Slashdot Mirror
Pirate Bay Legal Action Dropped In Norway
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."
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.
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.
Why sue when you know you're gonna LOSE?
Ask SCO.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.