Slashdot Mirror
The Pirate Bay Is Being Sued Again
BuR4N writes with news that 10 US movie companies have filed a suit in Swedish civil court seeking to shut down The Pirate Bay and impose a fine on its three former operators, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde, as well as the site's bandwidth supplier. Speaking to TorrentFreak, Sunde said, "It's another day in the whole soap opera of TPB. They're suing us in Stockholm where none of us live. They're suing us over something which we don't own. I think the most funny part of the whole suit is that they just write: 'Reservella is a company run by Fredrik Neij' — out of 40 pages of paper that's all they have to say, and it's so wrong. They have no paperwork to back it up." Meanwhile, plans for The Pirate Bay to be sold to Global Gaming X seem to have stalled.
More big media companies going after money. Maybe it is just my thought but why can't American companies just bother the Americans and not everyone else. This is why people hate us!
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
The 'content' companies are either geniuses or morons in how they throw lawsuits out like last year's fashions. If some stick, win! If not, raise prices or sue another grandma. I don't know Swedish law or how the court system works, but from the summary (no, I did not RTFs) this sounds like a wild shot in the dark.
I do not believe in piracy, but I also do not believe in the 'content' companies policies, rules, or regulations. Exactly why do we still need region coding on DVDs? At least I still have my local library to rent (for free, well, except for local taxes) books.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Not really a smart move by the movie industry. TPB is currently trying to transform into something more cooperative. Probably something that even the movie industry could strike a deal from. Suing would only make this process more difficult, halt it or even prevent it. But that's hardly a suprise as they are arrogant and doesn't hesitate one bit to play the legal card rather then making the slightest effort to adopt to the new digital era. Thanks to the last trial, Sweden now have a Pirate Party politican in the europeean parlament. I wonder whats next.
"All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- The history of the present is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over [the citizens]. The government has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance."
I say
-revolt. The is NO natural right to stop someone from copying your book, or song, or filmed play. The only natural right is the right to lock it into a safe and hide it from view, but you do Not have a right to stop someone from using their own pen-and-paper, or tape recorder, or computer, however they desire. It's THEIR property, not yours.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
if I make alot of money through a company I own which is involved with illegal behaviour - selling the company does NOT strip you free from all crimes.
"involved with illegal behaviour" is an interesting phrase.
It doesn't quite say that what TPB itself is doing is illegal, does it? Only that it's "involved" - a pretty nebulous term really, when you think about it. Is what THEY are doing illegal? That's the question.
But for you, being "involved" with illegal behaviour is apparently illegal itself already, or at least enough to be held responsible for that illegal behaviour of others you're involved with. Moreover, you apparently have no qualms about equating "illegal behaviour" with "crime", either, even though the two are quite different (all crimes are illegal, but not vice versa - or are you a convicted felon just because you once parked your car in a no-parking zone and got a ticket?).
But none of this matters, anyway.
What does matter is what the law says, and it's wholly unclear to me that TPB broke any Swedish laws; and not everything that is unethical is automatically unlawful and thus grounds for prosecution.
Similarly, even if what they did IS illegal, that doesn't mean it's necessarily unethical, and whether they're "just getting what they deserve" is also something that people can quite reasonably disagree on.
They havn't commited any crimes or "illigal behaviour". Unless you're talking about the extemly vague "participation", according to a judge with none to small insight in how the their technology worked, that was biased (according to common sense, he was a member of a copyright organization), in a trial that spawned from an investigation by a cop that quit and got a job at Warner Bros.
TPB is hashmapping files and tracking what hashes diffrent IP addresses downloads. Since they where not publishing, nor distributing, any material, they had no obligation to filter it. Linking is not a crime.
By selling the company they where actually doing the industry a favour, trying to make it more compliant. Two things could happen, it could either transform into something better, or it would be the death of TPB (most likely). Both scenarios are favourable by the industry. But since the distributors rather kill themselves than ever regonizing anything that could spawn out of the pirate community, they choose to sue them some more, kick them while they're laying down.
I've got news for you. The EU are even bigger bitches to Big Content than the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, folks. When they're not allowed to indulge in their scummy rent-seeking in the US, they'll try it on in Europe, hoping to set some dangerous precedents with which to further erode our rights.
Big Content doesn't generate anywhere near as many jobs as they claim , their products are mostly garbage, and they contribute very little to the cultural life of the countries they infest. And they demand privileged treatment all the time, whilst attacking our rights as citizens.
No corporate welfare for Big Content!
"Intellectual Property" (sic) has just become the most valuable thing on the planet. So, naturally enough, the wealthier portion of humanity wants to own and control most of it.
It is also "abundant," (can be replicated infinitely, by anyone, at zero cost).
So, as we have seen before, the wealthy destroy this abundance by passing laws to create artificial scarcity. They have every incentive to do this.
The flippant public attitude that TPB is showing will not protect them from the wrath of the rich.
I will add....America has very few exports now. IP is basically it. So, it is in the interest of America's wealthy to impose strict IP laws (and hence artificial scarcity) all over the planet.
It isn't that they refuse to listen to reason....it is that they are following their obvious incentives to their logical conclusions. Expect more. Much more.
Well, you do that enough and you get high on powerful enemy hit lists. Don't kid yourself, power multinationals bought off that Swedish judge and make this into a kangaroo court. It's probably one of the biggest travesties of justice of all time, the slope is so fucking slippery. They may as well sue the IETF or ARIN for giving out IP addresses to enable piracy. That's how egregious the law was twisted for the interests of powerful capitalists.
There's a chance TPB pissed off the enemy enough that they will be irresponsible in their retaliation, falter, and some good will come out of this.
I think events recently have made it absolutely clear that there will be no justice in the courts, anywhere. Specifically, the previous Pirate Bay trial where the judge was an advocate for the plaintiff's cause, and Sony v. Tenenbaum where the judge refused to allow a fair use defense to be presented to the jury. The fix is in.
>>>>>Once a book, song, or movie exists, it can be mass-produced at zero cost... For example if Disney could convince every person on earth to buy "Fantasia" from itunes.com, they'd get ~40 billion dollars profit and no manufacturing cost
>>>>>
>>Except that Fantasia, with its hand drawn cells, is... hideously expensive to make.
Except that Fantasia only cost Mr. Disney 0.003 billion to produce. He paid-off that bill in the 1960s, so every digital copy today's Disney Company sells online would literally be zero cost. And pure profit.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Do you really not see the difference?
That's not it at all! To get the slashdot crowd to understand your argument, you just need to rephrase it to a more familiar syntax:
$library =~ /(sale)+/ /(sale)?/
$pirate =~
See? To a publisher, the difference between a library and a pirate is like the difference between the + and ? quantifiers!
They are involved with "illegal behavior"?
So, when a stolen laptop gets sold on eBay, why isn't the CEO and Board of Directors of eBay hauled off to jail? Why hasn't the owner of the stolen laptop sued the pants off eBay? Isn't eBay involved with "illegal behavior"?
ebay just facilitates the sale between teo individuals. eBay does "sell" the item, nor do they "warehouse" or "own" the item.
Similarly, The Pirate Bay doesn't "host" the file(s), movies, MP3s, or anything. They facilitate a transaction between uploaders and downloaders, but TPB doesn't "own" the file, doesn't sell the file, doesn't "warehouse" the file.
If TPB is involved in "illegal behavior", then similarly, eBay is just as involved, and perhaps even more so, as eBay deals in tangible physical property that can be "stolen", but I don't see an army of lawyers queueing up to go after eBay.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Many movies are hideously expensive to make.
With monopoly rights and the ability to exact huge revenue streams from the economy, many movies become hideously expensive to make.
Without monopoly rights (if you believe in free markets) we'd see far more efficient use of the money, and movies would become much cheaper to make. Perhaps the pure technical quality would trail a bit, but then again, without copyright it would be much cheaper and easier to build upon older works, removing costs for double work.