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Pirate Bay Trio Lose Appeal
nk497 writes "Three of the four founders of The Pirate Bay have lost an appeal against their conviction last year of helping to share copyrighted material. It wasn't a total waste of time, however. The three have had their one-year jail sentences cut to between four and ten months. (The fourth founder was too ill to appear in court, and will appeal separately.) The foursome also had their fine bumped from 32 million kronor ($4.5 million) to 46 million kronor ($6.5 million)."
Where freedom is a crime.
So they basically exchanged time for money.
In soviet Sweden, Fine bumps you!
Yet the pirate bay still stands tall. We best start ordering some of those tshirt they advertise to help pay their fine.
So, based on 12 mos, to 10 mos, and 4.5 => 6.5. I'd rather do 16 1/2 months and not give them a dime.
I'm sure that's not a real option...
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By the way, who gets the money (besides the lawyers)? Sweden, or the *IAA?
...and aiding and abetting a crime is also a crime.
... Do you know where the nearest convenience store is?
Me: Yes, take this street to the first light, turn right, it's 3 blocks down on the left.
(later)
Police: You are under arrest for aiding in the robbery and murder of three convenience store clerks.
In Sweden, I would be very hesitant about giving directions since merely pointing in the direction a crime may take place can land you in jail.
I'm as big a geek as the next slashdot guy but I just don't see how you can support piracy, as a software developer that has to make a living from writing software my lively-hood depends on profiting from my own work. Why do so many people believe that the pirate bay is a good thing when clearly it is not.
You know what they about squeezing blood from a rock...
Good luck collecting.
I realize I'm responding to an AC who is probably just trolling, but I'd like to point out here that by definition, a crime is only a violation of criminal law. In the United States, copyright is covered under civil law, which is entirely different from criminal law. Therefore, copyright infringement is not a crime. Okay, that's only usually true, as there are very specific circumstances which constitute felony copyright infringement, but in the majority of cases, the police cannot just come and bust down your door and take you away because you pulled down a few songs.
Now, my stupid question is this: Is this also the case in Sweden? Or is copyright part of Swedish criminal law?
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
The article is a bit sparse on info. Why did they lose the appeal?
Wasn't the origonal Judge working for the Swedish copyright lobby? Wasn't that good enough reason to thow out the case?
To be honest that's part of why people use it, but there are more issues involved:
1. Ridiculous copyright length. This means you have to pay again and again for stuff that's become part of culture, i.e. as I mentioned in a previous posting quite a while back, in my view the media companies get to have a stranglehold on your memories, on nostalgia. Stuff may not be great but may be nostalgic. Why should I have to pay (again!) to watch/use it? Why should people get to be rewarded for something that may not be good, but only be enjoyable for a reason not having anything to do with its 'real' value?
2. Attitude of the RIAA and similar groups in just about all countries.
3. Having to pay for media/printers/copying machines/video camera's because you might copy something with a copyright with/onto it. This happens in many countries, so why should I feel I'm doing something unethical if I'm paying for the 'just in case' scenario whether I do or not?
I can go on but this is enough to show your response is rather simplistic.
......population reduction.
Anyone smart enough to wrap their head around this?
There are criminal laws governing copyright.
Taken straight from copyright.gov.
506. Criminal offenses
(a) Criminal Infringement. —
(1) In general. — Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed —
(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.
(2) Evidence. — For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement of a copyright.
(3) Definition. — In this subsection, the term “work being prepared for commercial distribution” means —
(A) a computer program, a musical work, a motion picture or other audiovisual work, or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution —
(i) the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution; and
(ii) the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed; or
(B) a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution, the motion picture —
(i) has been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility; and
(ii) has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States in a format intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility.
(b)(b) Forfeiture, Destruction, and Restitution.—Forfeiture, destruction, and restitution relating to this section shall be subject to section 2323 of title 18, to the extent provided in that section, in addition to any other similar remedies provided by law.
(c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice. — Any person who, with fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
(d) Fraudulent Removal of Copyright Notice. — Any person who, with fraudulent intent, removes or alters any notice of copyright appearing on a copy of a copyrighted work shall be fined not more than $2,500.
(e) False Representation. — Any person who knowingly makes a false representation of a material fact in the application for copyright registration provided for by section 409, or in any written statement filed in connection with the application, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
(f) Rights of Attribution and Integrity. — Nothing in this section applies to infringement of the rights conferred by section 106A(a).
Its just that the RIAA and MPAA are the bigger evil. The judge in the first trial was member of a copyright lobby, but has still been found unbiased by other judges of the same lobby. There is also the behavior of the police before the trial.
This is not only about copyright this is about corruption.
What he fails to say is how the courts have interpreted these subsections--how the laws have been applied.
And, if you read it, it talks about distribution.
And, if you read it, it is US law, not the law of other countries.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Only the RIAA, MPAA and judges have millions in their bank account. Most people would need to live 500 years to be able to pay such amounts.
It's pretty plain to see that the Swedish legal system has been hijacked by the media industry.
Typical fines dished out recently by the courts in Sweden...
Murder: 75000kr (£6825)
Rape of a 14 year old girl: 50000kr (£4550)
Pirate Bay fine for aiding Copyright infringment: 46000000kr (£4.1 million)
I'm not saying that they haven't done anything wrong (although if they have done something wrong then it's hard to understand why Google haven't been indicted as their index contains many, many more links to torrent files than the Pirate Bay's does), but lets get this in perspective. The fine is outrageous and has absolutely no basis in reality. Another thing to mention is that this is not the end of the road. The Pirate Bays guys have already said they will appeal this ruling. There is one higher court in Sweden to appeal to and they have already said they will appeal to the European Court in Brussels if necessary.
-The main charge was "aiding copyright violation". The decision of the court is mainly based on the fact that TPB did nothing to prevent it and that they in every way advertised that you could download copyrighted stuff on their site. The fact that this can be done with Google or any other search engine is beside the point according to the court. Google cooperates at least to a limited extent with copyright holders while TPB made a point of pissing them off.
- According to the court indifference to the possibility of the copyright violations occurring is not enough as an argument to let them off the hook. This is not so much a controversial point in the guilty verdict but a very controversial one when it comes to sentencing.
-According to Swedish law you can be found guilty of aiding even if the perpetrators of the main crime (i.e copyright violations) is unknown and the full extent of the crime is unknown as well.
-According to the court information provider neutrality as defined in among other things the EU's e-commerce law does not apply to TPB. Their main argument is that TPB was not a general service provider but a search service largely aimed at facilitating downloading copyrighted material.
-The most controversial point is the sentencing. The basic question is if the three specific persons could really be sentenced for crimes that they did not and could not have had information about (each individual download). The court's answer is yes and the reasoning behind it is fairly vague and general in nature. When it comes to the damages the reasoning is rather strange: Basically they say the following: The industry claims X million Euros in directly lost profits. This is clearly absurd as not all who download would have actually bought the product in question. So we'll split the difference and put the damages to X/2. X/2 turned out to be 46 million Swedish crowns. (€5 million)
Apart from the questionable reasoning one should put into context that a premeditated murder will in Sweden cost you on average 5 years in prison and 100,000 (~€10.7k) crowns in damages to the relatives. So although the guilty verdict of the court may be reasonable, the sentencing is very extreme by Swedish standards. As a rule damages are never in the millions and the idea is that the guilty party should have a chance to actually pay them. The sentence of 46 million crowns in damages is simply outside any Swedish legal practice.
Elect right wing governments out of fear of minorities, and they start ripping away people's freedoms for the benefit of corporations and rich, and will say that it is for justice and economic prosperity.
Read radical news here
I congratulate and thank the Pirate Bay founders for taking the IP wars personally and fighting it with honor and courage, not bending under the pressure and willingly withstanding the evils that have befallen upon them. Long live the Pirate Bay! Down with intellectual property laws!
the guilty party should have a chance to actually pay them
Carl Lundström is a multi-multi-millionaire. He can pay it all.
Will someone please think of preserving our culture?
Piracy is part of who we are ;)
Realize that society is not geared towards your benefit. The state is and has always (?) been a vehicle for capitalism and special interest. Abandon ship, abandon ship!
until people choose a REAL left wing 'extremist'.
it should be noted that ANY level of left wing 'extremism' in usa, would fall WAY too much towards the right of the spectrum than it should.
Read radical news here
That is what the t-shirts should say. Pirate bay admitted they profit off the work of others, why defend them?
but took the time to remove child porn and then later claimed that keeping track of copyrighted material would be too difficult, and this is after they posted a letter from a rights holder and mocked it. What a great group of guys.
Pirate Bay listed plenty of indy software as well. They made a lot more than some of the developers they helped rip off.
Funny how they took the time to remove child porn but claimed they couldn't keep track of pirated material. Why defend such scummy people? They made millions off the backs of others.
and then spending the ad revenue on luxury cars and motorcycles. What a great group of people to get behind.
Stay classy Pretoria!
Except TPB doesn't know it's illegal. If you have a license for the content, then getting it from TBP is not illegal. If your country doesn't recognise copyrights, then getting it is not illegal. If your country allows private copying, then it's not illegal. If it's out of copyright, then it's not illegal. If the owners have lost copyright (by, for example, abuse of copyright), then it's legal.
So the situation is:
Person: Can you tell me where 13 Evergreen Terrace is?
Me: Yes, over there, the third left, then the first right.
later...
Police: you're guilty of aiding in the trafficking of drugs.
Look at the ISP adverts. Where they have monthly caps, they mention it in terms of hours of movies, numbers of DVDs or numbers of music MP3 files.
And so they are aiding and abetting copyright infringement.
And, unlike TPB, profiting from it.