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Sweden to Give Courts New Power to Hunt IP Infringers
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Swedish Culture & Justice ministers are preparing to give new power to Swedish courts to let them force ISPs to give up subscriber IPs. The end goal is trying subscribers in court for copyright infringement. As the one-time home of the Pirate Bay, which is now internationally distributed, they face both US pressure and push-back at home. The Swedish arm of the Pirate Party is calling this move a 'sanctioned blackmailing operation', but hopefully the Swedish courts won't allow the IFPI to use as many tricks as the RIAA has in US courts."
How can they call this a legitimate request, given the recent outrages by the companies involved?
Shame on Wired for repeating the propaganda phrases, "illegal file sharing" and "piracy". It's not against the law in many countries and sharing should not be considered damaging or wrong anywhere. Giving someone a copy of a book is not the same thing as feeding them to the fish. I'm used to better things from Wired than this.
No calls now, I'm
Pirate Bay will fade just as every other p2p system has before it... WinMX, Kazza, Limewire, Napster, FTP, IRC... Wait is IRC still going? It's been so long since I was on there downloading Dreamcast images...
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
You can sugar coat it all you want, if you are unauthorized to redistribute content, and you are doing it, what you are doing is Piracy. It also happens to be illegal in many countries, including the one we discuss here, where there are copyright laws that define the scope of what is legal and illegal distribution of said content. If you share a file for which you have received authorization to do so in the form of a license, you are in fact participating in illegal file sharing.
As much as you don't like it, it's the way it is. Not all file sharing is illegal, but not all of it is legal. Morals have nothing do to with lawfulness of it. Giving someone a copy of a book is not like giving 3,000,000 other people a copy of a book. If you wouldn't have paid for it anyway, why are you so desperate to have it ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Pirate bay doesn't disrespect any of Sweden's Copyright laws. In Sweden (unlike in the US) it is not forbidden to provide a link to a copyrighted material, even if this link connects you to a potential infringer (trackers have the same interpretation). Also, in order to be protected by copy right law in Sweden, works must have a certain level of artistry and/or technical merit. Simply the fact that you have written a piece of (crap) text doesn't entitle you to any copyrights over the text (say, like an email message), it's gotta be something really relevant, that you've put some effort in creating.
Yes it brings to mind Saddam Hussein's mock trial. One judge was removed in response to his refusal to refer to 'the accused' or 'the defendant' as a tyrant. Whilst in a normal court if a judge called an insane serial killer anything other than the defendant the whole trial would be setback. There seems to be a tendency to label things black and white in recent times. That combined with the un-Americanism of questioning the rules builds quite an interesting layman's lexicon.
Mar 14, 12:33 PM EDT
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Sweden Pursues Illegal File-Sharers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., MGM Pictures Inc., Colombia Pictures Industries Inc., 20th Century Fox Films Co., Sony BMG, Universal and EMI have until Feb. 29 to file claims for damages in the case.
So, is that Feb 29 of this year, or in the next leap year, or is this article HOPELESSLY OUT OF DATE? Did they file it or not?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
That is true, however the downloading of a torrent might soon be considered 'intent' and authorize search/seizure if your PC and all your backup media.
Its a lot easier to deny a random search/download on something like the ed2k network as you don't know what you are getting until its there.. With the torrent from a well documented place like PB, its pretty much clear what you were doing.
What needs to be done is complete plausible deniability, like is offered on FreeNet with its encrypted local store and communications, but with some sort of multi-homed downloads so it doesn't take months to get a file. ( of course that doesn't help you if you have CDs full of the stuff for backup and you get raided. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
if you are unauthorized to redistribute content, and you are doing it, what you are doing is Piracy.
No, piracy also involves a certain degree of wooden legs and parrots and hoisting "Jolly Roger"'s and broadsides and cutlasses, etc.
How come if you come to my house and I put on a CD you're allowed to hear the music, but GOD FORBID you hear the music by any other means including internet radio which now has to pay god knows how many million dollars for "rights".
The RIAA is about GREED pure and simple. Please provide verifiable documents that prove that ONE SINGLE ARTIST has seen ONE PENNY from the RIAA, who apparently fight in their name. In fact many musical groups ENDORSE "piracy", even in their song lyrics (example Molotov:Yofo; Radiohead, etc), because they are fed up of being ripped off by studios.
Please stop bleating like a sheep and start using your brain. The "cost" of distributing "n" copies of music is now almost ZERO. Why do you insist people still have to pay $15-$20 for a "CD" or $.99 for a "song"? Middlemen add nothing to economies. They are parasites pure and simple.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
While Europeans are coming to view IP address as protected personally identifiable information, they are also inventing more and more legal justifications for collection and use of IP addresses.
Benjamin Wright, Dallas, Texas, benjaminwright.us
I have not authorized you to read this copyrighted post.
Police, please arrest RedK (112790). Thank you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
... is that this opens up the possible risk of having the justice system completely soaked in IP-release-claims.
The ministers writes
"Today copyright holders are by and large bound to report internet copyright violations to the police. The Police and attorneys work has admittedly improved through enhanced education and specialisation but its not reasonable that this whole responsibility should be placed on police and attornies alone.
On the contrary it is in many cases more naturally and suitable that the copyrights holders themselves are given the ability to intervene against [copyright] intrusions. "
[Link to original article posted in Svenska Dagbladet http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/artikel_972903.svd ]
Of course, it won't be the artists or filmmakers themselves who collects evidence, it will be the organisation backing them up. But, and here is the interesting part, it may very well backfire with thousands and thousands of demands being sent to the courts, from hundreds of known, not-so-known, and completely unheard of artists who's found their work on various sites. It can also lead up to a civil disobediance campaign where people start reporting en masse just to clog the system with demands.
I'm far from a fan of the current government but I must say they have an interesting take at the end of the article.
"To battle illegal filesharing it is required that affected branches takes their responsibility. If copyright is used to protect obsolete businessmodels then it will in the long run be impossible to defend it"
Piracy is acts of robbery on the seas. What you are doing when you share files is infringing on copyright. I don't know why the term piracy was co-opted in popular press for copyright infringement, but as far as I can tell, there's no basis in law. All the law I find relating to copyright infringement, that's what it is called. The reason that I press this issue is that piracy is still very much a real issue in the world. In the US people are very shielded from it because nobody fucks with the Coast Guard (to fire on a Coast Guard ship is an act of war), but in much of the world it is still a very real problem.
Also I would say the argument of "Morals have nothing to do with it," is pretty stupid. In the US at least, laws must be just. It isn't simply an abstract concept, it is actually codified in the Constitution. Lower laws must conform to higher level laws, and all laws must be just.
Well it can be quite fairly argued (and indeed is in some RIAA cases) that copyright law is unjust. It has two major constitutional problems:
1) The whole reason Congress is allowed to make copyright law is the Constitution grants it. One of the lines in Article I Section 8 reads "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;" Ok, great, however like most of the powers granted in the Constitution to the government, there are limits. It doesn't say Congress has the right to do whatever they want with regards to IP. It says that they may secure an exclusive right for a LIMITED amount of time, and the reason they may do so is to promote the progress of science and art.
Ok well it seems current copyright law runs afoul of both. For one, I don't think that "Life plus 70 years," which is the current US copyright length, is what is meant by "limited time." It seems that is far too long. Then there is the fact that the whole reason is to promote science and art, where it seems that the currently lengthy copyrights are used to suppress it. Companies hold on to copyrights, refusing to release the work or allow derivatives. For example companies go after sites distributing copies of old console games, despite the fact that the companies themselves have long since stopped selling those games and indeed refuse to do so anymore. They just sit on the copyright, and stand in the way of using it for any progress.
2) All punishments must be fair, as per Amendment 8 which reads "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." In the case of copyright infringement, the part we are interested is "nor excessive fines imposed." The statutory damages seem to run afoul of that. $150,000 per incident of statutory damages? Are you kidding me? It is quite literally more than you'd get had you physically stolen media containing a copy of the work.
So it seems that the current situation may well be unjust, immoral, and thus it certainly DOES matter. I hate this idea of "The law is the law." Ya well, guess what? The law can and should be changed. It was the law at one time that you could own slaves, certain humans were seen as worth less. That was actually right in the Constitution. That doesn't mean it was right. It is silly to simply point to a bad law and say "Well that's the law so there."
Convenient how you failed to mention that it *WOULD* be illegal if you burned a copy of the CD for your friend.
The record companies can sell their products for whatever price they want to. Just like any other company. They make outrageous profit selling CDs for $15 each, but that's not illegal, and as long as people keep buying them for that price, they'll keep doing it.
Maybe not
The record companies can sell their products for whatever price they want to. Just like any other company.
However, the market is being distorted by the copyright monopolies. For most kinds of product, a competing vendor could sell cheaper product that is adequately substitutable - due to copyright monopoly law, doing that is classed as "piracy" for some types of information pattern expressed in a physical substrate.
That is _why_ the companies can get away with charging so much money and still stay in business - they've got the government giving them monopolies, usually under some socialistic "help the starving artists" lie.
Personally, I support the abolition of copyright law. They (the copyrightists) have apparently decided to make it a stark choice between communications liberty and enforcement of copyright. If they say "well, we won't release anything if we don't get our copyright monopolies", I say "Fine by me!". Everyone's freedom of communication is simply more important than their monopolies or their ability to make a profit. It's not even all artists that would be hurt - it's that subset of people that are only happy if they get a distribution monopoly. We can simply do without their "art".
Remember, the term "intellectual property" is a debate-framing tactic designed to make you think that copyrights and patents and such are "like" physical property and therefore similarly worthy of protection.
Exactly. No one should be out to make art for a profit, and that's precisely what these middlemen want to do. They've brought up generations on the dreams of "making it big" being a rock n roll star or an A list actor, only to exploit those who actually do make it to the top of their game. So copyright can go straight to hell, and I don't care if I loose Heroes, Batman movies, and whatever bands that can't survive after it's dead. Theatre, live music performances, paintings, books, they'll survive. They've survived this long without life+70 haven't they?
This whole discussion is coming down to two basic points. 1) what they are doing is illegal, and 2) the law which makes it illegal is unfair.
The purists are just reinforcing the first point, and telling the pirates that the correct action for them to take is not point 1, but to deal with point 2 instead.
The pirates are using the reality that the industry and government are rigged such that it's not possible to fix point 2, to justify point 1.
I believe that most people that consider this situation will come to the same conclusion. You should not break the law even if the law is unjust, so long as you have the mechanism to get the law fixed. Once those efforts ("the system") fails to work in the favor of justice and fairness, then you have at least some moral standing to break the unjust law.
it's a bit like rebellion. Most people agree that trying to try to overthrow your government is a bad idea, so long as you the people have the ability to affect change. Once you have come to the conclusion that you cannot fix what is broken, it's time for revolution. Read the preamble to the constitution.
The same thing is happening here with copyright that happened every time there was a revolt in the past. People are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore." And most sensible people can stand back and observe the situation, and agree that yes, they are breaking the law, and yes there is some justification to their actions.
Tightening the laws and controls never fixes these sorts of problems. (you cannot fix the problem by addressing point 1) As long as a significant injustice remains, there will always be a faction fighting for change. (you must address point 2) The examples are too numerous to mention, and exceptions all but nonexistent.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Care to give an example? Even in countries being famous for copyright infringement it's forbidden by law (China comes to mind).
Of course there is the right for private copies in some countries, but as some poor RIAA representative put it during Napster's peak: "Ok, it makes a difference wether you share some music with your close friends or thousands of 'friends' over the net."
Just a little sidenote: Many countries have a problem with the sheer flood of indictions coming from *AA lawyers*. I see this as the true reason for legislation to change the rules by either: Giving the copyright holders direct access to the names of those pirating (making it an issue for civil-law), or by introducing a minimum level of damage before the jurisdiction is allowed to act. Of course I prefer the latter, but AFAIK no country had the guts to go this way yet. The UK and France are pretty close with the idea of simply blocking access for those infringing, but I somehow doubt that this will get popular.
*Just a little example from Germany: Over here content creators can't get the name behind an ip-address. So they indict, which leads to the following actions: The state's prosecutor knows it's not worth the hassle, but he has to investigate the identity of the other party - the file will usually be closed after this. The lawyer requests access of records and sends a monition to the person behind the ip-address. In this document he/she offers to drop all civil charges in exchange for a sum which is at a price point significantly lower than anything you would spend in court. For this reason 99% are settled this way, but it's still not a cheap deal for those affected. The problem with this system is that some lawyers send thousands of such requests automatically to one single prosecutor, thereby bringing the legal system to a grinding halt. Therefore legislation has seriously considered to introduce an exemption, below which prosecutors don't act.
I don't read replies by ACs.
Parent is insightful and informative.
"Intellectual Property" is a Propaganda term (oh wait, they get offended if you call them propagandists-- they want to be called Public Relations.)
The term "Piracy" is ALSO a manipulative tactic on the act of non-profit copyright infringement. Its such a minor infringement, where as the profit without permission on copy written work is a major infringement and is a core principle for the existence of copyright. Sadly, the "pirates" have embraced the term as part of their identity which HURTS their image to the outside world.
Large cartels that unfairly exploit creators for profit; while legal, are the antithesis of the this fundamental reason for copyright.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Another option is to abolish all rights for corporations and require that either a declared individual in the corporation represents the company for all rights and penalties, or that corporations are merely collections of individuals and that the individuals have wholly independent rights and responsibilities.
All of these approaches have drawbacks, as well as benefits. Some day, society might even figure out if any are any good.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
For an example, see Blunt v. Patten, 2 Paine 397, 3 F.Cas. 763 (1828): In answer to a question from the court, whether the defendant had pirated from the drawings and papers, or from the engravings, he answered, from the engravings.
. . .
The act that secures copyright to authors, guards against the piracy of the words and sentiments; but it does not prohibit writing on the same subject. As in the case of histories and dictionaries.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Whether they tax blank CDs or not has no bearing on whether or not distributing copyrighted content without the copyright holder's consent is legal.
In Canada, for example, it's not: http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/03/08/22/1655233.shtml
I understand the law as written as well. You are a simpleton because you do not ask the rather obvious questions "Why is the law written this way?" and "Is this law right and just?"
Here. That took all of two seconds on an internet search. You could simply have searched for the terms "RIAA price fixing" and you would have received numerous hits, but I guess you were too busy having your apoplectic fit.
If you will actually bother to read what I wrote, I called you a shill or a troll because of the terminology you were using. You were talking about rights holders rather than artists. Also, the "others [who] think otherwise" are generally members of groups like the RIAA and others who stand to profit from eternal copyright. Copyright is a fiction, albeit a useful one if done properly. The purpose of copyright is to give a person legal rights for a limited time in exchange for the product of their creativity becoming publicly available after the time has passed. Or, to put it another way, instead of having artistic and inventive works be kept secret, the government grants legal rights so as to foster the developments of the creative arts. Again, the reason I called you a simpleton is because, while you may understand the law as written, you do not seem to begin to grasp *why* the law is there in the first place.
Again, if you will actually bother to read what I wrote, I did not say that there is something inherently wrong with copyright itself. The problems are (at least with the RIAA and possibly will be with its Swedish counterpart) (1) how long should those rights last? and (2) how should one be allowed to prosecute infringers? If I think you stole something of mine, I am well within my rights to persue legal action against you. I am not within my rights to hack your computer to try to find emails of you bragging about it, nor am I within my rights to kick in your door, hold you at gunpoint, and search your house for it. Do you even begin to see the problem here?And, by the way, your feet stink and your mother dresses you funny.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Personally, I support the abolition of copyright law. They (the copyrightists) have apparently decided to make it a stark choice between communications liberty and enforcement of copyright.
If musicians were the only people making copyrighted works, then your position might be reasonable. Not all musicians care about copyright, and we can do without the "art" from those who do. But copyright also provides the only way to fund things that are extremely expensive, but also necessary.
Take software engineering for example. There are specialist software programs that are the product of many thousands of man years of engineering. These have been very costly to develop, but with the "no copyrights" model, they are worth no more than the cost of reproduction. The Linux-style "give it away for free" approach simply doesn't work for programs that are (a) very complex and (b) not widely used. I'm thinking of music composing, CAD, EDA and 3D design tools here; no doubt there are many other examples of very complex programs that are only required by a small number of people. In a world without IP, who will pay for the R&D cost of these programs? Is it reasonable to expect them to be written for free, by free software guys, when there is so little demand for them? Conversely, is it reasonable to expect anyone pay for them if they can be legally pirated? Would your business pay $10k for an essential program if the Pirate Bay would legally give it to you for $0?
There are other sorts of IP. Chip designs, for example. If there is no copyright, an unscrupulous fab owner can steal a design from Intel or AMD and start making identical chips. The chips will be cheaper because Intel and AMD won't see any profit from them, and the costs won't include the substantial R&D cost of designing the chips in the first place. Intel and AMD would go out of business if this type of piracy was legal. And yet that is exactly the model advocated by the "imaginary property" crowd today: if it's information, then it can't be property.
My point here is that if this truly is the information age, then we must have the notion of information as property. It is not just the MPAA and RIAA who are affected by theft of information; it is every software engineer and everyone else who is trying to make a living by selling information. Even free software programmers are affected, since IP law also protects their work from being stolen (GPL violations, etc.). The "sell concert tickets", "sell ads", "make it into a service" and "ask for donations" business models just don't apply to every case. Make no mistake, we all need some form of IP law.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
The Linux-style "give it away for free" approach simply doesn't work for programs that are (a) very complex and (b) not widely used. I'm thinking of music composing, CAD, EDA and 3D design tools here.
You are wrong. Take Ardour or gEDA for example. I'm sure you will point out how unsophisticated these are compared to their commercial counterparts, but these programs are quite functional and suitable for 75% of what people need to do. If there were no commercial software counterparts to these, you'd better believe the companies that needed the software would contribute resources to seeing that the free versions did what they needed them to do.
In fact, I'd argue that it is because of commercial software that the free versions lag behind. If a company can buy a program for $10k, they have no motivation to see that the free version is improved. They might not even want to see the free version improved because the high cost serves as an entry barrier into the field to help keep out competitors.
My point here is that if this truly is the information age, then we must have the notion of information as property.
Unsubstantiated bullshit.
Even free software programmers are affected, since IP law also protects their work from being stolen (GPL violations, etc.).
I loathe people who make this specious argument. If there were no copyrights, there would never have been a need for the GPL in the first place. There's a reason it's referred to as "copyleft" license; it's a direct attack on the evils of copyright.
Who gets to define what "selling out" is?
Should we apply your standards for art to other fields of human endeavor? If you're not working your shitty, low-level, $6-an-hour job out of sheer love and passion for customer service / burger flipping / telemarketing, are you also a "street corner slut"? Should the way people put food on the table be subjected to arbitrary "acceptability" judgments, once we're past the boundaries of safety and health regulations?
Or do you just object to people making "too much" money (however much you define "too much" to be)? If a minor comic book artist manages to supplement his income by doing $100 commission pieces, is he a whore? What about someone like Bryan Hitch, who gets $4k and up for his commissioned pieces? Hell, is the idea of illustrating someone else's stories at all selling out, too?
I don't think people who rail against copyright law should be so judgmental about such things. If you're against artificial restrictions on the distribution of creative works, why have these mental barriers regarding the act of artistic creation itself? I'll let you in a little secret: No starving artist ever set out to be one.
Whether they tax blank CDs or not has no bearing on whether or not distributing copyrighted content without the copyright holder's consent is legal.
In Canada, for example, it's not: http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/03/08/22/1655233.shtml
Though Canada does require a higher standard of evidence than "here's some plain text log files showing that this IP was making available a file named usher.mp3. We don't have any evidence that this file was by the musician Usher or that this file was uploaded to anyone or that it resided on the computer of the person who's name is on the account (not that we have that name since there are privacy laws requiring us to get a court order by providing actual evidence before the ISP will reveal it). But make them give us money anyway."
IANAL. IANS. IANAPA. (I am not Swedish. I am not a pirate, arrr!)
If you have admissible evidence that someone is committing a crime, such as copyright infringement, I see no reason you cannot go to a judge, get a warrant, and get the IP address of the culprits. I see no reason that you cannot take the evidence for any number of such crimes, and go to a judge, and get a warrant to get the IP addresses of all of the culprits. The problem with the RIAA is that they really don't do that. They taken blanket unsubstatiated information and then go directly to the ISP/school/whatever. However, given a reasonable due process, this is quite reasonable.
And this really doesn't impact The Pirate Bay. If The Pirate Bay hosts torrents, and those torrents lead to people who are illegally copying files, then I see no reason that the copyright holder's ability to get that IP address has anything to do with the person hosting the files or the torrents. Either way, they are not liable any more than a bank is liable if someone puts drugs into their safe deposit box. No more than if someone agrees to a drug deal while drinking coffee at your restaurant.