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Pirate Bay Legal Action Dropped In Norway

Posted by Soulskill on from the they-see-which-way-the-cold-wind-is-blowing dept.

superapecommando writes "Copyright holders have given up legal efforts to force Norwegian ISP Telenor to block filesharing site The Pirate Bay, one of the parties to the case said. The copyright holders, led by Norway's performing rights society TONO and by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Norway (IFPI Norge), have lost two rounds in the Norwegian court system, and have now decided against appealing the case to Norway's supreme court."

25 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. All that means... by JustShootMe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is that they've figured out another way to accomplish the same ends. It ain't over.

    --
    For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
    1. Re:All that means... by sharkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And remember, when it comes to pseudo-property rights claimed by those who produce nothing of their own, the ends always justify the means.

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
    2. Re:All that means... by C4st13v4n14 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The reason why they keep losing in court is because of strong privacy laws in Norway. In order to sue anyone for downloading copyrighted material, it would require the ISPs to identify users by IP addresses, something which is a very big no-no here.

      We also have an automatic toll system set up in a few places (on highways entering cities, for example) to automatically scan cars' number (license) plates and send bills to the car owners. This information is deleted as soon as the bills are paid and cannot be used by law enforcement. There are also speed cameras all over that take photos of the driver and automatically blur out the passengers. If you get a ticket as the car owner and you were not driving the car, then you don't have to pay it. My wife drives my car and I driver hers, which completely eliminates these sort of fines. Some people drive with burkas and sunglasses! Motorcyclists cannot get fines as they wear helmets. It's quite an interesting system.

      Anyway, this topic has been slashdotted several times already, most recently here.

    3. Re:All that means... by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't you guys get attacked by terrorists every single day then? Because over here in the US if you don't identify everyone based on their IP address we're gonna have 9/11 -EVERY DAY-!

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    4. Re:All that means... by BitHive · · Score: 3, Funny

      What a socialist nightmare!

    5. Re:All that means... by Kjella · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The reason why they keep losing in court is because of strong privacy laws in Norway. In order to sue anyone for downloading copyrighted material, it would require the ISPs to identify users by IP addresses, something which is a very big no-no here.

      Actually, they don't get that far. The biggest blocker for them right now is that their license to store private surveillance data from public networks has been refused by the Data Inspectorate, so they simply aren't getting started. The police is obviously not wasting their time investigating it. Right now the winds are blowing quite strongly in the direction of privacy, we may *crosses fingers* refuse EU's data storage directive, that'll be a first in 16 years.

      In Sweden they know that any real anti-piracy crackdown would bring the Pirate Party into parliament, despite all the noise when the Pirate Party entered the EU parliament last year there's been essentially no legal activity and the file sharing is already at new heights, higher than before the FRA law, It's no wonder why they make their best offers like free Spotify in Scandinavia, they're trying desperately to hold the flood gates.

      It's just like when Microsoft sees they could lose their dominance somewhere and offer a supergood deal to keep them on Windows. They know if copying for non-commercial use is legalized in one country, that country will become the center of all hubs and trackers and seedboxes and vpn services bringing the whole house of cards down. And technology keeps working against them all the time, if you have a 1 Mbit line letting someone leech from you really eats into your bandwidth but if you have 100 Mbit you barely notice. It's just borrowing away a little bit of what you're not using yourself.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    6. Re:All that means... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Funny

      They do, but terrorist attacks are not disclosed to protect the privacy of those involved. ~

    7. Re:All that means... by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Honestly, bring it on.

      Gimme liberty or gimme death got out of fashion, I know. Well, I'm old fashioned.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    8. Re:All that means... by Kjella · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is one of those times where I really like wikipedia:
      Supranational European Bodies

      Norway is the red, white and blue flag that is part of EEA, EFTA and the Schengen area. It's our participation in the EEA which means that we must implement EU directives, to be part of the "inner market" there must be equal market conditions in all countries - a clause interpreted at least as wide as "interstate commerce" in the US constitution. Technically we have a reservation right, but we've never used it. As you can see, there's only two countries left in our bubble, and the other is Iceland that is tiny to begin with, has mostly financially collapsed and is now applying for EU membership. The initial agreement (1994) was good but since the renegotiation in 2004 we gain nothing by standing on the outside. The EU decides, and Norway follows willingly or unwillingly and there's no economic incentive either, we pay the same as if we were EU members.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  2. Meh... by bragr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm still going to be a rebel and buy my games, books, and music anyway. Its what all the cool kids are doing now.

    1. Re:Meh... by jez9999 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I pay a monthly Sky subscription of ~£15/month. I just signed up to sky.com's Sky Player and supplied account info so they knew it was really me, who pays my subscription. They recognized the packages I subscribe to. I wanted to catch up with a House, MD episode. They wanted to charge me £1.50 to 'rent' it (ie. play it once in their player). I just torrented it.

      As long as media corporations are so unreasonable, I reserve the right to say, fuck them. Copyright law should be reformed to allow people to pay what is reasonable, then pirate on a noncommercial basis. It's the lesser of the evils, vs. corps charging what the market will bear.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    2. Re:Meh... by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Pirating windows, contrary to what the parent of my post claimed, does not help microsoft."

      You've forgotten that Bill Gates used to gloat over piracy in places like India. He likes to have his software pirated, for precisely the same reasons he offers huge discounts to schools. Like a drug pusher, he wants to see them hooked early.

      "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not."

      -Bill Gates

      In an interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates admitted to watching pirated movies on the Internet. Here are some excerpts from the interview posted on AOL News:

      MR. MOSSBERG: Talk about YouTube. What do you think about that? Why aren't you doing something like that?

      MR. GATES: If we did YouTube, we'd be in a lot of trouble. First of all, people would say, "How do you make money?" Second, they'd say, what about all that copyright violation taking place up there. It's a neat site. I saw a bunch of old Harlem Globetrotters movies up there the other night, it's great.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:Meh... by justinjstark · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Pirating is not free. Everybody takes a risk by pirating of being sued or wasting our time downloading malware, something of bad quality, or bogus files.

      But, even still, it is always much easier to pirate a movie (for instance) than it is to purchase it. I think most of us who pirate don't just do so because it is free, but also because the non-pirated versions are often DRM-laden, low-quality, and expensive and we are forced to jump through hoops just to get the content we desire.

      For instance, let's say I want to buy the movie "Rounders." What are my options?

      1) Go to the store and buy it for nearly $15 after tax. I would have to drive half way across town and waste a bunch of time. Not to mention $15 is a little steep for an older movie.

      2) Use an online service like Amazon Video on Demand. What? Rounders isn't available? Darn. Even if it were, I would have to pay $3-4 to watch it once or about $10 to "own" it. But owning it only means I can watch it on amazon.com or download it and watch it through their player. What? Their player isn't available on linux? Darn? And I can't play the videos on my netbook (the only computer I own) because a flash-embedded high-quality video plays at about 3 frames per second.

      3) I can go to thepiratebay.org and download Rounders. It takes a half hour to an hour to download a decent quality movie. It uses a standard codec so this high-resolution movie plays wonderfully on my netbook. There is no DRM or flash player to worry about. I have this movie for as long as I want it and can watch it whenever (and on whatever) I want even if I don't have an internet connection.

      If a movie studio started selling XVID (or some other decent codec) movies on their website similar to those found on thepiratebay for a reasonable price ($5) without DRM or any of that other garbage, you can bet your youngest child that I would spend the money rather than pirating it. This new distribution channel (the internet) is changing the way we want to get content and also making distribution cheaper. But the movie studios and distributors are trying to fight this change after it has already happened. Pirating is newly part of the free market system just as was copying your friend's MC Hammer cassette tape. You can make all the arguments you want about pirates pirating because it is free; but, until the distributors make their content available in a decent format at a decent price and allow their consumers the freedom to use this content as desired, your claim doesn't hold as much water.

  3. Re:Aren't they still facing jail time? by Zironic · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is a completely different legal action in an entirely different country. This case was about forcing an ISP to block access to the site.

  4. Buying politicians is cheaper by schwit1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The path of least resistance to the ends they want is via campaign contributions and scare-tactic(child pron, terrorism, etc) lobbying.

    1. Re:Buying politicians is cheaper by linzeal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is not as easy in western Europe as it is the states, but it still happens. People over there are mildly clued into what is going on in their country even if some still do vote out of irrational fears it is nowhere near as prevalent as it is the states. So they expect their politicians to at least appear to do " the right thing ".

      --
      An Education is the Font of All Liberty
  5. Re:Stop stealing you fucking faggots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Stop price fixing and trying to thwart actual fair-use and maybe I would. As I see it, I'm just recovering my lost monies from the days of price fixing before digital media, and from all the albums I lost due to CD rot because I wasn't allowed to make a fair use back up. So until you can play nice, don't expect me to....

  6. Re:It's about time! by Jazz-Masta · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why sue when you know you're gonna LOSE?

    Ask SCO.

  7. ACTA perhaps? by Dan667 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe they do not want to lose in the Norwegian Supreme Count that would allow invalidation of ACTA if it is ever implemented in its current terrible form. Governments should not be involved in a the failure of a business model. Organizations like the RIAA need to stop treating their Customers like Criminals.

  8. Pirate Bay appeals likely to start in September by angry+tapir · · Score: 3, Informative

    In other Pirate Bay-related news: "The case against the four people involved in the running of Pirate Bay is heading back to court at the end of September. The appeals trial is tentatively scheduled to start on Sep 28., the Svea Court of Appeals said on Wednesday."

  9. Re:How many years? by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe these litigious companies will realize, one day, there's a reason why.

    Why? The public in general hates the lawyers, not the people who hire them. In fact, the lawyers are acting as a defensive shield for the public scorn that should be heaped on the organizations that hire them to carry out their legal asshattery. As long as people hate the lawyers without questioning who stands behind them, the organizations that hire them will continue to get off scot free.

    --
    That is all.
  10. Re:I'm a troll--so sue me. by Djupblue · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Copyright is not property right. Is it so hard to understand the difference between stealing and sharing? The point of copyright is to ensure the publics access to new and old books and music. It is not for making media companies rich. Learn your history.

  11. Re: Norway Is A Sane Nation! by mjwx · · Score: 3, Funny

    What do you expect, Norway is run by the Norse. The Norse used to be called the Vikings. The Vikings were basically land pirates, coming ashore to pillage, plunder and raze as opposed to capturing ships and booty on the high seas.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  12. Re:I'm a troll--so sue me. by Djupblue · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Copyright was created to enforce censorship. it was created to stop people from criticizing the state and the church. Copyright was a monopoly granted to printers in exchange for only printing what the government approved of. It was much later reformed to consider the rights of authors and such. Since then it has degenerated into this so called "intellectual property" that implies that you can own ideas. It is stupid.

    Yes, it is in the interest of the public that writers and musicians can make money of their trade so they can provide the public with new works. It is not in the publics interest to give an artificial monopoly on copying works for over 100 years without getting anything in return. It is not in the publics interest to be extorted into paying thousands of dollars for sharing music with each other. When you consider the economic profit of doing something you consider if it will be profitable within 10 years. Maximum. The current situation is ridiculous.

    If you sell something to someone, normal property right tells that the buyer now owns said property. He can do with it as he pleases. Including making copies of it and distribute. Copyright is an artificial infringement of the buyers ownership that prevents him from distributing copies of it.

  13. Re:I'm a troll--so sue me. by jellyfrog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it costs more than you want to pay then you don't get to have it. Simple. If you wouldn't have bought it anyway then you still don't get to have it.

    And why would that be? Can you justify this rule?

    This may be news to you, but laws and rules generally have to have a reason to exist. The law against stealing bread exists for a reason - because stealing harms the person you steal from - it doesn't exist for its own sake. How does downloading something one would never have otherwise paid for harm anyone? It doesn't. Ergo, there is no moral reason for this to be forbidden by law, and no moral reason not to do it.