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.'"

Comments

The opposition made their homework this time

[bigmouth_strikes]

This is a really interesting case, since the recording industry association and lobby (Ifpi and Antipiratbyrån) seems to have made their homework this time. This case will probably go all the way to the supreme court or even to the european court and both sides seem to be well prepared for this showdown.

The interesting argument brought up is that the defendants are in this to make money, and the prosecutor says he can prove elaborate plans to split the quite hefty incomes from advertising that the Pirate Bay is raking in. While linking to copyrighted material may be legal, making money from actively enabling people copyright infringement probably is harder to sneak by the courts.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[russ1337]

to split the quite hefty incomes from advertising that the Pirate Bay is raking in.

If the sums are that hefty, why aren't Hollywood doing it?

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[Mantaar]

If the sums are that hefty, why aren't Hollywood doing it? Hollywood? Hollywood are making quite hefty sums from ads and everything else (though usually they'll ad for themselves). In fact, they are the ones that have the money to lobby the Swedish administration into suing the operators of one of the worlds most visited websites.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[mwvdlee]

making money from actively enabling people copyright infringement probably is harder to sneak by the courts

Microsoft is screwed if this is true.
Afterall, how many of those downloaders and uploaders were using Windows to do so?
Windows enabled them to do so, and Microsoft is making money off of it!

How does one "actively enable" by the way?

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[persnowfall.se]

Indeed.

In the blue corner, top prosecutors armed with a 20 month police investigation and the heavy 4000 page complaint previously mentioned earlier on /. (downloadable btw on, you guessed it, TPB). In the red corner the four defendants spearheaded by Peter Althin, one of Sweden absolute top lawyers.

...and not to mention the media making this their cover story. The fight is on.

This might be the time to try the swedish gaming monopoly to the european court. Where do I place my bet?

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[octopus72]

They were making money from ads (and site visitor clicks), not from selling copyirghted material. RIAA will loose this one it seems, guys are lawyers and have a lot of Swedes behind their back, willing to help.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[GuldKalle]

But I still fail to see how this differs from google (we know their intentions differ, but it's not easy to prove) I bet a google search on any of the titles mentioned in tfa will result in some kind of torrent link.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[darthflo]

"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.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[russ1337]

If the sums are that hefty, why aren't Hollywood doing it? Hollywood? Hollywood are making quite hefty sums from ads and everything else (though usually they'll ad for themselves). In fact, they are the ones that have the money to lobby the Swedish administration into suing the operators of one of the worlds most visited websites.

Awesome!!! Please provide a link to Hollywoods Torrent site!

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[Bastard of Subhumani]

While linking to copyrighted material may be legal, making money from actively enabling people copyright infringement probably is harder to sneak by the courts.

Are you saying that they haven't got a (wooden) leg to stand on?

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[bubblah]

There is some additional information and commentary on Torrent Freak here http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-team-charged-080131/ and on techwag here http://techwag.com/index.php/2008/01/31/the-pirate-bay-finally-finds-out-what-they-are-being-charged-with/ techwag actually broke out the numbers in relationship to number of torrents against the fine against the operators. Interesting additional reading.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[mOdQuArK!]

I wonder if they'll try and get the Swedish "Pirate" party all riled up to increase the headlines?

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[BlueParrot]

They employ thousands of people. DIS alone has some 130k employees. $4m is somewhere in the range of one of their CEO's pay.

... and this is of course the source of the problem. Seriously, if 4 people can do it why do they need hundreds and thousands of employees and CEOs who make millions per year? Sounds a bit inefficient don't you think?

Ok, there are royalties, but those are hardly the main share of the record industry's expenses.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[Ckwop]

The interesting argument brought up is that the defendants are in this to make money, and the prosecutor says he can prove elaborate plans to split the quite hefty incomes from advertising that the Pirate Bay is raking in. While linking to copyrighted material may be legal, making money from actively enabling people copyright infringement probably is harder to sneak by the courts.

I don't buy it, what about Google? They make money by linking to content that is subject to copyright.

Simon

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[ContractualObligatio]

RIAA may lose, but that's a facile argument. It is possible under the law to differentiate between the nature of the business and where it gets its revenues from. Google is also an advertising company, however their business as a search engine is vital to e.g. being a safe harbour under the DMCA in the US.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[adolf]

Not to strawman myself, but it almost sounds as if you're saying that four people are able to do the work of 130,000 people.

If this is the case, then billions aren't needed after all.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[darthflo]

I'm pretty convinced that the tpb staff will work quite a lot more efficient than e.g. average Disney staff, but please keep in mind the different work areas:

The Pirate Bay (regarded as an organization, not the product) does (not including semi-related spin-offs like BayImg)

• Maintain a BitTorrent tracker with a nice web interface
• (Some legal stuff, mostly responding to complaints, mostly done in a hobby-esque fashion)

The Walt Disney Company (DIS) does

• Operate tens of TV channels (ABC x3, several Disney Channels nationally and internationally, ESPN x2,...)
• Create feature-length movies as well as many cable and PPV productions
• Create records (apparently they do have a WD Records division)
• Create theatrical productions
• Distribute all of the above, in physical forms, globally
• Deal with all legal/administrative problems multinationals have to deal
• (Somewhat unrelated) Operate parks in meatspace requiring lots of meatspace personnel
• (Unnecessarily) extend copyright laws, sue and generally annoy the living hell out of the general public

Mind the difference between "allowing users to distribute any content" and "creating and distributing (original) content". The former can be performed by a single sysadmin/developer on almost any scale perceivable; the latter requires an ever-growing pile of expensive meatspace representatives.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[msheekhah]

That is a very good point. However, an idea came to me. Is it plausible to do bittorrent, with a PGP edge to it? In seperate files, you have the torrent you post, in another file, with a reference to that file, you have what the file actually is, it's description. Both encoded with private keys. Then, when someone searches, their search is encrypted as well. This way, every aspect of the file transfer from query, to matching the query with a proper result, to downloading the file is all encrypted. Now, my intent is not to make a better software pirating program. This to me would be useful because of how the telcos and the government are wanting to sniff my packets without my permission. I could be way off, it could be overkill, but an idea is an idea, so there you go.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[init100]

Sounds a bit inefficient don't you think?

With size comes inefficiency. Frankly, I cannot say I ever heard of an efficient large organization.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[MLS100]

This is the heart of the issue, TPB is profiting off of works they did not help make possible. Not only that, but they give ZERO to the people that DO make them possible. This is shameful and disgusting. I hope they and every site like it is shut down and their founders imprisoned.

No, this is not a troll, but will be modded as such by this hypocritical community that is enraged by a company taking GPL code and using it in their proprietary products to profit from it, yet cheers Pirate Bay on in committing nearly the same crime hundreds of thousands of times per day.

Sigh.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[cpt kangarooski]

This is the heart of the issue, TPB is profiting off of works they did not help make possible. Not only that, but they give ZERO to the people that DO make them possible. This is shameful and disgusting. I hope they and every site like it is shut down and their founders imprisoned.

You mean like used bookstores, which is an example of a for-profit business that makes money reselling books that the store owner didn't write, and which doesn't pay a cent to the copyright holder? Or how Disney profits when they make a movie based on public domain fairy tales that they didn't write and don't pay to use? You're against them too, I take it?

Merely profiting off of a work someone else created and not paying that person is not necessarily shameful, disgusting, or illegal. I'm not a big fan of TPB either, but I caution you against tarring with too broad a brush. You should not only be more precise as to who you are against and who you aren't, but you should also give a reason and an explanation as to why that's a good reason.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[MLS100]

You mean like used bookstores, which is an example of a for-profit business that makes money reselling books that the store owner didn't write, and which doesn't pay a cent to the copyright holder? Used bookstores deal in the reselling of physical property where the rights to that physical copy have already been transferred legally from the copyright holder to the purchaser. How this is analogous to the topic at hand eludes me.

Or how Disney profits when they make a movie based on public domain fairy tales that they didn't write and don't pay to use? You're against them too, I take it? Key word is public domain, you may do whatever you please with public domain ideas. The Disney film(s) are not simply a verbatim copy of the fairy tale with "Disney's" put in front of the title. Instead they were adapted for a younger audience, animated, voiced, etc. In other words, they took public domain and created something new from it with added value. This is exactly what SHOULD be done with works in the public domain.

How is Pirate Bay different? Shesh, well lets see..

1. The works in question are not physical property with proper transfer of property rights. (Invalidates first example)
2. The works in question are not public domain. (Invalidates second example)

Merely profiting off of a work someone else created and not paying that person is not necessarily shameful, disgusting, or illegal. I'm not a big fan of TPB either, but I caution you against tarring with too broad a brush. You should not only be more precise as to who you are against and who you aren't, but you should also give a reason and an explanation as to why that's a good reason. I am against basing a business on copyright infringement, is that clearer? The 'who' is not important, if this condition is satisfied, I am against it. Why it is a good reason?

I'll give the economic reasons first. Pirate Bay is essentially harming the market in two ways. First, by making the work of others available for free when the contributors to that work demand a specific sum for that work, they diminish the incentive of the creators themselves to create. Since creating something costs "something", and TPB offers it for near zero, the creator cannot compete in price.

Faced with this dilemma, he must either shut his business down, or create some added value to his product; however, anything he adds to the product will simply be absorbed by TPB upon release. So there is little incentive to create added value either (this is the problem DRM attempts to solve, making the real product more valuable i.e. less hassle than the pirated version, though usually failing miserably in the process since computers were not designed for DRM).

Second, TPB basically shuts out any possible competition from the creators themselves in the form of launching their own site similar to TPB, since by virtue of their position as creators, their cost of production will always be higher than TPB's because they must face the cost of creating in addition to providing the services TPB does, and will have difficulty competing in terms of value because of the what I mentioned earlier. Because the cost of creating is so much higher than the cost of providing services similar to TPBs, this closes the only other avenue the creator has available to him to market his good.

I'm getting tired of writing so I'll just say the moral reasons are obvious.

Re:The opposition made their homework this time

[cpt kangarooski]

Used bookstores deal in the reselling of physical property where the rights to that physical copy have already been transferred legally from the copyright holder to the purchaser. How this is analogous to the topic at hand eludes me.

This is not necessarily true; first sale applies to any lawfully made copy, regardless of whether or not that copy was made authorizedly. A copy that was made pursuant to fair use could be sold without the copyright holder having been involved.

At any rate, the objection made earlier had been that someone other than the copyright holder was profiting from the transaction and the copyright holder was not. This is true for the used bookstore as well. Either both must be offensive or there is a problem with the earlier complaint.

The Disney film(s) are not simply a verbatim copy of the fairy tale with "Disney's" put in front of the title.

They could be. I've bought copies of Shakespeare's plays before, and I damn well expect them to be verbatim copies. I'm not paying the Lamb's book.

Again though, this was merely an example of the flaw in the argument from the earlier post.

I am against basing a business on copyright infringement, is that clearer? The 'who' is not important, if this condition is satisfied, I am against it.

Okay. A follow-up question: do you think that copyright laws are currently perfect, or do you think that the laws should be changed. Could at least one of these changes involve reducing the length or scope of protection such that a business operating under the new laws would infringe if the current laws remained in effect?

First, by making the work of others available for free when the contributors to that work demand a specific sum for that work, they diminish the incentive of the creators themselves to create. Since creating something costs "something", and TPB offers it for near zero, the creator cannot compete in price.

I might quibble with the wording, but I basically agree with you there.

Second, TPB basically shuts out any possible competition from the creators themselves in the form of launching their own site similar to TPB, since by virtue of their position as creators, their cost of production will always be higher than TPB's because they must face the cost of creating in addition to providing the services TPB does, and will have difficulty competing in terms of value because of the what I mentioned earlier. Because the cost of creating is so much higher than the cost of providing services similar to TPBs, this closes the only other avenue the creator has available to him to market his good.

Well, I disagree there. There is no technology that pirates can use which publishers cannot. Further, due to economies of scale, publishers usually have the technological advantage available to them, should they wish to take it. For example, a CD made in a CD factory is cheaper to manufacture than a CDR burned by a downloader. The issue is simply that the publishers are not willing to use the same P2P technologies since they can't figure out how to make money at it. They could easily launch a functionally identical website tomorrow, if they chose, but they'd just be giving away their goods.

So I think you're really just restating the first issue. This isn't really a separate problem.

But let's say that you're correct (as I think that you are) and that widespread piracy amongst consumers results in a reduced incentive for authors to create works, and so fewer works are created.

So? The objective of copyright is to have as many works as possible created and published, which otherwise would not have been, and for those works to enter the public domain as rapidly as possible, and to be restricted as little as possible until then. Trading off fewer works for more freedom is an entirely appropriate bargain. The only issue is whether the public benefit is greater having done this, or having not.

I'm getting tired of writing so I'll just say the

Coincidence?

[smooth wombat]

they face fines of up to $200,000. . . .

Could this news item from Sweden have anything to do with these possible fines?

Re:Coincidence?

[TheGratefulNet]

next time, use batteries in the device. and 'show' an AC plug so that people 'feel good' about pulling it.

oh rats. I just gave a really good secret away. rats.

Re:Coincidence?

[esocid]

So let me get this straight. If you copy a CD the MAFIAA wants $1.5mil but if you, in the eyes of their courts, are a major distributor you only get a $200,000 fine. I seriously doubt that they will be able to prove any sort of copyright infringement.

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.

I'm sorry you fail prosecutor. Understand the protocol before you throw out allegations like that.

Re:Coincidence?

[Pofy]

>So let me get this straight. If you copy a CD the MAFIAA wants $1.5mil but
>if you, in the eyes of their courts, are a major distributor you only get
>a $200,000 fine. I seriously doubt that they will be able to prove any sort
>of copyright infringement.

Apart from this being two different countries, it is worth noticing that the $200,000 mentioned is NOT really a fine. The only fines one can get in a criminal case are based on ones income and there is a maximum of about $25,000. For more severe crimes one can get prision instead (but you can't get both).

The $200,000 are the sum the prosecutor claims they gained on their activity. In addition to the actual fine/prison/other one get, one can also have to pay a sum equal to the gain.

Re:Coincidence?

[esocid]

Apart from this being two different countries, it is worth noticing that the $200,000 mentioned is NOT really a fine.

That was why I said in the eyes of their court, but thanks for clearing that other part up. From what I remember reading from Peter Sunde is that the advertising simply paid for the running and upkeep of their servers, but I suppose that could be construed as an income for the admins there. That prosecutor is grasping at straws here from the pressure of the corporations that would like to perpetuate their broken model of distribution and I seriously hope this is a victory for the pirate bay and the Piratpartiet.

Re:Coincidence?

[jedidiah]

This notion of "gain" is just a smokescreen. You could make up any
number you like and claim that as the "gain" here. This is much
like how in the US you have rediculous statutory damages that are
sort of a much less rigorous "swag" at the same sort of thing.

In the absence of a really sound an detailed justification of those
"damages" either concept is just as bogus and just as open for abuse.

Re:Coincidence?

[Pofy]

>This notion of "gain" is just a smokescreen. You could make up any
>number you like and claim that as the "gain" here.

I am not sure what the exact terminology would be in English in a court case. The one used in Swedish is "utbyte". This is terminology defined in law and what it applies to. Of course, one can always argue exactly what should be included. In this case, the prosecutor argue, based on invoices related to adds and so on, that this is the sum they got as a result of the activity which he claims is illegal. If this is true or not, one can always argue about and will be left to the court to decide.

Heave to and prepare to be boarded!

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrrrrr!

Summary correction.

[EasyTarget]

Nothing has been downloaded through the Pirate bay's site.

Plenty has been downloaded because of it.

All the legal arguments are going to hinge around this vital distinction, so it would help if the submitter could have been bothered to get it right.

Re:Summary correction.

[EasyTarget]

..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..)

Re:Summary correction.

[tomhudson]

It wasn't the submitter:

The Swedish prosecutor listed dozens of works that had been downloaded through The Pirate Bay site

Of course, he could have also listed dozens of works that have been downloaded through Microsoft Windows, through the phone company, through Dell, etc ... since they didn't host the files either.

Re:Summary correction.

[xtal]

By this arguement, you could extend it to say Slashdot is liable for promoting bittorrent PTP through news and discussion.

I hope this lawsuit gets tossed in the rubbish bin where it belongs.

Re:Summary correction.

[urcreepyneighbor]

Nothing has been downloaded through the Pirate bay's site. They run the tracker? Yes? Then, yes, the crap has been download through their site/tracker.

I'm sure a lawyer can chime in here, but it's my understanding that if I allow illegal acts to be performed on my property... then I can be held responsible for it.

Example: if I let someone sell coke in my living room, I can be charged. Not sure with what, but the "I didn't know!" excuse won't hold up - especially if there are bags and bags of the crap out in the open for anyone to see.

To take the example further: if I tell someone where they can buy coke - specifically tell them from whom and where, I'm sure I could get charged, too.

Pissing, bitching and moaning on /., while fun and a good exercise in futility, won't change the fact that TPB boys are screwed.

Anyone want to start a wig fund for them?

Re:Summary correction.

[Hatta]

That's partially true, they aren't just hosting links though, they are hosting the actual torrents which contain the instructions for downloading the actual content.

What's the difference? A link is instructions for downloading a file.

Re:Summary correction.

[ultranova]

They run the tracker? Yes? Then, yes, the crap has been download through their site/tracker.

Not a single byte of the crap in question is sent through, to, or from the tracker in the BitTorrent protocol. All the tracker does is provide a locator service.

To take the example further: if I tell someone where they can buy coke - specifically tell them from whom and where, I'm sure I could get charged, too.

I guess that explains why the War on Drugs is not going so well: if you call the cops on the local crack dealer, you'll be sued.

Seriously, thought: this may or may not be illegal, but I don't think it should be. Such legislation would make it impossible to discuss the crime rates in various neighbourhoods, for example, because it is quite obvious that the areas where the drug dealers are most active are the places you should go to buy the stuff. It starts getting too close to thoughtcrime for my comfort.

Re:Summary correction.

[ThirdPrize]

Just what I was thinking. If nothing else they would probably be an accessory to the crime. Aiding and abetting or something like that.

Re:Summary correction.

[Eudial]

You'll find there are non-infringing uses of the pirate bay as well. http://thepiratebay.org/search/slackware/0/99/0

Re:Summary correction.

[BradleyUffner]

You'll find there are non-infringing uses of the pirate bay as well. http://thepiratebay.org/search/slackware/0/99/0

I'm sure the mob did 1 or 2 things that were legal too. That doesn't excuse all the other illegal things.

Re:Summary correction.

[hesiod]

> most of the files that the Pirate Bay "hooks you up" with are illegal copies

blah blah blah...links to people hosting illegal copies, not the illegal copies themselves... blah blah blah.

[Insert comparison to google searches here]

Re:Summary correction.

[urcreepyneighbor]

I was loose with my words, I'll admit that, but the principle still holds. As for my knowledge of BT, ah... I'd rather not comment. Interpret that however you want. :)

If you have a listing in your living room of where one could go to buy coke, and you leave your doors wide open[...] I'd meet a ton of new people every day?

Re:Summary correction.

[ContractualObligatio]

You're assuming malice, rather than checking the definition of "through". In the sense of "by the agency of", as compared to the concept of some form of physical passage, describing the downloads as being through TPB is entirely valid. TPB is the central agent in the process.

It's easy to come up with real world uses of the word to understand how it applies e.g. "Through talking to Alice, he was able to get hold of a stolen car from Bob. Alice was a key accomplice in the crime."

If TPB wins the case, it is not likely to be through Alberto Gonzales-style dissembling. At least I hope not, because the world becomes a worse place when people can only justify their actions through weasel words and technicalities, and a spirit of honesty is discouraged. Whether or not Alice and the TPB are in the wrong is a separate discussion, but the use of "through" is good English.

Re:Summary correction.

[ContractualObligatio]

Interesting point.

I'd say the difference if that the torrent is a file. For instance, a search engine typically only returns a page of links, and doesn't host any files at all. So this may be the technical way to differentiate a search engine like Google for a service like TPB that provides a search function as part of its operations.

Re:Summary correction.

[Eudial]

I'm sure the mob did 1 or 2 things that were legal too. That doesn't excuse all the other illegal things.

But that analogy does not follow. The Pirate Bay does not actually do anything criminal, merely facilities connections without making any judgement. Surely the phone company can't be held accountable if the mob uses their phone lines to extort businesses, much like a boat maker can't be held accountable if someone uses their products to smuggle cigars out of Cuba.

It's like blaming the airplanes for crashing into WTC.

Re:Summary correction.

[Hatta]

Except that google does serve up .html files that contain links. And what's the difference between a string of text that is a link (say http://www.slashdot.org/ and a hyperlink file that just contains the same text?

What's to stop the p2p folks from encoding all the information that's in a .torrent as a URI somehow? In fact, the ed2k network has already done this. You can access any resource available on ed2k via an ed2k link.

The answer? Nothing. What the Pirate Bay does is exactly the same thing Google does.

Re:Summary correction.

[ContractualObligatio]

Are you seriously suggesting that with revenues of $4m, TPB could instead run a server farm that maintains a collection of html files sufficient to store the results of every single Google search for an entire year? And that people would continue to use it when their searches are not restricted to a set of .torrent files but run against the entire internet? And that it would be a good technical solution for the use case?

If you think TPB is exactly the same as Google, you have no brain.

Re:Summary correction.

[Hatta]

Are you seriously suggesting that with revenues of $4m, TPB could instead run a server farm that maintains a collection of html files sufficient to store the results of every single Google search for an entire year?

No, where the hell did you get that?

If you think TPB is exactly the same as Google, you have no brain.

The only difference is one of scale. If you can't see that, you have no brain.

Re:Summary correction.

[makomk]

Also, due to the way they've set their tracker up, I don't think it knows much about the files being served. In particular, it doesn't know their names or their contents. All it knows is the infohash - which is the hash of a section of the .torrent file describing the downloads - and stuff like a list of peers, statisics, etc. (For torrent files hosted on The Pirate Bay website, they could match up the tracker entries with .torrent files, but not all torrents tracked by the tracker have to be uploaded to the website or vice-versa). I believe the tracker doesn't even bother saving the data to disk, for efficiency reasons.

Re:Summary correction.

[init100]

Eventually the free ride will end at pirate bay and it'll most likely end with those guys either going to prison, going in to exile or ending up dead

Seriously, do you really think that the MAFIAA would have the guts to kill them? That would send their arguments about the pirates being the criminals into the toilet. That would simply be a very stupid thing to do. And we don't have the death penalty here.

Re:Summary correction.

[tomhudson]

They're in Sweden, not the US. The law is different there

1. no DMCA
2. no PATRIOT ACT
3. universal health care
4. waterboarding is considered torture by law

Just a few of the many differences ...

Re:Summary correction.

[Pofy]

>But face the facts, TPB _IS_ facilitating copyright infringement.

Which is not necessarilly illegal.

Re:Summary correction.

[BradleyUffner]

But that analogy does not follow. The Pirate Bay does not actually do anything criminal, merely facilities connections without making any judgement.

If it's not criminal, then how come they are being arrested for it? You can argue that the law is wrong, but in this case they ARE breaking a law (or at least being charged with breaking a specific law).

Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Anonymous Coward]

So if we can prosecute swedish people for crimes that aren't crimes in their country can we also give speeding tickets to drivers on the autobahn that drive over 55 mph?

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Salgak1]

At this rate, everyone who voted for Bush will be brought up on trial in Europe for "enabling crimes against humanity". . . Go-go MPAA-RIAA-crime-family lawyers, go!! What's next, getting prosecuted for whisting the tune to a hit song without paying royalties ?

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

So if we can prosecute swedish people for crimes that aren't crimes in their country can we also give speeding tickets to drivers on the autobahn that drive over 55 mph?

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.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[putaro]

The prosecution is happening in Sweden under Swedish law. No need to add gratuitous America bashing to the discussion.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[asdfgl]

The people prosecuted are prosecuted by swedish laws in a swedish court. Oh, they are swedish citizens as well... You can't prosecute crimes not commited in Sweden in swedish courts. That is mostly a good thing.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

If I were to mail a bomb from Canada to the US and it killed a US citizen, would I go to trial in America or Canada?

Both probably - mailing a bomb is illegal in Canada.

Let's put it this way. Would the US permit Canada to arrest American citizens that have never stepped foot in Canada for handgun possesion because handgun possesion is illegal (in most circumstances) in Canada? I wonder how well that would go over in the US if that happend?

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

I think the problem in that particular case is that the Canadian in question supplied marijuana to people living under USA jurisdiction. If orders from people living in the USA had not been accepted, and deliveries not made to locations under USA jurisdiction, then yes, you can complain about extra-territoriality

He broke no Canadian laws - it's the Americans that broke the law by buying. He never advertised in the US, nor did he ever solicit their business. If you sold something on ebay that was legal in the US, but broke the laws of the country of the person who bought it, would you accept extradition to that country to rot in their jails?

As it is, the USA have applied to extradite the Canadian, and Canada have not demurred, and the request is not being fought by the extraditee.

Thats not the whole story. He's only not fighting extridition because they were threatening to sue/arrest his coworkers and friends - one who has a medical condition and would have likely died in a US prison. He nor his friends have any money to fight these constant lawsuits that the US government has been firing at him for the last 20 years.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

Canada?? wtf I thought you had more sense and balls. Why did you let this happen?

I'm hoping the Canadian government tells the DEA and the US prosecutors they can take a good long hard suck on our collective asses, then passes a law blocking any future lawsuits or extradition requests unless he actually breaks a Canadian law.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[jedidiah]

...except it's not that at all.

It's more like Walmart running a mail order hunting gun and ammo business and allowing shipments to Toronto.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[MightyYar]

They might if the guy was sending handguns across to Canadian buyers.

This has a lot more to do with extradition agreements than it does with global bullying. The dope seller should have spoken to a competent lawyer before his little free trade experiment.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[TampaBayDevilRay]

The US government felt they had the right to arrest him for selling over the internet to persons located in the US. Had he kept his business entirely confined to areas that sale of seeds was legal, we would just be royally ticked at him, not locking him up. He did it to himself when he sold his first item to someone in the US and sent it to them.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

remember, shipping controlled items/substances across international borders IS illegal

That's the whole point - he wasn't shipping marijuana, he was shipping seeds which are not a controlled substance under Canadian law.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[TampaBayDevilRay]

He broke no Canadian laws - it's the Americans that broke the law by buying. He never advertised in the US, nor did he ever solicit their business. If you sold something on ebay that was legal in the US, but broke the laws of the country of the person who bought it, would you accept extradition to that country to rot in their jails?

However, depending on the methods in which he transported his wares to the US citizens, he either used the USPS to transport illegal material (a felony), imported illegal material into the US (a felony), or smuggled illegal material into the US through customs (also a felony). He broke American law by shipping materials that were illegal in the US to Americans currently in the US. If he had shipped them to the American citizens, at Canadian addresses, and the Americans then attempted to import the goods, they would be the only ones charged.

But this involves marijuana, so we're supposed to overlook it and think any regulation is bad.

I don't agree with some of the details of our coercion attempts, or the relative length of his jail time compared to other more heinous activities, but there is no way around saying that he broke the law. As for fighting extradtion, if you're going to operate a business internationally, you need to be aware of all laws pertinent to where your clients are. Otherwise you probably shouldn't be operating an INTERNATIONAL business.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

The US government felt they had the right to arrest him for selling over the internet to persons located in the US.

The US government is wrong.

Had he kept his business entirely confined to areas that sale of seeds was legal, we would just be royally ticked at him, not locking him up. He did it to himself when he sold his first item to someone in the US and sent it to them.

So why not arrest the people who bought the seeds - they are the ones that broke the law. He did not solicit sales from US citizens or advertise there in any way. Nor did he ever break Canadian law. Besides, what would be stopping an American from setting up a Canadian PO box address that forwards to the US? Is it his responsibility to check every address to see if it is real and not forwarded?

If you sold something on ebay are you responsible for checking all of the laws in the destination country to see if you are violating any of them? For example caffenated drinks in Canada have to be colored - clear drinks such as 7-up, mountain dew, sprite etc have to be caffeine free. If I bought a caffenated 7-up from you and you mailed it to me does that mean I can have you extradited and thrown in jail in Canada for breaking our laws?

If the US really wanted to stop him they could have simply blocked the IP address from US ISPs and/or arrested their own citizens buying from him.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[BigJClark]

This is a very sticky thing, apples and oranges between the TPB and the prince of pot. Not to take it off on a tangent, but the reason buddy got busted was because he was distributing his seeds in the states.

Not saying right or wrong, just giving the whole story :)

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[flyonthewall]

Canada?? wtf I thought you had more sense and balls. Why did you let this happen?

I'm hoping the Canadian government tells the DEA and the US prosecutors they can take a good long hard suck on our collective asses, then passes a law blocking any future lawsuits or extradition requests unless he actually breaks a Canadian law.

And you expect our current Canadian government to do what exactly? They are not known to be exactly independents in their approach to US policies.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[KiahZero]

With that argument, you must necessarily believe that anyone who posts on the Internet is bound by the speech restrictions of every country that has citizens with Internet access. Better not post anything unpleasant about China; that's illegal there, and by allowing your data to be sent there, you are breaking their law and should be charged.

Unless he crossed into the United States to mail his items, United States criminal system should have *NO* jurisdiction. To hold otherwise is to open extraterritoriality floodgates; I'm sure you wouldn't be comfortable with the results.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[kwandar]

"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."

Sorry, but you are incorrect. It is against the law in Canada, but it just isn't prosecuted. This is why the Americans can extradite. They can't extradite for a crime if it isn't illegal in Canada.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[hesiod]

Read the description a bit better. Supposedly there were no shipments to the US, so your analogy is broken. It would be closer to allowing the advertising to be seen through the Internet in Toronto. (Unless of course you meant Toronto, Ohio).

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[hesiod]

Pardon me. It appears I was mistaken.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[bdot_original]

Actually selling marijuana seeds is prohibited in Canada -- but it is not seen as a serious offense and the trouble and money to prosecute makes it even less likely that the RCMP will arrest you. As well, in Canada the seeds would have to be grown and flowered in order to determine if they are in fact Marijuana seeds or simply hemp seeds (as these are legal in Canada). hxxp://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/425/canadaseeds.shtml

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Bryansix]

If you sell something in a foreign country whether you marketed there or not, then you are subject to the laws of that country. It's really simple. Also to make conjecture that somebody would have died in a jail in the US is silly. People in the US get better food, more cable, better libraries, and probably better legal care in jail. That is unless you end up in Arizona. Then you have to wear pink underwear and work in 110 degree heat and live in a tent.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Bryansix]

WRONG! Speach is very much different from a product. Besides, the United States would never extradite somebody to China because of China's silly restrictions on free speach.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[IdeaMan]

We Americans are outraged. What's interesting is that I have yet to see a post saying what we can do. It's all about what the Canadians should/should not do. So, who should we call and send mail to? I assume the DEA will turn a deaf ear to us because they're just doing their job. Is it congress that controls the DEA policies or the president?

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Bryansix]

Exactly how many Slasdot accounts do you have to give yourself mod points everytime you post? The United States didn't arrest him. The Canadians did and the Canadians are the ones who are in agreement with the order to extradite him. You can't even get your facts straight.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[TampaBayDevilRay]

With that argument, you must necessarily believe that anyone who posts on the Internet is bound by the speech restrictions of every country that has citizens with Internet access. Better not post anything unpleasant about China; that's illegal there, and by allowing your data to be sent there, you are breaking their law and should be charged.

Unless he crossed into the United States to mail his items, United States criminal system should have *NO* jurisdiction. To hold otherwise is to open extraterritoriality floodgates; I'm sure you wouldn't be comfortable with the results. A business selling goods DOES NOT equal freedom of speech. That's a strawman argument with no foundation to even begin to justify using it here. It's simply an attempt to confuse the issue at hand.

He sold goods, across the border. He *is* liable for the legality of the goods he was sending into the US. He was exporting marijuana seeds from Canada, into the US. And, by all likelihood he was using the USPS and/or customs agents to do it.

Had it simply been his website accessible to US citizens, again, no foul. He, however, sold his goods, across national borders, not simply spoke out about things. He does not have to cross borders. The items he is selling and delivering to his customer did. That, is simply enough to charge a business with violation of US law.

Again, the US's methods of intimidation were sketchy at best, but he still broke US law, when he sent his goods into the US.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Bryansix]

If you sold something on ebay are you responsible for checking all of the laws in the destination country to see if you are violating any of them?

Yes. That's why I only sell on ebay to people in the United States.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Crazyswedishguy]

These people are currently being prosecuted under Swedish law, or depending on how far it goes, maybe European law. If they were subject to U.S. law, they would probably have been indicted a few years ago. This debate has been going on for a long time. The essence of it is that in Sweden it is NOT illegal to link to copyrighted material, as long as it never passes "through your hands" (or servers).

This recent development appears to be that they're accusing them of making profits off copyrighted material. Under Swedish law, they still can't prosecute them for simply linking so they have to come up with something!

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

He was exporting marijuana seeds from Canada, into the US. And, by all likelihood he was using the USPS and/or customs agents to do it.

Actually I'm pretty sure when he mailed it he was using the Canadian postal service, not the US one (since he mailed it in Canada). If it transferred hands part way that's not his problem.

He does not have to cross borders. The items he is selling and delivering to his customer did. That, is simply enough to charge a business with violation of US law.
Again, the US's methods of intimidation were sketchy at best, but he still broke US law, when he sent his goods into the US.

But that's the whole point of the discussion isn't it? Yes he broke US law and I'm sure he could give a rats ass what US laws he broke. The point is that he's a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil and he didn't break Canadian law, therefore the US shouldn't have grounds to arrest him.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[krondell]

I bet China doesn't consider their speech restrictions "silly". So are we playing by the same rules as everyone else or not?

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Magada]

Oh, look what the cat dragged in. You have some nerve pretending not to understand that the RIAA instigated this bullshit.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[putaro]

Of course the RIAA is behind it. However, you might want to look at who the RIAA is today:

Big Four
EMI - British
Sony BMG - Japanese/German, though the Sony side could probably be argued to be American controlled
Universal - Owned by Vivendia - French
Warner - American

I'm all for America bashing when there's something to it. There's been some really egregious stuff like trying to prosecute people under American law for "crimes" committed in other jurisdictions where they're not crimes. If a Swedish prosecutor is stupid enough to take the RIAA's and MPAA's line of bullshit that's a Swedish problem not an American problem.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Magada]

Erm.
The RIAA - which is the legal shell of this cartel - is wholly american. The Swedish prosecutor isn't stupid, he's pandering to the strong and you can bet your bottom dollar that the boys in RIAA talked to the boys on Capitol Hill who in turn put some pressure on the Swedish government to stop allowing Piratebay to exist - just like there's a good deal of side-channel pressure in those extradition cases you're angry about...

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Magada]

I hate appending to my own posts like this but...
80% of Universal, the mighty wikipedia tells us, is owned by GE, with the remainder owned by Vivendi so that makes three out of four - with EMI in the hands of Terra Firma which in turn fronts for "private investors".
On a wholly different note, there is considerable interest from the US government to push for the export of american IP laws and practice, in their current broken state, because much higher stakes than the recording industry's measly tens of billions are on the table. The RIAA are just along for the ride.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

What are you talking about? Do uthink that just because you don't agree with me then no one else possibly could and I manufactured the mod points? Stop being such an arrogant ass. People are entitled to a different opinion than you.

And the Canadians didn't bother him for years until the US started applying pressure. I believe the worst he ever got was a token ($200) fine. The US wants to put him in jail for 10 years. There's no way anyone would get that much jailtime in Canada for pot possession. The US are behind the arrest, regardless of who actually executed the arrest.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Bryansix]

First off I'm not talking about opinions. Your opinion is that no cross country enforcement of laws should exist. I'll get to that later. I took issue with your so-called facts. You seemed to imply that the United States crossed the border and arrested this man. This could not be further from the truth. The fact is that if Canada didn't think what this man did was wrong (namely illegally selling a controlled substance across international borders) then they could have just refused to arrest him or extradite him. The point is even the Canadian athorities see what he did was wrong. Should it be against United States law? Well that is a discussion for another time. The point is that there is a United States law and that it is completely within the rights of the United States to have laws regarding who can and cannot sell products in the United States and what they can sell.

Now let's look at your opinion that all cross-border enforcement of laws should cease. If this was the case then nobody who ever commited a crime that was illegal in one country but not in another could ever be brought to justice. According to your views then Chinese "drug" companies should be able to import drugs into the united states that have the same brand name labels as the real drugs. This is because China has weak intellectual property laws and nothing regarding trademark. The market would be flooded with crap and nobody could tell real heart medication from a cheap Chinese import that probably didn't even do anything good at all. Is that how you think the world should operate?

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[pnewhook]

You falsely accused me of fabricating mod points for some twisted reason I don't really understand. Your opportunity of continuing a rational conversation on this topic ended with that childish claim.

Re:Our laws are not the world's laws.

[Bryansix]

I'm rolling on the floor laughing right now. Oh it hurts. Stop it.

Link to PDF-file with the charges

[pistolhot]

Can be found here:

http://www.realtid.se/ArticlePages/200801/31/20080131132351_Realtid598/B_13301_06_Aktbil_95.pdf

(In Swedish)

Re:Link to PDF-file with the charges

[Anonymous Coward]

where can I get the torrent for this?

Re:Link to PDF-file with the charges

[catxk]

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4004986/St__mningsans__kan_mot_The_pirate_bay

Where else?

At least they didn't copy a CD!

[noidentity]

instead, they face fines of up to $200,000 and the confiscation of all their hardware.

Good thing they didn't copy a CD, otherwise they'd be paying $1.5 million!

Re:At least they didn't copy a CD!

[icsx]

Atleast the fines are _reasonable_ in northern europe compared to the infamous american RIAA mafia demands.

not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[russ1337]

'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.'"

It's been said 1000 times: These things were not downloaded FROM the Pirate Bay - they just provide the reference as to where they could be downloaded from. Do you think that by listing The Beatles and Robbie Williams I'm supposed to have sympathy? By listing Harry Potter are they 'thinking of the children?' - is the list of big media supposed to be scary? TPB are very careful not to break Swedish law. They don't care what the laws of other countries are - (I'm looking at you USA) as they live in SWEDEN they are only concerned with Swedish law.

I hope they come out squeaky clean - as they should as they have not broken their countries law.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[nomadic]

It's been said 1000 times: These things were not downloaded FROM the Pirate Bay - they just provide the reference as to where they could be downloaded from

IAAL, but not a Swedish (or European) one, and I know your argument wouldn't necessarily be convincing in a US court. It's a technicality, and a judge (or jury) would probably be more interested in TPB's intent and whether TPB's actions helped result in the copyright violation.

From the Model Penal Code:

(a) A person, acting with the mental state required for commission of an offense, who solicits, requests, commands, importunes or intentionally aids another person to engage in conduct which constitutes an offense shall be criminally liable for such conduct and may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[Salgak1]

Gee, then compliance to the letter of the law, when it inconveniences the MPAA-RIAA Crime Family is now a crime ?

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[russ1337]

Its not good sighting the US penal code. This is from the /a>Swedish penal code:

A person who, with the intention of committing or promoting a crime, presents or receives money or anything else as pre-payment or payment for the crime or who procures, constructs, gives, receives, keeps, conveys or engages in any other similar activity with poison, explosive, weapon, picklock, falsification tool or other such means, shall, in cases where specific provisions exist for the purpose, be sentenced for preparation of crime unless he is guilty of a completed crime or attempt. In specially designated cases a sentence shall also be imposed for conspiracy. By conspiracy is meant that someone decides on the act in collusion with another as well as that someone undertakes or offers to execute it or seeks to incite another to do so.

I expect that is what the prosecution will be focused on.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[kevinbr]

If I go to Pirate Bay, I always get there via Google who have direct indexed links of torrent pages, and Google get ad revenue. Either both google and Pirate bay are guilty or neither.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[caldaean]

Actually, it is that part you mentioned along with this:

Punishment as provided for an act in this Code shall be imposed not only on the person who committed the act but also on anyone who furthered it by advice or deed. The same shall also apply to any other act punishable with imprisonment under another Law or statutory instrument. And of course, the Copyright law under which eventual crimes would be committed by a third party. In the evidence there is logs and testimonies of people working for the Anti Piracy Bureau, where they have connected to torrents using the tracker in order to download the content and confirm that it is a full, working replicated copy of the material. There is no case against the people who have actually been connected to the swarm (not yet at least), but they believe that it is enough to prove that the tracker can be used as a utility for aiding in the crime.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[aproposofwhat]

... punishable with imprisonment...

So, to apply, the act that is facilitated would have to be punishable with imprisonment.

Is the act of downloading or of making available punishable by imprisonment in Sweden?

If so, then that's a seriously fucked-up society.

If not, then that part of the code doesn't apply, and the happy Pirates will be able to sail off into the sunset with cries of 'Arrrr!' and hefty swigs of rum.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[dave420]

Not to nit-pick, but Google indexes everything it can get its hands on. The Pirate Bay knowingly index torrents, knowing full-well what they're doing. Google can claim they have no idea. If Google ran a site that purposefully listed torrents, and also ran a tracker for said torrents to be tracked on, then you'd have a point. I still don't think The Pirate Bay deserves to get assreamed in court, though.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[Anzya]

Actualy there where a case a couple of years back where guy was found not guilty for including links on his homepage to places where you could download mp3:s
Not sure if they have made any changes in the law lately but that was the case back when.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[WK2]

So the difference between Google and TPB is that Google indexes everything, and TPB indexes torrents? So the only difference is protocol? I fail to see why one protocol is legal, and the other not. Would TPB be in the clear if, in addition to indexing torrents, they also indexed web pages?

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[caldaean]

Yup. Breaking the copyright law is punishable with fines and imprisonment for up to 2 years. No one has gotten more than fines though, in the scale of a couple of hundred $ (yet).

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[amohat]

Google can and does decide to not index certain sites based on objectionable material.

It's within their power to do so and it's their policy.

On the reverse, are you saying that if only TPB ran a general search engine they would be in the clear, like Google? Easy enough...

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[ContractualObligatio]

Fail!

Google is a general search engine that endeavours for neutrality, for instance with specific mechanisms for removing search results.

Pirate Bay is not a general search engine and is specifically intended to earn money from copyrighted material.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[Andtalath]

Actually, since there actually exists no legal precedent yet, we can not know what the law actually says. If this was some stupid thing like US trying to sue them, well, that wouldn't work here, the US have pushed the prosecuters to act though, which of course is bad enough. Now it's up to the swedish law system to determine if this is legal or not, and, even if we decide as much, it might go up another level to the EU, which will most probably be much stricter.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[Overly Critical Guy]

It's been said 1000 times: These things were not downloaded FROM the Pirate Bay - they just provide the reference as to where they could be downloaded from

Their servers provide the trackers which facilitate the illegal exchanged of copyrighted materials.

I hope they come out squeaky clean - as they should as they have not broken their countries law.

Running a piracy site, they're hardly squeaky clean to begin with. I'm always amazed at the level of support for Pirate Bay here at Slashdot and especially at the cesspool that is Digg. Making sure people don't get paid for their work is, frankly, a jackass thing to do. I know a bunch of you reading this have downloaded countless albums and software that you never dreamed of paying a dime for. Real people worked hard to create it so they could make a living.

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[kevinbr]

Endeavors for neautrality? What does that mean? It is simple - google has the exact same data that allows a person to find a torrent.

Google is a search engine that makes money from many sources INCLUDING leading searchers to copyright material.

Lets look at this another way - man robs grocery stores, but does not charity work. Google robs grocery stores, but it is OK to also break the law because they do some extra stuff that the ordinary burglar does?

Re:not downloaded from the Pirate Bay

[ContractualObligatio]

Endeavors for neautrality? What does that mean?

Unsurprisingly, it means they try to be neutral. I know it's a shock to you that they're not perfect, but somehow I manage to deal with this harsh fact without it frying my brain. Can you name a single mechanism that TPB applies to e.g. removing adverts from pages that may refer to copyright material?

Google is a search engine that makes money from many sources INCLUDING leading searchers to copyright material.

Really? Give me a search string that shows they making money from people searching for torrents.

Lets look at this another way

OK, let's try that analogy. The first guy robs grocery stores constantly, enough to make a living out of it, never gives to charity. I reckon he's likely to end up in court.

This other guy Google on the other hand only robs a grocery store one day in a million. When he robs the store, he makes an effort not to actually get anything out of it - not an extra penny in his pocket. This guy Google also does some really useful things, and is generally admired by all for making a huge contribution of value. An officer catches him robbing the store but not attempting to take anything out of it, and decides to turn a blind eye. Yeah, overall I reckon that's OK too.

Indict Google...

[fredklein]

Or let them go.

Just have their lawyers show up in court with a laptop (with wireless connection and the appropriate software installed) and go to Google. Search for "Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent" and click a link. Viola- bittorrent starts up. Therefore, Google can be used to search for torrents, therefore they should be charged, too. If they are not charged, then it demonstrates selective prosecution. The same goes for ANY search engine.

Re:Indict Google...

[russ1337]

Just have their lawyers show up in court with a laptop (with wireless connection and the appropriate software installed) and go to Google. Search for "Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent" and click a link. Viola- bittorrent starts up. Therefore, Google can be used to search for torrents, therefore they should be charged, too. If they are not charged, then it demonstrates selective prosecution. The same goes for ANY search engine.

Or better yet, ask to see the prosecution's laptop. Then do a search using it. Show that the prosecution are guilty of the same thing they're accusing TPB of and have them taken into custody (preferably with the most dangerous offenders.)

Re:Indict Google...

[91degrees]

Do you consider the point of Google to be indexing illegal torrents? Or do you consider the point of The Pirate Bay to be something other than facilitating piracy?

Re:Indict Google...

[houghi]

Don't be a wuss an us a link

The fun part is that now Slashdot itself can be sued. You could link to tinyurl.com and sue them as well.

Seriously, what if I posted a link to an illegal torrentfile here. Would Slashdot be responsible for it? Is TPB actively doing something, or passively letting others add the links?

Re:Indict Google...

[jollyreaper]

Just have their lawyers show up in court with a laptop (with wireless connection and the appropriate software installed) and go to Google. Search for "Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent" and click a link. Viola- bittorrent starts up. Therefore, Google can be used to search for torrents, therefore they should be charged, too. If they are not charged, then it demonstrates selective prosecution. The same goes for ANY search engine. Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never apply logic in a debate on IP infringement and copyright law!

Re:Indict Google...

[apathy maybe]

You know, there are now four results. Two of them from this very website (I believe the GP).

Google says that they were added "9 minutes" and "35 minutes" ago.

As for the other two, why would anyone actually want to download Harry Sticking Potter books anyway? They aren't worth the electronic bits they are printed on.

Re:Indict Google...

[lbmouse]

Huh? "Illegal Torrents" BitTorrent is just a peer-to-peer file sharing communications protocol. The data it distributes *might* be copyright material, but how can BitTorrent be illegal?

I think the parent is making the point that just because something/someone might be used to facilitate the violation of IP law, shouldn't justify a lawsuit like this. Everyone knows that copy machines are used world-wide to copy protected material. Are we going to start throwing librarians in jail?

And Google does index copy protected material all the time. Should we close them down? Should I be fined for publishing that link? Where do you draw the line?

I think this lawsuit is silly and frivolous. The companies involved need to find a way to profit from these technologies like they did the VCR, not try to stop them.

Re:Indict Google...

[unoengborg]

Actually pirate bay facilitates download of software that is perfectly legal to download, i.e. Linux distributions and other large free software packages. They don't go after postal service because they may carry illegally copied CD:s or even worse bombs, they don't go after telphone service provideers even though somebody may use copyrighted material for music on their answering machine, or use it to plan bank robberies.

What if you want to distribute your own music to promote yourself as an artist without going through RIA channels. This is another perfectly legal thing torrents and Pirate Bay could be used for. In a sense you could claim that RIA is trying to close down alternative ways of publishing music. In the long run, artists finding their customers directly through internet, could be a much bigger threat to RIA, than ordinary consumers pirating a CD or two once in a while.

Re:Indict Google...

[MrNemesis]

Not to mention all of the other trackers, public and private, that have the exact same torrent file posted to them as well. Heck, if you have a popular TPB torrent running, I imagine you'll see several other trackers listed. Only submitting your upload to one tracker when there are hundreds available is limiting your potential swarm base.

Not sure how selective proecution plays out under European rules though, and even if it were treated the same as in the states it's still not grounds for dismissal.

Re:Indict Google...

[Skuldo]

"But everyone else was doing it" is rarely a good basis for a defense in a court case.

Re:Indict Google...

[TheSkyIsPurple]

It's the same thing that got Napster... what is the primary and original purpose?

The primary purpose for PirateBay is for contributing to infringement of copyright. (to use the prosecutor's words)
The primary purpose for Google is not.

They don't go after the Postal Service even though it's used sometimes for Drugs.
The do go after drug dealers even though they sometimes transport legal items.

Same same

Re:Indict Google...

[alegrepublic]

Just have their lawyers show up in court with a laptop (with wireless connection and the appropriate software installed) and go to Google.

I am afraid the judges may be less sympathetic to the defendants after their lawyers show them the Google results

Re:Indict Google...

[91degrees]

but how can BitTorrent be illegal?

Dunno. Who said it could be?

think the parent is making the point that just because something/someone might be used to facilitate the violation of IP law, shouldn't justify a lawsuit like this.

And I'm making the point that there's a difference between being able to be used to facilitate the violation of the law and having the sole purpose of violating the law.

Should we close them down? Should I be fined for publishing that link? Where do you draw the line?

You're infringement is too trivial to consider and you're not making money from it. Tell google that those links violate copyright and they'll take them down. Tell TPB that their torrents are violating copyright and they'll post it to their website with sarcastic comments. 90% of the sirtes indexed by Google are legal. 90% of the torrents on TPB are not legal.

Most photocopiers are used for legal purposes. They are sold for legal purposes.

Re:Indict Google...

[zolf13]

The primary purpose for PirateBay is for contributing to infringement of copyright. (to use the prosecutor's words) Or... The primary purpose for PirateBay is for contributing to distribution of binary numbers (data).
And it is the same objective as for any communications network... so is PirateBay an ISP?

Re:Indict Google...

[mctk]

The fun part is that now Slashdot itself can be sued.

For linking to itself? (check your link)

Re:Indict Google...

[fredklein]

Linking to downloadble copies of copyrighted works is not the primary or even the advertised function of Google

364 days a year, I live a normal life. On the 365th day, I kill someone.

But that's okay, because killing someone is not "the primary" action I commit.

Right?

Re:Indict Google...

[TheSkyIsPurple]

The fact that I recognize the 1s and 0s of your post to mean something worth responding to tells me that the 1s and 0s that PirateBay transmits might actually represent some kind of data as well.

If you're going try to sidestep that, then you could just as easily argue that PirateBay are actually creating poetry based on observations of what is around them, and that they should be funded by a government program for advancement of the arts.

Heck, a physical CD is just a collection of protons, neutrons, and electrons... Music stores have a nearly unlimited supply of those as well, so it's not really stealing when you infringe on their particular arrangement of those atoms.

Re:Indict Google...

[fredklein]

"Everyone else was doing it, and the cops keep arresting ONLY ME".

FTFY.

Re:Indict Google...

[doti]

When your entire business model is based on violating copyright for money.

Which Google DOES NOT do. But Pirate Bay does. No, it does not.

Pirate Bay is useful for anyone who wants to publish a torrent, including legal ones.

Yes, there are legal torrents on the Pirate Bay.
I, for one, published the complete discography of a local band, after asking permission from them.

Re:Indict Google...

[zolf13]

I agree in 100% that meaning defines the content, but let's focus on math :)
Assume that there are two numbers X1 and X2.
When I store the X1 in file named X1.png I can see a picture of tree that I made and own (or picture of any other thing that won't sue me).
When I store the X2 in file named X2.mp3 I can hear a song.
Assume that I invent mathematical function f1() that can do: f1(X1)=X2
1) Am I allowed to distribute X1?
2) Am I allowed to distribute f1()?
3) Am I allowed to tell people to use f1() on X1? 4) Are people allowed to use any function f() on any number?

Re:Indict Google...

[meringuoid]

When your entire business model is based on violating copyright for money. Which Google DOES NOT do. But Pirate Bay does.

So Google has permission from every copyright holder of every web page on the net to copy their pages to its servers, hash them, index them, and cross-reference them to create a derivative work from which Google will make immense profits, of which the original artists will see not one penny?

Re:Indict Google...

[compro01]

yes, but how many other trackers/sites have that exact same torrent and aren't being prosecuted?

Re:Indict Google...

[TheSkyIsPurple]

Here's my shot

1) Assuming you came up with X1 completely independently from a copyrighted image, you can distribute it all you want.
If you saw a copyrighted image of a tree, and generated a number that represented that tree, and you didn't have permission to distribute the original image, you would likely not have permission to distribute your derivative work, since it consists almost entirely of the original.

2) Why not? I've seen a few X1s out there and they had fascinating results.

3) I don't see why not in general. But if f1 was built using X1, then I'd guess it would still fall under the derivative work stuff, so distributing that particular f1 would be an infringement, assuming you didn't have permission to do so. Otherwise, I could take a newspaper article and fax it to someone, and they could publish it, since the Faxing would be a particular f1.

4) If I define f to be a function that takes a hash of personal information and shoves it into a credit card app for me, and the hashed number represents your personal information... I would say no =-) Though depending on your credit rating and my ability to spend without getting caught, it could be fun.
If I encode a numeric version of your voice as a number, and create a function f that alters that number so that you are now announcing to the world how you love to use sheep while having sexual relations with children, am I free to distribute that as well?

Re:Indict Google...

[Skuldo]

So? Doesn't make what was done any less so.

Re:Indict Google...

[shark72]

"Should we close them down? Should I be fined for publishing that link? Where do you draw the line?"

Actually, that's what courts are required to do a lot: find where to draw that line.

Courts also work on common sense a lot more than lay people think. If it makes perfect sense to you on a basic level that Google and TPB have vastly different operating principals, then it probably will to the courts, too. That can go a long way in the decision.

Movies and TV shows are filled with courtroom dramas in which somebody gets off on a technicality that defies common sense (such as your point that Google could be used to find torrents). Thankfully, that's not very often the case in the real world.

There's a phrase that's well known by defense lawyers and tax professionals: "the laugh test." If something wouldn't pass this test, then it's not a good defense. No good defense lawyer would try the "just like Google" defense unless they were really grasping at straws.

Re:Indict Google...

[cpt kangarooski]

You're looking at the problem in the wrong way, I'm afraid. Copyright law is more interested in where you got the numbers (and function) from, rather than merely what they are. I would suggest reading the excellent essay here which gets into this.

arrrrrrrgh!

[sbate]

I need a drink

Re:arrrrrrrgh!

[legoman666]

but why is the rum gone?

Dozens?!

[Anita Coney]

Gee, I was under the impression that the Pirate Bay was just a tad more popular than that. With that nominal amount of infringement I'm left wondering what the big deal is.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Legal theory

[91degrees]

The Pirate bay insisted for years that what they were doing was legal under Swedish law.

A per usual, this was a legal opinion based on an extremely naive understanding of how the law actually works. It seems that some people disagree with this opinion. "Some people" may even be right.

Seriusly, guys. If you're going to put your faith in a legal argument, make sure that the legal argument actually has some basis in established law.

Re:Legal theory

[unity100]

what you are forgetting is that the courts in almost every country take another section of some other law seemingly irrelevant to the subject at hand and use it to sentence defendants, if so is desired.

Dangerous Nonsense.

[gnutoo]

You must believe that there's something wrong with sharing. You can talk about money and laws the industry has made up, but you are ultimately recommending control and censorship of the internet. Freedom for all should trump the ability of a few to make money through obsolete publication models. Really, how impressed should I be that fifty year old media is available on the internet? The case would be laughable if it did not have the potential to do so much harm.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[cliffski]

If you meet me for lunch and I have a side order of fries, and tell you to help yourself, that's sharing.

if I go out to work each day and work my ass off to make movies, and you go work as a plumber, and then I see you watch the movies I work at for free, yet expect me to pay you if you do some plumbing, then that isn't sharing, its called 'freeloading' or 'leeching'.

But any sensible discussion about the moral rights to other peoples hard work here is fruitless. Someone has already been modded up for using the term 'MAFIAA', so its all downhill hero-worship of TPB from here on.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[bigmouth_strikes]

Below is the list of the copyrighted materials that the people behind The Pirate Bay are being sued for having helped being infringed upon.

At the time of the raid against TPB, most of these weren't even 2 years old I reckon. So even though I agree with the sentiment that "fifty year old media" probably should be available for free for the common good, I fail to see what your statement has to do with the pertaining issue.

Music:
  Backyard Babies record "Stockholm Syndrome"
  Joakim Thåströms record "Skebokvarnsv 209"
  Sophi Solmans record "A decade of Dreams"
  Emilia de Porets "A lifteime in a moment"
  Advance Patrols record "Aposteln"
  Amy Diamonds record "This is me now"
  Håkan Hellströms record "Nåt gammalt, nått nytt, nått lånat, nåt blått"
  Kents record "The hjärta & smärta EP"
  Lena Philipssons record "Han jobbar i affär"
  Max Peezays record "Discokommittén"
  Per Gessles record "Son of a plummer"
  Petters skivor "Mitt sjätte sinne", "Ronin" "Bananrepubliken" och "Petter"
  Snooks record "Snook, svett och tårar"
  Cardigans record "Don't blame your daughter"
  Cornelis record "Till sist"
  Robbie Williams "Intensive care"
  Beatles record "Let it be"
  Rasmus record "Hide from the sun"
  James Blunts record "Back to bedlam"
  Coldplays record "X&Y"
  David Bowies record "Reality"

Movies:
  "Den svaga punkten"
  "Afrikanen"
  "Pusher 3"
  "Mastermind"
  "Harry Potter & the goblet of fire"
  "The Pink Panther"
  "Prison Break, season I"
  "Syriana"
  "Walk the line"

Games:
  "Diablo 2"
  "World of warcraft-Invasion"
  "F.E.A.R."
  "Call of Duty 2"

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Thanshin]

if I go out to work each day and work my ass off to make movies, and you go work as a plumber, and then I see you watch the movies I work at for free, yet expect me to pay you if you do some plumbing, then that isn't sharing, its called 'freeloading' or 'leeching'. If I work one day as a cop for you and you pay me 100$ and then you work the same day singing a song and ask for 1,000,000$ rest assured I'll try to find a way of not paying you what you don't deserve.

And when I find that way, when you start whining that your predecessors were able to take much more money from mine than you do from me, I won't care.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[ultranova]

if I go out to work each day and work my ass off to make movies, and you go work as a plumber, and then I see you watch the movies I work at for free, yet expect me to pay you if you do some plumbing, then that isn't sharing, its called 'freeloading' or 'leeching'.

No, that is called "stupidity": you are making movies instead of plumbing even when you know that plumbing pays better, and then complaining about this fact. Coming to think about it, perhaps "insanity" would be a better word, because "stupidity" would indicate that you simply didn't realize that making movies instead of plumbing doesn't pay; you did, you simply chose to ignore this fact, and complained because reality refused to change.

"Leeching" would be you trying to pass laws which help you make moeny from movies but screw everyone else, such as making removal or "circumvention" of copy protection illegal.

There is no right to profit from your work. There is a right to try to profit from your work. The difference is subtle but very important; and frankly, I'm starting to get more than a bit sick of the copyright creeps demanding that all society and technology bend over backwards to help them profit.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Belial6]

Then if you take a drink of water that was delivered through the plumbing yet expect him to pay you for watching your movie, you are 'freeloading'. You are comparing copyright to work for hire. any analogy that tries to make them the same is fundamentally flawed. I also know that you have read plenty of posts that clearly point out to you that copyright was created for the benefit of the consumer, not the producer, so pretending like the producer is a victim is dishonest.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Jumphard]

How do you see enforcing the law by stopping people from stealing copyrighted goods as controlling and censoring the internet. Obsolete publications models? If you want, there are plenty of high-tech ways to download your music per song and pay for it as well.

Sharing? You aren't sharing, you are leeching. If it was sharing you'd be creating movies or music to put up there and making $0 for it as a living. Piss off, sharing.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[aproposofwhat]

There is no right to profit from your work. There is a right to try to profit from your work. The difference is subtle but very important; and frankly, I'm starting to get more than a bit sick of the copyright creeps demanding that all society and technology bend over backwards to help them profit.

Thankyou.

At last a succinct statement of how 'rights' in this context should operate.

Unfortunately, there's a system of laws that define rights, and it's severely broken where invisible property is concerned.

There's the right to exclusive distribution that's key to this case in particular, though I can't see how facilitating the possible infringement of copyright (is 'making available' without profiting really infringement, or just a spanner in the works of a failing business model?) amounts to actual infringement on behalf of the Pirate Bay.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

If I work one day as a cop for you and you pay me 100$ and then you work the same day singing a song and ask for 1,000,000$ rest assured I'll try to find a way of not paying you what you don't deserve.

Well if you had agreed to pay him to sing in the first place, then you deserve to be forced to pay him. I mean I assume the reason he owes you $100 for being a cop is because there was an agreement beforehand.

And when I find that way, when you start whining that your predecessors were able to take much more money from mine than you do from me, I won't care.

WTF? Well don't worry when you get yours for not living up to your part of the agreement, we won't care much about you either ;).

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

You're letting the facts get in the way of the prevailing rhetoric.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[gsslay]

Last time I checked a song wouldn't cost you 1,000,000$. In fact it wouldn't even cost you 1$.

So what's your point? That the same song is getting sold to other people too? How is that any of your business? Would you refuse to pay your cop if you found out they earned 900$ that same day in stock investments?

What people "deserve" is what the market is willing to pay them. If you can get people to pay you 1,000,000$ for a day's work, any kind of work, then that is what you "deserve". Any other way of measuring what people "deserve" doesn't fit into the economic system we all live by. Demanding musicians to somehow live by a whole other set of rules is unreasonable and won't work. Either we all find a new way of measuring what people "deserve" (and good luck with that), or we stop being big babies and accept that many people will earn more than what we personally believe they "deserve".

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[misleb]

If you meet me for lunch and I have a side order of fries, and tell you to help yourself, that's sharing.

But what if I made an exact copy of your fries using my own materials without altering the original in any way? And I ate the copy. What's that? Theft? Ha! If you cried theft and called the cops, the cops would come over and point out that your fries are getting cold.

Bottom line is that there is a fundamental difference between "intellectual" property and real tangible property. And until you recognize that, there can be no sensible discussion on this subject.

-matthew

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

There is no right to profit from your work. There is a right to try to profit from your work. The difference is subtle but very important; and frankly, I'm starting to get more than a bit sick of the copyright creeps demanding that all society and technology bend over backwards to help them profit.

Well actually by your argument, the music industry has the right to sue Pirate Bay and its owners into oblivion because they are using the court system to try to profit from their work.

Your absolutely right. The owner of any copyright has no right to force you to abide by the copyright - the judge does...

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[cliffski]

so if you are copying my fries, I will just wait till you get yours and copy yours. we will both get very very hungry waiting for someone else to actually buy the fries.

oh sorry, in your wondrous new world, its dumb bastards like me that have to go out and buy the fries, presumably with my hard earned money so you can sit on your ass waiting and ready to copy them.

tell me, who gets to be in the 'we get free fries' gang, and who is forced to be the honest ones who actually pay the chip-frier to do his job?

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Thanshin]

Last time I checked a song wouldn't cost you 1,000,000$. In fact it wouldn't even cost you 1$.
A cop doesn't cost you 100$/day.

So what's your point? That the same song is getting sold to other people too? How is that any of your business?
It's him who started the "I deserve money" argument, I'm simply arguing against it's sense.

What people "deserve" is what the market is willing to pay them. Ok. Following you reasoning: I'm not willing to pay him for his music, so he doesn't deserve my money.

If you can get people to pay you 1,000,000$ for a day's work, any kind of work, then that is what you "deserve". Following your reasoning: If he can't get me to pay for his music, then 0$ is what he deserves.

Any other way of measuring what people "deserve" doesn't fit into the economic system we all live by. ...And little by little you're starting to understand what everyone else already understood. Selling instances of a series of bits doesn't fit into the economic system we all live by.

Demanding musicians to somehow live by a whole other set of rules is unreasonable and won't work. Excuse me but who is demanding musicians anything at all?

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[ContractualObligatio]

The next time a singer asks you personally for a million dollars for a performance and expects to get paid, let us all know so that we can laugh at the singer for having all the brains of a small fish. I be curious if you even managed to find any reference at all to a singer being paid that kind of fee for singing a song.

And paying a cop directly is more like bribery - the normal method is for you to pay taxes to support the police. And I bet you don't support the idea of paying extra tax to support musicians, do you?

On balance, maybe it's you with the brains of a small fish if you think that's a good argument.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[downix]

I, too, work in the movie industry. The issue is that movies, for good or ill, is not a service, it is a luxury item. Plumbing is a service, in the end you have something in your hand. A movie will leave you with memories. While yes you can have a physical component of the movie, it is not intrinsic to the artform itself.

Being an artform, it's value is dependent upon its audience itself. The best artists can demand the highest price. But the best artists also know that the art sells itself. If I demanded that someone buy my painting, but they cannot look at it, I would be given a very low value unless I had earned such high regards that people flocked for even a hair from my brush. file sharing is that viewing, like it or not. People like what they see, they will pay for it. If you cannot trust in the value of your art, then you are in the wrong business.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[debatem1]

Well if you had agreed to pay him to sing in the first place, then you deserve to be forced to pay him. Well, that's the issue isn't it? I don't agree that you have a right to the profits of the past based on a concept of property that no longer applies.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[ContractualObligatio]

So what you're saying is that everyone should make the safe choices in life, not for instance start an innovative business that isn't guaranteed to make money? What a sad, pathetic vision you have of life.

Paying a few bucks for something you enjoy is bending over backwards? You're just piling on the pathetic today!

Now on to pathetic logic:

There is no right to profit from your work. There is a right to try to profit from your work. The difference is subtle but very important; and frankly, I'm starting to get more than a bit sick of the copyright creeps demanding that all society and technology bend over backwards to help them profit.

So what's the difference between trying a case in a court of law and trying to profit from your work? The difference is subtle but not important - it boils down to exactly the same thing. You have a right to charge for your work. People may or may not pay, consequently you may or may not make a profit. But if a business sets itself up to profit from your work without paying, then there are courts to enforce your right to charge for that work.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of idiots like you demanding that society and the courts bend over backwards to support these companies. If The Pirate Bay can't figure out how to make a profit without screwing someone else, let them go out of business. They have no right to profit, remember?

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[autophile]

Either we all find a new way of measuring what people "deserve" (and good luck with that), or we stop being big babies and accept that many people will earn more than what we personally believe they "deserve".

Or, we all work towards the Singularity and do away with "deserve" and "earn" completely. But I admit, I'm biased :)

--Rob

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[misleb]

so if you are copying my fries, I will just wait till you get yours and copy yours. we will both get very very hungry waiting for someone else to actually buy the fries.

But you've already bought the fries in my hypothetical situation. We both eat. Nobody is victimized. Where's the problem? Is the problem that you feel like a sucker for paying a premium for "geniune" fries?

oh sorry, in your wondrous new world, its dumb bastards like me that have to go out and buy the fries, presumably with my hard earned money so you can sit on your ass waiting and ready to copy them.

If you like, we could all chip (no pun intended) in and buy an original and make copies of that. Would that make you feel better? Hell, we don't even have to buy an original physical item. A recipe will do.

tell me, who gets to be in the 'we get free fries' gang, and who is forced to be the honest ones who actually pay the chip-frier to do his job? Oh, that's a new one! Now I'm not only cheating YOU but I'm also cheating the chip-fryer by denying him/her the opportunity to make fries for me? Is that like like cheating a carpenter by doing my own home improvements/construction? Since when am I morally obligated to pay someone to do work for me that I could just as easily do myself?

See how ridiculous the argument against "piracy" becomes when you apply it to physical objects and personal services? It doesn't work. And it only works as an economic (as opposed to moral) argument when you apply it to intellectual property. In other words, we enforce copyright and patents because they serve an economic purpose... not because there is some moral obligation to honor intellectual property. You can't steal an idea. It just can't be done unless you take the extra step of denying the creator access to the idea somehow. And I know of no common 'piracy' practice that actually deletes the hard drives of the creators.

-matthew

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[hesiod]

> who is forced to be the honest ones who actually pay the chip-frier to do his job?

No one. But some people may choose to pay the advertised price because they get the original fries, complete with the carton they came in and the free toy (maybe a video of the fries being made). Not to mention the original fries taste a bit better than the copied ones...

Don't we all love analogies?

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[VisceralLogic]

Well if you had agreed to pay him to sing in the first place, then you deserve to be forced to pay him. Well, that's the issue isn't it? I don't agree that you have a right to the profits of the past based on a concept of property that no longer applies. But there are an awful lot of people who make creative works for the express purpose of selling them. Take away this "concept of property that no longer applies" and they lose their incentive. Suddenly the world is a lot poorer place.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I don't agree that you have a right to the profits of the past based on a concept of property that no longer applies.

Yep that's the issue. You believe that the concept of property no longer applies to digital works, but your beliefs are yet to be founded. Just because you believe in something, doesn't make it true...

Despite your (and some other vocal file sharers) beliefs, the current law is not on your side. Just because the internet gives you the ability to do something, that ability does not come with inherent rights.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Alsee]

so if you are copying my fries, I will just wait till you get yours and copy yours. we will both get very very hungry waiting for someone else to actually buy the fries.

Wow, you seriously dont' get it. The fact that you even thought of the line "we will both get very very hungry" shows just how totally out of touch your mindset and concepts are here. Just thinking of it shows your mental model here is a mess, and thinking it VALID and somehow thinking it argument winning.... just... wow.

I've already got fries sitting in my freezer, along with a fair quantity and variety of other food. And I have absolutely no objection to anyone who would like to make all the copies they like my food. And you are seriously lost if you think a few billion other people wouldn't be equally happy to allow me to copy from whatever food they have around.

It is blatantly comical to call it "stealing" or "theft" if someone copies from my fries.

It is quite funny you imagined anyone would go hungry.

And yes, new food will still be created for a variety of reasons, some people will do it for free for a variety of reasons and yes some will get paid in a variety of ways to do so.

Yes, there is an interesting question of whether we want to do anything to encourage an MORE new food to be cooked up. Getting more new kinds of food is a swell thing, and it might even be worth arranging some sort of plan to encourage it. But as the prior poster said, "Bottom line is that there is a fundamental difference between "intellectual" property and real tangible property. And until you recognize that, there can be no sensible discussion on this subject. "

If you are incapable of understanding and reasonably thinking about the subject, then there is absolutely no point in bothering in any discussion with you at all on cost-benefits of any particular means we may or may not feel appropriate to maybe encourage more people to increase the supply of new food for us to copy.

-

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[chappel]

I don't have a problem with the actor getting paid to make the movie, but why should he KEEP getting paid every time the movie is viewed? Would you agree to give $5 to the plumber every time you flush the toilet? Another $2 every time you turn on the tap at your kitchen sink? A monthly fee per faucet? For the lifetime of the plumber, plus 100 years? The plumber gets a cut when you sell the house - or worse, you can't sell the house - because you are only paying for the 'right' to live in it, not re-sell it, even though you *paid* for it? Pay extra for more than five guests to use your plumbing? You can pour water into a cup - but not a canteen? I sure wish I could get paid every time a bit goes through one of the switches I've configured, for the rest of my life, plus 100 years. This doesn't feel right without a car analogy... would you pay GM every time you pull your car out of the garage?

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[debatem1]

My beliefs are perfectly well founded- it is obvious enough that intellectual property and physical property must be treated differently. What we disagree on is not *that* it should be treated differently, but *how* it should be treated differently. I say that works of thought should be recognized as essentially uncontrollable, and that rather than trying to fight the tide the law should treat them as fundamentally belonging to the public, which is the clear intent of Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. This ends the strange divergence of ownership and possession that characterizes imaginary property, something that the RIAA and MPAA are desperately avoiding.
You on the other hand are effectively arguing that IP should be treated differently because possession of physical property involves certain rights over it; rights like transference (and dictating the terms thereof) and unlimited use, as well as responsibility for any subsequent changes in value. Just as an example, you probably don't think I should be able to remix and resell 'your' song, but repainting and reselling 'my' Ford is probably ok.
I think that's just a nice line of BS. I think that in the rush to buy senators, certain groups have overlooked the long-standing protections granted to the consumer in Constitutional and common law, and honestly, I think its a fool's game to pretend that its the file sharers who are somehow trying to renegotiate the deal. Bottom line is, everybody's trying to change the terms, and until its decided- see you in court.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[EvolutionsPeak]

Ok. Following you reasoning: I'm not willing to pay him for his music, so he doesn't deserve my money.

Following your reasoning: If he can't get me to pay for his music, then 0$ is what he deserves. You are not the market, therefore you were not following his reasoning.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[debatem1]

I'm a software developer and F/OSS consultant. I make my living off of writing code that's available for free, because I am the person best able to implement it in a given environment, add features, and fix it if something goes wrong. I also sell support services for other projects (here, if anybody is interested) and give we're starting a program to give back between 10 and 20 percent of the value of any bid to the project that generated it.
Long story short: paying for people gets you what you want when you want it. Paying for imaginary property gets your ropes made of sand.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[VisceralLogic]

I'm a software developer and F/OSS consultant. I make my living off of writing code that's available for free, because I am the person best able to implement it in a given environment, add features, and fix it if something goes wrong. I also sell support services for other projects (here, if anybody is interested) and give we're starting a program to give back between 10 and 20 percent of the value of any bid to the project that generated it.
Long story short: paying for people gets you what you want when you want it. Paying for imaginary property gets your ropes made of sand. That's great for you, but not universally applicable. For example, consider the Harry Potter series. Although I would hardly classify this as fine literature, millions of people have obtained considerable enjoyment from reading these books. But, it seems fairly clear J.K. Rowling is in it for the money. If you get rid of IP, she doesn't write the books, and the millions of people who found they valued the books more than their money don't get the enjoyment they do with copyrights.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[ozphx]

Britney Spears gets the $50 she deserves. The RIAA member that paid for the massive massive publicity, paid of MTV and generally invested millions should get the ROI they deserve too.

The people that paid for it get what they deserve too.....

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[iamwahoo2]

Exactly, if we could copy food and send it over a phone line, we would not have world hunger. Unless of course we allowed our governments to create artificial restrictions on the distribution of food copies so that farmers could continue to work and get paid for a service which would be completely unnecessary.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I say that works of thought should be recognized as essentially uncontrollable, and that rather than trying to fight the tide the law should treat them as fundamentally belonging to the public, which is the clear intent of Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. This ends the strange divergence of ownership and possession that characterizes imaginary property, something that the RIAA and MPAA are desperately avoiding.

What make music, movies, ebooks, and software imaginary property? They exist in the physical world. They exists as 1's and 0's which are represented as two distinct physical states (high charge/low charge, fully reflective/not-so reflective, etc.) not to mention entertaining versus silence. For example, let's say we have music in a MP3 file named SONG. You either have SONG or you don't. You didn't manually play the SONG into your computer, you downloaded it. You went from not having SONG, to having a perfect copy of the SONG. Duplication is not unique to SONG, objects in the physical can be copied without destroying the original. It's just much easier and cheaper to copy digital entities than physical entities. So other than not being able to touch the 1's and 0's, what makes SONG imaginary? Is print in a book imaginary property? Is a book (or SONG) more imaginary than a car? Both were a result of someone thinking hey I can create this...

Now the knowledge to read, compose and play music, fishing technique, and math can be thought as imaginary property. You can use math to describe a physical entity, but that doesn't make math physical in itself. General knowledge can't be controlled.

I can boil down your argument into "Easy Duplication = No Property Rights". This is a ridiculous metric and why we have copyright. Copyright is suppose to protect creators' work from easy duplication. After all, if it was impossible to duplicate it wouldn't need copyright protection. Just like the constitution protects unpopular speech, since popular opinion doesn't really need protection.

You on the other hand are effectively arguing that IP should be treated differently because possession of physical property involves certain rights over it; rights like transference (and dictating the terms thereof) and unlimited use, as well as responsibility for any subsequent changes in value. Just as an example, you probably don't think I should be able to remix and resell 'your' song, but repainting and reselling 'my' Ford is probably ok.

Well let's look at your Ford. Ford made money off the manufacture of that vehicle, since I assume someone purchased that Ford for you. Also, you have only one Ford and when you resell that Ford you transferred ownership of that Ford. I think you should be able to remix and resell 'my' song, but you should only sell the one copy and destroy the original after you make the sell. I'm sure if you were able to cheaply mass produce that Ford and sell it as your own... Maybe Ford will object. In fact, I think they recently issued a cease and decease order to a Mustang enthusiast group making a calendar with pictures of vintage mustangs.

I think that's just a nice line of BS. I think that in the rush to buy senators, certain groups have overlooked the long-standing protections granted to the consumer in Constitutional and common law, and honestly, I think its a fool's game to pretend that its the file sharers who are somehow trying to renegotiate the deal. Bottom line is, everybody's trying to change the terms

Funny I think the file sharers have a flimsy line of BS. I also think it's funny that when someone disagree with a law it's because a senator was bribed. Maybe, just maybe, they represent the views of their constituents. Of course, newspapers that you disagree with are biased, and posters you disagree with are astroturfers. I applaud you for not falling into the later trap, since I am just a poster who happens to disagree.. Personally I think disagreement is great, since it's though disagreement that new ideas and opinions are formed.

, and until its decided- see you in court.

Who said I was going to court?

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[debatem1]

I don't see why J.K. Rowlings would be unable to make a comfortable living off of her books in a patronage-style environment. I believe it was Radiohead that tried a donation-based experiment that turned out pretty well, and of course the Harry Potter series was popular enough that I can virtually guarantee that somebody would be willing to pay up to make sure the next book got made. Hell, if I could have gotten the last book a few days earlier I would've paid three times what I did for it (granted that I would have subsequently regretted it three times as much, but thats another story) and I'm sure there are others out there that would have done a LOT more. Then there's the fact that people still love books- literal, physical books- and of course only she can supply the first printing, which has got to be worth something. I guess what I'm getting at is that while it would be a very different environment for artists and writers, it would by no means be an impossible one. We would probably not see the superstars of today as much without advertising machines churning out promos, but pretty clearly theres a diverse market, and especially if you can cultivate an ethic of contribution I think it could work well.
I'd also like to point out that its good to have a civil discussion about this issue. I appreciate the tone of interest rather than hostility, and honestly wish that more such conversations could be carried out as part of our civic discourse, so, thank you for that.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[debatem1]

I think you should be able to remix and resell 'my' song, but you should only sell the one copy and destroy the original after you make the sell. At the risk of sounding flippant, and I'm not, its one of the more reasonable things I've heard today, enforcing PAYGO rules on imaginary property is every bit as silly as trying to run 'cp' on my truck.

As far as CD's being ones and zeros, its presence on physical media is easily controlled, but that is not the defining standard of its existence, since the original point of a song is to be listened to by humans and humans can't readily perceive it in that format. Once you say that both the track on the CD and the .mp3 are the same thing, then we're talking intellectual property. I don't have a problem with people controlling the flow of CDs- if you produce it and somebody walks out of a store without paying for it, that's theft. But if you try to say that playing a CD for fifty people without getting prior consent is an equivalent theft, I just don't see how. I bought the CD, it's mine, just like I bought my car- and by the way, if I give rides to 50 people in the course of a day in my car, Ford doesn't sue me for it, even if I am enabling those wretched leechers to get the benefits of a car without buying one.

As far as copyright being put into place to prevent easy copies from being made, you're right- and for the same reason that the Wars on Drugs, Poverty, and Illegal Immigration will fail, so will the War on Copying Easily Copied Things. We're doing battle with the tide and acting all surprised when the water's lapping at our ears. We need to cut our losses, get out of the way of the market, and let it handle this issue- if the people want your music, theyll wind up paying for it one way or another. If the people don't want your music, why is the government propping the industry up?

Listen, we're not going to agree here, so let's be civil at least. I am not going to agree that anybody has the right to tell me how when or for whom I play the music I buy, and you're not going to agree that John Q. Public should be born with the right to the entire canon of literature, but I hope that we can at least agree that the current legal and moral structures in place do not provide adequate guidance on this new and important set of issues. I hope we can both see that the current situation is unnecessarily burdensome on both the artists and the public, and that it does not provide sufficient protection for the interests of either- and it is my fervent hope that a compromise can be found outside of the rules of zero-sum economics. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[VisceralLogic]

Certainly I imagine she would make some money. But in a patronage society, you have to tailor your works to attract wealthy patrons, and they may not always be so enjoyed by the population at large.

Also, without copyright, the works can be redistributed largely and cheaply, without payment of any royalties, making profits for publishers very small. I think books would be printed in only very small editions.

I'd also like to point out that its good to have a civil discussion about this issue. I appreciate the tone of interest rather than hostility, and honestly wish that more such conversations could be carried out as part of our civic discourse, so, thank you for that. Indeed. While I disagree with your position, I respect it.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[debatem1]

I do agree with your comment about wealthy patrons and the tailoring of works. It is a serious problem, and while its trajectory is somewhat self-limiting (in order to be discovered, you must be broadly likable, in order to be sponsored, you must be narrowly loved, and so on), that isn't as true in, say, movies as it is in software. Having said that, I think that the potential biasing of media is probably as significant an issue now as it would be then- meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
As far as small print runs, I think thats a maybe. On the one hand, we've all paid for books that are free from IP restrictions (like Shakespeare) and those are printed in huge volume for large profit, but on the other hand it could also encourage a market for specialized, one-of-a-kind books and printings of books. I'm not sure if the latter is good or bad, but I suspect that one way or another its what we're going to get.
The big thing here is that while the questions of who gets how much money will get shifted around, there are ways to protect the interests of the general public in its collective works and still allow quite a bit of money to be made while doing it- but anymore I find myself thinking that if we aren't careful we could wind up going down a long and painful route before winding up at that point anyway.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Saint Fnordius]

Oh, how little you know. The "1's and 0's which are represented as two distinct physical states" you reference as "existing in the real world" are marks on the media, and were never taken. Instead, somebody arranged another set of states on a separate piece of media to imitate those bits.

Put another way, Magritte was right. It was not a pipe. It was a picture of a pipe.

Consider it this way: if you copy a poem by hand that you see on a poster, have you taken the poster? No, it is still there. But a person hoping to sell the poster will now complain that you didn't pay him for the poster, because you took the information. What the Pirate Bay did was even murkier, as they didn't even let you make copies of anything, really: they merely told you where you could find people willing to let you make a copy of information they have.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Oh, how little you know. The "1's and 0's which are represented as two distinct physical states" you reference as "existing in the real world" are marks on the media, and were never taken. Instead, somebody arranged another set of states on a separate piece of media to imitate those bits.

Oh I know.. ;)

Just like when you xerox a page from a book. your not taking ink away from that book, instead you are arranging toner on a seperate piece of media to imitate the ink impressions. Or when you copy a "widget", your not taking material from that "widget" instead you are arranging another material to imitate the size, shape, and physical properties of that widget.

So now that we all know what duplication means, how does this make MP3's less protected by copyright than say a printed book? It's called COPYright, and the idea that the original entity isn't harmed is just bullshit (plain and simple). Who cares if the original item was changed, if the duplicated item can be sold or given away and it affects the sale of the original item? This is why we have copyright.

Now what Pirate Bay was to facilitate piracy. They are a general purpose search engine or forum. They flaunt the fact that they are facilitators of piracy. Hell they even named themselves Pirate Bay!

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[gsslay]

Ok. Following you reasoning: I'm not willing to pay him for his music, so he doesn't deserve my money. Fine. He doesn't get your money. But you are not willing to pay for the music, yet still expect to be given it. That makes you a free-loader.

Following your reasoning: If he can't get me to pay for his music, then 0$ is what he deserves. Also fine. But you are not alone in the market. If he can't get anyone to pay then he stops making music and gets another job. No more music from him. Either he isn't any good, or is unfortunate to have a fan-base of free-loaders.

It's not hard to follow. If no-one pays the musician, then he stops making the music. If you are taking the music without paying then you are free-loading off those who are paying. Justifying not paying on the grounds that they're getting plenty from elsewhere is exactly the kind of self-serving bullshit free-loaders come up with.

Selling instances of a series of bits doesn't fit into the economic system we all live by. So what incentive are you going to give people to keep putting new "series of bits" together? Or are you a fan of random white noise?

No-one's pretending that there isn't a problem here, but just because people can easily breech copyright doesn't make it right. Pointing out a weaknesses in the system, and then using that as a justification for exploiting the weakness, is just the kind of self-serving bullshit free-loaders come up with.

Excuse me but who is demanding musicians anything at all? You are demanding they deliver a service for your pleasure, but not to expect anything back from you in return.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[gsslay]

The artist is paid over and over again for "virtual performances" that don't involve any actual work I'm sorry, but unless you're getting your music on pay-per-listen you are talking rot. You buy the CD/MP3 once. You listen to it over and over again without any further payment.

What the artist is getting from others is none of your business.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense.

[Saint Fnordius]

I am glad to see you did not take too much umbrage at my comment.

Still, I refuse to call an infringement on another's right to make copies "theft". If anything, it is more like "trespassing", or a milder form of bootlegging. Making something without permission. And that is also why I refuse to call it "piracy", as it has little to do with what men in small boats with machetes and machine guns are doing today.

But no, I don't think audio files are more or less deserving of protection than the written word. Part of why I choose to use books as my main example is to highlight that I treat all art equal, no matter the media. However, I do think copyrights, the duration of copyrights and the definition of fair use need to be re-examined to consider the needs of the audience and the artist, not just the publisher. The natural desire of the artist is to see his work make available, but the publisher's natural desire is to hoard. For far too we have let the hoarders steer legislation.

I find it incredibly amusing...

[s_p_oneil]

...that the damages being sought are less than the RIAA demanded from that woman who downloaded a few songs. I mean, $200K apiece for 4 people? I'll bet if they asked people to make Paypal donations to help them pay their legal fees and/or fines (while keeping the site up), they'd get millions pretty quickly. A lot of people would pay to keep a service like that up.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[RattFink]

The $200k is a court fine not civil damages.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[Pofy]

>...that the damages being sought are less than the RIAA demanded from that woman who downloaded a few songs.

This is a criminal case. It doesn't include any damages payable to the plaintiff. The $200,000 mentioned is not really a fine but rather the ammount of money the prosecutor claim is their gain on the activity which they would then have to pay in addition to any actual fine or prison sentence they might get.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[Krofinzki]

It's actually $200K split between them, so $50K apiece :)

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[s_p_oneil]

That makes it even funnier. I apologize for not taking the time to RTFA, but I'm at work. ;-) And to everyone else who applied to me, I understand that they're not civil damages. It doesn't make it less amusing.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[sukotto]

...that the damages being sought are less than the RIAA demanded from that woman who downloaded a few songs. I mean, $200K apiece for 4 people? I guess it really true that everything is better in Sweden :-)

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[necromaedian]

From a torrent freak article http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-team-charged-080131/: "The prosecution claims the site generates annual ad revenue of more than $4 million." Shouldn't take long to get over it then...

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Actually its not court fines. It's illegal gains. It's the money 'earned' by selling ads on Pirate Bay.

Like a bank robber are not allowed to keep the money he robs from the bank, the people behind Pirate Bay arent allowed to keep money gotten while doing something illegal.

The sum is the total of all invoices for ads on Pirate Bay which was found as part of the raid of Pirate bay offices.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[flynn23]

That's a great idea because it would prove that there's an actual business model to be had here. One that the content industries should've pursued on their own instead of suing their customers.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[jedidiah]

It's still an amount that's supposed to be related to the activity.

The US statutory damage amount is also supposed to be loosely
related to the ethereal possible damages involved in a particular
copyright infringement. It's like a shorthand for when the RIAA
is too lazy to come up with an actual number (real or imagined).

It's a similar concept and could be similarly abused if not
treated seriously.

This 200K may be no more legitimate.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[Em Adespoton]

That's not how I read it -- it looks to me like they get fined their 25,000 euros apiece and have all their equipment confiscated. Of course, I'm not sure what "all their equipment" would be, as the site is no longer hosted by them in Sweden. Does it mean that their entire web hosting business is going to be confiscated? Every piece of electronic equipment they own? If either, this would be WAY more costly than the monetary fine.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[Pofy]

>That's not how I read it

From the case filed to the court (in Swedish):

"a) solidariskt värdeförverkande från dels Svartholm Warg, dels Neij, dels
Kolmisoppi Sunde och dels Lundström av 1 200 000 kr såsom utbyte av brott."

Note that it is not really divided by 4, it is a collective demand so one can go after whoever has the money.

As you note, in addition, their equipment would be confiscated, the actual equipment is listed in the filed case by the way (or rather, a record of all the quipment is reffered to). It is basically the equipment siezed during the raid, not anything else they might have then or now.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[Pofy]

>It's still an amount that's supposed to be related to the activity.

Yes, and as evidence a bunch of invoices are presented accumulating to the ammount. I have not read the details but it seems the sum of them ammounts to the listed sum of 1,2 million SEK. Of course, one has to show that they were all related to the claimed illegal activity and not something else.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[Em Adespoton]

Thank you for the clarification. This makes a lot more sense.

It should probably also be pointed out that some of the equipment seized during the raid had nothing at all to do with TBP, but was part of their network hosting company only (hosting other legitimate businesses and non-profits).

This smacks of the "Drug Busts" in the US where all sorts of property has been confiscated by the police as it was seized for evidence and then kept by the police/municipality after the person was convicted of possession of narcotics.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[Poromenos1]

They weren't doing anything illegal.

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[Poromenos1]

A lot of people would pay to keep a service like that up. Hmm, a lot of people would pay to download stuff at their convenience... Interesting!

Now if only the retards at the *AAs got the point...

Re:I find it incredibly amusing...

[s_p_oneil]

That's why it's so amusing. After reading about the enormous sums of money they're suing regular people for, and the piddling amount the Pirate Bay founders are being fined, it's like adding insult to injury.

FYI, if I want to watch an NBC show, I watch it on nbc.com. That company really seems to get it. Their service isn't perfect, but it's the best I've seen so far that's perfectly legal. People don't even have to pay for it, and the commercial breaks are much shorter than if you'd watched it on TV. They're so short I can't even take a leak during one.

Legit uses for The Pirate Bay?

[MobyDisk]

Is there anything legit on The Pirate Bay? Yeah, I know they don't choose the content to go on it, but I'm just curious.

Re:Legit uses for The Pirate Bay?

[tecmec]

Yeah, there are. One example that comes to mind is game patches. On a few occasions I have torrented patches that weren't offered as a torrent from the software vendor. Sure, there are about 50 gameing sites that offer the download....but at a ridiculously slow speed.

Re:Legit uses for The Pirate Bay?

[DocMAME]

Another example are 'mods' and trackpacks that are available for ISI's rFactor Racing Simulator. These files are end-user created and freely distributable. Many are too large for direct downloads from standard fileserver services, but can thrive via the BitTorrent protocol and search engines like PirateBay.

Ho ho ho, this is BAD

[BlueParrot]

IANAL but as far as I know the police in Sweden is not actually allowed to search your property unless the crime you're accused for is serious enough that it could result in a prison sentence... So what they are basically saying is the police broke the law?

Re:Ho ho ho, this is BAD

[mmcuh]

It was the prosecutor who ordered the raid in 2006, on the grounds that The Pirate Bay was committing copyright infringement, though he knew full well that he would never be able to charge them with anything more serious than conspiracy to or accessory to copyright infringement - he even said so himself a few months before the raid. This was reported to the Swedish watchdog authorities, who dropped the case after asking the police and the prosecutor "You didn't do anything wrong, did you?" and getting the response "No, of course not" (in a few more words).

Re:Ho ho ho, this is BAD

[Ahruman]

A number of things about the raid are legally questionable. However, there's no requirement in Swedish law that evidence be obtained legally. Evidence is accepted at the judge's discretion.

Re:Ho ho ho, this is BAD

[mmcuh]

Unfortunately not. Under Swedish law there is no such thing as illegal evidence - anything may be presented as evidence, even if it was illegally obtained.

Re:Ho ho ho, this is BAD

[dave420]

I don't know about the law, but what about copyright infringement for monetary gain? That's a criminal offense in some countries (the UK), and can result in being imprisoned.

Re:Ho ho ho, this is BAD

[Kiralan]

Is it relevant that the 'monetary gain' is not from the users of TPB as subscribers, but from advertisers, which are likely not the users of the site? Also, on the Google vs TPB searching ability; assuming there is no record of which bittorrent 'links' are actually used vs what is offered, how do they determine the ratio of infringing vs non-infringing activity? It seems they would need to show this, to differentiate between Google allowing searching for copyright-infringing torrents, and TPB doing so. Outside of their (copyright holders) own usage of the link in downloading files as 'evidence', they appear to have no proof the links are actually used.

Re:Ho ho ho, this is BAD

[BlueParrot]

Unfortunately not. Under Swedish law there is no such thing as illegal evidence - anything may be presented as evidence, even if it was illegally obtained.

It is still worth to point out as the judge is also allowed to take such things into consideration. I.e, it doesn't mean the evidence is inadmissible, but it could very well have consequences for the outcome of the trial.

Re:Ho ho ho, this is BAD

[StargateSteve]

Is this coming as a surprise? The cops broke the law? NO WAY! What would happen to them, arrest?

This will have consequences for all search engines

[zerofoo]

I've found pirated material via Google, Yahoo, Teoma, Altavista, and others. If courts world-wide decide that search engines that merely index and catalog illegal or copyrighted material can be held liable for the trade of illegal or copyrighted material, then that will be a HUGE problem for every company that has search as its core business.

What about hiring a prostitute from an escort/dating service listed in the phonebook? Can the publishers of the phonebook be charged as accomplices to the crime?

This case will have profound consequences for anyone in the search or directory business.

-ted

Re:Done their homework?

[bigmouth_strikes]

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.

Accessories

[cunamara]

Downloading copyrighted material is theft under the law. Helping people to do this is being an accessory to a crime. As much as we like to bitch about how draconian current copyright laws are, they are still the laws. We should not be astonished when laws are enforced. Nobody has the legal right to download "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" without paying the copyright holders for it. But that's just what PirateBay and others help people to do.

Violating the laws to try to get them change- as some people promote- is a stupid strategy. All it does is harden the positions of copyright holders, lawmakers and courts against such actions. People like PirateBay are not freedom fighters.

Copyright law- particularly in the US- has been stretched out of all reasonable proportion with significant cost to the public wellbeing. Part of this is due to the prevailing right-wing belief that there are no public goods, only private goods, and a belief in the values of private opulence and public squalor as J Kenneth Galbraith put it. If we want to overcome this and get the laws changed to something reasonable, we're not going to do it by breaking the laws. We have to do what the copyright holders did: make our case in a clear and convincing fashion to the people who write the laws.

Re:Accessories

[mmcuh]

Downloading copyrighted material without the copyright owner's permission is copyright infringement under the law. Though it was legal in Sweden until some 30 months ago. It is in no way theft, which is regulated by a completely different law.

Helping people distribute digital data may be construed as accessory to crime, depending on the intent and the methods. I doubt that Microsoft are going to get charged with accessory to copyright infringement, though most people illegally distributing and downloading copyrighted material on the internet probably use Windows. I doubt that the Azureus or KTorrent authors are going to get charged with the same thing (even though I imagine the copyright industry lobbyists would love it). You can use Windows to distribute free and non-free data. You can use Azureus and KTorrent to distribute free and non-free data. You can use The Pirate Bay to distribute free and non-free data.

The Pirate Bay themselves claim that they are not breaking any laws. The prosecutor who is handling the case has claimed the same thing - a few months before the raid in 2006 he wrote a report where he said that running a BitTorrent tracker was not illegal under current Swedish law. It would be silly for everyone to voluntarily stay far away from any action that could be interpreted by someone somewhere as being just a little illegal.

Re:Accessories

[Ahruman]

Downloading copyrighted material is theft under the law.

No. Downloading copyrighted material without permission is copyright infringement under the law (for various values of "the" law, of course). They are (in Swedish law, as well as US law, and most if not all others) completely different and unrelated offences regulated by different laws, which are motivated by different concerns.

Helping people to do this is being an accessory to a crime.

This has not yet been established by a court (in Sweden). Or rather, it has not been established that this constitutes "helping" in a relevant sense.

Nobody has the legal right to download "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" without paying the copyright holders for it.

Wrong. It is entirely possible for a copyright holder to grant a license of a work without receiving payment. There may also be contexts in which a license is not required. For instance, see Law 1960:729 (amended), 16 , paragraph 1, point 1. Wait, you're not familiar with Swedish copyright law? So why are you making categorical assertions about it?

Re:Accessories

[coppro]

Downloading copyrighted material is theft under the law. Regardless of what the MPAA and RIAA attempt to inform you of, it isn't. Downloading of copyrighted material is copyright infringement. There is a distinction under just about every legal code in the world.

As much as we like to bitch about how draconian current copyright laws are, they are still the laws. We should not be astonished when laws are enforced. The laws are not being properly enforced here.

Nobody has the legal right to download "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" without paying the copyright holders for it. I live in Canada. According to a Supreme Court ruling, I do.

But that's just what PirateBay and others help people to do. Sure enough. But in Sweden, what they're doing is illegal if and only if they receive monetary gain.

Violating the laws to try to get them change- as some people promote- is a stupid strategy. It's happened before; it will happen again.

All it does is harden the positions of copyright holders, lawmakers and courts against such actions. People like PirateBay are not freedom fighters. The problem is not whether file sharing should be legal. I think that it would be naive to say that most file sharers believe that what they are doing is truly correct. However, the fundamental problem is that society cannot correctly regulate it. Example: prohibition of alcohol. (in the US) It didn't work. It was too difficult to enforce, and it was causing massive problems. It was eventually repealed. The fundamental issue is not that filesharing is right, it's the people who think they can stop it.

Copyright law- particularly in the US- has been stretched out of all reasonable proportion with significant cost to the public wellbeing. Part of this is due to the prevailing right-wing belief that there are no public goods, only private goods, and a belief in the values of private opulence and public squalor as J Kenneth Galbraith put it. Too true.

If we want to overcome this and get the laws changed to something reasonable, we're not going to do it by breaking the laws. Showing that something is broken is the best way to get it fixed. To use a cliché: the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

We have to do what the copyright holders did: make our case in a clear and convincing fashion to the people who write the laws. They have not made their case clear. They've used underhanded tactics, overstated their losses, and gone to great pains to ensure that world governments cooperate with them. This is not tenable in the long run - the RIAA are lobbying so hard that they are alienating the very people who will someday be in the government, making the laws.

The Pirate Bay also hosts many legal files. Just as it is unreasonable for a government to require ISPs to require filtering of the content that passes through them, it is unreasonable for them to expect a website to properly filter what passes through them. All that COPPA did was make it so that 11-year olds need to click a button saying that they're 13 to use the Internet - regulation will fail. The RIAA, the MPAA, and most governments of the world fail to realize this. That is what the TPB people are trying to change.

Re:Accessories

[ratboy666]

"Downloading copyrighted material is theft under the law. Helping people to do this is being an accessory to a crime."

No, downloading copyrighted material is not theft under the law. It *may* be copyright infringement. If you are making a copy. Even THAT is arguable -- either the downloader is making the copy, or the person who is hosting the material is making a copy.

In some jurisdictions the act of "uploading" is copyright infringement. Downloading? Perfectly ok (actually, I think that holds in the US as well).

Or, the material is copyrighted, but the copy has been authorized.

Is running an on-line bulletin board with advertisements against the law? Not in my jurisdiction. As long as that service does not have child pornography, or incite people to hate crimes. If "The Pirate Bay" is found guilty, and that prosecution holds, then *I* could be liable for statments like "If you want a free copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, go to google.com and enter the search phrase 'harry potter and the goblet of fire torrent'". The *first* item that comes up is a bittorrent.

There, I just broke your supposed law. And now we have to shut down ME, *and* GOOGLE.

Laws are absolute -- be very careful of what you wish for.

Re:Accessories

[Ahruman]

The Pirate Bay themselves claim that they are not breaking any laws. The prosecutor who is handling the case has claimed the same thing - a few months before the raid in 2006 he wrote a report where he said that running a BitTorrent tracker was not illegal under current Swedish law.

This is something of a myth. Having read the memo in question, what he actually said was that he doesn't see a significant chance of proving abetting/complicity (medhjälp) or "preparation" (förberedelse; collecting tools or information with the intent that they should be used in a crime, possibly by someone else) without a direct connection to a primary, i.e. someone being found guilty for copyright infringement using a torrent downloaded from The Pirate Bay. He also wrote that proving the latter was unfeasible under existing Swedish law. Nevertheless, since the current TPB case does not involve a primary, and misconduct for a prosecutor to press charges in a case he doesn't feel he has a good chance of winning, the memo is certainly relevant.

Re:Accessories

[mmcuh]

I stand collected. I was almost right though. :)

Re:Accessories

[dave420]

Copyright infringement is NOT theft under ANY western country's law. None. You said it yourself - it's "copyright infringement". Theft is the act of illegally depriving someone of something. "Harry Potter and the Whatever of Whatever" didn't magically disappear from the studio, stores, and cinemas when someone downloaded it.

Re:Accessories

[weierstrass]

Violating the laws to try to get them change- as some people promote- is a stupid strategy. All it does is harden the positions of copyright holders, lawmakers and courts against such actions.

Yeah, I think it was poor strategy for all those black people to try and register to vote, go to high school and university, ride buses, and sit at lunch counters to eat their sandwiches. They would have been much better off if they had just asked Governor George Wallace nicely, to end segregation. That way they wouldn't have pissed so many people off.

Re:Accessories

[kat_skan]

Are you seriously suggesting that everyone--or even anyone--who is downloading movies from the Pirate Bay is doing so as a form of public protest of the unreasonable terms of copyright law?

Re:Accessories

[cunamara]

Downloading copyrighted material without the copyright owner's permission is copyright infringement under the law. Though it was legal in Sweden until some 30 months ago. It is in no way theft, which is regulated by a completely different law.

A fair correction. However, if you take something that belongs to someone else without their permission and without paying for it, that is theft. It may not be legally classified as theft- that is purely a matter of how the relevant laws are written- but it is indeed theft in a practical and ethical sense. That was the perspective from which I was writing and I apologize for not being clear.

Letter and Spirit.

[headkase]

Bit's should be free in a perfect world but in the real world it takes effort to organize those bits and economics is a way to spread the effort around fairly. So, it's just a fact that when any torrent/warez site says they don't host the files they only link to them or metadata about them (torrents) that they are only obeying the letter of the law. The spirit of the law is that despite the occasional legal use for these sites the vast majority is based around infringement. As I see it, the distribution aspects of media are completely solved: bittorrent is king. What is underdeveloped is a compensation system and it is that way because it requires the cooperation of the industry and banks. If Limewire had a little button next to an mp3 that I could click on and have 30 cents securely debited out of my account magically reaching the artist then I think the outcry would be lessened. The current payment systems for the 'net like credit-cards or money-orders are just too unwieldy and are not suitable for small and frequent transactions. Solve that bit and I know at least in my case I would pay. So, we have a universal distribution system we just need a universal compensation system.

Yes

[BlueParrot]

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3697881/ubuntu-7.04-server-i386.iso

I'm sure there are more examples.

Re:Yes

[satoshi1]

You never did have to, but if you did then the link that the grandparent posted would be illegal instead of being merely legal.

Re:Yes

[jopsen]

I don't see them distributing the source... - Lets sue them for violation of GPL :)

Re:They look pretty hearty to me

[Ahruman]

"The last raid" is what lead to this indictment.

How else with the **AA make money...

[dada21]

...but by lawsuits?

Honestly, I think The Pirate Bay is the best thing to happen. Because of it, we've gotten rid of cable TV. My wife and I will download a TV show or a movie before we buy it, watch a few episodes or minutes, and then go and buy the legit copy. The Pirate Bay is today's equivalent to reruns or syndication for television shows, or Blockbuster or NetFlix for the movie industry. The monopolists are just mad because they lose control over which productions to push and which to let fall by the wayside. Even better, torrent search sites also replace Nielsen for rating what is popular. I can find the latest popular movies just by sorting by seeds, and because of this I have purchased about 40 movies that I would NEVER have even heard of. Heck, the wife and I actually bought the Bourne trilogy because of The Pirate Bay -- the TV commercials and trailers were so bad that we would never have even thought of it.

Am I a pirate? In some ways, yes, but we own tens of thousands of dollars worth of music, TV DVDs, and movies, and I attribute it solely to being able to taste before I buy. I think in the past year we've had MAYBE ten torrents that I forgot to erase when I realized I didn't like what I saw.

Remember who these large production companies are: they're multi-tiered organizations where the right hand doesn't talk to the left hand. These companies do many things:

1. Raise money and invest in productions (i.e., producing)
2. Market finished productions (i.e., advertising)
3. Protect the industry insiders (actors, directors, producers, and crew) from competition by locking the distribution medium (i.e., monopolizing)

Now, the future is getting rid of them. Want to raise money for a money or a TV pilot? Invest in making a trailer. Put it out there. Get people interested to fund your production, maybe even sell bonds (of course the SEC and IRS will prevent you from doing this versus a market economy where people understand the risks inherent to investing). Once you've raised enough, you go and shoot the flick. Give it away online at low res, or evne at high res, and sell value added products to raise the funds. If people love the production, they'll pay for it. We do. Many of our friends do. Most of my family does.

I laugh when people try to get great shows back on the air, like Serenity. Joss Whedon is one of the most vile monopolists ever. It's his fault directly for the death of Firefly. He could get online, start a money raising campaign, and go back to business. But he wants to pander to his union/monopolist buddies. He loves the residuals he receives on the backs of others. He's part of the industry, and that's why I'm glad Firefly failed, even though we love the show and watch the legal DVDs regularly. Screw Joss, screw Hollywood, and screw the industry twice over -- they're not ready for a truly market-based economy of art, where people subsidize the FUTURE production of more content by purchasing the previously produced content.

The Internet will destroy these monopolists/mercantilists quicker and quicker every day. Their only option to "save themselves" and their grotesque profits is to use the laws that THEY created, prompt the pawns that THEY elected, and force people to pay money that the people earned through labors they actively did. The people behind the Pirate Bay spend an amazing amount of time keeping it running. The users may submit content, but the servers, Internet connections, software code and overall support need labor to keep it running. TPB deserves every penny, and then some. Maybe TPB should produce a high budget movie or TV series.

Re:How else with the **AA make money...

[themildassassin]

How is the TPB going to produce anything? To use the FireFly example you used, how much money do you think Fox put into that to have those episodes made? Josh Weydon can not make FireFly without Fox because they own the rights because they put up the money. Production funded solely by the people sounds like a great idea, but only a few amount of people are going to be interested in putting their hard earned dollars into producing a show that could flop, as FireFly did, initially. Among those interested only few will have the sheer amount of cash needed to make something like a movie or tv show happen, for instance, Cloverfield was made for 20 MILLION dollars, an amount that very few of us are ever even going to come close to in our lifetime, and that is considered a low budget movie. Those will the money to finance something like this, with either blow it all on failures or have a return in their investment, perhaps they will form a company with others to finance more movies or television shows, perhaps they will call their company, I dunno maybe, Fox? See where I'm going with this?

You throw around a lot of terms, mostly with "ist" at the end, but I am not sure if you understand how things work. People put up money to make things that make money. Sure some may finance a movie because they believe in the art, but in the case of a flop, this becomes impractical even for the richest benefactor. You download a movie for free off a torrent, you like it, great awesome you go out and buy it, but the problem is when you don't like it, and don't buy it. See it doesn't work that way, you've watched the movie, in the real world you have to pay to watch a movie, either directly or indirectly (through advertising etc). You don't get decide what you want to pay for and what you don't. It would be akin to a restaurant asking their patrons to decide if they wanted to pay for a meal after they eaten it. Most people would probably pay out of common decency, but sooner or later people are going to start coming buy who just want a free meal. The media industry is a business, in order to keep a business going you need someone to pay for a product. I had a friend who would constantly bemoan the death of PC gaming, but would often torrent the latest games to "try out" before he bought them. After spending the prerequisite 10 or so hours to beat a game, he would decide that say, Doom 3, was not worth his money and so on. While I agree demos nowadays suck, you don't get to play an entire game and then decide it's not worth the cash, you buy the game so you can play the entirety of it.

I admit, I have downloaded many albums I haven't bought, some of which I enjoy, some of which I did not. In the round about way, I end up buying more albums because of my downloading, but thats just rationalizing what I know is really going on, I'm stealing in a convenient way. I don't take a moral high ground, but I also don't lie to myself, and I'm not naive enough to think that an entire industry can exist if no one actually ponied up the cash.

Re:How else with the **AA make money...

[ContractualObligatio]

There's no evidence out there that people in general spend more because of torrents etc, only less. Individual anecdotal evidence barely passes the sniff test (you spend thousands but have only managed to find ten things you didn't like?!), and certainly shouldn't stand up to the scrutiny of an online forum otherwise so keen on the scientific method.

Bonds as a way to fund pilots?! How can you sell a bond when the investment is expected to lose all its money? Bonds are fixed income investment vehicles, and completely inappropriate for what you're talking about, unless you think the market economy is an excuse to mislead and deceive if you can get away with it. Trailers get to draw on the content of an incredibly expensive production. Why should that be any cheaper than a pilot? Where's your evidence that companies aren't already trying to make pilots cost-effective, when they know most of them will fail?

If people love the production, they'll pay for it. We do. Many of our friends do. Most of my family does.

It starts off as a positive statement. Then mainly positive. Then mostly positive. In other words, not entirely true. Why not just come out with it and state that in your experience, a lot of the time people in fact do not pay? I guess you're no more capable of being honest than the corporates.

Re:How else with the **AA make money...

[G00F]

In all honesty, there are 3 reasons why I download movies/shoes/music on torrent.

1. I would have a digital copy on my server anyways, and this saves me the time/effort of encoding the files myself. I think it is utterly stupid to have a very soft piece of plastic in/out of use, expecially with kids.

2. I am refusing to give any RIAA/MPAA based company as much money as I can. The very few times was watchign harry potter, lord of the rings, with maybe a handfull of other exeptions the last 10 years. (wife likes to be taken to the movies . .) I want to hurt those companies as much as possible. I am mearly breaking laws that they have bought over the many years. And according to the declaration of independence it is our duty to fight back. And this will be a financial battle. Although it would be wonderfull seeing britney spears CD's at the bottom of Bostons harbor!

3. I am not paying for an DVD/CD version when I own the VHS/casset. Even if it is one I taped leagly off TV/Radio. If it is IP, then I already have leagle right to the IP.

I also serious doublt more than 20% of the people who download anything buy anything because of it. It just allows people who wouldn't pay for it no matter what, to have it too. To think otherwise is a lie.

Re:How else with the **AA make money...

[azgard]

I admit, I have downloaded many albums I haven't bought, some of which I enjoy, some of which I did not. In the round about way, I end up buying more albums because of my downloading, but thats just rationalizing what I know is really going on, I'm stealing in a convenient way. I don't take a moral high ground, but I also don't lie to myself, and I'm not naive enough to think that an entire industry can exist if no one actually ponied up the cash. You have chosen your morals wrong, IMHO. I'll give you an analogy - if you come to a shop and they give you a taste of some food for free, or give you a free package of food, do you consider it immoral to take it? I don't think so. So why you consider it immoral to download a CD just to check it out, if you say you buy it if you really like it?

Re:How else with the **AA make money...

[zardok]

nice conspiracy theory

Re:How else with the **AA make money...

[tinkerghost]

There's no evidence out there that people in general spend more because of torrents etc, only less.

Um, actually the 2 academic studies I've seen don't show any correlation between downloading and purchasing. Note the any. I have yet to see a peer reviewed study that shows that downloading has any direct effect on sales numbers.

The knee-jerk reaction is to state that it absolutely must, but the reality is that people only have so much disposable income to put towards entertainment - in essence, entertainment economics is a zero sum game. Yes, the movie/music industry has taken a big hit over the last decade, however online paid-gaming has come out of nowhere to become a major player in the economics of entertainment. With 4 accounts in the house, I put almost $90/month into online gaming. That money didn't just pop out of my ass, it came from another portion of the entertainment budget - mostly from my go-to-the-movies column, so online gaming has cost the movie industry around $1000 annually from just my family. My local library has an excellent selection of DVDs, and access to an even larger selection through inter-library loan - so I have seen just about every movie within a month of it's DVD release, and the movie industry hasn't seen a penny more than if I had downloaded every one of them - all legal like.

So, while the industry has several reports out that downloading is costing them $XX B each year, none of those reports (to my knowledge) has ever been submitted to be reviewed by an economics journal for review & publishing. Given this weeks admission of a 300% overstatement, and another statement that the numbers might be off by an order of magnitude in another study, it doesn't really surprise me.

Making Money

[Fozzyuw]

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of global music body, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries, said: "The operators of The Pirate Bay have always been interested in making money, not music.

Does anyone read that and NOT think: "What's the difference from Record labels?" =P

crap

[WormholeFiend]

I'm not done downloading that 17 gb of private MySpace photos yet!!!

Re:crap

[Alsee]

Oh dude, ya gotta finish that torrent, It's like totally worth it. Somewhere around gig 15.5 I saw a nipple.
Or, ahhh, at least I *think* I was a nipple.

-

Re:crap

[msheekhah]

I'm not sure that the majority of myspace users represent people i really want pictures of. At least judging by my circle of friends. ;-)

I hope they become legend.

[Thanshin]

- Space age (1957-1971)
  - Information age (1971-tpb victory)
  - Free data flow age. (tpb victory - ...)

Explain it to me like a 4-year-old

[Eggplant62]

How is locking our culture, our music, our films behind lock and key to be performed only on a pay-per-view basis going to help anyone but RIAA/MPAA? For centuries, people have been sharing cultural performances without much upset from the artists and producers. Now comes the digital age, these companies missed the boat by about 10 years in trying to understand the technology and deliver their product in the easiest, most obvious way that people want to use it, so people do what they have done for years, and that suddenly means it's time to sue everyone and his brother for copyright violations?

Shoot the other foot next.

Re:Explain it to me like a 4-year-old

[Shados]

Because its not just these things. Indy music is "easy" to produce (assuming you have the talent...I mean, you don't need too much ressources, unless you want advertising). Films could be easier, could be worse. These "locks" however, don't prevent free music and movies from happening. Since commercial music, and many, many commercial movies totally SUCK, it would be no big loss.

Now however... take videogames. How many GOOD open (from launch, not 15 years later) games have you seen? Any public domain Final Fantasy-level games in the making? GnuRPG or something? No. Too much stress, time and effort required for people to do this as a hobby. There's the odd RTS or FPS popping up every now and then, but they're no Half Life 2.

Now take software development. How freakishly long did it take to have free software that had decent UI? Oh, we have 127943091274091470921 command line tools and servers: those are fun to make. But how long did it take before those tools got decent usuability? Polishing these softwares to make em usuable requires a lot more than basement-level hacking skills, and to most, it sucks. It gets done so fast in the commercial world because people are getting paychecks.

Personaly, I'm a gamer, and I'm sick of MMOs (which would still be possible without all the copyright mess), and I'm not totally willing to see all these commercial-only beauties go the way of the dodo. Maybe someday -all- of the sides of intellectual properties will be like music (that is: the indy/free stuff is GOOD), but until then, lets keep copyright around a little while longer.

Re:Explain it to me like a 4-year-old

[muuh-gnu]

> Now however... take videogames.
> Now take software development. (And so on...)

Your point could be summarized as this: I like commercial-only beauties and thus communication should be large-scale censored so I can get more commercial-only beauties. Instead of crying for nazi style censorship and punishments against "thought thieves", you should just let the people, other gamers decide with their wallets _if_ they want games to be developed or not. If you are a fan and readily pay to make future development possible, why should other people not be allowed to make such a decision for themselves? The same about music, movies and books. Why should you have to _force_ them to finance future game development although they dont care?

>lets keep copyright around a little while longer.

Just because you sez so? No. That's so stinking nazi style. Why dont just let the fans decide if they want to support future development? Or if you want some legal once-for-all decision, why not organze a referendum and let people (no god-like politicians, no publishing media lobbyists, no shit, just the actual souvereign, "we, the people") decide if they really want a "copyright" tightly enforced on each other and if they want such a large scale, mass censorship/punishemt scheme in order to sustain game development. How about that?

Re:Explain it to me like a 4-year-old

[Weedlekin]

"For centuries, people have been sharing cultural performances without much upset from the artists and producers."

They started to get very upset about it when automated large scale distribution mechanisms permitted the owners of said mechanisms to profit from selling multiple copies of works without giving the authors anything. Britain's Statute of Anne enacted the first real copyright act in 1709 to remedy this situation after constant lobbying by writers, cartographers, and artists, and it was very much like modern ones, i.e. the author or artist maintained rights to his or her work for a certain period, after which they entered the public domain.

"so people do what they have done for years, and that suddenly means it's time to sue everyone and his brother for copyright violations?"

In 2009, copyright will have its 300th birthday, which means that people will than have been suing others for copyright violation for three centuries. Thus, the response today is precisely what it was "for years", i.e. copyright violators run the risk of getting sued for it.

Re:Explain it to me like a 4-year-old

[Shados]

Ok, so let say I "finance" game developement. Then everyone else can get it free? Yeah, thats fair right there.

Look, its already how it works. Some work is free. Some is paid for. The people who want to finance commercial stuff get commercial stuff. Those who want free stuff get the free stuff. Its not like things HAVE to be commercial.

Re:Explain it to me like a 4-year-old

[Shados]

I reread the second part of your post. You're right actually. This is how it should be. Make people decide. Then 20 odd years from now, have another one. If we were to do that and people decided they were happy that way, I'd gladly shut the hell up. Personally, I still think having the option of commercially locked stuff is for the best.

I think they'd side with you though. I mean, no more Britney Spears DOES trump everything else :)

Re:Explain it to me like a 4-year-old

[muuh-gnu]

>The people who want to finance commercial stuff get commercial stuff. Those who want free
>stuff get the free stuff.

The problem arises when people want the commercial stuff too without financing it and people like you try to stop them at getting it. 50 years ago, you might have had a case. It would have been easy to stop the distribution of illegaly pressed (and sold) copies of books or records. Today.... we have another situation. Certain people started to claim ownership of certain pieces of public information and want to stop other people at sharing this information. Stopping them means you have to find out that they are sharing this information, aka snooping. Additionally comes that you are not dealing with a few dozen, but literally millions and billions of people who share information because (or in spite) you dont want them to. Enforcing imaginary property rights requires large scale censorship, easy as that. Shutting down the pirate bay is like cutting millions off of people of the net or telephone. In fact, there is no other way to enforce imaginary rights without mass surveillance (who shares?), mass censorship (stop sharing!) and mass punishments (that'll teach you!). And what for? So you can get your "commercial-only beauties"?

>Its not like things HAVE to be commercial.

Its even less so that nazis can decide what kind of information I am "allowed" to share with other people because someone just decided to claim "ownership" of a piece of public information. Luddite ideas like this just won't work. Trying to stop people from communicating by force/threats/punishments is as futile (and nazi) as some weird churches trying to decide who you should have sex with, and to mandate that only "licenced" sex is allowed.

Re:Explain it to me like a 4-year-old

[Shados]

The problem arises when people want the commercial stuff too without financing it and people like you try to stop them at getting it

So the problem is people who want to have their cake and eat it to, yes? Its people who want people like me, to fiance stuff for them? Really, the choice we have here is:

A) don't have commercial stuff whatsoever, and have free stuff attempt to get to that level through donation and deals (wikipedia, firefox, etc).
B) have both free and commercial stuff, but have people finance the commercial stuff.

If you pick B, yet you don't want to pay for the commercial bits, then just don't use the commercial bits... Else its just dumbasses leeching on others. Leech, thats all it is.

So I mean, go ahead, have a referendum and eliminate copyright. Many formerly "commercial" things will live on, just like there are open source businesses today, or there are Indy music labels. If those "commercial-only beauties" as you call them were so easy to live without.... people wouldn't spend hundreds of hours of their lives hacking them up eh? You think all the piracy is done in the name of freedom of communication or something? Sure, some of it is...but the vast majority? Dream on :) People just want free lunches, nothing more, nothing less. And with all the manufacturing industry being shipped to China, leaving only the creative and service fields of business...if you take out the creative... you'll have 350 million people in North America all trying to live off of services.... good luck.

Enjoy your free lunch. Hope its worth it.

Re:Done their homework?

[asdfgl]

In the swedish judicial system judges do exactly what the title implies, they judge. That is on check off the list. The prosecutor is the one who authorizes the police to do raids.

The upside of this system is that you get no appearent benefit from bribing the judge. The downside is that you only have to bribe the prosecutor once for raiding and opening a prosecution...

Only $200K in fines? Ha!

[Jtheletter]

Doesn't TPB rake in something like $500K per month in advertising revenues? It might even be more than that but last I knew that number was unbelievably high. Losing the HW is probably the more expensive problem if they are found guilty, but even so, I'm sure they've got everything backed up in a half dozen other countries by now.

Re:Only $200K in fines? Ha!

[mmcuh]

I don't know where you got the number $500000 per month from - the prosecutor claims that they have made in total 1200000 SEK, or $200000. The Pirate Bay themselves claim that they are running it as a hobby project and the advertising just covers the hardware and bandwidth costs.

Re:Only $200K in fines? Ha!

[BigJClark]

In addition, I don't see why more servers/companies to move to less restrictive environments. It is a "global village" after all, isn't it? Why bother to pay, host and live under the american big brother when you can completely sidestep him and continue along your merry way.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next american invasion was based on copyright, instead of oil ;)

Re:Only $200K in fines? Ha!

[Jtheletter]

I don't know where you got the number $500000 per month from - the prosecutor claims that they have made in total 1200000 SEK, or $200000. The Pirate Bay themselves claim that they are running it as a hobby project and the advertising just covers the hardware and bandwidth costs.

Whoops, looks like I added an extra '0' by mistake, I meant 50 (fifty) K per month. Googling around I see numbers between 40K and 70K being quoted in various sources, a few older articles state the MPAA has estimated TPB's monthly ad revenue at $60K. Of course, this is before bandwidth costs, but either way, I'm sure they've made more than $200K total since the site started. I'm sure in the next week or two we'll get better data on these numbers as the trial moves forward.

Re:Done their homework?

[djmurdoch]

Is downloading movies and songs illegal? yes.

That really depends on where you live. In Canada, it's likely true about movies but not about songs because of the private copying right. Other places also have a private copying right. Sweden has some sort of private copying right, but I don't know if it applies to downloading movies or songs.

Re:Whither pornography?

[Vectronic]

No

Swedish Pride?

[exabrial]

I was under the impression that the Swedes are very independent and would not be pushed around by international influences... I feel for the people but I hope they have courage enough to stand up against the money machine attacking their liberty/sovereignty and send these fools packing!

File type mismatch

[bubbaprog]

Either someone is very confused or Sweden has a strange legal system. If they've been indicted, then they're being brought up on criminal charges. There are no "plaintiffs" in a criminal case.

Re:File type mismatch

[Pofy]

It is a criminal case. The term for the injured party in a crminal case in Swedish is "målsägande". When looked up in dictionaries it seems it is usually translated as "plaintiff" among others. I guess that is why that terminology is seen. What is the correct legal term for the one that has beeen "injured" in a crminal case in USA? That should be the proper word used I guess.

By the way, in this case they are:

IFPI, Antipiratbyrån and Monique Wadsted (a lawyer working on behalf of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc, MGM Pictures Inc, Colombia Pictures Industries Inc, 20th Century Fox Films Co, Mars Media Beteiligungs GmbH & Co Filmproduktions, Blizzard Entertainment Inc, Sierra Entertainment Inc, Activision Publishing Inc).

Re:File type mismatch

[bubbaprog]

We usually just use "victim." We have a lot of victimless crimes in the US, though, so a lot of criminal trials have no "complaintant." The gist I'm getting is that the legal system in Sweden is driven more by those who are wronged (or believe they have been wronged) than law enforcement and prosecutors.

Re:File type mismatch

[Ahruman]

Well, it's a "strange" system in that it's not like the one you're used to. :-) Legal concepts don't necessarily map directly between the two systems. It is indeed a criminal trial (brottmål) led by a public prosecutor (allmän åklagare), who is seeking criminal punishment, i.e. fines. At the same time, 17 plaintiffs (målsägande), represented by three separate teams, are pursuing damages.

Re:File type mismatch

[LittleJedi]

Well, it's a "strange" system in that it's not like the one you're used to.

That would be the definition of "strange", yes.

Re:File type mismatch

[Pofy]

>We have a lot of victimless crimes in the US, though, so a lot of
>criminal trials have no "complaintant

We have some as well. Speeding while driving a car would be such an example.

>The gist I'm getting is that the legal system in Sweden is driven more
>by those who are wronged (or believe they have been wronged) than law
>enforcement and prosecutors.

Probably true although I don't know about, for example, the US system good enough.

Re:Done their homework?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is downloading movies and songs illegal? yes.

NO. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

UPLOADING *copyrighted* movies and songs *which you don't have the copyright holder's permission to distribute* is illegal.

Re:Done their homework?

[Vexorian]

Is downloading movies and songs illegal? yes.

No, it isn't , and I don't really understand how some sort of statement got such high moderation points. It isn't illegal to download movies and songs. It might be a civil crime to download copyrighted songs and movies, and though even that varies country to country, it is still a civil, non-penal issue.

Why don't you write a song or book or create a painting, and I'll copy it. Lets see how quick you change your tune.

I know guys who write songs and paintings on creative commons terms and I've seen thousands of GNU documentation - licensed books.

Learn 2 Google plz

[Dobeln]

He should learn to Google, as he put quotes around the search ("Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent"), meaning Google searches for the exact phrase "Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent". Which, needless to say, isn't very common on teh interwebs. Removing the quotes yields some 118 000 hits. Pretty neat.

Re:Learn 2 Google plz

[houghi]

I was aware of that. Also if you can search for a specific filetype, like .doc, .txt or indeed .torrent if you so desire. Do a search on the following:
Harry Potter Goblet Fire filetype:torrent
That will reduce the noise to a mere 152.

So where can we now sue Google and /. and myself and my provider and all the ISPs that transfer this data and the people selling the computers to read this and ...

ad revenue data

[cliffski]

Heres one of their ad providers:

http://www.adbrite.com/mb/commerce/purchase_form.php?other_product_id=186346&fg_state=search%3Dthepiratebay.org%26fq%3D71fvw%252C1uo0%257Cjvi5nk%257Cjvi5no%252C6lcck%252C1uo0%257Cjvgwme%257Cjvgwcb%26a%3D1%26fastget%3Dfg%26product_select%3Done_week%26page%3D1%26previous_selected_product%3Done_week%26check_item%3D&vertical_id=0

whats interesting is this:

Household Income
$40k-$60k 17%
$60k-75k 23%
$75k-100k 21%
$100k-150k 19%
$150k+ 18%

18% on over 150k. I think they can maybe afford to buy the DVDs don't you?

Re:ad revenue data

[Ahruman]

18% on over 150k. I think they can maybe afford to buy the DVDs don't you?

What makes you think they don't?

The idea that each pirated copy is a lost sale has no connection in reality. People download stuff instead of buying it. People download stuff they would not other wise have bought. However, people also buy stuff they've downloaded. People with large collections of legally purchased music and video tend to also download lots of content.

The balance between these effects is a matter for debate. The RIAA and MPAA want you to believe that every download is a lost sale. (The other day, the Swedish movie industry claimed that they lost $1 billion in profit -not gross sales -to piracy in Sweden in the past year, and that there were 600,000 Swedish pirates in that time. You do the math.) People who actually try to develop accurate measurements tend to end up finding that it more or less cancels out: on average, pirates buy as much entertainment as non-pirates in the same income bracket.

Re:ad revenue data

[cliffski]

so if you earn $150,000 a year and find the time to sit and watch a 2 hour movie, you shouldn't have to pay for it? how can you earn that amount of money yet rate your free time as being worthless?
face facts, people on that salary, if they want to watch a movie can quite happily stick it on an Amazon buy list without thinking twice. Yet they begrudge spending $5 an hour for entertainment...

Re:ad revenue data

[Ahruman]

Would you like to try again, this time after reading what I actually said? To recap: research in the subject has not established that copying for private use leads to lost sales. Without establishing this, basing arguments on the assumption that it is the case is either ignorant or disingenuous.

But the evidence looks rather weak...

[Slyswede]

I've just read through the actual suit, and I must say the evidence looks rather weak.

The prosecutor brings into evidence a number of already well established facts, such as the identities of the TPB admins, and a number of invoices with figures on the alleged income from TPB's advertising. I'm pretty sure the defense won't dispute any of this since that part is hardly illegal

The only evidence that is has anything to do with an actual crime are interviews with IFPI and Antipiratbyrån personell stating that they were indeed able to download "fully functional copies" of infringing files through TPB. Duh!

The main issue in this case will be to prove that the TPB admins helped facilitate these downloads, and deciding if that is even illegal. As in all copyright infringement cases, the technical evidence is hardly mentioned, if there even is any. Apparently there will be some demonstration of how the Bittorrent protocol works, but I think it's entirely unclear if they can link that to "facilitating copyright infringement".

Re:But the evidence looks rather weak...

[dave420]

Actually, if you couple the fact they know you can get copyrighted material off TPB, and they know the TPB has received X in money from advertisers, then you have a case that they're making money off copyright infringement, which (in many countries) elevates the civil offense to a criminal one. If they didn't have advertising and took no donations from people, but were given their hosting and bandwidth by another party, their position would look a lot better. As it is, they might have to show that 100% of their revenue goes back into the site, and never into anyone's pocket, and keep doing so, in order to avoid criminal prosecution. IANAL, etc. bleh blah.

Re:But the evidence looks rather weak...

[chmod a x mojo]

As it is, they might have to show that 100% of their revenue goes back into the site, and never into anyone's pocket, and keep doing so, in order to avoid criminal prosecution. IANAL, etc. bleh blah.

would it really be that hard to say that whatever money isn't used for server / bandwidth just goes back to "administrative costs"? I mean obviously anything that they buy with any money made from that site can be tied in to the need to run the site... cars - need to get to meetings / server access points etc, computers - need to access the servers somehow, massages - work related stress... and so on and on and on.

Any half decent lawyer worth his salt can twist ANYTHING they bought around enough to say it was for the business.

Re:This will have consequences for all search engi

[bindo]

So yes, you can be arrested for that in Florida .

There, fixed it for you....

Translated text of the Application for Summons

[NacMacFeegle]

If anyone is interested, the application for summons charge the four defendants with two different crimes.

The accusatory part (or "crime description") of the application reads (unnofficial translation):

1) Complicity to copyright infringement

"The Pirate Bay is one of the worlds largest Internet filesharing services. The service utilizes the BitTorrent-protocol to achieve an efficient use of the available bandwith. The Pirate Bay consists of three components, an indexportal in the form of a webpage with a search function, a database with a catalog of torrent-files and a tracker function. Through the tracker fucnction, a peer-to-peer network is created by the users interested in sharing the same file. All components are neccessary to enable the users to share files between them. The greater part of the files which are made available for filesharing through The Pirate Bay contain copyrighted works.

The operations of The Pirate Bay are financed by advertising. Hereby, there is a commercial use of copyrighted works.

[The defendants] have together and in mutual understanding with each other and together with one other individual during 1 July 2005 - 31 May 2006 [at locations] been responsible for the organisation, administration, systematisation, programming, financing and operations of the filesharing service The Pirate Bay. In connection with these activities they have aided other persons' copyright infringements as follows:

The defendants have willfully [during time period] [at locations] aided others in the transferring of a file over the Internet containing [name of copyrighted work], thereby making a copyrighted work available to the public and also aided other persons in manufacturing copies of the work. [Explanation why this is a copyright infringement.]

[This is repeated in a list of 21 phonograms (i.e. records/CDs), 9 films and 4 computer games shared and downloaded.]

and

2) Preparation for copyright infringement

[The defendants] have together and in mutual understanding with each other and together with one other individual during 1 July 2005 - 31 May 2006 [at locations] been responsible for the organisation, administration, systematisation, programming, financing and operations of the filesharing service The Pirate Bay.

In connection with these activities they have, by the functionality of the filesharing service, in a purpose build database with ancillary catalog, received and stored the torrentfiles referred to [in the above list of copyrighted works]. The torrent files have been especially adapted to be used as means of assistance in the violation of the [Swedish Copyright Act]."

Re:This will have consequences for all search engi

[Nullav]

I seriously doubt that; intent means quite a bit in many countries. General search engines have quite a legitimate purpose with the hundreds of millions (billions?) of websites currently up. Trying to take one of the engines down would be like destroying a city map to keep people out of a single building, rather than taking it up with the owner of said building.
On the other hand, TPB is quite clearly intended to be used to help people find copyrighted content and I've heard no claims to the contrary. The responses in the 'legal threats' section of the site are akin to mooning people from airplanes. Definitely unlike any general-purpose search engine, wouldn't you say?

Re:Puh-leeze

[Hatta]

How does that matter? If it's illegal, it's illegal even if you only do it a little.

Downloaded through

[FredFredrickson]

It is just a list of where to get the content, but not the content itself. If that's illegal, then so should this be:

Free Britney Spears Album!!
Instructions: Enter Walmart. Go to Electronics. Steal. Exit.

Free Metallica CDs!
Instructions: Enter Best Buy. Go to Electronics. Steal. Exit.

Oh man, let's start a site that does this! It'll be our only recourse if tpb gets taken down...

Re:Done their homework?

[shinma]

That's how normal A anchor tags work in HTML. If you don't tell it specifically that you're sending someone to a separate site with a properly formed HTTP:// link, it assumes you are making a relative link to a file on the same domain.

Re:Done their homework?

[Borealis]

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.

Re:Done their homework?

[darthflo]

I'm sure they make 0 money off their site.

I don't really think so. Hosting and upkeep of their hardware may not be cheap, but if the $4m figure has any ties to reality, they're probably making an OK living off tpb. Also, I don't blame them. Economics 101; they offer a product (torrent search engine with contents of questionable legality), they demand a price (look at the ads or block/ignore them) and the general public appears to find this ratio acceptable.
Also, if they aren't making at least some money off tpb, how do you suppose they pay for hosting and servers? At their size, paying for some traffic spikes probably isn't in an average person's financial reach. Same goes for some additional servers.

Re:Done their homework?

[jedidiah]

The question still remains: what is that value?

Since all of these various and sundry people paid NOTHING
for it, then you can't make any conclusions about the value
of the work. Sure, you can assign some arbitrary dollar
values to the cost of bandwidth and the cost of storage
space but those are already sunk costs.

The rest of my bandwidth is FREE if I am not already using it.
The last 200G of that oversized hard drive is FREE if I am not already using it.

Piracy happens because the people have the means of production
and the marginal production cost is pretty much zero.

Now since these guys are Sysops and not just random Joes,
the justice equation is a bit different. This is perhaps
the first high profile MPAA/RIAA case where they actually
had any business threatening the perpetrators with 6 figure
damage awards.

Re:Puh-leeze

[fredklein]

That has got to be one of the lamest arguments I have ever heard.

Google's referencing of copyrighted .torrent files is a small, arguably incidental, part of what it does

I see. So, all I have to do to get away with a crime is prove that that crime is "a small, arguably incidental" part of what I normally do? It's okay to commit a crime, as long as it's just a 'small' part of my total activities??

The US "BetaMax" doctrine.

[zerofoo]

From the EFF website:

http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/20030530_eff_pr.php

"In a landmark 1984 decision called Sony Corporation v. Universal Studios, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that creators and distributors of technology could not be held liable under copyright law as long as a technology was capable of substantial non-copyright-infringing uses. Known as the "Betamax doctrine" because the decision upheld Sony's right to sell Betamax video recorders, the court's decision has guided technological innovation for almost two decades."

Granted, we are talking about Swedish law, not US law, but you'd think the principles are the same: If something can be used for non-infringing purposes, it should be legal. Even with the name "The Pirate Bay", the search engine is useful for finding lots of material, not just copyrighted material.

Short of mind reading, I think it would be hard to PROVE the intent of developing the site was to facilitate copyright infringement. Their defense is simple: We saw an unmet need for a specific type of search functionality - a boutique Google if you will, and we developed a business around it.

-ted

Re:The US "BetaMax" doctrine.

[Fancia]

IANAL, but there have been other court cases since that show intent is significant. Look at MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., where it was ruled that Grokster's service illegal because it was advertised for illegal purposes even though it did have non-infringing uses. Sega v. Maphia had similar results, when it was noted that the BBS operators were "knowingly allow[ing] others to upload and download the Sega games and expressly solicited others to upload games to his BBS." As for it being hard to prove intent, The Pirate Bay has been very outspoken about their opinions on copyright and downloading. I don't think anyone would have a hard time proving intent with the material made available on their own site.

Re:Done their homework?

[telchine]

Is downloading movies and songs illegal? yes.

No, it isn't , and I don't really understand how some sort of statement got such high moderation points.

You must be new here.

Google Protected by DMCA

[burris]

A lot of people are saying "Why isn't Google in the dock, I can search for infringing torrents!?" Well in the USA, Google and other search engines are protected by the DMCA. Yes, not all of the DMCA is bad, in fact, pretty much only the copy protection anti-circumvention stuff is bad. The rest is pretty good, it indemnifies ISPs when their caches or search indices contain infringing material. All they have to do comply with the takedown protocol.

See, in the US, if you're operating an index like Google or Napster that works on an automated basis or is controlled by your users, you don't have to worry about infringing material, until you have actual knowledge of it. Once you have actual knowledge of infringing material you have to do something about it. Thats the difference between Google and Pirate Bay (besides the fact that TPB is not in the USA.) Once Google has actual knowledge of infringing material they take it down and they are OK.

Furthermore, Google's service just finds torrents. TPBs helps you find torrents, but they also host the torrents. After you've download the torrent from TPB, TPB's tracker helps you connect to the other peers for exchanging the requested infringing material. Combined with the actual knowledge of infringing torrents on their site, that's a lot closer to contributory infringement than anything that Google does.

Back to your regularly scheduled TPB Swedish Legal Follies.

Re:Google Protected by DMCA

[earthforce_1]

Sorry, but there is NO SUCH THING as an "infringing torrent". You might as well talk about infringing MD5 hashes. This is crucial, I hope TPB's lawyers drive this issue home.

Re:Google Protected by DMCA

[rastoboy29]

But who has copyright on the torrent file? :-)

Re:Google Protected by DMCA

[ipsi]

But Google's not an ISP...

I'll take you up on that

[weierstrass]

Here's my painting. You'll notice it's 'licensed' under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Copy this painting even in breach of its license (which may be illegal or unlawful in your jurisdiction) and I will still maintain that the major record labels and movie studios are a corrupt cartel, and that the guys behind the Pirate Bay are both visionaries and heroes.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[Bill_the_Engineer]

While I applaud your publishing under a creative commons agreement, it doesn't prove anything. You chose to allow your work to be copied.

Pirate Bay are neither visionaries nor heroes. The only cause they stand for is greed. If you want something and it's not free, circumventing the current system just means that you refused to pay for it and stole it.

Setting the copyright infringement is stealing argument aside, wouldn't a better show of solidarity against the current publication model be to completely ignore the copyrighted works and deal only in creative commons and GPL works? When the artists can't make any money from concerts due to the lack of publicity (or public interest) then they will be compelled to use a distribution model that you agree with.

Using the "information should be free" mantra to justify your unauthorized copying of songs (or whatever) is a bogus attempt to justify your selfish habit.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[weierstrass]

setting aside the fact that copyright infringement is not theft, who said I download copyrighted works? The OP suggested that if someone copied something I created, I would instantly change my political opinion about what the Pirate Bay guys are doing. I don't think this is true.

Oh, your whole post was based on a fallacy and a flawed assumption? Sorry about that.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[weierstrass]

lol, thanks for your feedback.

Watched many Hollywood movies lately? Let's not go there..

Re:I'll take you up on that

[rk]

Eh, I thought it was a moderately interesting abstract work. Not great, but decent, though I'm not normally an abstract art fan. By all means, if it's something you would've done in grade school, you should take painting up again and show us your work. You might have a hidden talent.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[mOdQuArK!]

Pirate Bay are neither visionaries nor heroes.

They're capitalists.

The only cause they stand for is greed.

Well, they're capitalists. Although I think there's some "stick-it-to-the-man" in there.

If you want to talk about greed, maybe we should be talking about the people who believe they should be paid over and over for a "product" when they only did the work to create that product ONCE.

I haven't heard about too many craftspeople who insist on getting paid something _every time_ their product is resold, but that's pretty much what IP proponents are asking for.

Using the "information should be free" mantra to justify your unauthorized copying of songs (or whatever) is a bogus attempt to justify your selfish habit.

What about "it's no one's f*cking business what I choose to do with my own private property once I've purchased it"? (With the caveat of not causing other people harm, of course.)

The whole concept of "Intellectual Property" is an attempt at social engineering (trying to encourage innovation) by distorting market forces through legislation.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[Vr6dub]

I guess I was a little harsh on my response. I said it a bit tongue in cheek. I'll give you one thing...you're creating which is more than I can say for myself.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[Oligonicella]

He didn't say it was theft, oh pedant. He said it was stealing. It doesn't have to be a physical item to be stolen.

Webster's

steal -
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.

Apparently, your ideas about copyright are predicated on linguistic ignorance.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[Mister Whirly]

That may be the case, but you had a reaction to it strong enough to want to post your opinion here about it. That is what art should do, provoke some sort of response. Good, bad, or ugly a response is still a response. It made you think about it for a while...

Re:I'll take you up on that

[Intrinsic]

Ill say it again "copying is not stealing" please use the right terminology because you are making youself look bad when you try to compare the two. copying and stealing do not connect. there is no connection. Dont try to make one.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[KDR_11k]

If that's the definition of art dogs are the most productive artists ever. Stepping into their "works" definitely evokes a response of some kind.

Re:I'll take you up on that

[Anonymous Coward]

Webster's

appropriate -
1 : to take exclusive possession of : annex [no one should appropriate a common benefit]
2 : to set apart for or assign to a particular purpose or use [appropriate money for the research program]
3 : to take or make use of without authority or right

I look at the primary definition and wonder who is exercising linguistic ignorance, but I'm sure you like that last one, don't you? But wait, look what we've discovered: Using [something] without a right to is stealing, therefore all crime is stealing, because you don't have a right to commit the crime and you invariably used something while committing it. Sneaking into a museum at night is stealing -- you have no right to use the museum when it's closed. Jaywalking and all traffic offenses are stealing -- you don't have the right to use the road in violation of the law. Murder is stealing -- you don't have a right to make use of your own axe to murder someone. (Note that what you're stealing is the axe, which is yours -- not the person's life, which isn't.) Using a fake badge to impersonate a police officer is stealing because you're making use of the badge without authority -- and once again, note that what you're stealing is the badge, which you perfectly well may own.

Clearly, everything is stealing. Either that or dictionaries contain extraordinarily broad definitions of things that greatly exceed the common scope of their meaning when contorted in particular ways, hmm?

Re:I'll take you up on that

[David Rolfe]

Wow, and as I said in another thread, to another poster, you need to look up appropriate. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=434204&cid=22226148

American Heritage:
appropriate:
2. To take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself, often without permission: Lee appropriated my unread newspaper and never returned it.

In no sense has take or make use of exclusively ever meant copy.

"Apparently, your ideas about [appropriation] are predicated on linguistic ignorance."

Re:Done their homework?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The rest of my bandwidth is FREE if I am not already using it.
> The last 200G of that oversized hard drive is FREE if I am not already using it.

So, have you opened up your firewall to let people store warez on the free part of the drive and use your free bandwidth?

If not, why not?

What about ISPs

[HeavyDevelopment]

ISPs are just as guilty as Pirate Bay in enabling people to download copywrited material with that logic. What about search engines like Google? Haven't they shown that they are not responsible for content of their index? With the onus being on the individual site publisher (or in this case the person(s) hosting the torrent)?

Re:What about ISPs

[dave420]

Not even close. TPB only have torrents, 99.9% (at least) of which are of copyrighted material. TPB knows this. TPB also host the torrent files, and also run a tracker for these downloads. To claim they don't know what they're doing, which would be their only defense, is not going to hold much water, as they obviously are well-aware of what they're doing. If Google is told it has copyrighted material, it will remove it from its indexes and caches. ISPs also, if they're hosting copyrighted material, have to remove it unless they want to face prosecution.

Re:What about ISPs

[shark72]

"ISPs are just as guilty as Pirate Bay in enabling people to download copywrited material with that logic. What about search engines like Google?"

Sorry to hear that you feel that way, but the legal system doesn't work that way. Intent plays a huge part of it, as does a phrase that was part of the Betamax decision: "substantial non-infringing uses."

It doesn't matter that one could use TPB to get one's Linux distros or other legitimate content; a quick glance shows that it's not the intended nor the primary purpose.

So, if you've really been wondering why all the file-sharing services have been taken down while ISPs and Google remain in business, that's why.

Re:What about ISPs

[Alioth]

It's all about intent.

Google isn't set up with the intent to facilitate copyright infringement. The Pirate Bay, by contrast, is explicitly set up to facilitate copyright infringement, and not only that - they boast about it.

The law will treat different people differently depending on intent. For example, if you accidentally kill someone you don't get charged with murder - indeed, you may not face any punishment at all if it is a genuine accident and you weren't egregiously negligent. However, if you deliberately kill someone you go to jail for a long time. Intent. That's the key difference.

Google and the ISPs don't have their networks set up with the intent to facilitate piracy. Indeed, send a DMCA takedown to Google and they will comply. The Pirate Bay on the other hand very much intends to facilitate copyright infringement; send them a takedown notice and they mock you.

Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

Much like you, I can't believe your statement got such high moderation points.

First off, just because something is a matter for civil courts does not mean it's not illegal. Civil court cases are still based on laws and statues. Illegal means "forbidden by law or statute." Also, you used the term "civil crime", which actually is a contradiction in terms. If something is a matter of civil court, it's not a "crime."

But it's kind of a moot point. As you didn't specify the country you are in, I'm going to have to assume the US. Here's a post explaining why downloading copyrighted material IS a criminal offense in the US:
http://innovationlost.org/free-the-lyrics/2006/04/23/copyright-infringement-is-a-criminal-offense/

And while it varies from country to country, in some of those countries it is also a criminal offense.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[repvik]

The article you linked to does absolutely bupkiss in explaining why downloading copyrighted material is an offense. You see, there is a huge difference between UPloading and DOWNloading. UPloading (You see the U and P at the beginning of the word, signifying direction? Good) copyrighted material is a criminal offense. DOWNloading (Getting the four first letters here? I know it's a bit harder but you can get it if you try!) is not.

Copyright law restricts the distribution of works by limiting peoples ability to copy/share it. It does NOT, however, restrict anyone from recieving a copy. Remember this! You have no idea whether or not the person sharing a file has recieved permission from the copyright holder to share it or not (It is possible to LEGALLY SHARE a copyrighted work you know, eg. by viral advertising). I don't know any countries where it is illegal to download copyrighted work (except possibly France?), but I know a hell of a lot of countries prohibiting the sharing of said works.

Another "sharing-is-legal" point:
Have you noticed that the RIAA has sued an insanely huge number of people? Do you notice a common trait in these cases? Are they sued for DOWNloading (There's the hard word again!) copyrighted works? No... They're sued for UPloading copyrighted works...

There.. My rant is done.
(I have to my knowledge 0 infringing bits on my PC/iPod/HTPC, I buy/rent(!) music/videos, support artists and so on. I'm "supporting" TPB's "crusade" as a way of getting RIAA/MPAA/Hollywood/Artists to "get" this new digital age and its possibilities, and hopefully some distant time in the future stop treating me as a criminal by default)

Re:Illegal != !civil

[Solandri]

But it's kind of a moot point. As you didn't specify the country you are in, I'm going to have to assume the US. Here's a post explaining why downloading copyrighted material IS a criminal offense in the US:

So the RIAA has to prove their case to the satisfaction of a unanimous vote by 12 jurors, instead of just a preponderance of the evidence?

Or are they trying to have their cake and eat it too, by using civil standards of innocence/guilt, but imposing criminal penalties?

Re:Illegal != !civil

[Em Adespoton]

It is also worthwhile to point out that ALL creative works are under copyright unless their copyright term has expired (hah) or they have been explicitly placed in the public domain.

Saying it is (il)legal to download copyrighted material is like saying it is (il)legal to hitchhike -- it doesn't take into consideration the local laws or whether the individual has been granted access by the owner.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[Ahruman]

Criminalization of downloading of copyrighted works was one of the intentions of the mid-2005 reform of Swedish copyright law. To what extent this was actually achieved is somewhat unclear.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

I think it's pretty obvious from the context of the discussion that everyone is talking about unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material. No one would actually try to convince you it's illegal to download Gulliver's Travels. It's a bit silly that some of the posters think they are being clever pointing this out. Please don't make us have to type out "unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material" every single time.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[repvik]

borrow my friends movie collections and make copies of them. I rent from blockbuster and copy all the movies I rented. I buy some software, copy it, then resell it. By your definitions, all these things are perfectly legal.

No. Read what I said a few more times until you get it. Reselling copied software is obviously illegal, and I have in no way claimed that it wasn't.

And, another reason for you to read my post again is that you completely missed the RIAA point. It wasn't whether or not they were civil. Try guessing what the point was, and why I made it...

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

No, the RIAA is bringing civil suits, therefore the penalties are limited to civil statues. What people miss is that the point of these suits aren't to get money or to actually punish people. They usually just settle. The point is to be in the news and be talked about, spreading the idea that downloading music will get you put in jail. It's all PR. Also, as I pointed out in another post, if they did start pressing for criminal charges, especially against the typical target of some 15 year old girl, the political backlash could result in a major rethink of copyright law. They do NOT want that.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[repvik]

I kinda wanted to say the same to you when you replied...
You completely misunderstood my post. If you want do discuss, atleast try to read the post first.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

And I quote:

Have you noticed that the RIAA has sued an insanely huge number of people? Do you notice a common trait in these cases? Are they sued for DOWNloading (There's the hard word again!) copyrighted works? No... They're sued for UPloading copyrighted works... BMG Music v. Gonzalez, Cecilia
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.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

It's amazing the lengths you'll go to to avoid admitting you are wrong. Yes, they used tricks to inflate the DAMAGES. But they would never have been able to win at all if downloading wasn't illegal. It's right there in what you quoted.

This left the jury with nothing to decide. She admitted she'd copied the songs, leaving only the question of damages Yes, it's one case. But that's all it takes to disprove your argument. That's how logic works. I could probably find more, but frankly the ball is in YOUR court at this point. You need to show somehow that this ruling was wrong by statute and that it will be/should be overturned. Not your opinion, but actual law.

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.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

Alas, all good things must come to an end.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[Bobb Sledd]

I must disagree with you. The page you linked to does not say that DOWNLOADING is illegal, but "copyright infringement via P2P" might be illegal. Two totally different things. And I think in this context, they mean the provider, not the downloader.

Here are two reasons why simply downloading can't be illegal:

1. Let's say that you duplicate the iTunes store exactly -- same Apple logo and everything. Only difference is that you made the domain name slightly different. And all of the mp3s you sell are counterfeit copies. Now comes me, unsuspecting customer thinking I am actually at the real iTunes store, and I buy several MP3s. Oops! Copyright infringement has taken place, sure enough... but what exactly did the customer do that was illegal exactly?

It's kind of the same problem with counterfeit clothing with real labels on them. If the customer buys them, how can they know if they are legit or not? Yes, some trademark infringing has taken place; but who is the guilty one? Suppose the customer knows that they are counterfeit before they buy?

Another problem is that the customer has no idea what valid contracts the vendor has with the copyright/trademark holders -- and it isn't their duty to know.

2. Let us say that you have a web site and make available for download an MP3 that you say is your original work. I come along and download this file, only to discover that it is in fact one of Madonna's songs. Aside from the idea that subjecting me to Madonna should be criminal... what exactly did I do wrong? How could I have possibly known to avoid infringing a copyright in this case?

Perhaps it is analogous to downloading child pr0n. The act of downloading itself is perhaps not illegal, but if you store the images on your drive, that is certainly criminal. So maybe it is with the other things: once you discover they are fakes/counterfeits, it becomes your obligation to destroy them? I honestly do not know the true answer, but 'yes' is my heart's answer.

P.S. This is not legal advice, and I was trained and work as a paralegal in intellectual property.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

Oh, I would agree with you on saying that you could download a copy of a song you already own a download for and it would (if you get a competent judge) be perfectly legal. But again, this is a matter of context. The posts I was responding to were not about that. Even when I posted this, the OP just said it didn't matter because it was one case and the RIAA used "tricks." The term downloading, in this context, did mean the downloading of files the defendant didn't already own. Just like if you got a copy of a cd you already owned, the "copying" wouldn't really be "copying" in terms of copyright infringement. So you statement "It was the copying the songs that was the problem" wouldn't make much sense there. Yes, ultimately, it's the infringement that is what is illegal. But to determine what is infringement, you have to use words like "downloading" in proper context.

I'm not really seeing your issue about my use of "illegal." Taken in the context, that's exactly how I was using it. Breaking copyright law, whether it be the civil or criminal parts of it. Either one would be illegal, otherwise there's no basis on which you could win a court case.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

Sorry, but I have to disagree and I'd say the statutes and court decisions would back me up. The thing is that you often have to prove that it is "willful." The fake-iTunes analogy you gave is true, but misses the point. It's illegal to steal someones bag. But you could accidentally take someone's bag because you thought it was yours. It would be unlikely that you would be charged with theft. However, just because there is this exception, it does not prove that taking someone's bag is legal.

The issue here is people downloading from Kazaa, BitTorrent, etc. They're places that people are giving away free copies of music and movies. A reasonable person should be able to think critically and realize that this is likely to not be legitimate. In much the same way, a person who repeatedly buys jewelry at far below its value from someone without any credentials could be charged not just with possession of stolen property but with actual trafficking of stolen goods.

And that's what it's all about, the context. Go back to the original poster. He was making a common sense point that people downloading music and movies from Pirate Bay should admit that they know it's illegal (assuming most countries that follow common copyright laws) and drop the act.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[j-turkey]

Much like you, I can't believe your statement got such high moderation points.

First off, just because something is a matter for civil courts does not mean it's not illegal. Civil court cases are still based on laws and statues. Illegal means "forbidden by law or statute." Also, you used the term "civil crime", which actually is a contradiction in terms. If something is a matter of civil court, it's not a "crime."

But it's kind of a moot point. As you didn't specify the country you are in, I'm going to have to assume the US. Here's a post explaining why downloading copyrighted material IS a criminal offense in the US:
http://innovationlost.org/free-the-lyrics/2006/04/23/copyright-infringement-is-a-criminal-offense/

And while it varies from country to country, in some of those countries it is also a criminal offense.

I had a hard time swallowing the linked analysis after the author states "I am not a lawyer"...so his legal opinion on this matter weighs in somewhere between irrelevant and worthless. How many people have been prosecuted for downloading under these statutes?

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

The reason I posted that was that it linked to actual statutes and helped people look at the appropriate sections to decide for themselves. To me, that's not irrelevant or worthless.

So far, AFAIK no one has been prosecuted under these statues for simply downloading. But that is more due to the PR fallout I've explained in other posts.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[shark72]

"So the RIAA has to prove their case to the satisfaction of a unanimous vote by 12 jurors, instead of just a preponderance of the evidence? Or are they trying to have their cake and eat it too, by using civil standards of innocence/guilt, but imposing criminal penalties?"

For what it's worth, criminal copyright infringement cases typically don't have jury trials in the US. The defendants in criminal cases are typically the guys caught with a warehouse of counterfeit music CDs or Windows. A jury trial really isn't necessary. There've been a few filesharing-related criminal cases (usually when they prosecute the first guy to seed a screener), but I don't think those got jury trials.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[Mister Whirly]

"First off, just because something is a matter for civil courts does not mean it's not illegal. Civil court cases are still based on laws and statues. Illegal means "forbidden by law or statute."

It doesn't mean it's not legal either. I had to go to civil court for my divorce. Can you please explain to me what I did that was illegal? One of my neighbors sued another one of my neighbors in civil court because a tree from the house next door fell on his garage and damaged it. Who broke the law here, the tree??

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

I think you're misreading what I'm saying. I never said what you're disproving. Let's try an analogy.

First off, just because something is a fruit does not mean it's not a vegetable. Vegetable is a term defined by the US agricultural bureaucracy. Fruit means "the ripened ovary of a seed-bearing plant.

Hope that makes things clearer. With this phrasing, it's clear that I'm not claiming just because something is a vegetable then it means it's not a fruit.

The double negatives in your posts and mine are starting to make my head spin.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

I'll stop being redundantly right when others stop begin redundantly wrong.

FYI, it was already moderated very highly before I referred to it in a grand total of ONE OTHER POST. Wow, that's really milking it alright.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[Mister Whirly]

But if something is "illegal" isn't it a matter for criminal courts, and not civil courts? Can you give me an example of something that is "illegal" but is a matter for only civil court? Are you talking about something like a wrongful death suit in a civil court? And even in that case there was still a case that was in criminal court at some time.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

Can you give me an example of something that is "illegal" but is a matter for only civil court? Sure thing, I'll give you a few examples:

Trespassing: This can be both a civil and a criminal. Either way, the law says you cannot trespass onto someone else's land. Therefore, doing so would be illegal.

Defamation: Again, defaming someone is illegal. But it is a civil court matter.

The problem here is that "illegal" is more of a generic term, not a specific legal term. It just means "against the law." If you do something that is "perfectly legal," you can't get convicted in civil or criminal court. But if it's "illegal", then you broke the law. This can mean written laws/statutes, or it can mean common law.

Think of it this way - a criminal case is one in which the plaintiff is always the government, a civil one is one in which the plaintiff is an individual. Both are cases for the legal system.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[uofitorn]

I don't know how much clearer I can make it that you are wrong.

Actually, you have not made it clear that the original poster was wrong.

He claimed that a large amount of people were sued for uploading copyrighted works. You posted one link to a lawsuit against a single person who downloaded copyrighted worked.

Perhaps you had more to say but hit submit on accident. To me, it was very unclear (opposite your claim) that he was wrong, at least from your post.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

His claim was that it was not illegal to download copyrighted material without authorization. He claimed it was only illegal to upload them. I showed him the successful court case in which someone lost a case that was about them downloading. I really do think this clearly disproves that downloading is legal while only uploading is illegal. You may claim that's not what he meant, but I further point out the following quote from the rant:

Copyright law restricts the distribution of works by limiting peoples ability to copy/share it. It does NOT, however, restrict anyone from recieving a copy. Remember this! He didn't say "downloading is less likely to get you sued." He said it does not restrict anyone from receiving a copy. Again, all it takes is one court case to show that yes, it is against the law.

Now, as for why that isn't the majority of the cases? It's much harder to prove someone downloaded a file than it is to prove they uploaded it. It's simply a matter of logistics. If they are uploading it, you can download it from them, thus proving they provided a copy.

But to prove they downloaded it, you need to show that they received a complete copy and kept it. And who would they download it from? Not from you (the RIAA), as that would put you in the position of actually providing the downloading, throwing all kinds of kinks into your case. So it's much more difficult for them to get between the downloader and the uploader to monitor what the downloader is getting. But in this case, they woman admitted to doing just that and tried to use the excuse that she was "sampling" the music.

I think most people get this.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[itzdandy]

It certainly makes no difference if you download or upload copyrighted works that you do not hold a license or copyright on. It does make a substantial difference on realistic losses where downloading should carry a punishment of actual losses plus reasonable penalties. uploading could carry a punishment much higher as each copy of the material will have a value which will count as a loss each time someone downloads that work.

10,000 people downloading a song that is available for $.99 on iTunes would have $10000 is direct losses in sales as well as a first offense, double damages type punishment. a reasonable punishment would be $2000+court costs. for the single infringing work, double damages would likely be trivial so a court would probable rule some punative damage which would be collected by the court and not by the RIAA so downloaders would likely be in for much less, IF the court system would see these cases like they see most other civil suits.

somehow, the RIAA has found a way to convince the court system that their product is worth much much more after is has been stolen. all these songs are .99 on iTunes or something similar on Napster or something, how can they ask $10,000 or whatever per song in damages? that is a 10,000x damages which is well beyond reasonable.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[itzdandy]

I'd like to add that there should be no doubt that downloading a song without permission of the artist or distributor(in otherwords, not buying a license to it) is theft. Anybody that does not think it is theft has no respect for society.

I think that the problem is that the price for the product has become essentially extortion. Artificially inflated distribution methods, many levels of middleman markups, falsified physical product costs, expectations of becoming a millionaire, and pure greed have distorted 'music' into an industry. No doubt that a record can cost millions of dollar is crooks are cooking the books. I know what the physical process costs and I know what the studio equipment costs. Music that can stand on it's own only needs a studio and a cd-r or a webserver to distribute it with. If it takes $5,000,000 to promote music, it is not music.

Industry is a term used to describe the manufacturing of a product from raw material, MUSIC is the ART of creating WORKS OF ART from thought and emotion. I cannot see how Music can be an industry. I cannot see how one creates music from raw material, unless feelings and emotions are now measurable with scales. How much does a feeling weight? how much volume does it occupy?

Re:Illegal != !civil

[untaken_name]

I'd like to add that there should be no doubt that downloading a song without permission of the artist or distributor(in otherwords(sic), not buying a license to it) is theft.

No, it isn't.

Theft: 1 a: the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

from m-w.com

Here are some relevant portions:

taking and removing

intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

Neither of these occurs when a copy is created. The original still exists, thus no one was deprived of anything, and there is no removing.

So, by definition, you are wrong.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[Pofy]

>It is also worthwhile to point out that ALL creative works are
>under copyright unless their copyright term has expired (hah)
>or they have been explicitly placed in the public domain.

That would depend on country then. In Sweden for example there is no way to get rid of your copyright on a work (puting it in the public domain or anything similar).

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

Agree with your first post, but I have to disagree with the theft part of this post. As the other poster pointed out, making copies is a bit different than stealing physical property.

Personally, I hope we'll eventually move into a time when copyrights are vastly rewritten. I'd like to see it changed to a simple exclusive license on commercial distribution and reproduction for a short period like ten years. During that time and after, I'd like it to be perfectly legal to make and distribute copies for free. It should not be transferrable, only inheritable by the creator's heirs.

Yes, this is radically different than things are now. But I think it's just facing the realities of our current level of civilization. Copyright is the right of anyone to copy a work. Society decided to cede this right to the creator based on factors that were true at the time. We're working in a different set of factors now and the old rules don't apply.

I understand that this will put a lot of people out of business and change how people can and can't make money. It may shrink the overall amount of money that can be made on copyrighted works. It may also greatly reduce the amount of works made. But history is about change, and change isn't always pretty.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[itzdandy]

merriam-webster is most certainly not a legal organization and their definition is not what the legal system is bound by.

The legal system in the united states does consider the act of downloading a copyright song without license theft of license fees or theft of revenue. so by dictionary symatics the act of downloading a song without license is not in fact what is illegal, its the theft of related proceeds.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[itzdandy]

please read my followup to the last post. It's actually theft of revenue which is as real as stealing physical items. You are using a product that someone sells access/license to without paying that license. that is theft of the revenue on that item. It might be more appropriate to say that you only stole the profits because of the lack of physical product but that isnt really the issue.

the simple fact is that the product is sold and people are not paying the price of the sale and that is theft. If you make the arguement that it is not theft, then you also imply rather directly that it is ok to pirate windows xp because it also is not a physical product. this is just like software piracy. a product normally sold under a specific license and you choose to take and use it skirting that license, and that is theft.

you would absolutely never ever win a court case saying that it is not theft because songs are physical items and that you didnt deprive anyone of that item as the winning arguement would be that you deprived the license holder of real money, and that would land you a big fat fine.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

Sorry, never meant to imply it wouldn't be classified as theft under current legal systems. I'm trying to say that it IS different and should be treated differently. A big part of it is the question of revenue lost. Do you actually think these people with 10,000 songs on their iPod would have actually purchased them? Not likely. Same with people who pirate software that is way to expensive to be worth it for them. Yes, right now our legal system would find them guilty. But hopefully that will change in the future.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[Bobb Sledd]

It occurs to me that perhaps we're getting mixed up on the the meaning of the term "download." Perhaps you mean that "download" is transferring and storing a file.

My definition of "download" stops at the act of transferring (who knows if the file is stored/kept or not).

I did read the court outcomes and opinions. She wasn't being slapped for merely downloading. She was being slapped for possessing them. I think they knew she had them because of how she downloaded them (probably trapped by downloading from them using KaZaa or such).

If she had downloaded the songs and then immediately deleted them, or at least had them no where to be found, I think it would be a different outcome.

In that case I am sure they would have seen her downloading songs from them, searched her computer and other items, and scratched their heads going "wha?" and that would be the end of it. No wait, what am I thinking... this is the RIAA... they probably would have tried to sue anyway.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[untaken_name]

You are assuming that the downloader would otherwise buy what they downloaded. If they instead chose to forego the purchase, then no revenue is lost. So you are claiming that the theoretical loss of potential future profit is theft, but again, I would refer you to the dictionary. You know, the place that lists definitions of words so that we can all agree on what they mean. Your logic is similar to that governmental logic which calls a smaller increase in spending than previous years a 'reduction in spending'. You and the recording industry may wish to engage in circumlocutory arguments that a theoretical potential future loss of profit is the same thing as physically removing an object, but that doesn't make it true. You can only deprive someone of something that actually exists, theoretical potential profits do not actually exist, and making a perfect copy while leaving the original intact does not necessarily deprive anyone of anything.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[illegalcortex]

Agreed, I think this is definitely a possible confusion. But I think when people talk about "downloading music" in regards to these RIAA cases and such, they are talking about both downloading and keeping. That is the typical reason to download (rather than, for example, streaming).

If you're talking about just the bits going across the wire, that's something that's just nearly impossible to prove in court. As you said, I'm sure the RIAA would love to make that illegal, too. And they'd probably have legal ground, too, considering that the person listening to it could constitute a loss of revenue under current crappy laws (well, American at least, and I'm sure many other countries). But they'd have to prove she received all the bits and actually listened to them. Highly unlikely. It's like trying to prove that someone groped you in a dark alley with no observers.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[itzdandy]

You are assuming that the downloader would otherwise buy what they downloaded.

That makes zero difference. If you decided not to buy a movie ticket and snuck into the theater, you still break the law. If you decide that you will not pay for dinner but still order and eat the dinner, you still broke the law. If you install a copy of Windows with zero intent of ever buying the software you are still breaking the law. Intent has no place in civil law.

If they instead chose to forego the purchase, then no revenue is lost.

They are using a licensed product, that license must be purchased, theirfore they are not paying for a product they are using which means that revenue is lost. That's like saying that no revenue is lost if you steal windows xp. intent has no place in civil law.

So you are claiming that the theoretical loss of potential future profit is theft, but again, I would refer you to the dictionary

the dictionary has no legal relevance. a license is treated by the law the same as ownership of physical products. I.P. has just as strong of legal precedence as physical property.

You know, the place that lists definitions of words so that we can all agree on what they mean.

m-w is a business, they publish a book that is not authoritative in any way. marriam-webster is not a book of law and has no legal grounds.

Your logic is similar to that governmental logic which calls a smaller increase in spending than previous years a 'reduction in spending'. You and the recording industry may wish to engage in circumlocutory arguments that a theoretical potential future loss of profit is the same thing as physically removing an object, but that doesn't make it true. You can only deprive someone of something that actually exists, theoretical potential profits do not actually exist, and making a perfect copy while leaving the original intact does not necessarily deprive anyone of anything.

future spending increases that are a reduction of previous years increases has nothing to do with the arguement. though they may be a tiny improvement or an improvement in the runnaway process of out government it is of course not truly a reduction. these are not potential future losses. these are not future losses. these are past losses. these or loss of the sale price of a real thing. ideas in fact do exist, art does exist, and intelecual property does exist. the effort put into and uniqueness of a product can be measured. by your logic, WORK is not in fact real, as you cannot measure WORK on a scale or put it in a jug. The fact is that work is real, and songs are real. why dont you lookup 'song' in m-w dictionary? see if it calls songs 'not-real' or 'imaginary'.

SONG Etymology:
Middle English, from Old English sang; akin to Old English singan to sing
Date:
before 12th century
1: the act or art of singing
2: poetical composition
3 a: a short musical composition of words and music b: a collection of such compositions
4: a distinctive or characteristic sound or series of sounds (as of a bird, insect, or whale)
5 a: a melody for a lyric poem or ballad b: a poem easily set to music
6 a: a habitual or characteristic manner b: a violent, abusive, or noisy reaction
7: a small amount

I dont see "not real" in there

Re:Illegal != !civil

[untaken_name]

If you decided not to buy a movie ticket and snuck into the theater, you still break the law.

Yes, you trespassed on private property. Do you think the RIAA would sue someone for copyright infringement for sneaking in to a theater?

If you decide that you will not pay for dinner but still order and eat the dinner, you still broke the law.

Yes, you DEPRIVED the restaurant of food that they could otherwise sell to another diner. If you made a perfect copy of someone else's dinner without depriving them of that same food, and used your resources to do it with, you didn't break the law.

If you install a copy of Windows with zero intent of ever buying the software you are still breaking the law.

It depends on whether the copy was stolen from someone or not. If you took a physical copy and the person/store you took it from no longer has it, then you've stolen it. If you made a perfect copy without depriving anyone of their copy, then you haven't stolen it. You might have USED IT WITHOUT PERMISSION, but that doesn't always equal stealing. Again, it may be against the law, but I don't think you want to argue the perfection of law. There were laws enforcing segregation, too. You may be one of those who is confused about the difference between wrong and illegal.

They are using a licensed product, that license must be purchased, theirfore they are not paying for a product they are using which means that revenue is lost. That's like saying that no revenue is lost if you steal windows xp. intent has no place in civil law.

Revenue which would not have otherwise been realized is not lost. It would never, ever, under any circumstances, have existed. You cannot lose that which is nonexistent. Period. Point blank.

the dictionary has no legal relevance. a license is treated by the law the same as ownership of physical products. I.P. has just as strong of legal precedence as physical property.

Um, IP hasn't been around for very long, relatively speaking. Physical property has had protection under the law for thousands of years. Then, some giant corporations decided that they should be able to defy the laws of physics and make imaginary property. Again legal does not always equal right. and illegal does not always equal wrong.

m-w is a business, they publish a book that is not authoritative in any way. marriam-webster is not a book of law and has no legal grounds.

You are far, far too in love with the law. You're the same type of person who supported Jim Crow because, "It's the law!"

why dont you lookup 'song' in m-w dictionary? see if it calls songs 'not-real' or 'imaginary'.

Hmm, I thought that m-w didn't have any kind of legal authority? Or was that only when I was referring to them? Besides, most dictionary entires define what something IS, not what it is NOT. I notice that, 'real, physical object' isn't among the definitions you provided, either. Why don't you show me a legal source that defines a song as a physical object? Besides, you don't seem to understand the difference between 'not a physical object' and 'imaginary'. It's really not a difficult concept. Well, it shouldn't be.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[untaken_name]

Obviously I meant MPAA above, and brainfarted it. Just posting this to note that it was an error in my writing, not my point.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[itzdandy]

you argue for arguements sake. you are making statements that might be perfectly acceptable and reasonable in a perfect system but this is not a perfect system. facts rule here, the US is a nation of laws, even if those laws are flawed. in the US, the fact is that downloading a song without license or permission is theft. any use of copyrighted things, ideas, plans, etc without prior concentual distribution and license is theft. that means that if you download a song without permission, it is theft. the dictionary doesnt not dictate the definition of a word as far as the law is concerned.

another fact is that human ambition is driven by profit and/or personal gain so that concept of IP must exist or else intelectual advances would not be made, and music could not be made profitably on a national level, but only on a local level where musicians are paid for the performance and not for the song. i wont argue that in some ways that would be better, but in other ways it would stifle innovation and severely limit funds to research organizations. again, the system is flawed but this started as post on how it is now, and how it is now is completely opisite of every single point you have made in your posts.

we cannot live in a world of anarchy, which seems to be what you suggest in your posts. it sure would be nice to do whatever you wanted to do but the huge drawback of rampant disregard of other peoples property undoubtedly leads to chaos.

most importantly, the system needs fixed, not disregarded. my skirting the system you fuel the other sides arguments and make their argument more favorable because they are on the side of the law and you have become the criminal. fix the system, dont ignore it. if you simply ignore the law then you can get punished, and then what will you argue? i guarantee that the judge will sound a whole lot like me.

Re:Illegal != !civil

[untaken_name]

you argue for argument's sake

No, I correct you because you're wrong.

you are making statements that might be perfectly acceptable and reasonable in a perfect system, but this is not a perfect system.

No, I'm making statements of fact to correct your inaccurate statements.

facts rule here; the US is a nation of laws, even if those laws are flawed.

The FACT is that copying a digital file fails to meet the definition of theft. I am not saying it's morally correct or morally incorrect, I am saying that IT IS NOT THEFT. Clear enough for you?

another fact is that human ambition is driven by profit and/or personal gain

Maybe yours is. You don't speak for everyone. Music and literature and live plays existed LONG before copyright laws. According to you, that's not possible...but yet it happened. Fact.

so that concept of IP must exist or else intellectual advances would not be made

Um, again you are provably wrong here. "Intelectual" (btw, not a word you want to be misspelling) advances were made before the concept of IP was invented. According to you, that's impossible, and yet, again, it happened. Fact.

and music could not be made profitably on a national level, only on a local level where musicians are paid for the performance and not for the song

How did Radiohead make any money then? Didn't they release, on an INTERNATIONAL level, an album (collection of songs, not a performance) for which downloaders could pay anything or nothing? Oh, and didn't they make money doing that? So again, you are demonstrably wrong. Your track record is abysmal.

again, the system is flawed, but this started as post on how it is now, and how it is now is completely opposite of every single point you have made in your posts.

Wow, you're not only good at being wrong, you're good at hyperbole as well. Too bad you're not as good at spelling and grammar.

we cannot live in a world of anarchy, which seems to be what you suggest in your posts.

Are you completely retarded? A world in which copyright infringement is properly referred to as copyright infringement and is not improperly called theft is, to you, a world of anarchy? What a fucking moron you are. Seriously.

it sure would be nice to do whatever you wanted to do, but the huge drawback of rampant disregard for other people's property undoubtedly leads to chaos.

So referring to things by their proper terms is rampant disregard for (not of) other people's property?

most importantly, the system needs to be fixed, not disregarded.

Wow. I am in utter shock. It's a point on which we agree, however inelegantly stated.

by skirting the system you fuel the other side's arguments and make their arguments more favorable because they are on the side of the law and you have become a criminal.

Once again, referring to things by their proper term is NOT skirting the system. You nitwit.

fix the system, don't ignore it. if you simply ignore the law, then you can get punished. then what will you argue?

I don't ignore the law. I simply disagree that copyright infringement equals theft. I am not arguing that it is not against the law, I am arguing that it is not theft. Can you really be so dense as to miss this constant theme in my posts to you?

Re:Done their homework?

[Syberghost]

Why don't you write a song or book or create a painting, and I'll copy it. Lets see how quick you change your tune.

You realize you're throwing this challenge down to a group largely consisting of people who regularly write copyrighted works of computer code and contribute them freely to the world, right? Most of those here who don't have a coding credit to their name make extensive use of those works, contribute testing and bug reports, etc. You're talking to people who already put their money where your mouth is. You're doing it on a site that's owned by a company whose entire mission statement is facilitating that, and which makes money doing it.

Re:Done their homework?

[SCHecklerX]

If they make no money off of their site, where is their incentive to constantly scan it to remove 'illegal' trackers? If the *AA want TPB to perform this service, perhaps the *AA should pay the pirate pay to perform it and to be able to hire people to perform it for them. And to the *AA's specifications (ie, they MUST provide a blacklist themselves).

Otherwise, WTF? Why should anybody (ie, like slashdot) be responsible for things that others post on their site, ESPECIALLY when it is not the content itself, but pointers to it.

cheaper than RIAA fine

[FunkyELF]

Thats a whole lot cheaper than the $1,500,000 for just 1 CD.
If my math is right, maybe they could only get them on 2 tracks from a 15 track CD.

Re:Done their homework?

[SillySlashdotName]

But you're right. Pirate Bay has done nothing wrong. Sure they haven't. I'm sure they make 0 money off their site. They just want to 'stick it to the man'

Not sure what your point is here, but from what I am reading (maybe reading into it?) you have a problem with their making money from the site? Are you saying it would be OK for them to do exactly what they are doing IF they did not make money from the site? I am failing to see how profit or nonprofit makes any difference.

On another point, the summary and article both say that copyrighted works were downloaded through their site. My understanding of the Pirate Bay site is that you don't download ANYTHING COPYRIGHTED from the site, it only points you to some other site that claims to have what you searched for.

A pretty close analogy would be the phone book. If I go into the Yellow Pages and look up "Escorts" and call one, I could be looking for a true escort, or I could be looking for a prostitute. However, can a prosecutor indict the producer of the phone book for facilitating prostitution, based on the POSSIBILITY the "Escort" may be a prostitute?

I have never seen a site shown on TPB where TPB stated "This site is providing copyright infringing material", just as I have never seen a listing in the Yellow Pages for "Prostitute" (I have never been anywhere where prostitution is legal.)

I assume there are legal points TPB may be hit with, but copyright infringement is not one of them.

I note that the announcement is phrased very specifically that nothing was downloaded FROM the TPB site, it was downloaded "through" the TPB site. " '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." (bolding added)

But no matter how evil they are, copyright infringement is still copyright infringement. Why don't you write a song or book or create a painting, and I'll copy it. Lets see how quick you change your tune.


Strawman, as TPB is not infringing copyrights as they are not copying or providing copies of anything - they are just a listing of people and places that are claiming to provide 'stuff' which may or may not be copyrighted. ...copyright infringement is still copyright infringement..

Yes, and terrorists are still terrorists, and politicians are still liars, and water is still wet and the sky is still blue. None of that makes TPB guilty of anything connected with copyright infringing.

Re: You people drive me crazy.....

[Corwn of Amber]

Still, the law is what the law is. People wishing to smoke marijuana despite it being illegal don't openly flaunt it, walking down the street with a joint in their mouth. Yet, that's exactly what sites like Pirate Bay were doing with their web sites. I smoke joints in the street all the time, flaunting my contempt for each and every law that is not a direct corollary of "Do Not Harm Others".

Re:Done their homework?

[RobBebop]

Why don't you write a song or book or create a painting, and I'll copy it. Lets see how quick you change your tune. Be my guest.

Re:Done their homework?

[cnettel]

Yes, but the /. crowd also can get kind of agitated when it comes to license issues and GPL violations.

Re:Done their homework?

[TeknoHog]

But no matter how evil they are, copyright infringement is still copyright infringement. Why don't you write a song or book or create a painting, and I'll copy it.

Please do: http://iki.fi/teknohog/music/

WTF? sensationalism? Indictment = 0

[poetmatt]

Indictment means they were actually taken to court and prosecution declared their charge. It doesn't mean a damn thing. The Bay will survive, they make no money off copyright and don't distribute the music, therefore this case will fall apart. There is no evidence whatsoever that they have infringed on copyright, since they haven't even made the music available.

  Stop sucking up to media without using some actual court logic....even if this is slashdot. This is like taking someone to court and indicting them on 4 accounts of XYZ. It doesn't even mean found guilty or that the evidence is accepted, it's the next step after "we want to take you to court". Piratebay can even ask for summary judgement against the MPAA/RIAA that could shut down this case before it even goes to trial. Hopefully they have good lawyers who can poke holes in the evidence before the trial even occurs.

Re:WTF? sensationalism? Indictment = 0

[dave420]

They do make money from it (see the adverts on their site). They also host the .torrent files, which are a key piece of information needed to download. If they only had magnet hashes, then fair enough. They also host the main trackers, which co-ordinates the infringement. I don't want them to get into any trouble, though - I use it a lot, and certainly don't agree with the MPAA and RIAA shit-storming nice folks.

Re:WTF? sensationalism? Indictment = 0

[poetmatt]

I understand what you're saying and agree with that I don't want to see them go down,

but making money advertisements on a website doesn't tie them to piracy. That's a very hard thing to tie together, regardless of your business. Also, hosting the tracker is a method to search out the files but is not a copy of them. Remember as well that copyright infringement is not theft, no matter how much the MAFIAA wants you to be brainwashed otherwise, and this is going to be a core issue in court. Especially since files can be shared without a hosted tracker, too. Trackers help, but are not required. A smart lawyer for piratebay will see plenty of ways and options to tear down the MAFIAA on this one. Don't forget this case will go on for years (RIAA/MPAA, not piratebay reasoning - remember RIAA/MPAA wants to drag it out for excess legal fees) and there are no preliminary injunctions against the bay in Sweden. That last part makes a huge difference as well.

Even with making filesharing illegal, note that they aren't suing for that . That should indicate to you just how little of a case they have.

Re:WTF? sensationalism? Indictment = 0

[dave420]

I know what you're saying, but it doesn't change the fact the site obviously knows it's dealing with copyrighted material, and is facilitating people downloading it, and is making money off it. That means it's engaging in copyright infringement for a profit, which is a criminal offense in many places. I know it doesn't host anything, but the fact it's not doing anything to get rid of copyrighted material it has indexed that is brought to its attention means it's complicit in the infringement, which is exactly what the case claims.

Re:WTF? sensationalism? Indictment = 0

[poetmatt]

Here's the issue. How can you say that a tracker that isn't data itself, facilitates anything? That's like having a file with a list of pirate URLs and IP addresses, even if there's descriptions that say like "good place to get illegal stuff". That type of evidence would first have to be accepted by court before it can even be argued before it can even be accepted as evidence before it can even be debated. It doesn't tie you to anything. You still don't explain how they are tied as well to having made money off piracy as opposed to what they did, which is made money off advertising. Whether there is piracy or not if people come to their site and they get paid for the ads, there's nothing illegal about that.

This is the difference of the law vs my opinion or yours. The law wants fact, and unbiased opinion. You can claim all the silly things you want but they won't even make it to trial (which is what I have been saying) if you have no real proof and evidence....and thats what summary judgement and why expert witnesses don't make it to trial (aka daubert hearing) if the lawyer is attentive.

Even moreso, is I don't see any links to the actual charges being filed (or translated to english), nor with a specific definition of what they are being sued for. The slashdot link says "accessory to the crime" and the article says 2 things: "conspiracy to break copyright law in Sweden." and "The operation of The Pirate Bay is financed through advertising revenues. In that way it commercially exploits copyright-protected work and performances," prosecutor Hakan Roswall said in a statement" which is basically a null phrase they said to the press which means "we can't tie things to anything they've don3e, but we're going to blow a lot of smoke to the press". Doesn't this make you wonder a little what the REAL claim

Conspiracy is a word that is well defined in law, and its about as easy to prove as claims in impeachment. Conspiracy is a government charge on occasion, not something that the IFPI or any non governmental organization can claim at all. If its not the government claiming that phrase expect it to be a vertical hill that they are trying to walk up aka won't happen.

Any high class lawyer that does well and knows Swedens laws will have this case through in 4-6 years after the MAFIAA is done trying to drag it on in hopes that piratebay will default due to not having enough money (Expect a million claims in the case in hopes that a few stick). In any legal case if you don't have money for appeals you can't even appeal, which is why cases are dragged on (you have to post the money). You and I can debate until our ears are blue but there is no factual proof of anything whatsoever until things are accepted in court.

Re:WTF? sensationalism? Indictment = 0

[shark72]

"Here's the issue. How can you say that a tracker that isn't data itself, facilitates anything? "

"to facilitate" means roughly "to make easy." TPB makes it easy to find pirated stuff. It's their mission, their purpose, and their primary use. This is the sort of prima facie stuff that will be covered in the first day of proceedings.

"That type of evidence would first have to be accepted by court before it can even be argued before it can even be accepted as evidence before it can even be debated."

Correct. The evidence of the "well, duh" stuff (TPB encourages and facilitates piracy; TPB makes money, etc.) will be collected in the discovery process. Don't expect the court to get hung up on this for too long.

"It doesn't tie you to anything. You still don't explain how they are tied as well to having made money off piracy as opposed to what they did, which is made money off advertising. Whether there is piracy or not if people come to their site and they get paid for the ads, there's nothing illegal about that."

I think I see your point, but you're going off-track. The prosecution's point is that TPB is being run as a for-profit business. Their actual business model doesn't matter; whether they make their money on ads, or from membership fees, or from donations isn't the issue.

My inference here is that the question of a profit motive is an issue in Swedish law. It used to be a bigger issue in US copyright code until about 15 years ago. Even if it's not, my guess is that the profit motive (and perhaps more importantly, the amount of money TPB has earned) will come into play when it's time to pick the amount of the fine.

Re:WTF? sensationalism? Indictment = 0

[poetmatt]

the only reason they're making crazy ass ridiculously high fines is so that its more costly to appeal (posting it, etc)...gotta love how law favors prosecution in some instances. I think it will be hard to infer that a for profit business is automatically associated with piracy though, with merely trackers.

Re:Done their homework?

[DaveV1.0]

illegal:
1. forbidden by law or statute.
2. contrary to or forbidden by official rules, regulations, etc.: The referee ruled that it was an illegal forward pass.

Anything against law, be it civil or criminal law, is illegal.

Thanks for playing, now STFU.

Re:Done their homework?

[Maxo-Texas]

This (admittedly cowardly) anonymous poster is not a troll.
The point is valid tho a little rude.

Any one using torrents to download copyrighted material, especially recently released copyrighted material, should never lose sight of the fact that what they are doing is illegal and probably at least a little immoral. You have to balance the immoral hijacking of the copyright laws against taking the results of peoples work without compensating them. Likewise there is the issue of artificially inflated monopoly prices vs what the real cost of production is.

There is a strong argument that 50 year old songs by dead artists should be in public domain. Until our government representatives were bribed by rich corporations (i.e. disney, et al) copyright law was roughly 28 years. Numerous egregious examples ("Happy Birthday", "It's a wonderful life", "Mickey Mouse") show clearly how this area of the law is being abused at a large cost to society which has a reasonable expectation that works will go into public domain where they can be used to create new art.

I would also say that when employees in this industry make over a million dollars a year, they are being overcompensated and there must be some artificial reason why which will eventually be flattened.

Not Guilty, Yet Screwed...

[Nom du Keyboard]

TPB is likely completely legal in Sweden. If they weren't, they would have been shuttered long before now. Still, unless Sweden has a Loser Pays system, the (il)legal system there will attempt to grind them down through endless prosecution. Once any government starts acting like that, they need to be replaced NOW!

Re:Done their homework?

[Mister Whirly]

"But you're right. Pirate Bay has done nothing wrong. Sure they haven't.

So let me get this straight - if I tell you where you can find illegal drugs, that is the same in your eyes as if I personally sold them to you? I think your logic leaves a little something to be desired... All Pirate Bay did was provide links, or provide information. Providing information isn't illegal. If I told you all you need to rob a bank is a gun and a mask, am I guilty of robbing said bank?

Re:Swedish Pride? DON'T BLAME THE ENTIRE COUNTRY

[Nom du Keyboard]

I was under the impression that the Swedes are very independent and would not be pushed around by international influences.

It only takes one rogue, bought-off, prosecutor to tarnish the entire country over this.

Re:what the internet needs

[Borealis]

Are you a bot spouting pro-microsoft bullshit or a troll trying to derail the point with deliberately inane comments?

Re:Puh-leeze

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Just because they choose not to prosecute Google, or any other entity, does not mean they cannot bring suit against The Pirate Bay. This is civil, not criminal, there is no restriction against selective enforcement. The fact that others may engage in the same behavior is not a valid defense.

Anyway, most of the arguments I've seen today are based on understandings of US law, which does not apply to TPB.

The rest of the arguments are weak rationalizations for theft thinly disguised as civil disobedience.

Re:Done their homework?

[AnomaliesAndrew]

ARTISTS, WELCOME TO REALITY:

No artist can claim the ignorant position that they did not anticipate the theft of their creations.

I know people steal music. A huge portion of the connected population does. So, you just have to be aware, like I am, that when you write a song and get it published: people are going to steal it!

Since the history of man, theft has existed. It was in fact a way of life prior to the advent of lawful society, even still for many. IANA evolutionary biologist, but I suspect our urge to steal music, and in some individuals many other things, is a byproduct of our distant scavenging ancestry.

My dad owns a car lot, and experiences frequent crime. He does not sue the socket/ratchet company that enables a thief to make off with a set of rims. He has insurance for this sort of thing. Maybe it's time the recording industry quit their bitchin and buy some insurance (and I don't mean lawyers/politicians/lobbyists).

Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[Nerdposeur]

If I work one day as a cop for you and you pay me 100$ and then you work the same day singing a song and ask for 1,000,000$ rest assured I'll try to find a way of not paying you what you don't deserve.

And if he works as a musician and everyone who likes his music takes it without paying, he will give up and become a cop or a plumber too.

End result? Less music for you to listen to. Apply that to movies, where the cost of creation is much higher, and it's even clearer.

With everyone's sense of entitlement aside, if you enjoy the work of people who make a living creating digital works, it's in your best interest to find SOME way to help them continue making a living at it. If you want to screw record labels, support indie films, buy tshirts from bands, whatever - that's fine. But creative people do have to eat. And MOST of them are not making the big bucks, as you suggest.

Look, I've recorded and sold music, and plan to do more. I plan to give it away, and encourage fans to give it away. But I'll also ask for tips, and whether I get any, and how much I get, will directly determine whether I'll be able to quit my day job, how much time I can spend on music, and whether I can come play in your town.

I've donated to programmers who give away code, and I've donated to musicians who give away music. I just want them to keep it up. Any rational fan or consumer must consider that.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[MadHatter2005]

Hey you know thats bullshit. My god-given right to take what isn't mine trumps some production-assistants need to eat and pay their bills. After all, it was their fault that they worked hard on some crap like Harry Potter, and it is karmic justice for me to take it. Maybe if enough people take and enjoy the content without paying they'll stop making crap like that.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[Thanshin]

Forget entitlement From then on, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I've donated work, even small works on demand (which is my actual source of income). I've paid for free work. In one case I took a considerable effort to track the person whose work saved me months of mine.

My hope is that one day everyone who works generating information (I don't care if it's composers or programmers) will be able to get paid directly from the consumer and that law will go against anyone who tries to get into the breach and suck benefits from both.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[calviin]

Let them quit. Let them be plumbers or cops. Music started as free. Songs made to be sung by the people to bring them together, tell stories, etc. Music isn't new. Music has been around for a long time. Think of how many famous musicians there were two or three hundred years ago. How about during the Renaissance, the greatest time of art and music in out history? Compare that to the bullshit that goes on now. Pop singers don't deserve the money they get and their "work" is trash. Now, I'm not really worried either way about what happens to their music because I don't listen to music from anyone within the RIAA and haven't for over a decade, but I do care about the fact that they are suggesting that they deserve to make the kind of money that they have been. They don;'t make music that can stand the test of time. They make music that stays with you for a couple weeks and then you move on to the next song. They don;t deserve a mil for a song that nobody will care about in six months. If you're gonna make cheap disposable music, fine, but don't your diluted sense of entitlement thanks to the past 50 years of fluffed business politics doesn't mean you are worth what you claim.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[Some_Llama]

"trumps some production-assistants need to eat and pay their bills."

I didn't know production assistants got paid from royalties or box office receipts, i was under the (apparently false) assumption they were paid for their work while they worked.

Thanks for the insight into how movie production really works. /sarcasm

What confuses me is how all of these movie production companies are still raking in Millions of dollars in profit if piracy is so rampant? Box office receipts alone show that they are, not to mention the money made in DVD sales and rentals.

Oh, they aren't making "enough" money... i see, that makes me really feel for them then.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[hesiod]

> And if he works as a musician and everyone who likes his music takes it without paying, he will give up and become a cop or a plumber too.

Why can't he be a plumber (or some other occupation) during the day and a musician by night? It's not unheard-of outside of major record labels and is, in fact, quite common.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[MadHatter2005]

Please do try to keep up. PAs get paid from the upfront money that the investors put into the production. The reason why the investors put money into the production is that they think they'll make a profit. That profit comes from revenue that the movie generates, be it from ticket sales, rentals, ad placement, etc.

You downloading their movie and enjoying it without paying for it harms that revenue. If enough revenue is taken away from the investors then the next time a movie is trying to get made the money-men may not be as enthusiastic about putting their dollars in. Hence, less movies get made, or less movies that aren't guaranteed blockbusters get made.

If your attitude is 'tough fucking shit, the world needs to be more equal and they're too rich anyway and incomes need to be more even' then there is a nice slice of humble pie coming your way because that will never happen. People don't want to be equal, comrade. I certainly wouldn't want to be as bitter as you, for example.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[Nerdposeur]

Why can't he be a plumber (or some other occupation) during the day and a musician by night? It's not unheard-of outside of major record labels and is, in fact, quite common.

Yes, it is common. But you're ignoring a basic concept: it takes time and equipment and money to make the music you listen to. It takes even more time and money (and lots of people) to make movies.

Who will pay for the cost of the creating the music and the movies you like? Choose one:

A) All the writers and musicians and producers and engineers and actors and film crews and special effects artists can work second jobs to pay for their own time and buy their own equipment, all to make things free for YOU, even though YOU have a day job, so that YOU can spend your cash on goods which, as chance has it, you can't copy for free
. B) You can pay those people, directly or indirectly, to make content for you to enjoy.

I'm not arguing that every musician must get paid or life isn't fair. There are amateur musicians, and that's fine. I'm just saying that it's naive to expect that part-time creative people can produce the same volume and quality of work during their off hours from a regular job, with no funding, as they can when they make money and do it full-time.

Have you even LOOKED at the price of professional recording and video equipment?

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[Alsee]

Hey you know thats bullshit. My god-given right to have armed gunmen seize your stuff and give it to me and/or imprison you because you took your pencil and you wrote something on your paper trumps trumps your right to, well, sit in your house with your pencil writing stuff on your paper.

Go argue with God.

-

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[Some_Llama]

"PAs get paid from the upfront money that the investors put into the production."

right, so they got paid.

"The reason why the investors put money into the production is that they think they'll make a profit."

and some do and some don't

"that profit comes from revenue that the movie generates, be it from ticket sales, rentals, ad placement, etc."

And some movies completely Bomb, are you now blaming the public for not "supporting the little guy" because they don't watch every movie made? I surely hope not because that would be ludicrous.

"You downloading their movie and enjoying it without paying for it harms that revenue."

If I NEVER was going to PAY for the priviledge then how does it harm revenue?

"If enough revenue is taken away from the investors then the next time a movie is trying to get made the money-men may not be as enthusiastic about putting their dollars in."

Like i said, if it is a gamble none the less, my downloading a movie i would never watch in a theater, buy or Rent does NOTHING to that "revenue stream" and thusly does not "harm production assistants".

"If your attitude is 'tough fucking shit, the world needs to be more equal and they're too rich anyway and incomes need to be more even' then there is a nice slice of humble pie coming your way because that will never happen. People don't want to be equal, comrade. I certainly wouldn't want to be as bitter as you, for example."

No my response was to your blatantly obvious heart string pulling so people would "think of the ____" instead of the real issue, the true value or loss of someone downloading a movie/song/whatever.

SO... be honest, do you work for the studios or just get paid to shill out their propaganda?

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[MadHatter2005]

"And some movies completely Bomb, are you now blaming the public for not "supporting the little guy" because they don't watch every movie made? I surely hope not because that would be ludicrous.... If I NEVER was going to PAY for the priviledge then how does it harm revenue?"

I'm not talking about the the movies that bomb, nor the movies that are blockbusters. I'm talking about the ones where the amount of piracy determines whether of not the movie reaches its break-even point. You can play dumb and pretend that none of the pirates would see a particular movie at the theaters anyway, and that their downloading it on the net makes no difference to the overall revenue of the movie, but you know that even if 10% of the pirates paid for the movie then that could make or break a movies profitability.

The subtext to your argument is "I want it, and I can get it without paying for it, so I'm going to take it." All the pedantic pretzel logic in the world will not shake that underlying premise.

"SO... be honest, do you work for the studios or just get paid to shill out their propaganda?"

Nice try, but no, I don't work for any media/movie companies, nor am I paid to shill propaganda. So now it is your turn to be honest (and I get to fling an insult as well) - are you under 30? Because your style of debate sounds a lot like the reasoning of a teenager.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[hesiod]

> But you're ignoring a basic concept: it takes time and equipment and money to make the music you listen to.

Well, not much of the music I listen to, but most people's preferred music, yeah. But even then, much of the money that is spent recording music is not really necessary.

> Have you even LOOKED at the price of professional recording and video equipment?

Recording, yes, since that is my hobby. And even working in a semi-decent IT job, I certainly don't have the cash to run out and buy a super awesome 48 channel mixing board whenever I want, and a soundproof studio, but a lot of that stuff isn't really necessary (though admittedly, it helps quite a bit).

Video, not so much, although I have a friend who does that stuff and while not top of the line, it was only a couple grand for enough to make good quality video. Of course, that doesn't include professional lighting, a full studio, etc.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[Some_Llama]

"I'm talking about the ones where the amount of piracy determines whether of not the movie reaches its break-even point. "

Really? Which movie would that be?

First your point was "think of the key grips!!!", then it was "piracy stops investment in new media!!!" now it's "somewhere in between blockbusters and flops!!", the only consistent point i see is that studios aren't making enough money, period, we should make anyone who has seen a movie pay for it in some way. (remind anyone of the MPAA?)

"but you know that even if 10% of the pirates paid for the movie then that could make or break a movies profitability."

Sounds like a great idea!! so many people obviously want to be able to download a full length movie on it's release date you would think they would find some way to tap into that market, i'm sure the 10% of overall "pirates" wouldn't have a problem paying for movies this way.

you know what also helps a movie's profitability? being a good movie. napoleon dynamite made tons of cash on a very small budget, very profitable in fact. are you saying this movie wasn't pirated or that it doesn't matter because it was a good movie?

"are you under 30?"
nope. If you find it insulting to be called an industry shill then maybe you should be honest in it's debate and not reiterate every bullet point the MPPA has made?

just a thought.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[MadHatter2005]

You are avoiding the main point, plus sticking words into my mouth. It is pointless to continue the debate.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[cpt kangarooski]

What if we're willing to tolerate a reduced volume and quality of work since we regard what we get in exchange (no copyrights, apparently) to be of greater value? Just because it's a big piece of a small pie, that doesn't necessarily mean you're better off with a small piece of a big pie.

I'd be perfectly happy to shrink copyright terms to no more than 20-25 years, perhaps less, eliminate copyright on some classes of work (e.g. architecture), require strict formalities such as registration and deposit, and make it legal for natural persons to do whatever they like with works, so long as they act non-commercially. Would the number of works and their quality decline? Maybe a little bit, but I don't think it would go down very far, and we would have gained a lot of freedom that more than makes up for it.

Re:Forget entitlement - artists have to eat

[Walter Carver]

The studios are not going to bankrupt because people download their movies in torrents. People who download torrents were not going to see the movie on the cinema or DVD either way. The studios are not losing anything.

But I know what you were trying to say to the parent post.

Re:Done their homework?

[somersault]

Oh right, because you're not choosing to create a copy on your own computer when you download it? It magically appears and is not in fact a copy, but a clone, or perhaps a duplicate?

Plus the fact that these guys don't upload any copyrighted material, so technically what they are doing is legal, unless there is a law which relates to this. I just used TPB a little earlier to get a link to a SuSE 9.2 DVD torrent (because I don't know any SuSE 9.2 repositories and the SuSE 10 DVD is giving me 2 swap file options when I try to run it to update our webserver, and neither works..)

Re:Done their homework?

[shark72]

"I don't really think so. Hosting and upkeep of their hardware may not be cheap, but if the $4m figure has any ties to reality, they're probably making an OK living off tpb."

I believe the original poster was being sarcastic, but your point stands.

It's hugely beneficial for the TPB operators paint a picture of break-even financials and motivation by an altruistic desire to stick it to the man. This helps them get sympathy when they get into legal scrapes like this; but more importantly, it helps with their efforts at collecting donations. Plenty of apologists will swear up and down that TPB doesn't make any money because somebody at TPB told them so, but the numbers regarding their bandwidth and ad views just don't add up.

So how much do they make? I read an article which put the wealth of one of the founders at $10MM, but I don't think it's nearly that much. Either way, between their daily revenue stream from ad impressions, the huge pile of cash they collected for their "let's buy an island" campaign, and the donations they've received since (many P2P fans use the donate 10% of the retail price of the media formula), they should have no trouble paying for their legal fees or fines.

For what it's worth, I have no trouble with TBP making a healthy profit. Neither should many P2P fans. After all, the record companies want you to pay for music, while TPB helps you get it for free, so perhaps they deserve compensation for providing this service. If I were a P2P fan I wouldn't have an issue with this, but nonetheless many people bristle at the notion of TBP actually having a profit motive, just like the vast majority of other enterprises.

I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd love TPB to organize as a non-profit (where their income and expenses, including compensation, would be public knowledge). If they really did support the artists, they could even announce that they were donating their excess operating income to the most-pirated artists on the site. That would truly show that they don't have a profit motive. But, I really don't think this will happen.

Re:Done their homework?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, have you opened up your firewall to let people store warez on the free part of the drive and use your free bandwidth?

Yes. It's called FreeNet.

Re:Puh-leeze

[Ahruman]

This is civil, not criminal, there is no restriction against selective enforcement.

Er... no. This is a criminal case.

Awesome

[Skuldo]

These pirates wear copyright breeches.

Re:Done their homework?

[hesiod]

> Why don't you write a song or book or create a painting, and I'll copy it. Lets see how quick you change your tune.

Enjoy!. I've made and produced four albums of my own, appeared in two and co-produced three others, and helped distributed almost a dozen more... all of them free. Nope, my tune (as far as opinion in this matter) still sounds the same.

Re:Done their homework?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the /. crowd also can get kind of agitated when it comes to license issues and GPL violations.

Just to note that you're referring to things not being freely shared which agitates the /. crowd. It's a complete opposite to the iron-fist distribution the movie and music cartels try to force on the world.

"help them profit"? not at all.

[Animaether]

look, don't get me wrong, I think artists making gajillions shouldn't complain either. But I do take issue with your last statement. I'll dissect it a bit.

"There is no right to profit from your work."
Correct.

"There is a right to try to profit from your work."
Sure, even if that's not written in stone anywhere - it's as basic right, I suppose.

"The difference is subtle but very important"
Absolutely.

"and frankly, I'm starting to get more than a bit sick of the copyright creeps demanding that all society and technology bend over backwards to help them profit."
And that's where I take issue. There is a difference between telling society that
A. they -must- purchase Artwork X
and
B. they -must not- pirate Artwork X

In situation A, society is bending over backwards to help them profit and I agree, there shouldn't be some mandate saying that every consumer must purchase a minimum of Artworks to help the artists.

In situation B, however, all that is said is that if society -wants- a given Artwork, they'd better either pay for it, or deal with the fact that they won't have said Artwork. And that, I think, is perfectly fair. If that results in the Artist neither getting purchases -nor- popularity from pirating, then that's the result of the Artist's own choice.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[Sot32]

So what happens if someone watches the plumber replace a valve, and then replaces valves of his own? Does that someone then owe the plumber royalties for intellectual property?

The fact that so many free guitar tablature sites have been taken down leads me to believe that the copyright fanatics are siding with the plumber.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[Qzukk]

there is also a situation C:

You forgot situation D: You buy the picture from the artist, and then the artist declares after the sale that you're only permitted to hang it on the north wall of your bathroom. If you hang it on the south wall of the living room, then the artist publicly declares that you stole the picture, despite the fact that you paid for it free of any contractual obligations to obey the artist's wishes after the sale.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[localman]

I'm convinced that if media companies put up absolutely everything in their vaults for download on a well designed bittorrent tracker, provided guaranteed seeding, removed all DRM, and charged a few pennies per download they would a) just about completely eliminate piracy and b) make a shitload of money.

It's not a counter to anything you're saying, because I essentially agree with you. But from a pragmatic perspective I don't think they're acting even in their own best interest at the moment.

Cheers.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[PatrickThomson]

I think the problem that a lot of vocal people on slashdot have is that artwork X is "unfairly" pimped out for the purposes of making money, fatiguing the market and making "better" artworks suffer because originality isn't profitable. See for example futurama and firefly vs. american idol or celebrity love island or big brother or ... etc.

It's not so entirely clear-cut as "just don't pirate it if you don't want to watch it" if it's all that is available after the monopoly squashed the competition and jacked up the price.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[Tiskel2001]

"and frankly, I'm starting to get more than a bit sick of the copyright creeps demanding that all society and technology bend over backwards to help them profit."

It might not be what the parent meant, but I ready this a little differently (and I agree):

These creeps (with Disney spearheading the effort, just lately taken over by the music labels) have completely warped the entire copyright process to be a guaranteed money flow for the copyright holder, far beyond it's intended purpose, to the detriment of society at large, and other artists in particular. The fact that the major labels still own copyrights to works produced in the 50s and 60s, and will continue to be able to collect royalties 95 years after the artists have died, really ruins the "who will save the Artists" line of reasoning... Copyright used to protect a work for some reasonable number of years (around 10 - 20?), which would easily guarantee that an artist could profit from their work (given that it was worth paying for in the first place). With the current system, it is so out of proportion to the intended goals that society at large couldn't give a flying fuck about those goals, and just says to hell with it, I'll just download it.

I can't count the number of people who have stopped purchasing and started ripping / downloading, specifically to send a big "fuck you" to the labels. Lawfulness and fairness have gone out the window, and are irrelevant in a time where there is such disdain for the public domain and production of works for the joy of producing the work. Perhaps this would all be less of an issue if the artists didn't think they "deserved" millions of dollars for any crap with their name on it, and just took a flat production fee instead of royalties. But, hey, where would we be as a country if we though about the impact of our actions on everyone else instead of just thinking about how to have more money...

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[Kjella]

"There is a difference between telling society that
A. they -must- purchase Artwork X
and
B. they -must not- pirate Artwork X and
C. they -can't let anyone- pirate Artwork X

A. Is just a constructed absurdity
B. has been the default since 1790 or thereabouts. Blame it on advancing technology or weakened morality, it's not working very well anymore.
C. Goes beyond just having police, it's the "demanding that all society and technology bend over backwards to help them profit" situation.

Any form of private digital communications channel can trivially be used pirate digital works, since by defintion it's private. Computers copy things at every level, to move things is nothing but the illusion of copy and delete. Trying to prevent either of these is asking society and technology to bend over backwards. One thing is if you've been sold on the idea that the NSA needs access to your communications to hunt terrorists, but if you've bought that the RIAA needs access to prevent people from pirating the latest Britney CD you're truly a lost case. Win or lose against TPB, increasing bandwidth and smarter networks means the RIAA wlll lose in the long run.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[RexRhino]

And that's where I take issue. There is a difference between telling society that
A. they -must- purchase Artwork X
and
B. they -must not- pirate Artwork X Except that to practicly enforce B, the following is required:

1. That I give up my right to own machines capable of copying and storing content.

2. That the police, government, or record labels are able to monitor my data transfers in order to determine if what I am copying is copyright or not.

3. That the copyright holders have the ability for fish net style legal tactics, a tactic that is likely to hurt innocent people as easily as guilty people.

While I can sympathize with the desire to spot music piracy, the only tactics that are available are ones that greatly infringe on the rights of the vast majority of innocent people.

If a law, even a moral law, can only be enforced with immoral authoritarian means, then the law isn't viable. We are going to end up creating a technologically crippled police state, destroying our most precious rights nessicary to democracy, in order to make some copyright owners a little money. Sorry, that ain't good enough.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[servognome]

fatiguing the market and making "better" artworks suffer because originality isn't profitable

Futurama = Simpsons in Space, Firefly = A-Team in Space. I enjoy both, but neither I would say is "better" than anything else that's out there. Would you prefer system that forces you to watch "true art," because we all know the highest form of art is that inspired by our Creator... now enjoy some gospel music, and watch some inspirational bible stories. /sarcasm

It's not so entirely clear-cut as "just don't pirate it if you don't want to watch it" if it's all that is available after the monopoly squashed the competition and jacked up the price.

Where is the monopoly? All the music/publishing/movie industry has is protection on a very specific item within the industry, of which there are plenty of alternative substitutes for entertainment. It's like complaining that Pepsi has a monopoly on making Pepsi.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

In situation B, however, all that is said is that if society -wants- a given Artwork, they'd better either pay for it, or deal with the fact that they won't have said Artwork. And that, I think, is perfectly fair. If that results in the Artist neither getting purchases -nor- popularity from pirating, then that's the result of the Artist's own choice.

Exactly. Remember the free market, people? We can affect the market by selectively choosing what we purchase. If we want media with lax copyright restrictions, and the market can satisfy that want, then we shall receive. There's no need to force the market by changing copyright law (beyond making shorter term lengths - it's hard for the free market to guarantee a work will be released into the public domain before its time) when we can just reward the behaviour that we approve of.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[cpt kangarooski]

Yes, but you're only looking at half the picture so far.

Remember, if the artist wants a copyright on his artwork, then he has to convince society to give it to him; just claiming one when everyone ignores you is an exercise in impotence. It's the same as declaring yourself Emperor of Asia if you cannot personally back up your assertion. Just as the artist is under no obligation to create or publish his art if people don't pay him, society is under no obligation to give the artist a copyright if the artist doesn't pay society (by, e.g. publishing the art which will relatively promptly enter the public domain so that everyone can stop paying the artist and still get to keep the art).

If society is grants copyrights excessively (e.g. too-long terms, too many rights, etc.) then it harms society and is much like your situation A. If they don't grant enough, then while it may not harm society, it fails to help as much as it could. The trick is to find the right set of laws that helps society the most. Whether or not the artist likes this the most is not really important, since if he didn't, it would necessarily be against the interests of the entire rest of the world to satisfy him. It would be pretty silly to place him above everyone else.

Weirdly, though, that's pretty much where we now find ourselves.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[cpt kangarooski]

Remember that copyright is a state granted monopoly over a commodity good meant to advance a social purpose. I don't see much room for the free market there. A free market would seem to demand the abolition of copyright.

In any event, copyright needs to be reformed from top to bottom. Term limits are not the only problem, in fact, I wouldn't even consider them to the be most important problem. Your suggestion is pretty silly, IMO.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I see plenty of room for the free market. There's nothing in copyright law saying you have to buy anything. There's nothing in copyright law that prevents competition from other copyrighted works. There's nothing in copyright law that mandates copyright be applied to every work despite the artist's wishes. If they want to release without copyright, or without restrictions on distribution, then they may. The supplier is perfectly free to provide that kind of product, and we are perfectly free to consume it. All copyright does, in terms of the free market, is tie the value of the product to its distribution restrictions.

My suggestion isn't silly at all. If we were to completely stop buying restricted media, do you really think that business model could survive? Of course not. No matter how much of a state-granted monopoly is granted over one particular artwork, it still needs to be purchased to be commercially viable.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[slashqwerty]

"and frankly, I'm starting to get more than a bit sick of the copyright creeps demanding that all society and technology bend over backwards to help them profit."
And that's where I take issue.

DeCSS was ruled illegal thus making it illegal to publish an open source DVD player. You don't take issue with that? In fact it is illegal to make any open source media player that can play DRM'd material.

Hollywood has been lobbying for laws that would

1. Require all video cameras to stop recording when a certain watermark comes into view.
2. Require ISPs to monitor all traffic and block anything that looks like copyrighted material.
3. Force internet radio stations to pay higher royalties on music--retroactively! This one actually passed and became law.
4. Prohibit VCRs from recording anything with a "don't copy" bit set.
5. Require all VCRs to support a proprietary, patented copy protection standard (passed and became law in 1998).
6. And a lot more. Take a look at The Right to Read for some older and similarily egregious examples.

Copyright is supposed to provide authors with a short-term (for limited times) benefit with the goal of enriching the public domain. Material that is effectively protected by DRM can never enter the public domain which defeats the whole point of copyright.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[cpt kangarooski]

There's nothing in copyright law that prevents competition from other copyrighted works

Yes, but one copy of a work contains the same work as another copy. Thus, copies of the same work are commodities. In a free market, many publishers would print copies of the same book, each trying to compete against one another, resulting in lower prices, multiple sources, etc. all of which benefit the reader. With copyrights, only the publisher chosen by the author may print that specific work, and can command any price he sees fit. It may or may not sell, but other works are not necessarily a substitute for that work, as any avid reader knows.

There's nothing in copyright law that mandates copyright be applied to every work despite the artist's wishes.

Of course, this could be improved dramatically, by restoring copyright to an opt-in system, rather than an opt-out system. Right now authors who don't want copyrights but cannot be bothered to put their works in the public domain wind up holding copyrights that they don't want and which nevertheless burden the public. Better would be to require authors who do want copyrights to register in order to get them, as we can expect them to jump over a trivial hurdle. This more neatly aligns the interests of authors and the public, and is how we've traditionally done things to boot, so we know it works!

All copyright does, in terms of the free market, is tie the value of the product to its distribution restrictions.

It does more than that, and it largely removes the work from the free market in the process.

If we were to completely stop buying restricted media, do you really think that business model could survive?

If we were to reduce the restrictions, we wouldn't have to stop, and we could still change the business model. Given that copyright exists to serve the public interest, I see no reason for the public to have to bother with a boycott, when copyright is a legislative creation and thus quite easy to change legislatively, given a democratic society.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

With copyrights, only the publisher chosen by the author may print that specific work, and can command any price he sees fit. It may or may not sell, but other works are not necessarily a substitute for that work, as any avid reader knows.

If it's truly a great book, in true free market fashion, people will be prepared to pay a higher price, including dealing with IP restrictions. In any other corner of the free market, the same thing applies: the supplier sets the price, the consumer chooses whether or not to pay for it. Like I said, the difference lies in that the value of the method of distribution gets tied to the product itself.

You also make the assumption that the great book would be published and available without copyright. Allowing the option to opt out of copyright is really the most tried-and-true method of finding a sweet spot between production and consumer rights.

Of course, this could be improved dramatically, by restoring copyright to an opt-in system, rather than an opt-out system. Right now authors who don't want copyrights but cannot be bothered to put their works in the public domain wind up holding copyrights that they don't want and which nevertheless burden the public. Better would be to require authors who do want copyrights to register in order to get them, as we can expect them to jump over a trivial hurdle. This more neatly aligns the interests of authors and the public, and is how we've traditionally done things to boot, so we know it works!

It's a relatively elegant solution, but I'm not convinced that there's that much of a problem. When you distribute a work, it's fairly trivial to put your work into the public domain. It's certainly more trivial than registering for a copyright would be. Plus, it's significantly cheaper to enable copyright by default than to maintain a database of all the copyrighted works out there.

Given that copyright exists to serve the public interest, I see no reason for the public to have to bother with a boycott, when copyright is a legislative creation and thus quite easy to change legislatively, given a democratic society.

That's true, but on the same token, we don't have to change it legislatively. I would argue that, given the two party system of so many democracies out there, and that issues are only addressed if they're particularly hot-button issues, using the free market would be an easier and more effective method of determining the wants of the people, and instituting change. There's no need to compete with media lobbyists, there's no need to make potentially rash decisions law. Allow the market to choose from the "free" media and the "restricted" media. Allow consumers to weigh up the restrictions from big media and the decreased choice from indie media. We don't need to constantly pass and withdraw laws to force the market to incorporate society's constantly changing and always diverse needs and wants, we can just let it adjust in its own time.

BTW, I'm sorry, but I'm going away for a couple of days, so if you wish to continue this discussion, you may have to wait.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[Kjella]

Better would be to require authors who do want copyrights to register in order to get them, as we can expect them to jump over a trivial hurdle. This more neatly aligns the interests of authors and the public, and is how we've traditionally done things to boot, so we know it works! So that for example GPL developers have to register all their code if they don't want Microsoft and Apple to take it for free? I think that's a very poor idea that leaves the little guy fairly defenseless while organizations will have copyright lawyers just like patent lawyers that'll register anything just in case.

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[cpt kangarooski]

If it's truly a great book, in true free market fashion, people will be prepared to pay a higher price, including dealing with IP restrictions.

If it's a truly free market, then there is no artificially imposed scarcity of commodities. If the market is free, then anyone can copy and sell the book. The solution for the author then, is to take his ball and go home. Perhaps the public is fine with that, however, if the price he demanded was too high.

Copyright is a bribe to the author to get him to do what the public wants. It's a means of exploitation to serve the public self-interest by appealing to the author's self-interest. It's not the kind of thing that you see in a free market. A municipal utility monopoly is a similar beast.

Allowing the option to opt out of copyright is really the most tried-and-true method of finding a sweet spot between production and consumer rights.

No it's not. The US had an opt in system since our first copyright laws all the way to 1978. It is extremely tried-and-true. The current system is the aberration here. It places the decision in the hands of the author, as he is the person best suited to decide whether he wants a copyright, but defaults to the side of the public if the author fails to act entirely, further encouraging the author to take an interest in his own affairs.

It's certainly more trivial than registering for a copyright would be.

I'm not trying to find the system that requires the least effort by the author, I'm trying to find the system that encourages the creation of works where that encouragement is necessary, doesn't waste resources superfluously encouraging works that would be created anyway, and which has works enter the public domain as soon as possible, with as little copyright prior to then.

When an author is willing to create a work for free, we should be willing to allow him to do so. Such an author is already ignoring copyright. An opt out system means that the author who doesn't care about copyright also doesn't care about not having a copyright, and so the public is saddled with the cost of giving him something he doesn't want.

It is better for the authors who want a copyright to identify themselves, since they have an interest in doing so. We don't want it to be hard for them to step forward, but we do want to know specifically who needs a copyright, and who doesn't. This way works. Your way doesn't work, as is seen by how few public domain dedications there have been since 1978. It's demonstrable; you really can't argue with it.

Plus, it's significantly cheaper to enable copyright by default than to maintain a database of all the copyrighted works out there.

Wrong. First, there would be far, far fewer copyrighted works, since authors don't care about copyrights for most of their works. (E.g. in an opt-in system I bet that you would not bother to copyright your Slashdot posts; they're probably not important enough to you, and you would've posted anyway, making it appropriate for them to be in the public domain) Second, such a database is not difficult to maintain. The Copyright Office already keeps these sorts of records, and has done since long before they had the advantage of computers. Modern technology would make quick work of it. Third, such a database is absolutely necessary! Without records, you can't know whether a work is copyrighted or not, and if copyrighted, who holds the rights, and for how long. This means that many works that are in the public domain are still untouchable because no one can be certain. Doubt results in tremendous waste, and this is known as the orphan works problem. You would certainly never suggest that we burn our land title records, or bank records, or vehicle registration records. Without them, the transactional costs in their respective fields would skyrocket and we'd all be worse off. Copyright records are essential for copyright to best serve the public interest.

That's true, but on the same token, we don't have to

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[cpt kangarooski]

So that for example GPL developers have to register all their code if they don't want Microsoft and Apple to take it for free?

Yes.

I think that's a very poor idea that leaves the little guy fairly defenseless while organizations will have copyright lawyers just like patent lawyers that'll register anything just in case.

No.

First, they cannot copyright someone else's work. Copyrights can only be granted to the author -- the person who originates the work. If a work is copied, the copyist is not the author. This is why if you photograph the Mona Lisa and make a slavish reproduction of it, that photograph is not copyrightable. Further, even if you did add some creative element in the photograph, only that element would be copyrightable, and not the portion that was copied.

Second, copyright only deals with originality, not novelty. If you write a piece of code that by sheer coincidence is identical to someone else's code, then it is not an infringement. It's only an infringement if you copied yours from theirs. In an environment such as computer software, similarities are expected and not a big deal. Cf. movies, where there are fewer outside considerations (such as efficient algorithms, standardized formatting styles, etc.) to contend with.

Third, copyright only deals with expressions of ideas, not with the underlying ideas themselves. Anyone can copy someone else's algorithms, so far as copyright is concerned (patents may play a factor, however) so long as they don't copy the way that it is expressed. And see point two above with regard to similarity of expression.

So you really don't have to worry about someone else taking your code and then attacking you with it. The worst that could happen would be that they could freely use it, and anyone else could too, even if it involved copying that snippet of code from the second party. Nor do you have to worry about infringing their rights any more than you do now.

More importantly, though, they won't bother to register absolutely everything. While the burden should be minimal, there should still be a slight burden so that copyright isn't abused in roughly the manner you fear. Ideally, copyright should only be sought out and granted where it is a necessary incentive for the author to have created that work. Trying to copyright too much will, hopefully, be beyond the ability of even a large developer.

Additionally, another reform which I would like to see would be for authors who wish to copyright software to have to deposit a complete copy of the source code, along with such additional notes, comments, technical information, etc. as is necessary for a person skilled in the field to make full use of the code, with the Library of Congress. Trade secrets for copyrighted software would be impossible, just as is the case for patents. The code would not be open source -- you could learn from it, but not copy it, during the copyright term -- but this would probably not be a big deal. Further, the copyright terms for software should probably be quite short, since there's little point in decades-old software being the newest thing to enter the public domain. And any kind of work which was DRMed by or with the authorization of the copyright holder would immediately enter the public domain.

I suppose that it is possible that the OSS movement would diminish to some extent. However, I think that it would be because it would not be as important to have anymore as a bulwark against closed software. Frankly, I think it would be worth it if you look at the big picture. And if you don't, then how are you really any different than a movie studio that simply wants to preserve its way of life regardless of the effects it has on everyone else?

Re:"help them profit"? not at all.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

If it's a truly free market, then there is no artificially imposed scarcity of commodities. If the market is free, then anyone can copy and sell the book. The solution for the author then, is to take his ball and go home. Perhaps the public is fine with that, however, if the price he demanded was too high.

The market doesn't have to be truly free in order to work in "true free market fashion". In fact, often it works better when it's tempered with a little regulation (e.g. antitrust, etc). A free market regulated with copyrights is perfectly able to decide if a book is overpriced. A purely free market would be less capable, due to consumers' short-sightedness.

When an author is willing to create a work for free, we should be willing to allow him to do so. Such an author is already ignoring copyright. An opt out system means that the author who doesn't care about copyright also doesn't care about not having a copyright, and so the public is saddled with the cost of giving him something he doesn't want.

Let's not twist this too much. The author has a choice to make for himself on how much of his copyright he wants to reserve. If some authors don't want their copyrights, they can easily deny them. It's really no burden at all for those who don't want the copyrights to their works.

This way works. Your way doesn't work, as is seen by how few public domain dedications there have been since 1978. It's demonstrable; you really can't argue with it.

Just try and stop me ;)

Firstly, although I don't have any statistics (and neither do you), in my day-to-day Internet browsing, I have seen many free(dom) videos, books, essays, or just plain web pages. There's plenty of PD works out there that have been dedicated over the past few years, just not publicly.

Secondly, it's not nearly enough just to compare raw numbers of works dedicated. Doing so assumes the three lymerics I wrote and dedicated to the PD are worth the same as, say, the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A far better measurement would weight each work in terms of popularity, so that my lymerics would barely compare to the cultural contribution of Lord of the Rings.

Thirdly, "copyright" and "public domain" are deceptive, especially in this day and age. There's plenty of copyrighted material given away legitimately for free, often with redistribution freedoms attached. Assuming hypothetically that it were possible, would we really consider the dedication of a piece of software previously under a BSD-style license to the public domain to be a full copyright-to-public-domain dedication?

The opt-in method really only targets those sitting on the fence. They'll more than likely be giving away their product for free, and they probably haven't spent an enormous amount of time on their work (or else they'd probably feel the need to be reimbursed for their time). Any influx of works into the public domain probably would've been given away for free anyway (admittedly, just from a single source), and are statistically less likely to be accomplished or popular works.

Wrong. First, there would be far, far fewer copyrighted works, since authors don't care about copyrights for most of their works.

I think you're exaggerating. The entertainment industry produces a staggering amount of content, all of which you can bet your bottom dollar they will copyright. Not just that, but they will separately copyright many components, and re-releases. We would have to have copyrights on each special feature of every (re-)release of every DVD. We would have to have copyright on each arrangement of every piece of music. Every minor release of software would also be copyrighted (imagine what that'd be like with all the anti-virus products, or Windows). What about every live performance of every song? There are huge numbers of copyrights that we don't typically count.

Second, such a database is not d

Re:Done their homework?

[The Moof]

> Is downloading movies and songs illegal? yes.
No, it isn't The copyright office begs to differ.

How about we be CORRECT?

[gosand]

It isn't illegal to download movies and songs. It might be a civil crime to download copyrighted songs and movies, and though even that varies country to country, it is still a civil, non-penal issue.

OK... let's be correct here. It is perfectly legal to download copyrighted works if you have the copyright holder's consent. Copyrighted does NOT mean you can't download it. I downloaded Saul Williams' album "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!" from the internet, and there was absolutely nothing illegal about it.

Let's be correct folks. It does make a difference. It's a nit-picky thing, because the majority of downloaders don't have the copyright holder's consent - but we have to remember that as long as downloading and copyright are seen as always illegal, things aren't going to change.

Re:Done their homework?

[WNight]

Yes actually, that's what Bit Torrent does.

Re:what the internet needs

[quantum bit]

...but more dangerous content/extentions like exe's, zips, tar.gz's, bz2, py, and iso's py?!?!?!

What I find interesting that pl is not listed, even though it's clearly more dangerous. You're a lot more likely to have an aneurysm while trying to read perl code than python.

In Soviet Russia

[Vadim Makarov]

The Pirate Bay has managed to make Sweden, normally the most law abiding of EU countries, look like a piracy haven with intellectual property laws on a par with Russia.

Thanks for the honorable mention. **AA has managed to coerce governments of both countries to take unlawful action. In Sweden, it has caused public protests, and the case is now in the court of law. In Russia, after a while, the government action bypassing the law just silently worked (remember allofmp3? I, for one, still had $10 on my account. Putin, refund it to me!). So, which of the two countries is more thoroughly piratish?

Re:Done their homework?

[Lurker2288]

I would also say that when employees in this industry make over a million dollars a year, they are being overcompensated and there must be some artificial reason why which will eventually be flattened.

I don't really understand what you're saying here. You seem to acknowledge that some period of copyright protection should exist--this, of course, is nothing but an artificial monopoly, which inflates the price above the marginal cost of production (in this case, next to nothing) so that the producer can make a buck and thus has an incentive to make more stuff in the future.

Now, given that the selling price is determined monopolistically, that doesn't force anybody to buy the product. If you think a new album isn't worth the $20 it sells for, don't buy it. If enough people feel likewise, the artist (or more accurately, his label) will realize they need to lower prices in order to do business. On the other hand, if a band comes out with an album selling at $x and people are willing to pay it, then why doesn't that band deserve the profit, however exhorbitant it may be? (And however unnecessary you might consider the other players, e.g., producers, label execs, etc., the fact is that the band entered into an agreement with them, so it shouldn't be your concern what they make, either).

Am I wrong?

The RIAA should be careful what they ask for...

[Simonetta]

The RIAA should be careful what they ask for...because they just might get it. The RIAA's entire case and frame-of-reference is that they are providing better entertainment product that anyone else and that all copying of their product is stealing material goods from them. They are then attacking people who download and 'consume' RIAA product. These attacks, they believe, will stop the downloading for free and return to the purchase of individual units of RIAA product on disk media.

    This is not true. The distribution of free entertainment product is an established fact now. It's not going to go away. Nor will the RIAA/MPAA ever be able to charge for downloaded product what they charge for the product on disk. The market has changed.

    By persecuting people who consume downloaded RIAA/MPAA product, they will not bring these people back to overpriced entertainment product, they will create a secondary market of non-RIAA product that is available through low or no-cost download.

    The RIAA is destroying the market for their own product.

    They assume that because the RIAA product is better entertainment quality now that it will always be better entertainment product that non-RIAA material. But non-RIAA entertainment will get better over time given the large audience.

    The RIAA should refocus on what they do best. They should be taking all the dork music and videos on YouTube and the alt-RIAA music sites and giving recommendations for improvement. Then they should offer contracts to marginal bands for low cost distribution of music and videos. They need to learn to function inside the 'long tail'. If they don't then someone else will and they will lose the opportunity to enter and profit in this new market.

    Most likely, the RIAA will split the music business into two basic parts; a mass-media world of a few stars and an 'underground' of no stars, but groups with clusters of devoted fans. This exists today, but what the RIAA will create in the coming years is a market where the people in the musical underground will have no interest in the rock/pop star world . A market situation will arise where large sections of the population will have a 'magnetic like-pole' adversion to RIAA mass pop product. This would be bad for the RIAA (I know, they're just a front company, but I mean all the companies that fund the RIAA) because it will cause them to permanently lose 1/3 to 1/2 of their current market.

    If that happens, then it won't matter if they lower their product prices, or remove the DRM. Because a large segment of the musical market will have a fundamental aversion to their product, and won't consume it under any market conditions.

    This is the true danger to the RIAA in their current actions.

Re:The RIAA should be careful what they ask for...

[spazdor]

Well observed. The less attractive the RIAA makes their product by harrassing its consumers, the more of a competitive advantage Creative Commons and Copyleft materials will have. Larry Lessig takes the same position here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs and draws a parallel here to how ASCAP lost against BMI.

Re:The RIAA should be careful what they ask for...

[Artuir]

I have a bad feeling that what will come out of this court case is that anyone hosting a torrent file pointing to an "illegal" download will be punishable by law, as well as all the involved seeders/leechers. It's the simple fix that I bet will be voted into law soon - and we all know how government loves to implement those cheap, easy "fixes".

Re:Puh-leeze

[fredklein]

I propose enforcing the law on ALL offenders, or NONE. /You know, they way it's supposed to be done.

Sensationalist much?

[Vr6dub]

The dope seller

Yeah, let's demonize a guy selling seeds of an almost harmless plant.

Re:Sensationalist much?

[MightyYar]

Who's demonizing him? I happen to support legalization. The plant is harmless if not abused.

Re:Sensationalist much?

[Omestes]

Slangwise; pot = dope.

He was selling seeds, which still is part of the pot plant.

Therefore he was selling dope. So when my friends go off and smoke "dope", and they demonizing themselves?

Re:Sensationalist much?

[Vr6dub]

May just be were I'm from..."dope" has usually been reserved for the harder drugs.

Re:Done their homework?

[CannonballHead]

Knowing that theft will happen does not make the theft any better or more right. Seriously, what kind of argument is this? PirateBay links to illegally downloadable material. It is illegal for me to download the latest Harry Potter movie. Simple as that. Yes, the theft will happen; does that mean we should just pass over it when it happens and let sites like PirateBay alone (who, as has been previously pointed out, are definitely in it for the money)? That's pretty stupid. Murder is going to happen whether it's legal or illegal, but that doesn't mean it should be legal or we should just ignore it.

I'm not arguing FOR the RIAA, I'm arguing for SOMETHING. I think this particular instance is a good thing, though.

We support you

[GuNgA-DiN]

TPB: We support you! Yaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggg.

Now would be a good time to go buy some TPB shirts and merchandise.

Re:Puh-leeze

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Actually, now that I read it again, it seems ambiguous to me. Of course, I don't understand Swedish law either, so maybe that's the problem.

On the one hand, Hakan Roswall is a public prosecutor, which would make it criminal. On the other, "Plaintiffs in the case include Warner, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI", which would make it civil. Also, there is no potential jail time, just a fine, which also seems like it's non-criminal.

Can anyone clarify?

Re: You people drive me crazy.....

[repvik]

You are harming the environment and thus harming the rest of us ;)

Translation of the Application for Summons

[NacMacFeegle]

EasyTarget is correct. If anyone is interested, the application for summons charge the four defendants with two different crimes. (Reposted it here since it seemed in line with the discussion. I hope that is ok.)

The accusatory part (or "crime description") of the application reads (unnofficial translation):

1) Complicity to copyright infringement

"The Pirate Bay is one of the worlds largest Internet filesharing services. The service utilizes the BitTorrent-protocol to achieve an efficient use of the available bandwith. The Pirate Bay consists of three components, an indexportal in the form of a webpage with a search function, a database with a catalog of torrent-files and a tracker function. Through the tracker fucnction, a peer-to-peer network is created by the users interested in sharing the same file. All components are neccessary to enable the users to share files between them. The greater part of the files which are made available for filesharing through The Pirate Bay contain copyrighted works.

The operations of The Pirate Bay are financed by advertising. Hereby, there is a commercial use of copyrighted works.

[The defendants] have together and in mutual understanding with each other and together with one other individual during 1 July 2005 - 31 May 2006 [at locations] been responsible for the organisation, administration, systematisation, programming, financing and operations of the filesharing service The Pirate Bay. In connection with these activities they have aided other persons' copyright infringements as follows:

The defendants have willfully [during time period] [at locations] aided others in the transferring of a file over the Internet containing [name of copyrighted work], thereby making a copyrighted work available to the public and also aided other persons in manufacturing copies of the work. [Explanation why this is a copyright infringement.]

[This is repeated in a list of 21 phonograms (i.e. records/CDs), 9 films and 4 computer games shared and downloaded.]

and

2) Preparation for copyright infringement

[The defendants] have together and in mutual understanding with each other and together with one other individual during 1 July 2005 - 31 May 2006 [at locations] been responsible for the organisation, administration, systematisation, programming, financing and operations of the filesharing service The Pirate Bay.

In connection with these activities they have, by the functionality of the filesharing service, in a purpose build database with ancillary catalog, received and stored the torrentfiles referred to [in the above list of copyrighted works]. The torrent files have been especially adapted to be used as means of assistance in the violation of the [Swedish Copyright Act]."

Re:Done their homework?

[heinousjay]

It's exactly the same in principle, only the terms differ. Sharing freely doesn't mean "you can have this as long as you do what I want with it" it means "you can have this full stop"

The only difference between a GPL violation and infringement of copyright on a commercial movie is that people on Slashdot see the former as evil and disgusting and the latter as heroic. Both are the exact same violation of law.

Re:Done their homework?

[rizole]

Here's a link to my artwork. Feel free to do with this as you wish - except of course pass it off as your own.

I have music I've made. I've not put it on the intarwebs cus it's not had that good a reception but I'll email it to you if you'd like a listen. I think there's some interesting ideas both conceptually and musically in it but YMMV

Anyway, here's the gratuitious link. Hopefully I'll be moderated +5 interesting and this post will generate huge amounts of interest in my work so I can assert my copywrite over it and live of the proceeds.......Nah!...I'm just playing with you now...I know I'll never get +5 interesting.

-5 troll.

Re:Done their homework?

[jkoke]

What if the socket/ratched company had a web site that published the locations, operating times, inventories, security system descriptions, etc., of car lots all over the country so that thieves who wanted to steal rims could do so easier and more successfully? Would he have a cause of action then?

high demand commodities

[joeyspqr]

"But this involves marijuana, so we're supposed to overlook it and think any regulation is bad."

Marijuana is another example of high demand (excuse the pun) commodity subject to laws that are based on ideology, not market realities or common sense or morality.

Sharing music is illegal because it threatens the profits of a subsection of the power elite.
Marijuana is illegal because it threatens the ideology of a different subsection of the same power elite.

and of course ... ideology and profit are expressions of CONTROL. The primary purpose of any power elite is the perpetuation of its survival, i.e. its control.

Re:high demand commodities

[joeyspqr]

I would argue that marijuana is illegal because of its historical connection to the black community, not the cogent health arguments you present. Making marijuana illegal gave Jim Crow more teeth. And proved a convenient tool against those damn hippies.
further, I would argue in favor of allowing people to poison themselves in any way they choose. Your public health and safety arguments are almost persuasive ... but boil down to allowing insurance companies to dictate what you can do to yourself.

'free access' is a clever idea (I'm tired of cover charges and drink minimums); do I detect an invitation to the welfare island?

Re:high demand commodities

[pnewhook]

Furthermore, pott is more damaging to your lungs than smoking a pack of cigarettes,

I call bullshit on that one. The only reason cigarettes can be argued to be less dangerous is becuse of the filter, that rolled joints do not have. If you just look at tobacco vs marijuana, tobacco has far more chemicals and is far more addictive than pot.

That said, pot today is far more harmful than the pot smoked in the 70s as todays pot has been specificaly bred to increase the mind altering components. It still however isn't anywhere near as harmful as smoking cigarettes or cigars.

Re:Done their homework?

[debatem1]

But no matter how evil they are, copyright infringement is still copyright infringement. Why don't you write a song or book or create a painting, and I'll copy it. Lets see how quick you change your tune. I'll do you one better- my source code is 100% F/OSS. Call me tone deaf, but my song's the same it ever was.

Re:Puh-leeze

[Hatta]

Yes, either prosecute everyone or prosecute no one. Since prosecuting everyone would not be feasible, I suggest we prosecute no one.

Re:Done their homework?

[catxk]

Mod parent down. Downloading any kind of copyrighted material is illegal in Sweden since July 2005. There seem to be some kind of consensus among politicans, police and most of all the copyright industry not to go after downloaders though, which would be a sign that the content industry on some level is aware that they need a reputation to survive. It is however also a sign that they have no idea what they're talking about, filesharing has always been about - that's right - sharing, upping and downloading.

Re:Puh-leeze

[Hatta]

The fact that others may engage in the same behavior is not a valid defense.

Perhaps it ought to be. It would help stop a lot of unenforceable overreaching laws.

Re:Done their homework?

[ContractualObligatio]

I know guys who write songs and paintings on creative commons terms and I've seen thousands of GNU documentation - licensed books.

A fair response to the way the GP phrased the question, but the general point has to be addressed in terms of equivalents.

I know people that help out their neighbours with stuff, but it doesn't mean that gardening firms and removals companies are ripping people off. The fact that some people do things for free (bringing home cooked food into the office, giving a statue to the public, a band more in need of publicity that record sales, etc) does not mean that it is reasonable to expect it of everybody. How many of the guys you know create these works as their primary activity, and make a living from it? How does the quality of those recordings compare to professionals? Do the painters actually give away the paintings or just a digitised image that doesn't compare to the original? Have you ever seen a high quality, full length movie under a creative commons license?

Re:When we can all copy fries

[cliffski]

hey anonymous coward, thanks for hurling abuse, it makes your point seem so much more intellectual. And you are apparently 'thick' as you didnt even get the point.
I'll try capitals

WHY WOULD I BUY THE FRIES KNOWING I CAN COPY YOURS?

understood now?

I guess I need to clarify...

If I have no incentive to buy the fries and neither do you, neither of us will eat. We only eat if 1 of us coughs up the cash, yet the person who does so is no better off than the freeloaders. hence we all just go hungry and are *all* worse off.
get it now?

Re:Done their homework?

[AikonMGB]

Copyright infringement relates to the distribution of copyrighted works to which you don't have the permission. There is nothing illegal about making personal copies for personal use (unless you live in the Sates, and the copyrighted work is protected by some sort of copyright protection scheme).

As for your point RE: them not uploading the material themselves: this is pretty much, and always has been, TPB's defense, so, nothing new here.

Aikon-

Re:Done their homework?

[spyrochaete]

Here's a link to my blog with over 2 years of original written works. Note the Kopimi logo at the top right-hand corner. That logo, designed by the folks at The Pirate Bay, means that anyone may copy, make derivative works, or do whatever they want with my original content, with or without my consent. It's digital media I've posted on the internet so I'd be a fool to think I had any power to keep others from doing so anyway.

Some people embrace digital media and some stick their fingers in their ears and pretend it's still 1962. It all ends up copied in the end but people like me are the only ones without ulcers. The world has changed; change with it or swim upstream forever.

Re:Done their homework?

[ContractualObligatio]

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

Complete and utter bullshit. Any prosecutor who did such a thing should be thrown out of the legal profession immediately. For starters, moral relativism (i.e. TPB is innocent because the record companies are worse) is well known as a bad moral argument. Second, what the fuck do morals have to do with business models per se? They don't want to make money, that's their choice.

Third and most importantly, who the fuck apart from religious fundamentalists and ideologues wants prosecutors to start deciding what is and isn't moral? There's an incredible irony in someone taking a "moral" stand in favour of freedom that has as its basis such an totalitarian bias.

Modded "Redundant" and "Overrated"???

[Moryath]

Must be the wikipedia trolls at it again - nothing like the first post of a highly reasonable point to bring the haters out.

Re:Done their homework?

[somersault]

Then how come it's illegal to copy whole works from a library? You are allowed to copy small amounts of copyrighted material, or whatever comes under 'fair use', but I hardly think downloading permanent copies of full albums comes under 'fair use'. Not to say that I haven't done that in the past, but I don't necessarily think it's a good thing to do. The vast majority of my music has been legally bought and paid for (I don't take responsibility for the large amount of 80s classics in my 'misc' folder, they were copied from a guy at work) :p

How embarassing for the pirates!

[OrangeTide]

"Robbie Williams' Intensive Care and the movie Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire", at least it's not porn I suppose. But I just cannot fathom some teenage pirate downloading Intensive Care and watching it. Perhaps the entire case was fabricated?

Re:Done their homework?

[_Sprocket_]

Yes, but the /. crowd also can get kind of agitated when it comes to license issues and GPL violations. Yes, yes. Ignore all that "copyleft" stuff. I'm sure they're just hypocritical big fans of the current copyright system just like you imply.

Re:Puh-leeze

[Anonymous Psychopath]

You mean, only create laws you can enforce 100%? Do you think we'd wind up with fewer laws, or a totalitarian police state that would scare the bejeesus out of Orwell?

Re:Done their homework?

[meringuoid]

The only difference between a GPL violation and infringement of copyright on a commercial movie is that people on Slashdot see the former as evil and disgusting and the latter as heroic. Both are the exact same violation of law.

Of law, yes, of ethics, perhaps not. Both are violations of copyright, but the GPL violation is usually also plagiarism. The BitTorrent uploader does not claim that the music he distributes is of his own creation; instead he clearly labels it with the name of the original artist, giving credit where it is due. The GPL violator appropriates the work of others and passes it off as his own. Legally they're both in the same boat, but morally there's a world of difference.

YES. YES, YES, YES, YES ,YES! (At least in the US)

[illegalcortex]

I think my post in another sub-thread is very relevant:

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=436904&cid=22248796

Re:Done their homework?

[AnomaliesAndrew]

I didn't suggest it was good or right. I wasn't making an argument, I was just depicting my view of the reality we live in.

Unless I missed something, TPB does not link to illegal content, otherwise this wouldn't even be news. They link to manifest files which contain chunk checksums, which themselves are perfectly legal.

AFAIK, it's the motive and primary use that moves TPB into illegal territory.

I was not saying that any crime should be passed over. They've obviously set out to challenge the law based on some higher authority (which law exactly I don't know -- IANAL.) That is the purpose of the judicial system of most modern governments.

In practical terms, it's clear TPB is up to no good. By legal precedence and the word of the law, I'm not so sure it's as cut and dry as you make it out to be. That's for the courts to work out. In the end, it won't change anything anyways.

Re:When we can all copy fries

[apt142]

Well, if you got hungry enough, wouldn't you buy the fries? I don't know, if fries were important enough to me, I'd probably buy them before I got too hungry. Sure, free fries later would be great. But, my stomach might not be willing to wait that long.

Now, have you ever bought a Shakespeare Book? Something from Dickens? Jules Verne? They're free fries. Why do people pay for them?

Now would McDonald's go out of business if you could clone fries for free? Or burgers (I use the term loosely)? Probably. But, cloning fries for free would have a lot of societal benefit. Chefs making new and exotic fries would certainly have a job.

There are some incentives to paying for things even when you could get them for free. I mean, I don't have to tip my waitress. I don't have to pay for my local NPR station. But, there is very good reasons to do both.

This thread is making me hungry.

horrible precedent

[moxley]

Does this mean I can sue the city for having street signs which directed criminals to my place of employment
(which they proceeded to burglarize, then used those same signs as direction to the highway to make a getaway)?

Will they go after google and other search engines (indexes) who have linked to any number of questionable content (much of which makes the net a beauiful and free place)?

Seems clear cut enough using the same logic to me.

Re:When we can all copy fries

[pkey]

If there is no incentive for any consumer to buy the fries, the fries are valueless and the fry producer should look into new ways to make money. Maybe give away creatively seasoned fries as an incentive for consumers to come to his hamburger joint, I don't know. Similar technology-facilitated removal of value has happened countless times throughout history. Affected businesses either adapted or failed. The RIAA needs to do the same.

Re:Done their homework?

[CSMatt]

Actually, it's because it would be impossible to find someone guilty of infringement because of mere downloading.

When a person uploads, he or she gets caught by uploading to an enforcement agency. The agency is given permission to download the file from you, but because you didn't have distribution rights your act of uploading is still illegal.

However, the only way to catch a downloader would be for an enforcement agency to host a file themselves. Downloaders could easily defend themselves by pointing out that, because the agency was given permission to place it up on a publicly-accessible network, then the downloader was inherently given permission to download a copy from them to his or her computer.

Re:Done their homework?

[AikonMGB]

The difference is that you are putting money into photocopiers owned by the library; if the library allowed you to copy the whole work, they would be aiding in the reproduction of a copyrighted work with the intent to distribute it (i.e. to you).

"Fair Use" is for using the work within the context of your own work, say, for teaching or research; it is unrelated to what you do on your own time, in your own home, and without an "audience" to view/read/listen.

Re:Done their homework?

[Borealis]

1) File sharing in Sweden is legal, therefore legal considerations are an aside. What is left if not moral selection. This prosecutor is attempting to show that TPB is violating the law specifically with the intent to cause file sharing to be illegal through court decision, which it is currently *not*. Prosecutors prosecuting people for *not* breaking the law are the ones that should be thrown out of the legal profession. Shall we also discuss the prosecutor harassing the members of TPB?
2) I never claimed that choosing to tell the RIAA to pick a new business model was because they were better or worse than anybody else. You may make that claim if you like, but it is largely irrelevant. My statement was meant to show that the government, specifically a member of the judiciary, should have no stake in securing business models that are clearly flawed. If they do have a stake in that, then it would be prudent to question their motives, and by association their morals.
3) I want everybody to decide what is moral, provided they don't mind me disagreeing with them. Going through life without a moral compass, even if that compass points south south east, is not really an ideal thing. In the context of my prior post, I believe that this prosecutor knows that he is doing this at the behest of an industry, which is clearly a conflict of interest with the will of the people, and that he is doing this with the full knowledge that he is being naughty in doing so. Immorality does not require absolutes of morality. You just have to do what you think is bad.

And... moral stand in favor of freedom with totalitarian bias? I have not the slightest idea what you're saying with that one... come see the violence inherent in the system? Help help I'm being repressed?

Re:Done their homework?

[AnomaliesAndrew]

My post was not to deny the reality of the media industry vs. file sharing. As long as there are laws in place upon which to charge The Pirate Bay (without it being some unenforced law from like 1704 actually referring to seafaring pirates) with real substantiated crimes, then I'm on board with them being brought to justice. I just don't want to see them tired up in a b.s. lawsuit for "being mean."

I agree with you from a practical stand point. Somebody is losing an unknown amount of money, TPB is helping to make it possible, and somebody should pay. Whether or not TPB are the ones to pay is a sticky situation. I just feel like if the RIAA (etc) can manipulate the laws and work through loopholes, why shouldn't their enemies try to also?

Re:Done their homework?

[mooreti1]

YES, YES, YES...hey, that's what she said!

Look, possession of a stolen object makes you culpable in the crime. Whether you stole it or not is irrelevant, it's still in your possession. Hence the "possession of a stolen object".

Re:Puh-leeze

[hesiod]

> Can anyone clarify?
Not sure if this helps, but one key bit of info is that this is taking place in Sweden, which does not seem to (by my untrained eye) differentiate criminal and civil cases in the same way as the United States.

Re:Done their homework?

[cunamara]

You realize you're throwing this challenge down to a group largely consisting of people who regularly write copyrighted works of computer code and contribute them freely to the world, right?

There is a difference between copyrighted works of art and copyrighted source code, as pointed out by Richard Stallman in his book and other writings. Software has practical utility that confers benefit in improving the lives of people, whereas art's value is primarily in entertainment; while that's also an improvement in people's lives, there's a significant difference qualitatively. There are practical and ethical considerations in favor of making software free-as-in-speech and making source code available. Those same considerations do not apply to music recordings, movies, TV shows or other works of art. Trying to equate them, as you seem to be doing, is not appropriate. It's conflating apples and oranges.

Canadian pot laws, extradition, etc

[jgs]

He broke no Canadian laws

Actually, according to this summary in The Week, that's incorrect. From the article (itself quoting the Toronto Star), "Emery is a victim of Canada's failure to enforce its own laws. [...] Selling marijuana seeds is, technically, illegal here." The quote from the Toronto Star article goes on to say, "Since most Canadians do not consider selling or growing marijuana to be a prison-worthy offense, Canada should strike down that law."

Not that I think that justice is being done in this case. But it's good to keep the facts straight.

Copyright != Unauthorized

[Em Adespoton]

I think you missed the point; copyright has nothing at all to do with the issue of downloading the material. Gulliver's Travels is under public domain, so it would be "authorized downloading of public material". Also a mouthful. What people are talking about is unauthorized downloading.

Period.

When you add copyright into the mix but ignore the unauthorized bit, you help to promote a culture that views the middlemen as the sole holders of enforceable copyright. The general public has been tricked into associating copyright with the **AA, which means they don't associate it with personally created works. This means that for the most part, corporations these days are able to "steal" works created by individuals and most individuals don't realize they had any rights over that material. It also means individuals who are aware that they have rights are still more willing to "sell out" to a corporation because they view the work as useless to them unless it is sold to a "copyright holder".

Just like the MPAA has released movies to the public but retains copyright over them, I have released this post to Slashdot but retain copyright over it (consider it licensed under Creative Commons). If anyone turned around and re-published this comment in a book, on another website, or used it as part of an advertising campaign, they would be using my creative work for profit. This is just as illegal -- I might even want to sell my own book of slashdot comments one day.

Does that sound silly? Probably. For two reasons: 1) I submitted the post to a public forum where others could view it, and 2) I'm not a corporation seeking to make a profit off of the post.

Think about that for a moment. Item 1 is exactly what happens with movies and songs. Item 2 shouldn't really make a difference, unless you belive that copyright should be enforceable without qualifaction, AND you have subscribed to the falsity pointed out above that only copyright-holding corporations should lay claim to copyright.

Re:Copyright != Unauthorized

[illegalcortex]

I think you missed the point; copyright has nothing at all to do with the issue of downloading the material. ... What people are talking about is unauthorized downloading. It really is splitting hairs. What is the difference between this statement and me saying: Copyright has nothing at all to do with the issue of copying the material. What people are talking about is unauthorized copying. See what I mean? I get your point but I really do not think people are confused by this and are thinking that maybe it's illegal to download music from iTunes. Or downloading music from artists who publicly state that they are ok with their music being shared online. I think most people are smart enough to figure out that we're talking about is unauthorized downloading/copying of copyrighted material without having to write that out every time. I understand if you disagree with that viewpoint, though.

Re:Done their homework?

[richie2000]

Downloading is illegal in Sweden, since July 1st 2005.

Re:Puh-leeze

[Hatta]

No, only create laws that you intend to make a good faith effort to enforce. If it can be shown that laws are repeatedly violated and the government takes no action, that law should be void. Selective enforcement is corruption.

Pardon?

[plasmacutter]

No, it's selectively enforced in the US too.

Google has deep pockets and a lot of mainstream clout.

Torrentspy does not. Torrentspy, a torrent search engine was compelled by court order to snoop on their visitors, while google was not.

It's outright hypocrisy borne of greedy execs, a mix of equally greedy and horribly incompetent politicians, and even more incompetent judges.

Of course one thing they haven't been hypocritical about: as usual, the people with the biggest wallet win, regardless of the law, the constitution, or the morality involved.

That said, this thread is not about US law, can a SWEDISH LAWYER please give us an EDUCATED RUNDOWN please?!

IT'S SO OBVIOUS!!!

[AnomaliesAndrew]

The RIAA basically comes from an attempt at a monopoly. They do not update their world view. Therefore, from their perspective, all music is theres, and if you did not buy it from one of their outlets, you must have stolen it...

This is similar to how internet radio royalties work in the USA.

I remember reading some legal clause -- not sure if it was passed or merely proposed, but it would require me to register with SoundExchange as an Artist AND a Station, and then pay royalties to them and collect back only a fraction of those royalties just to play my original music (and only my original music) on my own radio stream.

I don't think the founding fathers anticipated that we the people would be asleep at the wheel when the corporations stole our countries from us.

Re:Done their homework?

[CannonballHead]

According to wikipedia they do a bit more that's a little more shady than simply linking to checksums... a torrent tracker? It was even started by an anti-copyright organization, apparently.

Re:Puh-leeze

[91degrees]

A good question. But I don't think it invalidates the argument. The amount of infringement is relevant. It's not the whole story. The amount serves to indicate the intent. Intent is what's important here.

It's about defence and reasonable doubt.

Now, it's possible that Google exists entirely as a front for an international piracy cartel. However, there's not a lot of evidence for it. They do allow infringement, but can you really argue that they intend to? It seems quite likely that it's all accidental. They will remove illegal material from their index. They don't actively encourage people to add illegal material. A reasonable man (which is typically the test used) would not come to the conclusion that Google were actively promoting copyright infringement.

Because they call themselves "The Pirate Bay", mock anyone who complains of copyright infringement, and index more files that infringe copyright than those that don't. Is it reasonable to think their purpose is anything other than to infringe copyright?

Re:Done their homework?

[xappax]

Your argument is effectively that people have a choice whether they buy music or not, so they shouldn't complain when the terms are unfair because they're free to reject those terms.

That's a gross oversimplification, presumably based on the myopic assumption that market forces are the end-all be-all of any socio-economic situation.

Often, fans aren't just buying a CD because the object is worth $x to them, they're also doing it to support the artist. The value in the transaction is not just the object, but the knowledge that the fan has given money to someone they admire, to encourage them to keep creating good art. Considering this, it's very much the fan's concern that pretty much all the money they pay is going to someone other than the artist.

Re:Illegal != !civil (&& repvik==PWN3d)

[uniquename72]

repvik PWN3d. Beautiful.

Enough Sensationalism, A Swedish Lawyer Please?!

[plasmacutter]

Questions for an actual Swedish lawyer from we, the ameri-centric slashdot community:

1. Likelihood of conviction?
2. Full extend of possible penalties and/or injuctions?
3. Potential fallout for swedish tech industry and/or internet related services?

AND NO YOU AMERICAN DMCA HATERS (haha i am one), THIS IS NOT ABOUT AMERICA SO DON'T REPLY TO THIS WITH SPECULATION BASED ON AMERICAN LAW!

Who deserves what?

[Richard.g.k]

Skimming through the comments on the article, there was a lot of discussion over how 'artists think they deserve to be paid for their work' ...well... since when do you deserve to get music/movies for free? If you dont want to pay for it, than dont get it...its not complicated. In whatever job you do, would you consider it fine if people could just ignore whatever price you have for your work, and not pay you?

From thepiratebay's website

[gravis777]

Celeb-ration!
We've got reasons to celebrate. Millions of them!

This week we've hit some magic numbers. We're tracking over 1 million torrents. We have had over 10 million simultaneous peers on the trackers. We're at 2.5 million registered users (and they are active as well). And this is blog post 100!

Tomorrow we will (hopefully) finish the long story about the site until now, as a celebration. If you can find the URL for it, go ahead and read it, but please don't tell anyone the URL in the comments if you do find it. The text is not ready yet, we're missing some entries and the pictures are not always at the correct place. But it would be cool if you wrote a comment that you _did_ find the page ;)

In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site. The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We've been here for years and we will be here many more.

It also came to our attention that it's now possible to buy the documents, from the police!, in the current investigation about The Pirate Bay. But only on paper. And it's not 4000 pages, it 4620 pages. And they cost 6050 SEK for all of them (about 1000 USD). Our view of it? Why not just make a PDF, make a torrent of the PDF and seed it. We know a perfect place you can do that for free, and nobody would have to pay for all those pages of investigation. And a hell of a lot of trees would be saved... And even though the information in the investigation might be a bit personal at times (alcohol intake, sex addictions) we're not suing the police for commercially exploiting the material they took from us without permission.

Sharing is caring - to care for us please share even more then before! (and btw - Thanks to Pepsi for the AMAZING logo on the frontpage!

Re:Done their homework?

[Digital Vomit]

...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.

Right. The number would have to be ten times as high in order to qualify as an official official witch hunt.

I'll take him up on that also!

[arfonrg]

HERE:http://cheapass.wikispaces.com/ is an e-mail server I wrote, take a copy! It's licensed also. Most of my work, I give away freely. Check out my SIGNIFICANT contributions to http://www.slackwiki.org/!

Re:When we can all copy fries

[misleb]

If I have no incentive to buy the fries and neither do you, neither of us will eat. We only eat if 1 of us coughs up the cash, yet the person who does so is no better off than the freeloaders. hence we all just go hungry and are *all* worse off.

What would you make copies of french fries with? Potatoes, right? We won't go hungry because there are plenty of ways to consume potatoes besides making fry copies out of them. What, did you think I was just making copies of your fries out of thin air? Magic? It might have been a hypothetical situation, but it certainly wasn't meant to be unrealistic.

Worst case scenerio: Some corporation has their french fry patent infringed upon and they miss out on some french fry salse because people realized they can save money by making their own fry copies. Then again, maybe you don't really save money making your own fries due to economies of scale. Maybe it doesn't make sense to make my own fry copies because I can't get the materials at wholesale costs.

-matthew

Re:Done their homework?

[Omestes]

Why don't you write a song or book or create a painting, and I'll copy it. Lets see how quick you change your tune.

I've been pirated before, and the only real effect was bragging rights, and feeling kind of flattered. Granted I wasn't trying to make money from it in the first place.

For awhile I was recoloring/retouching vintage photos (mostly to teach myself how, and throwing the results on Flickr, with a Creative Commons pro-attribution, and non-commercial license. A couple of them appeared in all sorts of amusing places, sometimes even on for-pay print-services, and for-pay image services. Instead of calling lawyers, I decided to be flattered.

I'm really getting sick of this debate. Both sides are wrong, and just hop on some dogmatic, or purely self-serving script whenever this issue hits the frontpage (40 times a day, it seems). The pro-piracy crowd comes of as a bunch of greedy idjits trying to rationalize their own greed. While the anti crowd comes off as either a bunch of conservatives fighting for some status quo (which is dumb, since we're dealing with emergent technologies), or a bunch of delusional liberals screaming "think of the artists" when the system is actually failing them as well.

The real problem is living in an age of middle men, when more and more technology could allow us to destroy them for the good of all.

The solution... no clue. But it would consist of weakening copyright law, forcing the litigious middle man the limit his damages to something actually representative of what they are in-fact. Lowering the prices to a sane level, thus removing the incentive for piracy (except for the entitled greed crowd, which will always be a problem), this can be done by... removing the middle man. How much of an albums cost are directly related to paying artists, and production costs, and how much goes to various suits?

Re:Done their homework?

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

...and what is your view on software that brings entertainment? I enjoy using GIMP to create things, there are plenty of music creation software packages, and FOSS (video) games. None of those "improve" my life, they're just ways to kill some time while having fun.

You would be a sucker if you felt aggravated.

[jotaeleemeese]

Because you could have copied your stuff in the first place. In such a world anybody paying would do so in the understanding that their stuff would be copied.

Some people would pay for the original fries to support the person that came with the recipe.

Or perhaps the fries are so good that several people would band together and ask the original cook to come with some other marvellous dish under comission.

The world would work completely different, which is what the people making movies and bad songs can't come to terms with.

The PB chaps have got a business model that is clearly working. The movie industry could make them their official torrent trackers guaranteeing access to stuff that is original and as advertised (no shaky camera work by a guy recording from a cinema screen).

But no, that is not them. People with all kind of addictions (this is the music and movie industries, OK?) are not known for the clearness of thought and visionary insights in how the real world works.

Re:so, Illegal == civil

[illegalcortex]

You fail at math.

illegal != !civil

Applying ! to both sides would give you:

!illegal == civil ;)

But that's moot, as we're talking more set theory here. It's a lot harder to write set theory as a subject line. That was just a shorthand way to get the point across and I think most people got it.

Re:Done their homework?

[digithed]

The reason that, although it's illegal, the police don't go after individual downloaders is that in Sweden this is only a civil offence which even if prosecuted only incurs a fine with no possibility of jail. There are rules in Sweden which prevent the police from searching premises or property or obtaining information from third parties like ISPs when only pursuing a civil case which has no possibility of a jail sentence. That's the reason why the whole country was up in arms about the original raid and the seizure of the servers. Everyone thought this was a complete waste of police time and tax payers money pursuing a civil and not criminal offence.

Re:Done their homework?

[Logic and Reason]

...what they are doing is illegal

Yes.

and probably at least a little immoral...

No.

Glad I could clear that up for you.

Art

[bug1]

Art belongs in the minds of those who appreciate it.

The value of Art is subjective, one price fits all is unfairly priced to everyone.

The volume of available art is driven by creators, the consumer driven marketplaces the cabals feed are a tangent.

Any artist who works for the money alone is not an artist.

Capitalism has never and will never fairly compensate artists, get over it or get out.

my 2c

boycotting altogether; best option I've heard here

[CristalShandaLear]

This has probably been said before but it seems to me that one fact is becoming more and more clear: Anything the U.S. Government cannot control directly or indirectly through a foreign government or ally, must be, by default, illegal. It's worrying to hear about people in other countries being indicted under American law for things that weren't committed here and weren't illegal in their own countries. It's worrying to hear about a lady making money off Ebay, targeted, not for not paying her taxes, but for not paying the right sort of fee for her type of business to some government agency. I can't quite get over the fact that the U.S. Government and large corporations of the U.S. feel that they are entitled to some special sovereignty over the remainder of the planet. That they are entitled to enforce rules, but not play by them if it suits their own interests. Still, playing tit for tat, doesn't necessarily wash with me either. I typically follow the RIAA/ MPAA discussions here on Slashdot pretty thoroughly, despite the fact, or maybe because of the fact, that they turn up so frequently. I'm starting to see this argument through a different lens. I know there have been many analogies and maybe this one is flawed but I picture a newspaper vending machine. It's full to the brim and I actually have the money to put in. But a stranger comes along and although he has the money, he asks me just to hand him a paper. I've already got the machine open and the papers are there for the taking. Do I hand him one, or do I shut the door and make him get his own with his own money. Should I take an extra one for my mother or my sister? We could share one but why should we when we can each have our own. It's really a matter of honesty, unless a policeman comes along and sees me take an extra paper and guesses what is happening. But the truth is, unless I close the door, someone will have gotten something that they didn't pay for. Now we can say it's the fault of the newspaper people. They should know better than to trust people not to take more than one paper. And in truth, I happen to know that they instruct their delivery people to take extras from a paper machine if they run out or if part of their shipment is damaged. Despite the fact that those papers are going to paying customers, am I really hurting the newspaper by taking an extra copy or two for myself. What if go the extra mile? Let's say I have a store...and I decide to give out complimentary papers to my customers. But the way I do it is by taking extra copies from the newspaper vending machines after only paying for one. I'm not making any money off of it. I'm giving it away. How does this hurt the newspaper companies. I don't know. Despite the fact that I love the idea of getting free music - I can't help but realize that any time I would happen to get a song for free from the internet, it's something I did not pay for and therefore, should not belong to me. I also feel that it is something that the creator of the materials did expect to get compensated for. This was not my original position on downloading music. I felt that if the creators couldn't protect it, then tough shit. But laws are meant to protect people, and yes things, that people can't protect themselves. So, until such time as I can reconcile this with myself, I have decided to simply not support any RIAA/ MPAA materials. I don't buy them and I certainly don't download them. I will simply do without. I don't think they can pass a law that forces me to buy from them, now can they?

Please mod this fool down, he is wrong

[C18H21NO3]

http://www.theweekdaily.com/news_opinion/they_see/33066/how_they_see_us_picking_on_canadian_pot_dealers.html

"That's the key question, said the Toronto Star in an editorial. Emery is a victim of Canada's failure to enforce its own laws. Under extradition law, a Canadian can be sent to the U.S. for trial only if the offense he is charged with there is also a crime in Canada and if he has not been charged in Canada. Selling marijuana seeds is, technically, illegal here."

So, when you say "He broke no Canadian laws" you are wrong. Your entire argument is based on your own flawed understanding of the law, nothing more.

Re:Done their homework?

[jgoemat]

The only difference between a GPL violation and infringement of copyright on a commercial movie is that people on Slashdot see the former as evil and disgusting and the latter as heroic. Both are the exact same violation of law.

You have to look at the motiviations. The difference is that the large corporations who weep about infringement on their movie copyrights are out there to make money. They purposefully withhold access to their movies unless they are paid money for them. They lobby for the creation of all kinds of rules and develop technologies harmful to innovation in a misguided attempt to get all the money they can. I still can't get my TV to work correctly with the CABLECARD my cable company gave me. I'd have an HD TiVo right now if there wasn't that hindrance. I only pay for songs from Amazon and not iTunes because I know I'll be able to do what I want with them, which is legal anyway but which DRM prevents me from doing.

By contrast, the motivations behind the people that created the GPL are explained on their website: "Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software." People get upset about GPL violations not because they are losing money, but because companies are taking their code and incorporating it into their own products where they restrict the use of it. I think if most contributors of GPL software had their way then all software would be 'free'. I have over 50 computer games that I've paid for. I almost never purchase a game without first finding out if there's a 'crack' for it. I don't want to have to find the DVD each time I want to play the game, I want to click on an icon and play in seconds. Some of the most successful games of all time were a success in large part to the developers allowing the public to modify the game. I once had a CD with a thousand user-created maps for DOOM. Look at the Quakes and Unreal games, and at RTS games like C&C and the Warcraft series. I think World of Warcraft has been a success in no small part due to the extensibility of its interface.

So actually the difference is that people getting upset about GPL violations are getting upset because the people violating the GPL are acting like the Movie studios in restricting the freedom of information. There's no inconsistency in these two beliefs and if you think there is then I don't think you understand the GPL.

Re:boycotting altogether; best option I've heard

[CristalShandaLear]

Bloody hell - why is html formatted now the default when it used to be plain old text! Sorry for the monstrously huge one paragraph post.

Re:Done their homework?

[EdelFactor19]

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG

ianal (but then again neither are you) downloading copyrighted material that you don't have the rights to possess and which you aren't using for fair use is NOT legal. However because proving this is exceedingly more complicated the MAFIAA is being intelligent and focusing on the prosecution of uploaders. This works better because A. you never have the right to upload (share) the content with others even if you own the CD. B. if they stop all the providers then there wont be anyone to download from.

This is a large misconception that ignorant people keep trying to make. If you download a movie for example so that you can edit a small clip of it to use in some presentation or in some fair usage manner thats legal. If you were to simply download to be able to watch it (and you don't actually own the DVD) then you are breaking the law. Whether its considered theft or copyright infringement is debatable. But again without doing some research (who you are and what you own, etc, verifying what you did with the material) the MAFIAA can't really do anything. Trying to do that at a mass scale is quiet difficult, and they would be hard pressed to get a warrant to search you. Where as some of their john doe's have worked now, they would never get them in this case because a judge can quickly say there is no evidence to support or deny that a criminal act has been performed by the accused. At least in the current form there is no question of illegal activity only to the identity of the perpetrator.

The fact that they aren't going to use this means to prosecute the action doesn't make it anyless illegal. Suicide is illegal too, but how many people who commit that crime end up in jail or even arrested?

Re:Done their homework?

[ContractualObligatio]

1) I use file sharing. I've never set up a web site to earn $4m pa that depends on copyright infringement. Clearly these are different things, therefore that is no basis to set legal considerations aside.

2) To be a "moral prosecutor" you must have formed and acted upon a moral judgement. To tell the potential client to instead change their business model, clearly the moral judgement has found the business model wanting. You are clearly fond of moral relativism because you think the trial is waste of time when there are "folks committing actual evil acts" to be found. My inference with respect to TPB may have been wrong, but then I didn't realise you'd already decided the outcome of the case on the basis of such weak logic, and assumed you were making the same mistake you'd already demonstrated.

"Should have no stake in securing business models that are clearly flawed" has bugger all to do with morals, so if that's what you meant it certainly isn't what you said. In fact governments and the courts do have a stake in securing business models, flawed or not. If it's legal, they should secure it. If it's illegal, they should stop it. If it's disputed, they should support the legal process and then secure things as appropriate. They should not follow your approach of forming a personal judgement and then applying only when it suits them.

3) "I want everybody to decide what is moral, provided they don't mind me disagreeing with them." Disagreeing is one thing, you're doing something completely different. You're forming a moral judgement of someone, claiming to know the will of the people, and expecting the legal process to back you up. I don't like ideologues myself. I prefer attitudes that support balancing freedom with responsibility, not wishing the system enforced my own sense of morality because I know "the will of the people". The totalitarian bias just doesn't work for me, even when violence and oppression aren't involved.

Re:Done their homework?

[nospam007]

So let me get this straight - if I tell you where you can find illegal drugs, that is the same in your eyes as if I personally sold them to you? I think your logic leaves a little something to be desired... All Pirate Bay did was provide links, or provide information. Providing information isn't illegal. If I told you all you need to rob a bank is a gun and a mask, am I guilty of robbing said bank?

If you give out free tickets to Amsterdam, your local dealer might send some of his muscle over.

What do they have against TPB anyway?

[Requiem18th]

TPB is a passive directory of file sharers, some of which share illegally some of their CDs.

  Why isn't the RIAA using the TPB to find infringers and collecting the sweet loots?

  Each head is allegedly worth 1,500,000 USD isn't it. Funny thing, to the RIAA, i'm worth nothing, I don't buy their music, they would even have to pay me to listen to their music, in fact they do pay to try to get me into their music, in the form of payola and advertising that I can't turn off fast enough, they could even attempt to make a business model out of not advertising to me because I swear I would be willing to give up some money at the end of the year if that kept the billboards away and Britney off the news. but If I were to upload a CD, I'll be worth more money than I would ever dream to earn. Crazy stuff.

Re:Puh-leeze

[shutdown -p now]

The intent does matter to the court. Google does not promote its search engine as a way to facilitate breaking the law.

Re:Done their homework?

[Intrinsic]

Any one using torrents to download copyrighted material, especially recently released copyrighted material, should never lose sight of the fact that what they are doing is illegal and probably at least a little immoral. You have to balance the immoral hijacking of the copyright laws against taking the results of peoples work without compensating them.

Ill have to point out that people inherently know when they are doing things wrong. Just because there is a law on the books that says you cant make copies without the right holders permission doesn't make it right. It just means a bunch of people who support the that law THINK its wrong. Copyright is way out of step with the times and people are aware of this. In this case the reason why people choose to not pay for copyrighted works is because its easier to do now with the Internet. had it been easier before without it, I think people would be doing the same thing. Some of the main reasons are, not having enough money to by a product, wanting to try before you buy, not worth the money that the product is charging, but wanting to have a copy for the sake of having it.

Make no mistake, this is about people in power trying to impose their set of ideals on the world, when clearly the majority of public DO NOT AGREE that it is wrong to download copyrighted works. making a copy of something does NOT deprive people of the property. So I think its complete bullshit for you even imply that its about moral issues. This is about CONTROL and who has the CONTROL makes the decisions about what people can and cannot have. IF you want the music industry to have CONTROL over how you live your life, then go ahead and subscribe to their ideals. But I don't buy it for one minute that copying peoples works is wrong. If you put something out their, expect that it will be taken and used without permission, thats part of life, part of being creative. The only time copyright law should be used is on someone that is small and not making enough money and depends on his work to survive. he needs copyright protection from groups of people that have no vested interest other than trying to profit on his work. how the hell does that apply to the small guy thats makes a copy of a song? or someone that runs a server that points to material, some of them copyrighted works that needs money to keep the server going?

Re:Done their homework?

[CSMatt]

Just because you already have a legal copy doesn't mean you have permission to download another. I can understand why many may think that they are entitled to download a work that they have already purchased in another format, and how it would not be damaging the copyright holder any more than a personal backup you made yourself, but that doesn't mean that the law protects you in the same way.

Re:Done their homework?

[Borealis]

What you do with your web site and file sharing is clearly irrelevant. What TPB does is currently legal in Sweden, at least until the courts of Sweden say otherwise. While, if they were doing this in the United States they would just as clearly be violating the law, they are not violating the law in Sweden.

A moral prosecutor does not work for the government and do the bidding of corporations. Your reference to a "potential client" is therefore moot. The RIAA is not a client of a government prosecutor. What do you call it when a corporation tries to get a government employee to strong arm a person/company they don't like? Corruption maybe? As far as whether it's sensible to support the RIAAs failing business model the government should ideally have no say whatsoever. The market will support profitable models and unprofitable models will fail, there is no need for the government to mandate that we must get our music from Warner or Sony. Will civilization grind to a halt if Sony tanks because they can't sell their latest crap CD? No? Then why should the government care? Should Sony, instead of pushing out crap CDs, find a way to remain profitable by selling decent music to customers without DRM and encourage sharing, since that seems to boost actual sales? Hmm, now there's a thought.

As to whether I know and represent the will of the people, I'll allow some leeway there. I think it's unlikely that the majority believe TPB should be shut down but I could be wrong. Given that what they do is currently legal though, I think I may have a solid leg to stand on. Your mileage may vary.

Repeating that I have a "totalitarian bias" by the way really doesn't make much of an impact on me. I make no attempt to impose my will upon others. My opinions, on the other hand, I'm quite free with. I fail to see how that makes me a totalitarian, but perhaps that word has a different meaning where you're from, since where I'm from it's sort of the opposite of my stance, that governments should leave consumers to decide what markets succeed or fail instead of making it illegal not to support failing markets that line the pockets of the government.

Downloaded through Pirate Bay?

[JimDaGeek]

From TFA:

'The Swedish prosecutor listed dozens of works that had been downloaded through The Pirate Bay site

Uhmm, nothing was downloaded through them. They were just doing link collection. How can they be held liable (besides bribes) in Sweden when they didn't host any illegal files? IANAL, so I am just wondering here. In the USA, sure, they can get all kinds of charges thanks to laws bought by the MPAA/RIAA, but in Sweden?

So, exactly how can these dudes get in trouble? I noticed the FA didn't say anything about jail time. WOW. If they were in the USA, that would have been a major point of the suit.

Were these guys smart enough to not put anything in their names? Anyone out there have more information than what TFA stated? Thanks.

Sean Connery will take The Rapist

[Kynmore]

all they do is run a site... if someone gets raped from meeting someone online, does that mean the victim can sue a MySpace or whomever for facilitating the meeting place?

Re:Done their homework?

[shark72]

"So let me get this straight - if I tell you where you can find illegal drugs, that is the same in your eyes as if I personally sold them to you? I think your logic leaves a little something to be desired... All Pirate Bay did was provide links, or provide information. Providing information isn't illegal. If I told you all you need to rob a bank is a gun and a mask, am I guilty of robbing said bank?"

Per the summary, the charge is being an accessory to copyright infringement. There's a similar concept in US law called "contributory copyright infringement," which is what Grokster et al were nailed on.

Providing information can be illegal -- sorry! Typically, the provider needs to know that the information will be used for a crime or misdemeanor. To use your example, you tell me a good place to get a gun with the serial number scratched off. If the court can show that you knew that I was going to rob a bank, or that there was a reasonable assumption that I was going to commit robbery, then you might be named as an accessory to robbery -- which is illegal. If you didn't know me very well, had no clue that I was contemplating a robbery, and all I asked you was "where's the nearest gun store?" then you'd likely be safe. See the difference?

This is what the prosecution is likely going to try in the case against TPB: they're providing the means for you to download copyrighted work without the permission of the owner, and there's the reasonable assumption that this is what'll happen. This is where they differ from Google: TPB has shown that they encourage piracy, and that their site specializes in pirated material. Thus, when they facilitate your piracy, they're an accessory.

I hope this helps.

What are they being charged with?

[seeker_1us]

As I understood it, TPB was not illegal in Sweden. What's changed? Political pressure from the US?

Re:When we can all copy fries

[MorePower]

Damn, I mean Damn!

Fries cost, what, a buck? You would seriously go hungry waiting for someone else to buy fries just to save $1? I don't know about you, but I've given away $1 (or shared $1 of food) to strangers before. And in the hypothetical world where fries are trivially copied for free, it only takes one "generous" person like me willing to give away a buck, or one philanthropist with a vision of "fries for all", or one cook who just feels like cooking up some fries cause he's bored and the whole world get free fries forever.

Worst case, if no one anywhere is willing to cough up $1 to commission the frying of the "seeder-batch" order of french fries, then the government can levy a fry tax and every American pays about one three-millionth of a cent so the National Endowment for Fast Food can afford pay for an order of fries.

Re:Done their homework?

[KDR_11k]

Depends, some countries have laws that prohibit downloading from an "obviously illegal source".

Re:Done their homework?

[init100]

Sweden has some sort of private copying right, but I don't know if it applies to downloading movies or songs.

Whether it applies or not depends on whether the duplication source was acquired through legal channels (note that a copy obtained through private copying is not considered a source obtained through legal channels). In addition, the sphere of people that you can distribute to is very narrow, and the copyright holders are supposedly compensated through the levies on recordable media. I said "supposedly", because I would guess that the levies are distributed according to some top sales list, which may not necessarily reflect what people are sharing.

Re:Done their homework?

[init100]

Downloading any kind of copyrighted material is illegal in Sweden since July 2005.

Corrected it for you:

Downloading any kind of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal in Sweden since July 2005.

Re:Done their homework?

[init100]

Look, possession of a stolen object makes you culpable in the crime.

AFAIK, in Sweden, mere possession of an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work is not illegal. It is the act of duplication that is. This is different from theft, where mere possession of stolen property is illegal (IANAL though).

Um, and this case is where?

[svunt]

How is this informative? Using US law to argue against someone who's telling us the law in the APPLICABLE country? This is a Swedish case, moderators, the correct mod here is "off-topic".

Pay attention to the OP

[illegalcortex]

Let me recap this for you:

Hassman makes comments about the RIAA and MPAA. He also addresses a comment to the slashdot crowd in general saying downloading [unauthorized] music and movies is illegal. Being addressed to slashdot users, you can pretty safely assume he wasn't talking about the laws in Sweden. He was talking about the US, as statistially speaking this is where the large majority of slashdot posters live.

Anonymous Coward "corrects" Hassman telling him downloading is not illegal. He does not say "in Sweden", so you must also assume he was talking about the US.

I correct AC by showing him a case in which the RIAA sued someone for downloading songs and they won.

Please keep in mind that sometimes thread go off in different directions and may actually discuss things OTHER than the original article. I can understand you saying the original Hassman article is off-topic for that reason, but not mine.

Re:Pay attention to the OP

[svunt]

Oh, I read everything. Personally, I see no value in rehashing an old argument that bears no relevance to the matter at hand. Therefore, off-topic.

Really? You sure about that?

[illegalcortex]

If you had really meant that originally, you would have just said it was rehashing an old argument. Instead, you said I was

Using US law to argue against someone who's telling us the law in the APPLICABLE country? Who is this "someone"? Cause the someone I responded to was talking about the US, which was the applicable country in my post. If you were really griping about rehashing, you would have posted this comment to Hassman's post, cause he was the one doing the rehashing. Or to the AC who replied to him, because he was furthering the rehash. Instead you posted it to me. Curious.

Careful you don't trip while you're back-pedaling.

Re:Done their homework?

[ScrewMaster]

or even arrested?

Well, if you're dead I'd say you've suffered a cardiac arrest, at least.

Re:Done their homework?

[unbug]

This may be so in the US, but it's certainly not the case in many European countries, Sweden included (IIRC). The US is a pretty special case when it comes to copyright, anyway.

Re:Done their homework?

[ContractualObligatio]

"What you do with your web site and file sharing is clearly irrelevant."

When I search on "file sharing Sweden" I get references that state downloading copyrighted material has been illegal since 2005 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/03/file_sharer_acquitted/, http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKL0988308720070709) and Swedish politicians arguing for the de-criminalisation of non-commercial filesharing http://sigfrid.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/decriminalize-file-sharing/. I'm happy to be proved wrong, but everything I can find suggests that when you say it is "clearly irrelevant", you are full of shit.

Similarly when you express views on what the majority think of TPB. I doubt the majority has even heard of them. Certainly users of TPB are a small minority. Why should I think anything except that you are forming your opinions on the basis of a minority largely disposed in favour of your own opinion?

Repeating that I have a "totalitarian bias" by the way really doesn't make much of an impact on me.

Why assume that I'm trying to make an impact, when it was you who pointed out that my meaning was not clear? You implicitly asked for an explanation, and there's no point in avoiding the word in question. The word is simply the best one to use, and equivalents such as "ideological" or "fundamentalist" are no less pejorative. The original irony was that what you were saying contradicted your intended meaning. I'm confident you missed my point otherwise you wouldn't be saying I'm accusing you of something "sort of opposite" to your stance - something "sort of opposite" is rather necessary for irony to occur.

Rather than making a case for freedom, you were making a wildly subjective statement of why legal process should have an outcome that you morally approve of. That shows a bias that is readily described by words that have strong negative connotations. Freedom for the prosecutor would be to accept fees from anyone he wishes, to try whatever cases he feels appropriate, to make money out of someone else whether or not anyone approved, to be bound neither by the wishes of the plaintiff nor the defendent. You were not arguing for such freedom, but expressing condemnation (with a dash of hysteria). There would be nothing morally wrong with prosecuting a case in line with a corporation's interests if the case itself is valid. Your opinion on whether it is valid is clearly biased; certainly it is not grounded in facts.

Making no attempt to oppose your will or opinions on others does not make you free from such a bias; most people will have a subject or two that gives rise to opinions that contradict their general outlook. Your reliance upon on specious morality, slogans and unjustified certainty suggests that you are currently talking about such a subject.

Re:Done their homework?

[ScrewMaster]

As their products aren't necessary to life and are clearly for entertainment value

My objection to the media conglomerates have less to do with their obnoxious and ineffective lawsuits that it does with their willingness to corrupt government officials to have laws written to suit their own dubious ends, without regard to anyone else, anywhere on the planet. Honestly, they don't care who they hurt, who they accuse, who they bankrupt. Whatever you want to say about the merits of their attacks on file sharers and torrent indexes, or for that matter the morality of those who use those services, the fact remains that the media corps and their representatives are evil people who will do anything, hurt anyone, to get their way. What's sickeningly hypocritical about it is that they perform these deeds under the guise of protecting their "artists" (e.g., creative cattle), who in reality have little stake in the outcome.

Understand this: these guys aren't out for justice, or redress of grievance ... they want to trash as many lives as necessary to get the point across that ... they can and will trash lives to protect their business. Intimidation and deterrence, in that order. Worse though, is the damage being done to "our precious freedoms" by the undue political influence these creeps wield upon various world governments, and the hideous laws they have paid to have imposed upon us. The wide-ranging effects of this unenlightened, nay, twisted behavior are being felt across virtually every industry in United States, and will soon sweep across Europe unless these criminal cartels are stopped.

Re:Done their homework?

[Maxo-Texas]

Intrinsic,

You only have to turn it around and ask if it would be fair for me to take the results of three week's worth of your work without your permission and without any compensation to see how immoral you would consider it.

I (who download copyrighted material in some cases) would be pissed and feel like I was being treated unfairly.

We do not get to "pick and choose" the parts of society which we will obey. You pay your taxes. You obey criminal law. You get the benefits of society in return (paved roads, doctors, warriors to protect your country, etc.) You are born into a "social contract" and you are stuck with it. You can follow it, you can work to change it, you can engage in disobedience and suffer the consequences, or you can leave and go somewhere else. You can't disobey it, flaunt the fact (because you are stupid and forgot the difference between right and wrong and legal and illegal) and then be excused from suffering the consequences.

So if you can't change a part of the law you disagree with then you damn well better be discreet and keep in mind that what you are doing is illegal so your life isn't destroyed.

And by the social contract, creators do have a legal right to be compensated for their work. We give them that right so they will create more stuff for society. We do not give it to them so they and their heirs to the 7th generation can become fabulously wealthy.

Re:Done their homework?

[Maxo-Texas]

I agree. This is the category most of my copyrighted material that I download falls. Material which I could not buy except as a collector's item simply because the copyright holders will not make copies of it for me to buy.

I would say that by making copies you are destroying the collectible value of the item. For example, once i was able to download the "warlord" comic book series, I was no longer interested in paying $3 for a 20 year old physical out of print comic book. And that would slightly destroy the overall comic market (as collectors stopped buying a few extra copies).

As far as taking a current run movie- I disagree with you. If you get a copy and enjoy it, you morally deserve to give some kind of compensation to the creators of that material. Perhaps you could donate a couple hundred bucks a year to the actors retirement fund as a start.

Re:Done their homework?

[Maxo-Texas]

No you are correct. And this argument is why I do not download songs and movies in print unless I purchase a copy. I have downloaded movies which I purchased because I wanted to format shift them for travel.

As far as the reasonable profit goes- yes the band can charge anything they want. However, the compensation gets all out of whack with our larger world population of consumers. We have drifted as a society to a position where we tolerate (encourage?) extreme differences in wealth. I think this position is destructive to the social fabric and will have bad results in the long term. I would be socialist and say, if you make above a certain amount- we take it as taxes and use it for social services (say college and small business low interest loans) to reduce the gap between rich and poor.

Copyright law does not exist to make the band rich- it exists to benefit society.

Re:Done their homework?

[Lurker2288]

Copyright law exists for the benefit of society--specifically, because it gives creators a reason to create and make their material available. That incentive generally, in our capitalist system, means money. So making a band rich may not be the goal of copyright law, but it's a reasonable intermediate outcome.

Secondly, I don't disagree that there are many social problems associated with a disparity in wealth, but again, I think it's ultimately the consumer's choice. If fans didn't buy tickets to baseball games, players wouldn't be able to demand million dollar contracts. If you think there ought to be some kind of regulatory framework that prevents people from paying for the things they want to read/see/listen to, then that's a much larger issue than copyright law by itself. Make sense?

Re:Done their homework?

[Lurker2288]

Thinking about this in terms of market forces is in no way an oversimplification, because it's obvious that people attribute some value to the intangible concept of 'supporting the band' in addition to the value they derive from having access to the media. Take Radiohead's recent album release, for example. Some people obviously felt that the band deserved something for their work, and so they paid for the download when they were not compelled to. So to the extent that you're willing to put your money where your mouth is, market forces are perfectly adequate to describe the situation.

Secondly, without delving into the factors underlying the music business (bands sign away their earnings in exchange for greater access and promotion rights, etc.), the fact is that you know when you purchase a CD that parties other than the band are taking a cut. If this bothers you, you're free to not buy the disc, or to seek some other way of buying the media without paying the middleman. But I fail to see how this would justify pirating music: either you're willing to pay for the goods (and support the band) despite the lousy distribution of the wealth, or you're not. Unless the band tells you to copy their stuff around, you can't argue that piracy is intended to do anything other than provide you with free stuff.

Re:Puh-leeze

[shutdown -p now]

As I understand, that's essentially the charge. Now it's up to the court to determine whether it is valid or not. I personally hope for the latter, but copyright violation is still a crime in Sweden, so TPB may be liable...

Re:Done their homework?

[untaken_name]

I would be socialist and say, if you make above a certain amount- we take it as taxes and use it for social services (say college and small business low interest loans) to reduce the gap between rich and poor.

Well, then no one would have any incentive to make more than your 'certain amount'. If you set the cap at $50,000/year, say, you'd find a lot of jobs that paid $49,999 plus bennies. Once you remove the reward for effort, there are very few people who will continue the effort. Think about it this way: If you could make your current salary working one day a week, and could not make any more for working extra, would you come in to work five days a week? You claim that it is not fair that some people have more money than others. Yet, if person A saves his/her money instead of spending it on hookers and beer like person B, is it still not fair that person A has more money than person B? If person A plays everquest 13 hours a day while person B works 13 hours a day, is it not fair for person B to have more money than person A?

Re:Done their homework?

[untaken_name]

And by the social contract, creators do have a legal right to be compensated for their work. We give them that right so they will create more stuff for society. We do not give it to them so they and their heirs to the 7th generation can become fabulously wealthy.

So who was Beethoven's producer? Who did Bach's A&R? What label released Mozart's works? However did we have any music, nay, any art at all before the advent of copyright law? Also, doesn't everyone who posts on slashdot deserve to be compensated for their work? Why or why not?

False

[castrox]

This is false in Sweden. We issued a law which makes downloading copyrighted materials illegal as well.

Re:Done their homework?

[somersault]

Acquiring a copy of something you already have bought would seem to be fair use sure, I'm just talking about downloading something you never have and never do intend to pay for, even though you should from a legal point of view.

Re:Done their homework?

[Richard_at_work]

Nice to see that such a personal thing as morals are apparently absolutely black and white for everyone.

Re:Done their homework?

[Pofy]

>(note that a copy obtained through private copying is not
>considered a source obtained through legal channels).

Yes it is. Also note that the definition is not obtained through private copying but rather the original you make a copy from should not have been made in violation of the copyright law (strictly in violation of 2 of the copyright law but that is more or less the same) nor should it have been available to the public in violation of the copyright law. Private copying is an exception to the exclusive rights listed in 2 and such copies are considered to have been made in a legal way and thus you can me a new private copy from them. However, what makes most downloading from the internet illegal is that those copies doesn't fullfill the requirement to have been made available to the public in a legal way.

>In addition, the sphere of people that you can distribute to is very narrow

Actually it is not that narrow, it is basically your familly and friends. This includes for example class mates at scholl, although since the change 2005 not collegues at work. There is a limit in the NUMBER of copies you can make of a work though and it is "a few" (which really is a few, like 2 or 3 at most typically).

Re:Done their homework?

[Pofy]

>Copyright infringement relates to the distribution of copyrighted
>works to which you don't have the permission.

It also "relates" to the creation of copies, at least in Sweden but most likely in most countries.

>There is nothing illegal about making personal copies for personal use

Some countries has exceptions that makes private copying legal, some does not or are much more restrictive. In Sweden you are allowed to make a few copies of a work for private use. The original has to be legal though (not been made in an infringing way or made available in an infringing way). You are not allowed to make copies for private use of computer software and entire books.

Re:Done their homework?

[Pofy]

>This is different from theft, where mere possession of stolen property is illegal (IANAL though).

Depends. It is illegal if you know it is stolen or have reasons to believe it is stolen. Otherwise the possesion is not illegal.

Re:Dangerous Nonsense. (errata)

[Bill_the_Engineer]

The last paragraph should read:

... they are not general purpose search engine or forum ...

Re:cost of a series of bits

[gsslay]

what argument can be made for justifying some of the large prices attaches to a series of bits? The same argument that justifies some of the large prices attached to a collection of plastic and tiny scraps of metal and silicon. Because some one has designed a way of putting them together in a way that people value. The constituent material is pretty irrelevant compared to the skill, time and effort involved in the production.

Shorten the term? Sure!

[Nerdposeur]

You're right - it's a tradeoff, and maybe it's a good one. Your suggestion to make copyright terms shorter makes sense to me, and even as a musician, I wouldn't object. 25 years is plenty of time to exploit a work before it becomes public domain.

What I object to is the idea that every digital thing that gets created should immediately be free to anyone who wants it. If that's the author's intention, fine, and in the real world, there's no way to prevent it.

All I'm saying is that a freeloader mentality from listeners and viewers will ultimately impede the creation of new work. Smart fans will use their dollars to vote for what they want to watch and listen to.

Re:Shorten the term? Sure!

[cpt kangarooski]

25 years is plenty of time to exploit a work before it becomes public domain.

Well, in fact, I propose terms of 1-5 years each, which the copyright holder can renew if he chooses. Some classes of work age more rapidly, and could have fewer renewals, thus limiting their maximum possible term length. I'm mainly thinking of software here, though the canonical example of a quick-aging work is a newspaper, which you can sell in the morning, and is fishwrap by evening.

What I object to is the idea that every digital thing that gets created should immediately be free to anyone who wants it. If that's the author's intention, fine, and in the real world, there's no way to prevent it. All I'm saying is that a freeloader mentality from listeners and viewers will ultimately impede the creation of new work.

I agree with you, but I still think it's a good idea. Remember, there is a tradeoff. More freedom with regard to works during their term, and shorter terms, is just as important as encouraging the creation of those works to begin with. The trick is that their relationship isn't all that proportional. A one year copyright term would represent very little impairment of freedom, but would have a tremendous incentivizing effect upon authors, since even one year is better than none. Adding ninety-nine more years, however, doesn't result in ninety-nine times as many works created.

What I am suggesting is merely recognizing that most people will pirate works and not find it objectionable. Lacking a good reason to go against this, the law should abide by societal norms and legalize this. Banning it clearly hasn't worked, and only has resulted in disrespect for the law, and legal peril for people who behave in a socially acceptable, yet unlawful fashion.

I think it will reduce incentives of some works, but it won't eliminate them entirely. Remember, the exception is only for natural persons -- not businesses or other organizations -- and only where acting non-commercially -- so no money or other things of value (aside from the works themselves) can be involved. Copyright wouldn't stop people from sharing copies of the music on the net (provided that it was stringently non-commercial, so no ads on the site, no upload quotas, etc.) but would stop the song from being covered, or played on the radio, or synched to a video, or copies sold (for people who didn't choose to pirate; there'll be plenty) without copyright being brought in.

Even if some works aren't created, well, we may nevertheless be better off given the additional freedom we would have for those works that are. It's not hard to see how: I would never sculpt the moon into a work of art unless I had a perpetual copyright in which everyone had to pay me whenever the moon was visible in the sky, or they mentioned the moon, or thought of it, etc. It would be a great sculpture, but is it worth the cost? So far, the answer seems to be no.

Re:Done their homework?

[AikonMGB]

Interesting; Obviously I work from what I know, which is Canadian copyright law. Because of the influence the States has on us, I also keep myself fairly up-to-date with that as well.

But you are certainly correct, the exact degree of this legality does indeed depend on what jurisdiction you're in. Typically our discussions here revolve around US-based issues like the MPAA and RIAA; guess I forgot to switch modes =P

Aikon-

Re:Done their homework?

[Borealis]

TBD does not actually share the files, it certainly facilitates the sharing, but itself only maintains the trackers. I could be mistaken, but I do not believe the law (happen to have an english translation of the actual law?) has a provision for facilitation of copying. Like the Napster case, I suspect that the RIAA and their proxy prosecutor will attempt to outlaw facilitation through this court case, since it is not specifically (yes, an assumption without knowing the actual text) outlawed by the statute.

Talking about the majority, I of course refer to those that are familiar with TPB. What sort of red herring are you throwing in discussing what people completely ignorant of TPB think of TPB? People who are completely ignorant of them and the issues surrounding them won't have any opinion at all, and therefore have little impact on the discussion. I do suspect you overestimate the number of Swedish citizens who are ignorant of TPB, as Sweden has long been one of the front running nations of internet users. Their median knowledge of the internet and sites like TPB are far more advanced than most other nations. You can still refuse to accept this if you choose, it's really not terribly important to my argument.

The irony of the use of the totalitarian, ideological, fundamentalist terminology I'll leave you to discuss with yourself, you're obviously having fun with it and it's not doing much for me.

Attributing hysteria to my arguments, however, amuses me. I honestly do not think that any outcome of this case will result in anything anybody needs to get hysterical about. If the prosecutor in question wins his case, it will have little impact on piracy. If he loses the case it again won't really change the fact that piracy occurs. While you seem upset that your attribution of my supposedly flimsy morals supposedly applies a prejudgement on a case that has not occurred to an outcome that is irrelevant, I really think you're missing the point.

My point is that corporations should not be able to influence governments to protect their business models that are against the public interest, and not supported by the market. And before you accuse me of ideological assumptions that I am all knowing of the public interest, think about what would be required to secure the RIAA's lock on media. Not only would we have to have laws worse than the DMCA, we would have to allow them to snoop all traffic on the internet, to ensure that every single packet does not have some copyrighted material. And before you attribute more "hysteria" to my actions understand that I believe there will always be ways to circumvent, which means that the aformentioned laws and snooping would only inconvenience people who play by the rules and have zero impact on those that wish to pirate media.

In prior posts you made much ado about TPB profiting from their acts. While it is true that they are profiting, you are completely missing the point that the RIAA's supporting studios could have made *more* money doing exactly the same thing. The only thing stopping the studios from putting sites like TPB out of business is their own obstinance in maintaining a business model that does not work. They would rather legislate away the ability to copy files across the internet (which happens to be one of the major functions of the internet) than adapt.

You make much of my supposed moral relativism, which incidentally is your construct based entirely on your imaginings of my mental workings, but in essence I think the ideal outcome is for the studios to put TPB out of business by competition rather than legislation and litigation. The studios do represent some of the artists and they ideally should be paid for their work. That does not give them free license to fuck up the internet to suit a means of business that is proven to be ineffective.

The *actions* of the RIAA are evil, not because the corporations themselves are evil, but because trying to restrict the internet and copying in the way that they are

Re:Done their homework?

[xappax]

Sure, pirating media can be intended to do lots other than provide one with free stuff. I say you're too focused on the market here because there's a lot more to the situation than "buy or don't buy". What if I pirate the music and in exchange send the artist an unasked for $5 donation? What if I pirate the music and in exchange play it out at all my parties to promote the artist? These are the kinds of things that, in many cases, an artist would be more than happy to allow, but the middlemen are not.

Since the only thing the middlemen really control is whether or not you can get a copy of the "official" album, pirating can be a way for the fans to take more direct control of their exchange with the artist - and potentially vice-versa, as we see in cases like Trent Reznor encouraging his fans to pirate even though he can't (or won't) officially release his music free.

Basically, pirating makes it possible to "support the band" in many other ways than buying their album, so a fan is no longer faced with a choice of either "buy and support the band" or "don't buy and don't support the band".

Re:Done their homework?

[manwal]

1) File sharing in Sweden is legal, therefore legal considerations are an aside.

Actually, sharing copyrighted material is illegal in Sweden, if the author hasn't allowed you to do so.

Re:Done their homework?

[Maxo-Texas]

Beethoven and others were sponsored by rich merchants and nobles. It takes a lot of money to support a person writing music full time.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-03-02-beethoven_x.htm

Beethoven wrote the concerto in 1792 as an exercise under Haydn and revised the second movement the following year. It would be several more years before he published his Opus No. 1, announcing himself as a composer.

The only known copy of the oboe concerto vanished from a Vienna publishing house in the 1840s. Its existence was confirmed in 1935, when researchers found an exchange of letters between Haydn and Beethoven's sponsor, in which the Austrian composer seeks a further stipend for his young German pupil.

---

When we post on slashdot, we are under the social contract of "I want to discuss things on slashdot so I will let anyone read my stuff for free". We may even have a site agreement that the site can use our posts (given the goofy state of copyright). Slashdot is akin to a discussion. However, it is possible that if someone reused a post in its entirety and started making a ton of money, that we could sue them for a share.

---

If society does not reward for music (movies, books, etc.) at all, then some music will be produced (say "X")
If society rewards for music, then more music will be produced.
At the tipping point of compensation, the maximum amount of music will be created.
If society rewards too much for music (etc.), then less music will be produced because the artists get wealthy too soon and lose the motivation to keep creating.

---
If beethoven had never found a sponsor, he would have written at most one or two symphonies. Which one of them are you willing to give up so you can take his work for free?

Re:Done their homework?

[Maxo-Texas]

There are two problems with overcompensation.

The first and most critical for this point is that wealthy artists lose the drive to create and create at a slower rate. For example, actors in the 30's and 40's might be in 6 to 10 pictures PER year. These days, most successful actors make a movie every two to three years. You want the reward to be motivating but still leave the artist hungry.

We agree to disagree. Historically when the wealth gets too unevenly distributed very bad things happen to the wealthy (heads will roll). Essentially, once one group wins too much either the government fails or society fails.
The wealthy are much more likely to have a happy life if they are not too greedy. But they always are and at some point we will be looking at 70% to 90% taxes on the wealthy again as a result or civil violence.

Re:Done their homework?

[Maxo-Texas]

Correct.

I assert there is no need to pay anyone over one million dollars per year. If offered a chance between not working and making a million dollars a year (in a society where greater incomes were taken at a 90% rate), the same people would be doing the same jobs. And the middle and lower classes would be a lot happier.

Yes it is fair that a person who works harder gets more money. However, executive compensation has gone up at 20x the rate of the general populace since the late 1980's. Essentially, a very tiny group of 500 to 1,000 people have found a way to take the income of 500,000 other citizens. It was not historically that way and it is dangerous for society for it to continue. Anyone making 160 million a year in a company that is losing money and has a sharply declining stock price is evidence that we need a severe change.

I advocate an inflation indexed 75% tax on income above 10 million a year. The thing is, once everyone is limited, the price of everything shifts around to match. If the top income is 300 million a year, then the best condo may run 30 million a year-- if the top income is 30 million a year, then the best condo will probably run 3 million a year. Money is just a token.

Re:Done their homework?

[jedidiah]

Why are you suggesting that I give something away
to strangers just because I am not using it yet?

Re:Done their homework?

[Lurker2288]

I didn't state it as explicitly as you did, but you'll note in my last post I mentioned the possibility of 'alternate transactions' whereby you could reward the band for their creation without putting your money into the coffers of the label.

Now, again with the market analogy, just as you're free to buy or not buy, a band is free to sign with a label or remain independent. If they choose to sign and take advantage of the access and promotion a label allows them, then they're obligated to provide the assorted businessfolk with a cut of the revenue. If they start selling directly to you (and cutting out the middlemen) then it's still stealing, but on the part of the band. I wouldn't classify that as piracy, because after all, you, the consumer, are still paying for the goods you're receiving.

I don't really know what to make of Trent Reznor. I assume he's under a contract that would prevent him from giving his music away free, but even if he wasn't, I suspect the only reason he'd be willing to do so is because he's already got plenty of money. Unless you're a truly self-sacrificing musician, the only reason you should want to give your stuff away for free is if you think it will get more people to buy more later. Since Trent's got that covered, and a major fanbase to boot, he can afford to be idealistic.

Re:Done their homework?

[MarkKB]

NO. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

Mama mia, mama mia, mama mia, let me go!

But seriously, he has a point.

Re:Done their homework?

[untaken_name]

Patrons do not equal record companies. Also, speculating on what someone would or would not have done had things turned out differently is stupid and pointless. We can discuss what DID happen, which is that the people I mentioned composed master works without a record company. That is not in dispute. Thank you, come again.

Re:Done their homework?

[untaken_name]

I assert there is no need to pay anyone over one million dollars per year.

You assert that, and the market disagrees with you. I agree that conditions right now are unfairly favorable to certain large companies, but that is the fault of corrupt government and byzantine regulations/statues which unfairly provide advantage to certain people. However, stating that no one should make over a million dollars is ludicrous. If someone brings in $100M in revenue in a year, they shouldn't receive more than a 1% share of it? You're being far more unfair than any CEO's salary, here. I agree that we need a change, but you're punishing more than just CEOs. Your zero-sum game theory falls apart when you look at it more closely. You indicate that 'if the top income is 30 million a year, the best condo will be 3 million a year' or somesuch. Bull. What you will have is people exploiting other people to get more than 30million a year. They will be able to afford to do this, while everyone who is already low on resources will NEVER be able to better their situation. You claim that money is just a token, but here's a historical fact for you: Some people are much better at gathering and retaining money than others. The ones who are best at it get rich, while the ones who are worst at it get poor...no matter what the starting stakes are. That's just the way it is. There will always be an elite, and the best way to combat that elite is to make it easier for everyone to obtain, not harder. Clear out the corrupt government influence and we'll return to the time when we were far more prosperous as individuals. Adding more corrupt government on top of the already corrupt government isn't going to solve anything. That's like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. I also notice that you haven't addressed the issue of personal responsibility... why should someone who works hard and saves money be penalized in favor of someone who does not work hard and/or does not save money? That's penalizing who you should be rewarding, and vice versa.

Re:Done their homework?

[Maxo-Texas]

Apparently you are not noticing the development of a new entrenched nobility class. You've been successfully brainwashed that 'everyone can be rich' when in reality the same people are staying in power now. It is no coincidence that the same families are serving as our presidents for over a generation now.

Likewise, the executive class has gotten control of the ability to give themselves raises and they are giving themselves raises at the expense of the rest of the citizens. 100 million compensation is completely out of whack even if the company was successful and in many cases, these executives drive the companies into the ground and lay off lots of productive employees to save money so the executives can essentially take those employees pay.

While the government is talking about bailing wallstreet out of the subprime mess that wallstreet created, wallstreet is this year giving themselves some of the larger bonuses they have ever given out. Does this sound like an industry under stress?

We have got to level out the difference between the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor or there will be civil unrest and lots of deaths. Since the wealthy have lost all sense of propriety and are truly in 'let them eat cake' mode, we are going to have to save them from themselves.

Re:Please mod this fool down, he is wrong

[pnewhook]

Actually my understanding of the law came from the appeal filed which argued that since cannibis seeds were not specifically listed under the substance control act, and therefore possession of the seeds was not illegal.

I just followed up on the result of the appeal and the illegality of seed possesion was upheld by the appeals court. So you are right - it is illegal.

HOWEVER - the appeals court fined him $200 for running a store selling and advertising marijuana seeds. The US wants to give him a draconian and ridiculous 10 years in jail. So yes its illegal but ot the the extent that the US portays it to be.

You can kill a person and get less jail time in the US. It's the US justice system that are a bunch of fools.

Stop the backpedaling and equivocating.

[C18H21NO3]

"So you are right - it is illegal."

Nuff said.

"HOWEVER..."

NO. NO HOWEVER. You ranted about a subject on which you WERE NOT educated, and as a result, gave FALSE information. A someone who wants the same outcome as you, your behavior was irresponsible and childish.

We do not have the luxury of ignorant fools like you running off at the mouth making false claims that damage credibility.

You were wrong. Your "HOWEVER" makes it clear that you don't care that you were completely wrong, and that ranting is more important that being correct.

"It's the US justice system that are a bunch of fools."

That my be true, but at least they bother to know the law. The same obviously can't be said for you.

Re:Stop the backpedaling and equivocating.

[pnewhook]

Stop being such a fuck. Jesus what an ass.

Simple possession in Canada is ignored by most police, so while it is technically illegal, in practic it is not.

It's the same as driving 62 in a 60 zone. Yes the driver is breaking the law but no cop would ever pull you over for that.

Everthing I said was perfectly valid since the law, while on the books, was not being enforced.

Re:Done their homework?

[xappax]

You missed my point, but it's admittedly a nuanced one.

If "the band" signs to a label and then sells their album direct to fans without giving the suits a cut, that would be stealing, because according to the deal between band and label, a certain percentage of record sales are due the suits.

However, if a fan gets the music some other way, say by downloading it, and then performs some informal service to the band to show his/her appreciation and support, the band has not stolen anything from the suits, because there's rarely a clause in record contracts which say "we get 75% of every nice thing a fan ever does for your group".

There's no stealing going on in these situations, only the failure of fans to buy a commercial product and instead engage in a kind of gift economy exchange with the artists directly. In order to assert theft, you'd have to take the slightly mad angle of the RIAA, which argues that any time someone doesn't buy one of their albums, whoever "allowed" them to not buy the album has stolen profit from the RIAA. As though record labels have some kind of inalienable right to have everyone buy their product...

Re:Done their homework?

[MonkeySpank]

However, if a fan gets the music some other way, say by downloading it, and then performs some informal service to the band to show his/her appreciation and support, the band has not stolen anything from the suits, because there's rarely a clause in record contracts which say "we get 75% of every nice thing a fan ever does for your group".

Well, that's not strictly true for the traditional recording contract.

Usually the record company owns mechanical copyright on all of a band's recordings. That is, every copy of the recording (and a download qualifies here) carries a royalty fee that is due to the label. Thereafter the label pays some percentage of that royalty to the band as part of their contract.

In addition, the actual written music, separate to the recording itself, is owned by the publisher (which is not necessarily the label or the band). Musical covers of a band's song carry a royalty payment to the publisher.

So downloading a band's track means the suits are, legally, owed a royalty. If you pay that royalty directly to the band you are, in effect, robbing the suits. Bigger bands, Radiohead etc. own their recordings because they can finance their own studios, mastering etc. But Joe Average won't.

Obviously I'm over-simplifying: recording contracts come to an end; artists own their own publishing; not every label is a money-grabbing enterprise.

Re:Done their homework?

[untaken_name]

Look, man. I haven't missed the formation of the elite class. However, it's precisely because of the amount of control "the system" has over you and your money that this can continue. In the early days of our country, anyone COULD be rich, depending upon the amount of effort they put it. However, by playing upon the fears of people like you, that very elite has gained more and more control over your life. The way to get control of your life back is to free the common folk from the chains of government and NOT by making government more powerful. The way to do is is to give the common man more control over his own destiny, to succeed or fail based upon his own merits, and not the hard work and sweat of others. Your goal is noble, but your methodology only gives more control to those whom you wish to see lose control. For example, see the USSR during the height of the Communist influence. The common person was totally screwed while the Party bigwigs lived like kings, all wrapped in the rhetoric of socialism. That is exactly what you would have happen here. You talk about inequality, but it is the height of inequality for one person to be forced to work to support another. You should certainly be able to choose to do that, but no matter what you use my money for, if you take it from me by force, you are stealing and you are wrong. For example, a mugger who gave the money he stole to charity would still be arrested for mugging people.