Police Raid Home of 9-Year-Old Pirate Bay User, Seize "Winnie the Pooh" Laptop

zacharye writes "Copyright enforcement might be getting out of hand in Scandinavia. As anti-piracy groups and copyright owners continue to work with authorities to curtail piracy in the region, police this week raided the home of a 9-year-old suspect and confiscated her "Winnie the Pooh" laptop. TorrentFreak reports that the girl's home was raided after local anti-piracy group CIAPC determined copyrighted files had been downloaded illegally at her residence. Her father, the Internet service account holder, was contacted by CIAPC, which demanded that he pay a 600 euro fine and sign a non-disclosure agreement to settle the matter. When the man did not comply, authorities raided his home and collected evidence, including his 9-year-old daughter's notebook computer."

Comments

Sensational!

[Frosty Piss]

A pretty sensationalist summary of what can only be charitably described as an article, which itself is long on innuendo but short on actual, you know, "facts".

All that can really be said is that they raided the guys house and among other things took the childâ(TM)s laptop. There is no evidence in this story that the child was the primary suspect or even a suspect at all.

The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine (and the non-disclosure agreement) is absurd for what the alleged crime is.

Re:Sensational!

[Swampash]

Big Media, winning hearts and minds.

Re:Sensational!

[Cruciform]

I remember when a member of an abandonware IRC channel got raided back in the late 90s. They took his game consoles, music CDs, and anything they felt like "as evidence".
Never did find out what came of that. Seemed like a lot of effort wasted on someone whose big thing was collecting classic games like Alley Cat.

Re:Sensational!

[Anonymous Coward]

From reading the story it seems like the father admitted that the daughter tried to download some songs but was unable to because the download failed for some reason so they went out and the CD she wanted. While I don't agree with the way the music industry handles all of this I don't pirate content because I don't want to deal with this crap. But on the same note I buy very very very little music now. I used to buy CDs or when itunes came out albums all the time at least one a month. Now I'm lucky if I buy one song a year.

Re:Sensational!

[ThatsMyNick]

The girl was one that tried to download copyrighted material. She did not know what she was doing was illegal. She tired to google it, and came across pirate bay. Read the TorrentFreak article. It is more informative.

Re:Sensational!

[Anonymous Coward]

According to TorrentFreak, the girl tried to download a number of songs by Finnish pop star Chisu using The Pirate Bay, where she was led after searching for the songs on Google (GOOG). The downloads failed, according to the girl’s father, and the two went to a local store the following day to purchase a Chisu album. ISPs working with CIAPC flagged the activity, however, and the group’s anti-piracy procedures went into effect.

Emphasis added.

Re:Sensational!

[Zemran]

No one should be expected to sign a non disclosure agreement in relation to something like this. I would also refuse. If I had in fact been downloading stuff in a country where downloading is not allowed, I would consider the 600 Euro settlement but to be asked to sign away any right to argue to legality or fairness of my treatment should be illegal.

Re:Sensational!

[ozmanjusri]

Additionally and to add to the absurdity of the CIAPC response:

Indeed upon hearing about the situation Chisu apologized to the 9-year-old and pointed to a link on Spotify where her music can be played for free"

http://www.techspot.com/news/50888-police-raid-targets-9-year-old-pirate-winnie-the-pooh-laptop-seized.html

Re:Sensational!

[game kid]

Never did find out what came of that. Seemed like a lot of effort wasted on someone whose big thing was collecting classic games like Alley Cat.

What do you mean? They now have his game consoles, music CDs, and anything they felt like taking "as evidence". The effort paid off (for the raiders)!

Re:Sensational!

[jimmosk]

Hey, reddit's good enough for President Obama...
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obama_president_of_the_united_states/

Re:Sensational!

[GumphMaster]

The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine (and the non-disclosure agreement) is absurd for what the alleged crime is.

I agree it is absurd, but not because of the amount involved. It's not a 600 Euro fine levied by a court after due process, but an extortion payment to a private enterprise. The NDA is designed to ensure that similar extortion targets cannot challenge assertions on the part of the extorter such as, "Everyone settles for 600 Euros," or "Fifty-thousand people thought it better to settle than fight." The NDA also serves as part of the threat: dare to go public about our extortion racket and we will sue you into the stone age for breach of contract. Suing for breach of contract is a much easier target. The sooner we start treating the extortive threat of legal action as a crime the better.

Re:Sensational!

[DeeEff]

Not only is she 9 years old, but she never actually SUCCESSFULLY pirated anything. She never broke any law.

Furthermore, her father took her to the store and actually PAID FOR THE CONTENT the very next day. 600 Euros in damages for a crime that wasn't committed claiming damages that were.... what? How were they damaged? They didn't even lose a sale. So I guess this whole thing is bollocks then, and there should be no reason for them to raid a home and start taking things on a whim.

Re:Sensational!

[ThatsMyNick]

It is. I would love to see a 9 year convicted by the jury for copyright infringement.

PS: I realize, this is not in the US, but still.

Re:Sensational!

[Anubis IV]

I hope this is one of those moments where you're about to slap your forehead when you realize just what you said, but Chisu pointed the girl to Spotify, which is a completely above-board music streaming service that's widely used by millions upon millions of people and that pays royalty fees. I think it's kinda assumed that everyone at Slashdot knows what Spotify is, since it's pretty well-known and has come up here on a number of occasions. So, Chisu pointed the girl to a place where the girl could access the music legally and for free. It's not at all like the analogy you drew.

Re:Sensational!

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Spotify is legal...

Re:Sensational!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine (and the non-disclosure agreement) is absurd for what the alleged crime is.

I am hard pressed to think of a situation where the cause of justice could possibly be served by the authorities demanding a gag order as part of a prosecution.

During the process of evidence collection, when they might tip off somebody else involved in the case, there is at least a cogent argument to be made(though this situation is dangerously vulnerable to abuse, *cough* 'national security letters' *cough*), and there are also arguments in favor of NDAs for the benefit of the suspect or perpetrator(for the suspect, to protect them from a media frenzy and the usual 'charged = guilty' reporting, especially in the case of emotive stuff like kiddie fiddling, the perp similarly, if there is reason to believe that they will get lynched on the outside); but what argument can be made for an NDA in favor of the authorities?

Surely, they would want the public to see justice being done? Surely, they would be delighted to have an example of a criminal receiving just punishment be visible? Certainly, they would not mind having an opposing attorney scrutinize their no-doubt-iron-clad case? Prosecutorial secrecy reeks of impropriety...

Re:Sensational!

[Waccoon]

The supreme court has no problem with forced arbitration, so stuff like this is just the next step.

Re:Sensational!

[Yomers]

Yes, thats a significant triumph of law and order over mayhem and chaos, and should be celebrated by all law abiding world citizens! I, for one, applaud fearless Scandinavian law enforcement officers, and congratulate them with successful completion of this important and dangerous assignment! Girl should be re-educated in specialized correctional facilities, and the tool of the crime, namely Winnie the Pooh laptop, destroyed.

Re:Sensational!

[thej1nx]

Just quoting a few nuggets that were the basis of having copyrights at all

.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".

Thomas Jefferson : Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not exceeding — years but for no longer term and no other purpose.[9]

Copyright Act of 1976 : Barbara Ringer, the U.S. Register of Copyrights, called the new law "a balanced compromise that comes down on the authors' and creators' side in almost every instance.

So a question here... did RIAA sing this song? Because all the instances I can find(I quoted a few above), say that copyright laws were pushed on pretext of protecting authors, inventors and creators. But here you are coming and advocating that the an author/creator should be persecuted for infringing "their own" creations. Unless, you can point out the songs that RIAA and MPAA executives sang along with her. I am waiting. Go ahead...

The mills that produce the paper I use for making a painting, the middlemen I hire for something, the marketing firm I hire to promote my products, should have ZERO rights to prosecute me criminally over "infringing" my own creations. If you advocate for laws to PROMOTE progress of science and other useful Arts, then you should also PROHIBIT and deem conflicting any laws that DISSUADE progress of science and other useful Arts by allowing original creators themselves to be imprisoned and fined millions for "copyright infingment", instead of just being sued for a breach of contract for exact/actual damages caused.

And if you are seriously advocating to pay the police and prison employees from PUBLIC tax money, to protect and enforce the interests of PRIVATE corporates... instead of taking the usual civil suits route... you have to be either a RIAA/MPAA crony or certifiably batshit insane.

Re:Sensational!

[thej1nx]

And if you are seriously advocating to pay the police and prison employees from PUBLIC tax money, to protect and enforce the interests of PRIVATE corporates... instead of taking the usual civil suits route... you have to be either a RIAA/MPAA crony or certifiably batshit insane

.
...or of course, a US senator, who are usually both.

Re:Sensational!

[thej1nx]

Actually CIAPC should be raiding the sony corporation headoffice and other media houses etc. for helping the song to be published in the first place. If there was no song in the first place, it can be correctly argued that google would have had nothing to lead to. We need to arrest the media houses executives/employees, I guess, and implicate them for facilitating and promoting piracy. They too are corporations worth billions of dollars, not some child innocently led astray by a corporation's services, namely their music production. :)

Re:Sensational!

[purpledinoz]

That's true, it's illegal to urinate in public, we should jail all 5 year old kids who pee their pants in public. It's against the law!

Re:Sensational!

[LingNoi]

oh really? Is that why children can be convicted of crimes right?

Re:Sensational!

[purpledinoz]

Should people unconditionally follow the law? It's not a long time ago that it was against the law to hide Jewish families to protect them from being murdered.

Re:Sensational!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some kind soul provided these two links in the submission comments:
https://torrentfreak.com/police-raid-9-year-old-pirate-bay-girl-confiscate-winnie-the-pooh-laptop-121122/
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/22/finnish-police-seize-9-year-olds-winnie-the-pooh-laptop-for-using-the-pirate-bay/

Also, a blog post from the local EFF:
http://www.effi.org/blog/2012-11-22-copyright-blackmail.html

Re:Sensational!

[wonkey_monkey]

The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine (and the non-disclosure agreement) is absurd for what the alleged crime is.

You're right. Compared to what the RIAA and MPAA have been chasing in US courts, this is bordering on downright reasonable.

Re:Sensational!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of what happened to Steve Jackson Games. Simply because one of their employees answered a question on a forum (unrelated to the company) about what a specific download protocol was for, the feds staged a raid on them (a book publisher) and took everything electronic in the place, as well as paper copies of their latest book.

Re:Sensational!

[deimtee]

They can, and frequently do, place gag orders to benefit the victims. Many people don't want all the gory details of what they went through plastered all over the media.
Here in Aust it's automatic in any case involving a minor (victim or offender).

Re:Sensational!

[Runaway1956]

If the artist has no say in how or when or to whom the music might be distributed - then the artist has become a slave.

Imagine that - slavery in Europe?

Re:Sensational!

[symbolset]

Hunh? Reddit is actually turning into a major political force.

Re:Sensational!

[upside]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's take on it.

What puzzles me is how is the NDA supposed to threaten other downloaders. They ought to take lessons from a despot on how to make an example, usually public hangings are public for a reason. The NDA is clearly there to keep a lid on their activities, because drawing the spotlight is bad for them.

Re:Sensational!

[Anonymous Coward]

None of that applies outside the United States. The intellectual property theory is actually quite a bit more "socialistic" in the US than what you hear in Europe, where author rights are regarded as inalienable. Thus, the US and European attitudes wrt real property and intellectual property are flipped.

For example, there's no first-sale doctrine in Finland. Libraries have to pay extra for the privilege of lending books. Video rental stores can't rent out consumer DVD's without a separate license. Playing songs is not free for Finnish radio stations.

Re:Sensational!

[hsa]

Hi!

The story is based on Facebook posts, which are in Finnish. Luckily, I am a Finnish person, and here is my take:

1) TTVK allegedly posts a Pirate Bay Torrent with latest cd from the Finnish artist Chisu (crappy music, that appeals to youth)
2) This guy claims his daughter downloaded it while "googling for test samples for album she didn't have money to buy at the time"
3) TTVK sends an angry letter, demanding 600 euros and demanding that you sign NDA about the agreement to pay
4) Police comes to raid the man's home, several months later, taking only the laptop of his daughter, and saying things like "just pay the bill, it is not that much" and "if you pay, we will go away and leave you alone"
5) Guy decides to fight it, does not sign the NDA and makes a Facebook post
6) Kukilainen from TTVK makes a note saying, "we only track IPs and we will take this to court"
7) Artist posts on her Facebook page "I don't want to sue my fans, but I think these TTVK guys are not so bad as you think"
8) Anti-piracy party in Finland blames the artists for not taking a stand, praises the guy for his heroism and demanding law reforms
9) Police makes a statement, that they are investing the father's part in this and it becomes clear, that the guy own's a bar and has live performances - so he should be aware of intellectual property rights.

The general atmosphere here in Finland is, that artists and contributors generally do want compensation, want this particular case to go away , and TTVK to resume business as usual and normal people are waking up to reality of our crappy copyright laws. One university law professor stated, that legistlation is a result from lobbying campaign from TTVK and should not ever have passed in its current form.

Links:
http://antipiracy.fi/inenglish/

Re:Sensational!

[vlad30]

Are your sure it was the police ? Lets see

1) Obtain Police looking uniform

2) print out official looking warrants

3) raid house and collect desirables

4) profit

Hmmm no ??? step the gnomes would be proud

Re:Sensational!

[Tuidjy]

Or, you just may be making enough that it is not worth your time to spend the effort to protect yourself against malware and the -AA goons.

There isn't all that much media I'm interested in, and I can easily afford it. If anything, I would like to help artists/programers to generate more good stuff.

In my book, if you are pirating stuff, you are a combination of (1) poor (2) greedy (3) having something to prove (4) an asshole.

I'm at worst (4) and I have other ways of displaying that.

Re:Sensational!

[Anonymous Coward]

The child WAS primary suspect as it says so in warrant. The father of course is carrier in legal case as she is minor and lives at his father house. ( I have friend investigator from secret police who has first hand knowledge of this case).

The case has now been made as political one.

And not even radio or news papers (biggest or small ones) tell the small fact from Finland copyright law, that downloading from internet for private use isn't illegal, only condemned. BUT, sharing to unknown people is illegal!

In Finnish copyright law (http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1961/19610404 only Finnish and Swedish), it is allowed to people to make copies of legally obtained media for*:

Julkistetusta teoksesta saa jokainen valmistaa muutaman kappaleen yksityistä käyttöään varten. Siten valmistettua kappaletta ei ole lupa käyttää muuhun tarkoitukseen.

Rought translation:

From published material everyone can make few copies for private use. Such made copy isn't allowed to use another purpose

what means simply put (check end of this post for source):

1) Own private use
2) Family use
3) To closest friends (your best friend etc)

*) http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1961/19610404#e-7

There are few rules in that:

1) you can make "few copies". (In earlier court that has been ruled to be 10 or under copies)
2) the original (master) needs to be maintained
a) if you sell original, you need to destroy all copies
b) if you lose original, you need to destroy all copies
c) if original gets destroyed (scratches etc) you need to keep it in safe, so you can continue using copies.
3) You can not make new copies of copies, you need always use the original one to make copies
4) You can not sell copies, leave them anywhere else or give them anyone else than family members and best friends

In Finland, nearly every storage device includes a tax what was added to copyright law at 80's when C-casettes came common one. The tax is depending about storage size (it was about C- and VHS casette tape recording lenght) and it is tens of cents or few dollars (there is now on HDD size limitations very stupid because the storage size limits are questionable as they are like 500GB and 750GB but question is, how about GiB vs GB, but that is another story and difference is do you pay 7 euros or 10 euros) now on.
Every device what is possible to use for recording (DVB, MP3-player, memory card, USB stick, empty CD/DVD, HDD/SDD etc) is taxed (it is already paid by company what sells product to customer, when they ship it to Finland).

The copyright tax is collected by private corporations what are the copyright enforcers. The money is (supposed) shared to all artists who are listed to TEOSTO and TTVK depending their usage. Every radio, corporation, company etc pay montly or play amount for tax. Example if you have 1 man small company and you have radio in room where there are clients, you are forced to pay tax for it. If you have radio in your rest room what only you use, you don't need to pay as long the music isn't hearable from others.
BUT, there have been cases where millions of euros of collected money, has not been paid to artists but for company itself and its shareholders and owners. Thats why those private corporations have nicknames like "TEOSTO-MAFIA" because they collect "protection money" in manner with their private investigators.

But, the tax is good thing (the collector private corporations ways not). As it is the one what makes private copying LEGAL.

With that tax, every citizen has right to record music from radio for own private use and make few copies of it for himself, family or closest friends.
you can record movies or series from TV and do same sharing with same people.

And the tax actually saves lots of money for people who just would know it. And that is the problem, as most do not know it!

Re:Sensational!

[aaaaaaargh!]

The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine (and the non-disclosure agreement) is absurd for what the alleged crime is.

Well, I'd say that raiding someone's home in a matter that can be settled by a 600 Euro fine is patently absurd. In most civilized countries police force and actions must be commensurate and such a raid would not have been warranted. I'm surprised the search warrent got through in Sweden.

Re:Sensational!

[TapeCutter]

It's those damned hippies, they keep saving the planet rather than letting the invisible hand strangle it.

Re:Sensational!

[Terrasque]

You assume the goal is to deter downloading, rather than collecting boatloads of money. If people stop downloading, then not only will they not collect boatloads of money for free, but the organization no longer have a bogeyman to scare artists and politicians with. They also avoid public backlash.

Keeping a lid on it is really a win-win situation for them.

Re:Sensational!

[KeensMustard]

NOT COMMITTING A CRIME is considered a valid defence - in some countries...

Re:Sensational!

[Rockoon]

Not only is she 9 years old, but she never actually SUCCESSFULLY pirated anything. She never broke any law.

Says who?

Someone on the local side of these peoples internet connection joined the swarm for the file in question. Thats how the RIAA/MPAA got their IP address. This could not have been done without a torrent client. The file was, in fact, being downloaded by someone at their IP address. Maybe it never completed, but I find that kinda far fetched.

The most likely scenario is that the girl downloaded some songs that she wanted, the father later found out about it and scolder her while deleting the files, and then he went out and legally purchased the music that she wanted in order to reinforce the "just ask us" mode. Everything else is just the father and the content owners telling each other to go fuck themselves in the best way they can (lies by one, and police involvement by the other)

Re:Sensational!

[raynet]

You have one step too many, in Finland police doesn't need warrants.

Re:Sensational!

[war4peace]

You got the story wrong. It implies that Winnie the Pooh is a pirate and a skilled criminal. To which I totally agree. Throw that dangerous, child-friendly badonkadonk in jail! And kill him with fire!

Re:Sensational!

[wvmarle]

First of all don't forget that the world is bigger than the US of A, and this story was set in that other 95% of the world. RIAA and MPAA have nothing to say there.

Secondly also in the US the RIAA and MPAA are never involved directly in law suits, that is always the record company (who owns the copyrights involved). If RIAA or MPAA would start those suits themselves, they would be thrown out just like what happened to Righthaven's copyright suits.

Re:Sensational!

[wvmarle]

2) sounds highly plausible, and is not really in contradiction to 9). Plenty of artists have free sample songs online; music from the artist in question is apparently available for free via Spotify even; so those police should shut up, refrain from making any public statements about the case, and just do their work. They're police, not a judge, and shouldn't behave like that.

And finally I think this artist shouldn't come with that kind of half-way statements. Either she really doesn't want her fans to be sued and seriously complains to that TTVK, or she should shut up about it and silently endorse the action.

Re:Sensational!

[wvmarle]

The child WAS primary suspect as it says so in warrant. The father of course is carrier in legal case as she is minor and lives at his father house. ( I have friend investigator from secret police who has first hand knowledge of this case).

Wow, secret police involved even? It's getting better.

According to other posts, copyright institution says it only tracks IP addresses, and sues based on that. How can the girl become suspect if she's not the ISP account holder? This contradicts.

The girl is a minor, and at 9 yo probably pretty much immune from criminal prosecution, on grounds of being too young to make decisions and so. Does this also apply for minors in civil suits?

Re:Sensational!

[LordNightwalker]

Aww man, you remember Alley Cat? :)

Re:Sensational!

[__aaltlg1547]

I think we can read between the lines that the site she attempted to use was not Pirate Bay but a honey pot.

Re:Sensational!

[eriklou]

The article on fark said that the kid had been trying to download some songs from PirateBay of a Finnish? singer she liked. The torrents never worked so she and her dad BOUGHT the album she was trying to download...

http://gizmodo.com/5962765/the-police-raided-a-9+year+old-to-confiscate-her-winnie-the-pooh-laptop

Re:Sensational!

[Eraesr]

The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine (and the non-disclosure agreement) is absurd for what the alleged crime is.

I find it strange that a house is being raided over a 600 euro fine. It probably costs 10 times that much money to raid the place and analyze the contents of whatever they have seized.

Re:Sensational!

[lostfayth]

Well, these things do happen...

http://rt.com/usa/news/public-urination-warden-police-367/

Though the officer in question was fired yesterday

Re:Sensational!

[wwalker]

Let's forget for a second that a child was involved and that a cute cuddly laptop was taken from her. In what twisted fucked up world is it ok for the police (i.e. the government) to raid someone's HOME just because there is "evidence" that something was downloaded from somewhere on the Internet from an IP address that might or might not belong to a computer (IP spoofing anyone) that might or might not been in that home (WiFi router anyone)???

Re:Sensational!

[Velex]

Yeah but just imagine how great the testosterone rush must feel!

Re:Sensational!

[DeeEff]

Not only is she 9 years old, but she never actually SUCCESSFULLY pirated anything. She never broke any law.

Says who?

Says TFA:

Having failed in her quest to put enough money in her piggy bank to buy the latest album from local multi-platinum-selling songstress Chisu, in 2011 she turned to the Internet, first via Google and then The Pirate Bay.

The girl’s father said the resulting downloads didn’t work so the following day they went to the store to buy music. Nevertheless, this week’s police visit shows that CIAPC mean business, no matter how young the targets or whether or not they also buy music.

If the songs didn't work, it's probably a result of the actually not having downloaded the music, but a more malicious piece of data.

Re:Sensational!

[AK Marc]

Bah, I gave up on paying for things when the paid-for software didn't work, and I pirated a crack that made it work. I got more value and better support from the pirates than I could get from the maker (and yes, I tried). Why should I pay money to people who refuse to support their product (and explicitly block returns for non-function as much or more than legally allowed), and sneak in rootkits whenever they think they can get away with it? I've gotten rootkitted more from pay software I properly paid for than all viruses warez and other "suspicious" software combined.

Re:Sensational!

[Zemran]

I do not, nor will I ever, live in USSA. I value my freedoms and I could not live in such an oppressive country.

Re:Sensational!

[Garwulf]

Sigh.

Now, repeat after me: "Scandinavia is NOT the United States. The laws in Scandinavia are NOT the same as the laws in the United States. The original draft of the Constitution of the United States has NO relevance to the laws or legal principles of Scandinavia."

And, speaking as somebody who is not an American, I really wish that American posters would quit citing their Constitution as the basis for copyright when the first actual copyright act in the English language was the Statute of Queen Anne, predating the U.S. Constitution by around 70 years. Seriously.

Re:Sensational!

[Ezel]

Sure you mean the Pirate Party and not the ANTI-piracy party in point 8?

Re:Sensational!

[AK Marc]

The NDA is so that you can't talk about the details. That way, the media owners can use it as a big, scary stick of unknown horrible consequences.

Re:Sensational!

[Dextrously]

Yeah! Those damned Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, etc.. always citing U.S. constitution! Curse you Americans!

Re:Sensational!

[Garwulf]

Sir, you have matched me wonderfully in snark - I salute you!

Re:Sensational!

[doccus]

Re artists being prosecuted (or at the very least , harassed) by the record label for distributing their own music is more common than you might think.. The old style record contracts often stipulated that the label owns the rights, not the artists.. That's why it was such a big deal for MJ to buy back his own recordings... A lot of artists are making NO money,. even with an album that did well for them before, because they cannot reissue their albums, as the label owns it and doesn't see enough profit potential to bother..

Re:Sensational!

[ganjadude]

I guess obama should put some thought into his non answers

heres a clue, bush sucked major cock, obama is continuing to suck as much cock

Re:Sensational!

[ynp7]

First of all don't forget that the world is bigger than the US of A

It is not! Apologize for your lies right now!

Re:Sensational!

[lsatenstein]

A pretty sensationalist summary of what can only be charitably described as an article, which itself is long on innuendo but short on actual, you know, "facts".

All that can really be said is that they raided the guys house and among other things took the childâ(TM)s laptop. There is no evidence in this story that the child was the primary suspect or even a suspect at all.

The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine (and the non-disclosure agreement) is absurd for what the alleged crime is.

Why the non-disclosure?

Re:Sensational!

[cavebison]

The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine [...]

Not IMO. Letting a 9 year old play around on the internet is far worse than downloading a song. If she does it unsupervised, her parents might need a lesson in how to raise a kid in the 21st century.

Not that any long term studies have been done yet, that I've seen, on the effects of all that stuff on a child's emotions / behaviour / attention span (apart from bullying), but I suspect it's not positive to be exposed to the entire internet like that at a young age. And there's already concern about the sexualisation of young people, without them having easy access to "what sex is" on the internet, without someone there to explain that it's all just a cynical money-making exercise aimed at men.

I'm not even sure if minds that young should even be made aware of the extent of cynicism in the world. We all benefit from the "innocent" imaginations of kids, it makes the world a better place. By "innocence" I simply mean "bereft of cynicism". Pure belief in possibility. Life is a constant battle between belief and doubt - in oneself, in others, in life itself sometimes. There's time enough for them to experience that complexity, and learn from it, AFTER they've had time enough to find what their own, personal dreams are, unencumbered by doubt and expectation. That's what we treasure so much about "innocence".

Re:Sensational!

[Lando]

Ummm no,

From the wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service

Steve Jackson Games was raided because Loyd Blankenship, who was writing the role playing game supplement GURPS Cyberpunk for the company, was a target of a crackdown. Blankenship, known in hacking circles as The Mentor, was a former member of the Legion of Doom hacker group. He had run a Bulletin board system (BBS) from his home called The Phoenix Project, which had helped distribute the popular underground ezine Phrack.

As it was the raid was eventually deemed illegal and Scott Jackson Games was awarded compensation, but that really doesn't do much for a company that lost it's flagship product and had to start over from scratch. They had to lay off a bunch of people over the incident as well if I remember correctly.

Nevertheless, it's a bit more complicated than an employee answering a forum question.

Re:Sensational!

[virg_mattes]

You missed your target there. The NDA was presented by the CIAPC as part of a settlement offer to avoid them reporting the issue to the authorities in the first place. That doesn't make the NDA any better, but the authorities weren't insisting on any secrecy once the prosecution started.

Virg

Dear CIAPC

[Ralph Spoilsport]

FUCK YOU.

Re:Dear CIAPC

[TheRaven64]

That's true. They wouldn't bother trying to get the state police involved, they'd just send their private thugs to your house and take anything that they liked the look of. if you don't like it, then make sure you hire better-armed security than them. And pay them more than they'd get for just stepping aside...

Re:Dear CIAPC

[GameboyRMH]

No but you could have a warlord busting into the house, taking the goodies, killing the dad and taking the little girl for a sex slave.

Parts of Somalia have anarchy right now. Go now, run to your paradise!

Get it right.

[Lumpy]

Its a home invasion, not a raid.. Stop sugar coating police activity.

Re:Get it right.

[fredprado]

Not there. In Finland it is not a criminal offence and the police clearly ignored the law and did what their owners (the corporations) wanted them to do, thus the need for the non-disclosure agreement. Now it remains to be seen if the courts will follow the law or blatantly ignore it and just do as they want like in the Piratebay trial in Sweden.

Re:Get it right.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not stealing, jackass.

Re:Get it right.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Well, I logged in to say that if a warrant was obtained, then the action was as legal as enforcing anti-racism laws. But, since the article is completely secondhand information from "Torrentfreak" and contains no link to the source, I can't say.

And the whole "home invasion" thing stinks of an American right-wing nutbag sitting at home polishing his guns dreaming of the day he opens fire on police. You might want to change your memes to get a more sympathetic audience.

Re:Get it right.

[Drishmung]

Agree!

Oh, you are referring to the theft of the laptop, aren't you?

Re:Get it right.

[dnaumov]

Except, of course, that "tekijänoikeusrikos" which is what the child is suspected of is most definately a crime.

"Rikos" = crime in finnish language.

Re:Get it right.

[Dunbal]

Then put the musical notes back where you found them. And the chords, too. All of them.

Re:Get it right.

[Albanach]

Not there. In Finland it is not a criminal offence and the police clearly ignored the law

That's strange, this academic paper suggests otherwise.

The Wikipedia page on Finland's 2005 amendment to the Copyright Act and Penal Code also says this was made a crime some seven years ago, bringing Finland into line with the EU copyright directive.

Do you have a source for your claim?

Re:Get it right.

[Gaygirlie]

It's actually "tekijänoikeusrikkomus," ie. breach of copyright. It does not in any way or form imply criminality.

Re:Get it right.

[fredprado]

From your own link.

Downloading for personal use won't be punished, but it may lead to claims for damages, if the copier knows or should have known that the source is illegal.

As in most places in the world, downloading is not a crime.

Re:Get it right.

[Gaygirlie]

Unauthorized file sharing can be punished as a crime, even though it wouldn't be done for profit.
Downloading illegal copies on the Internet will be prohibited. Downloading for personal use won't be punished

These are taken from your own link and clearly state that sharing is a crime, but downloading isn't.

Re:Get it right.

[Doctor_Jest]

Actually home invasion makes me think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faML0QvVb2A

You might want to see how far back the phrase goes before trying to turn it into a political bunch of nonsense.

Re:Get it right.

[fredprado]

And from the paper you linked:

Unlawfulness and fault concepts required by Finnish Copyright Act and by the Criminal Code turn out being complicated concepts, especially in the network environment. For copyright crime, certain kind of “professionalism” and wilfulness as well a certain wide scope of activity are required. For copyright offence, gross negligence suffices. Instead for tort liability unlawfulness without subjective criteria can lead to high damages for copyright infringement

Therefore you have provided yourself the sources for my claim. Next time I recommend you take the time to read the material you are linking before you post links to it.

Re:Get it right.

[Albanach]

As in most places in the world, downloading is not a crime.

A lot of file sharing software is designed to upload simultaneously with the download. BitTorrent would be a popular example.

Re:Get it right.

[Albanach]

These are taken from your own link and clearly state that sharing is a crime, but downloading isn't.

So look at the TorrentFreak article that was the source for the one in the intro:

One such request for cash landed on the doorstep of an Internet account holder in Finland during the spring. Known locally as TTVK, Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC sent the man a letter informing him that his account had been traced back to an incidence of online file-sharing.

It was file-sharing that was being investigated, not simple downloading.

Re:Get it right.

[Gaygirlie]

As in most places in the world, downloading is not a crime.

A lot of file sharing software is designed to upload simultaneously with the download. BitTorrent would be a popular example.

Indeed, and that is the issue in almost all these cases: downloading in and of itself isn't the criminal part, it's the uploading. There are plenty of ways of downloading stuff even without uploading, though, including on BitTorrent.

Re:Get it right.

[Albanach]

Your quote says nothing about the file-sharing that was alleged to have taken place not being potentially criminal and therefore worthy of police investigation.

File-sharing is what is alleged to have taken place (read the source article form Torrent Freak). File sharing is punishable as a crime in Finland (and across the EU) and therefore is investigated by the police.

Re:Get it right.

[petman]

As opposed to stealing what belongs to me?

Re:Get it right.

[fredprado]

Oh it says exactly that:

For copyright crime, certain kind of “professionalism” and willfulness as well a certain wide scope of activity are required.

Read it again and again until it sinks, you will eventually get the meaning. Unless of course you are arguing that the 9 year old girl is the head of a professional illegal distribution network. Maybe the Chinese or the Russian mafia?

Re:Get it right.

[fredprado]

The difference is that in many countries downloading isn't even a civil liability (in Finland it is but the damages paid are relatively low). So you are at risk of being sued only when you upload in these countries. In most sane places in the world, and even insane places like US, uploading this way is a civil liability not a criminal offence. Actually I am not aware of a single country in the world where uploading a file in a p2p program at home has been judged by any court as a criminal offence (at least yet).

For it to be a crime there is usually the need of money being involved, or at least a professional distribution scheme found.

Re:Get it right.

[Chewbacon]

Money talks. The struggles surrounding the legal process of stopping piracy is a classic example, and proof, that people will only be policed as much as they allow themselves to. So money and survival comes in to play. "I'll pay you to do something wrong," says the business men. "Ok, I know it's wrong, but I have a family to feed," says the police. "I'll ignore this as long as I can, so long as it doesn't hurt me", says the proletariat.

Re:Get it right.

[Albanach]

Actually I am not aware of a single country in the world where uploading a file in a p2p program at home has been judged by any court as a criminal offence (at least yet).

First US convictions for illegal file sharing. These are felony convictions.

Google shows other criminal convictions overseas.

Re:Get it right.

[Albanach]

Actually that's not a good link, sorry. It looks like they were doing more than simple sharing. I can't find a US case of criminal conviction for plain file sharing, though that might be because the civil penalties are so huge, and the burden is lower for the record companies to prevail.

Cases do exist overseas. There are cases in the UK, and this BBC article suggests Japan has treated it as a criminal offense for a couple of years, but will now start invoking penalties: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19767970

Re:Get it right.

[Lisias]

He was talking to the Police!

Re:Get it right.

[fredprado]

As I said. I haven't seen a single case of conviction based solely on domestic upload. Apparently by your link Japan legislators are trying to force it to happen (which is being strongly opposed by public opinion there), but nobody has been convicted yet. I am almost cheering for someone to be convicted there because then hell will break loose, as it will probably happen in Finland because of this very case.

Talking about Finland, which is the place we were talking about here in the first place, there you cannot throw criminal charges against someone for domestic download or upload, as it is so well explained in the very paper you posted.

Re:Get it right.

[NicBenjamin]

From your own link.

Downloading for personal use won't be punished, but it may lead to claims for damages, if the copier knows or should have known that the source is illegal.

As in most places in the world, downloading is not a crime.

Has it ever occurred to you that assuming a translation of Finnish law in English is perfectly 100% accurate, and NONE of Finland's legal terms could possibly have different implications then their American English equivalent, is pretty silly?

For example, as an American I'd consider a fine a punishment no matter who got the cash. But apparently in Finnish legal thought fines are only punishments if they go to the government.

Finland is a sovereign state. They can set up their legal system however they want. In this case it clearly allows the police to go to someone's house and take their computers as part of an investigation into illegal downloading of songs because they just did that shit. No, as a non-Finnish speaker, I have no idea if that means illegal downloading's also officially criminal behavior because I don't know how to say "criminal behavior" in Finnish. But I do know that if Cleveland PD had that power I'd consider illegal downloading a very bad crime.

Re:Get it right.

[dnaumov]

"tekijänoikeusrikkomus" and "tekijänoikeusrikos" are 2 different things and the child is suspected of the latter.

Re:Get it right.

[Dunbal]

And apparently I am the "criminal" here.

Re:Get it right.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Nope, they have a long, long history of being anti-government. Look up Randy Weaver or the Branch Davidians for recent examples.

Re:Get it right.

[Cederic]

Unless of course you are arguing that the 9 year old girl is the head of a professional illegal distribution network.

She doesn't have to head it up, merely contribute in a non-trivial manner. There are some pretty scary organisations out there!
http://www.girlguiding.org.uk/brownies/index.html

Re:Get it right.

[Killjoy_NL]

Well in this thread alone (from what I read so far) you have already hurt 14 puppies, so maybe you are ;)

Re:Get it right.

[Dunbal]

Harmed, not hurt. Because not being cuddled while I type is harm, isn't it? But you can see for yourself how I mistreat my dogs...

Re:Get it right.

[Killjoy_NL]

Awwww the humanity, the horrible horrible harm that those dogs are doing to eachother, give them a cuddle for me :)

Scandinavia, the great country!

[hyfe]

Seriously, this so-called article doesn't even state which country it happended in.. nor does any of the links in it.

I live in Norway, in this certainly hasn't hit the news here.. and if it did, you can be damn sure there would be hell to pay for somebody. Our authorities are so fucking nice that even after Breivik blew up our government headquarters and shot around 80 kids.. one by one.. we still hadn't scrambled the military or even gotten choppers in the air. I honestly suspect if our police (who don't have guns) tried to take a 9 year old girls laptop they would comply when she kicked them and told them go away :)

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[LucidBeast]

Happened in Finland

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[hyfe]

I honestly suspect if our police (who don't have guns) tried to take a 9 year old girls laptop they would comply when she kicked them and told them go away :)

Oh, and I wouldn't have it any other way.. damn proud of it in fact.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[Pyrus.mg]

Honestly, I don't know why any article with a source link at the bottom of it ends up in slashdot summary.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[maroberts]

Our authorities are so fucking nice that even after Breivik blew up our government headquarters and shot around 80 kids.. one by one.. we still hadn't scrambled the military or even gotten choppers in the air. I honestly suspect if our police (who don't have guns) tried to take a 9 year old girls laptop they would comply when she kicked them and told them go away :)

I couldn't decide whether your comment was +1 Funny, +1 Insightful or +1 Tragic

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[someones]

just read the article, there are at least links to response articles.
Therefore it holds that the story was not made up by torrentfreak.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[Anonymous Coward]

Happened in Finland

Which isn't part of Scandinavia.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[Kjella]

It was Finland, not that Finland is actually part of Scandinavia or anything... it's one of the Nordic countries yes, but Scandinavia means Norway, Sweden and Denmark. And it makes even less sense when you're talking about a legal action since we're entirely separate jurisdictions, it's like saying a North American was arrested without specifying under US, Canadian or Mexican law. The only real piece of news here is that the police has got nothing better to do than exercise warrants because a 9yo clicked some links on TPB. I'd sooner send them out to issue parking tickets if they have that much spare time...

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[Nyder]

Honestly, I don't know why any article with a source link at the bottom of it ends up in slashdot summary.

What's wrong with Torrentfreak?

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[del_diablo]

Now... now... Scandinavia is several terms:
The core: Norway, Sweden and Denmark
The extended: +Finland, +Iceland.
Finland may or may not be a part of Scandinavia depending on who you are talking to.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[Zontar The Mindless]

Oh, so that's why Finns get so pissy about those "Welcome to the Capital of Scandinavia!" signs at the Stockholm airport...

Thanks, AC!

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[SecurityTheatre]

I think he was complaining that slashdot simply liked to a pseudo-summary instead of the original article.

He was wishing they DID link to TorrentFreak.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[Zontar The Mindless]

Read your history.

Finland magickally ceased being part of Scandinavia in 1809.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[NicBenjamin]

Google Scandinavia. The map includes Finland. Estonia is almost never included in the definition of Scandinavia, but it's President gave a speech declaring it to be in the region. Scandinavia is a political and cultural region, not a political one, so basically anyone who agrees with stereotypically Scandinavian cultural and political ideas claims to be Scandinavian. You might not agree with Finland's inclusion in the region, but you have to agree that plenty of people put it there.

And you really should be used to being conflated with other countries in summary of news articles. This happens to small countries all the time. No story about Guatemala is going to leave out the phrase "small Central American country." The problem here is that slashdot chose to link to a relatively uninformative summary, and not the original torrentfreak article.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[uvajed_ekil]

The "article," which is not really an article but more of a brief opinion blurb that paraphrases an article, says Scandinavia. However, this happened in Finland, which is NOT Scandinavian no matter how many people wrongly think so. The FInnish language does not share a common origin with Scandinavian languages, and it has been quite a long time since FInland was ruled by Sweden, with Russian rule between that and Finnish independence. Sure, it is near Scandinavia, and the Sami have long lived throughout the region and across modern borders, but Finland has much less in common with Sweden, Norway, and Denmark than those three countries and populations share with each other.

Anyway, the link and quote should have referred to the original story, which was a bit more detailed and accurate.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[emj]

It's a bit like "england", you know those isles in the north sea.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[upside]

You're right. Linguistically Finnish is totally unrelated, for example Swedish and Russian are closer to each other than Finnish is to either of them. However, Finland shares the same mix of politics, economics, culture and religion with other Nordic countries, which is distinct from other parts of Europe and the world.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[TeknoHog]

Scandinavia is a geographical area, a peninsula. I'd say Northern Finland is a part of Scandinavia in this sense. I'm not sure if Denmark should be included at all -- it's not exactly a part of the same peninsula, although they share a geological history.

Now, there's a completely different matter of Nordic Countries, which comprises Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Foreigners often use Scandinavia as a synonym for Nordic Countries, a mistake that's easy to make.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[TapeCutter]

The UK is a group of countries that includes England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. If you want to display your ignorance of geography and history you can call the UK and England the "same thing", but I advise against doing so out loud in a Scottish pub.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[serviscope_minor]

even after Breivik blew up our government headquarters and shot around 80 kids.. one by one.. we still hadn't scrambled the military or even gotten choppers in the air.

Well, yes. It's a testament to the people of Norway that this didn't lead to a bout of collective insanity, unlike in the UK.

our police (who don't have guns)

And now we in the UK have heavily armed police wandering arouns busy stations in london. What are they going to do, start firing their semi automatic carbines into the rush hour crowd if something bad happens?

Apparently they are there to stop a Mumbai style attack even though it happened successfully in Mumbai where the police are already armed.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

There is the Scandinavian Peninsula, which is what you are referring to, but that is a purely geographical term and is distinct from Scandinavia proper.

The cultural/linguistic region Scandinavia consists of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, because we share common culture, history, politics and linguistic roots. If you know even the slightest bit of history, disregarding Denmark as part of Scandinavia is quite ignorant.

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[TeknoHog]

The cultural/linguistic region Scandinavia consists of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, because we share common culture, history, politics and linguistic roots. If you know even the slightest bit of history, disregarding Denmark as part of Scandinavia is quite ignorant.

OK, I was disregarding Denmark purely on a geographical basis, I do know my history (though from a twisted Finno-Ugric perspective ;).

Re:Scandinavia, the great country!

[Cederic]

Wait, there are real people in Wales?

Non-disclosure?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the suspect part. Why would they want the father to sign a non-disclosure agreement? How is fining the man a deterrent to others if they never hear about it?

These are rhetorical questions of course, as its obvious why.

Re:Non-disclosure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rhetorical, hell. Why is it legal to demand a non-disclosure agreement for a fine? And even if it's not an enforceable agreement ('can't sign your rights away'), it still has to be illegal to demand such a thing. Otherwise your laws have a wide-open road for extortion.

And is it even a "fine"? These guys are not a government body as far as I can tell from their site; they'd surely trumpet that if they were. Nor is the father a member of some group agreement with them, which'd be the only other way to levy a fine.

Whole lot of WTF? with this one. Is there an alternative translation perhaps?

Re:Non-disclosure?

[uvajed_ekil]

This is the suspect part. Why would they want the father to sign a non-disclosure agreement? How is fining the man a deterrent to others if they never hear about it?

Ass-covering. Legal ass-covering and greed, plain and simple. Always question authority, always know your rights, and never voluntarily give them up, especially if someone tries to pressure you to do so.

These are rhetorical questions of course, as its obvious why.

Yep. Their revenue enforcement model is shaky at best, and they know it, so they need to induce fear and rely on obfuscation and empty threats as much as possible. Too bad they are pretty good bullshitters and aren't called on it frequently enough.

Re:Non-disclosure?

[NicBenjamin]

Remember this isn't America. Just because we don't have a system where crime victims can say "pay up, or I'll testify;" that does not imply that other countries can't have that system. They wouldn't have to apply that system to all crimes (for example, it would probably be a bad idea in rape cases -- lots of chances for rich serial rapists to get away with it, and gold-diggers to legally blackmail people), but they could do it. It's their country, so they get to make the rules.

Apparently in Finland what's expected is that when a rightholder finds a violation he asks the violator to make it right by paying a penalty and agreeing not go to the media, because he'd look bad (Chisu, the artist in question, is not happy about this. At all.). If the violator doesn't agree to the deal the police do an investigation, which can involve taking a nine-year-old's Winnie the Pooh laptop. The next step is unclear because it hasn't happened yet.

BTW, don't get hung-up on the specific word "fine." In English a Fine is something you pay the government to deter you from breaking the law, but if Finnish law recognizes a class of crimes where the police and criminal courts collect penalties on behalf of private citizens they could easily translate the word for those penalties as "fine," for lack of a better alternative.

Slashdot and my real life meet for the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

This morning my girlfriend told me about her friend whose daughter's laptop was seized after they demanded a 600 euro fine.

Also, Finland is not Scandinavia.

Direct link

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

The "article" mostly quotes from Torrent Freak. Here's the longer source:

http://torrentfreak.com/police-raid-9-year-old-pirate-bay-girl-confiscate-winnie-the-pooh-laptop-121122/

Re:Direct link

[Mitreya]

Thank you for the link
It's the tidbits like this that make me feel warm and fuzzy about copyright and police:

"It would have been easier for all concerned if you had paid the compensation," the police advised

Any other law violation you either get searched/charged or let off the hook.
How about next time you are charged with (actual) theft, someone calls you first and offers to pay 600 euros to avoid the hassle? Why is this a valid option for copyright violation accusations?

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you doubt that a 9 year old is capable of a few simple mouse gestures and clicks? I was typing in BASIC programs into my Vic-20 when I was 6, I'm pretty sure kids these days can manage this just fine.

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what you were doing as a nine-year old, but back in my day we were all installing Napster, and our parents didn't know shit.

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

Having failed in her quest to put enough money in her piggy bank to buy the latest album from local multi-platinum-selling songstress Chisu, in 2011 she turned to the Internet, first via Google and then The Pirate Bay.

So, by herself, the 9-year old installed a torrent application and navigated to Pirate Bay... Yes, sure she did.

Again, why sensationalize the story by pitting the Storm Troopers against a 9-year old, when common sense says that's not what happened?

Opera has a built-in torrent application and the kid has her own laptop... you think she's been using it as a pillow? At that age I was copying and playing cracked C64 games with little clue of the english language so I'm pretty sure she'd manage google and a few clicks to get started.

Re:Direct link

[girlinatrainingbra]

You do NOT know how smart 9-year-old girls really are. If you were a parent, or a 9-year-old boy or girl, you would know the correct answer: 9-year-old girls are geniuses with tech. Seriously, what's so hard about opening transmission? It comes preinstalled on Linux distributions. Open up firefox, hit a magnet link, and it asks "do you want to open this link with 'transmission'?" It also gives you the option of switching the default torrent app to Ktorrent.
;>P
It's so fvkcing easy to click on links in the browser and get a torrent download started, even an ADULT could do it. Any child can do it without a problem. The trick is sometimes finding the torrent or magnet link in the first place.

Re:Direct link

[arth1]

Why do you doubt that a 9 year old is capable of a few simple mouse gestures and clicks? I was typing in BASIC programs into my Vic-20 when I was 6, I'm pretty sure kids these days can manage this just fine.

Sure, she could be clever or good with computers, but upon preponderance of the evidence I'm not entirely convinced. I could be wrong, but I think there might be a negative correlation between using Winnie the Pooh laptops and technical skills.

Re:Direct link

[Ost99]

The original article quotes the father saying the download failed; so she might have downloaded a torrent file with no client to open it with.

Re:Direct link

[girlinatrainingbra]

Hahaha! I didn't note the "winnie the pooh" laptop part. It only says that they confiscated a pooh laptop. There's no explicit statement that the downloading occurred on the pooh-bear laptop. It's easy enough to download a torrent via firefox on a linux distro which could have been on a family computer. And since linux runs on so much hardware, i betcha "pooh-bear" could have been running linux, but yeah I've gotta agree with you here. It's not likely that it happened on the pooh laptop.

Re:Direct link

[Frosty Piss]

There's no explicit statement that the downloading occurred on the pooh-bear laptop.

If not on the pooh laptop, than daddy did it, NOT the 9-year old.

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I've never met a 9-year old. In fact, I was never 9 years old myself. Went straight from 8 to 10 and skipped the whole 9 year old phase.

Re:Direct link

[v1]

Any other law violation you either get searched/charged or let off the hook.
How about next time you are charged with (actual) theft, someone calls you first and offers to pay 600 euros to avoid the hassle? Why is this a valid option for copyright violation accusations?

Unfortunately, "any other law" doesn't apply here. This is a civil violation, not a criminal one. Its not theft, it's copyright violation. It's extortion to demand money not to turn someone in for a criminal violation, but in civil matters you are free to offer a deal in exchange for not pressing charges. In criminal cases, the D.A. is the one pressing the charges, and in civil cases it's the plaintiff's lawyer, which is why they have the option.

The plaintiffs aren't the problem here. The police aren't the problem either. The plaintiffs are simply taking advantage of the law as written for their own benefit, and the police are just playing along by the rules as required. It's the Bad Law that's to blame. You can't blame companies and greedy people for being greedy, it's what they DO. You can't blame the police for enforcing the law, it's also what they DO. The only one to blame is your legislator, who created the Bad Law, whom you voted in. That means blame yourself, and work to get the laws changed.

Re:Direct link

[Delarth799]

Because a lot of the time they don't have much if any actual evidence to stand on so the threaten people with letters and most just pay to avoid further hassle. Then they are forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement which most likely has a clause about not talking about the settlement thus allowing everything to be swept under the rug.

Re:Direct link

[jamesh]

You do NOT know how smart 9-year-old girls really are. If you were a parent, or a 9-year-old boy or girl, you would know the correct answer: 9-year-old girls are geniuses with tech. Seriously, what's so hard about opening transmission? It comes preinstalled on Linux distributions. Open up firefox, hit a magnet link, and it asks "do you want to open this link with 'transmission'?" It also gives you the option of switching the default torrent app to Ktorrent. ;>P

It's so fvkcing easy to click on links in the browser and get a torrent download started, even an ADULT could do it. Any child can do it without a problem. The trick is sometimes finding the torrent or magnet link in the first place.

She can't be that smart... she got caught didn't she? :)

Also, you'll likely find kids with parents who can't or won't help them on the computer can be a bit better at it too. My kids always want to take the easy way out and get dad to do it for them, but it's amazing what they can do when they really want something done and you won't help them right now.

Re:Direct link

[rtb61]

Of course you can blame them, the whole idea that it is OK to bend laws so far out of shape that they only serve they psychopathically greedy is a OK, is insane, as insane as those douche who exploit the law. Blame the crap out of the, avoid the products, find the actual individuals involved and make their lives a misery just like they want to do to the rest of us. "NAME AND SHAME".

Re:Direct link

[sjames]

I see no reason at all that it is clearly the dad that attempted the download. What makes you think a 9 year old is incapable of installing a torrent application and clicking on a link? If anything, it's usually the kids that help mom and dad with things like that.

Do you have some additional information that actually suggests that the dad did it?

Re:Direct link

[grcumb]

She can't be that smart... she got caught didn't she? :)

This time. The test will be to measure what havoc she wreaks on her tormentors once she gets her new My Little Pony rig and goes all Princess Digital on their asses.

Re:Direct link

[grcumb]

She can't be that smart... she got caught didn't she? :)

This time. The test will be to measure what havoc she wreaks on her tormentors once she gets her new My Little Pony rig and goes all Princess Digital on their asses.

Well... My Little Pwnie, actually....

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't blame companies and greedy people for being greedy, it's what they DO. You can't blame the police for enforcing the law, it's also what they DO. The only one to blame is your legislator, who created the Bad Law, whom you voted in. That means blame yourself, and work to get the laws changed.

If greedy people are allowed to be greedy, am I not allowed to blame them? Why not? Is it prohibited somehow?

Re:Direct link

[Mitreya]

This is a civil violation, not a criminal one. ... It's extortion to demand money not to turn someone in for a criminal violation, but in civil matters you are free to offer a deal in exchange for not pressing charges. ... You can't blame the police for enforcing the law, it's also what they DO.

Sorry, you are not making sense.

Yes, you can offer a deal in civil violation cases, but you certainly do not get to call in police to back you up if the opponent turns down the deal.

Please decide -- either it's a criminal violation (then the police are enforcing the law and 600 euro get-out-of -jail bribe is ridiculous) or it is a civil violation (and in that case what "law" is police enforcing, exactly?). I thought it was criminal, since police raided their house.

Re:Direct link

[sjames]

If you think a 9 year old can't manage it, I suggest that it is you who needs to join us here in the real world.

Re:Direct link

[v1]

Yes, you can offer a deal in civil violation cases, but you certainly do not get to call in police to back you up if the opponent turns down the deal.

Actually that's exactly how it works. You don't call the police directly like you're reporting robbery though. Your lawyers see a judge and file charges and obtain a warrant. THEN the police get involved and go to the defendant and gather evidence. Those extra steps are required, in theory, to make sure that a crime is likely taking place before the police get involved. At some point a judge approved this raid before it happened. The plaintiff presented evidence to support their claim, had their i's dotted and t's crossed, got the warrant, and in came the cops. That's sometimes how civil cases go.

The plaintiff can contact you and see if you want to make a deal. They can offer any legal terms, and you can accept or decline. If you accept, you're likely going to be signing a deal, that says they get xxx and they also promise not to press charges. They don't have to offer you a deal either. They don't have to notify you unless the law states some requirement.

Re:Direct link

[grcumb]

Well... My Little Pwnie, actually....

To whomever modded this '-1, Troll':

Dude, get a grip. I was replying to myself, for fuck's sake. 8^)

Re:Direct link

[Mitreya]

Actually that's exactly how it works. You don't call the police directly like you're reporting robbery though. Your lawyers see a judge and file charges and obtain a warrant. THEN the police get involved and go to the defendant and gather evidence.

I am not a lawyer, and this is a different country we are talking about. But I was under the impression that you have to actually sue the opposing party in civil court _first_. Then warrant may be given to perform discovery of whatever judge allows you to discover

Otherwise where exactly would this evidence go to? Some evidence is sent directly to the judge (and there is no judge).

It would be pretty hilarious if the police can just take the girl's laptop directly to the (civilly) suing party. Do they (CIAPC) have to give the laptop back? How long do they have to preform discovery? Does police perform their own forensic analysis during a civil lawsuit?

Re:Direct link

[Pentium100]

Why? The dad could have bought the laptop for her and she does not really care whether the laptop is Winnie the Pooh branded or not.

Also, maybe she likes Winnie and asked her dad to buy the laptop branded as such, but this does not say anything about her technical skills. If my dad offered to buy me a laptop when I was 10 (and had a PC appropriate for my username) I probably would have asked for it to be branded with one of my favorite cartoons too, that does not mean that I could not install Windows on my own (and for extra challenge, the English classes just started at school, so I pretty much couldn't understand most of what was written by the setup).

Obviously the difference between when I was a kid and now is that kids get access to computers earlier than I did because computers are much cheaper now.. So, it is quite possible that she could have downloaded the torrent client and started the download herself (and maybe that's why the download failed?), especially if there are sites in her native language that explain how to do it.

Re:Direct link

[Kjella]

Yes, you can offer a deal in civil violation cases, but you certainly do not get to call in police to back you up if the opponent turns down the deal. Please decide -- either it's a criminal violation (then the police are enforcing the law and 600 euro get-out-of -jail bribe is ridiculous) or it is a civil violation (and in that case what "law" is police enforcing, exactly?).

This big distinction between civil code and criminal law is an artifact of the common law system, which is not used that much outside the US. Here in Norway everything is a law, but a law typically has a liability side and a criminal side with different standards and rules. For example any damage to my property I'd have to file as vandalism under paragraph 291 of the criminal code, even if it clearly was done by a young child who is not going to be held criminally responsible but their parents will be held liable through liability rules. Or say my neighbor accidentally cut down a tree on my side of the property line, it didn't rise to the level of criminal negligence but he's still liable for cutting down the tree. It's not unheard of that I could offer a settlement offer but if refused, it would at least in theory turn into a police investigation.

Very often these types of laws say that there will be no public prosecution without a complaint from the victim, so the government isn't going to raise a case unless you press charges but once a case has been opened it is officially a police matter. I just checked our copyright laws and for the most part they're of the same type. There's certainly no general prohibition against the police getting involved, like say in the case above with the young child if they dispute that the child caused the damage then certainly the police can choose to do interviews or seek witnesses even if it's clearly a liability matter, not a criminal matter. Of course, just because the police may do the legwork for you doesn't mean they normally will...

Re:Direct link

[mcmadman]

Actually that's exactly how it works. You don't call the police directly like you're reporting robbery though. Your lawyers see a judge and file charges and obtain a warrant. THEN the police get involved and go to the defendant and gather evidence. Those extra steps are required, in theory, to make sure that a crime is likely taking place before the police get involved. At some point a judge approved this raid before it happened. The plaintiff presented evidence to support their claim, had their i's dotted and t's crossed, got the warrant, and in came the cops. That's sometimes how civil cases go.

Well as far as the Finnish laws go, the investigating police officer can issue a search warrant for anyone's home if there is "a reasonable suspicion". Whatever this "reasonable suspicion" can be, is up to anyone's guess. No need for a judge just yet. This procedure shows just how rotten a police state this country has become.

Re:Direct link

[fido_dogstoyevsky]

Any other law violation you either get searched/charged or let off the hook. How about next time you are charged with (actual) theft, someone calls you first and offers to pay 600 euros to avoid the hassle? Why is this a valid option for copyright violation accusations?

Unfortunately, "any other law" doesn't apply here. This is a civil violation, not a criminal one. Its not theft, it's copyright violation. It's extortion to demand money not to turn someone in for a criminal violation, but in civil matters you are free to offer a deal in exchange for not pressing charges. In criminal cases, the D.A. is the one pressing the charges, and in civil cases it's the plaintiff's lawyer, which is why they have the option.

The plaintiffs aren't the problem here. The police aren't the problem either. The plaintiffs are simply taking advantage of the law as written for their own benefit, and the police are just playing along by the rules as required. It's the Bad Law that's to blame. You can't blame companies and greedy people for being greedy, it's what they DO. You can't blame the police for enforcing the law, it's also what they DO. The only one to blame is your legislator, who created the Bad Law, whom you voted in. That means blame yourself, and work to get the laws changed.

A bad law is one that causes more harm than it prevents. You can blame the police for enforcing a bad law. As long as people are willing to enforce bad laws those laws will remain.

Re:Direct link

[fido_dogstoyevsky]

Any other law violation you either get searched/charged or let off the hook. How about next time you are charged with (actual) theft, someone calls you first and offers to pay 600 euros to avoid the hassle? Why is this a valid option for copyright violation accusations?

Unfortunately, "any other law" doesn't apply here. This is a civil violation, not a criminal one. Its not theft, it's copyright violation. It's extortion to demand money not to turn someone in for a criminal violation, but in civil matters you are free to offer a deal in exchange for not pressing charges. In criminal cases, the D.A. is the one pressing the charges, and in civil cases it's the plaintiff's lawyer, which is why they have the option.

The plaintiffs aren't the problem here. The police aren't the problem either. The plaintiffs are simply taking advantage of the law as written for their own benefit, and the police are just playing along by the rules as required. It's the Bad Law that's to blame. You can't blame companies and greedy people for being greedy, it's what they DO. You can't blame the police for enforcing the law, it's also what they DO. The only one to blame is your legislator, who created the Bad Law, whom you voted in. That means blame yourself, and work to get the laws changed.

Reposting because I pressed the wrong button:

A bad law is one that causes more harm than it prevents. You can blame the police for enforcing a bad law. As long as people are willing to enforce bad laws those laws will remain. Changing bad laws via the ballot box takes a long time, enforcing those laws while we're waiting will do more harm.

Re:Direct link

[bennies]

Yeah my 5 year old just installed a shit load of software on my tablet. She might still still miss the data I acquired during my life time but her logic is almost always spot on. Don't ever underestimate them.

Re:Direct link

[hawkinspeter]

Says the anonymous fucking coward

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

This procedure shows just how rotten a police state this country has become.

Well, yes, Finland has always been very much a police state, but the Finns almost unanimously like it that way. The police regularly regularly get a 90+% approval rating in opinion polls.

Re:Direct link

[tubs]

> common law [wikipedia.org] system, which is not used that much outside the US

And the sun never sets on the British Empire :-)

Re:Direct link

[blackest_k]

In the article it states she searched in google which lead to the piratebay where she downloaded some files but they didn't work.

You make the leap that she must have used the torrent files with a torrent client. It makes more sense that she tried to play the torrent files in her music player which is why they didn't work.

That sounds reasonable for a 9 year old and the father buying her the cd that sounds reasonable and refusing to "settle" for music files that were not downloaded also a reasonable action.

Was the trigger for the raid evidence of downloading of the .torrent file or evidence of the IP of the nine year old being in the swarm? Also if the IP was in the swarm was the download complete or is a partial download enough, if so here is part of your next download 10.

Below a certain age, you just don't prosecute children even if it was an adult it would be theft, usually the shopkeeper and the parent(s) of the child will get together and have words with the child usually ending with the child apologising to the shop keeper. That is reasonable behaviour, an 8 am raid on a house and the seizing of the childs laptop isn't in any way reasonable.

As a parent you do not want your children breaking the law, I think most parents would having found that their young child went to pirate bay to download music would have said no you cant do that it's wrong and bought them the CD as that is the proper way to get the music. It's just one of the lessons of life that parents teach their kids.

You also teach your kids to stand up for themselves and don't be bullied, and stand up for your principles. If all that was downloaded was the torrent files who wouldn't refuse to settle ?

Re:Direct link

[TapeCutter]

If it's a civil case why are the police involved in a raid, why is there even a raid, what happen to the regular discovery processes? Also why is it illegal to download a file you find on the internet? Everything on the internet is automatically copyrighted, how am I to know if someone uploaded it without the owners permission? Sounds to me like the crime in this racket is not paying the extortion. As you say everyone is playing by the rules so the problem is the law that makes this an acceptable behavior. The MAFFIA have tried their hardest to criminalize downloading here in Australia, so far they have been told to fuck off since the damages actually incurred don't even add up to the $50 minimum required to get a hearing in the small claims court.

Re:Direct link

[hutsell]

The "article" mostly quotes from Torrent Freak. Here's the longer source:
http://torrentfreak.com/police-raid-9-year-old-pirate-bay-girl-confiscate-winnie-the-pooh-laptop-121122/

Although I'm not vouching for the accuracy of the following, I thought it might be interesting to include what appears to be a legitimate post at torrentfreak a few hours ago by the father:

As a father of this 10-years girl, I would like to thank you all for a huge support in this case. We are still devestited of what happened, and my girl is still almoust in tears. I will take this as far it goes, and seek for justice for all other cases like this around a globe. Hopefully finnish justice system will find this as fucked up as most of Finnish & Europes social media, and regular people does. Thanx once again, it really matters a lot for us! Love & respect, Julietta & his Dad ps. Sorry for my bad English. Facebook: Aki"weq"Nylund

Everything looks proper, including the link to the facebook page; my apologies in advance if anything turns out to be otherwise. Fwiw, if it hasn't already been mentioned, the actual download that has caused the recent arrest happened in 2011.

Re:Direct link

[hawkinspeter]

It was ironic that someone posting as anonymous coward was telling someone else to not be a pussy and type the word "fucking" properly.

Re:Direct link

[serviscope_minor]

once she gets her new My Little Pony rig

I thought those were targeted at 18-35 year old guys now.

Re:Direct link

[raynet]

Too bad that the news are not telling which browser was used, if it was Opera it would be as simple as clicking on a link to a torrent-file to download it.

Re:Direct link

[SuricouRaven]

And it never will, so long as we hold onto the Falklands.

Re:Direct link

[dropadrop]

Any other law violation you either get searched/charged or let off the hook. How about next time you are charged with (actual) theft, someone calls you first and offers to pay 600 euros to avoid the hassle? Why is this a valid option for copyright violation accusations?

Unfortunately, "any other law" doesn't apply here. This is a civil violation, not a criminal one. Its not theft, it's copyright violation. It's extortion to demand money not to turn someone in for a criminal violation, but in civil matters you are free to offer a deal in exchange for not pressing charges. In criminal cases, the D.A. is the one pressing the charges, and in civil cases it's the plaintiff's lawyer, which is why they have the option.

The plaintiffs aren't the problem here. The police aren't the problem either. The plaintiffs are simply taking advantage of the law as written for their own benefit, and the police are just playing along by the rules as required. It's the Bad Law that's to blame. You can't blame companies and greedy people for being greedy, it's what they DO. You can't blame the police for enforcing the law, it's also what they DO. The only one to blame is your legislator, who created the Bad Law, whom you voted in. That means blame yourself, and work to get the laws changed.

Well actually the police are partially to blame here. While a warrant is not required to confiscate computers from somebody's home in Finnish law, search is researved for cases that could produce 6 months in jail and cause "significant damage". The police has decided that downloading 1 cd caused significant damage and could result in 6 months of jail which required quite creative reasoning from them.

Re:Direct link

[nurb432]

It's the tidbits like this that make me feel warm and fuzzy about copyright and police:

Its the job of the poilce to enforce the laws, nothing more, nothing less. In this case they were just doing the job that your ( if you are local to the story anyway ) tax dollars are paying them to do. A policy of 'selective enforcement of law' is NOT a path you want to go down.

Now I dont like the situation anymore than the next guy, but blame the people responsible, the legislature, and not the cop on the street.

Re:Direct link

[arth1]

Why? The dad could have[...]
Also, maybe she likes Winnie and [...]

Yes, he could, and yes, she might.
Which is why I stated that there might be a [b]correlation[/b], and, indeed, that she might have the technical skills. It was an attempt to starve off replies like yours, but apparently it failed miserably.

Re:Direct link

[Theaetetus]

Actually that's exactly how it works. You don't call the police directly like you're reporting robbery though. Your lawyers see a judge and file charges and obtain a warrant. THEN the police get involved and go to the defendant and gather evidence.

I am not a lawyer, and this is a different country we are talking about. But I was under the impression that you have to actually sue the opposing party in civil court _first_. Then warrant may be given to perform discovery of whatever judge allows you to discover

Otherwise where exactly would this evidence go to? Some evidence is sent directly to the judge (and there is no judge).

It would be pretty hilarious if the police can just take the girl's laptop directly to the (civilly) suing party. Do they (CIAPC) have to give the laptop back? How long do they have to preform discovery? Does police perform their own forensic analysis during a civil lawsuit?

There's a third option, available in most countries, referred to as an Anton Piller order (from the original case it came up in). You can sue someone, but before serving papers on them (so they don't know they're being sued), you can go to the judge and request a seizure order. Then, you show up at their place with the cops, serve the complaint and seizure order, and take the seized equipment back to the judge. They're typically used in situations where it's highly likely that the defendant will destroy evidence if they find out they're being sued - copyright and trademark infringement cases, mainly.
In most jurisdictions, the plaintiff also has to put up a large monetary bond for the seized equipment, which is given to the defendant if the case fails (so that you can't just destroy someone's business by filing a frivolous suit, seizing all of their equipment, drawing the case out for a long time, and then losing).

Re:Direct link

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I wonder about the nondisclosure agreememt, too.

One of the side effects of law enforcement is loud, public punishment, to hopefully deter future criminals. This sounds more like an extortion plot they want kept hidden hoping, hoping, hoping it continues.

If it walks like a scam and talks like a scam and involves lawyers like a scam...

Re:Direct link

[AK Marc]

Clearly, the 9 year old doesn't have a credit card, so she typed in "free" with the song she wanted. It didn't work, but said she needed "bittorrent" to get it to work. Another google search and she was done (unless she already had a browser like Opera with bittorrent installed). My 5 year old could do that, if I let him. At 9, I'd let him...

Your assumption that dad did it and blamed the 9 year old doesn't seem logical. Like someone else said, I was programming my own games (at 9, they were more fun to program than play) and a heavy-duty sneakernet pirate.

Re:Direct link

[MrL0G1C]

Oh, you can't say greed is wrong, that's blasphemy against the capitalist religion.

Greed is good.

Re:Direct link

[Frosty Piss]

my 6 year old could manage this...

That statement implies you have had sex with a woman , and quite frankly I find that hard to believe.

Re:Direct link

[AK Marc]

And do you agree to the converse? If on the pooh laptop, then the 9-year old did it, not the daddy.

Re:Direct link

[uninformedLuddite]

If the Pooh doesn't fit you must acquit.

Re:Direct link

[uninformedLuddite]

I know a girl who could be described as a 'hacker'(quick call the police) who has a Hello Kitty laptop.

Re:Direct link

[uninformedLuddite]

IANAL but I am pretty sure that she would have to be in the swarm for any action to be initiated.

Re:Direct link

[arth1]

I know a girl who could be described as a 'hacker'(quick call the police) who has a Hello Kitty laptop.

Thus my "Sure, she could be clever or good with computers".
That something seems less likely doesn't preclude it from being the case. Neither does it lend credence to it being the case either.

The simplest solution is that this guy downloaded stuff and blames it on someone who's beyond the law. That doesn't mean it has to be the truth, and it's up to the accusers to attempt to prove it.

Re:Direct link

[randyleepublic]

Don't feel bad. The USofA is hot on your trail. We'll show you how to do police state RIGHT!

Re:Direct link

[virg_mattes]

The simplest solution is that this guy downloaded stuff and blames it on someone who's beyond the law.

This makes no sense at all, because (as the case itself demonstrated) blaming her would still cause charges to degenerate to him as her legal guardian, so it would be a pointless extra step, unless you're adding the extra and unlikely part that he planned to make it a PR nightmare in the event he got caught.

Virg

Re:Direct link

[arth1]

blaming her would still cause charges to degenerate to him as her legal guardian

This is Sweden, not USA. A guardian is not automatically responsible for the actions of the guarded. If he taught the child to do the act, he'd be guilty, and if he showed gross negligence, he'd be guilty of negligent child rearing, and might perhaps lose custody.

The idea that someone has to be blamed is pretty unique to conservative Abrahamic religion countries, and stems back to the "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" found in the scriptures. In other words, it's bunk.

Loss due to actions where there's no culpability and redress is part of the price of doing business. And insurance companies sell policies to guard against just that, to offset the costs over time.

Re:Direct link

[virg_mattes]

This is Sweden, not USA. A guardian is not automatically responsible for the actions of the guarded. If he taught the child to do the act, he'd be guilty, and if he showed gross negligence, he'd be guilty of negligent child rearing, and might perhaps lose custody. The idea that someone has to be blamed is pretty unique to conservative Abrahamic religion countries, and stems back to the "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" found in the scriptures. In other words, it's bunk.

And yet, here we are reading about it happening, so I'm guessing that it's not as much bunk as you claim.

Virg

Re:Direct link

[arth1]

And yet, here we are reading about it happening, so I'm guessing that it's not as much bunk as you claim.

Um, no. That's not what's happening. What's happening is that they cannot go after the kid, and they cannot automatically go after the guy because of what his kid might have done, like they could in, say, USA. That's what's happening.

The raid is collecting evidence, and does not imply who, if any, is being charged.

for the last time

[alienzed]

It's not theft if the original owner still has it.

Re:for the last time

[KiloByte]

The laptop's owner no longer has it. So a theft did occur, under false colour of law.

Re:for the last time

[Zontar The Mindless]

Dude, take a Valium.

Re:for the last time

[TapeCutter]

Dude, take a Valium.

...and two cups of tea.

Re:for the last time

[Cederic]

Also, here's a nice analogy: They let somebody else do hard work, and then took that, make a copy, which took zero work, and want me to pay for that... Well alright then, I'll take the money made with somebody else's hard work, make a copy (complete with stamp, invalidating it as legal tender), which takes zero work, and will pay them with that.

Hmm. So a major record company lets an artist do hard work, then took that, made a copy (which took zero work) and want you to pay for it? That's their fucking business model.

Well alright then, I'll take the money made with somebody else's hard work, make a copy (complete with stamp, invalidating it as legal tender), which takes zero work, and will pay them with that.

That's exactly what's been alleged to happen. So why the fuck are you bitching that it's happened? Fucking hypocrit.

Creating information is a service, always has been, and always will be.

This is why people are willing to pay for this service. This is why people do pay for this service. This is why the people that consume the service (e.g. by downloading music from the internet) pay the most in return.

Where the whole thing fucking breaks is the greedy cunts like you at the music distribution companies that want more money than people can afford to give, that bribe politicians into passing corrupt laws, that charge asinine prices for decades old music that's already made its creators millionaires.

On a sympathy scale of "oh dear" to "you poor thing" I'm afraid I'm coming in somewhere around the "this baby seal's fur will make me $2 so get the fuck out of my way or I'll club you to death too" level.

EXTORTION, real honest to goodness extortion

[Anonymous Coward]

If I threaten to reveal a crime you did, and demand money in exchange, that's extortion.

Which is exactly the problem with these 'dual' laws. The police become the arm of an extortion racket, where the reason for paying up is the threat of a police raid.

What CIAPC did WAS EXTORTION, because they could not offer him immunity from a copyright infringement claim or criminal claim against him. Their claim to pay up 600 euros or they go to the police is therefore cleancut extortion. The NDA is confirmation that they know its extortion.

Re:EXTORTION, real honest to goodness extortion

[wvmarle]

Sue them on grounds of attempted extortion.

Re:Slashdot and my real life meet for the first ti

[viperidaenz]

Don't lie. This is Slashdot. It was your mom who told you her friend's daughter's laptop was seized.

I bet she was running a honey pot.

[PDX]

I bet the kid was running a honey pot. What else was a Pooh to do?

Re:I bet she was running a honey pot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Poo? ;)

Goood work

[Anonymous Coward]

nice to see police actually doing something useful.

She has stolen.

[Anonymous Coward]

She has stolen the valuable property that belongs to others. Destroy her. Make an example out of her, to frighten other criminal children away from sharing ILLEGAL music. Consume her soul. We must protect the financial rights of immaterial property owners at all cost. Throw her in jail. Let her rot. If she dies it will serve as a warning to others. Support your industry rights organizations today. Buy now.

NAS Drive

[aaarrrgggh]

Whew... Good thing they would never find the NAS drive or Sheva Plug that were actually responsible for the download. (No.)

Reminder to everyone... Create a guest network with 40 bit WEP and have a NAS device with an onboard Bit Torrent client do all your dirty work.

Might as well start using strategies of real criminals if this is the response. Might get you chance at unreasonable search and seizure.

Re:NAS Drive

[ledow]

An interesting thought - I wonder how rigorous the average police search is.

As someone that just bought three Gigabit powerline-Ethernet devices, it would (as a thought experiment) be a cinch to put two of them to work to push a connection around your house and the third ANYWHERE on the household electrical wiring to pull off an Internet connection (hell, it could be at the bottom of the garden or inside a security light, or in the walls, or in the loft).

Unlike an Ethernet or Wi-fi device which would advertise its connection to the local LAN and router, a powerline device would be a lot more subtle (and if you've retrieved two, you probably wouldn't think there might be a third, fourth, fifth).

Sure, you might find a MAC address reference in logs of the router somewhere to a third device (which would be identifiable as a powerline unit, I suspect) but it's unlikely that such logs exist on a home network if you have, for example, DHCP turned off. And that's all the sort of investigation that would have to take place in the computer forensics departments, not during any "raid".

Even a wireless device would advertise itself and be easily discoverable with even the toy wifi finders you can get from ThinkGeek, but a powerline device? To prove it existed, you'd need to connect to the household wiring with some quite advanced tech, I should think, before the homeowner is "released" to remove any such devices.

To find it, without knowing it existed, would be quite unlikely. With a bit of homebrew, you could probably join the powerline functionality into an Ethernet wall-socket or mid-way along a cable run and not even notice the whole powerline network is there and cabled into the local network.

I have much more boring uses, though. I'm going to use the third plug to let my CCTV control unit be installed into the loft out of the reach of probing fingers and that single socket can then provide networking and power (and I can shove the noisy spinning-fan box with the UPS up into the loft but still remote-access it).

Re:NAS Drive

[GameboyRMH]

Or hide it inside a wall.

Note to law enforcement

[sjames]

If you find yourself taking a Winnie the Pooh laptop from a 9 year old, you've probably gone over a line or two somewhere.

Re:Note to law enforcement

[sjames]

You probably crossed several lines on the way to the child's room :-)

A teddy bear is not a Winnie the Pooh laptop. However, you should be able to examine the bear without harming it and return it to the child on the spot. Meanwhile, since I oppose the War on drugs, I would say the line was crossed quite a few steps back in that case.

Re:Note to law enforcement

[epSos-de]

It is even more outraging, if you consider who paid the police and which side are they standing at. We must thank Hollywood for how they keep our European police as their pets and the Europeans pay the police wages, instead of the Hollywood paying to them directly. All is great for Hollywood. They were predicting oppressive dictatorships in their movies, becasue they wanted to start one in reality.

Can't find a pirate?

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

Go after the cabin boy (or girl in this case).

Re:I Imagine

[Nyder]

A significant proportion of all homes raided contain young children and in the case of cyber crimes the kids computer would likely get confiscated as well.

Regardless on how you feel about piracy, criminals do not get a free pass simply because they have children.

Yes, you are right. Put the criminal (in this case, a 9 year old girl) in jail because she is a threat to the profits of corporations.

Are you stupid or just a dick?

Finland

[Kupfernigk]

I think you need to know some history. Despite its apparent liberalism after WW2, Finland was on the side of Germany and many Finns were happy with Nazi racial doctrines. It's Norway and Iceland that were the socially liberal states, Sweden more imperialistic and Finland most North Germanic. It hasn't "become a police state", it has always had strong authoritarian tendencies.

Think what the reputation of Scandinavia was in the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages, and you will get the point (note- before anybody accuses me of trolling, in real life I have a surname of Scandinavian origin. I just don't buy into the myth that Scandinavia is some pareadise of uncorrupt liberalism.)

Re:Finland

[kyrsjo]

Well, despite of your "name of Scandinavian origin", you forgot one of the main countries in the region (*). Also, while most people of Norwegian decent in the US seems to be pickup-wielding Romniators, Obama is far-right compared to most of the people living in the country today (but admittedly, a bit more likable than most of our own outer right politicians). And while there are differences in culture and policy between the countries of Scandinavia, some of which might be the deeper reason for the historical facts you point to, the similarities are larger. Its all social democracy over here, and even the supposedly right-wing parties would never ever challenge that (with the exception of small groups of often somewhat crazy people, which are about as popular here as communists in the US...) - just how its organized.

(*) Denmark - I'll leave it up to you to explain their culture based on WW2/Napoleonic war allegiances.

Re:DO NOT MESS WITH VIKINGS !!

[Buchenskjoll]

The Fins were never vikings. The Scandinavians were, though.

Bizarre

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that downloading copyrighted material is completely legal in Finland. It's the sharing that's illegal..

AFAIK and technically speaking

[itmo]

Finland is not even in scandinavia. but fennoscandia. Again, AFAIK, the story is that the daughter wanted to buy a record from an artist called Chisu, but since they cost a lot, she wanted to try first. Father said "google it and check it on the internet". Somehow the girl ended up torrenting it (plausible, torrent is apparently 4th result on google search) and got a copy which did not work. One year later they get a letter to pay 600 euro in _damages_ not a fine and an NDA, or it will go to police. When they refused, the police made a normal search. Which is very interesting legally , since this is a very borderline case. Search should only be possible for a "Tekijänoikeusrikos"(copyright crime) ,not "tekijänoikeusrikkomus"(copyright misdemeanor). The difference between these two is either profiting from the copyright violation OR causing "severe damage" to the right holder. Since they asked for 600 euro , I dont know if the damage is "severe". Also they seized the laptop although (AFAIK,IANAL) law apparently says that they should only seize the whole laptop if there is a pressing reason for it, they could just have seized or copied the data. IMO there cannot be a pressing reason if the case was filed 1 year after the fact.

Re:AFAIK and technically speaking

[itmo]

also if you need information on this case, I suggest you try contacting EFFI ry in finland. (finnish EFF)

They sure showed her

[Arancaytar]

It takes real balls to go up against such a dangerous criminal and intimidate her.

Re:I Imagine

[wisnoskij]

The summery specifically said that the "criminal" was the father.

Tools & Practises? --- Re:Sensational!

[Jansku]

6) Kukilainen from TTVK makes a note saying, "we only track IPs and we will take this to court"

You mean Kotilainen?

Is there a way, or have people analyzed the possible honey-trap files allegedly used? Steganographend information would be hard to find but I'd be interested to know what is the current practical situation on the topic?

What kind of products there are on the market?

Which companies TTVK/CIAPC use as their contractors to do this?

Re:Sensational! Poor Kid, Walk the plank.

[1s44c]

So, who in their right mind is actually PAYING FOR an operating system?

Those forced to by an insane world.

I can't buy a decent laptop without handing some of my money to Microsoft.

The holy grail

[alexo]

Big Media, winning hearts and minds.

The holy grail of the middleman is to set himself up to be the gate keeper of an essential good or service.

Since monopolizing access to air, water, food or sex did not pan out, they went after the next thing -- culture.
And, I must admit, with great success. With the eager participation of most (if not all) "free" national governments, partaking in your own culture is no longer free, and the full force of the state is applied against those who would dare to oppose this "arrangement".

Have no doubt, there is a lot of wealth and power involved and, given their corrupting influence, things will only get worse in time.
Nothing short of a violent and bloody revolution can reverse this trend.

Re:The holy grail

[Raenex]

Nothing short of a violent and bloody revolution can reverse this trend.

This just isn't true. If the people really cared about this issue, they could get it changed via the ballot box. It's just that they don't care as much as you do, so you want to act like a psychopath who doesn't get his way.

Re:The holy grail

[rastoboy29]

Where is your evidence that only a violent and bloody revolution can reverse this trend?

Have you tried, I don't know, convincing lots of people to your point of view?

Re:The holy grail

[alexo]

Nothing short of a violent and bloody revolution can reverse this trend.

This just isn't true. If the people really cared about this issue, they could get it changed via the ballot box.

Really? Still smoking that "hope and change" dope, are you?

Go read Douglas Adams, it's good for you.
Or, if reading is not your forte, go watch The Simpsons (skip to 13:22).

“If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.”
(attributed to Emma Goldman, Jello Biafra and others)

It's just that they don't care as much as you do, so you want to act like a psychopath who doesn't get his way.

Apparently reading comprehension is not one of your strong points.

Let's try something else: "Nothing short of a miracle can reverse this trend."
See, now I'm a saint!

Re:The holy grail

[alexo]

Go study Gandi [sic]

Go study the political climate that made Gandhi's non-vilence possible and effective, and why it would not work today.

Re:The holy grail

[alexo]

Where is your evidence that only a violent and bloody revolution can reverse this trend?

If you want non-refutable evidence that would stand up to scientific scrutiny, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you.

Have you tried, I don't know, convincing lots of people to your point of view?

I have tried convincing people that voting for the lesser evil only perpetuates evil.
I have tried convincing people that power without accountability (e.g., police) only leads to abuse and corruption.
I have tried convincing people that being "tough on crime" by criminalizing more things and increasing punishments instead of concentrating on rehabilitation and giving alternative does not really reduce crime, just makes more criminals.
Several years ago, when Ontario held a referendum, I have tried convincing people that Mixed-Proportional is a much better system than First-Past-The-Post.
Lather, rinse, repeat...

So, allow me to answer your question with an Inigo Montoya quote:
"it's been twenty years now and I'm starting to lose confidence".

Re:The holy grail

[alexo]

Recently, we've switched to democracy, which amazingly allows for non-violet revolution.

Not when your only "democratic" choice is whether to vote for Kang or for Kodos.

A real democracy, whether direct or representative, only works with an informed and active populace, that is concerned about its rights and the principles of good governance and is willing to suffer inconveniences to protect them.

Otherwise, you only get the illusion of democracy that serves only to stop you from violently revolting by providing a false hope.

Re:The holy grail

[Raenex]

Really? Still smoking that "hope and change" dope, are you?

I never did in the first place.

Go read Douglas Adams, it's good for you.
Or, if reading is not your forte, go watch The Simpsons (skip to 13:22).

Now that's funny, because I'm willing to bet the creators of those works believed in copyright.

Let's try something else: "Nothing short of a miracle can reverse this trend."

History has shown that if enough people care about an issue, the policies can change in response -- the key being that enough people have to actually care.

Re:The holy grail

[denelson83]

If the people really cared about this issue, they could get it changed via the ballot box.

Won't work if all of the candidates are in the pockets of Big Money.

Re:The holy grail

[lonecrow]

The holy grail of the middleman is to set himself up to be the gate keeper of an essential good or service. Nice choice of words considering the biggest gate keeping extortionist of them all, the pope.

Re:The holy grail

[Raenex]

Then elect a candidate that isn't. That's the whole point. If you can't do it, then the people don't care enough.

Re:The holy grail

[uninformedLuddite]

“I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully” - Gandhi

Re:The holy grail

[rastoboy29]

No, I don't need irrefutable evidence...any evidence at all would do.

You are surprised that one man trying to convince people of things hasn't changed the world in a short amount of time.

I never said it would be easy.  But if you study the history or violnet revolution, I believe you will find that 9 times out of 10 the cure is much, much worse than the disease.  See: Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Congo, etc. etc. etc.

Re:The holy grail

[alexo]

No, I don't need irrefutable evidence...any evidence at all would do.

The only evidence that I can present is that nothing else has worked so far.

You are surprised that one man trying to convince people of things hasn't changed the world in a short amount of time.

Let my fix that for you:

I am disappointed that one man trying to convince people of things hasn't made a iota of a difference in two and a half decades.

I never said it would be easy. But if you study the history or violnet revolution, I believe you will find that 9 times out of 10 the cure is much, much worse than the disease. See: Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Congo, etc. etc. etc.

I did not say that violent revolutions are good.
I did not advocate for one.
I did say that (IMHO implied) it is the only thing that can bring measurable change to the system, for better or worse.

Re:Sensational! Poor Kid, Walk the plank.

[GameboyRMH]

You can get one from one of the Linux laptop shops...for way more money, for some reason...

Time to explore the POOH connection

[TheRealHocusLocus]

There is nothing remarkable about this news story, even the affected artist reaching out to the accused, expressing regret that the anti-piracy mechanisms have evolved into quasi-legal mantis shrimp prowling peer to peer networks to smash their blunt appendages against any IP address that they discover, even encourage piracy by seeding and delivering a greater percentage of the offending material than is permitted under fair use as part of the sting. And the mantis shrimp strike is so powerful it produces cavitation bubbles, how cute is that.

Time to explore the Pooh connection. Pooh has been a wholly licensed asset of Walt Disney Corporation since 1961. Everyone knows that the Hundred Acre Wood is a clumsy euphemism for Bohemian Grove. Tigger's Compulsive and Ceaseless Bouncing used as a clever device to indoctrinate generations of children to passively accept the idea of Bernanke & Geithner's "Quantitative Easing: Forever!" Honey being gold, Pooh being the stooge who ever seeks it even as it is held in short supply by fiat-pumping speculators. Piglet who is very small and cannot help to point this out, representing the many countries whose small size has been used as pretext to front enormous per-capita debt grown to ridiculous proportions by arrogant and disruptive IMF lending practices. Piglet's hide is bought and paid for and he knows it.

And The Established Practice Of Capitalizing Every Word In A Sentence can be Directly Traced To Christopher Robin. Whats Up With That. Always Busy, He Is. Doing What, I Wonder.

The truth is out there people. Go get it and bring it back in time for dinner.

Possible hoax?

[wcrowe]

The "article" (I hesitate to call it that) does not even describe the country that the alleged raid took place in, let alone the city. "Scandinavia" is not a country, but a loosely-defined region of countries, primarily Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and depending on your definition, Finland and Iceland. I think the whole thing is made up.

Slashdot is really going downhill. The motto needs to be changed to "Rumors for Nerds; Stuff" period.

Re:Slashdot and my real life meet for the first ti

[Man Eating Duck]

No, it isn't.You're confusing Scandinavia and the "Nordic countries".

Re:Sensational! Poor Kid, Walk the plank.

[Raenex]

Getting a laptop with Linux or no OS costs more money because of shovelware and economy of scale.

Not really, this will make them look really bad.

[DarthVain]

It was reported earlier the same story where he was contacted, and he responded with a letter, with a picture of the winnie the pooh laptop in question. That has made the rounds of the internet sites, including slashdot.

I read this as the farther did not comply with the blackmail, the media thugs then went and contacted poliece after reciving the letter, who then raided the home and took the laptop.

This seems to be in line with how crazy the media assoications are. The letter was sent in regards as to how ridiclous the claim was, pointing out that the file in question was downloaded by a 9 year old on her winnie the pooh laptop, and that persuing legal action against that is silly.

They only thing they have gotten themselves here is a PR nighmare should the news actually ever make it to mainstream media and not just fringe news sites on the internet. Seriously what were they thinking, they couldn't make themselves look worse particulary with all the crazy litigation they have done in the past. Hopefully this gives them another black eye in front of larger public who will hopfully start to take notice and start to care about this kind of behavior.

Abuse of courts and police services

[DarthVain]

At some point the courts or the government of those courts should be going after these media assoications for abuse of both the legal system and police services. Think of all the time and money wasted on frivolous lawsuits and police resource time for these idiots. Tying up the court time, and police time for this garbage.

They are basically using the courts and poliece as their hired thugs to extort money from people.

Though I am sure if big media ever does have to pay, they will simply tack that loss onto their piracy "statistics" as to how much money is lost due to piracy. They fact that they have gotten away with the behavior for this long is crazy.

Finland in WWII

[KingAlanI]

I thought Finland allied with Nazi Germany because of the Winter War (USSR invasion of Finland in 1939) making the USSR a common enemy.

I've seen that before in 30's Chicago..

[doccus]

It's called a "protection racket" "We'll charge you with a crime, but we will take a bribe to back off" Is there NOBODY that can stop this disgraceful behavior?

Sue the CIAPC

[syleishere]

What they did snooping traffic is a clear violation of privacy, what someone does in their own house is their business. If this "scandinavia" has any self-respect, lawyers should step up to the plate, sue them hard, prevent this from happening to anyone else. Harrassing a 9 year old girl, stealing personal property(laptops etc), anyone else find this wrong?

Re:Downloading

[viperidaenz]

Yeah, that makes it only copyright infringement, instead of copyright infringement. Oh wait...

ps: you can't claim "fair use" when that use is the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials.

Re:Sensational! Poor Kid, Walk the plank.

[Mufasa_ooh_sayitagai]

Actually, you can buy a laptop from some dealers like Xotic without an OS. And the prices are generally cheaper for better hardware... Asus, Sager, and Alienware.

I don't work for them. I'm just happy with my unmarked, ubermachine Sager.