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Music Industry Suits Could Bankrupt Pirate Party Members
An anonymous reader writes "Music industry group BPI has threatened legal action against six members of the UK Pirate Party, after the party refused to take its Pirate Bay proxy offline. BPI seems to want to hold the individual members of the party responsible for copyright infringements that may occur via the proxy, which puts them at risk of personal bankruptcy. Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye criticized the latest music industry threats and reiterated that blocking The Pirate Bay is a disproportionate measure."
If so, the money they get from the SLAPP-back lawsuits could fill the Pirate Party's campaign coffers for the next century. This is a very stupid move for any large group of companies to pull. If BPI has even a mote of legal sense, they need to fire their lawyers now, pull out of the suit, and offer a settlement in exchange for the Pirate Party not countersuing.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
...BPI wants to create some martyrs and boost the UK pirate party right to the parliament.
Bribing, threatening, or extorting, public officials should be a no-no. Perhaps Scotland Yard should crawl up BPI's ass with a microscope, and start tossing people in jail.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
they should incorporate.
Is that why there's first, second, and third degree murder charges and convictions then - because it's not a matter of degree?
Right and wrong is an either/or thing, not a matter of degrees.
No, it's all a matter of degree.
We don't punish a murderer tthe same way we punish someone who is shoplifting. Both things are wrong/illegal and yet one comes with a harsher punishment than the other. A matter of degree. So some things are more wrong than others.
Is that why there's first, second, and third degree murder charges and convictions then - because it's not a matter of degree?
No, because of mens rea and culpability.
Om, nomnomnom...
This will open a precedent.
Just think : "Individuals are being charged for felonies committed by the organization".
Microsoft, Exxon, MPAA, RIAA et all !!!!
Man, I can't hold myself in the chair, this can be great!!!
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Take names, kick ass.
BPI together with RIAA, MPAA, SIAE, SAGEM etc... are the scum of this earth.
Why oh why do people massacre kids insteads of these fucking cunts ? They'd do a service to humankind.
If you add to that list the national government officials, both elected and non-elected, of the UK and US, I'd agree.
I pray every day to whatever deities or forces that may exist in the universe for meteors to simultaneously impact Washington, D.C. and London and turn them into huge smoking holes on a day when all the leaders of both nations are in their respective capitols, or for Iran or N. Korea to succeed in their nuclear programs and nuke them both.
Either way, it would be the best thing that's happened to the people of the US and England since WW2, maybe even farther back than that.
Chew gum.
Sorry this offends your kooky views that all bad things come from the U.S., and that the EU doesn't have a shitpile of problems of its own.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Shall we? I'd be happy to organize it.
expandfairuse.org
*the White House and 10 Downing Street are vaporized by terrorist nukes*
The CIA/NSA/MI6/etc: "My god, we brought this on ourselves by taking actions that made other people hate us! We have to immediately restore the bill of rights tenfold, dismantle the illegal spying programs, and recall our troops from around the world!"
Were you dropped on your head as a child, by any chance?
I have occasionally said only partially in jest that the best thing that could happen to Washington DC would be for the British to come back and finish the job they started in 1814.
Your new to Christianity aren't you...
Theft is bad. It's never a good thing. But, you become a judge for a few minutes.
First case - you have a young man from a wealthy family who is charged with embezzling tens of thousands of (dollars, pounds, euros, whatever) from the local bank. The facts are all in, your jury has returned with a verdict, there is no doubt of his guilt, there is no doubt that he has caused tremendous harm to the community. It's time for you to sentence him.
Second case - a young parent has a kid or six at home, who are hungry all the time. The parent has a history of working hard, but work is scarce these days. (S)he is having a string of bad luck. (S)he is charged with stealing a couple dollars worth of food. The jury has returned it's verdict - guilty. Now, judge.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
from the way you're spinning it you might as well pirate all their shit, they're gonna get fucked anyway
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
but there has been very real damage caused by a generation of people who grew up thinking copying music without paying for it is totally acceptable
And just how much damage? Care to cite your facts and figures? Care to explain to me how copying certain data is objectively not acceptable?
Don't try to justify your selfishness with "zomg evil cocaine-snorting criminals".
I don't think they should try to do that, either; justifications are 100% unnecessary. Whether you or anyone else likes it or not, copyright is failing. People will eventually have to find viable business models or die off like anyone else would rather than tell the government to give them monopolies.
You're hurting the artists you supposedly care about and listen to all day.
You have not hurt someone if the only thing you did was not give them money (i.e. they didn't perform a service for you, didn't lend you any resources, etc.).
also: if you're saying the major labels aren't staffed by a bunch of blood thirsty cunts looking to steal every dollar they can from the artists they you're a dirty god damned liar.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
at $200,000 a song, and not being held to prove intent to distribute, the music industry could prosecute anyone into bankruptcy. fuck them. i paid piracy taxes on blank cd's and blank cassette tapes, taxes which go straight into the RIAA's coffers. yet i record my own music, and am blamed ahead of time for crimes i haven't committed. so yes, fuck the music industry, fuck them all the way.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
If the world were fair, "Les Miserable" would be a comedy. As long as there are people who think the response to being barred from your pocket is nuclear war, you can't be surprised to see their paid minions (mostly legal or political) serving up humanity like chalupas from Taco Bell.
Well, I'm golfing buddies with the first man's parents. He's a good kid, I'll let this one slide.
Do these people really think when a trial goes to jury or even just judgement, that the jurors or judge is going to catch the "too cute by half" nature of their name and let them off?
It's really nothing special. They'll get their costs back from the BPI, their lawyer will hold off on bills as long as he thinks they can ultimately pay, or the case will be won. If the litigation is vexatious (the litigation process is designed to be the punitive, rather than the court decision), then they can do serious damage in return to the BPI.
As it is, this lawsuit is a good thing, since it will test whether a ban on a website that doesn't actually infringe copyright itself, is worth so much that you ban a *gateway* to a website that doesn't infringe copyright itself... I mean how far do we go with this?
See, EVERY proxy does this to the nth degree. EVERY proxy lets me access some sites that are banned somewhere for some reason.
So what they did was say "here's a proxy that lets you access pirate bay", but actually EVERY proxy outside the UK does that. What they're doing is nothing special and thus the consequence of this lawsuit succeeding would collapse the net.
Thus it won't succeed.
But then when it fails, it opens the doorway for everyone to introduce proxies to sites that also link to copyright infringements but don't infringe themselves*.
* See when we go down this road, it becomes difficult to even explain. Bob committed a murder, Anton runs a tour of the murder scene, Anton is prosecuted, because they can't get Bob and Anton is an easier target. Dave continues to sell tickets to Anton's gruesome tour. So they sue Dave for .... well.... Bob's murder. Having already prosecuted Anton for that murder.
The sell outs in favor of local artists.
.
^ see that
It's the worlds smallest, quietest violin playing for the sell outs.
There certainly have been excesses in the recording industry's past, but these days the record industry -- record labels, recording studios, and most importantly music artists -- are just struggling to survive.
I guess that's why Nielsen Soundscan is reporting that overall music sales were up 4% in first half of 2012 compared to same time last year. And the 2011 report said overall music sales were up 6.9% and: "For the first time, total music purchases reached the 1.6 Billion mark for the year." And there's still more than 75000 albums released per year so there's no mass death of artists, the rumors of the impending doom of the music industry are wildly exaggerated.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Actually, that's a bit of a naughty use of numbers.
Your link says:
Album sales ($15?) each are down 3.2%
and
and single track sales (99c) are up 5.6%
That is not the growth you purport it to be.
The McLibel trial was widely regarded as the biggest publicity disaster to every hit McDonalds.
This case is so peripherally connected with file sharing, that it could sour the public on the recording industry. Specifically, if England, if they go to trial, the can subpoena the record company executives to testify at trial. There is no end of embarassing documents that might come up.
Nope, it quite clearly says overall album sales are down 3.6%.
That does not equate to growth. In any way shape or form. They may be selling 4% more "units" - but the average value of those units is down significantly.
Yeah, because people stop buying full 12-tracks bundles of music, preferring to go after the ONE song they want.
So instead of spending $15 for a CD or digital download of an album ($10), they're spending $0.99 to get the one song they want, and ignoring the 11 other pieces of crap they don't want. The album isn't dead - there's a lot of genres of music where the album is the preferred form (e.g., soundtrack scores), but for popular music, most people just want the song they heard on the radio. Perhaps they may want others, but they'll buy the one song they want rather than pay $9 or $14 more for a collection on them to get the one song they want. (And many people have complained of just this - having to buy a whole CD just for one song. And singles at $5?)
Obviously, the solution is to raise single track prices. Yeah, that'll fix it.
And yes, even the most reluctant of bands eventually caved into single track sales - deciding that the "integrity of the album" was costing them sales and better to sell the song the listener wants at 99 cents than have their $15 album downloaded for free just to get the one song.
Either murder is wrong, or it isn't. The pirates in this article have called themselves "the Pirate Party," while engaging in contributory and vicarious copyright infringement to take the rights of creators away from them. They then they are complaining about first degree vs. second degree, when they shouldn't be engaged in criminal activity in the first place. The fact that there are degrees doesn't mean right vs. wrong doesn't exist, which is what the pirates want you to think, and is why they are trying to convert the issue into one of degrees when it's extremely clear they are in the wrong.
If politics changed anything they'd ban it.
Can it be made any clearer to terrorists and extremists that there is no room for change within the system.
A blog I run for the wealth
Purchasing music, movies, or paying for cable TV is immoral. Just don't do it, and try your best to stop your friends and family from doing it.
I disagree. The so called "rights holders" have twisted the law to their benefit, over the past several decades. People such as Walt Disney have wined and dined, and bribed the lawmakers to pass ridiculous laws, extending copyrights far beyond anything that is reasonable. Sonny Bonehead did the same.
The "rights holders" have even thrown a wet blanket over the use of "Happy Birthday" by little children at private parties.
I see the Pirate Party as a modern day Robin Hood, standing up to an unreasonable Sheriff of Nottanyfun.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Perhaps the solution is to change the name from "Pirate Party" to the "Totally Respect Other People's Stuff Party" or the TROPS Party.
Likewise, "The Pirate Bay" should change its name to "The We Totally Have Nothing That Belongs To Anyone Else Here Bay"
That'd fix it.
The pirates are *willfully* violating the law - they are members of the Pirate Party. They are running into a sword, and we owe them no compassion.
What a load of Bollocks
The BPI are the guilty party guilty of of trying to enforce an unenforceable idea that once something has ben released it is still private property .. You want to keep something private property then simple dont publish it dont show it dont play it keep it hidden in the cellar under lock and key .
Once you have published something you have handed ownership to anyone that fancies a copy simple as .
The BPI are Gulity of theft , fraud , Tax Evaision , False accounting and probably a few more ..
Either murder is wrong, or it isn't.
Either abortion is wrong, or it isn't.
Either war is wrong, or it isn't.
Either depriving someone on their freedom is wrong, or it isn't.
etc.
In the real world, things are not always "black" or "white".
Well... to begin with, "copyright infringement" is not exactly the same as "murder", despite your silly fantasies.
Second, there ARE several degrees of "copyright infringement", from totally "fair use" cases, to "personal, non-commercial copyright infringement", to "large-scale, commercial copyright infringement". Also, most of these degrees of copyright infringement (apart from "commercial infringement") are NOT a crime in most places in the world.
Third, there ARE cases where a seemingly wrong thing (e.g. depriving someone of their freedom), might actually be the best thing to do (e.g. in the case that person is a psychopath murderer).
The pirates in this article have called themselves "the Pirate Party," while engaging in contributory and vicarious copyright infringement to take the rights of creators away from them.
What is this "contributory copyright infringement" concept you just made up? (Protip: US laws don't apply elsewhere. Kthnxbai.) Also, even the US, there is nothing codified in LAW regarding "contributory copyright infringement" (Protip: jurisprudence is not law). ALSO, you have yet to demonstrate that the people (not the legal entity, but the people) that are being threatened with a lawsuit have, in any way, knowingly contributed to copyright infringement.
One thing you have to take into account is that all metadata (including cryptographic hashes, checksums and torrent files) is, by definition, non-copyrighted information (even if they refer to copyrighted information), since it is mechanistic, non-creative information. Therefore, having and duplicating metadata CANNOT be considered copyright infringement, even if said metadata refers to an instance of a copyrighted work (otherwise, IMDB would be quite sparse, for instance).
Also, important to take into account that UK Pirate Party is not storing anything at all: not magnet links nor torrents nor anything. They are simply proxying a connection to some host (which apparently is allowed to still operate.... TPB) and, through that connection, information legally equivalent to consulting IMDB will be transmitted (not copyrighted information, but NON-copyrighted information). You cannot blame the UK Pirate Party if someone decides to take that (non-copyrighted) information and use it for "integrity checking" copyrighted files. AGAIN, it's important to note that the torrent file DOESN'T enable file sharing or trading, it only enables FILE INTEGRITY CHECK after file sharing or trading.
Selling knifes isn't a crime, killing people is. And the Pirate Party is not even selling knifes: they're just acting like UPS, transporting knifes from the knife shop (TPB) to the customer's home. If you want to prevent this all from happening, maybe you should either go to the knife shop itself (TPB) and close it, or go to the people actually doing the crimes (not TPB nor the UK Pirate Party). Because, otherwise, people just use something other than UPS to get their knifes (e.g. FedEx).
Even worse for you: nowadays, TPB is not even selling knifes (i.e. torrents), they just give you pictures of how a knife is supposed to look like (i.e. magnet-links) and you're just supposed to ask random people on the street until they hand you something which resembles what you have in the picture (i.e. the torrent you are looking for). This means that TPB nowadays actually transmits non-copyrighted metadata (i.e. magnet-link) regarding some other non-copyrighted piece of metadata (i.e. a torrent). Anything else that might actually involve transmitting copyrighted data between people NEVER involves TPB, by design.
They then they are complaining about first degree vs. second degree, when they should
Yes, the problem is that the elements of speech the US has done a better job of protecting are things like being able to protest next to dead soldiers graves and call them and their families "fags". It does however still legislate against many types of speech which is pretty much the same as in Europe. See sections 4 and 5 for a decent overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States
I'm not really convinced that the US is any better off for protecting the speech it does protect that some individual European nations do not. Allowing everyone from the KKK, to the Phelps, to Neo Nazis to say what they want doesn't strike me as having improved the richness of discourse in the US. If anything US political discourse at least seems to be getting ever more populist, and ever more irrational.
The Pirate Party should consider the McLibel defence.
It appears you suffer from a severe mental dysfunction.
The funny name aside, the Pirates isn't out to steal or plunder. You would know this if you check out the various Pirate Party charters.
They argue that the business model where an organization - for a hefty fee - handles the rights of musicians and filmmakers, is not only obsolete but actually the very reason the creative people are locked into a structure where they cannot make a living.
Step back for a minute and think about this. You know when someone really like a new movie and goes to see it again and again? When someone love a record so much that he buys it again and again in different versions, different pressings, different formats etc.?
These are the people that don't mind paying for their entertainment - because it's that good.
So why are people downloading illegally? - Well, there are those people that can't or won't pay. You can't force them to pay. If they can't get it for free, they're not interested. So there's no loss there. Are they the majority? Nope. They are about 10% of the so-called pirates. The rest actually have one thing in common: They want something which isn't available where they live. Most would happily pay a decent price if they could. But due to the old and obsolete business model, entertainment is divided into regions and into sectors, strictly separated.
A movie usually get a monopoly in the local cinemas first. Then comes pay-per-view and subscription movie channels. Then rental. Finally it hits the shelves for general purchase. Along the way, other regions join in, usually in the same order, i.e. cinemas first etc. Now, if you happen to live in the wrong place, you'll have to wait. Maybe it will show up later, maybe not. But the movie is available illegally from day one. So instead of allowing people to pay for it, they push people into piracy. That's stupidity squared and that's why piracy works so well.
A model that would work is make everything available all at once globally in all formats. Then offer merchandise and enhanced experience in the cinemas. That way over 90% the piracy goes away and done right the merchandising extended to almost all titles could be a gold mine. Sure, there would still be some piracy here and there, mostly done by the people who can't or won't pay, so that's not worth fussing over as there's no sales to be gained.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
The law itself is disproportionate...
Copyright in general has become corrupted totally corrupted such that it now exists solely to benefit big copyright holders to the detriment of everyone else. When first envisaged, it was an agreement between society and content creators to allow content creators to profit in the short term while providing their work to the public domain for the benefit of society as a whole long term.
A copyright term of 20 years made sense at the time, nowadays with modern distribution technology the copyright term should be shorter and yet it has been corrupted beyond belief - now it is extremely unlikely that anyone who was around when something was first released is going to still be alive when it falls into the public domain, and there might not even be any readable copies left by then either.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Yikes... the MAFIAA are getting into hiring shills too now!
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
Can't argue with that.
The content industry has no reputation left to loose, the days people liked a record label as much as an artist is long gone.
Furthermore, the case would be fought by a proxy, not by a restaurant chain people have to physically enter to buy stuff from.
McDonald's has lots of competition for food pounds, the content industry controls ALL content, they are united. If people wanted to boycott McDonald's (and how many did that anyway?) they can still go to Burger King. If they want to boycott the record labels, they got to stop listening to music. Even just listening to the radio is supporting the record industry and all their evil. And people aren't going to stop doing that. Not because they entirely disagree, they might even think that SOMEONE has to do something but that someone is NOT them!
Want some proof? The Simspons and Futurama are usually shows that are quick to point out how evil business is, yet on copyright infringement, they tout the party line WITHOUT question. Liberal lefty show my ass not when the creators income is on the line. The show made light of outsourcing by showing the show being created under horrible conditions but have you seen a single scene were copyright infringement is shown as ANYTHING but evil stealing?
THAT is the big difference.
McDonald's relies on the media for its reputation. Big content IS the media. They will make certain the plebs are not disturbed by confusing ideas about right and wrong. They will tell them and the plebs will listen. They always have, they always will.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That is all this is, no real 'escalation' has occurred. I dont think this 'war' will ever end anyway, much like the 'war on terror', so instead of getting all worked up about today's silliness, its better to just plan for the long term.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
* Comcast is not the Pirate Bay. One is an ISP that respects DMCA takedown requests and has a lot of legitimate content, the other is a den of inequity. If TPB respected takedown requests they'd have to shut down the site and lose all the money they make on ads.
*sigh*
Protip: the DMCA only applies to the US. the DMCA only applies to the US. the DMCA only applies to the US.
Should I repeat again?
-> The DMCA only applies to the US!
Ok. Now that I got *that* through your thick skull...
Encrypting does not magically remove copyright protection.
Nice strawman. Where exactly did I made this claim? Learn how to read.
The Pirate Bay's and the Pirate Party's actions are so willfully attacking property that they *should* go to prison, but that is not the case right now in any legal system I know of.
..because? Again, you make a bold claim with nothing to back it up: "PP and TPB actions are criminal and whatever, because.... (justification omitted)". In fact, you even admit that most legal systems DO NOT EVEN AGREE WITH YOU. Maybe you should sit down for a second and try to understand why the law doesn't agree with you. I already gave you a few hints.
But, since I'm so helpful, I'll explain it to you again: TPB and the UK PP are NOT "willfully attacking property" (except ideologically, of course), THEIR USERS ARE. Or maybe they aren't? YMMV.
There is no reason why you should be able to copy movies, download art, or music which you didn't create and don't have permission to do so.
[citation needed]
My view is you should respect the wishes of other people and their property rights.
Yes, we already know what's the position of copyright maximalists, thank you very much. What you should have into account is that actual "(natural) property rights" are not the same as "intellectual property right", despite the misleading similar name. Which is why they aren't enforced to the same extent. Like I said, one day you'll figure it out.
(Hint: I assume you have already, at least once, performed an unauthorized rendition of "Happy Birthday". In fact, I'm 100% sure of it. But feel free to deny it, you criminal pirate scum.)
You aren't allowed to go on someone else's lawn and do what you want: it's the same thing with creations of the mind as with ownership of physical property.
See... here lies your problem. You confuse "intellectual property" with, you know, actual physical property... and that just leads you to erroneous conclusions about how the world works. I guess you'll have to figure out that part by yourself...
I am right because people have a right to their property, intellectual and physical.
...but not at ANY cost, unlike what you might desire.
You are wrong because you want to disrespect creative output of the mind and deny monetary support to those who use their minds creatively.
See... here lies another one of your problems... just because I disagree with your over simplistic characterization of the problem (i.e. "copyright infringement is like murder", "copyright infringement is like theft", "copyright infringement is like rape") doesn't mean
1) That my goal in live is to ideologically support undermining the monetary support of artists;
2) That I actually participate in copyright infringement.
Which is what you immediately seem to suggest, without even knowing me. ...which brings us, finally, to your sidenote:
Note: I don't think the Pirate Party should go to prison for *supporting* piracy: they have a right to do that. But proxying TPB turns them into active participants.
No, it doesn't and I already explained to you why. The reason you think they should go to prison, as you already showed, is *precisely*
Thanks for your reply. I am, in fact, not an expert in UK law (because UK law, like US law, is irrelevant to me), but I was assuming that non-commercial copyright infringement was not criminal in the UK. As you pointed out, it's possible I might be wrong.
Still... neither TPB nor the UKPP know which files are selected by the users (due to the nature of magnet-links), so they REALLY have no way of knowing which users are downloading which files (unless they go actively scraping the DHT for peers, which they don't). As far as they know, all the users could be downloading Linux ISOs. They really DO NOT (and cannot) know. Unlike your ISP. Which, unless you encrypt everything, does have all the data to know in which BT swarms you are participating in (and they could probably even figure it out, EVEN WITH ENCRYPTION).
So... yeah, if TPB or PP are guilty of knowing that I use their service for copyright infringement, then my ISP is EVEN MORE GUILTY (because they have even more evidence of such, and they do nothing... in fact... THEY EVEN PROFIT FROM IT! What a bunch of scumbags!).
As for the rest...
What matters is not whether they transmit copyright information, but whether that transmittion is authorised. If my ISP helps me view the NYTimes website, I am view copyright material with authorisation.
The same way your ISP does not KNOW if NYTimes website has a license to distribute the copyrighted content it distributes (it just blindly assumes it does), the Pirate Bay (and the UKPP) also do not know if the peers in the swarms have (or not) a license to distribute the (possibly) copyrighted content (it just blindly assumes it does). You should probably know that TPB doesn't track the explicit copyright-status of the digital objects it refers to, so you can't claim that they know. (And, please no DMCA talk... DMCA doesn't apply wherever-the-fuck-TPB-is.)
Of course, it is also possible that Google or my ISP could help me find resources to make unauthorised copies in violation of copyright.
No, no, no. It's not just "possible". GOOGLE LITERALLY, EVERY SINGLE SECOND, IS DIRECTING PEOPLE TO PLACES WHERE THEY CAN FIND "UNAUTHORIZED" COPIES OF WHATEVER. If TPB can't claim that they don't know that people are using TPB to infringe on copyright, then NEITHER CAN GOOGLE. Are they stupid or what? Is there a bigger cache of copyrighted media than YouTube? You can find ALMOST EVERY SINGLE FULL-LENGTH MOVIE ON YOUTUBE! I rest my case.
However that is not their main purpose
Yes, it is (using the same logic that people use for TPB). If people use overwhelmingly Google to reach unauthorized information, then that's Google main purpose. And they know it is (come on, they're Google... they definitely have all sorts of tasty analytics on _everything_).
...and there is no reason why the courts have to treat them the same way, any more then convicting a rioter for handing out bricks at a riot means they have to convict every building site foreman in the country.
...because? Have you any doubts that Google (or any given ISP, really) profits from copyright infringement HUNDRENDS if not THOUSANDS of times more than TPB? Then you are incredibly naive.
The pirates in this article have called themselves "the Pirate Party," while engaging in contributory and vicarious copyright infringement to take the monopolies of creators away from them.
FTFY
You aren't allowed to go on someone else's lawn and do what you want: it's the same thing with creations of the mind as with ownership of physical property.
My computer is not MAFIAA's lawn. Neither are the bajillion other computers, devices and wires that together form the Internet. When I create copies of content under MAFIAA monopoly, I don't go to MAFIAA's lawn to do it, I stay on my own lawn and use tools from my own house. But apparently the law allows MAFIAA to come to my lawn and tell me what I'm not allowed to do with the stuff I own. Copyright is legal violation of physical property rights.
Quick, someone set-up a proxy of their proxy.
That's actually not true: The short excerpts Google shows are definitely copyrighted. Not to mention Google cache.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
They might be, they might not. Hence there is an increasing amount of case law on this (particularly the Infopaq case in the EU) as to what can actually be covered by copyright. There's certainly nothing "definite" about it.
Are you suggesting that being a member of a political party is illegal?
As for whether or not the Party (or its officers) are breaking the law; the BPI seem to think they are, but they don't. Hence they may be going to court over it. It's far from simple.
[Disclaimer: I am a member of, and work for the Party, but am not directly involved in this business.]
This will almost certainly not see a jury (it's not a criminal case at the moment). As for the judge being biased due to the name of the Party, I really hope our judges are above that sort of thing. Plus it's not the Party, but some of its officers, being threatened.
If you think the name is a bad thing, you might want to look up the history of the term "Tory." Names are just names, some people take 'bad' names as a badge of honour.
[Disclaimer: I am a member of, and work for, the Party, but an not directly involved in this BPI business.]
Which precise law is the Pirate Party (or rather, its officers) breaking? Please provide either case law or a statutory reference.
> There is no reason why you should be able to copy movies, download art, or music which you didn't create and don't have permission to do so.
That is because the world is run by greedy, evil men who have created a paradigm out of the oxymoron "Intellectual Property", when the two are entirely mutually exclusive. They have grossly perverted patents & copyrights by buying out politicians and lawyers over the past 100 years. And then other greedy vultures (presumably like yourself) have created entire make-believe industries & careers out of the strangleholds on what should never have come into existence in a healthy, prolific species in the first place. Plain & simple enough for you? :)
To put it another way, if the only reason you write books, or poetry, or make music or movies is to suck up a fat profit, then you should kindly fuck off with the rest of the cartels & dinosaurs, the sooner the better. Viva le revolucion!
The BPI is a private company, whose members include (iirc) various record labels. It will own copyrights, but not any in music. However, what they will do is get some of their record labels to act as claimants for them - the BPI runs the litigation, but the record labels sign the documents (and possibly the cheques). In the first Pirate Bay case, the claimants were 9 different record labels (which doesn't sound at all like anticompetitive collusion to me...).
THEY ARE NOT PIRATING ANYTHING BY RUNNING A PROXY!!!! If you must go after the pirates; oh yea I forgot, that is hard...
Actually even now I think 20 years is OK for copyright. If you where not able to make money off your "property" in 20 years then it was not worth much. But now we have 70 years after the death of author, that is ridiculous. Especially when that number rises, let's see if Mickey Mouse is public domain, when that 70 years number hits or if they will extend it further.
I just got to Australia you insensitive clod
Note: I don't think the Pirate Party should go to prison for *supporting* piracy: they have a right to do that. But proxying TPB turns them into active participants.
Wrong on two counts:
1. The Pirate Party does not condone piracy - it's focus is copyright reform and freedom of speech.
2. Being a website proxy doesn't imply participation at any level. The reason the proxy exists is in protest at the BPI's overzealous legal action against ISPs.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
20 years is too long given modern technology... You can distribute worldwide in a matter of minutes, most media makes the vast majority of its profit in the first year and a lot stops being sold not long after that, especially if it sold on physical media as it's no longer economical to continue producing the media anymore.
Unless something became massively popular, it can often be extremely difficult to obtain copies of software/movies/music/games/etc which are more than a few years old, and in some cases companies will actively pursue anyone who distributes copies even when the original distributors refuse to provide copies even to those who are willing to pay for them.
No copyright terms should be short, society should receive something in return for enforcing copyright... Why should society as a whole suffer to create an artificial market for media producers while receiving nothing in return? By the time any of today's copyrighted works fall into the public domain the vast majority of us will be dead.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
At trial, one person has been convicted on the basis of conspiracy to defraud. There is no "facilitating copyright infringement" law per se. That case was a private prosecution and is pending appeal (something like 20-30 different grounds), which will hopefully be heard before FACT Ltd can do too much bullying on the basis of it (it was a very dodgy conviction; the judge instructed the jury that what he was doing was illegal because what he was doing was illegal, basically). The only other criminal cases that have gone to trial resulted in acquittals or dismissal of charges.
As for civil cases, there's really only the Newzbin 1 case, which found a company running a website was liable for copyright infringement mainly due to the extra steps they took to help their premium members. In any case, "contributory copyright infringement" isn't the right term; you're looking at either direct (or secondary, but that usually involves businesses) copyright infringement, or joint liability for someone else's infringement. There is no blanket "you were somehow involved in someone else's infringement therefore you must be liable!!" thing.
The s107(2A) offence is an interesting one - to my knowledge it has never gone to trial. While there have been a couple of summary convictions under it, they don't really count (and, to be blunt, neither do un-appealed cases at trial). It's only been in the last couple of years that the police (or rather, FACT Ltd / the BPI) have realised this is the correct offence, and before that managed to get some summary convictions under s107(1)(e) - despite it not applying.
But that's not quite the way the law works; the key thing here is the "mere conduit" (and similar) principles found in the e-commerce regulations (regs 17-19). This one provides an absolute defence to a damages claim for anything done through a mere service provider - such as someone hosting a proxy.
As an aside, this isn't how the law works either. Currently you would need a licence to view the content on the NYTimes website. If you didn't have a licence, you would be liable for copyright infringement (as would oyur ISP, but for the above limitation). Fortunately, the NYTimes website includes a term saying that "You may download or copy the Content and other downloadable items displayed on the Services for personal use only, provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained therein." However, go beyond that - such as by viewing it at work - (and not within the scope of a statutory limitation to copyright) and you're breaking the law. There's case law on that (which, hopefully, the Supreme Court will be overturning in the next couple of months). Interestingly, this also means that were I (or someone else) to email you some content from the NYTimes website while at work, *you* would be liable for copyright infringement as soon as you download the email to read it.
Of course, if the website doesn't have an explicit licence, you have to rely on implied licences. But that can be overridden by an express one -so if you're in the UK (or England or Wales, at least) and see the phrase "All Rights Reserved"
Your name is 'ProPropertyRights' yet you have no idea what you;re talking about.
The Pirate Party have not proxied TPB to help TPB, they proxied it because they are against the fact that the BPI lobbied the government to blanket ban TPB's URL across the country in the first place. If your ISP is British Telecom or any other major UK provider like Virgin, 'http://www.thepiratebay willl not work, yet 'http://tpb/' now will thanks to a mirror.
This was not about allowing people to pirate content, it was in protest to the bullying tactics that the BPI used on ISPs, which lets not forget are content providers so should not be liable to punishment for the data that goes down their 'tubes'.
If you are a 'content creator' as they now lovingly refer to you, then even you must know that copyright is not designed for you, its designed for your publishers. If you are your own publisher, then it's designed to destroy you.
My handle is Gen_Music for a reason, I'm a producer that has worked with Mercury award winning artists and have done more than many people in my industry that are twice my age, and I will tell you now that nobody who makes the music makes the real money unless they have the initial capital and experience to front the business side themselves at the financial level of a company that has been churning out top 10s for nearly a century. After the publisher, label, PR and management company take their cut, an artist is lucky to be taking home 10% of gross and that's before they use that 10% to pay back they advance that they used as living costs during the making of their album.
So when iTunes arrived on the market and stated it would take 30% of the income on its store I realised quite simply that the paradigm of copyright in its current state has to die. When you think that Apple makes over 4 times the amount that the creators make per song sold on iTunes, and the industry itself is powerless to stop them because there is no alternative, then you hear about all the million $ studios in NY being shut down bar one due to the birth of 'the internet' and piracy you turn around and say to yourself, "Now it costs less to make, we can sell unlimited copies with no BOM, there are still archaic costs that labels charge for charging's sake (like 'damages' = projected damages to CDs etc) and yet distribution is free and the cost to do the same amount of promotion and distribution has fallen through the floor. Why the hell is the seller of this stuff making billions of $ whilst the makers are shutting down shop because they can't afford to stay open."
Piracy kills the industry, sure, but it doesn't kill the artist, the industry itself has been killing the artist for a long long time. It needs to in the pop arena so it can lower the public standard of what 'good' music represents and therefore make its workforce expendable. Believe me, I can take just about any cookie cutter singer and make them a hit, but that's just it; 'I... the producer' made the hit, not the singer, so she deserves near nothing.
And just to remind you, everyone in business follows the leader. The leader in music is obviously Pop, so music business will acutely try and make everyone replaceable to rid itself of prima donnas.
And how many times have you used Google images to find a picture. I bet 9 out of 10 times that picture wasn't just for viewing.... and where was your permit to store local copies of said content? ohh... fair use?
Fair use of a picture is not the downloading of that picture unless that picture is a snapshot of a larger media (e.g movie) else photographers wouldn't have a job. Therefore you breached copyright, and Google helped you do it.
'Your' completely missing the point to complain about spelling... how strange of someone unopposed to the people controlling something that they themselves created.
Those words exist to be understood, unless you have a problem comprehending what he was trying to say then get over the lack of an 'e' and apostrophe. You are not a machine, you are a human being blessed with the ability to detect simple errors and correct them on the fly, use that ability and stop protesting because you cannot be lazy and ignore your natural ability.
The problem here is not that you do not understand what we are saying, its that you do not understand the internet, let alone The Pirate Bay.
Your comment about TPB's illegal 'encryption' is prime evidence of that. You need to do your homework before you come on /. and try to tell us right from wrong on a subject you know nothing about.
The pirates are *willfully* violating the law - they are members of the Pirate Party.
You are definitely trolling. So, by your analysis, all members of The Pirate Party are pirates.
Now, I wouldn't be surprised if they were sailors, but calling them pirates... that's a bit harsh isn't it, especially without evidence!
So I'm guessing by your account, Google, The Conservatives, and everyone else getting away with fraud are 'Privateers' and I am a pirate because I support free speech without an authorised license?
Course I'm not... Arr, me' hearties!