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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."
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.
I thought that they had long ago tested the laws (and won) on whether the site was legal and how they couldn't end up in the slammer for this?
Even in interviews in mags and the like, they certainly came across as super-positive about potential legal issues?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
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?
For most people it isn't about free as in beer, but rather, as Richard Stallman might say free as in freedom (although for the record he has stated that he will not own DVDs that have DRM which so far is very few published DVDs, "Freedom Downtime" from 2600 Magazine is about the only one that I can think of right now although there probably are a handful of other mainly obscure titles). If I purchase a movie then I expect to be able to make backup copies, format shift, watch on any device of my choosing in private or in the company of friends, skipping to any point on the DVD at any time (i.e. no "prohibited" operations, mandatory commercial previews, FBI warnings, and other assorted bullshit), lending the movie to my friends, as I would a book or CD, and generally enjoying my purchase in any way that I wish short of public performance or distribution. For example, I don't expect to have the right to project the movie on a screen in a public park as some people have been known to do where I live. Apparantely, that is too much to ask which is a major reason why I haven't bought any DVDs for about a year now (I have rediscovered reading, outdoor activites, and other forms of entertainment that do not involve the MAFIAA) nor have I downloaded pirated copies. I have a very low opinion of Hollywood in general and most of their movies, especially their more recent works, in particular. In fact, most of my current DVD collection consists of documentaries on various subjects, a very few hollywood films (generally in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre, LOTR trilogy for example), and some anime (I am a fan of GITSAC and Miyazaki). I probably fit some typical Slashdot profile I suppose, but I just expect to have control over my own property and if I pay for something then it is my property damnit and all of that shrink-click-wrap license agreement bull can kiss my ass as far as I am concerned. The only reason we have crap such as "license agreement" is because of lawyers and lawsuits and consumers who are too meek to grow a pair, stand up, and demand their property rights. As long as people let companies like the MAFIAA members get away with this kind of crap then they will keep claiming ever more "rights" for themselves until somebody pushes back and tells them "no". 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. Obama had better watch those MAFIAA goons he put in charge at the Department of Justice, they are a potentially massive PR liability just waiting to boil over with the young internet savy voters who pounded the pavement on the campaign trail and kept the blogs and tweets going to put him in office. Talk about slapping your supporters in the face...sheesh.
IANAL.
This trial is not something that will be resolved quickly, I expect it to take around 5 years atleast since it will almost certainly appealed up to and including the Supreme Court and possibly even further going over to the EU court.
Nothing of significance is ever resolved at the 'Tingsrätten'(approximate equivalent to a district court) since the only individual in the court with a law degree(except for the lawyers on each side ofcourse) is the judge, the other members of the court are selected citizens of good standing.
The legal grounds in this case is shaky at best but should they be found guilty the fines and reparations will be nowhere near the requested amounts because The Pirate Bay founders are not beeing charged with accessory to commercial scale infringement but with several specific infringements and there's a roof as to high the fines for each infringement can go.
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/
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.
It'd be interesting to see your working there. I can't imagine that the porn sites pay much for their advertising. After all, they're advertising to pirates; why pay for porn when you can just grab a torrent of the stuff? And that's before you ask whether the ads are seen at all. It's not as if a pirate is going to think 'Oh my - if I visit this ad-supported website with Adblock Plus switched on, that's like stealing' now, is it?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It's also about formats, though. I download TV shows from TPB, and you know what? I can watch every single one of those shows for free with my bunny ears, but I refuse to be tied to a TV schedule. For me, TPB is the 21st century version of a VCR.
Luckily, up here in Canada, CTV and their subsidiaries have realized that they can broadcast on the Internet, make money off of advertising (business as usual, for them) and their customers won't be robbed by the cable companies.
Now, if only Hulu would extend their contracts to other countries.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
So why not get the RIAA into your pockets?
Buy one share in all the RIAA companies and bitch at the share holders meetings as much as you want. You're a share holder and they have to listen to you.
Get enough share holders together and you can force the company to change. Ask them questions like why they are wasting our [shareholders] money on lawsuits instead of new markets.
If you want to beat them you got to play them at their own game.
I refer to usenet and torrent sites as a Tivo with a time machine (can grab the past, and in some lucky cases the future).
I still pay cable, I still use netflix, I still pay for Pay Per View, I even buy CD's, MP3s, and now iTunes plus. Also, I spend a hundred a year with O'reilly buying e-books for personal growth in areas that will never be applicable to my job (I rarely purchased paper books do to shipping lag, now I pay extra and get both).
All of this and I still subscribe to usenet, and download a good deal of Music (stuff not available DRM free and not wanted shipping/shopping lag), TV shows (stuff not available on demand), movies (sometimes I really want to see something that is only in theatres, and I don't have the money, The in theatres on demand has helped), books (I can't buy every technical book I want to read only the first chapter or so of).
So I will say I am about 50/50 on the free as in beer and freedom as in convenient aspects, but I really am not skimping on what I would pay.
My spending on these items (annually) is probably still $700 (ouch, it's painful to calculate), and is unlikely to go up without the availability of free content (perhaps the $50 or so a year I spend in usenet would be used to purchase a little extra music, though emusic.com has been dominating the music budget, and is pretty much enough).
There is a lot going on here, but it is not simply a bunch of people wanting stuff for free. It is a bunch of people wanting stuff for free AND a bunch of people wanting Freedom AND a bunch of people wanting convenience AND a bunch of people making ethical stands of other types AND a bunch of people with a combination of the above.
With all that working against the current model I expect to see in the short term future
1) lower paid actors (a huge expense now)
2) lower production values
3) product placement and lots of merchandise
I hope the writing, acting and directing stays decent, but only time will tell. There will be success in the industry still, just expect more kids movies like "Spy Kids" for example.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I get torrents of TV shows that I miss. I have a DVD recorder, but in all honesty it is easier to download it and burn it to a DVDRW to watch later.
I also download kids shows/movies. I have downloaded movies that I own on DVD, because it's easier and they are good quality. Why? Because I have a DVD player that has a USB port, and a 120GB hard drive connected. If you have kids, you know that switching out DVDs is a pain, and they get messed up. I put them all on a hard drive, and it's SO much more convenient.
There ARE legitimate uses for downloads, although I know there are people out there who just want it for free. But instead of embracing downloads almost a decade ago like they should have, the RIAA (and now the MPAA) are still fighting it. I don't know if it's out of pride or ignorance, but downloads aren't going away.
And the MPAA/RIAA are still around, and they've been making money this whole time... so .. what's the problem?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.