Slashdot Mirror
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."
... it sucks.
According to Dagens Nyheter the sentence is not only jail as claimed, but also a fine of 30 million euros.
Can someone explain how keeping the site alive would be a good strategy for winning the appeal? Especially the "Nothing will will happen to file sharing" part.
Most people encrypt their bittorrent traffic these days. My client is set to allow only secure connections.
Are they getting a bit delusional? Calling it theatre after being sent to prison for a year doesn't sound like theatre it sounds like hard time and the $2.4m fine doesn't look too much like theatre.
Whether you agree or not with the judgement its very hard to describe imprisonment and multi-million dollar fines as theatre for the media. I worry that they've drunk a little too much of the Kool-Aid.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Finally those pesky kids are in jail! We will have monstrous profit this year!!! No more STEALING of our property! ...
Next we will sue any blog that does spoilers or bad movie reviews as they can harm our buiseness, even more. Bad movie reviews can STEAL from us almost $78.9bn every year!! We must act quickly!!
they'll find it hard when right on the tail of this guilty verdict, there'll be a motion to seize their assets freeze the bank accounts and close the domain down... and they'll have to fight it all from behind bars with very limited access to the external world...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
but expected. A good question is - will this stop anyone from filesharing at all?
OK, now I'm really, really pissed off!!!
But the real question is: what can I do? What can *we* do?
May Peace Prevail On Earth
The first rule of Usenet is: you do not talk about Usenet.
Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were sentenced to a year in jail each. They were also ordered to pay 30m kronor total ($3.6m) in damages. The damages were awarded to a number of entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and Columbia Pictures. The news was broken early by Peter Sunde aka brokep via twitter, from a "trustworthy source".
A round-up of the arguments in court has already been discussed on slashdot, and the BBC has some thoughts on what happens next.
The site itself is on servers outside Sweden, and has sufficient funds to remain operational for some time. In combination with the appeal against the verdict already pledged by the men, the site itself should remain operational for now.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
loses in the court of public opinion. The entertainment industry is continuing with a policy of thud and blunder. It does not have to be this way. Even for those such as myself who consider that they Pirate Bay crowd is unable to draw the distinction between free speech and free beer, this victory will not go past the court room. As for the file sharing community, this whole idea that changes in technology makes laws obsolete needs to go.
Search in google "filetype:torrent Wolverine" and see what it gets you.
From the article, the guys don't seem worried. Appeals are forthcoming.
Damn! Now all TPB users will have to use Google to find their torrents.
And then Google will fall too and...
The questions that come to mind:
1- Will Google be sued next (filetype:torrent anyone?)
2- Where can we donate to help pay the fine?
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
From Torrentfreak: "Neither has it been shown that Fredrik made any money from the site argued Nilsson. There was some advertising revenue generated by the site, he said, but this went to cover the site's operating costs."
The court doesn't hand out fines that can't be paid back - it's not in the court's interest.
Considering the $3.5m fine, were the founders perhaps not telling the whole truth about how much money they made from the site?
I mean technically TPB doesn't actually host any copyright materials at all, and technically the system can be used to exchange legal files for honest purposes.
On the other hand, TPB is used mostly (almost exclusively I'd say) to exchange music and videos illegally. There are methods in place to remove illegal material, but for every torrent you remove ten more rise in its place. No-one should be able to say "TPB was designed to facilitate legal file-sharing" without adding "...but in reality it's just a site to get movies and music for free".
Whatever your views, this ruling (unless successfully appealed) has just set a huge precident for future court cases. I'm sure the prosecutors are already taking aim at other large torrent sites...
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8003799.stm
Laughed hard at this:
"Speaking to the BBC, the chairman of industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) John Kennedy said the verdict sent out a clear message.
"These guys weren't making a principled stand, they were out to line their own pockets."
Oh yeah, and he isn't?
So, let's say I run a website on which users could provide a link to copyrighted material, and then a user goes ahead and copies that material in a way that violates that copyright. Furthermore, I make it easy for users to search for those links or associated information describing them, and I make some money from the site by having advertisements on it. At that point I could be charged and face potential jail time?
Wow. Will there be any websites hosted in Sweden after this?
Anybody wanting to start a petition to the european parliement to revert the decision/(make linking legal) ?
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=49
"One of the fundamental rights of European citizens: Any citizen, acting individually or jointly with others, may at any time exercise his right of petition to the European Parliament under Article 194 of the EC Treaty."
Aw snap :| ;)
That said, it's been getting some attention recently (suits filed against NZB sites). Reality is though, the big Anti Piracy ISPs.. are all propagating usenet
During the trial it was pretty clear the prosecution had no idea about what they were actually accusing the defendants of because they simply didn't understand the technology. Effectively throughout the trial they were unable to prove their case at all. What I'm interested to know is why - despite the prosecution failing to really prove their case, only to speculate on various things - this decision was reached.
In a way I kind of expected them to lose before the trial began because I presumed big media had spent the time and effort to find countless valid legal arguments, evidence and technicalities to get them on, but once the trial started it seemed much less likely as the prosecution was clueless and provided neither of these three things which is again why I'm baffled about the outcome. The decision doesn't appear to have been made based upon the court case at all hence why I'm interested to know if there is any further information from the court to explain how they came to this conclusion based on the court case.
I think I know what the answer probably is, that it really was about political pressure or bribery, but I'd like to give Swedish courts the benefit of the doubt first and see the reasoning behind the decision. Does the Swedish legal system make this sort of thing available?
They'll appeal, and they should win an appeal.
The trial itself was very bad, the prosecutors were ridiculous, they couldn't prove anything and they just showed they don't know anything about the technology.
Either way, this "assisting or facilitating copyright infringement" is ridiculous and if can hurt a lot of legitimate business.
For example, a music company could sue Twitter because they let people type lyrics on it or links to rapidshare files with music. Same for any other website that allows user submitted content.
If the don't win the appeal they still have the European Court Of Human Rights (http://www.echr.coe.int/echr/) to complain to, if they feel the trial and decision were not fair.
I know at least my country loses trials there and gets fined millions of euros all the time, because the judges pressured politically and some even corrupt.
In the worst case, that 1 year sentence will probably converted into probabation or something, because it's their first offense - I doubt they'd do more than 30 days in jail in the worst case.
I suppose this truly marks the end of our beginning?
You know, it's great that those people, who commit illegal acts because they are commercially driven, are always brought to justice, no matter what their country of origin is.
Of-course there is a small matter of agreeing what exactly it means for something to be 'illegal'. There also should be an exact description of what 'commercially driven' is, after all, if you download something instead of buying a paid version, you are commercially driven - you want to avoid paying money. There is also this small matter that a corporation based in one country, can force changes upon the law of that country, which seems to propagate itself almost magically to all these other countries, this seems odd.
It's great to see that politicians are not commercially driven at all, when they pass laws that somehow seem to benefit commercial entities much more than private individuals. Citizens they used to call them, now they are all consumers, not citizens. Term 'citizen' has an implication that you have obligations and rights at least within your country. Consumers have 'rights' but really it's mostly obligations, and it has nothing to do with countries. The obligations are to the commercial entities - large firms.
It is nice to see that those politicians, who are violating the trust of citizens to act in their best interest, those politicians that are really just fronts for commercial enterprise end up paying dearly for their transgressions. You know - jail sentences, fines...
It is nice to see that commercial enterprise and their leaders are always brought to justice when they are found in breach of any laws, especially when the breach is 'commercially driven'.
It is nice that governments don't start commercially driven wars and that if they do, they end up in jail.
It is nice that governments don't take bribes and don't change the rules, so that large commercial structures benefit and private citizens suffer. Like the US federal reserve that was created by government officials so that private commercial enterprises would benefit so much (the JP Morgan, the John D Rockefeller, who then can take cheap loans at lowered interest rates and which eventually lead to the current economic disaster after the monopolies built with these cheap money destroyed the small business and moved to the cheaper manufacturing lands), it is nice that Nelson Aldrich was found guilty of conspiring against the citizens of the US and was sent to jail for his role in devaluing the US currency.
It is nice that people responsible for profitable wars in Vietnam, African countries, Middle East, Asia, South and Central America, that all those people paid heavy prices for their crimes. .......
Wait, wait, are you telling me that all these things didn't really happen? So what is happening here then?
You can't handle the truth.
...but we support them mostly just because we don't like fucked-up law and industry around it. We can't fight the industry (every year income in bilions), so we play pirates game. Sooner or later, 'pirates' gets cought. But powerless feeling remains. So, where we going from here? When people will stop screwing with law and instead fight lobbies and industries? When people will stop being politically ignorant? When they will understand that more they want to avoid to be connected with all it, the more they feel powerless and it kills them slowly.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
From Letters from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King, Jr:
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
"Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law."
"One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."
Stay strong, guys.
Does anyone know how the appeals procedure works in Sweden ? How long can a case drag on (I assume there will be no jail-time / fines enforced until the procedures are exhausted ?)
I wouldn't in anyway say that I am a supporter of the music or movie industry and in particular their out of date business models but I can't help feeling that this was probably the correct outcome.
I realize that TPB didn't actually host any copyright material but there can be no argument that they were blatantly assisting people in commiting copyright infringement. I struggle with deciding if this should be illegal behaviour but I feel it is certainly immoral. The problem with making it illegal is deciding how many steps away from the offence one needs to be in order to not be commiting a crime. Would liking to TPB become a crime?
IMHO the music industry has got everything it has deserved the film industry less so. Most films can now be picked up a very reasonable price as long as you are willing to wait a little while which, for me at least, is a fair compromise.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
BBC tech news and The Register also have the story, as usual. It might have been useful to actually link to Sunde's twitter page as well. I have to say, I liked his statement:
Really, it's a bit LOL. It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.
I have to say I am surprised by the verdict. I really thought they would avoid jail time at least. Maybe that was just me wanting to believe that, and so I believed the propaganda. It does seem a harsh sentence, although I guess that is due to the finding that they ran it for the money. You have to wonder how much of the decision is politically motivated like the raid was.
Also, the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) practically came in their pants over the decision. Some choice quotes from John Kennedy:
"Today's verdict is the right outcome on all three counts. The court has also handed down a strong deterrent sentence that reflects the seriousness of the crimes committed,"
"This is good news for everyone, in Sweden and internationally, who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will protected by law."
"These guys weren't making a principled stand, they were out to line their own pockets. There was nothing meritorious about their behaviour, it was reprehensible."
"There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that,"
(emphasis mine)
Get the fuck over yourself. This won't change anything in the long run. You might win a battle here or there, but if you don't change, you're screwed. And maybe we'll start listening to you when you stop lobbying to have copyrights extended even further than their already ridiculous length; and when your brethren stop selectively suing defenceless people on flimsy evidence. Until then, I think I speak for most civilised people around here when I say: go fuck yourselves.
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
$3.6 million? I wonder how long it will take the community to donate that amount?
Wikipedia can generate a few million when it needs to so I don't imagine it'll take a miracle for TPB to get $3.6mil. They'll probably have it by the time they get released!
In the Netherlands a tax is applied to all cd sales and given directly to the media maffia on the assumption that you will steal from them. So when I buy cdroms for my photographs I'm paying this organised crime racket that the government is in on.
PS. I've never downloaded any illegal media in my life, but I still pay the racketeers. Dirty smelly corrupt politicians.
Yeah so we've known for some time that running a file sharing site for illegally redistributed content is bad news from a legal liability standpoint ... but I am still surprised by what kinds of activities in our modern age get you jail time.
Is the fundamental issue "loss of money"? Well, the executives of the big banks in the world -- men like Charles Prince (Citigroup), Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide - collapsed), Alan Schwartz (Bear Stearns - collapsed) -- have lost far more money. They have lost money for investors, customers, and more recently taxpayers and even your children and your children's children. The damage caused by the systems they were responsible for is far greater han any of these file sharing misdemeanors. This is like comparing an out of control leaf fire in someone's backyard to the carpet bombing of a city.
But what happens to investment bank executives who lost ridiculous sums (we're talking trillions) and ruined the lives of many? Probably nothing... hell, the previous Goldman Sachs CEO was put in charge of the US Treasury Department (Paulson) where he proceeded to redistribute public money to colleagues. Some may argue that men like Paulson, Greenspan, and Bernanke are committing acts of treason by taking money out of the national treasury and diverting it into the hands of the wealthiest elite, the top 1% of society.
But don't expect to see any of these men in jail any time soon. Because in this world, the people who commit the grandest acts of financial theft and destruction are rewarded with lavish salaries and pensions, while the jails are filled with pot smokers, shoplifters, and guys who run file sharing web sites.
The people who run the Pirate Bay have been jailed for "assisting making available copyrighted content", meaning that they linked to copyrighted material? Fuck. That's the very basis of the internet. How can this judgement stand? If this is upheld, none of us are safe. Not Youtube, not Google, not anyone. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of file sharing, how can people be jailed for just linking to material? This is about the worst decision the courts could have made. Fuck you Sweden. Fuck you IFPI and fuck you all the recording artists that are signed to the companies who belong to you. I hope you all rot. It hurts but I'll never give you another unit of my hard earned currency again. I had no issue with paying for music I liked as long as you didn't make me pay for music I didn't. The internet allowed me to do that with greater freedom than ever before and now you jail people who facilitate my search for good music. You've already shut down the OLGA resource, denying thousands of would be guitarists a valuable resource for learning, you've already ripped thousands of music videos from youtube, and now you do this. Well thankyou. A better illustration of the way corporate whores set the legal policy of elected governments I could not find. Not that you'll care because you've brainwashed an entire generation into thinking your reality is the only reality. A generation who grow up believing sharing is wrong. Well. Good luck with that. Eventually you and all your kind will bleed yourself dry and when that happens, I'll make a point of playing poor quality MP3s of popular chart music over your graves and laugh at the irony of the damage you've wrought to the internet in order to protect the artistic integrity of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
Jesus. I made a joke on here a few days ago using a line from an Alanis Morrisette song. I'll probably be next up for a stint in the big house.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
WTF does that have to do with malware-infected torrents?
And that achieves what exactly?
The MPAA/RIAA/Police can still join the filesharing swarm you're connected to and see that you're sharing the copyrighted materials.
At best encrypting it just stops your ISP from easily seeing what exactly you're transferring.
SSL USENET allows you to connect to a trusted source and no one else (and that's the key difference, P2P software means you're connecting to untrusted sources) whilst allowing your connection to be encrypted and hence the contents invisible to your ISP too.
The only weakness with USENET is whether the MPAA/RIAA are successful in going after long established USENET providers like Giganews too like they have The Pirate Bay but at least whilst they don't you're safe as an individual whereas with P2P on public swarms you are not safe as an individual.
It's an actual file that facilitates you connecting to their *own* tracker. And without that tracker you wouldn't be able to download the file via bittorrent.
They aren't just telling people about files that are available, they are colluding in the distribution of them. They are naively pretending they are ignorant of the types of files they are facilitating the downloading of yet a simple search of they own site tells you *exactly* what files are being shared. How are they supposed to know what "Wolverine-Workprint.avi" is, they only have the name.... well when thousands of people download a torrent for it under your movies category, I'd say it was clear what it was.
A couple of responses here have said things like "this could impact legitimate businesses" or "what about legitimate filesharing".
The first rule surely here to learn is naming it "Pirate Bay" did tend to indicate exactly what the intention was of the site, it wasn't to enable legitimate business, it wasn't to enable legitimate file sharing it was to enable video/music piracy... the fairly unsubtle clue was in their freaking name.
For those who talk about them "not hosting content but just storing lists" lets shift to the real world. Lets say that someone "just" has a house into which all drug dealers can go and buy stuff off all the drug smugglers but the actual exchanges are done down the road in a car park... are the people with the house completely and utterly innocent of setting up "The Drug Exchange" because no drugs actually enter their house? Hitting the supply chain is one of the easiest ways to disrupt drug distribution and this is the equivalent for copyright "piracy".
As much as people like to dress it up in complexity as to why these folks are innocent it does come down to a rather easy thing
1) Sharing copyright material is not allowed
2) They set up a site to PROMOTE and SUPPORT the piracy of copyright material
3) They named the site after the "crime" of piracy
4) They kept saying "nah, nah, na, na, nah, can't catch us"
This has nothing to do with a legitimate business and no impact on legitimate businesses or file-sharing, this was a site set up explicitly to promote the sharing of copyright materials.
Stop bloody dressing it up as anything else
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
What are they guilty of? Hosting ~30kb plaintext files?
Fuck, most of the web does that.
Quick, shut down all the ISPs for facilitating copyright infringement. And the people who laid the cables. And Tim Berners Lee. And Microsoft/Apple/Linux community. They are all participants in this evil.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
My impression was that several US music companies also seemed rather unhappy and didn't like the Pirate Bay people either.
So, what are all the users of TPB considering doing to support
the folks behind TPB, who have supported them, in some way, in
past?
I don't think it's enough to celebrate the continuation of TPB
while forgetting the hassle, that its makers & operators have
to go through, now that they've been taken to task for TBP.
What? Consider them just happy martyrs, as you go on using the
legacy they've left you (as if they were dead)?
Well...? :-/
They've just released a press conference:
http://thepiratebay.org/special/2009epicwinanyhow.php
You have to click on the "archive" button.
Y
Right. And encouraging piracy is different than actually performing it. What if I would encourage piracy in a forum (not that I do)
Because its not about the money when it comes to appeal. The case the prosecution made was SO full of holes, and missteps that its amazing the whole thing didn't get thrown out to begin with. They only need to find one decent judge who will end up throwing out the whole thing based solely on the fact their findings makes the entire internet illegal. They basically made google illegal with this judgement!
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
If they had walked free, within the next half hour, the US would have announced a trade embargo against Sweden and the blocking of Swedish internet traffic.
They should be glad they're going to a soft Swedish prison and not a US federal prison, given that most of the intellectual property in question belongs to US corporations.
Collectively sue themselves by accident for making this stuff so readily available. Hell even industry insiders are now leaking movies and music to the general public. These four men may of gotten a guilty charge, but I too, don't expect them to see any jail time for them any time soon. They've revolutionized the way gets it's data and this is just the start of the revolution.
are you happy now, sweden riaa?
for putting these men into jail. I'll start by not buying that Wall-E special edition DVD I was eyeing for some time. Also, the Bolt DVD will get a pass.
And I think my GF and I will spend more afternoons at various restaurants rather than at the cinema.
Thanks MPAA for providing me the motivation..... to poop on you.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
...rgh!
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
It's fairly obvious that this ruling will have little to no effect on illegal file sharing. When Universial, Warner Bros et al. realise this, how likely are they to keep pouring cash into the MPAA? I think not very, considering a) we're in the middle of a recession, and nearly *all* companies are tightening their belts, and b)Soon they'll realise that chasing websites like TPB is like playing Whack-A-Mole : Hit one, and another two will spring up.
And to any response saying "But they are only providing the links". Give me a fucking break. You fully well know what they are trying to accomplish with their site. Don't pretend like its something its not. It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.
Mod parent flamebait. You've clearly given in to the advertisements you see when you pop in a DVD saying "You wouldn't steal a car would you!?"
Try doing a websearch for a torrent. Try doing a websearch for a crack. Try doing a websearch for a way to commit murder. By your train of thought, that means that "Google fully knows what people are trying to accomplish with their site," therefore they should be called in on charges any time someone uses their site to assist in committing a crime.
Also, fuck you. I have Karma to burn.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
So, the four guys get a year in prison each, and have to pay damages for a lot of money. So far, so good.
But, the RIAA has been claiming that every file sharing case is a lost sale for them. That ought to have, as a direct consequence, that if file sharing is down, legal CD sales (or legal downloads) are up by just as much. If not, the RIAA has been lieing!
And in Sweden, we have seen a sharp drop in internet traffic since the much-discussed IPRED law came into effect. It will be most interesting to see what sales figures the record companies report next time: not only have they got the guys behind TPB sentenced as "guilty" but they have IPRED to curb file sharing.
No the real bummer is that so many people like you think that they are not criminals. Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for.
You make a copy. You don't take something.
And it has been that way for thousands of years.
No, it isn't. You could copy the Mona Lisa until you're green in the face, no problem.
You fully well know what they are trying to accomplish with their site. Don't pretend like its something its not.
They are providing torrent files. Plain text files. On which no copyright lies, or at least nobody minds that they copy those.
It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.
Piracy happens in the coastal waters of Somalia. What you mean is called "copyright infringement".
The trial wasn't really about the searching for torrrents bit of tpb. It was more about the trackers.
Hmm, can't just about any computer equipment with internet connection be used as a tracker?
I worry what kind of precedent this will set for Newzbin.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q="the+mummy+returns"+avi+torrent
Is Judge Tomas Norström going to go after google now? Does he understand links? Does he understand the law? Dumb ass.
Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for. And it has been that way for thousands of years.
What's that got to do with copying though?
Right now, they _are_ criminals. That was decided by the court, which has the power to make that decision.
And sure, the name itself implies that they want the site to be used to "pirate" things. But the interesting thing is that the court apparently dont understand the consequences of this ruling.
Who do you think has made the most money out of sites like these? The site owners, or the broadband providers? Sweden has one of the worlds highest broadband penetration rates in the world, and financial analysts have deemed that the ISP industry will collapse because people wont pay 600SEK / month for 20Mbit/20Mbit, but rather take the 99SEK for 512/256 or something.
Essentially, the whole broadband industry has been making money on this for years now, and now they must be fair game. They _obviously_ knows what is sent over their linese (since they sometimes even throttle bittorrent traffic etc).
Maybe this was the best that could happen, because now the laws have to be rewritten so that they make sense again. If you cannot prosecute a phone company for someone making a "bad" phone call, or the postal service for someone sending a "bad" packet, why should broadband providers be responsible? And if they are not to be, this is becoming very fishy...
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
The logic is very very simple. Intentions be damned, if you consider what TPB does as immoral and illegal, you should ,by the same logic, find Google immoral and illegal.
Get it?
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
No the real bummer is that so many people like you think that they are not criminals. Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for. And it has been that way for thousands of years.
And to any response saying "But they are only providing the links". Give me a fucking break. You fully well know what they are trying to accomplish with their site. Don't pretend like its something its not. It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.
I don't use TPB or illegal torrents myself, but from my understanding TPB is effectively a torrent search engine. This sets a bad president, what's next suing Google because their image search has got thumbnails of copyrighted pictures, and points to places where you can acquire said unlawful material. It's the individual copyright infringers that are the problem*, if there was no demand for TPB it wouldn't exist.
*IMO the bigger problem is unreasonable copyright laws, but how many people are going to TPB to download out of print works that they can't get hold of in any other way, or works that any sane person thinks should have been made public domain a decade ago?
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
And what, exactly did the guys from TPB "take", douchebag?
"Encouraging" something is about the weakest threshold there is for prosecution, and only used by prosecutors who having someone powerful whispering in their ear.
Tell you what, I'd like to encourage you to dunk your head in a toilet.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Amerikaneren Bruce Perens er veteran paa aapen teknologi, men oppfatter Pirate Bay som kriminelle."
"The American Bruce Perens is a veteran in open technology, but sees The Pirate Bay as criminals."
http://www.tu.no/it/article207171.ece
Because if they're smart enough to use secure connections, they're probably smart enough to take other precautions.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for.
What, exactly, have TPB actually taken? They haven't taken anything. They haven't even copied anything themselves - they have only facilitated that copying. If you tell me a joke that you created, and I tell that joke to somebody else, have I "taken" your joke? Have I "stolen" your joke, even if I tell people you are the original author? Of course I fucking haven't. You give me a fucking break.
And it has been that way for thousands of years.
Theft might have been illegal in certain nations and cultures for thousands of years, but this case has nothing to do with theft so your statement is irrelevant. The lawyers in this case know that theft and copyright infringement are distinctly different issues, even the bloody plaintiffs, so I don't know why you choose to ignore this distinction. People have freely shared the works of others without breaking the law until very recently in terms of human civilisation. Don't act as though 80+ year copyrights are an age-old invention. Not that the length of a practice is in any way relevant to its legitimacy - people have believed in God for thousands of years, and this fact does not lend any credence to his existence.
Don't pretend like its something its not.
Haha, that's funny, you should heed your own advice there, pal.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Ok, encouraging is not the right word so let me use one that is stronger and will get the idea into your thick skull. Facilitating. They are facilitating piracy. Do you understand what the means? It means that if their site and all the others like it didn't exist, there would be far less piracy. Sure, there wouldn't be 0 piracy, but there would be a lot less.
Piracy exists because it is easier than buying something and easier than doing the work to make the money to buy something. And since people want the easy way out, when piracy is easier, it happens more often. Before the Internet, you had to know someone who could make you a copy or something. But now you can just sit at home knowing nobody and search for what you want. It seems to have led people to believe that its ok. But it really isn't. Its kinda like how people believe something is true because they see it on TV.
What it comes down to is that there is quite simply a difference in motives. Thepiratebay.org is obviously a site for piracy, I mean, its in their name. Duh! The movtive is obvious when you go there and they have categories for top 100 movies, tv shows, music, etc. However the motive behind BitTorrent itself was more for solving issues of distributing large files on the internet to reduce bandwidth usage. This has been a huge benefit to many other legitimate things like distributing free Linux DVDs.
Having followed Swedish media reporting on court negotiations, I can say it's obvious that a blatant lack of technological understanding characterized the entire process. The main prosecutor openly admitted(!) that he didn't understand the details of torrent technology, even after the concept was thouroughly described in a presentation slideshow and a specifically prepared video clip. The verdict confirms that not only did our Swedish law officials neglect to evaluate the delicate technology and law dynamics implied by the case, they also take no responsibility for the juridical consequences of such reckless proceedings. This results in a neverending world of juridical ambiguation.
I've seen this situation before and I know exactly what to do: send over the bombers and let's bomb them back to the stone age. Then we'll have our chance to change things.
What's that you say? Why no, I did not know Bush was no longer president.
This has been said umpteen time before, lemme go ahead and say it again:
Boycott movies and music!! Stop lining these lawyers' pockets with your money.
I have already stopped watching movies, haven't been to a theatre in 1 year. haven't purchased a DVD for 2 or so years.
Never bought a song off iTunes. I buy CD's from amazon and MP3's from eMusic and check the record labels at riaaradar.com. Cancelled my netflix after their retarded silverlight only player.
Hit the *AA's were it hurts, their bottom line.
The prosecution did not make their case - but the court found in the favour anyway. The court is part of the state and the state is in collusion with corporations (isn't there a word for that? I can't help remembering something about the fusion of corporate and state power...)
I am reminded by the government response to recent police brutality in the UK. The government set up the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) allegedly to monitor the police but in actual fact, and as everyone can now see, they exist only to rubber-stamp the excesses of the police. Recently, this free hand given to the police was used to excessively react to a power station protest on the insistence of the corporation that owns it.
The corporations detect a threat to their economic power, the police abuse their powers, magistrates wave it through, the IPCC brushes aside your concerns. All agencies in complete collusion, against the citizen.
Just as it is now in Sweden; the legislature, the multinational corporations, the courts - supposedly independent parties - colluded to produce an already decided upon verdict, and then went through the process of a trial purely for PR.
You can't beat the system from within the system - because all elements in the system work together against you.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
........ "But they are only providing the links". Give me a fucking break. You fully well know what they are trying to accomplish with their site. Don't pretend like its something its not. It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.
First we are talking law here so its not plain and simple
(there are lawyers who have justify the existence) and second truthfully I think google is used for piracy more often than pirate bay is.
The real difference is searching on pirate bay is easier than google.
The pirate bay is just a nice soft target that can be squashed and used to set a precedent for future cases.
Peter Sunde held a pressconference after the trial, exclusive for video streaming site bambuser. (As in, ditching swedish mainstream media)
http://bambuser.com/channel/spectrial
Important stuff
No, we want to help these guys get the fine paid off. You do realize that not paying for "damages" is terms for being put back into prison, right? The property they "stole" was imaginary, but the money they have to pay has to be real.
Actually, no.
Only one of the defendants (Carl LundstrÃm) has any assets (from a legal perspective) in sweden. He is also the defendant most likely to win the inevitable appeal.
The other defendants who were actually involved in some way with running the site have no assets to be siezed and are unlikely to end up paying a single krona regardless of whatever the verdict in the swedish supreme court (hÃgsta domstolen) may be. Failure to pay the fine will not affect their sentences with respect to jailtime under the swedish judicial system.
The 2nd rule of Usenet: you do NOT TALK about Usenet
3rd rule: If someone says you are a Nazi... the thread is OVER
4th rule: only two sides in a flame war
5th rule: flame all you want fellas
6th rule: don't say you're a girl when you're really a guy
7th rule: flames will go on as long as they have to
and the 8th rule.... if this is your first thread, you WILL get flamed.
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
+1 Use-of-"Also, fvck you" meme
Printing press destroyed society
Home VHS recorders destroyed the movie industry
Piratebay destroyed software
yawn...
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
So, let's say I run a website on which users could provide a link to copyrighted material, and then a user goes ahead and copies that material in a way that violates that copyright.
Your link to globeandmail.com has a substantial non-infringing purpose: to view the entire document, with the authorization of the copyright owners Associated Press and Reuters, without further reproducing and distributing more of the article than is fair in a given context. The vast majority of the torrent links from The Pirate Bay do not have such a non-infringing purpose because the copyright owners of the respective movies and games do not authorize such viewing the entire document.
"There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that,"
Yes John, let us know how that goes wont you?
I'm sure as of this day everyone will suddenly say "Hey man, piracy is bad, the music industry shouldn't have to deal with it. Let's all stop and instead buy every single music track we'd have otherwise downloaded with our infinite amounts of money we have secretly stashed away".
And I think the verdict stinks and here's why...
Standard reading list:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-07-1.html "MP3s are not the Devil"
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-14-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting "Hollywood Accounting"
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1999/01/17327 "Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act"
These guys have been stealing your rights for ages, thanks to cash hungry congressmen and presidential candidates. Make that presidents. Obama has stacked the Justice department with his RIAA donors. And as Orson Scott Card points out, these guys suck.
Let me point you to a quote from the good Albert Einstein:
'If I give you a pfennig, you will be one pfennig richer and I'll be one pfennig poorer. But if I give you an idea, you will have a new idea, but I shall still have it, too.'
There's no stealing when the source material isn't taken away from the owner.
Pirating software should be a crime, but it should never be equated to stealing.
For those who posted that they wouldn't be found guilty and are now bleating on about them being acquitted at appeal, remember that appeals do go two ways. It could actually end up that the appeals court or the high court finds that they weren't actually handed out a severe enough sentence and increases the jailtime and/or fine.
With such an offence having a 2 year maximum sentence in Sweden and with TPB basically being the world no.1 site, there's a possibility that they could actually see a sentence increase.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Did you really just connect file sharing with a movement to acknowledge the humanity of African Americans? Please, get some perspective.
First they came for the file sharers. I did not stand up because I am not a file sharer.
Then they came for the parents posting videos of their dancing children to YouTube. I did not stand up because I am not a parent.
Then they came for the independent songwriters, alleging subconscious plagiarism. I did not stand up because I am not a songwriter.
Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to stand up for me.
Librarians are "assisting making available copyrighted content" everyday. They actually give the original material to people to make their own copies from! And take their names and address! Incredible! They must be stopped now!
Everyone (under 60) who borrows a music CD (or nowadays a DVD) more than likely is going to rip it and it is fairly obvious to the Library that is what exactly why they are borrowing it, so just like the guys a PB the entire Library system in Sweden is guilty of the same crime.
It's always the quiet ones...
Start supporting projects like freenetproject.org.
I'm glad they finally caught and punished those pirates! I was sick of hearing about how they keep hijacking ships and holding crew for ransom. It was about time the people responsible were stopped.
oh wait, you're telling me these guys aren't real pirates? and real pirates are still out there in the ocean stealing ships and collecting ransoms? WTF?
Ok, encouraging is not the right word so let me use one that is stronger and will get the idea into your thick skull.
Let me use a word that will stick in your thick skull: fucktard. They don't facilitate piracy as they don't hold any pirated material facilitated. They merely point to others and they on the other hand do facilitate it. No matter how many synonyms to "store" you use, it doesn't make it true. They don't store it and thus they don't facilitate it.
I'm not saying that it is right or wrong, I'm merely saying that it is not illegal and that you have failed to "facilitate" your brain. Now insert coin to try again bitch.
I am the lawn!
Somalians are just exercising their freedom too.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
I bet the actual artists won't see a cent of these damages.
Cool. And I'm fine with that. If you know what you are doing and you know the difference between right and wrong and accept responsibility for your actions, then I'm ok with that.
But as you said, its people who don't think its wrong that worries me. This whole piracy thing has gotten to the point where people seem to be having trouble telling the difference between right and wrong. I've had heated discussions with a colleague who thinks the same way as the person I originally replied to in this thread. And every time we had one of those discussions, I could tell that he was convinced that he was right and that he thinks that everything is his just because you can download it freely.
For thousands of years people have been copying each others' creative works - music, words, inventions... without reimbursement. It's only within the last blink of an eye of human society that this has been referred to as "piracy" and "copyright" or "patent infrigement."
Previously it was referred to as "language" and "culture."
This space available.
Or you'll keep getting more of this.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Hey, its 8:51 where I'm at. I think you're late for school.
Ok, we all hate the RIAA etc. But fact is, audiovisual art costs real money. So how can we support the artists and make sure good movies are still made? How would you like to pay?
Or you could release a digital version of the book for free via Creative Commons, and only sell it in print (or special formats like Kindle). Nothing wrong with playing both sides. I did it with http://www.phpreferencebook.com/ and have no desire to ever change that.
"The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly" - Touchstone,Shakespeare's "As You Like It"
Because I can't saturate my 100 MBit connection with your (closed source? malware? who knows) solution. And what are you talking about, malware in videos? I doubt they will execute unless you run windows or something.
c++;
The prosecutions claim that TPB 'made available copyrighted content' is tenuous at best, due to the defendants actually only sharing torrent files.
Were these guys really innocent (morally or otherwise) in all of this, though? If they had even glanced at their own website for more than a second they could see what it is being used for (whether or not this was their original intention is of course conjecture).
The repeated requests to delete torrent files that were clearly being used to infringe on copyright were ignored, so the courts had to step in.
TPB is crammed with ads as well, which they obviously used as a revenue stream.
So lets summarise: They ran a site that people could use to locate copyrighted material for procurement. They made money from it. Hmm.
Meanwhile goverments are clamping down on medical malpractice lawsuits. See for example this page.
It has been argued that piracy can cause innocent people to lose their jobs. But which is worse: losing your job at a record company or being the victim of a botched surgery?
What do you mean?
Let's take Sony as an example since it's one of the companies:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/viewer/07q4/slide/image/03_image.jpg
As you can see, 8871 billion yen or $89 billion in revenue. That's for Sony alone.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Try the U.S. Constitution: "The Congress shall have power ... 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;"
You see, it's not the "pirates" who need a justification for their acts, it's the copyright holders who need a special explanation in the Constitution to justify why their special privileges are acceptable.
The media and software industry need to accept the fact that no one is forced to buy their products if the price isn't right. Price your music films and software too high and not enough people will buy them, your business will not turn a profit. Offer a good deal for the price and your business will prosper, that's the basis of our capitalist economy.
And remember, a free copy does not mean a lost sale, otherwise why would the media industry be so eager to give us free copies of their works in the radio and television?
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
...selling distribution rights to your work is exercising control over that work, you clod. It sounds like you're trying to argue about DRM, and everyone else is talking about copyright.
I think copyright is excessive in many instances (yay lobbyists), but it's certainly not immoral. And while I think copyright should be enforced, however not to the degree of absurdity that showed up in the Jammie Thomas case ($222k for 20ish songs), I agree with you that you should be allowed to make the decision to violate it if you choose to. Anything else means that there's a computer trying to make an objective decision it's not capable of making, and forcing that on people is a pretty usurious thing to do.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
They are providing torrent files. Plain text files. On which no copyright lies, or at least nobody minds that they copy those.
There is no ambiguity to what theese files mean.
Their content, their filenames, comments, submit description, everything scream one thing: piracy.
They *know* what purpose of those files is, and they made it clear they know what users intent and what submitters intent.
Prefect "accessory to crime".
No wishfull-thinking leagleese gets around that.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
Google is not next. What everybody seems to be missing here is that the torrents with copyrighted material were not a small minority easily lost in a large amount of torrents. Just look at the top 100 list at TPB - seriouly, how many non-copyrighted works have you ever seen on that list? Copyrighted material is what TPB lives off. The owners of TPB should once in a while check out what is being transmitted on their site (perhaps by looking at the top 100 list). If it turns out that the majority of transfers are illegal (which they are in Sweden), then the site owners actually have a responsibility to do something about it. It's like I'm renting stalls in a marketplace: if one or two sellers have drugs behind the counter, nobody can blame me. However, if the majority of the sellers openly sell drugs, then it is my responsibility as owner to do something about it. And in the case of google, the large majority of material is completely legal. That's why they don't have to worry about this issue.
You want to spend a month, an hour or two a day, putting random bits on 600 pages of dead tree and claim the right to a lifetime of residuals from the government.
Nobody writes in a vacuum.
Ten years may be too short for many kinds of creative works, but 70 years is way too long.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
Stop engaging in propoganda to legitimize taking things that don't belong to you. I can copy the mona lisa because there is no active copyright on something that old. Try making and selling prints of a painting made in the last 10 years and you'll end up paying a lot of money or in jail, as you should. If its good enough for you to download, you should be paying for it.
That music CD you bought some time ago?
Sell it on ebay and donate money to TPB guys. Make a backup copy for yourself first, naturally.
Music industry doesn't get a dime from the sale, you get to "reintroduce" your used music back into the market, and TPB-ians get a small financial break.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
They are providing torrent files. Plain text files. On which no copyright lies, or at least nobody minds that they copy those.
If this is the best argument that the tech community has in favor of the Pirate Bay, then it's no surprise they were found guilty. This is sophomoric bullshit. The simple fact is that the vast, vast majority of the stuff that the Pirate Bay helps find is copyrighted, and the entire point of the site is to help people find that stuff. Claiming "it's just text files" is bullshit, and anyone with an ounce of sense can see that.
So you're saying that if I like the art, but don't like the artist, I'm morally obliged to download the art from the internet for free. Will do.
No, I'm saying that if you don't like the artist, that you're being an intellectually dishonest, ethically twisted hypocrite for copying the work regardless.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It's not our fault that piracy happened. As intelligent people, we were innovative in our ways to push IT to the edge and allow us to get this content free. But Pirate Bay is at fault because they capitalized on others' misfortunes. As a frequent user of torrent sites, it stinks to see them be out of commision. But as a hard-working member of society, it's great! At the end of the day, this site (and many others) are blatantly making it possible to acquire paid digital content for free. Same digital content that our friends and classmates are working to create and make a living off. Obviously free > paid. But you owe it to society to put yourself in the shoes of the people making the games, the music, the movies and the software you and I were taking for free.
The point was that you could copy the Mona Lisa when it was freshly painted. Nobody cared.
And don't pretend that giving access to plain textfiles is somehow illegal.
Damn straight, the parent should be banned for talking about it.
Pirate Bay are just digital looters, only the thud & blunder tactics of the industry could raise these thieves to the status of folk heroes. My view of how the industry should be handling this.
If you had followed the trial, you might know that it was established in court that 80% of the torrents on TPB link to content that you can legally download. But you don't care, because it doesn't fit in your hidden agenda.
That's it, in a nutshell.
The RIAA has sued people it knows to be innocent, engaged in barratry, has tried to stifle long-term technology to preserve dying business models.
On the supply side of music, has been the bane of recording artists in music and movies for years - Prince changed his name to that weird symbol not only to be provocative, but also to get out of bad record contracts.
On the demand side of music, it was pretty clear even early on that piracy didn't hurt music sales. In fact, CD sales were going UP until the PR backlash from suing customers, coinciding with legal digital downloads and a down economy. What was happening was that Napster was exposing people to more music - different music - and indie artists.
They hated Napster not because it cut into their sales, but because people no longer relied on the radio to find out what new music was playing, meaning that talented artists didn't have to sign with the RIAA's labels. It was a threat to their cartel, not to their bottom line.
So, long story short, no matter what you think about the Pirate Bay or whether what they were doing was taking money away from artists or whatever -- they were Robin Hood.
They took from the evil and rich, and gave to the poor and smart. They did it while thumbing their nose at the Sheriff of Nottingham.
That's why they're loved and adored on places like Slashdot.
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
It's simple, folks. Instead of figuring out how to consume their garbage for free, let's ignore them entirely.
Cheers, Mike
"The Pirate Bay did immense harm and the damages awarded doesn't even get close to compensation, but we never claimed it did.
Yep, the world has been saved now! No more wars, natural disasters or alien invasions! Fortunately our saviors in the industry are willing to take this paltry sum as appeasement of a debt that can never be repaid.
Exactly. Copyright has managed to take art and culture and turn it into business and property, which was never what it was intended to do (at least, on paper). Copyright was never intended to "help" starving artists - it is not the place of the government, or anyone else, to place upon society at large a limitation for the sole benefit of a small subset of people.
Copyright existed to encourage works to be created, and created more freely. It was supposed to replace the patron model, where usually an artist would work for a wealthy person of some form. To those without patrons, they could still commission for medium-wealth people, or (in some cases), make a living performing the art.
Now, copyright has done the opposite of replace the patron model. It has rooted it firmly in place, with the force of the state backing it. Large corporations, or groups of them, now control media via copyright. The RIAA, MPAA, etc; if you are not beholden to them, good luck!
Of course, you could say that it is not that those groups have any special power. "Go out and write a song, then!" Many say. The problem is, art does not come from thin air. No work is created in a vacuum. For centuries, any work of art would build upon the last. Popular culture could be used freely. Not so any more. Popular culture is now owned - the ability to make art is thus owned.
And then, to make it worse, the majority of media channels (save the internet - for now) are owned by the same groups that own the copyrights! Therefore, even if you did manage to somehow summon from nowhere something totally unique; if you somehow managed to gain the capital to market it to their levels, you'd STILL be second rate, because guess where your work will never be seen?
This is only getting worse in recent years, even with the existence of a largely free internet. What will happen when the big players finally have control over the last free mass medium? We'll see soon, if this ruling is any indication.
What is the root of all this? The media players' propaganda as to the meaning of copyright - "artists deserve to make a profit." If this were truly the reason for their support of copyright, you think maybe they'd try to do something about the thousands of actually starving artists, under their fingers?
Even if you ignore their seeming contradiction, it should be obvious to most people that law should serve the greater good. Copyright is not serving the greater good, it is not even serving the people whom it is thought it should help.
Of course, everyone thinks that somehow, the ability to control your creations is a god-given right. Death to those whom do what has been, for thousands of years, totally acceptable. Death to those who do what is totally natural: communicate.
The end of the story is, copyright needs abolished. Now. It is not doing what it said on the package - "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Until it is abolished, we - consumers and artists - won't be free. We'll just be beholden to cooperate interests, who tow the line "think of the artist," while they think only of their nicely plump profit margins.
Great Intellect...
There was "fair use" copying of paintings by other artists at the time of the Mona Lisa's painting that were used to help learn technique. If you sold those at the time or distributed them you'd be engaging in forgery.
As for the fact that putting something in a text file somehow makes it legal, is that ASCII or Unicode? Is putting state secrets in a text file now a way to make distribution of classified material legal? If I have a dump of credit card #'s from a major ecommerce site can I sell them as long as I name the file something.txt? If you want to make an argument that people were coming to the pirate bay's website, downloading torrent files and just looking at them, good luck with that. Here in the real world we (and the swedish courts) find that hard to believe.
I get that you'll never be able to create the music, movies, books, art and games you enjoy. That doesn't make taking them alright. While I think that our current copyright system (at least in the US, not familiar with other countries) has copyright for too long and needs to be updated to support derivative creative works like sampling and mashups, I have no problem seeing people who profitted from letting you download movies before they were released fined and thrown in jail.
Would you consider copying the secret blueprints for BMW's latest engine to be "stealing their ideas" or "copyright infringement?"
Even as a recording musician, I must disagree. Promoting the creation of works for the public good is EXACTLY the intent of intellectual property law.
From the U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 8
:
So the logic is: we, the public, want people to create lots of stuff for us to enjoy. Therefore, we will give them an incentive. We will temporarily prevent others from profiting from their work.
The goal of the law is to promote the good of the public, not of the creator. All intellectual property law should be considered by this standard - "how will granting this protection benefit the public?" - not in terms of the "rights" of the creator.
For example, how long should copyright last? The term has been extended several times already. If that temporary monopoly becomes permanent, then the public's resources (for example, the courts) are no longer being used for public good, but for the good of private individuals and corporations.
I am not in favor of piracy. And I believe if you enjoy movies or music or art or literature, you should want to support their creation financially. But we should remember that copyright and patents exist to benefit the people, not the owners of those properties. Which is exactly why they should become public domain after a reasonable time - so the public can fully enjoy the work we have protected and nurtured via our taxpayer-funded legal system.
Hidden agenda? hehehe. Nice persecution complex you've got going there. Seriously, that fact wasn't "established" at all...it was testified to by one of the defendants. The fact that the prosecution didn't challenge it just means that they screwed up (which wouldn't by far be the prosecution's only screw-up in this case).
As does your literacy.
Hay! mi spelng is verry goode!
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for.
That's completely false when we are talking about information (which is the topic here). What about Shakespeare's plays? Or the Linux source code? These things were made by someone else, but I can legally make copies and distribute them without paying anyone.
And it has been that way for thousands of years.
Even if we are talking about copyright infringement here, copyright has only been around a few hundred years.
I don't think every instance of copying is morally defensible. Okay?
Copying against the wishes of the author/artist is generally not a moral activity.
But how are you going to get people to buy your software?
Every time I buy software without trying it first, I regret it. I do not tend to follow that purchase up with a purchase of the next version, or with more purchases from the same author.
I'm definitely not going to buy software I can't find.
If I were running something like TPB or google, I'd probably remove search results or links at the request of the author. But that would leave me with a problem -- how am I sure that the e-mail (or even snail mail) containing the take-down request really is from the author?
I'd say that if Sweden, or any government, wants to prevent sites like TPB from indexing everybody, they have a responsibility to provide some sort of index of authors, with a repository of public keys to check against.
I just checked, and TPB is still online. If the 4 defendants end up losing their appeal, but the site is still online, will the court case have made any difference?
If TPB site is actually shut down, and the torrent users just shift to the other torrent sites, will it have made any difference?
There's a fundamental problem for the type of people trying to stop file sharing. Their ability to target a particular sharing channel and use the legal system against it takes *years*. The internet and its users can respond and shift to something else much faster.
Its a chase they will always lose.
No, I'm saying that if you don't like the artist, that you're being an intellectually dishonest, ethically twisted hypocrite for copying the work regardless.
- if one doesn't like the artist, but enjoys the art, but doesn't agree with the law of copyright and decides to get something free instead of paying to a legal distributor, well, it makes this person cheap and thieving, sure, but it doesn't go against the laws of nature (trying to maximize profit while minimizing energy spending). It just makes perfect sense from reality and nature point of view. Makes the person a survivor who is more likely to make it in nature than someone, who has 'principals' based on artificial ideals and morals. Of-course sometimes morals are expected by society and those, not following these morals will be punished, so it will only make sense from point of view of evolution to be this cheap thieving surviving son of nature if you don't get caught by the punishing society.
Moral of the story? Do what is least energetically demanding. So if it takes less energy to be a thief, do that, otherwise don't.
By the way, I am for copyright personally.
You can't handle the truth.
If they were prosecuted for facilitating access to copyright material, does this mean that all the ISPs (through whose tubes the copyright material was 'accessed') are going to get screwed for Handling Stolen Property, or at least as Accessories to the crime/s?
Smivs on the intertubes!
You do know that the torrent files don't contain the copyrighted content, right?
If I give away a text file saying "the classified material is in the top left drawer of Mayor Smiths desk" or "the creditcard numbers can be found in locker number 30 at the YMCA", does that make me a criminal?
And, in this very case, does it make me guilty of copyright infringement? I didn't infringe.
What a ridiculous verdict. Suppose someone tried to press criminal charges against the owner of a building where a gun show was held, simply because one of the guns bought there was used in a shooting. Anyone stupid enough to try that would be laughed out of court, if they even made it that far. How is this any different?
I see a lot of people showing outrage. First, let me state I use TPB. Im not going to go get all high and mighty and talk about the evils of file sharing. But lets keep things in perspective. TPB was not raising money for kittens with cancer. They are running a web site for the sole purpose of profiting off large scale copyright infringement. Putting aside arguments over wether or not a tracker technically constitutes copyright infringement, they were not raising money for kittens with cancer, they are profiting off large scale copyright infringement.
when did they prove that getting something free means that you would have bought it and therefore the company lost sales?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
On page 76 of the verdict it is quite clear that what ultimately killed TPB is the fact that they, even though they knew of infringing material, didn't act to remove it.
The court had quite a good grasp of BitTorrent. What they stated was that:
1. When someone does something illegal (copyright infirngement)...
2. ...anyone involved, however tangentially (the tracker operator), can be held accountable...
3. ...but, and this is the big one, you must have either purposefully aided the illegal act, or acted with willful blindness.
On page 76, the court discusses letting the accused off due to them being "service providers", and while finding them to in fact be service providers, asserts that a service provider that assists in infingement, is notified that they are doing so, and keeps on assisting, is indeed party to the infringement.
Note the the next TPB: Do what YouTube did and have a legal department. Cooperate with rights holders. Take stuff down.
No. Every download creates a new copy of the work in question. Selling a used book, CD, or DVD does not create a new copy. If person A sells a used CD to person C and then wants to own the CD again, he must buy a new copy. If person B provides the same CD for download and person C downloads the CD, C has a copy of the CD and B still has a copy of the CD.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Next time they are going to ban email, since everyone just start to send torrent files over email.
Wait does this mean i can blame my pencils for all those tests i have been failing?
you scared me into not doing any p2p. well done.
Read radical news here
... and we throw them in jail for it. It's a sad day in the world.
Thankyou. At least someone sees the distinction between digital and "real-world" property.
Too many people here are spouting crap along the lines of "property is theft".
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
This kind of crap is going to continue. You can't stop it this way. If you want normal people to respect you and your rights, you need to respect them. To do that you need the following:
1) Lose any and all copy protection measures. It doesn't even slow down the pirates and it causes problems for your legit users that actually pay for the works.
2) Support efforts to repeal DMCA-like laws in all countries. Again, makes life difficult for people that actually pay you and doesn't slow down the people that won't.
3) Support efforts to shorten the length of copyrights. They are FAR too long right now. To the point that most people simply don't respect them. 10 years should be enough to make your money. Same with patents, though I do think software and business method patents need to die as well.
4) Drop prices to the point that people are willing to pay. Artificial high prices are a big part of the problem. Particularly with music. A CD costs more than some DVDs? Nuts.
5) Just accept that some people simply won't pay. That's just how it is. It sucks, but that's life. Get over it. Instead of being a bunch of whiners, offer something special for those that buy the real deal. I've seen codes for discounts on real goods, early access to concert tickets, etc.. Get creative.
I suspect the opposite will happen. The IFPI and/or US Government will appeal the disproportionate leniency of the sentences (i.e., an act of international economic warfare* is being treated as equivalent to a mere burglary), and the sentences will be increased to 5+ years. Either that or the convicts will be extradited to face trial in the United States, where more severe sentences would be almost certainly handed down.
* Currency counterfeiting is an act of war in international law. Under some doctrines of intellectual property (i.e., the ones that have been upheld in US courts when levying $200,000 fines for sharing songs), this could be argued to be equivalent.
I am so glad to see US' absurd copyright laws apply everywhere.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
This sets a bad president,
I thought bad presidents were elected...
that's your key. you will need to learn to do sacrifices for your freedoms. if they want it, give it to them. quit buying any major label item, music, movie, whatever. let them suffer in their war against people.
Read radical news here
"The property they "stole" was imaginary, but the money they have to pay has to be real."
You know, the money spent developing those "imaginary" products was real too. I'm not sure how you'd explain to the workers and companies who spent billions of dollars and millions of man hours creating software and entertainment products that are traded for free on Piratebay that the fruits of their labour are imaginary.
This stubborn, ongoing refusal to allow that digital works have a reality to them, and an intrinsic value, is self-serving and it's getting old and tired.
I'm looking for a well written and researched piece that can tell me why TPB and other such sites are good for society, not some crap "I just want stuff for free" argument.
Will, IMHO the arguments are pretty straightforward:
I think the Pirate Bay could have argued that they are innocent for those reasons. It seems like from what I've read their main argument was "we didn't host the content, we only used advertising revenues for hosting the links, so its not our fault."
I'd but the arguments from kripkenstein (parent), but I don't buy what the Pirate Bay's argument used in court.
If that is the case could we then prosecute counties, towns, cities and states (depending on locale for appropriate terminology) for traffic drugs and/or stolen goods because they provide the roads for cars to travel on?
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
Fuck the GPL. With no copyright it's unneeded.
The GPL only exists to ameliorate the ill effects of copyright. I think (and I believe he has said) that RMS would much prefer that copyright go away, at least with respect to software.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Copyright ends tomorrow and I still won't have the source code for Windows. ...which is half the purpose of the GPL. (1) Freedom to access source code and (2) freedom to copy. I'd even argue (2) is a consequence of (1) since any distributed modification is pretty much copying (altering 1 word on an encyclopedia article doesn't make it yours to turn into a history class).
Commercial software won't end either, I hate to break it to anyone. Blizzard will still sell WoW -- they let you download the DVDs over bit torrent anyway. Windows may even continue with more draconian DRM than ever to prevent piracy now that the law won't help.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
States are made of people, and people have views. If the U.S., for example, had a rational system of government, it would not have produced a Supreme Court "Bush vs. Gore" decision. The vote either would have been decided by a manual recount or else declared a tie and sent to the House of Representatives for a tiebreaker vote.
There's a reason why judges' decisions on cases of law are called "opinions."
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
The Piraty Party in Sweden are reporting a rapid increase of new members after the verdict. At some time the increase was in the order of one new member every forth second (!). In terms of member count they are now the second biggest opposition party and will soon have more members than one of the parties being part of the government. See diagrams here: http://rickfalkvinge.se/
My attitude going forward is that I will not tolerate commercials nor any other form of forced payment for media enjoyment (I refuse to own a telivision, for example)
And if the powers that be make the pain worth more than the gain of obtaining certain medias I simply won't participate. I've got so many damn avenues of (entertainment) distraction that none of them are worth anything more than I personally am willing to pay
*I* dictate the price of my entertainment enjoyment - not these fat cats who've made money off the backs of artists for (historically) basically doing dick squat all.
End of story.
Well, I have a little problem with Usenet - since I have to pay to be able to access the content, that means they are making profit off others work and I do not support that.
Though I have used Usenet before - I had a very asymmetrical connection (2048/128) so I paid torrent trackers not to ban me for low ratio and I used Usenet. Now I have a better connection (4096/768) and I don;t use Usenet anymore and keep good ratio so I don't have to pay the trackers anymore.
Firstly, removing copyright would result in a free flow of ideas, which means we would have a far more creative society where everyone could draw on, and be truly inspired by, great works of Art. Great art was created before the instigation of copyright, drawing on work from before it in a way that copyright limits. For example, research Marlowes Dr. Faustus, and Shakespeares King Lear and you will find that Dr. Faustus has almost replicable scenes of 'The Damnable Life' (AKA The Faustbuch), and King Lear is almost a replica story of a Celtic mythological figure from 'The Chronicles of Englande, Irelande, Soctlande, and Wales' by Rapheal Holinshead. We consider King Lear and Dr. Faustus to be two of the greatest works of English Literature, yet they would certainly have not been allowed under todays copyright law.
Secondly, copyright is nothing less than a limit on our freedom of expression. It is unethical to suspend the publics freedom to enjoy or build upon human culture. Copyright is a dangerous path down the State, and Big Business, legislating the realm of thought.
Thirdly, I believe that artists create art for its own sake. I refuse to believe that our society is in such a sad state of affairs that artists are incentivised by material reward.
Fourthly, copyright is dangerous because it creates a state of self censorship. Copyright has become so all-pervasive that artists are sub-consciously limiting their creativeness out of fear of breaching copyright. This is illuminated by Christian Alhert who posted a section of J.S. Mills 'On Liberty' (the book is firmly out of copyright and in the public domain) and then made copyright claims against it to ISP's. The work was removed almost immediately.
Fifthly, the concept of Intellectual Property (IP) is deeply flawed and morally wrong. Copyright is based upon this principle. It is unreasonable to categorise the land of ideas as property, as these ideas can, and should, be shared with everyone. IP bases its assumptions on the idea that anything that has value can be owned. This would suggest that I can own a child, as children are extremely valuable.
A quote from Dave Rowntree (Drummer of Blur) "I have never heard of a single band deciding not to record a song because it would not be protected by copyright. The idea that it protects artists and hence allows them security is laughable - its about entrenching corporate profit" . . . Another quote, this time from Ireland (and perhaps the Worlds) greatest living Poet: Seamus Heaney: "Copyright, as currently constituted is a barrier to the creative process. In essence it benefits money making and stifles the Arts". . . Taken together, these quotes undermine the claim that creators welcome copyright as some sort of security: It is a myth.
Furthermore, we are not here to provide a blueprint as to how artists should be supported. There is an argument to suggest that, for the time being, they should be accepted as collateral damage in the explosion of ideas that would surely follow the removal of copyright. However, there are a number of ways in which they could be supported, although I dont claim to recommend any of them. Firstly we have the 1000 true fans hypothesis.. Secondly, we have the live arena, which is the largest growing sector in the music world. Thirdly we have, as proposed by people such as Gregg Dyke (in response to the success of the BBC) a sort of subscription system. Fourthly we have a wider implementation of massive tax breaks for artists (as seen in Ireland), and/or the use of Dole money to support artists. Simply, artists will not starve, and they will continue
What you are stealing is not the crop, but the farmer's decision on who to sell it to and for how much.
Lets say you copy the crop and give it to anyone who approaches the farmer's front gate.
The farmer still has his crop, he is not out anything right? (except all those who came to buy some crop but you said "Here! have some free crop")
This discussion reminds me of the scene from A Man For All Seasons (excerpted below) where the characters discuss precisely the sort of question that is here: where the law and basic morality give opposite results what is to be done. Of course, the situation is somewhat reversed: today, /. wants to make an exception in the law in order to free someone, not to put him in jail, but it's the same basic question. Do we make exceptions in the law for expediency's sake and therefore risk weakening the very thing that holds our society together or do we follow that law even though it results in a manifestly wrong result?
Perhaps it's a threshold matter, or perhaps it's because the law seemed to be quite clear that what the defendants did was illegal (if perhaps not morally wrong), but in this case it seems that we should enforce the law as the court decided it. If the people of Sweden are unhappy about the result, they can elect a parliament that will change the law and/or petition for pardon (IIRC, the king can commute the sentence).
Sir Thomas More: There's no law against that.
William Roper: God's law!
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.
William Roper: While you talk, he's gone!
Sir Thomas More: Go he should, if he were the Devil, until he broke the law.
William Roper: Now you give the Devil benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes, what would you do?
William Roper: Cut a road through the law to get after the Devil? Yes. I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
Sir Thomas More: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the wind that would blow then? Yes. I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake.
All of you need to stop whining about your pile sharing. Wah, try buying something once in a while.
and also the guy they sent to deliver/setup your modem.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
You can rant, split hairs, and self-justify all you like, but the fact remains that piracy is theft. People talk about the length of copyright, arguing that it should be only twelve years, as if that were an issue in the Pirate's Bay trial. Riiiight. The game you stole last week was more than twelve years old, right? The movie you stole was made before 1997?
It's possible that the term of copyright IS too long, but that's not what's at issue in the Pirate's Bay trial, and pretending that it is is a transparent attempt to obscure the fact that the theft of much more recent works is taking place.
Middle-aged professional woman still plays computer games. Film at 11.
I find it ironic that on the same day TPB staff is found guilty, that Google annouces that it will provide full length hollywood movies and TV shows for free.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.
They are "encouraging piracy" in the same way that telephone directories are encouraging obscene and harassing phone calls. To date, nobody has held the directory publishers criminally or civilly responsible for calls facilitated by the information they distribute.
TPB will remove a link to copyrighted material if you simply request it. US phone companies, on the other hand, require you to PAY A MONTHLY FEE for the privilege of not having your number listed in the directory. I think the torrent index sites are missing out on a potentially huge source of revenue here -- they should demand that the RIAA/MPAA pay them to not index their copyrighted material!
"Encouraging piracy" is what the lack of an effective government in Somalia does. Sense the RIAA/MPAA think it is appropriate to use a totally irrelevant pejorative term for unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material to make it sound more like a criminal than a civil matter, I say from now on we should insist on using the term "anal-raping your customers" to describe the RIAAs efforts to sue downloaders. By the RIAA's own standards, it is every bit as appropriate as their use of the term "piracy".
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Absolutely compare it to copying of the Mona Lisa.
When the Mona Lisa was first painted, the artist was still dependent on creation of works (funded by patrons). Even if he were not, it was considered part of any true artist's training to go copy the works of Masters. This was considered acceptible, and part of "culture". Other artists could copy his works for other monarchs or patrons, but the art would still get created. The fact that it is historically significant has little bearing on whether it's copyable.
It might be illegal to infringe copyrights, but given the absurd lengths of copyright now, I'm hard pressed to call it unethical. Art will always be created. Ideally, we want Good Artists to be rewarded .. even patronized by the public which consumes them.
Filesharing might hurt the re-sell market of blockbuster movies, or highly-produced music. The genie is out, though, and the producers of music/movies need to adapt their business model. It might involve ensuring that theater experiences are Awesome, or it might involve producing less crap. The artistic value of movies (as a whole) is not usually in the CGI or special effects, but in the story that is being told, and the acting that is done. A century from now, we will likely have media which makes the viewer feel in the scene, and stimulates many senses. Hamlet will still be Hamlet, Star Wars will still be a story of redemption, and Gone with the Wind will still affect people, even if their shininess is gone. So, perhaps spending 2/3 of one's budget on special effects (or salaries ...) is too much?
Why do movies cost so much? Actors' salaries, and lots of special effects or postprocessing, primarily.
Why do actors have such high salaries? Because people are willing to pay it.
Why do studios pay them? Because they make $$$ on ticket and DVD sales.
If people reduce their discretionary spending, I predict that movie sales will go down, and salaries will adjust based on that. Big name actors may consider it Too Little money ... but if the movie budget is smaller, it just means they can start finding OTHER good actors as well. I doubt that a $10M actor is significantly better than some $1M actors.
It would be like someone stealing a watch and mailing it to a friend. What they just did was arrest the post office for delivering the watch. I expect that ISPs throughout europe will be funding their defense now as this could easily make them liable as well.
I have wheels on my buick, my trailblazer and my toyota truck, I would like to know, so as to avert jail-time and a possible prison sentence, who here is a direct decendent to the unknown cave men who first invented the wheel, so that I might start sending them monthly payments to keep using said wheels without the possibility of breaking any laws
Call me naive, but honestly guys, can't you live without watching the last **AA blockbuster?
How's your life going to be actually affected if you give up your weekly fix of entertainment?
Stop going to the cinema, stop buying movies and CDs.
Are you completely unable to find something better in your life?
And I didn't mean to post that anonymously.
People want something and they don't want to feel guilty about it. So they make up justifications in their heads to make them feel less guilty.
As others have said, not like the price is not a justification for stealing. But I'm sure someone will come up with something.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The problem isn't that they are merely a search engine. Intent is a big part of it, and TBP raison d'etre was to provide an engine for distributing copyrighted content.
Like most people, you completely ignore that PirateBay provides a torrent tracker server, which means it's facilitating the exchanging of file chunks between users. On top of that, it distributes the very torrent files that initiate the distribution of copyrighted materials using that tracker.
It's not like a Usenet binary search website that's providing NZBs that download files from some other newsgroup provider. PirateBay itself is providing the tracking and thus distribution of the file chunks via its tracker.
"the four men will have to pay $3,6 million in compensation for lost sales to 17 media companies."
It strikes me that this is less than they could have gotten by setting up their own online distribution system. Subtract all the money they have spent fighting The Pirate Bay, including what they spent on this lawsuit. How much is left?
What if, instead of trying to fight it, the media companies had gone with the flow? They could have set up their own service. It could offer the movies and other media, perfectly legal and in good quality. This would make it more convenient than what The Pirate Bay offers: bootleg copies of varying quality, which may or may not be in the language you want, may or may not have working subtitles, may or may not contain malware, etc. Such a service need not even cost the user more: it could be ad-supported, like television.
I really wonder why the media companies haven't created such a service. Unless, perhaps, piracy isn't really costing them a lot of sales, and going after large-scale piracy operations is just a way to make some extra money.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
They host the tracker, so it's not quite as simple as you suggest. If they didn't host the tracker you'd be dead on. And in fact a torrent can have multiple trackers I think so TPB could turn theirs off and be completely free.
Part of the reason this is such a big deal is TPB is often used as the tracker, even for other torrent search sites. Closing TPB search functions won't do much to affect copying, but shutting down the tracker would be a severe blow to the infrastructure. Other trackers would have to drastically step up and host the load. Maybe that's no big deal, but it would be chaotic for a while I'm sure.
I can't find the sources where I read this, so take with a grain of salt... but the search functionality doesn't seem to be the target here. They want the tracker shut down, or else they are totally clueless.
If google, or msn or yahoo, only allowed you to search for torrents, then yes they too would be in violation of the law.
No, they wouldn't. Torrents are not by themselves illegal, and providing search for them isn't illegal, either.
The actual difference, and the reason why Google (and other legitimate service providers) isn't impacted by this ruling is because it is in large part based on the fact that TPB knowingly assisted in illegal distribution of copyrighted material. In other ways, they were contacted (sometimes by the author directly) and told that such and such torrent is for the material that is not authorized for distribution, and they have consistently refused to do anything about that (such as removing the offending torrent). At that point, it is quite reasonable to conclude that they were actively assisting copyright infringement.
In contrast, Google will remove offending links from their search result on request.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It seems to have led people to believe that its ok. But it really isn't.
I risk to differ: Copyright is supposed to be a contract between the general public and the creators of works that lasts for a limited time. By ever extending the copyright term whenever Mikey Mouse would fall into public domain, the creators broke that contract. Why should the general public hold on it?
"The court found the defendants guilty of helping users commit copyright violations 'by providing a website with ... sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the website.'"
Hmm, Google's search engine returned links to individual torrents on Pirate Bay by an even more sophisticated search capability. It too provides simple download and storage capabilities. I will concede that I know of any special Google tracker, however it does provide "sophisticated search functions" for a person to seek out this apparently illegal application and as we saw in the statement above, that sort of an association is good enough.
The trumped up justification for this sentencing is so sloppy, it's an embarrassment to legal bullshit artists everywhere.
Great, well thought out post!
I virtually never download anything, but if you do download a movie or a song or a book or whatever, you're not stealing. Why? Because there is no cost to the original creator of copying a file.
For example. Lets say that I make a video game and want to sell it for $50 a copy. Now, lets say that someone buys the game and then puts an iso of it up on their home ftp server. I got my $50 for the copy they bought, and then some people download from that guys server. Am I losing money when they download? No. I'm not paying money for the bandwidth. No physical disk, manual, or box was produced and stolen. It is no different than if you couldn't download and people just decided that your product wasn't good enough to buy and as a result just didn't buy it.
Either way, you wouldn't receive a penny for it, so how can you claim that you're losing by someone downloading files from a private server?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
"Crown" is also an acceptable and common English translation. From Wikipedia:
Other cognates include the Czech/Slovak koruna and Estonian kroon.
This was a low justice "dice" court. If you go to the pirate bay's website, they have a video broadcast up explaining more clearly what has happened. They are not going to jail because they can still move up to the higher courts for appeal. Once the highest court has made a decision, then it will be set in stone.
TPB Press conference video -> http://thepiratebay.org/special/2009epicwinanyhow.php
Near the end of the video, a gathering is mentioned on a website. Pirate Party, check the below link to see if there is anything in the external links listed there that you may want to participate in, or rally against. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party#Official_sites.2C_documents
In short, The pirate bay crew is not in jail, and the true trial is FAR from over.
i'll just leave this here:
"Obi-Wan: I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."
I find it interesting and a little disheartening reading the comments from folks here who think copyright is some Johnny-come-lately invention and inherently evil. The very first copyright case documented in history comes to us from Ireland in a case against Columba (later St. Columcille) -- almost 1500 years ago. While it may not have been an integral part of cultural structures since then the way it is now, copyright is far and away not a recently-crafted idea, certainly not an American invention. Copyright as *hard law*, maybe; copyright itself, absolutely not. I consider myself far more on the side of the pirates than the traders in this debate, but history is history.
Another point of contention against several posters: This idea of people simply throwing their works out into the public frame for love of the craft and making no money on it until copyright came along is complete nonsense. Classical composers earned livings off their music (well, some did). So did minstrels and troubadours. Artists all over the historical timeline earned commissions for their works. Contrary to the anarcho-communal worldview, music and art are not such lofty and untouchable deities that no one can or should profit from them. I believe such things should be shared, of course, but I'm also a realist and artists need to put food on the table.
On the other side of the coin, I have no sympathy for any musician whining about lost revenue from P2P filesharing. The money in music is now, has been and always will be by and large in the performance and the merchandise, not the recording. As an amateur musician with many professional musician friends, I say if you're not making money as a musician, then either your music is terrible, you're simply a bad musician or ur doin it rong.
All this said, I'm on TPB's side here and hope they come out free and clear in the end.
Those fools had better win their appeal, because their defiance this time is going to get them seriously hammered the next time they get convicted.
You just want shit for free :D
Sorry, but I like movies like the Matrix, the chronicles of riddick etc. If copyright law didn't exist, they wouldn't have had the funding to pull off what they do on a AAA quality title.
Long live copyright law.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Weed -- 34 Curt St.
Meth -- 123 Corner St.
Heroin -- 55 Main St.
etc.
Is this illegal? No. Is it ethical? No. The cops would thank me... Same thing with torrents. They're just pointing to locations where you can d/l the goods. And spare me your "infringement" BS, that's just a term that lets you sleep better at night.
However 1 year and $$$ seems very steep to me. Looks like they wanted to make an example of them.
//Hypocrite note, yes I use torrents and usenet...
Can't "put the genie back in the bottle" with copying IP data no more then you can wish away nuclear weapons tech. Debating this has been reduced to nothing more than a hobby rather than anything close to constructive for either side. What I expect to see is the ever more merging of the IP owner profit structure with the financial prosecution of people for receiving copied IP data instead of admitting it's an issue without practical resolution. In an ironic twist, the artists are now becoming what they used to despise: oppressors of the people.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I use rtorrent with Moblock to filter connections to known copyright enforcer's IP addresses.
For those who like physical analogies of copyright infringement, here goes my take:
Suppose a neighbor of buys that new awesome European car, great style, full option . The car is instant hit among neighbors, since they all suffer form products of Detroit Big Four. `Chicks dig him', so to say.
Enter copyright infringement.
One night you venture near the car, wielding necessary tools, dark clothed and masked. You write down every detail carefully. You visit local distributor next morning, you order exact same car, down to last detail. Later on you show off, driving in it around.
Will the neighbor be angry at you? Surely you deprived him of some of the car's value (uniqueness).
Yet you stole nothing anything from him. You copied information. No theft of property.
Is this example legal? I guess it is.
Is this morally OK?
What if the neighbor in question lived off of a business model based on having the best car around (scarcity, perhaps artificial)?
Seriously, that fact wasn't "established" at all...it was testified to by one of the defendants. The fact that the prosecution didn't challenge it just means that they screwed up (which wouldn't by far be the prosecution's only screw-up in this case).
If a defendant makes an assertion, and that assertion isn't challenged, it is established. That's the way it goes, and, given the philosophy of the adversarial system, that's the way it has to be and should be. And if the prosecution screws up, well, sucks to be them. Also part of the adversarial system.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
I'm putting off studying for finals, and have nothing better to do than shoot my mouth off on Slashdot. I'm honestly snarky. As a human being who stands to benefit when culture grows through the free exchange of information, why would I approve of what copyright maximalists are doing? I mean, if I had to buy the albums of every MP3 I have on my hard drive, I would never have money again (or else I'd have to work harder to make a lot of money, and/or give up some of my music: both of which I would probably enjoy less).
I remember when AudioGalaxy got shut down. It was a horrible feeling. I wanted to find and beat the crap out of the people who ruined it.
I'm looking for a well-written and researched piece that can tell me why copyright and other intellectual property laws are good for society, not just some crap "I just want people to give me money" argument.
I mean, a lot of justifications I've seen for what they're doing are based around legal arguments (some would say loops). I'm actually more interested in the ethical side of things. Why is making it hard for people to share ethical?
These guys are heroes. They're putting their asses on the line for our right to copy - may it be equal to everyone else's - end copyright now.
Yes, part of this is about your right to copy. Personal copies, and fair use a part of this debate. But don't kid yourself. The serious issue here is not the right to copy. It is the right to copy and then distribute copies in a way that infringes on or negates the right of the creator to distribute or sell the product. In effect it is about the right to steal.
If you were distributing bread out of the back of a bakery without the baker's permission, on the theory that everyone has a right to bread, you might have plenty of takers. But you would have not a moral leg to stand on. It would not matter that you have a cool technological way to take the bread off the shelves, nor that the baker charges more that you think the bread should cost, nor that the bread would have gone uneaten had you not taken it and given it away. Nor would any other argument that gives you the power to distribute the bread in any way or for any reason that is against the wishes of its creator.
People would simply recognize it for the theft that it is. And that would be true, any way you slice it.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
the verb 'to publish' comes from Latin: 'publicare', which in turns means 'make public'. 'to public a song/book/work' means to 'make it public'! Once it is public you can not claim it back and/or ask money for it. Pretend to make money out of something which is public has been the dogma of many smart arses since the middle age, but if u really look at it, it make no sense at all! If artists want to get money out of their work, they should just do that: work! Dear musician, get your guitar on your shoulder and start gigging around. Set up a music school. Teach! The time when people made billions out of worthless pieces of plastic (aka CDs) is over. The lads will win at the end, no jail time will be served, no money will be collected from the media industry! This is a Pyrrhic victory, good luck to the IFPI and friends. They surely lost my money -- and the money of many like me. best.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office" - Aesop
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
There's a >slightly more up-to-date diagram on the Pirate Party's site that might be interesting to follow over the next few days.
Just look at those numbers! IPRED being implemented in Sweden has caused a considerable increase in members but it's positively dwarfed by this.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I've always thought that the technological singularity will come when we have these three things: teleportation, replication, and some sort of near-limitless energy source (I'm thinking tapping the sun or some such thing). Basically, these three things should solve most of the global problems of our time.
It'll be interesting to see what society looks like.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
No the real bummer is that so many people like you think that they are not criminals. Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for.
You make a copy. You don't take something.
Just because you're making a copy, doesn't mean that you're not taking something that is not yours. Copyright == the right to copy. Something that according to the law you do not have unless expressly permitted.
And it has been that way for thousands of years.
No, it isn't. You could copy the Mona Lisa until you're green in the face, no problem.
Well - you can do that today. What you can't do is pass it off as the original, neither can you copy somebody else's comparatively recent interpretation of the Mona Lisa without permission.
You fully well know what they are trying to accomplish with their site. Don't pretend like its something its not.
They are providing torrent files. Plain text files. On which no copyright lies, or at least nobody minds that they copy those.
And herein lies what should be the crux of the legal dispute. Separating their intent from their actions. Their intentions should be immaterial in the guilty / not guilty verdict. However, the severity of the sentence *is* determined, at least in part, by their intentions.
It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.
Piracy happens in the coastal waters of Somalia. What you mean is called "copyright infringement".
Agreed. Additionally I disagree that TPB was for "encouraging piracy plain and simple". It did also serve to highlight the discussion of usefulness of current copyright law in the digital age.
That was my point. I was asking a retorical question, I wasn't suggesting that people use TPB for things that could be considered "fair game" (i.e. out of print books), but that they don't.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
However, i believe that the models do exist to fund even large budget movies. For example,a director and set of cast make a very very low budget short film on a handycam. This is posted to the internet. If it is good, the likelihood is that it will receive attention (remember that the internet enables you to reach an audience of billions. A group of 'fans' will emerge perhaps. They would then fund better equipment and sets, maybe the latest version of a FX software. This would enable the team to make another, slightly better film. Continue this cycle 5-10 times and you have a massive group of fans, able between them to fund a large budget film.
Call me naive, but i think the reason that such models are dismissed out of hand is because we live in a society that is so socialised into a certain "business model" style thinking.
Even if we were to loose Hollywood, it would be a worthwhile price to pay for the explosion of ideas that would result. I'd take another Shakespeare over The Matrix anyday.
P.S. Thanks for taking the time to read what is (I admit) a massive post by /. standards. :)
How old are you?
The first rule of Usenet is: you do not talk about Usenet.
I've been using Usenet for years and I'm pretty sure the first rule of Usenet is: Find someone random and abuse them.
The second rule is: Disagree with everything even if it's obviously right.
The third rule is: Cross post everywhere, especially to marginally relevant groups.
The fourth rule is: On-topic is for wimps.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It's 8:51 where you are, and I'm late for school? How egocentric can you be?
I am the lawn!
I am dead on. Hosting the tracker = pointing to other peers for whatever material = not illegal.
I am the lawn!
Ah, the ridiculous sound of the idiot laughing at his liberties being taken from him at gunpoint.
metallica needs cash!!!! metallica made 450 billion dollars last year and they still need money! so contribute to them! BUY THEIR RECORDS CAUSE THEY NEED THEIR CASH!!!!
METALLICA NEEDS MONEY AND THEY NEED CASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!1