Pirate Bay P2P Trial Begins In Sweden

Many readers are writing to tell us that The Pirate Bay trial is now in full swing in Sweden. Looking at a possible two years in prison and $150,000 in fines (plus another $14.3 million if the record companies get their way), the battle of infringement is sure to be one of the most watched p2p trials. "The International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) which is representing the case of music and film producers, made a statement about the case on Friday. Stating, For people who make a living out of creativity or in a creative business, there is scarcely anything more important than to have your rights protected by the law. Copyright exists to ensure that everyone in the creative world from the artist to the record label, from the independent film producer to the TV program maker - can choose how their creations are distributed and get fairly rewarded for their work. The operators of The Pirate Bay have violated those rights and, as the evidence in Court will show, they did so to make substantial revenues for themselves. That kind of abuse of the rights of others cannot be allowed to continue, and that is why these criminal proceedings are so important for the health of the creative community."

Comments

Re:A Strawman for the Symptom

[skrolle2]

The Pirate Bay is about theft, plain and simple. It may be true that the monetary losses are not nearly what the record companies claim, and it may be true that the media conglomerates are really out for money for themselves rather than to support the starving artists, but the propaganda is propaganda on both sides.

No it is not, it's about copyright infringement. Calling it theft is part of the propaganda of one of the sides in the debate, and it's rather ironic that you argue against it in the same sentence.

Also, I think you are wrong in your assumption of why people pirate movies, it's not because it's free, it's because it's convenient.

Re:Free Lunch

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'm a mathematician. Many Slashdotters are programmers, engineers, etc. Isn't our work creative? How come we don;t get a lifetime +90 years gravy train? Is what we do simply not worth as much to society as movies about comic book superheroes and books about high school for witches and wizards?

The truth is you're replacable. In most cases in the area you have described a dude can be dropped and another dude instantly dropped in his place. That's why.

Let me put it another way: I am an artist. I work on movies. I don't get the gravy train, either. Why? Despite being in a creative position, I'm in a replacable creative position. Somebody else can take my place and get the job done. I cannot do what the actors do. Replace the principal actor with me and the movie won't make as many millions of dollars. Replace the script-writer with me and bam, exact same problem.

It has nothing to do with the importance of mathematics. It's all about supply and demand, not about importance or what's fair.

Re:A Strawman for the Symptom

[Anonymous Coward]

You are both wrong actually. It's not even about copyright infringement, it's about contributory infringement which in this case basically it means they are being accused of giving out the address of a location where copyright material may or may not be located.

Reference: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/pirate.html

Quote: The men behind of the notorious BitTorrent tracking service known for pointing the way to pirated software, games, music and movies are accused of contributory copyright infringement

Lesson to be learned: don't give out IP address+port pair information!

Re:A Strawman for the Symptom

[icebraining]

When A thefts from B, B loses the content. When A copies from B, both keep their copies. The only thing that can be claimed is that, if B didn't offered A a copy, A "MIGHT" have bought it. Being the keyword MIGHT.

Re:A Strawman for the Symptom

[mixmatch]

This is the ONLY example of a major media outlet actually taking advantage of new technologies to expand their offerings.

You must not have heard of Hulu

A counter argument to the cries of 'Theft!'

[spun]

Copyrighted or patented works are not property, as they behave very differently from real property. We do not prosecute copyright infringement for the same reasons we prosecute theft. Put another way, we do not protect intellectual works for the same reason we protect property. Theft and vandalism are similar, they are harm to property. Copyright or patent infringement are not harm to property.

Why do we protect intellectual works? Is it because the creator has some moral right to the work? No. The creator of an intellectual work has NO innate rights to a monopoly on that work. In fact, in order for them to have such a monopoly which isn't an innate right, each of us must give up an innate right, that is the right or ability we all naturally have to sense our environment and reproduce what we sense.

We protect intellectual works in order to encourage their creators to share them. That is the only reason outlined in the Constitution. Intellectual works are not property, therefore they can not be stolen.

It is far easier to conflate vandalism with theft than it is to conflate piracy with theft. With vandalism, the person actually suffers a tangible loss. Yet we do not think to call vandalism theft. Why should we call piracy theft?

You can argue whether it is wrong or right without even bringing theft into the picture, so why do so? Why the campaign to relabel intellectual works as intellectual property? Propaganda, pure and simple. The *IAA and other players in the IP game don't want us to discuss the right and wrong of the actual situation. They want us to consider intellectual works as property, and infringement as theft because we are all familiar with those terms and believe theft to be wrong.

I'm not saying infringement is morally right, I'm just saying that the interested parties are trying to bend language in order to curtail any discussion of whether it is or not. You could have backed up your assertions that infringement is wrong without even using the words 'theft' or 'stealing.' Instead, your self righteous and angry blather discredits your own cause.