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The Pirate Bay Seeks Interesting Route To "Pay" Fine
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."
Does Sweden have contempt of court?
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Reminds me of people who try to pay the government in pennies, or I guess that dimes would be more appropriate in this case. However, it's the pirate bay who owes the money, and need to pay, not 'random people'. I suppose that they could collect the (I'm guessing) coins and haul it to them in wheelbarrows, but it's likely that's been done to lawyers already and it's somehow prohibited.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Now there's a flaw in our economy that's waiting to be exploited. Handling fees that are higher than the amount received, effectively draining the company of cash.
It would also drain resources and create massive amounts of paperwork. Even though the process may be mostly automated I'd hate to revise those books, assuming enough people had done this.
Kind of like a distributed denial of service attack.
Of course it's easily remedied by blocking all cash transfers under a certain amount. I guess you're not obliged to accept money, but still it'd cause some extra work. Probably not enough to bring any given company down, but an interesting thought nonetheless.
computers let you make more mistakes faster, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.
This does not scare the unemployed college student :-)
I had a friend in grad school whose credit card company screwed up his billing to the tune of 56 cents. He turned on the TV, poured himself a drink, and sat on the phone talking (wasting the time of) various people for hours over days until they just gave him the 56 cents (they never admitted wrong doing).
I remember this because I visited his apartment on the second day of his quest and thought to myself: "He's still at this?". While he was on the phone, the TV cut to breaking news of OJ Simpson leading police on a chase in a white Bronco. The CC company gave up about the same time as OJ.
they should have tried a legal ddos first.
On the one hand, I applaud them as Magnificent Bastards for devising a plan by which they can stick it to the big corps.. but on the other hand, I wonder whether it's really wise at this point to poke them with a stick like that.
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Didn't TPB appeal?
Indeed. I always find that the best target for my shenanigans is a law firm. It's not like they have a bunch of people sitting around looking for people to sue. These transactions are not covered under the traditional currency/check laws. At least in the US, even a penny is legal tender and can't be rejected because of its denomination (although you can for other reasons. ie: the credit union at work has stopped taking change citing floor weight restrictions). But then these aren't using currency at all. After the first 1000 the law firm can easily figure out what is going on and either stop taking payment altogether, make a minimum payment requirement, or back charge the fee. After which they would then sick their lawyers on TPB, or those who make payment and ensure that they lost a heck of a lot more in legal fees.
That's definitely easier than abusing the banking system and pissing of a law firm that is known for it's bad temper with these silly "dog poop on the porch"-shenanigans. Doesn't exactly speak for the integrity of the "we're innocent" point the guys are trying to make when they start calling for crap like that. Even when it's hearsay evidence from some unrelated third party. Each one will have their account registered by the lawyers and they will definitely try to do "something" against the people who actually transfer money. They'll probably find a way to get the banks to hand out the names or such. I don't know what but as we all know ... they get kinda "creative" when it comes to annoying of the young'uns. To me this is just stupid. If anyone cares ... wait for the second trial (which is coming -no doubt) and after we win just send them the pennies anyway but don't ask for them back. They will need the money.
India got independence with actions like this. Farmers and fishers use it all the time quite successfully. The idea is simple: Make it unprofitable for others to oppose you.
I live in Norway (country next to sweden). And the way banking works here is that it doesn't cost ME anything to transfer money. But companies have to pay for every little part of their banking, so they have to pay to send/receive money.
As for the "reversed false payment". That's a law that says if someone accidentally transfers money to someone and then makes the recipient aware of the mistake, then the recipient is obliged to return the money. There was an interesting case where a woman had made a typo in the bank account field and transferred a large amount of money to a total stranger. The total stranger then used all the money on gambling. Once the mistake had been found out it was too late (seeing as how all the money was gone), so the woman took the total stranger to court and won.
I'm not sure how applicable this is seeing how the amount of money is so small, but i guess it might still be valid.
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In some ways, it's like repackaging all of those unwanted mail solicitations, stuffing them back into the postage-paid return envelope (the one intended for your subscription slip, check, or other payment), and dropping it into the mail. The company that sent the junk not only has to pay for the postage (more than the amount normally incurred for a one-sheet reply slip), but also to discard the additional junk mail in the envelope.
Definately not nice, but seemingly poetic justice.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
There's a $0.25 limit on payment in small coins (e.g., pennies) and a $10 limit on payment in large coins (e.g., quarters). These limits were put into place prior to the 1965 coinage act, but their application has never been tested in court. If you want to be the one, go ahead. My guess is that the court will uphold the "reasonable" limit on coin payment and you'll be out court costs.
The processing fees might be aggregated on monthly basis or so. What then? I could not believe banks are unable or unprepared to handle micro-payments.
If such an attack is possible then something is obviously wrong. This might negatively affect any business that handles credit cards. Pretty much any firm is vulnerable.
Wouldn't it only be fraud if you paid and received the service for which you paid just to keep the service and take your money back? It seems the "service" or good your putting your money on is the record companies 'bill' so if you pay a portion and request your money back before the bill is paid in full the bill is still owed and your just paying to help-a-friend kind of thing
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Kinda like sitting at the front of the bus when it's illegal to do so. Trivial and childish sounding yes, but society changing nonetheless.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I don't use P2P but for everyone else I say go for it. Rob those bastards blind. Why? One sentence: Steamboat Willie is still under copyright. Think about that for a minute. That man has been worm food (or a Popsicle depending on who you believe) for a half a fricking century and yet his first work, one made when cars were started with a crank and antibiotics were just a crazy dream, is STILL under copyright.
Copyrights were a CONTRACT, nothing more. In return for a LIMITED copyright We, The People got a richer Public Domain. Instead they used outright bribery to corrupt our politicians and buy our laws away from us. So I say screw the thieving bastards. Let them rot. They used their money to steal our public domain away from us so if someone wants to steal from the thieves I say more power to them. I just can't be bothered because I honestly think their product is shit and isn't even worth stealing. But frankly expecting us to feel so sorry for those thieving bastards is just pushing it too far. Put the copyrights back to the way they were for over a century and quit robbing our public domain!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm not sure how applicable this is seeing how the amount of money is so small, but i guess it might still be valid.
Well, I don't really see how they're going to argue credibly that thousands of people "accidentally" transferred tiny sums of money to the same law firm just after the public request to do so from the TPB guys, so I don't really see how it's going to be applicable at all.
I would expect to see a virus by the end of the week doing exactly what they have suggested, donating 1 SEK at a time at several minute intervals. It might even be so kind as to ask for a credit card number, before doing it, or offer a maximum number of transfers. Maybe put this virus up on TPB, labeled as "Windows 7 Keygen".
This way, next week when this "virus" is picked up on, anyone using it can claim that it infected their computers and stole their credit card information.