Norwegian Lawyers Must Stop Chasing File Sharers

Skapare sends word from TorrentFreak that Norway's Simonsen law firm has lost their license to pursue file sharers. "Just days after Norway's data protection department told ISPs they must delete all personal IP address-related data three weeks after collection, it's now become safer than ever to be a file-sharer in Norway. The only law firm with a license to track pirates has just seen it expire and it won't be renewed." Skapare adds, "Sounds like Norway's government treats privacy seriously. Maybe they've been watching the abuses in the USA. More info on the Norwegian perspective in this Google translation from Dagbladet.no."

Comments

Re:Yarrrrr...

[Mr2001]

No, there is legitimate competition which harms a business, and there is illegitimate ways of harming a busines. They are NOT the same thing.

Sure, but now you're begging the question by asserting that one form of competition is "illegitimate" while other forms are not.

I believe it's every bit as "legitimate" as offering any other identical products. They're not interfering with anyone else's stock, blocking customers from accessing anyone else's store, etc. They're just offering the same thing for less and letting customers choose the better deal.

Consider a town with two theaters showing the same movie; one charges $9.50 for a ticket and the other charges $10. I expect you'd say that's legitimate competition because both theaters have the studio's permission to show that movie. But I'd say the studio's permission has no bearing on the legitimacy of either theater's operation: as long as they own a projector and a few reels of film, it's automatically "legitimate" for them to charge people to sit on their property and watch the film.

I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your post because even though you're wrong, I have very little confidence that I can convince you that you are wrong.

Well, I also doubt that you can convince me of that, just as I doubt I can convince you that you're wrong. Such things rarely happen in online debates.

But it's still unfortunate that you skipped what I think were the most important parts of that post, the last two responses: I think I did serious damage to the claim that people are entitled to get paid for unsolicited work they've already done, and to the claim that granting a monopoly on copies is anything like paying your employees. I had hoped to at least see your take on those points.