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Pirate Bay Trial Ends In Jail Sentences
myvirtualid writes "The Globe and Mail reports that the Pirate Bay defendants were each sentenced Friday to one year in jail. According to the article, 'Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the court took into account that the site was "commercially driven" when it made the ruling. The defendants have denied any commercial motives behind the site.' The defendants said before the verdict that they would appeal if they were found guilty. 'Stay calm — Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing whatsoever. This is just a theater for the media,' Mr. Sunde said Friday in a posting on social networking site Twitter."
Update: 04/17 12:16 GMT by T : Several updates, below.
Thanks to all the readers who have sent in various other links related to this news, including the dozens who noted
the BBC's version of the story. Reader a_n_d_e_r_s submits a link to the verdict itself (large PDF, in Swedish), and writes "The sentencing is not unexpected (max verdict is 2 years in prison) and the damages is about 1/3 of what the companies that has requested damages had requested. Notice that no punitive damages is applicable." Reader yendor writes, "More details are coming and The Pirate Bay will be holding a press conference at 15.00 CET.
HakanRoswallGoatse points out that besides the jail term imposed (and barring the results of planned appeals), "the four men will have to pay $3,6 million in compensation for lost sales to 17 media companies. Among them are: Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM Pictures, Columbia Pictures Industries, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, and Activision."
HakanRoswallGoatse points out that besides the jail term imposed (and barring the results of planned appeals), "the four men will have to pay $3,6 million in compensation for lost sales to 17 media companies. Among them are: Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM Pictures, Columbia Pictures Industries, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, and Activision."
So that's like one million billion Canadian dollars?
Donate to pay the money? I assure you that the convicted have more than enough to cover the fine. TPB was making huge amounts of money from the ads. They weren't close to Google just because they searched through files, they had the same business model as well.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
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Your entire argument is not supported by fact. It's my computer. I have the right to copy whatever I want with it. If copyright law didn't exist then the author (actually, more typically, the publisher.. it's funny how authors go on about their sacred right to control their work but they're happy to sign over their rights to someone with a checkbook) would have no say. As it should be. Copyright law is simply an attack on my ability to use a personal computer to exercise my liberty to copy files.
How we know is more important than what we know.
If you want the content why not simply pay for it?
It's a very small minority of the IT industry that works in creating and selling propriatory software - less then 10% - so for most in the IT business no more pripriatory software won't affect their work at all.
Are you fucking kidding me? 10% might be into developing non-free software, but about 90% of computer users run non-free software. Get rid of it and you have no more Windows. No more Office. Dozens of other examples but these two alone would significantly affect a massive amount of organisations.
It's a good opportunity for you so it's good for everyone? Wow, be more selfish if you can.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
By showing our distaste and by acting against those foreign companies in boycotting their products in our own countries, by pressuring our governments to also stop catering to these companies there is still a lot we can do.
The court may be Swedish, the defendants may be Swedish, the site may even be Swedish, but the companies and groups pushing the prosecution as well as the result of the prosecution most certainly are not purely Swedish and it is against these that we can act.
The biggest lunacy present in the "hey, US laws don't apply on foreign soil" argument in the piracy defense argument is that all the bloody content that's pirated isn't Swedish!
How hard is it for piraters to understand that certain films and music won't be as prevalent if the profit incentives are zero? People don't work for free and resources (sometimes a TON) are consumed for these works to be made!
I'm a cofounder of a small software company that makes entertainment software and we have definitive, crystal clear data that shows how we've been hit by piracy--almost to the point of putting us out of business.
Engineers, artists, and writers work their hearts out to make copyrighted content and software, and it's absurd that their work can be illegally obtained simply because it's technologically possible.
By the same logic of the pro-piracy people, cloning someone in the future won't require the subject's permission since it doesn't hurt the subject. We need to do a reality check on the ownership of the creative works.
G-Force music visualization
The thing you seem to be missing here is that most of us do recognise an artist's right to be compensated for their work, the same as any worker expects to get paid each month and not treated like a slave.
If the "values you were raised on" were "rape, murder, pillage and drink all the grog you can!", or "always do the opposite of what the law says", can you start to see why your absurd arguments do not apply at all?
You just have to accept that what you want is illegal and either 1) campaign for it to be made legal*, or 2) continue doing it and accept the possible punishment without whining about it, or 3) just stop doing it.
*note that "I want to be a leech and get everything for free" isn't going to be a very convincing argument for most sane people, who recognise the value of their own and others' time/work.
which is totally what she said
...then every used book, CD, or DVD transaction is a lost sale. Every item checked out from a public library is a lost sale. Every loaned item from one friend to another is a lost sale.
They want "The Right to Read" to become a reality. Then there will be no free market of ideas -- they will own them all.
I just wished the damn graffiti kids did something useful for once and bombed TPB all over Sweden together with stencils of Gottfrids face.
That and a month or so of 24/7 max file sharing just for the sake of it. I just need to get a drive first..
Sure IPRED exist but fuck that.
Fucking lame to sentence the TPB crew when they don't break any copyright at all instead of the actual people who does it, just because they don't have the balls to sentence a huge part of the population.
The support among the people to prosecute like one million swedes for breaking copyright laws are pretty weak so they go after an easier target. Not that this will somehow magically stop file sharing. Morons.
Why not go after government own Systembolaget and all the clubs and stores serving and selling alcohol since it will result in some personal assaults, rapes and deaths? Because there are no money in people?
These guys know they they are doing the wrong thing
No they're not doing the wrong thing. They're facilitating the free exchange of data between consenting individuals. The people using force to interfere with a non-violent, consensual exchange are doing the wrong thing.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Nothing gives me rights. They are just there. If I dont like what I have pirated, I delete it eventually. If I like it, and I have money, I try and buy it.
Call it a "try before you buy" thing. quite often the 30second samples of poor quality are not enough to judge whether the CD is worth buying.
You're an idiot. PirateBay calls itself PIRATEbay, their logo is a pirate ship, and they've repeatedly bragged about violating the law.
Most importantly, they run a tracker server. That means yes, they are tracking copyrighted materials for users to distribute. That's facilitation.