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Pirate Bay Operators Stand Trial On Monday
Anonymous Pirate writes "Operators of The Pirate Bay stand trial on Monday in Stockholm. The four defendants from the popular file-sharing web site are charged with being accessories to breaking copyright law and may face fines or up to two years in prison if found guilty. The four defendants have run the site since 2004 after it was started in 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån. The Swedish public service television announced that they are going to send a live audio stream from the trial. It will be broadcast without editing or translation."
http://trial.thepiratebay.org/ Is the "official"(if there is such a thing) blog about the trial.
Dylan Lainhart = leet haxor
Good for them for finally taking down these scumbags.
I guess it would be ok for me to take Open Source code and to close it to make it proprietary, release it on Bit-torrent with ads inserted in the program and not suffer an consequences.
I would like to call Pirate #4 to the witness stand Your Honor... Pirates on trial -- news at 6:00...in Somalia... -
damaged by dogma
When a law does more harm than good it needs to be abolished.
Similarly, please end drug prohibition laws.
ktnxbye.
How we know is more important than what we know.
TPB is just a torrent hosting site. Torrents are tools, just like guns - they can be used for piracy or downloading copies of a game a person lost. And the whole issue of being "accessories" of copyright infringement is pointless, like suing the gun companies if a murderer killed some one with one of their guns.
>>> It will be broadcast without editing or translation." .. because for a second there, I thought you were going to give me some watered down version compared to what I could get if I took a crash course in ruddy SWEDISH!
If you can't beat 'em, litigate or prosecute the unholy frig outta them.
*sigh*
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Godspeed.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
From TFA: "Premises connected to The Pirate Bay were first raided in 2006. The complexity of the case led to delays in charges being filed and the case being bought to court."
I realize that what people think about TPB but i feel it's a bad thing to do. But saying that, M$ is probably happy since TPB got WIN 7 out first.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
It will be broadcast without editing
YAY!!!
or translation.
Oh:( I do hope some Swedish and English speaking geeks take on making a transcript and translating it. To describe my Swedish as bad would be an understatement. Non-existent is closer. I might as well be watching the Muppets (Swedish Chef).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Some Swedish translators should add subtitles and put it up on The Pirate Bay.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
they should put it on The Pirate Bay.
But wait! There's more!
If you are successfully seduced by our satin-clad, big-titted spokesperson, you to can have Rosetta Stone! Just five easy payments of...
Kid-proof tablet..
Just five easy payments of...
$0.00! http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3419901
The scary thing is that because most judges and courts don't have a clue about what a tracker is or does they might well find them guilty of something they aren't actually doing. What's next? Google and Yahoo being sued for copyright infringement?
Quick! Here's a crash course in swedish:
http://www.slayradio.org/mastering_swedish.php
Well, this might work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jive_filter
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Don't listen to the free streaming!! Everyone knows the Internets aren't free! And pirated content always comes with installers in weird languages. If you listen to this you are pirating the Internets, and FBI agents will come to you. Buy cable TV and get your news straight please.
This trial is guaranteed to be unfair even from the start. The EU has released the so called Medina report, already judging the defendants as guilty. The report was issued several weeks ago. This way the judges already know how to judge these individuals, so things are kept simple!
I guess this trial will mean that linking to copyright infringing material will be illegal. Possibly they will make it so it will be illegal if there's an intent which of course will be all the battle.
It's time to vote for the Pirate Party.
More info:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/MedinaOrtega_INI-report-Copyright_JURI-consolidated
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/copyright-dogmatism-ridiculously-strikes-european-parliament
Greetings from a sad Swede
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
to the true spirit of freedom. This is the actual front for liberty today. What guts. Lots of talk, but not many are willing to take a stand like these guys.
I understand the difference, I think, between Napster and BitTorrent. But as I understand it, both require central servers to track the locations of files. So if the music industry found it simple to shut down Napster, why is it so difficult for them to shut down TPB?
Put another way, why couldn't Napster just have relocated to a place like Sweden? Is there some technical difference I don't understand, or was it a legal/political issue?
- Alaska Jack
"Operators of The Pirate Bay stand trial on Monday in Stockholm. The four defendants from the popular file-sharing web site are charged with being accessories to breaking copyright law and may face fines or up to two years in prison if found guilty. The four defendants have run the site since 2004 after it was started in 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån. The Swedish public service television announced that they are going to send a live audio stream from the trial. It will be broadcast without editing or translation."
http://trial.thepiratebay.org/2009/02/10/the-trial-will-be-streamed-live/
I find it sad that the Swedes do a better job of displaying American values than the Americans do (and I say this as an American myself).
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Nope. This is one of the key Push Came To Shove cases ever. If they emerge from this with nothing more than some token "serve a message on your page" thing, it means that at least one country will be a partial link to 21st century music sharing.
Then all someone else has to do is chain 2 more totally obscure links togther to make a legal chain.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Sounds more like accurate reporting to me...
I thought everyone said that what the pirate bay does is legal in Sweden. Has the internets lied to me?
I translated the "application for summons" a while ago. It charges the four defendants with two different crimes. (It may have been adjusted by the prosecutor since it was released, but this is the last version I've seen.)
The accusatory part (or "crime description") of the application reads (unofficial 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 bandwidth. The Pirate Bay consists of three components, an index portal in the form of a web page with a search function, a database with a catalogue of torrent-files and a tracker function. Through the tracker function, a peer-to-peer network is created by the users interested in sharing the same file. All components are necessary to enable the users to share files between them. The greater part of the files which are made available for file sharing 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 file sharing service The Pirate Bay. In connection with these activities they have aided other persons' copyright infringements as follows:
The defendants have wilfully [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 file sharing service The Pirate Bay.
In connection with these activities they have, by the functionality of the file sharing service, in a purpose build database with ancillary catalogue, 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]."
Lycka till och tack sa mycket for allt!
Hey, we hate fucking Enya...
Lots of pedo stuff there too, not exactly stealing, and not even illegal in Sweden.
The Committee on Legal Affairs says in the report labeled "REPORT on the outlook for copyright in the EU":
48. Approves the action taken by various national judicial systems against internet sites that
illegally disseminate works on line (e.g. "The Pirate Bay");
This is from (PDF-warning) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A6-2009-0017+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
Which in my view is equivalent to judge The Pirate Bay without any legal trial. It's not some hippie committee on agriculture or whatever. Writing like this just shows they've already made up their mind before trial. Mind you, I realize this is an EU committee, but in case you haven't noticed, Sweden has been following the EU's advice quite throroughly lately.
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
They go by bus from Belgrade to Stockholm.
They cross Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, a bit of Czech Republic and Poland..
Of those countries only Slovakia uses Euro as currency.
Still, the PB team is sooo surprised that they can't pay in Euro... they obviously also don't know that you can exchange Euro for local currency in bank or foreign exchange shop.
Today we have been travelling through [...] Poland we discovered didn't accept euros.
Then a bit later:
Stuck in a gas station. They don't accept euros
And once again:
We had to shift the booking around a bit since they didn't accept euro so three of us are now looking forward to 18 hours on the [...] boat with nowhere to sleep.
Welcome to the real world ;-)
Swedish newspapers are saying either PB wins the trial and are free, or they lose and become martyrs.
After the raid on the PB servers (which led to this trial) memberships of the Pirate Party trippled.
A conviction (especially a prison sentence) will lead to an outrage that would completely erase the precious little good will the music and movie industry have with young people today. At least in Sweden.
My isp have blocked the ip for http://trial.thepiratebay.org/
does anyone know what it is?
Newer mind. I found it. IT's 213.136.32.242
They have, as I understand the local law (I live in Sweden), not broken any local laws. I am not entirely sure if they have violated some EU law or not. The international pressure to find them guilty seems to be huge, so they may be convicted regardless of there being no violation of any local law. I find it really disturbing that they will probably be found guilty due to immense international pressure from governments and corporations, it sets a very dangerous precedence if you can get tried and convicted without having done anything illegal if enough powerful entities think that what you are doing should be illegal in your country.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
You can now judge how pocketable foreign governments are by how far they are willing to go to please the global IP barons. The only problem is that jailing your citizens and shutting down websites over Mickey Mouse doesn't solve anything.
You know, I've used the Pirate Bay too, but I don't attempt to come up with some juvenile excuse for it with Braveheart quotes thrown in. It's stealing. There is nothing good, right, legal, or ethical about them. I've seen every awful excuse from "The movie industry is overpaid!" to "Well, they don't make good movies!" for it. If the Pirate Bay doesn't go down for this, it will be because they've used a legal loophole to continue exploiting the movie and music industries and anybody who'd rather pay zero than not zero.
Excuses that make no sense to me:
1. The movie industry is overpaid
Who? The executives? The actors? The cameramen? The stunt men? The makeup artists? The graphic artists, writers, grips, drivers, extras, technicians, costumers, lighting directors, choreographers, security, special effects wizards... Making movies costs money. All of these people depend on your money to keep doing what the love. Your opinion of how much you believe a person makes is irrelevant. Stealing from the rich is still stealing - and the vast majority of the people you're stealing from aren't driving Bugatti Veyrons.
2. They don't make good movies
Stealing a bad movie is still stealing. Anyway, if they never made movies you wanted to watch, you wouldn't be pirating them off of PB, ergo, bullshit. They make a lot of good movies.
3. But they're just trying to protect their profits
And? So are you, by not paying. Their profits let them keep making the movies. Are you really going to be satisfied when there's no more money to make the movies you want because you refuse to pay for any of them? At that point, Pirate Bay will have no more content to profit from themselves. Guess that... solves... the... what?
4. I don't like how they deliver movies
OK, don't buy them* Formats consumers don't like go away when they don't buy them. If you're downloading DVD rips you're going to have a hard time arguing your case for not buying DVDs. If you're not paying for movies now because you don't like an earlier format the industry tried, you're fishing for excuses to make yourself feel better. They acquiesced, your turn.
5. But they want to force DRM down our throats
Yeah, because apparently the honor system hasn't worked out too well. There isn't piracy because there's DRM, there's DRM because there's piracy. I'm sure they'd rather not have to spend the money on licensing the technologies. You may hate them, but you caused them. If you don't like the way they're handled or feel they'll hurt the media, see 4. Your money talks*
* For both of these, keep in mind that not paying doesn't mean not paying and downloading or obtaining in some other questionable cost-free manner.
6. But I'm downloading legally
Then you aren't who the industry is after, and you're not who the Pirate Bay really services (but you are who they continue to profit from).
Just saying.
>Hey, we hate fucking Enya...
Oh I don't know, there's a certain MILF appeal in there somewhere.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I live in Finland and here everybody is a "pirate". That's the law. We're all guilty and can plead to be not guilty, only if we're are corporation. I've already paid for all content e.g. the piratebay can offer me.
http://www.hyvitysmaksu.fi/Teosto/hymysivut.nsf/wpages/index_en.html
I hope the court lays to rest the ridiculous notion that if you run a site with links (i.e. torrent files) to data that is intentionally infringing on copyright, you're somehow not guilty of at least contributory copyright infringement. And smacks them down for their awful, arrogant attitude too.
If the housing market is tanking, it's a bad idea to build houses on speculation. The money is in building houses for clients under contract.
Same thing with software. You find someone who needs something, and you code it for them. They pay you. In the event that someone else needs the same thing, you can then sell it to them for either the original price, or at a discount, and make extra money. It's the way "service" jobs work. Speculation is for those who are rich and don't need income. Sometimes they hit it big, sometimes they fold.
Of course, you could be doing direct work and underpricing it in hopes of selling it multiple times in the future. That's just a poor practice, unless you happen to be dealing in addictive substances.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Obviously you can't stop it, so what's your point? I didn't see anyone cry for workers of paper mills, printing presses and typewriter factories when computers replaced paper. Nobody asked for subsidies or started rent seeking when their vacuum tube factory was obsoleted by transistors. They could have argued that transistors where simply making money off the ideas of vacuum tubes so they deserved their share. Everyone would have laughed at them because the progression was more obvious. Either they can either retool their "factories" or they can sell them. The problem with most publishers is they don't even have any factories, they just move money around while taking more then their fair share. That's why they are resisting so much, they have nothing to fall back on. Well if they didn't have the foresight to actually provide some sort of investment, then maybe they wouldn't be in this situation. Instead they leach talent from all over the world, use whatever media manufacturer is cheapest and higher a publicists when needed. They kept doing the same thing they've been doing since the Beatles while the rest of the world started embracing the internet. Now they can no longer monopolize the market so they want to make competition illegal.
...really don't want to exclude themselves from the world of pirating do they?
Any kind of copyrighted content (from any individual) is fair game in their world and that includes content they are not interested in.
This then becomes content that competes on a level they have excluded themselves from (the pirating world).
So they must want to take ownership of all content somehow (capitalist approach), and I even remember learning about their streaming music royalties on non copyright content.
I'm not an expert obviously so I may be wrong.
It seems though that the world the RIAA/MPAA wish to destroy must also be of great interest at the same time.
Your analogy is flawed. If the writer of the open source app you used tried to sue THE PIRATE BAY, instead of you, then we get the situation here...
[...] they are going to send a live audio stream from the trial. It will be broadcast without editing or translation.
Thanks, but I'll wait for the torrent.
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
It's like saying the gun shop is selling an illegal firearm.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
You know what? Most people are honest. Most people accept that they should pay money for things they use/want.
This is the problem with the *IAA mafia types. They assume everyone is dishonest and treat them as such.
You know what I love? The $5.00 bin of DVDs at kmart, best buy, or walmart. Some older movies, sure, but some that I've wanted to watch and never did.
Now, this is the absolute truth and I'm sure 99% of the people will agree with me.
I want a way to get a movie or some music, in a format I want, I don't want it locked with DRM, and I want it at a reasonable price.
I sometimes watch a movie on my computer, sometimes on my TV, sometimes I stop it on one and continue on another. Sometimes, I want to watch it a few months later.
In the case of kids movies, I want to be able to put it on my iPod to keep her quiet on long drives.
If the movie and music industry actually kept up with the times, they would realize that all the terrible "downloaders" are actually potential customers. Analyze the market, adapt, and capitalize on the opportunity. Don't just try to sue and legislate!
When I went to Stockholm I found that I could get out of anything by just saying "ursÃkta". Will TPB be employing the ursÃkta defense?
short and simple
Seems to me that they care very little about their reputation in Sweden. They're more concerned with the number of N. American users of TPB.
It's not like the site is only available to or frequented by Swedes.
It's not really about Pirate Bay themselves (although I think the Autopsy Photo incident made them an easy target: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pirate_bay#Autopsy_photos). It's more about trying to prove, one way or another, if the sites themselves can be held accountable since they don't actually distribute anything, merely build a place for it to be shared. If you can hold them responsible then you can shut them down.
"But for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built." - Lomax from "O.B.I.T."
It's more cost effective to go after the host, not to mention the precedence that could potentially be set. The effect would reach beyond Sweden.
The RIAA would have a field day with it.
sudo apt-get lost
download all you can, while you can...cause these guys are going to be fined the maximum amount and imprisoned for the maximum term. TPB will be gone by the end of the year.
in fact, here's another prediction: Within the next year or two, file-sharers will be public enemy #1 as governments look for a scapegoat to the dire economic situation of the world. if it (economy) gets bad enough, we may even be rounded up in droves and sent to concentration camps.
i know it's crazy, but just watch...
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I guess nobody reads the score:0 comments since this hasn't been modded up already or even commented...
Thoreau wrote, "When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow." It is not only our right, but our duty to disobey and unjust law. Making a law irrelevant and useless due to the sheer number of people disobeying it is one of the key factors in eliminating that law.
See the separate-but-equal laws, alcohol prohibition (juries nullified over 60% of prohibition cases toward the end), slavery (ever hear of the underground railroad?), and so on. Disobedience of the law has a long and dignified history, and so-called pirates are the latest in a long line of people working toward changing bad laws.
methinks I have picked up a moderation abuser today
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In different ways.
You can't just brush one under the carpet with "yeah, but you're unique".
THEY ALL ARE.
Now, prove that the majority of users or the majority of volume trafficked (you pick one) is pirated.
NOTE: technically NIL, since piracy in a legal context is COMMERCIAL infringement of copyright on works. TPB isn't commercially infringing on copyright and BT isn't commercial.
And another one who isn't a pirate but you discount because they aren't a pirate and MUST therefore be the minority.
This goes for both "For Freedom" and "Copyright Defenders".
1) BitTorrent is an EXTREMELY well thought out distribution method (no one person is tasked too much)
2) BitTorrent HAPPENS to be used for illegal downloads
3) BitTorrent creates a very de-centralized downloading method that is difficult to track. this has political associations, and aligns with the anonymity of the internet.
4) Until someone shows me a REAL study with REAL facts done with ACCEPTABLE sample sizes... then you can shove any statistic you give me. I've seen both sides of all of the arguments about "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" and "actual lost revenue".
5) I am a software programmer. Copyright is my lifeblood... but I openly state Copyright is BROKEN BADLY and is being exploited just like illegal downloaders exploit BitTorrent.
6) Pirate Bay hosts all Torrents... just like google hosts links. Torrents ARE links to files... just like google is but once removed. Neither attempts to field out "illegal" stuff except for the universally agreed upon bad stuff (child porn etc).
If you go an search on Pirate bay... like right now... search for something that ISN'T an illegal download. THOUSANDS of results. Papers, Pleas, Videos, Free Software, Music Notes, Pictures, Anime (Fan Subs)... I could keep going on...
If Pirate Bay looses in court it not only affects them but everyone in the world. It opens the door to lawsuits again Google for simply providing links to material. You have to look at the big picture here ALL of you. The ability for information to travel freely... or the impossible attempt to manage something that is not under any one sovereignty's control.
The cost to me is FAR greater to limit what can flow than the minor effect that pirates have. Focus on teaching kids why it's wrong... don't use scare tactics, don't use lawsuits... they don't work. It just makes it harder to find.
Sure... the RIAA and the MPAA have failing business models and they are fighting against a war that they will eventually concede to. There will ALWAYS be pirating of music and movies, always has been. Look at the big picture and focus on that instead of thinking that killing one site is going to do anything. You're dreaming.
That's one of the reasons I don't have such a problem with copyright infringement is that copyright has become so stupid.
Remember that in the US copyright was originally 14 years or rather 7 + 7 (7 when you registered, extensible by another 7). Now this was seen as good enough back when the world was large. By that I mean it took a long time for information to move. If one wrote and published a book in New York, it could be a long time, years perhaps, before someone on the west coast got to buy it.
Now the world is very small. Information moves instantly across the globe. It is trivial to release something to the whole world at the same time. IT is easy to reach all your potential audience very quickly.
Well if anything, you'd think this would mean shorter copyrights. However it hasn't. Copyright is now life plus 50 years. Apparently just being able to sell your work for your entire life isn't good enough, you need to be able to keep collecting money after you are dead.
Now that's retarded especially since the Constitution doesn't grant unlimited right for copyright. Congress is allowed to create copy right law to "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." The whole reason they are allowed to do it is because we want to promote science and art. So that means you give someone exclusive rights for a time so they can make money, and thus have an economic incentive to create. However it does not mean they should have rights for an unlimited time for three reasons:
1) If someone can release one thing and use that as a gravy train for life, what is the economic incentive to keep creating? In other fields, people must keep working to keep making money, why should art be different?
2) It stands in the way of progress. Part of the progress of the arts (and science) is building off of that which came before you. Disney is a great example, some of their most beloved movies are based off of old fables. Well if people can't do that, it stands in the way of progress.
3) It runs contrary to the Constitution which says "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;" Note the "limited times" part. It doesn't say forever. The idea here is you get to have exclusive rights for a little bit, then everyone gets it, like with patents.
So given the absurd state of copyright law, I have trouble thinking that those that break it are all that bad. Copyright law has reached a totally bullshit state, and a bad law really shouldn't be a law at all. If copyright was more reasonable, well then maybe I'd be more willing to condemn those that break it. However as far as I'm concerned current copyright law is downright unconstitutional and thus should be struck down.
Is Slashdot guilty of being an accessory to copyright infringement?
Lets find out. Please post your torrent links in replies to this post. : )
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
9: Give the fuck up (presumably there would have been (9) Buy points, (10) Agree to bloodthirsty EULA, (11) Download expansion, (12) Play, to go after that, but I never got that far.)
You forgot : ...or not being even able to start playing because the DRM keeps believing that some virtual drive software that you haven't even heard about is running in the background, supposedly.
(13) have the system crash or go unstable because of some obscure incompatibilities with the DRM...
(14)
(15) Hunt for a crack to be able to run your legally bought game.
(16) realise that the crack you've found triggers your virus scanner. fin another one.
(17) install crack
(18) finally play your legally bought software.
4: Play and realise that the expansion pack actually takes less time to finish than you've just spent fucking around with Microsoft's bullshit.
Indeed, getting a legal software is cumbersome in lots of situation.
Pirated software has an added value making it more desirable to the users : it has less hassles.
That explains Steam's massive success. It effectively manage to bring the "just click once to download it" experience from pirated software back into the realm of legal software.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
There's another wrinkle to this that occurred to me recently. Some time ago, I ran across this online essay about conservativism in the US. The piece comes at the question of "what is conservativism" from a different angle than others I've seen. Read it through; it's a very interesting bit of writing. I've often been very puzzled by why various members of my family espouse politics and policies that have been plainly ruinous to them. This essay finally sets forth a convincing and understandable argument for their behaviour.
The basic premise of the linked posting is that conservativism starts from the idea that aristocracy is a good thing -- not necessarily kings and queens and dukes and duchesses, but rather an upper class, the rich, those that have enough money and power to not have to work. People further down the social ladder that ascribe to this philosophy, despite possibly being actively harmed by it, do so in the hopes that they too might some day climb high enough to be able to sit back and rely on other people to do the work.
Copyright-forever comes out of this same thinking.
So yes, certainly, current copyright law is prima facie unconstitutional, and the SCOTUS's "justification" of it as still somehow "limited", despite being retroactively extended every single time something deemed important gets close to falling into the public domain ("Steamboat Willie", anyone?), is nothing more than a bald power grab by the upper classes, the moneyed elite who are very intent on remaining the moneyed elite.
I can already hear some folks claiming I'm some sort of Commie pinko. This couldn't be further from the truth. I'm very fond of freedom, of not being told what to do, and of many aspects of a freer market. As far as I'm concerned, part of the problem in the US right now is that the market is anything but free in the places where it matters -- we have far too many state-sanctioned monopolies and oligopolies, and far too much protection of the robber-barons at the top (financial bailout packages, anyone?). Let alone all the issues that come of a locked-down information market, preventing the healthy functioning of anything resembling a real democratic republic -- a mass media that is increasingly owned by a small group of ultra-rich, that is free in name only, beholden to the same moneyed interests that already run the show...
Meh. I grew up in DC -- I only pray my inside-the-Beltway cynicism be proven unjustified.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"Google and every other search engine would be equally culpable."
No, they wouldn't.
Courts take intent heavily into account when rendering judgement on a defendant. Google is a general purpose search engine... they index everything, with no other intent than to make money by pulling the public in to use a superior method of search. They don't condone criminal activity, nor directly assist in it.
The Pirate Bay is different, because of their stated mission: to undermine copyright law, and to encourage copyright violation, and more importantly, provide direct assistance in doing so. Come on, they have a page on their site dedicated solely to mocking companies that send them cease and desist letters on their piracy. They pretty much openly say "Ha ha, you can't get us, and we're going to continue to do it anyway. Fuck you and your copyright". These guys make no bones about what they stand for and what they're trying to do: eliminate all copyright laws and protections, period.
So, these guys are screwed. What defense can they use? Sweden has weaker copyright laws than most of Europe and the US, but they do have some, and there are penalties for breaking them. What can they use as a defense? Certainly not "we didn't know what we were doing". They've been up front all along about what they were doing, and why. One of the founders, in a television interview, looked directly into the camera and said "we're going to keep on doing this and you can't stop us. We know it's illegal. We don't care".
Not even Swedish judges can overlook that.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I have downloaded countless mp3's so that I can listen to the music and buy more CD's. I do the same thing with movies. If a disc is worth me actually keeping I buy it. I have over 1200 CD's and 300 movies which isn't a lot comparatively, but it is what I can afford to own. I suppose I have lost my qualms about downloading because it seems to be quite rare that I actually listen to or use mp3's once I have skimmed something I downloaded. The media is either deleted cause it isn't worth having on the hard drive or it disappears into the abyss when another hard drive goes down. Of course, these days with Pandora, I don't feel as much necessity to actually download songs anymore. From time to time a friend will email me a song from a new band they have discovered and I do likewise. Pandora is awesome! This recent Slashdot post would seem back up my impression that pirates tend to be greater spenders on media than non-pirates: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/29/0810250 I remember years ago, back in the 1990's that a similar argument emerged about how piracy was destroying the software industry. Certainly I don't discount these legitimate concerns but I remember many friends who were "collectors". They actively collected every program available for certain computers such as Atari's, Amiga's, or Apples mostly. They had thousands and thousands of applications inhabiting various floppies and multiple hard drives, but how much were they really harming the industry. Most of what they "collected" was never seen or used. How hard is it do run one of those CAD design programs without a manual. Their collecting turned out to be more about having and than it was about using. These sorts of people are not really bilking anyone of any wealth. Today I find the same thing with movie collectors or music collectors. Most of whom have more music than there are hours to listen to the music over the next decade? If you have collected 20K Albums when might you listen to them all? Does particular sort of person do damage to any industry. Do teenagers sharing their favorite new music with their friends do harm to the artists? Perhaps, but how many have copied and album only to love the band and continually go to the bands concerts. The more teens share their music the more people tend to learn of the bands and learn to love them and buy their albums. This is especially true of smaller artists on independent labels. I bring these points up because I think that the damage to the industry from piracy could likely be vastly overstated since metrics on outcomes are only now coming to the surface. How many others find themsleves doing this same sort of thing? I can quite honestly say that downloading has lead me to discover more bands and music than I would have discovered if I never had an opportunity to download the music. I rarely listen to radio and the net is my only way of discovering new music. I go seek out bands for concerts and to buy their albums specifically because I was able to download multiple songs that I like from the group or groups albums. And in so doing I can make sure I spend my money judiciously by not wasting money on useless albums. Also, I usually try to purchase directly from the artist so that they receive the maximum amount of revenue.
At least they're being charged as accessories instead of for the supposed crime itself. There is at least that small light of hope in what is otherwise a witchhunt.
Well, then. Stop having sex with her!
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
If Pirate Bay looses in court it not only affects them but everyone in the world. It opens the door to lawsuits again Google for simply providing links to material.
No, it doesn't. For one thing, the Pirate Bay tells anyone sending them cease and desist letters (to get their material off TPB) to go f**k themselves and threatens to sue them for harassment. The Pirate Bay is most definitely different than google.
what ever that dude just said about us normal folk working for a month and getting paid for a month makes sense. why do artists deserve to make money off a piece of work for a lifetime?
by that very rational I should have done my first months work when I was 18 and then got paid every month after that for 50 years! thats genius, if i fancied a little bit more money I'd just do another months work and then i would get paid for the original months work and the new month on top. its evil genius!
shit i might get addicted to all that money and how gullible people are for paying me and then i would get a monumental cocaine habit and a couple of yachts and some jetski's and then i would think I'm superior to everyone else (i'm looking at you christian fail).
fnck them and fnck their jetskis, long live the pirates!
Hope the streaming video feed includes the part where they make the pirates walk the plank....
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
What I have always found interesting is this notion that creating a literary work is so much more important than an engineering work.
Can someone, anyone, tell me why "Oops I did it again" needs more financial incentive than the artificial kidney or the heart lung machine?
For gods sakes you morons look at what you're doing & pay fucking attention to the consequences. Copyrights now extend through 6 generations and 2 lifespans. Look at the numbers, after 10 years, the royalties on works are generally worthless.
Copyright law has vastly overstepped it's bounds. In the US it's supposed to promote advancement in the arts & sciences, not guarantee a revenue stream for life.
Coders can always pay for some kind of Service related to their wor (or the work itself). If all you're selling is a piece of information, it's bound to be pirated somehow. You can't seriusly think copyright laws will ever "protect" you from this.
In Sweden, can juries find defendants not guilty if they disagree with the law?
By the way, this is a right in the US. No one knows it, though. Fully Informed Jury Association
"Everyone I know who pirates (which with the exception of old people,...".
You must be about 14 years old to make such a profoundly inane statement as that.
I suppose you also "think" that old people don't have HOT, Sweaty Sex either, right?
Grow up sonny boy...
In terms Americans can understand: Norway is the Puerto Rico of the EU.
I am a programmer and I rely on copyright laws. I don't have the option to tour the world and make money off live shows of programming.
I'm a programmer, and like just about every other profession, I don't rely on copyright laws. Someone has some programming they need done, they pay me to to do it. It is that simple. Really. This is how almost the entire workforce operates, there is no really any reason why programmers should be treated specially.
There is a small minority[*] of programmers who work on mass produced software, where copyright once played a role so share the cost among the consumers. But since there are already free alternatives to most mass produced software, copyright is no longer necessary there.
For the vast majority of programmers, it is simply a question of a minor adjustment to their business model. Get payed upfront for your work, rather than get paid later for the product of your work. It just put you in line with everybody else.
Of course a minor adjustment of the business model can often seem like an impenetrable barrier, as we are creatures of habit.
[*] Outsiders vastly overestimate the size of this minority, as the software most people actually _see_ is mass produced.
Everyone in this thread â" even well meaning people who support pirating in some principal or another â" are wildly missing the point.
Experiential media (music, movies, TV shows, etc) are not a commodity.
I will not pay $1 or 1 cent per MP3 because an MP3 is not, and cannot be a commodity. It is nothing more than a pattern. It can be indefinitely reproduced from anywhere for free and thus you cannot reasonably attach a monetary value to one instance of it. Period.
Copyright law as it stands today is immoral, and thus by Pirating I am engaging in civil disobedience. In so doing I also find myself awash in content I did not have to pay for. Have you ever heard of anyone fight for their god-given right to overpay? Things that are not beneficial to the advocate in some way will never be fought for.
In spite of this, Piracy is not strictly a selfish endeavor. Just because the average pirate doesn't think far beyond their own financial concerns doesn't lessen that what they are doing is morally superior and our culture needs to adjust to the new realities of digital content.
Ghandi made salt from local seawater in direct disregard of artificial British statutes. He made a statement, but also encouraged his followers to partake in a personal business model that allowed them to illegally obtain tax-free salt. Just because many of his followers never saw past the cheapskate angle of the plan does not make the action incorrect. The law was unjust and the salt ought to have been freely available to begin with.
The political line that I and most pirates draw in the sand is that if we can see or hear it, and have the means to copy what we see and hear, there ought be no law preventing that act. If we can share what we have seen and heard, the same applies. We contend that any law abridging that right is unjust. Business models that rely on unjust laws ought to repent and evolve.
Media companies today suffer the same problem as 1800's plantation owners. They make money by infringing on people's rights, and then complain that their business models could not survive if the injustice were corrected and instead hold their own industries hostage to perpetuate their greed. Inevitably, even after the slaves were freed cotton is still readily available to this day. There was no excuse then nor is there now.
Instead, I welcome new media efforts which use new business models, slash budgets and target specific audiences with small projects instead of multi-million dollar behemoths which somehow have to "appeal to everyone equally" and thus instead alienate everyone equally.
Savvy producers simply don't oppose piracy or try to morally chastise their own audience. Instead they encourage media sharing as an advertising and marketing vehicle and surf this very wave of cheap-skatery to wonderful success.
The old addage here proves true: You simply cannot beat us. You can't fight the tide. Instead, you should accept this paradigm shift and join us. Find new ways to profit and throw off this artificial yolk of copyright and DRM.
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
(I have rediscovered reading, outdoor activites, and other forms of entertainment that do not involve the MAFIAA)
You claim reading doesn't involve the MAFIAA, but be careful. The MAFIAA owns book publishers. For example, Disney owns Hyperion, Fox's parent company News Corp owns HarperCollins and Zondervan, CBS (historic ties to Paramount) owns Simon & Schuster, and Bertelsmann (who only recently sold its entire share in Sony Music back to Sony) owns Random House.
Of course, Hollywood always donates heavily to the Democratic party and the MAFIAA has placed their goons in the Department of Justice, courtesy of the Obama Administration, so don't expect any "change that you can believe in" anytime soon on copyright or DMCA reform.
Party doesn't matter. Both the Bono Act and the DMCA had nearly unanimous bipartisan support in both houses of the GOP-controlled 105th Congress, more than enough to override a veto even if Bob Dole had become President in 1996.
Movie studios (to take one example) make a movie, hence they set the rules for how that movie will be sold. You are free not to buy if you don't like those rules.
Which notable movies are sold under different rules?
no movies can be made with any expectation of profit, which means that almost no movies will be made anymore.
In this respect, what specifically makes a movie different from an encyclopedia?
If you want to see movies that arent on TV yet, buy the DVD. Or rent it. or borrow a friends DVD.
I tried that on three different DVD players and got "TV system doesn't match", even though the disc was marked "all regions". Are you claiming that everybody should have to buy multiple DVD players, one for region 1 NTSC, one for region 2 PAL, etc.? Why don't the producers of these works even want my money?
Right. If you've been affected by drug abuse, then you should realize exactly how useless and counter-productive drug prohibition is.
Well, it wouldn't be abuse if the law allowed a physician to supervise the use of the drug. For example, a doctor in the United States can prescribe meth, but why not pot?
call a meeting, i'm afraid we will have to regroup on IrC ... again ...
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)