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Pirate Bay Day 3 — Defense Requests Dismissal
Hodejo1 writes "Yesterday was a big day for the Pirate Bay when half of the charges against them were dropped leaving only the lesser charges of assisting making copyrighted material available in place. TorrentFreak is following the English twitter feed of the trial in the wee hours of the night, documenting more missteps by the prosecution. 'The Pirate Bay trial is moving forward rapidly and again the day in court has ended early. On the third day the prosecution presented the amended charges. The defendants all called for acquittal while Carl Lundström's lawyer scored points with the already legendary "King Kong" defense.'"
First Post.... Every user should get at least one!
Dylan Lainhart 1st post Leet HAxor.
.... think again. while i don't think these guys are innocents by a long shot, asking for jail time was always bullcrap.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
POASTY
H0H0H0H0H0
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It sounds to me like they pretty much arbitrarily choose the cost of damages in these bootlegging charges, and give bogus reasons for them. Considering that there exist pretty much no grounds for exacting justice legally, what happens if they are found guilty? What are the potential ramifications?
Tell me about the King Kong defence. Please compare and contrast it to the Chewbacca defence, to provide an adequate frame of reference.
- There is no point, it's like a sphere -
Don't read too much into half the charges being dropped, its common practice
The nitty-gritty begins about now.
While I think the "Pirate Bay" guys are legally in the clear, it doesn't really matter.
In the current economic/political climate, and with the United States pushing HARD on copyright issues worldwide (and with President Obama even *more* firmly in the pocket of the big media companies than Bush was), the "Pirate Bay" is almost surely going to lose this case.
Hope for a miracle, is my advice.
If only OJ hadn't wasted his money on Shapiro and Cochran... King Kong ENSURES reasonable doubt! Smart fucking pirates.
Would have been nice to see a link to the King Kong defense. Short version - the person uploading the files could be named King Kong for all they knew...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Am I the only one whose mind is boggling at how the prosecution thinks that phrase works? Is there a law that says you can't post complaints against you or respond to them in a way that might make the complainer look like an ass? I understand things like libel and slander, but does "loss of goodwill" prohibit me from pointing out that Sony's inclusion of rootkits in their products might be considered a negative?* If Sony wants to prevent "loss of goodwill," they should be suing themselves.
*instead of the wonderful feature that it is, of course.
I must admit, I'm quite shocked as to how this trial is going - I would of though The Pirate Bay owners would be holding onto life rafts at this point, rather having 1/2 the charges dropped and making a bold request for the remaining ones to be dismissed.
I really thought that the Pirate Bay's argument is just a "dictionary" or "search engine" like Google and Yahoo would just fall apart in the courts. Unlike Google or Yahoo, the Pirate Bay cannot claim that it serves a larger legitimate and legal forum for free content - The name of the site alone implies it's true purpose. Likewise, they refuse to remove content that is knowingly infringing (and taunt the owners when they are asked to remove it) seems to contradict their defense that they do not aid in contributing to illegal content.
If I were to open "FindAHitman.com" where 'clients' and 'plumbers' can meet to discuss person arrangements, I think I would have a hard time justifying myself as just 'a site that connects individuals, not providing any illegal services'.
Whatever - So goes the European court system.
Cochran : Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, Chef's attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote "Stinky Britches" ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
Gerald Broflovski : Damn it!
Chef : What?
Gerald : He's using the Chewbacca defense!
Cochran : Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
Yes! It's only a matter of time until Slashdot's heroes, the Pirate Bay operators, get away with this. It's our right as human beings to rip off artists and not pay them, and it's totally awesome for Pirate Bay to run a torrent tracker that connects users so that they can distribute file chunks to each other.
FUCK artists, and FUCK their rights. They are our slaves. We don't owe them a dime for their work. Long live, Pirate Bay, and enjoy the victory, guys!
I've been hanging around Slashdot for over ten years, and "legendary 'King Kong' defense" has to be the most link-worthy phrase I've ever seen.
Because I'm not new here, I'm not at all surprised it isn't linked in the summary.
-Peter
If the lawyers for the plantiff developed a statistical model about the net impact of PB downloads on sales, their case would be more palatable to the public. Of course, that could show a net gain in sales due to the free publicity PB downloads provide.
Legendary King-Kong defense? And yet, the only reference to it is a wiki that is only the actual TPB lawyer quote that this article is referring to. Unless... that's the legendary part? Those sly Swedes!
I watch the ABC show LOST fanatically on TV. I Had a psychology night class that ran late until 10:30 pm. Got home. Downloaded the latest episode of LOST from TPB. Watching it now. God I hope they win.
From TFA:
For the song "Let it Be" by The Beatles, IFPI is asking for 10 times the damages, since the band's music isn't officially available online. Interesting logic here - perhaps if The Beatles music was made officially available, people wouldn't even need to pirate it.
Since I only buy music online, now (yes, I really do pay for music), and only if it works in Linux (yes, I really do use Linux to play music I pay for), it seems that if the owner of the Beatles song "Let it Be" doesn't offer it online and playable in Linux, then they don't count me in as part of their potential market. So if I download that song, there is no loss of sale, since there wouldn't be a sale were I to not download it, because there can't be a sale if they won't sell to the tiny fractional minority market I'm in (people who only buy music online for playing in Linux).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They don't trade anything illegal, just say that someone maybe does it and provide some means for contacting him.
But there are cases and cases. The phone directory (or yellow pages) gives the phone (and the address) of people that could do something illegal. Could be blamed for it? What if someone publish a list of drug sellers phone numbers in your area? Or hitmen?
Also could be seen like if you provide means to commit a crime, you are responsible. If you have a newspaper, publish that someone won the lotto, and then someone else kill him, you will be responsible? What about weapon makers?
i guess people are taking this to a new level to show the pictures of people who pirate http://filesharer.org/
Perhaps someone should point out that making his own books freely available over the internet drastically increased their sales.
So if pirate bay loses does that mean I can no longer do my torrenting from google anymore? For example, I wanted to pirate mario kart (its been sold out for almost 3 weeks everywhere in my town), so I went to google and typed "mario kart filetype:torrent" with 346 results at here. Wonder what this means for services like google? I don't see how the logic used to filter .torrent files can be any different than filtering HTML content of "harmful or illegal" information. TPB should really consider creating a legal honeypot by hosting non torrent files and being a "regular" search engine.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
Project Gutenberg, with thousands of works, a project which toady would be illegal,
if the copyright mafia had existed 100 years ago in its current incarnation:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4305494/11_000__Project_Gutenberg_ebooks_for_Sony_Reader_(.lrf)
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3467147/Project_Gutenberg_DVD_ISO
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3502346/Project_Gutenberg_Jul._06_DVD_-_17500_Ebooks.iso
Linux: .....
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4728577/Debian_GNU_Linux_5.0_%5Bx86-64%5D
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4726079/Damn_Small_Linux_-PhilCam-
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4717761/Mandriva-Linux-Free-Mini-2006-CD.i586
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4702548/Mandriva_Linux_One_2008_Spring_KDE_Int_CDROM_i586
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4677799/64_bit_Linux_Ultimate_Edition
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4669172/linux_for_aspire_one
BSDs:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4697784/fRee_BSD_disc_2_
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4697784/fRee_BSD_disc_1_
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4296193/PC-BSD_1.5.1
Haiku:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4244595/Haiku
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4451598/Haiku-OS_for_VMware
Here's folding at home:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3775577/Folding_home
Lots of abandonware that would not be available otherwise.
Lots and lots of medical, cultural content that should be patrimony
of humany but that is currently held hostage by a few privileged
who would like to live off it parasitically ad infinitum.
...then so are lawyers, cops, prosecutors, judges, prison guards, everyone who profits from fastfood sales, authors of shitty romances novels, the purveyors of most primetime (and otherwise) television, all mainstream recording industry employeeys, everyone in Hollywood, your mom, all commercial airlines, most elected government officials, and everyone who has ever downloaded a torrent, even if said downloader could not/would not have purchased the content in question had the torrent not been available. That's a lot of immorality. Any crimes here? Not many, and none of any seriousness worth concerning yourself with. Go watch more cable coverage of Caley and Haleigh, the pedophile religious leader of the moment, or debate the merits of OJ's cases, and quit confusing legality with morality.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
"If that theory flies in court, I hope someone will similarly prosecute the countless news agencies that benefit on a daily basis from the assorted illegal acts on which they report."
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
You're not going to get any traction here. I understand your feelings, but you've chosen your own hardship and it's my hope I can help you choose something else. We're going to talk about the love, the hate, and the life. Then we'll have the talk.
The love:
I really don't think the majority of /.ers have a problem with compensating artists. I sure don't. My kids got iPod Touch for Christmas, and they're allowed (and subsidised) to buy all the music they want. We're over $500 already, and in some places that's a lot of money. Those iPods hold a lot of money. Maybe that's why people are so eager to steal them. My family has only one rule: they're not allowed to buy a track with DRM, ever, for any reason. My family buys several thousand dollars worth of content a year*, and we're not a unique American family. We are perhaps odd in that we require that when we buy content, we get to own our local copy and use it however we like within reason.
The hate:
The RIAA, their international partners, their lobbyists and the lawmakers in their employ are harming us (everybody) in numerous and tangible ways. They are buying representation and buying law in ways that offend even the most passive citizen. They've bought the President of the United States for FSM's sake. The scope of their effort far exceeds the importance of their goods. Because they're solely focused on maximizing their profits, they're unaware of and uncaring of the harm their efforts are doing to our civil liberties, our political system and our longevity as a union. It is not in any American's best interest to fund this effort. Where possible I counter my family's contributions to their funds with small countering offsetting contributions and of course with our votes. That wasn't possible in the last election cycle because there were far more pressing issues, but we haven't forgotten this issue. The friends of the prosecution in this case are not the artists' friend. They exploit the vast majority of artists and give them a pittance. They're in the court to enforce their system of enslaving artists, and that's a bad thing.
The life:
There's no way the pirate bay is going to be convicted of anything here. The whole trial is a show to let the government of Sweden show the US they're trying to comply with the ridiculous demands of their lobbies. It's a theatre of the absurd not only because of the cultural dissonance between the RIAA and Sweden, but because the claims have no support in fact or law.
The talk:
More to the point: The RIAA and the MPAA are harming us. The harm is real. It's tangible. If you choose them as your hero, you'll find no friends anywhere except in the camp of your artist friends who have for now also bought into the idea that your exploiters are your representatives and that's a losing proposition. Their problem is that there's a lot of turnover in that group, for obvious reasons.
There's a middle ground here. You can choose different representation. If your art is marketable you can sell it to someone less offensive - someone who exploits artists less and aims to harm the rest of us less. You can do that. Do it and we'll prefer your art -- if it's good. The choice is yours. We can't force you to choose that, but we can make fun of you when you scream "Waaaaaaah! I'm retarded! Give money to somebody that isn't going to give it to me!" After all - that's fair.
* - Somebody's going to hate on me for this - starving children in Somalia and all that. Yeah, we give too - in amounts appropriate for our income both locally and globally, in both organized and personal ways, in amounts that meet the demands of our conscience, and encourage others to do the same. This isn't about that, so burn your torch somewhere else, ok? We're talking about something else.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The ads on TPB are very annoying. First, there are the porn ads. Second, there are the talking ads. Finally, there are the deceptive ads, designed to trick people into clicking.
What would be useful, and poetic justice, would be for someone to set up a site that crawls TPB, and republishes all its torrents without all the sleazy ads.
Am I the only who's bothered by the ridiculous lopsidedness of the reporting? Torrentfreaks makes no bones about hiding its prejudices. However, they're not judge, nor jury, nor executioner, no matter how enthusiastically they pretend they were. For instance, in Exhibit A, the fact that half the charges were dropped seems to be a perfectly normal part of the process in Sweden, i.e. a step forward but hardly a victory, to hear it from other /.ers. Continuing, in Exhibit B, who cares if the "so-called computer expert" couldn't get his powerpoint presentation working? That doesn't mean squat; we've all had recalcitrant computers and projectors but that hardly means we're incompetent.
Does anyone remember the Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, who swore that Iraq were winning victory after victory, and that the Americans were absolutely not in Bagdhad? All this at the very moment the American army was already in the city and closing in on them? To tanks, no intruders, only liars.
Feel free to replace "tanks" with "laws", "intruders" with "guilty defendants", and "liars" with "RIAA.
That being said, I fully support the Pirate Bay, the Pyratbyran, and their arguments. I hope that Sweden *does* have the courage to tell American businesses that just because they pass bankrupt laws on the backs of their own citizens doesn't mean they get to go overseas, like a certain rampaging giant gorilla of renown, and attack more sensible nations. I just want to feel that they're honestly winning the fight, instead of getting carried away by the fanboy'ing at Torrentfreaks.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
Carl LunstrÃm is not really the kind of person that most people want to be associated with. He is well known for his connections to extreme right-wing groups. Apparently he donated money to Nationaldemokraterna, an extreme right-wing organization with connection to the Nazi movement. Several of there leaders have been convicted for various crimes. He was also a member of the racist organization Bevara Sverige Svenskt, BBS (Keep Sweden Swedish). There is more. Oh, and according to the prosecution he owns 40% of TPB.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
I fail to see any difference between asking someone to tape a program for me and for me to get that same program via TPB and BitTorrent.
Indeed, Miro is essentially my DVR for more than a few programs here in the US and from Europe. Sorry, Big Media Conglomerates! I'll watch your offerings when I want to, how I want to, via whatever device I want to, not when/where/what & how YOU want me to watch them. And I'll watch them without commercials, too.
Cue the "Then you're stealing programming by not watching the commercials that PAY for the program!" Big Media Conglomerates retard apologists in 3... 2... 1...
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
I also expect them to win as the law is firmly on their side.
The only logical response will be for Sweden's government to make torrent files linking to copyrighted material, illegal. That way, torrents will still be useful but copyright infringers will have to think a little more deeply about their abuses.
What about open Markets?
If a Company, Person or Council rents out a pieces of land for a Car Boot Sale or some other kind of market and someone comes along, sets up a stall and flogs dodgy goods, who's culpable? The market owner, or the dodgy dealer?
The question arises is what does the market owner have to do to keep these neer-do-wells out?
The end of this trial won't see Jail time for TPB, nor damages awarded, it will see them being ordered to put blocks and checks on all torrents, essentially turning them into a Torrent version of fileplanet or cnet downloads. Either that or they close down completly. Either way it's the end of TPB as we know it.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
I have never ever downloaded copyrighted material that is distributed without the permission of the copyright holder, but have used the Pirate Bay to locate legitimate content authorized by the copyright holder to be distributed freely.
The police should go for the people infringing copyright, they go for the torrent trackers because they are an easy target, but I hope that at least in Sweden the authorities will find that you have to do immensely better if you want to probe that somebody is committing a crime by refering to torrent trackers...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The calculations that the RIAA and its accomplices come up with are pulled out of thin air.
They have no base in logic, common sense or even an attempt to be fair.
How can you put value to something that you yourself make unsaleable? You can't, unless you are a RIAA lawyer, in which case you can throw any numbers you dreamed off.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
common bullshit
Google respond to DMCA removal requests. TPB do not. How many times do people have to be told this?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H L Mencken
I am not sure that meanes we shouldn't hope he wins :/
Is it legal to create service like TPB in USA?
From what I've read, on the other side of the Atlantic pond, their laws *DO* make that illegal :
What I understand in the DMCA, is that mere fact of pointing to illegal DRM-breaking countermeasures is it self illegal.
So not only would various versions of software packaged with their crack be illegal,
but the torrent tracker and torrent file itself, even if none of them hold the actual data, would be deemed illegal as together they point to place where the illegal data is (i.e.: other users in the P2P network).
This is a little bit weird as this could be interpreted in a way which makes Google illegal : even if Google doesn't host much data (except for cached pages* and picture thumbnails), one can type "crack" + {name of the soft to be cracked} and Google will bring up links pointing to websites which host the anti-DRM countermeasures.
Thankfully, here in Europe we have saner laws. Pointing itself isn't a crime. And anyway several jurisdictions even tolerate DRM-breaking softwares (Switzerland's law even explicitly tells that DRM-circumvention softwares aren't illegal when used in ways authorized by the copyright law).
*: There's bound to be some source code of some anti-DRM algorithm (like DeCSS) documented on some web page and saved somewhere in the Google cache. So in fact Google *is* holding illegal code, but that's not my current demonstration.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Universal Pictures is filing for trademark infringement for continuous reference to the word "King Kong"
It had a definition of 'wittertainment' for a while as well before the wikipedia censors removed it - this is sure to get removed as well.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
In most legal systems, you can't argue on appeal that a case should have been dismissed unless you made a motion for dismissal in the original trial... thus in pretty much every trial the defense asks for a dismissal. It's a formality.
(Then again I'm describing US law)
...are you saying what I think you're saying?
Per the law, the copyright holder MAY NOT refuse to license his or her work, as long as the user is willing to pay the statutory rate.
So ... if I set up a digital distribution service, and charge users to access music, and pay the statutory rate (got a link?) to the copyright holder, I can sell any darned music I want via any medium I want to whomever I want? Selling DRM-free MP3s (or, if someone really wants to be a stickler in this broadband era, .ISOs of CDs) from a universal music catalog (Beatles included) is perfectly legal, so long as my accountant keeps it all straight? (I'm not asking if it will be competetively priced, just whether it will be legal.)
As usual with any high-profile legal issue, methinks most everyone (me included) is completely missing the legal point.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
But we are the world police, and this "BitTorrent" technology of yours will go the ways of cannibis.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Hey, Lundström! Is that an umlaut over your name, or are those your tiny balls?
This post is LAW where prohibited by VOID. Prosecutors will be violated.
You may be right, but in the end the technology is rendering it all irrelevant. Simply put, the business model used by media companies overha the last century are untenable. It isn't the first time in history that new technology has rendered traditional methods obsolete, and it won't be the last. The most that can be won at this point is a brief a brief stay of execution.
<voice speaker='Foghorn Leghorn'>I say. I say. You use big words, but you don't seem to know how to use the little ones.</voice>
What's the world coming to when a perfectly good low-Slashdot-ID pissing match gets downmodded?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
You know you are right. There is no justice. The Pirate Bay is throwing lots of defenses out there to see what sticks, but among the defenses listed in TFA, one stood out as probably their best:
There you go. The hash exists prior to any making available. However, they still might get them since the hash might be considered a derivative work. However I don't know how much patience a judge would have with adjusting the claims again to be that they distributed derivative works illegally.
...
However much M$, Disney, RIAA, MPAA would like your to believe otherwise, the fact is that copying copyrighted material is perfectly legal in all Berne Convention countries, unless the copyright owner says otherwise. Even perfectly then it may be allowed but with restrictions.
The GPL, ISC, and CC licenses come to mind as overwhelmingly common examples. Act on the empirical facts not opinions, half-baked or otherwise.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
.... think again. while i don't think these guys are innocents by a long shot, asking for jail time was always bullcrap.
They ARE innocent, thats the point. What they are doing is not ...
...is not relevant.
They are innocent and remain that way unless PROVEN guilty in a court of law. Even in places like Sweden where every city square has a green, pigeon-covered bronze statue of Bill Gates with a shiny, bronze-colored ass polished to a shine daily by countless lips and noses.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
It's the attitude that most /. users exhibit. I use TPB as a hub to commit a crime. We all do. Denying it is as stupid as thinking you can stop it. Fact of the matter is, we are perpetuating a sense of entitlement that does not exist.
You are criminals and it doesn't matter if you try to cover it up as some form of communication, that 'may or may not be illegal'. The bigger picture here is that there is a perfectly good defense, in court, to avoid being prosecuted. Just like OJ... He had a defense that allowed him to dodge a murder rap. It doesn't make the murder itself any less illegal.
You, all of you, claim to be so intelligent. Yet the only intelligent stance in all of this would be the 'I am breaking the law, and I can beat any charges regarding it, in court' stance.
Has anyone considered that they want to lose this case?
It would be great fodder for instilling fear into US lawmakers and motivate them to legislate specific laws to make linking content illegal. After all, they'd have to do it if it's the only way to protect our sacred copyright laws.
Search engines offer links to multiple torrent sites as results to searches related to both movies and music. Is it then conceivable that the next step in this process would be to go after them for pointing the way?
The world is changing due to mass communication on an ever expanding network of networks. The only impeding factor in it's ability to grow to its full potential is that too many fail to accept it; and instead try to deter it.
sudo apt-get lost
Google responds to take down requests, sometimes reluctantly if the take down is clearly unfair but nonetheless legal (as with the Scientologists), but they do do it. Google also isn't trying to make it easy for freeloaders to download copyrighted material without authorization.
Google (download software) download.com, Tucows, bothersoft, download3k, filehippo, Grants.gov, ZDNet, softpedia, Cisco, and oh look ThePirateBay.Org at bottom of first page of hits.
So Google, makes it easy for me to download copyrighted material without authorization, by searching websites (and caching), and directing me where to go. They give me a link, to a link to a file that gives me a link to download a packet that is part of a larger file, which can be combined with larger files.
I CAN create the worlds greatest and last O/S that it will ever need that works on ANYTHING, and give it away for free crushing the MS & Apple Empires.
or
I CAN create a unstoppable virus that sends its self out to any IP that machine has ever talked to for 24hrs and then melts the machine down.
or
I CAN download a copy of a movie that I am not allowed to buy (Region), can not afford to buy (My Welfare Check isn't in yet) , and is broadcasting freely over the airwaves. (HD TV / RADIO)
Not to mention there is a ton of stuff the poor staving exec's who have done nothing and create nothing, they resell someone elses work. Refuse to produce (Old Movies, Games, Programs)
That cant be gotten anywhere else. I still have ton of old NES games. I am the legal owner of those games, but because the hardware failed I can not able to play. And I still have a ton of old games & programs on floppy disk and CD which state I can copy all I want as long as only 1 copy is running at the same time.
Oh Yes I almost forgot for the past couple decades, the big selling point of VCR's and Cassette Players have always been things such as Dual Decks, Synchro Start, and High Speed Dubbing.
U.S. Laws ends at its borders, so if I'm not from the United States I have no reason to follow them, And the same can be said for the laws of the U.K. which means that a group of people used their morality at that point in time and said this or that is not right. What Group A says is Cool in the year 2000, Group B thinks is Evil in the year 1900, Law is subjective, self-serving, and at this point in time, bloated crap! Laws get added or added to all the time, but almost never get taken off. Everyone by now has seen some of the stupid laws, like no spitting on the sidewalk on Tuesdays. Or its illegal to sleep with your wife on a Monday before 8pm, Their both real laws, in someones dinky little circle, and I'm sure at the time they might have made some kind of sense, granted sick and twisted but sense to them at that time.
Morality can not be legislated... Pirating has always been around and will always be around in some way same or form. Hell people like Gates have even built massive empires upon it. (Dos was not even his when he first sold it)And Much like the Computer, The Gun, The Car, and The Club its a freaking tool much like those in power. It can be used for Good (Depending on how you define Good)or it can be used for evil (Depending on how you define Evil) /.end rant
I eagerly raced over to Wikipedia wondering how in the world somebody had managed to make a legal metaphor so evocative that it conjured images of giant apes hurling barrels at Italians. A metaphor which called upon my geek childhood video game roots and was perfect for a court case dealing with software piracy. Even before reading the word-logic, it was already jumping off the page!
Such a metaphor is far beyond my writing abilities, so I was practically wetting myself in the anticipation of seeing a true master at work.
And then everything got lame and the color vanished from my world.
sigh.
-FL
Your memories are rusty. You're thinking of Donkey Kong. That's a whole other Kong.
-Peter
You're thinking of Donkey Kong.
Ha ha! I am indeed.
The Empire State Building-climbing beast and the Miyamoto video game creation exist as part of the same mythology in my head. What I forgot was that the world beyond my skull has a less squishy filing system. --It's probably why I get such a kick out of metaphoric language.
-FL