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US Lawyers Target Swedish Pirate, and His Unicorn
Chaonici writes "When a Swedish citizen identified as Ryan heard about US movie studio Liberty Media's plan to get copyright infringers to confess and voluntarily pay up, he couldn't stop himself from sending them a
satirical email promising that he will pay 'from the pot of gold I got at the leprechaun at the end of the rainbow', regardless of scathing criticism of the studio from his unicorn. However, despite his location, the jesting nature of the email, and his insistence that he has never downloaded anything for which the studio is suing, Liberty Media's lawyers have taken the 'confession' seriously, and have issued a subpoena to Google for personal information related to Ryan's Gmail account. In a phone call, the legal team affirmed their determination to 'hunt him down, all the way to Sweden if need be.'"
They have/had a lawyer as "part of the team".
Emotions! In your brain!
The lawyers forget that Sweden is not a state of USA. The kid is safe while the lawyers make an ass of them selves. Sweden has its own laws :) They might aswell try to sue /dev/null
"Never EVER mess with a jumper you don't know about, even if it's labeled 'sex and free beer'." - Dave Haynie
Yeah, the guy who wrote these answers. Definitely the right person to take lessons from on how not to be a wise ass.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
Do lawyers come up with with the stupidest things and portray themselves as educated idiots because of the lack of oxygen caused by too-tight neckties, or is it some other reason?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
in sweden ...
the US lawyer problem can only be solved with shotguns. making lawsuits and money out nothing
First, I would like to say that this is a clear case of the cloud being the wrong place to store your data. Especially if the cloud-based service is located in the USA. From the (2nd) article:
Secondly, to the people who think this guy is an idiot for sending such an email, well aren't you just a bundle of fun. At most it's trolling (assuming the article is all true), and you don't expect the lawyers to start asking for personal data because of trolling. (I'm going to shoot that president, and the vice-president of the United States with my ak47.)
Third, the lawyers are going to get paid regardless. So what do they care if this person is in Sweden or some other place?
Appended to the end of comments you post. The maximum is 120 characters.
PWNED. OK, this is so funny :)
No, really, I can't stop LOLing, it's insane.
What??? You have never seen a fool teasing a dog or something else he shouldn't have and then being bitten by it?
Come oooooon, this is exactly like that.
You can't handle the truth.
Yeah. The email is pretty retarded and childish.
But, being in Sweden I can't see the company being able to do SFA to the kid.
Sent from my PDP-11
Yes, but the lawyer naively thought that the law was going to be interpreted by the letter, the way it had always (officially) been done in modern day Sweden. They just underestimated the power of angry multinational mega-corporations and their lobbying/bribing/truth-twisting skills. The trial was very un-Swedish in many ways. TECHNICALLY they didn't break any Swedish laws and the lawyers approached it in a purely technocratical way. Usually that would had worked. Unfortunately, everything turned into messy discussions of intents, unproven figures of lost sales, attitudes and the like. This while there was MASSIVE pressure from very very strong international interests.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
They have UNICORNS in Sweden?!
There is no -1 Disagree.
increase their billable hours.
So, BitTorrent users, have you downloaded any Liberty Media movies? If so the company says it is time to hand yourselves in. From 8th February for 14 days, the kind folk at Liberty are offering an amnesty.
I have downloaded a lot of porn. A lot. I'm fairly certain that I may have represented a few percentage points of the entire bandwidth used by porn in a single day.
That being said, I have no idea if I downloaded anything from Liberty Media. In the interests of providing amnesty I think it would behoove them to put up a public website with examples of their copyrighted works. Not the whole things of course, but just small groups of shots. Perhaps the ones that made the most money for them, those being the ones most likely to be pirated.
On the other hand, you could argue that thepiratebay itself and their way of running it is very un-Swedish.
Emotions! In your brain!
these law guys certainly could use some real gigs. that's one problem, law firms being so bad that they get dependant on one trolling client with POTENTIAL income flow some time later. it worked so well for the other law firms..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm a Swede, but I think it's as much un-Swedish as it is un-. Thepirateby enables people to "steal", as much as the most well known forums for stolen things creates an underground market.
Lawyers might just think the kid is from Sweden, hoping he's an American lying about his physical whereabouts to prevent them from even asking questions.
In any event, if they just throw the first sentence of that confession in front of a judge:
"I have been sharing a whole load of your files... on every torrent site like Purena, Empornium, Kickasstorrents etc"
And it'd be at the very least enough to cause an American major headaches.
Assuming the kid really does live in Sweden though, American courts don't have jurisdiction. He can just kinda've ignore them. Might get in his way of ever coming to the United States for a job or vacation or whatever, but that's about it.
Maybe. But I'm talking more about the not-giving-a-shit attitude of lawlessness. The crude blue-eyed naivety, though, that's very Swedish.
Emotions! In your brain!
Don't be stupid folks. If you're gonna do stuff like this,
a) have a common version of a Linux Live-CD running
b) use Tor for all access.
c) setup a new gmail account.
d) Let the unicorn speak to anyone you like using that gmail account over Tor **always**
If you slip even once and forget Tor or use your normal OS - even under Tor - you may be discovered.
No one stole anything through pirate bay, they may have committed copyright infringement, but that is an entirely different thing.
As a side note, the postal office enables people to send drugs and bombs to each other, they are still not held accountable, despite they knowingly do this. The "enabling" part is a faulty argument. However, they did definitely knowingly host links to the files, and did not act when made aware of such files; that is a proper argument that you can build on and probably argue in a court.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Confessions without proof are not valid in Sweden (you cannot for example do plea-bargains in the Swedish court system). It is well known that people make up confessions; for example the Swedish police has received the confessions of over a 100 people, who all confessed murdering the former prime minister Olof Palme. Confessions are only counted (but only marginally so) if there is also technical evidence and / or witnesses.
The point is, if they trace the guys IP, it is doubtful that the Swedish court would grant a request to reveal the identity behind the IP address, you need to have at-least some bit of concrete technical evidence (e.g. logs identifying him in a bit-torrent swarm) to do that.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
No one stole anything through pirate bay, they may have committed copyright infringement, but that is an entirely different thing.
Not even that. The Pirate Bay is charged with "assisting copyright infringement of 24 albums, 9 movies and 4 games", nothing more, nothing less. According to the Swedish constitution that's the only thing that should be taken in consideration by the court. Anything else they may have done except assisting copyright infringement of those specified 24 albums, 9 movies and 4 games is completely off-topic in the trial. Also, all fines and damages compensation are required to be in line with proven losses and it's against the constitution to use general deterrence, to make examples of specific deviants.
One thing we learned during the TPB trial and the debates of the new surveillance laws (FRA, IPRED, datalagringsdirektivet) is that the Swedish constitution isn't enforced at all. We have a "constitution deputation" but what they say are only to be regarded as "recommendations" and weighted with the opinions of other deputations. Previously this wasn't a problem because courts and law makers have pretty much followed the constitution anyway but the last few years it has become clear that we desperately need a constitutional court with full veto.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
That was a moose.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Unless they can rig a condom.
Though even that is a faulty argument as the prosecution do not actually have anyone who performed the crime which these people have allegedly been assisting to perform.
The bar association in this lawyer's area might be interested to hear a complain about this clear abuse of the legal system. No one could take this as a confession, not even a bad lawyer. It is beyond reasonable and should be punished. I know lawyers rarely punish their own, but perhaps if enough complaints come in?
Well, that'll teach him...
Not really... it's unlikely that they can prove anything with his gmail account...
:)
And the case will never hold in Sweden...
The news here is that some US judge signed a subpoena based on that email... Some might argue that such as judge is somewhat stupid... To put it mildly...
Don't be silly, have you ever seen a moose wearing a dress?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
got enlarged to include 'money whore' ?
Read radical news here
He has no political power whatsoever. Not at all. Not even on paper. He's not even supposed to make political statements, if I remember correctly.
Emotions! In your brain!
Was the king's role in Sweden to defend the constitution? Does he have any influence or formal role to play when the constitution is violated?
No, he is constitutionally required to STFU when it comes to politics. If he as much as hints at a political message in a speech or when talking to a journalist, it raises a media ****storm.
swedish justice, has failed.
Read radical news here
Every night in my dreams!
-- Using the preview button since 2005
The same Corbin Fisher as this Corbin Fisher? Really?
This should prove to be amusing, at the very least. Yes mister judge sir, this here man has illegally copied and jerked off to thousands of dollars' worth of gay porn that we filmed using straight actors.
Actually, mister judge, sir, you're looking pretty good, yourself. Can I interest you in a financial opportunity ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Though even that is a faulty argument as the prosecution do not actually have anyone who performed the crime which these people have allegedly been assisting to perform.
Very true.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
No better country than Sweden to allow their citizens to be harassed this way.
What a spineless puppet state.
You want me to believe that a fascist is enabling this widespread lawlessness? Isn't that oxymoronic?
Not really. It was one of the common tactics of fascists in the last century: promote widespread criminal activity and then ride the public backlash on the law and order bandwagon into power.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
And how is this different from the USA? If you can't afford to pay your lawyer long enough to win the case then you'll still go broke. If you don't have a lawyer chances are you make some legal fumbles that make you lose when you could have won.
At the risk of stating the obvious, this is different from the USA, because in the USA if you are sued by a big company and you then hire a lawyer and your lawyer wins the case for you, you still lose because you still have to pay for your lawyer, even though the company's suit had no merit. In the USA, someone with deep pockets can bankrupt you by filing suits against you even if they know they will lose. That's the threat they use to extort settlements from innocent defendents. In Sweden, the company would have to reimburse you for your lawyer.
Putting moderation advice in your
The news here is that some US judge signed a subpoena based on that email... Some might argue that such as judge is somewhat stupid... To put it mildly... :)
Look at it this way:
>> Don't be silly, have you ever seen a moose wearing a dress?
You've obviously never been to one of Great-Aunt Edna's bridge parties.
They always do. They are now charging Liberty Media $200/hour while chasing a fantasy. They don't care what they do as long as they earn some money -- parasites!
The news here is that some US judge signed a subpoena based on that email... Some might argue that such as judge is somewhat stupid... To put it mildly... :)
Look at it this way:
Such a judge must also be frequently checking to make sure his refrigerator is running.
I am not a crackpot.
In the USA if you win you can request that the loser pay for your fees. It's not automatic, but it's common.
I want my Cowboyneal
Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.
Once they get to Sweden, the Liberty Media "hunters" will have no problem tracking this poor bastard.
http://www.libertymedia.com/capital-trueposition.aspx
But then, so does people calling copyright infringement theft...
I bet if people stop referring to copyright infringement as theft then the people who correct them when they do will stop too.
Next up, Tehcyder criticises the police for investigating a murder as "They only do that every single fucking time there's a murder"
Not that it is a big surprise coming from a media company.
You should read the e-mail before claiming it's obviously satire and the judge is clueless. The parts about the leprechaun and unicorn aren't so much the satire that the summary claims, but more flaming in a (and this is a direct quote) "go fuck yourself" sort of way.
I think then that they could point out that unless they believe the unicorn and leprechaun gold are real, that the letter contains no element of truth outside of the point being debated (the confession to downloading) thus why do they assume that that element has any truth to it?
Is going to be creating some gmail accounts via TOR and sending them some "confessions" this weekend?
AccountKiller
My first question, if I were this guy's lawyer, would be, "Do you believe this man shared files based solely upon his email?"
If the answer is "Yes", then I would say, "That would indicate that you also believe he owns unicorns, talks to leprechauns with pots of gold at the end of rainbows based upon your same assumptions."
If the answer was "No", then I would ask, "Then what are we doing here?"
Make them look as stupid as possible.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The way to torment those guys is to make and use the email account from a couple of public hotspots such as a free hotel lobby, public library, or other dead end location. Then NEVER log into the account again from anywhere. Let them dig, trace, stake out, monitor, and spend their resources. What they spend tilting at windmills is up to them.
Even better is to get one of the scammers to relay it for you as part of scambaiting. Maybe the studios can get some of the Internet cafe's shut down in Lagos.
The truth shall set you free!
So basically you are saying that the beliveability of the person writing the letter is zero, so we should assume that the confession part is true and spend thousands of dollars trying to figure out what parts of the e-mail is true and which are false (we don't know for sure that any part is true at this stage, but we do know that some parts are lies). Also we don't even know that any files have been pirated.
S-M-R-T
Terrorists can't take a joke; hired gunman either. Just because their weapon isn't a gun does not mean they are not "hired guns" and just because they don't blow themselves up for a religion doesn't mean they are not terrorists.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
This is really a non-story. Dip ship antagonizes lawyers and provides confession to feed them. Idiot is amazed lawyers pursue.
I think the story is that the justice system is sufficiently wrongheaded as to allow them to.
Well, really the problem is that we have the best justice money can buy. We give the court all these powers to issue subpoenas and force people to defend themselves against unproven allegations and the thing we seem to forget is that forcing the accused to defend himself itself is orders of magnitude greater punishment than that of the alleged harm, so that even if you win, you lose -- and therefore that simply by conducting the proceedings it works an injustice.
In fact, normally the justice system has a bunch of rules to prevent this sort of thing. You can't get into federal court for most claims unless the amount in controversy is over $75,000. State courts send disputes over small amounts to small claims court which limits litigation costs in many ways. And that's exactly where all of this P2P copyright stuff should be, except that it ends up in federal court because it's a federal law and lawyers are abusing the statutory damage amounts to threaten everybody with bankruptcy if they don't settle for an amount which is still two or three orders of magnitude more than any reasonable estimate of the actual damages.
It's funny because John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are pretty much nothing but professional wise-asses, and yet they seem to be celebrated for such actions. Quite frankly, I consider wise-asses to be some of the foremost defenders of civil liberties. Satire is their sword. Humor is their bow. The First Amendment (or equivalent in whatever country they exist in) is supposed to be their armor.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
True.I was on a jury once and a guy got pulled over for having a few beers in him. His BAC wasn't high enough to warrant immediate guilt so it went to us, the jury. His friend came in from out of state to help him move and they had had a few beers at the bar. The friend went to the witness stand as a defense witness to give testimony. The exchange between the attorney, witness, and judge went sort of like this:
Attorney: And why did you travel all this way to see Mr. Smith.
Witness: He had just graduated and got a job so we decided to help him move by coming down to kidnap him....
Judge : Mr. Jones, you keep your smart remarks to yourself, you are in a court of law and will answer the question directly!
The look on the judges face was both annoyed and concerned. The upshot is that in a legal record you can't see the body language or the smirk on the witness' face. So in the legal record it looked like he was admitting to a serious felony under oath. The judge made sure that the legal record showed it was a case of a stupid dude making a lame joke and by doing so may have saved him trouble in the future.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
It's not a crime to be an ass.
Can you explain that for us, please?
Certainly, easily done. I claimed that I was in Sweden, yet here I am. The letter's statement is a lie. It also stated I would pay with the pot of gold I procurred from my leprechaun. The letter's statement is a lie. It also stated that my unicorn gave the company scathing criticisms. The letter's statement is a lie. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume the entire letter was a lie, including the bit where it stated that I confessed to sharing files.
have you ever seen a moose wearing a dress?
Do you Republicans have to bring up Sarah Palin on every single story?
That is all.
I have to disagree. I recently performed an experiement on TPB wherein I uploaded a zero'd out file, titled the same as a main stream movie. I also uploaded a similar file in a passworded zip file. While seeding, almost immediately after getting to 1 full download I suddenly found the torrent removed from TPB, and my account banned. I repeated this 3 times (at which i ran out of IP's to use). To this day i cannot create an account using my home IP because its static. If they're somehow checking the material to ensure its genuine, it shoots a hole in the defense that they "aren't responsible for what gets put up." They're at least encouraging copyright infringement. I'd encourage you to give it a shot, it was kind of disheartening for me because I always found TPB to be kind of an inspiration. Guess there's really no more heroes.
If you read what I said, you actually agree with me... ;)
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Ack, so I did! I owe you a coke :)
The defense will put so much lawyer power into action that they could make the judge neglect the word not in "I did not download copyrighted material."
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Still, these "terrorists" and "hired guns" are operating "for profit" and are, at the same time "officers of the court" which means they are bound to certain duties and within certain restrictions on behavior. It appears to me that they are exceeding those limits and abusing their role and position for personal gain. It's time to demote them from being officers of the court.