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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."
...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
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
Hint: The music industry is tiny. The whole global revenue of the music industry (2011) is about as much as the profits of a single German construction company (Holzwinkel) were before they went bankrupt. It's insane. The whole German revenue of the music industry is as "big" as the revenue of the public transportation company (KVB) of one single 1 million people city (Cologne)!
That is nothing! If I were a big company, I would just buy the big three, fire them all, and be done with it. I could file the expenses under "bought new toilet brushes for the entire company", and nobody would even blink. I'm surprised Google and Apple haven't already done it. I mean the cartel watchdogs won't complain. It already is a cartel.
Yes, but they tend to only recover 60% of their costs, and that's only after they win. But to get to that point, they have to spend £100,000 plus in costs, which the Party doesn't have right now.
The UK doesn't have SLAPP laws. In theory, frivolous lawsuits are supposed to be shut down by the judges before they get that far. While there's no real way to counter-sue, this sort of behaviour is usually dealt with through costs orders (making the side wasting the other's time pay all the other's costs).
Of course, if the BPI win (or the Party runs out of funds first), that's another matter...
The whole global revenue of the music industry (2011) is about as much as the profits of a single German construction company (Holzwinkel) were before they went bankrupt.
Based on the numbers listed for tax purposes.
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.
OK, so your comment is Funny...
...but here is how you can help
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
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.).
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.
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.
+1
Remember their imaginative lawyers are second only to their imaginative accountants - just ask the artists...
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
That is nothing! If I were a big company, I would just buy the big three, fire them all, and be done with it.
The big three are Universal Music Group Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
UMG in turn is a division of Vivendi and WMG a division of Access Industries.
Access Industries is one those blandly named, incredibly rich --- and all-but-invisible --- privately held conglomerates that seem to have a hand in almost everything: Russian oil, petrochemicals, aluminum, broadcasting, mobile communications, hotels, real estate and so on.
Vivendi's assets, which include 61% of Activision Blizzard, are worth about 56 billion euros, which is by no means pocket change.
It may have escaped the geek's attention, but companies that actually make big investments in popular entertainment --- not fantasy buy-outs on Slashdot --- tend to be very protective of their IP.
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
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
The UK does however also have a list of vexatious litigants:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/vexatious-litigants
These are people who can no longer bring civil suits because they have taken the piss too much. If the BPI files too many frivolous lawsuits it's staff (likely it's lawyers) will find themselves no longer able to practice in civil suits because they will become named on this list.
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.
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Minor corrections: They haven't won any court order against The Pirate Bay or its operators - they never took it to court (not that you can take a website to court). The won several (uncontested) orders against the 6 major UK ISPs.
Secondly, PPUk was running the proxy before the court orders were issued, so it wasn't that it was trying to frustrate the order - simply provide a service.
The issue of it being frivolous or in bad faith could come from the fact that it is trivially easy for the BPI to effectively shut down the PPUk proxy; from my understanding of the text of the court orders (which I tried to get hold of, but would have costed £95), they simply need to write a letter to the ISPs asking them to add the proxy to the existing block. But instead they've decided to go after the officers of the Party.
[Disclaimer: I work for PPUk, but am not involved in this mess any more, and don't know much more that what has been published.]