there might be a lawsuit or two in there...
It is rather hilarious.
And as we all know, all revenue generated by this criminal activity by big records and movie labels is used to fund terrorism.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
... and absolutely hilarious, but how far can we expect this to go? I'd imagine the legal budget of TPB is somewhat less than that of "big media".
Whether you're pro or anti-piracy, you have to admit...those TPB boys have balls :)
Saying that, a bit of poking around indicates the US has an extradition treaty with Sweden. Hopefully their government will have balls as well when the IP merchants finally bribe the government to take the kid gloves off...
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
Yarrr...there be squatters in the hull, ready the plank, we've got fish to feed.
The acts that Media Defender and RIAA have been committing are equal to how the FBI operated for a time. You cannot use illegal tactics to capture people doing illegal things. While I do think it's justified in some situations it's NEVER justified for a non governmental group to do so.
And when it IS a governmental group there are lots of checks and balances to prevent misuse.
Luckily this happened to a group in sweden (Piratebay.org) where there are no laws against how evidence was obtained. In the US they could have it strickened from the record. Grab your ankles and kiss your ass goodbye in Sweden at least.
In the US, if the evidence was acceptable it would be CRIMINAL charges, meaning jail time for the people involved.
Pwn them Pirate Bay...They deserve to get pwnd...and thanks MD.
the hosting provider that piratebay uses has offices in the US.
And they decided to sue the cartell for the ddos attacks.
They ask for mediadefender for a discovery - like sco asked IBM...
I mean - they know the emails are there and that they are proof of illegal activity - that is attacking the company's servers (not thepiratebay itself - that wouldnt fly in the US).
This musthave caused them cash in hardware/staff hours, credibility, and so on.
Should the emails be deleted by accident, they could miraculasly find backups (on piratebay for example), crosscheck them for validity (i dont believe all the emails could be deleted), and after it was confirmed by one of those experts (like the ones the mafia uses to prove that the screenshot says your guilty) sue the dailights out of them ?.
Could something like this work ?
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.
will be going to jail? I like to see Sweden send their version of the FBI to Japan to enforce this criminal act.... yeah. right....
No no no! Terrorism is the use of violence, frequently against ostensible third parties, to coerce a political action out of a target. In this case, we could extend the traditional meaning to "exterminate a target", but what the Swedish RIAA types are doing is simple direct action, they are using illegal actions against an legit opponent of theirs.
No, they get the label because they e.g. burn out the laboratories and other facilities of their opponents. And in the most recent example, we have pure, 100% terrorism: a researcher drops out of his field because an arson device was left at the house of a neighbor .
This is a crystal clear example of why people resort to pure terrorism: it can work. It's one thing for that researcher to say he'll take the demonstrated risk to himself. It's another for his family to decide to take that risk with him.
But an innocent third party? How moral would it be for that researcher to have continued when the price could be the lives of his neighbors...?
Not to mention the operational likely hood that he'd be run out of his neighborhood in the medium term when it was realized he represented a big risk to his neighbors. They have a stake in medical research, but they didn't sign up for this.
...the Pirate Bay suing the major labels for cyber-terrorism...PRICELESS.
Had to do it.
Vaya con huevos, my darling.
... they have been throwing their weight about making up rules as they go along for too long (RIAA cases etc which are tantermount to extortion and blackmail). They have gotten way too cocky, now sanctioning DDOS attacks and hacking - this is the digital equivalent of (if we want to play by their "real world rules are digital rules" - "you wouldn't shoplift?") paying criminal scum to break into a premises and destroy goods.
If I were one of the record companies cartel who carries the can then I would be shitting myself - you have been agreeing to do things that are clearly illegal - the "we are fighting people who are breaking the law" means jack shit - the structure of the societies we choose to live in ensures there are accountable law enforcement agencies who do that - you seem to be mistakenly believing that you can make up the laws as you go along.
theft n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale).
Borrowing may be theft if you derive any 'use' of the item. This includes copying as the extra copy diminishes the value of my copy and is of definite use to you. Stick to analogies that don't actually involve taking a physical object. Do you think if I "borrow" your trade-secret invention that somehow it won't be theft because of an alleged intent to return the item? Some acts transcend the BS that is 'intellectual property', your arguments do not even require the existence of IP law to be invalid.
In related news, suprnova.org is back up. Saw it in a comment on the TPB post.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
The Pirate Bay is only legal because it claims to only host the trackers for files rather than the files themselves (I guess - IANAL BTW). It's none of their business what the torrents contains, they just supply them. If they start suing people for sabotaging the torrents, it seems they are making the torrent's contents their business. If they truly were only distributing torrent files (as opposed to copyrighted files), then they wouldn't care what happens in the swarm, whether it be normal uploads/downloads, or a hacker sabotaging it. By policing the torrents, they could well be opening them up for crippling counter-suits from copyright holders.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Swedish law does however not really like sabotage, vandalism, unautorized access and other sauch malarkey.
A bit ironic considering their Viking history.
I make ferrari looking cars for me and my friends. Ferrari hires thugs that put bananas in the tailpipe and deflates the tyres of my cars. Then I sue them for this.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Hard to believe this is 100% modded funny. I guess that's what you get for making a great point humorously.
The only thing good about the word piracy being applied to copyright infringement is that pirates are regarded by many as really cool, so it has kind of backfired against those who want to encourage us to regard what is (or should be) a civil offense as a criminal one. Ironically, Disney is an entity which has contributed repeatedly to the impression of pirates being really cool, and the authorities being a bunch of stuffed shirts.
Loose lips lose spit.
sorry but ketamine is used on humans all the time, when's the last time you went out to a club/after-hour/"rave"?
Live Electronic Music
And as we all know, all revenue generated by this criminal activity by big records and movie labels is used to fund terrorism.
Flame bait? It's a well known fact that the media cartels, like many other big businesses, routinely buy politicians. This practice is deplorable and ends up indirectly funding attacks on sovereign nations by the U.S. government, which is one of the ultimate roots of terrorism.
You don't think Afghanistan and Iraq are bad enough? Just wait until the U.S. attack Iran, a completely neutral third party so far except that they have centrifuges (a bunch of test tubes on a big motor) and uranium (it comes out of the ground, people) and apparently a few of them are crossing the border into Iraq with weapons to help fight off the foreign invaders. Not like the U.S. has ever sold arms to rogue nations or anything... Oh, of course North Korea has nukes already but we'd never think of invading them, just a lot of empty talk and embargoes.
No, big business has nothing to do with helping to elect scumbag leaders who will go to war just to further the interests of their corporate constituents while completely ignoring public opinion and common sense.
Ketamine is the most widely used anaesthetic in the the world.
In the developed world for intubation of severe asthmatics, hypotensive trauma victims, and for sedation of children for short procedures.
In the majority world it is widely used as it can be given intramuscularly or intravenously and is the safest to use without cardio-respiratory monitoring.
I seriously doubt that since this is a criminal investigation filed by the Swedish police of their own volition. There is no other party involved in this case. Remember how the US pressured the Swedish government into this? They never filed a lawsuit, they just made the Swedes investigate a *criminal* breach of the law. This is not a civil case with claims of damage (AFAIK).
I mean- that's like saying warm and toasty are different...
I mean, why else did all the guys call me homosexual in school? My mommy always said that-- OH NO! they weren't just commenting on my peachy keen smile & can do attitude? oh damn!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Even from software money could be made without copyright by the provision of services to users (technical support, online services etc), or by the provision of other materials (physical media, manuals, packaged sets including media/manuals and/or other items).
Yes and no; let's be realistic here.
I am a HUGE supporter of open-source; I participated this summer in the Google Summer of Code project and enjoyed it immensely. But I also would like to actually make money from writing software.
I'd like to be able to write games for a living, or at least a decent chunk of my living. The problem with what you say is that for games in particular it simply doesn't work. A game that requires technical support is a game nobody will buy, and while online services is viable, without copyright others will simply do it for free if they like the game enough. Not a good way to go. And while physical media is helpful (FreeBSD's habit is something I like, and I've bought more than one set from them), I can't see it being profitable for games.
I don't mean to troll, but Stallman's philosophy is great for baseline stuff line operating systems, things that everyone needs. It breaks down when you apply it to the software equivalent of leisure items.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
I'd feel happy if it wasn't that my book writing (hobby) wasn't abandoned because I noticed selling D20 PDFs online is pointless with the mass piracy of PDFs through sites like this.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
fuckers get free cds and dvds for making us pay full price. fuck these bitches, im glad they got pwnd.
>Y'all,
>
>On the AD side, in front of Bobby, Brad, Joe and Joe's infamous candy bucket, there are a couple >dozen CDs and DVDs totally up for grabs. There's some pop, rock, rap, r&b, and more. It's totally >free, so help yourselves.
>
>Thanks,
>Ben
If there's a U.S. case, I'm sure prosecution could subpoena the GMail account that was cracked, and I really doubt Google will be complicit in any data destruction. There will be an authentic, date and IP-logged, record for as long as Google keeps such records.
I made a comment a few days ago about my distaste for the way this information was obtained and presented, but if it ultimately results in nailing a bunch of industrial saboteurs on hire by "legitimate" businesses, I would be more than happy to see this end up as a long list of RICO charges in the States. Not to mention the misuse of SSN data, etc.
So please hang onto that account Google, for as long as it takes to apply public pressure to the Attorney General's office. Media Defender's biggest mistake was letting this much incriminating evidence onto someone else's servers.
It's a lesson for every remote network service user on the planet. It is not your space, it is theirs. Don't store anything you wouldn't post on your front door on someone else's hardware.
--
Toro
This tactic will only drive the media companies underground. Instead, they need to go after the media company's customers who are funding these attacks.
Oh wait, that tactic has been taken already.
I just wanted it to be known that I was here for this.
Thank you, MD-D.
I'd say it's more like the treaties *shouldn't* allow the US government to apply US laws to non-US nationals.
... :/
I seem to recall some "extraordinary rendition" gone awry in Italy a while back, although I do realize that that's not the same as extradition. Then there's Dmitry who was unfortunate enough to visit the USA when his company was on Adobe's hit list...
And believe me, given the MAFIAA's influence, I don't put it past them
Youtube presents 'You wouldn't steal a handbag' parodies:
Pirates
Germany
Choses in Action
> Considering people "own" the land, I'm yet to see the point in this.
Wow.
Okay. I just laid dibs on the thoughts in you're head.
Your thinking I don't know how to use an apostrophe just now, right?
Okay, you know owe me $10.
What, you say my spelling could use some work, too?
I charge $100 dollars for that thought.
Getting the point?
> Also, it is possible to copyright a novel, or a business trade secret.
> How about that secret recipe for turning bullshit into aluminum ?
Hey, you succeeded in alchemy!
> All of those can be defined as "owning" information.
No, that would also be alchemy, unless you have succeeded in seriously perverting the meaning of "owning".
What copyright (and patent) give you is the temporary right to control a certain piece of the market, specifically certain key elements of the piece of the market generated by your creation. (Loosely spoken.) You "own" a piece of the market.
Any attempt to establish rights beyond that have serious conflicts with other parts of the Constitution and with certain parts of the first ten amendments.
(So serious that, if the ??AA don't back off their attempts to generate laws to close the "holes" in the law, they could well be accused of treasonous attacks on the Constitution itself.)
joudanzuki
They can never beat the funds that the media has, but good for them to make a statement.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Keeps me from trying to explain it myself (possibly less eloquently)... so thanx. Great post.
"This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
Where does the berne convention say _anything_ about trackers where people can register to share whether they have a file with a cetain sha1 hash?
Well, actually Berne doesn't say a lot about anything; it sets some very low minimums, and then says nations must give at least the same protection (or stronger) to foreign works as to domestic ones. So it's not what Berne says, but what Swedish law says. Which, no doubt, irritates the MAFIAA.
Now, as I(AmNotALawyer) understand US law, if permission is not obtained first from the copyright holder for an original work, the copyright of any derived work (such as a condensation) goes to the owner of the original copyright. It could be argued that the torrent file itself is a derived work under the US definition, that distributing it is unlawful where not protected by fair use, and that (obviously) facilitating copyright infringement wouldn't qualify. However, we're talking Berne and Sweden here. So, the questions would be, how does Swedish law define a derived work, where do Sweeden's laws place ownership of a derived work, and is the "fair use" an exception? If it's similar to the US, that could be trouble.
I haven't been able to find anything with a a quick internet search, but I don't speak Swedish, and suspect most of the important case law may not be on-line.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
How about I own your bank account? It's just information and it is as electronic as a movie file.
In soviet Sweden The Pirate Bay sues you!
There is no such thing as an "original" in the digital age. Hence copyright should keep up with progress (be renewed) and not try an apply its analogue rules to new media. Glad to see TPB is standing up to the cyberbullies...