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Four Indicted in Pirate Bay Case
paulraps writes "Suddenly the founders of the Pirate Bay are not so hearty. The four men behind the popular file-sharing site were indicted in Sweden on Thursday on charges of being accessories to breaking copyright law. And this is more than just a shot across the bows. The prosecutor reckons that they can be hooked for 'promoting other people's copyright breaches' but there will be no walking the plank: instead, they face fines of up to $200,000 and the confiscation of all their hardware. 'The Swedish prosecutor listed dozens of works that had been downloaded through The Pirate Bay site, including The Beatles' Let It Be, Robbie Williams' Intensive Care and the movie Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. Plaintiffs in the case include Warner, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI.'"
..or if I could have been bothered to realise the submitter was just quoting the prosecutor (who is doubtless very aware of this distinction, and will seek to blur it at every possibel oppertunity..)
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Comment removed based on user account deletion
While you seem to be under the impression that the prosecutor, police and whole judicial system are running errands for the recording industry, only 15 cases of copyright infringement via file sharing were investigated in Sweden last year. So bribes or no bribes, it's not exactly a systematic witch hunt.
Do you have any facts - not speculations - supporting that any prosecutor, judge or police took bribes from the recording industry or its lobby groups ? I very much doubt that.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
Apparently the government thinks so. The US government recently had a Canadian arrested on Canadian soil for selling marijuana seeds on the internet (something that's not illegal in Canada). At no time did this person set foot on American soil, nor did he ever break Canadian law. Everything he did was above board right down to declaring exactly what he did on his Canadian tax return and paying taxes on the income. All profits were even donated to charity.
Yet the US government felt that they had the right to arrest him. More info here: http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h9Y7CVPeypqV77yWBmI45x_mP9SA.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Given Swedish law, they don't have a lot of choice except to go after large folks like TPB. They're trying to get a legal precedent set. The accusation of bribe is likely unsubstantiated, but given that a person is a prosecutor do they a) go after folks committing actual evil acts or b) mount a hideously expensive case against folks sharing music and movies?
A moral prosector would of course tell the record companies to find a business model that doesn't depend on supply of expensive physical media for digital content that can be copied for almost no cost. Since sharing actually boosts sales of music the issue is not piracy per se, but rather the fact that open sharing prevents the recording industry from gaining exclusive control of the media. The only way to do this now is to seek to have ISP filtering/spyware/big brother type shenanigans instituted on the government level and to lock folks out of trying to circumvent government mandated via DMCA-like provisions.
The RIAA is playing the long game here to try to become the world's gatekeeper for all entertainment content and the prosecutor for the Swedish government is almost certainly being offered at the very least political influence, if not actual monetary bribes. The lack of a plethora of prior cases should not be taken as lack of an agenda here. When you make a move like this, it is calculated to have the most impact possible, and the RIAA is hoping for Sweden to make another Napster decision. Then you'll see the courts flooded with cases against infringement.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
"Quite hefty" is a relative term. In relation to the Pirate Bay with four people behind it, the alleged $4m of advertising income p.a. are hefty. Assuming they spend $2m p.a. on hosting (very probably a lot less, actually), they'd make $500k per person and year, quite a hefty salary, if you ask me.
The MPAA members, OTOH, probably consider anything without a "billion" suffix chump change. Their combined revenue is in the hundreds of billions (too lazy to dig up all the numbers, but it's bound to be in the $100-200bn range). They employ thousands of people. DIS alone has some 130k employees. $4m is somewhere in the range of one of their CEO's pay.
Official Judgement
Explanation
Sued for downloading, not uploading music.
Lost court case, via summary judgement.
I don't know how much clearer I can make it that you are wrong.
I know it's embarrassing but it's much more embarrassing to keep clinging to something that's already been proven false. Downloading unauthorized copyrighted works is illegal. It's not just uploading that's illegal. The RIAA DID sue someone for downloading - and won. They won because it's illegal. Please just listen to reason, admit you're wrong and we'll just move along.