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."

Comments

Finally

[kaos07]

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.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the copyright laws as such that are different in Sweden. They subscribe to the Berne convention like (almost) everyone else. The difference is that it is not illegal to run a tracker since it doesn't actually host any files.

I am far from an expert, but I think the basis of this is that copyright falls under contract law in Sweden, as opposed to criminal law. Helping someone commit a crime is illegal, but helping someone break a contract isn't. This is third hand knowledge though, so don't quote me on it.

There might also be a freedom of speech issue involved which would require a change to the foundational (constitutional) laws, which explains why they haven't managed to change the law to harmonize with the EU.

Re:Finally

[Slorv]

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.

Re:Finally

[drsmithy]

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.

Re:Finally

[prelelat]

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.

Re:Finally

[drsmithy]

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".

Re:Finally

[ManifestAmbiguity]

"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.

Re:Finally

[drsmithy]

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.

Re:Finally

[drsmithy]

1) I'm not an American

My apologies. Although I feel my assumption, based on your opinions, was reasonable.

2) I know every well what communism is, having read The Capital myself. I also studied the history of most "communist" countries (which weren't that communist, after all). To a point that what Karl Marx wrote, these days, is referred as Marxism, and not communism, due to the distortion of his idea as implemented on many places. Actually, most of the concepts attributed to Karl Marx were not his own, but really ideas that were floating around for a long time. You can find the base of many of his theories old Greek and Roman texts.

Then why are you trying to disingenuously equate "cannot be owned" with "community ownership" ? They are two quite different things. Ownership implies control. If there is one that everyone should have learnt by now from the Internet, it's that you can't control information once it has been publically disclosed.

You really should take time to understand how much effort, study, and work it took to come up with many of those ideas you want to be free. Unless you think all research should be publically funded, including the study and education for those who are producing that material.

I understand quite well. That doesn't change my opinion. Copyright - especially as it exists today - is an anachronism. Patents are more defensible in principle, but appear to be just as deeply flawed in practice.

One of the few easily defensible aspects of copyright is attribution - that one person's ideas should not be misrepresented as another's - but even *that* falls into a grey area because of "derivative works", and pretty much anything covered by copyright is a "derivative" of an earlier work from before copyright even existed.

There are plenty of ways to make phenomenal amounts of money, even with a substantial overhaul - if not complete elimination - of "IP". Further, given that a greater rate of technological and cultural development is pretty much guaranteed with a larger dissemination of information, the net benefit to society would almost certainly be positive.

Re:Finally

[drsmithy]

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" ?

Illegal evidence?

[Skinkie]

It would be very interesting if this evidence they propose will be accepted by any judge as legally obtained evidence.

Re:Illegal evidence?

[ozamosi]

It would be very interesting if this evidence they propose will be accepted by any judge as legally obtained evidence. This is Sweden we're talking about. There's no such thing as illegal evidence here.

Re:Illegal evidence?

[lobStar]

In Sweden there is no such concept as "legally obtained evidence", any evidence can be presented in court and then it's up to to the judge to weight the different sides evidence against each other. The procedure with admission of evidence mostly exist in common-law countries, with a layman's jury.

Re:Illegal evidence?

[TheGratefulNet]

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).

Re:Illegal evidence?

[notthe9]

Informative? Try misinformative...

They have rules of evidence in Sweden, as confirmed by a quick search. I can't find a good site on how it works, but any number confirm that they exist. (They are quite necessary for justice.)

Re:Illegal evidence?

[gordo3000]

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.

Re:Illegal evidence?

[ozamosi]

Informative? Try misinformative...

They have rules of evidence in Sweden, as confirmed by a quick search. I can't find a good site on how it works, but any number confirm that they exist. (They are quite necessary for justice.)

It is perfectly fine to use any evidence you may have, no matter how you got hold of it, in court.

The exception being, of course, things that a person have said to their doctor or lawyer, since they are forbidden to talk about what their patients say.

Read chapter 35, paragraph 1 in law 1942:740, "rättegångsbalken" (law of prosecution? means something like that), in the swedish book of law if you do not believe me. You can find the law in question here, although it's obviously in swedish.

So, who was misinformative again?

Re:Illegal evidence?

[Wildclaw]

I am from Sweden, so I was interested about the subject and searched on the Internet. I found a very good link on the European Commission website that contains some simplified information about the different justice systems in the european union. Below is the link to the english version of the chapter discussing evidence and proof in Sweden (There are also quick links to pages discussion the same for each and every country in the EU)

http://ec.europa.eu/civiljustice/evidence/evidence_swe_en.htm/

8. Can evidence that has been acquired in an unlawful manner be referred to as evidence?

The principle of admissibility of evidence means that there are only certain rare exceptions where it is forbidden to use certain types of evidence. That evidence has been acquired in an unlawful manner does not therefore, in principle, prevent the proof being referred to during the trial. This can, however, be of significance in the weighing of evidence.

Re:Illegal evidence?

[Hemogoblin]

Sweden, like most of continental Europe, uses the Civil Law system, as opposed to the Common Law system. America and most other areas formerly controlled by the British use the Common Law system. While similar, they are not identical and definately do not have the same procedures.

While it might not be considered valid evidence under the Common Law system, it can probably be admitted as evidence under the Civil Law system. See the poster above me for references.

I'd like to know

[Centurix]

If the suit was lodged on talk like a pirate day...

Cyberterrorists.

[haeger]

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

Re:Cyberterrorists.

[rizzo420]

the difference is big media pays money to the government... the real terrorists are the people who steal intellectual property and make it available for others free of charge.

i think i either saw something put out by the **AA or one of those commercials they play before movies that basically equated people who pirate music and movies to drug lords and terrorists.

Re:Cyberterrorists.

[erroneus]

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

Re:Cyberterrorists.

[rizzo420]

whoosh... the sound of the subtle sarcasm of my previous post flying over your head...

Re:Cyberterrorists.

[Geekbot]

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.

Re:Heh

[Sprite_tm]

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

Re:Heh

[toetagger1]

No, its not! Drugs are illegal, music is not.
Distributing drugs is illegal, and distributing music without paying the copyright owner is illegal.

Its because of analogies like yours, that people think that ANY file sharing is illegal.

If you must use an analogy, at least use one that is correct AND appropriate to your audience, /.

"This is like the car dealer calling the cops because someone vandalized the cars on his lot"

Whether he owned all the cars on the lot or "parked" them there without the car owner's permissions, I don't care. The vandals should still be held responsible.

Re:Heh

[meringuoid]

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.

Re:Heh

[urbanradar]

...I still don't get it. Could somebody re-phrase that as a car analogy, please?

with the difference, that the drugs is legal

[SmallFurryCreature]

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).

Re:with the difference, that the drugs is legal

[MttJocy]

FYI, Someone who has a problem with the drug laws in sweeden or any other country is not necessarily a drug user or "Pro Drug", there are numerous other reasons why drug laws based on prohibition are inherently flawed laws, including the obvious fact that in a free market where there is a demand and willingness to pay high prices someone will step in to supply it, that organised crime in itself creates far more harm to society than the drugs themselves ever could, and that high prices leave addicts in a situation where they are are forced to commit crimes to afford prices inflated by up to 3000% of the costs of production, transport even seizure. That is before anyone even looks at the human rights perspective that one has the right to harm themselves as much as they like provided they do not force harm onto anyone else, one has to remember here that even suicide is legal in most places of the world (although it was outlawed in some places that since repealed that law). Anyway end of that rant, there is plenty of discussion on this topic on sites like this if anyone is interested.

On topic, It seams to me that the facts supporting the merits of a copyright law as it currently stands are quite lacking, especially the often used shout of **AA that "Infringement harms content producers"/"Infringement costs the content producers x millions of dollars a year" etc, it seams to me that these arguments are based on a logical fallacy, namely that persons who commit Infringement would have purchased the information were an Infringing copy not available, which is clearly false, sometimes people who obtain an infringing copy would simply not access the information at all were it not available.

I read an article which suggested that the optimal copyright term is 14 years, there is only one reason I can think of where copyright really would be needed and that would be for example to prevent a person call them alice who has written a manuscript for a book, they show the manuscript to bob who is a publisher, bob copies the manuscript then returns the original to alice refusing to publish the book, however bob then publishes the manuscript in his name not giving any compensation to alice. Although it seams to me that such could be dealt with through the use of a Non-Disclosure Agreement or similar instead of by copyright law.

Other than that I do not really see the need for the copyrighting of information especially music, theatre plays, movies, all three have a valid revenue stream through performance (provision of a service, ie is more than simply information). 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). Books obviously have the potential to earn money through sales of physical books. I have heard some argue that physical media sales without copyright could be dented by counterfeit goods, but to the best of my knowledge counterfeiting would violate other laws, trade descriptions for one (namely in this case deceiving buyers into believing the product they are buying was a product of another company).

If this does mean that the amount of money made by content producers decreases then that would simply prove that the free market disagrees with the producers assessment of value, and if that is the case then the law should definitely not be used to artificially inflate the market price of goods, if it were used to this end then it would be no different that price-fixing which is illegal under the anti-trust laws of most every country.

Re:Heh

[mmcuh]

No, its not! Drugs are illegal, music is not. Distributing drugs is illegal, and distributing music without paying the copyright owner is illegal. Its because of analogies like yours, that people think that ANY file sharing is illegal.

Also, the Pirate Bay team isn't doing any file sharing. Or, well, they probably are, in private. But The Pirate Bay is just an indexing service, like Google or Yahoo - they are not distributing any material that would infringe on anyone's copyright, and what they are doing is with a very high probability legal under current Swedish law.

The prosecutor who is in charge of the investigation associated with the raid against The Pirate Bay in June 2006, when all their servers were confiscated (and the site was up and running again in 3 days), has been looking over the material for almost 16 months now, and has asked the court for time extensions (and received them) twice - apparently he is having trouble finding proof of any illegal activities despite the fact that all the hundreds of thousands of torrents on the site are visible to everyone. His most recent extension expires on next monday, October 1st, at which point he has to press charges, drop the case, or request another extension - guess what he will do?

Re:Heh

[mmcuh]

No it isn't. Prostitution is legal in some areas, but the legal age of consent is 18 years.

Re:Heh

[Dachannien]

It's more like suing the guy who keeps breaking into your house and destroying all your hydroponic gardening equipment.

Murdering a drug dealer is still murder

[Overzeetop]

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.

legality

[arikol]

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.

Re:legality

[DeadChobi]

It is your civic duty to get 100 of your closest personal friends together, dress up like pirates complete with eye patches, and each buy a ticket into the same movie. When you get into the theatre, start yelling "Arr!" and "Shiver me timbers!" and other such things. If they try to throw you out on the grounds that you're a pirate, start with the following questionnaire:

1.) Do we currently possess any stolen property? This may include such things as large chests, sacks full of coins, sacks full of other property, or anything not included on this list but that may reasonably be construed as the personal property of another person not lawfully acquired.

2.) Have we attempted to acquire any property that you may reasonably believe to be that of the theatre's? This may include money from the tills, employees, food, tickets, and hard copies of movies.

3.) Are there any ocean piers about which we may potentially raid after the successful conclusion of the movie?

4.) If so, do you see any ships flying a "Jolly Roger" flag of some sort with large square sails and many cannon and other weapons of war sticking out of them?

5.) Are we in a landlocked city? To clarify, is it even possible for us to raid from a ship? Note that this eliminates any possibility of us pirating.

If they continue to pursue you as pirates, start shouting about discrimination against seamen and how outrageous it is that they could suspect you of theft while on land. Continually claim that you are "water-only" pirates and that the land lubbers with video cameras are not true pirates and do not have sea legs. This part is why it's important to have a large number of co-conspirators.

And remember, you can't spell conspiracy without pirates.

Re:legality

[mmcuh]

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.

It has worked reasonably well in Sweden, where the think-tank The Pirate Bureau formed shortly after the copyright industry had created the Anti-Pirate Bureau, an organisation consisting mostly of lawyers and paid P2P network infiltrators that tries to track down people distributing copyrighted material. The Pirate Bureau became rather well-known and popular, and was often invited to TV debates on copyright law, and interviewed and asked for comments when newspapers published articles about the subject - and were so successful that the copyright lobbyists adopted a policy a few years ago to refuse debates where representatives from the Pirate Bureau were participating. And then there's the Pirate Party, which didn't get enough votes to take seats in the parliament this time but was treated as a serious candidate by most of the media, despite its name.

When someone is calling you names, it's usually a lot more effective to embrace it than to try and distance yourself from it.

Re:legality

[Ajehals]

Piracy is not steel-ing!!

Pirates generally commandeer ships and steel your shit(and hten most likely kill you)

Arr etc..

Re:Heh

[TapeCutter]

"No, its not! Drugs are illegal, music is not."

I thought music was a drug?

Re:Illegal?

[genooma]

Like improving my grammar.

Re:Makes me laugh

[Attaturk]

The existence of Pirate Bay raises some serious issues. I don't know the answers.

But the situation makes me laugh.

Wow thanks for that insightful comment. Without knowing your opinion - or lack of one - I don't know how any of us could have dealt with this news in a rational way. You've brought light were there was only darkness. :P

Re:Heh

[Dunbal]

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.

Re:Heh

[ultranova]

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.

Re:Lets see...

[sqldr]

Then we will send Fingers, Lucky, and Guido after to to cause harm.

Jesus.. I can't think of anything more scary to opening my door to body parts, a dwarf, and a python programmer.

Re:Heh

[DMiax]

Imagine you buy a car, then Pirate Bay sues Big Media for harassing their site systematically with the help of mercenary hackers.

Phew, it was easy...

Much more clear now, don't you think so?

Re:Heh

[Orange Crush]

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.

Re:what revolution?

[TheGratefulNet]

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?)

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

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. 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.
How is poisoning someone different from making them miserable for decades?

Re:Berne Convention

[imsabbel]

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?

Please mind that if they were offering _downloads_, then there wouldnt be an argument.
But they dont.

Re:Heh

[robbiethefett]

seriously dude, ketamine has been replaced by numerous less-harmful drugs for literally all of it's applications. it's used primarily on animals now because no one really cares about the harmful after effects for animals, and it's cheaper than other forms of anesthesia. for humans, it's been considered pretty damaging, and is really only used in severe cases where other bronchiodialators can't be used, and i cant really think of an example where steroids would be more damaging than ketamine.

Big ones

[adona1]

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...

Re:Big ones

[Tom]

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.

Re:Big ones

[Cairnarvon]

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, regardless of what some people may think.

Re:Big ones

[jc42]

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.

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Heh

[badspyro]

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.

Re:Heh

[netcrusher88]

much the same as bayimg, i imagine - not so much that the child porn is illegal, as that it offends the admins

just my 2c

Re:Heh

[Seumas]

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.

Re:Heh

[mikkelm]

Where exactly do you have that definition from? My dictionaries simply define it as the act of dishonestly taking something that does not belong to you, and keeping it. Nothing about "carrying away". It's not like you can't steal an item without moving away from the scene of the crime.

Re:Heh

[weirdcrashingnoises]

guess what he will do?

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

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Heh

[mmcuh]

No, the police have not returned any hardware or even backup copies of the contents of the disks, not to The Pirate Bay, the Pirate Bureau nor to some of the smaller businesses that were renting rack space in the same server hall. Some of the larger businesses that could afford scary lawyers have gotten their hardware back though.

I don't know if there is a hard limit on the investigation time - I think the prescriptive period for copyright infringement is 5 years (though I'm not sure), so if that is what he wants to press charges for he has to do it before June 2011...

Re:what revolution?

[gordo3000]

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?

Re:Heh

[Lane.exe]

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.

Re:Heh

[Dunbal]

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.

Re:Heh

[Malevolyn]

It doesn't much matter whether or not it's legal in Sweden, as the site itself is based in Sealand.

Re:Heh

[Dunbal]

Thalidomide: Originally prescribed to combat morning sickness in pregnant women (with horrific results) with absolutely no evidence to suggest that it was really anything more than a placebo, it was subsequently withdrawn from market.

      It's used in the third world to treat leprosy, and it is VERY effective.

Re:Heh

[Mike Van Pelt]

Thalidomide is also under investigation for help in cancer treatment. It impedes the growth of tumors by preventing them from growing new blood vessels. ("Angiogenesis inhibitor"... the same mechanism which caused the birth defects.)

Re:Heh

[Oktober Sunset]

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

Re:Heh

[fredklein]

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??

Re:what revolution?

[Nullav]

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.

Can't Have It Both Ways?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

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.

Re:Can't Have It Both Ways?

[ScrewMaster]

There's a lot more to this than sabotaging torrents, which is the least of the concerns (most of that activity has been obsolesced by technological measures taken by modern Torrent clients and trackers anyway ... encryption, distributed hash tables, rating systems, etc.) This is about the media companies using illegal means to gain access to confidential information (paying crackers to break into private systems for one) among other juicy bits. The Pirate Bay folks have been saying this for a long time, but didn't have a lot of evidence. Now it seems they've been pretty thoroughly vindicated by the Media Defender leak.

This is officially Very Cool Stuff.

Re:Heh

[Poppler]

What if the verdict was wrong? Rarely happens. Since the death penalty has been reintroduced, there have been 1096 executions in the US. During the same period, there have been 124 exonerations.

Clearly, the verdict is wrong a significant amount of the time.

Re:Heh

[Oktober Sunset]

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.

YASCA - Yet another stupid car analogy

[heson]

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.

Re:Heh

[max8061]

Somehow, I really don't think betting dollars to doughnuts can be used to support the basis of your argument. I'm not saying you presmise is incorrect, but come on man.

Re:What is terrorism?

[mangastudent]

Terrorism is the use of violence, frequently against ostensible third parties, to coerce a political action out of a target.

Too loose. By this definition Britains declaration war on Nazi Germany was terrorism.

Agreed. But:

Terrorism is the use of violence against noncombatants to coerce a political action out of a target.

But sometime when my head is not mush I'd want to try to find a definition between the two above.

Problem is, this gets complicated by drawing the line of "noncombatants".

E.g. for Muslims all of us kafir are by definition combatants (an oversimplification, but it will do for the moment), and so who are we to decide that their attack on the WTC was terrorism? Not as they (or this group of them) score people....:

And specifically:

So the war against Germany wasn't terrorism, but the bombing raids against civilian infrastructure was.

In that period of total war, civilians producing in the economy were considered to be combatants. And it just so happens that I'm reading the first economic history of Nazi Germany in many decades (says the author), The Wages of Destruction, and hitting Germany economically was critical.

Nazi Germany's strength was severely constrained by its economic situation, and many of their actions make a lot more sense in that light. And it was a nasty interlocking problem.

E.g. whatever the willingness of occupied or Vichy France to make planes for Germany, they were constrained by a lack of refined aluminum. They had ore and smelters, but not enough power. Their and the lowland's coal output was constrained by food, the miners just couldn't get enough to work at full output (normal, civilian level, not wartime).

I've stopped reading for the moment at the point where the author starts explaining why it was integral to Operation Barbarosa that the urban populations of the untermenchen in the soon to be captured East be starved to death, to remove their useless to the Nazi's mouths and free up that food for their Grosseraum in the West. Hitler and company knew they were living on borrowed time, the combined economic power of the British empire and the US would crush them like bugs in short order.

(Unfortunately, Hitler's world view told him that the International Jewish Conspiracy(TM), headquartered (?) in the USA---FDR being its #1 mouthpiece---was fervently working to exterminate Germany after WWI, so it was essential to start this whole mess before they got any further. There are prices paid for world views that don't track reality....)

And that makes things even more complicated. Every day the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was delayed resulted in ... tens of thousands (or so, the number is very large) of civilian deaths in the areas they occupied. In that light, various means including the nuclear bombings look a bit different....

Re:Heh

[Poppler]

they list exonerees by the year the were exonerated, NOT the yaer they were originally found guilty. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that most of them were found guily in the 70's and 80's. Interesting idea, let's look at the numbers, and no "ancient history". If you go through the tail end of this list, of the prisoners exonerated this century:

1 was convicted in the 60s.
3 were convicted in the 70s.
21 were convicted in the 80s.
14 were convicted in the 90s.
1 was convicted after 2000.

While it's true that the greatest number of these convictions took place during the eighties, more than a third of them happened after, so I still don't buy your original claim that the criminal justice system is near infallible.

I don't make much of only one person convicted in the last 7 years having been exonerated, considering that a good deal of these exonerations seem to take place at least 10 years after conviction.

What number of people whe were put to death in the last 5 years have been Exonerated? I thought you said the important metric was the year of conviction.

Re:Heh

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re:Heh

[loganrapp]

While it's true that the greatest number of these convictions took place during the eighties, more than a third of them happened after, so I still don't buy your original claim that the criminal justice system is near infallible.

And of those post-eighties exonerations - how many were after the actual executions?

That's why we have an appeals process. And every death row convict gets a shitload of 'em. Show me how many people executed after the lengthy number of appeals and stays, etc. only to be exonerated post-execution, and the we can talk about how shitty the criminal justice system is.

The justice system does not just stop at conviction. There's a lot more to it. People appeal and appeal and that's why these convictions are overturned ten years later. Because someone, or something, comes out. Someone else admits to the killings. New evidence pops up. A witness recants.

Re:Heh

[Greg.Rodden]

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

heh bad joke, sorry

Re:Heh

[RodgerDodger]

What's wrong with the death penalty? Ah, let's see...

1) Human error. Unfortunately, being innocent isn't a guarantee that you won't be convicted of a crime (especially if you are poor and black). So there's a chance that a person killed by the state was not guilty of the crime. With incarceration, you can set them free and compensate them somewhat for the mistake. With a death, you can't.

2) The religious angle. Many religious types believe that incarceration gives the prisoner a chance to earn redemption and avoid eternal punishment. (This works both ways - one long-held reason for execution was to allow a higher judge to determine the right sentence)

3) The economic angle. Contrary to general opinion, prisons can and do make money. That's one reason why private industry lines up to run prisons. Why kill off perfectly good slave labour? Remember - the advantage of slave labour is that the shirts made on Friday aren't worse than the shirts made on Monday!

4) Human rights factors. The US is the only western country, and one of three in the world, that will execute children and the intellectually impaired. Okay, by the time the appeals process goes through, the child is now an adult, but killing someone for a crime committed when they were 12? Seriously.

5) The scattergun approach. Look at the sort of things you can get the death sentence for in the US. Heck, if you're driving a car and a passenger decides to shoot down someone, you can get the death sentence.

6) The racist angle. The vast majority of people on death row are racial minorities - way out of proportion with the general prison population, or even the subset who committed similar crimes. Why? Because juries are more likely to give the death sentence recommendation to blacks and Hispanics. The lack of an objective and impartial set of criteria makes the use of the death sentence subject to these distortions.

7) The poverty angle. When was the last time someone who could afford their own lawyer got sentenced to death in the US? The fact of the matter is that far too many of these death sentence cases are handled by overworked public prosecutors. If you've got a competent lawyer, and a death sentence looks like a strong possibility, then you will nearly always end up doing a plea bargain, resulting in an incarceration instead (often for a lesser crime, like manslaughter).

I could go on, but... I just don't want to. :)

Re:Heh

[heinousjay]

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.

Re:Heh

[fredklein]

The death penalty is wrong because an imperfect system shouldn't be put in control of life and death when criminals can just as easily be separated from society and possibly rehabilitated in other ways.


1) Very little "rehabilitation" takes place in prisons.

2) Keeping someone locked up is quite expensive.

3) The "imperfect system" IS "put in control of life and death" all the time. Every time a murderer is given 5-10 years, then released 'for good behavior' in 4. That murderer goes right back out on the streets, while their victim- surprise- is still DEAD.

If you can come up with an idea that both 1) keeps the violent away from the rest of society and 2) doesn't cost $40,000 per person, I'm all ears.

Actually, I have such a system. It's called 'kill the murderers'.

Re:Heh

[RodgerDodger]

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.