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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)."
Nope, apparently supporting piracy is a crime.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
So they basically exchanged time for money.
Profiting from the support of copyright infringement.
Yet the pirate bay still stands tall. We best start ordering some of those tshirt they advertise to help pay their fine.
Freedom is not a crime. Aiding and abetting copyright infringement is.
However that may be, just blatantly disregarding the law is not the solution. At least not in this case.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Because free trumps (most) peoples morals :) Sad but true.
K Man
They don't support it more than our LKAB and SSAB support knife murder.
They just say "That's not our problem go fuck yourself! We aren't breaching any copyright."
That's a false analogy. Are you telling me that the founders of Pirate Bay are completely oblivious that their site mainly trafficked in copyright materials? Your analogy would be more apt if you were giving directions to where to find a drug dealer, or the people looking for a convenience store had a ski mask on and guns in hand.
I see, it undermines your living so it's clearly a bad thing. Not saying you're wrong, but your argument isn't that persuasive as it stands..
You know, if you marketed yourself as the man to call if you want to know which store would be best for robbing, that you'd probably go to jail, too.
Its not so much about the technology, but about the clear intend to aid copyright infringment. I don't like the current state of copyrights, but to say TPB is "merely giving directions" is missing the point. (Notice how google has not been successfully sued, even though you can find illegal torrents on google, too?)
Why is knowing where a drug dealer can be found a crime?
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.
Your argument is: "What they are doing is wrong, because if what they are doing were right, I find it unlikely that I would be able to make money doing what I do"
Which is just as valid an argument against police officers as it is one in favour of current copyright law.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I tend to be instinctively law abiding, but I think its very clear that if the law is sufficiently widely disregarded it will become unenforceable.
I am not a police officer, nor in most places am I required to report non-violent crimes.
On moral grounds I would not report drug dealers anymore than prostitutes or homosexuals in the military. I also will not report those hacking devices they own for fun or profit. What police state do you live in?
Knowing is one thing, running a service that tracks where they are and gives directions to them might be a little different...
disk? hmmm... I know I saw it somewhere...
Without going into sourcing, there's more to a crime than payment. Copyright infringement (theoretically) takes money out of the pockets of the holders, so it makes sense to levy a huge fine to pay that back while imposing limited jail time - the wrong has been righted. You can't unmurder or unrape someone, no matter how much money you throw at the family or victim. Besides, we're talking the difference between suits brought by rights holders and criminal proceedings brought by the government.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
By that logic there would never be any civil disobedience. We'd still have segregation, Jim Crow laws, any number of statutes on the books that were bought and paid for by a small minority over the protests of the majority.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
By widespread breaking of the law you are only proving the point that current laws need better enforcement and bigger punishments.
You're an oppressive government's wet dream, every time they impose another unjust law you just say "it's still the law" and obey it. Widespread breaking of the law probably means democracy is being circumvented and that politicians are lobbied or bought off to prevent the law from changing. Why would then stopping what you're doing change anything? It just means that those that want to suppress them has scored a massive victory and will continue to marginalize the need for change. You show a charming naivity when it comes to how most change comes about. Wnen people wanted to legalize gay sex, do you think it was like "So we've never done it seeing as we obey the law and all, but we think it maybe would be a nice change."? If so, I have a bridge to sell you. Enough breaking of the law has changed many laws like prohibition for example. Maybe it's not our "moral high ground" way of winning, but it works.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
But in Sweden you don't pay money to pay for the crime you have permitted but rather for the damages.
And IP is much more valuable than peoples life :)
There is a difference between protest and outright disregard for the law. In the Civil Rights protests led by Dr. King Jr, respect for the law was maintained even in their civil disobedience. Yes, Rosa Parks disobeyed the law, but her disobedience only served to highlight the illegitimacy of a law based on the color of one's skin. She didn't hit anyone, she didn't threaten anyone, she didn't force anyone to acquiesce to her point of view. She just was so freakin' tired she didn't want to move.
Do not equate intellectual property laws with civil rights. Two entirely separate issues with a lot more differences then similarities. It's like comparing grapes with watermelons.
Jim Crow laws had no basis in morality. Laws against rape, murder, and theft, however, do.
Copyright infringement laws have a (small) basis in morality (giving legal standing to the original author of a work so they can make money from it for at least a short time) whereas breaking them have no basis in morality (I want it for free despite the author's wishes otherwise) and calling it "civil disobedience" only dilutes the heart of civil disobedience and even revolutionist thinking.
Civil disobedience is a great means to changing unjust laws, don't get me wrong (again, Rosa Parks, Dr. King Jr, and the like). But fighting against gross copyright infringement using this as an excuse for what is essentially theft does not compute.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Even the US Supreme Court has stated that copyright infringement isn't stealing. They distinguish between finite goods and infinite goods. A digital reproduction is an infinite good (meaning no one has lost something by having it reproduced). Hence, no one had anything stolen from them. Copyright infringement is a concept in that if someone reproduces an item and they don't own the rights to that item they are infringing. Stealing something is when you deprive the owner of their goods (and others) of the item that they could use to sell for money.
In your analogy, as with so many fallacious arguments, you presume that each copy is a loss because that person copying it would have purchased a copy. Even the US Government has chosen to cease using that debunked argument. There's no guarantee that anyone that copies an item would have bought it otherwise. As a fact, it doesn't deprive anyone of their sale, and thus it doesn't equate to lost jobs.
Come on, you have to at least understand that this whole counter argument has been thoroughly vetted.
What your masters need to do is get it through their heads that they need to compete in the digital world. Instead of raping the public for $15.00 - 20.00 a CD they should be providing the public with incentives to buy, to buy some finite good. That means they need to come to grips with the fact that this world is changing.
This whole debate here isn't new. There are repeated instances throughout history where advances in technology has driven the currently entrenched business models to seek government protections. The horse and carriage when cars were invented, live performances were felt to be in jeopardy when recordings were created, recording sales were felt in jeopardy when the radio was invented. This goes on and on going backwards in history and moving forward. Adapt or die. Your business model can't survive the onslaught of technological advances.
People are fully aware of the facts that the entertainment industry has been seeking protectionist policies and laws from the lawmakers to prop up their failing business models. The world is changing, either you adapt or you die as a business.
Many recording artists feel that the biggest pirates of all are the members of the RIAA cartel. Their contracts are onerous. Their accounting practices only add to that by denying artists their due. Imagine an artists selling a million copies of their album (at around $15.00 per CD) and still owing their label millions. And how about the very problematic fact that the RIAA had a Congressional staffer named Mitch Glazier sneak four words into a big Congressional bill in the middle of the night when no one noticed making all sound recordings into works-made-for-hire. This had the chilling effect of denying the artists their due rights to reclaim their copyright after a period of time. Since people noticed this they raised their voices loud enough to force Congress to correct it.
Do you not understand that those methodologies used by the RIAA and even the MPAA are greater acts of theft than anyone downloading a song or movie for their own use?
Now, distribution on the other hand is covered. Distributing copyrighted material, especially for profit, is against the law.
Let's get real here. So far, as far as most of the lawsuits where the RIAA/MPAA have sued their customers (thus creating a hostile environment) there have been no criminal charges filed.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
The way taxes are supposed to work is that you pay a tax and get something for it.
Paying a tax to the IFPI (or whoever) and getting nothing in return isn't taxation; it's confiscation.
Are you being intentionally deceptive or are you really that incapable of morally evaluating your actions? We're not talking about you having to "report" them. You just have to not help someone in a way you know good and well is intending to use the help you give them to break the law. What planet do you live on where methodically and knowingly helping someone break the law shouldn't put you in some form of legal risk? The legal risk you subject yourself to is entirely separate from whether or not you think what you or they are doing is moral--the risk you take is that you might end up in court being forced to argue validity of that law. This is entirely predictable and thinking you shouldn't have to subject yourself to legal risk for civil disobedience makes me question how you think the entire concept of law would even work.
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.