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The Pirate Bay Ordered To Block Dutch Users
secmartin writes "In a totally unexpected ruling, a Dutch court has decided that The Pirate Bay should block visitors from the Netherlands within 10 days or face a fine of €30,000 per defendant per day. Peter Sunde has already announced that he will appeal the ruling. Even though the defendants sent a letter explaining that they were unable to come to the hearing and provided arguments in their favor, these were ignored by the judge because they failed to appear in his court. The full text of the ruling was just published (in Dutch, PDF) by Peter Sunde, and further coverage is available at Forbes."
... is a big deal in most courts, as far as I know.
Even for something like a traffic ticket, if the cop doesn't show up in court, you're let off... (in the US anyways)
How would TBP know that the visitors were from the Netherlands anyway? As far as I know, there is not much to go buy other than an IP address, which can easily be hidden by almost any proxy.
Remcokatz on twitter was nice enough to translate the verdict into english and put the result on.
What we need to do, is get a US judge to order the Dutch Judge to over turn the ruling or face a fine of $100,000(US) for every Dutch user that is prevented from accessing the Pirate Bay. ...
On a side note, does the Judge realize that a simple proxy server can bypass his ruling? There is NO WAY to enforce such a stupid ruling. The Technically Illiterate should not be making what amounts to a new law regarding Technological issues.
This whole thing would be silly if the pointy headed elites weren't involved. Is it me, or are they (pointy headed elites) some of the stupidest people on the planet or what?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Seattle, WA - The Kingdom of the Netherlands has been ordered to pay Irving Schwartzmizzlegub $50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 for causing his pet cockerspanial , Peppy-dee, to die. Judge Thomas Hikemyjacksbitchpeople awarded Schwartzmizzlegub the large sum because, in his own words "These fucking people live by dikes, and I got Herpes in Amsterdam when I was 20."
Schwartzmizzlegub alleged that the osmotic psychowaves emanating from several Dutch cities caused little Peppy-dee to spiral into canine depression, prostitute himself at a nearby 7-11, and ultimately take his own life by leaping into the Slurpee machine.
The large size of the award is assumed to be because the Kingdom of the Netherlands never appeared in court. A representative of the Dutch ambassador tried to explain that countries can't actually move, but the judge rejected that, called the Ambassador's representative "a sub-German freek" and made the award.
Schwartzmizzlegub is planning to use the money to clone Elvis and make him into a sex-slave.
This article is protected by nuclear technology by AP
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I guess there's something to be said for sovereignty. Seems the main effect of the European Union has been to limit individual rights.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They do not have. But this was a 'kort geding'. It has no equivalent in US law. You could compare it to a preliminary injunction or summary judgement.
BREIN simply states: The rights of the artists we represent are violated (under Dutch copyright law you cannot offer services that allow third parties to infringe upon the copyrights of others), and this happens in the Netherlands, and it happens now and it needs to be stopped quickly because the damages cannot continue.
The TPB could have said, or could have sent someone who would have said: 'BREIN is lying, nothing is offered in the Netherlands' or whatever. Since they failed to show up and didn't send someone to represent them the judge, who does not do a full investigation of the facts, only has the 'evidence' BREIN provides.
From that point of view it is a clear violation of Dutch copyright law, which is happening under Dutch jurisdiction (albeit by Swedish persons) which needs to stop. And, since TPB was not there, they are 'convicted in absentia'. This is a normal course of events.
If you do not show up, the only thing the judge can do is check whether the claims are not blatantly unlawful. And if not, they are almost always awarded. As happened here. Most lawyers could have told them this would happen if they didn't send someone and the judge deemed it probable they did hear they were summoned.
The latter is so you can't run and hide in order to escape conviction.