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The Pirate Bay Seeks Interesting Route To "Pay" Fine

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the crowd-sourced dept.

Drivintin is one of many who have written to tell us about how The Pirate Bay has taken an interesting approach to the 30 million SEK fine levied in their recent court case (which they said they wont pay). "The bill inspired anakata to devise a plan involving sending money to Danowsky's law firm, but not to pay the fine of course which they say will never be paid. Anakata's clever plan is called internet-avgift, internet-fee in English. Anakata encourages all Internet users to pay extremely small sums around 1 SEK (0.13 USD) to Danowsky's law firm, which represented the music companies at the Pirate Bay trial. The music companies will not benefit from this, instead it will cost them money to handle and process all the money."

14 of 545 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome by NerdyLove · · Score: 4, Informative

    So for winning the court case, they still have to pay. I approve.

    1. Re:Awesome by sopssa · · Score: 5, Informative

      The summary is incomplete here. They also asked users to request their payment to be reversed as 'false payment', and thats where the extra fees come from, as the swedish law firm is obligated to process them and send back to the payer.

    2. Re:Awesome by PJ1216 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just paying 1 SEK will cause extra fees for the firm once the 1000 free transactions for the account has been used up. After that, it costs 2 SEK to process the 1 SEK payment. Therefore, they lose 1 SEK every time you pay 1 SEK. The 'false payment' is a double whammy, but not required.

    3. Re:Awesome by praksys · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't know how the law works in Sweden, but in most English speaking countries fraud requires some element of misrepresentation and some means to benefit from that misrepresentation. You don't have either in this case.

    4. Re:Awesome by supernova_hq · · Score: 4, Informative

      fraud

      n. the intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right.

      Fraud

      Wikipedia is great and all, but please don't use it for legal advice...

    5. Re:Awesome by digitalunity · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's fraud in the US if you do it for gain. Example: You go to Walmart, buy a TV and call your credit card company telling them the TV was broken and walmart wouldn't take it back. They would do a chargeback on Walmart and that would constitute fraud.

      It's not quite that simple in this case. If you contribute 1 SEK towards TPB's fine and then have to ask for it back later when(if) a retrial finds them innocent, that's hardly fraud. Not sure if it will work the way they're expecting though.

      I know in the US, my understanding(IANAL) is that retailers are only required to accept $50 in coins for any debt. Sweden may have similar laws precluding this law firm from being required to accept payments below a certain amount.

      --
      You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
  2. Re:Something doesn't quite make sense, here... by Burkin · · Score: 4, Informative

    Come again? Anyone who wants to "punish" me by sending me 13 cents, by all means feel free.

    If 30 million people each pay one Sek, how does that not pay the fine? And does Sweden not have some sort of teeth to their court-imposed penalties whereby simply not paying means people go to jail?

    There are these things called processing fees. The point is to send them an amount that is less than the amount it takes the process the incoming amounts and as such they use money on each transaction. This is pretty standard for services like Paypal or other internet money transfers.

  3. Re:That's an interesting way to bankrupt a company by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Depending on the law in your jurisdiction, you might be obligated. At least in the US, businesses aren't obligated to sell you goods or services for legal tender if they don't feel like it; but creditors are obligated to accept legal tender as payment for debts.

    "The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.""

    TPB are, obviously, not in the US and the law may well be different and paying in the equivalent of pennies might fall under some sort of "court's discretion to smack down raging assholes" provision.

  4. text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pirate Bay Founder Devises DDo$ Attack

    Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm (aka anakata) recieved a bill for the 30 million SEK that he, along with Peter Sunde (aka brokep), Fredrik Neij (aka TiAMO), and Carl Lundstrom, was fined in the verdict of the Pirate Bay trial just over three weeks ago. The bill inspired anakata to devise a plan involving sending money to Danowskyâ(TM)s law firm, but not to pay the fine of course which they say will never be payed. Anakataâ(TM)s clever plan is called internet-avgift, internet-fee in English. Anakata encourages all Internet users to pay extremely small sums around 1 SEK (0.13 USD) to Danowskyâ(TM)s law firm, which represented the music companies at the Pirate Bay trial. The music companies will not benefit from this, instead it will cost them money to handle and process all the money.

    The plan can be called a Distributed Denial of Dollars attack (DDo$). The plan is an away-from-keyboard DDoS attack. DDoS attacks involve lots of users overloading the victim with internet traffic damaging their ability to provide services. Money, instead of Internet traffic is used in this case. The victim is Danowskyâ(TM)s law firm which represented the IFPI at the Pirate Bay trial.

    A friend of anakata told Blog Pirate that the bank account to which the payments are directed has only 1000 free transfers, after which any transfers have a surcharge of 2 SEK for the account holder. Any internet-fee payments made after the first 1000, which includes the law firmâ(TM)s ordinary transfers, will instead of giving 1 SEK, cost 1 SEK to the law firm. Since Danowsky & Partners AdvokatbyrÃ¥ is a small firm, all the transactions are handled by hand. Handling all payments will be time consuming, costing the law firm in productivity. Maybe it will even affect their success in other cases.

    Make direct payments to
    Danowsky & Partners Advokatbyrå KB. Plusgiro 79 31 21-5.

    Additionally if after paying the internet-fee you determine that your payment was erroneous, Swedish law states that you can request the money back, putting an additional load on Danowskyâ(TM)s law firm.

    Since the Pirate Bay crew was provided with such clear, logical, and well explained methods for calculating the damages in the trial, an explanation on how the internet-fee was calculated is provided. Use the formula below, substituting anything anywhere, to check that the internet-fee really is 1 SEK.formel

    [MATH DIAGRAM GOES HERE]

    The name internet-avgift, as well as the layout of the site is based on tv-avgift and they layout of its site. Radiojanst, a state owned company, is responsible for collecting TV license fees in Sweden.

    1. Re:text by sub67 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I believe the idea here is to make the payment for them and in the event that TPB was found to not be liable for the damages, everybody that paid will be able to retract their payment at the processing expense of the law firm. Not simply pay and ask for your money back. I could be wrong and it could be THAT exploitable, but that's how I understood it at least.

  5. I know where they had the idaea from by hubert.lepicki · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is that priest-radical in Poland, who is known as Father Rydzyk, and all young people hate him and his movement. So they decided support him by sending 0.01 PLN (about 0.003 USD) each. Lots of students did just that, each one paying 0.01 PLN.

    The case was that Father Rydzyk's movement was having special deal with banks, that they were paying all fees for incoming money. So, for each 0.01 PLN paid in, they had to pay about 1 USD - now this where Swedish guys had the idea from!

  6. Re:As seen on right here... by Burkin · · Score: 5, Informative

    He wasn't just a member he was on the board of directors of one of the copyright lobby groups.

  7. Re:That's an interesting way to bankrupt a company by QuoteMstr · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's a $0.25 limit on payment in small coins (e.g., pennies) and a $10 limit on payment in large coins

    There is no such limit.

  8. The argument of convenience by westlake · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well then it's a good thing TPB guys didn't download anything.

    The ordinary meaning of infringement is "an an encroachment on the rights or privileges of others." infringement

    In plain English, if you maintain a clearing house for the illicit P2P trade you are as guilty as the traders themselves.

    This is not exactly a novel principle in civil and criminal law - and the geek might usefully ask himself if he really wants to see it eroded.

    just make sure your bribe is big enough to get your personal law enacted...

    I would like to introduce a modest compliment to Godwin's Law:

    When the geek launches into a rant on the theme of bribery, all hope of intelligent discussion has ended.