UK Pirate Party Forced To Give Up Legal Fight

Grumbleduke writes "The UK Pirate Party has been forced to shut down its proxy of The Pirate Bay. The Party had been running the proxy since April, initially to support the Dutch Party's efforts, then as a means of combating censorship after the BPI obtained uncontested court orders against the UK's main ISPs to block the site across the UK. In a statement released through their lawyers, the Party cited the impossibly-high costs of legal action for their decision, but vowed to keep fighting for digital rights however they can."

Comments

Help!

[theswimmingbird]

Help! I'm being repressed!

Re:Help!

[flayzernax]

I think I speak for most people when I say "I don't care."

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/25/1345/03329

I am so sensible, Sir, of the kindness with which the House has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress?

I think most people care and most people understand that the monopolies have and are doing more damage then piratical distributers of information.

Your authers are not and have not been compensated fairly for a long time. The works of tolkien were removed from the public domain in 1994 and given to a holding company in trust of tolkiens estate. They are no longer benefiting from his work, we are being punished. And people like Peter Jackson and the hollywood stuidos he works for and represents are the only people who can benifit monetarily from this work.

Yet because of the damage monopolies has caused. And the turning of copywright into personal property to be handed along from institution to institution has done, we and our descendents and all those living now are paying the price far worse then a simple tax or compensation for people who have done work.

The point is that the law is not fair and there is no fair way to change the law. The beast has become to great and we are locked in a death rattle with a python crushing us. Sensible people are not allowed to give voice to defend the public domain and what should be fair, and a fair law.

Re:Help!

[flayzernax]

What sample bias that every single person I know personally has copied something from the internet or the radio, or recorded off of TV, or shared something they purchased with someone else who has then made copies of it themselves?

More specifically the institutions pushing for more insane copywright laws have done MORE to damage peoples personal and public image of authors and creators. I think there would be less piracy if there was not such an overwhelming force making people feel like its OK. Take for instance streetside CD shops. These were commonplace in El Paso, TX 5-6 years ago before enforcement started a heavy crackdown. I think people reasonably felt justified in what they were doing. They were not evil people or stupid people, people just did what they thought was right anyway. Was it legal no, was it fair to the original authors still living no. Was it educational to me, hell yeah. I can certainly see why they would do this.

If we had a poll that the laws as they stand now are unfair and have been used wrongly. The overwhelming majority would want a shorter term and more stringent controls on "who" gets to own intellectual property and how its transfered.

Even the so called mass of idiots of youtube would fit in that sample.

Onanism

[Anonymous Coward]

And once again money trumps justice. Makes you proud to be human.

Re:Onanism

[Anonymous Coward]

You can keep calling it "stealing" if you wish, but that talking point has been debunked to death. The bottom line, at least as far as this situation is concerned, is that one party has been forced into submission not through actual court order, subject to the legal process, but by the threat of such overwhelming legal action that the fear of bankruptcy is the motivator.

That you seem to think "stealing" is worse than that is a sad indication of the general public's complete misunderstanding of the issues at stake here.

I hope your faux moral superiority comforts you at night when your children are sentenced to served time in a debtor's prison.

Re:Onanism

[zentigger]

I'm sure your digital overlords will be proud that you, their lackey, are so faithfully following the scriptures.

Perhaps you should look up the definition of theft.

Re:Onanism

[Grumbleduke]

The point is that the legal merits don't even matter because the Party can't argue them. It doesn't matter whether what they were doing was legal or illegal, right or wrong, no one will be able to find out because they can't afford to fight the case.

Some people may view this as the right outcome, but I would suggest that no one should think it was for the right reasons. Justice should not be dependent on wealth.

Re:Onanism

[jythie]

My thoughts exactly. "I could not afford to defend myself" is never the right outcome.

Re:Onanism

[TheMathemagician]

If it's "stealing" why isn't anyone charged with theft? They're charged with copyright infringement. Doesn't that tell you that it's copying not stealing?

Re:Onanism

[ConfusedVorlon]

costs can be awarded so that the loser pays, but is isn't as straightforward as the loser always paying what the winner's legal bills are.

the judge has a lot of discretion here.

nonetheless, you're right about the dynamic. The BPI is threatening the individuals here. The law is far from clear cut.

It is very unlikely that they would win and recoup their full legal bills from the opposition (even if costs are awarded, they don't generally actually cover the full legal cost of your case).

It is perfectly possible that they could lose and still have to pay massive legal bills for the BPI.

Re:Onanism

[Sarten-X]

Interestingly enough, I have been exposed to all points regarding the subject, and my opinion is partly as I said before. The "piracy is absolutely not theft" argument is just as much bullshit as the "piracy is absolutely theft" argument.

Yes, theft and copyright infringement are different. One's a civil matter and the other's criminal. One results in the loss of a physical item, and the other results in someone gaining a copy. The implementation details are obviously different What remains the same though is the offense. If you steal $1 from my wallet, I'll have $1 less than I would without your interference. If you copy one of my books rather than buy it, I'll have (let's say) $1 less than I would without your interference. Of course, you may not have bought my book in the first place, and I may have dropped that $1 bill by accident. There's probabilities involved, I know, but that's not the point.

The point is that it's no longer my choice what happens to the book or the bill. I produce something, but I'm not allowed to decide what happens with it. I had a bill in my wallet, but I'm not allowed to choose how I spend it. That's where the analogy to theft comes from: pirates aren't stealing an object. They're forcing their way.

That's always the issue that gets forgotten when someone "debunks" the "stealing is theft" analogy. A big deal is made about how information wants to be free, and how the producers make record profits, and how piracy leads to so much more exposure, but they none of the pro-piracy advocates seem to care that this all happened by the pirates' sheer overwhelming force.

Yes, it's terribly wrong that the Pirate Party can't afford to fight. It's also terribly wrong that producers don't let their work go free once it's passed a certain age, or profitably, or some other nice metric. It's also terribly wrong to force someone else to live by your choices.

Re:Onanism

[Sarten-X]

In fact everything I've released so far has been released creative-commons.

That is your choice, and in fact it's one I rather like. Yeah, I'm human. I like getting free stuff, too. Some of the stuff I've written that I don't particularly care about (one-off philosophical rants, or abandoned worlds, or even just an interesting character that doesn't fit anywhere else) I've just dropped to public domain. Maybe somebody will care about it someday.

It's the choice that matters. I choose what my writing effort is worth. Sometimes it's worth money, sometimes it's worth the catharsis of writing, and sometimes it's worth a quick strike on the delete key, but it's my choice, not the pirates'.

Re:Onanism

[blind biker]

What remains the same though is the offense. If you steal $1 from my wallet, I'll have $1 less than I would without your interference. If you copy one of my books rather than buy it, I'll have (let's say) $1 less than I would without your interference.

No, because I wouldn't have bought your crummy book anyway. You didn't lose anything on me.

Re:Onanism

[HeckRuler]

Then you really shouldn't mind these non-existant people grabbing your book from PirateBay.

Re:Onanism

[Omestes]

In the absence of income from their work, there will be no professional writers. Period.

God, I despise this fallacy. There were tons of work before modern copyright existed, and tons more when it was sensible, before our current insanity. Books were written, music was created, art was made... Hell, if you completely removed money from the equation (magically no one will pay, ever, which is implausible at best), music would be made, books would be written, and art created.

I don't get paid a cent, and I still do photography (I don't want to get paid, I do it for its own sake), my girlfriend has never made a cent, and still paints. I know many a friend who plays free concerts, and social gigs, just because they love making music, and love making people happy with it.

Another faulty preconception you include is the fact that artists shouldn't have real jobs, like the rest of us. I don't actually see any reason to believe this, as most artists DO have real jobs, even if they dream of being the next big-wig famous, remarkably rich, artist. There is no "right" to be a self-employed artist who has the money to only do art. You might get lucky, you might have the remarkable talent in self-promotion to make this happen, but there is no right to this. Again, most artists struggle, most artists have a normal job like the rest of us, only the very top of the herd can live off their art, and only after years and years of hard work usually.

So: no more Jules Vernes, no more Robert Heinleins, no more Iain M. Banks, and no more consistently high-quality streams of work from writers who are free to concentrate on writing, because their writing pays the bills, instead of being forced to focus on plumbing, or selling cars, or doing double-entry accounting, because the bills MUST be paid.

So how did these people ever manage to get to where they are today while having a normal job? There is a catch 22 here, since to be a good writer you can't have a job, but in order to shed your job you have to be a good writer. This is bullshit, again. 90% of all artists work, or they're starving and either near homeless or just plain homeless.

To be honest, I can live without your book. I don't actually give a shit. I can live without 90% of all culture (and do, culture is vast, and their is now way to engage it all). I don't NEED obscenely successful books or music, or art. And as stated previously, it all would still exist anyways. Half the art in our house was painted by friends and acquaintances, half the shows I go to are local kids, and friends. Books haven't quite gotten there, but in a few years they probably will be. And actually most of the crap they makes enough money to allow the author to quit their job, is probably crap. Sure, you can say Heinlein, but I can retort with Twilight, or Daniel Steele, or now the 50 Shades of Grey lady, or...

I realize that most idiots sincerely believe that professional-quality writing is something that "anybody can do." Being idiots, they are, of course, completely, utterly, and profoundly wrong about that. In fact, there is only a relatively small percentage of the population who have the inherent talent to write well enough to eventually become professionals at it. Idiots like hazah are almost certainly not among them.

How do you know Hazah isn't, or can't be an author? Do you personally know him or her? And what makes you think you can be one, or be professional? How many authors think they are, try to publish something, and then are never heard from again because no one cared? Don't get me wrong, I wish you luck, but you have to realize that everyone who ever tried to be an author probably felt the same way. Most of them were wrong. Hell, I used to think I would be the next Thomas Pynchon, but sadly I couldn't be, even if I had 60,000 words. I still write, but now just because I enjoy it.

Also, as a tangent, their might be more Jules Vernes

Money

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to court cases, being right (or at least being not-wrong), it often matters less what the law says and more what your bank account says. And, as long as the world works this way the bullies of litigation will continue doing what they do and passing along their legal fees to customers.

That's fine.

[SuricouRaven]

There are still many, many, many Pirate Bay proxy sites left.

Re:crowdfunding for this fight!

[Grumbleduke]

The Party did. It raised over £9,000* in the last couple of weeks from supporters. Which is great... but just getting preliminary advice over the last couple of weeks has cost £1,600, and fighting this case to trial could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. While it might be possible to raise that money, the feeling seems to be that it could be spent better elsewhere (although, of course, those who donated to the legal fight should have already been emailed to explain how they can get their donations refunded).

I find it particularly ironic that we are told pirates are stealing money/income from artists etc., but it turns out pirates don't have that much money - whereas the BPI Ltd (all of whose funding would otherwise be going to artists etc.) seems to have plenty of cash to throw at lawyers and legal actions.

*But less than £10,000 - you can't make this up...

[Disclaimer: I am a member of, and work for PPUk, but was not one of the individuals sued.]

Shut up and take my money

[tepples]

When they speak of digital rights they mean the ability to get any piece of software without compensating the person/people who created the software, and who are not giving that software away.

Sometimes the author is neither giving the work away nor selling it. For example, how should one obtain a copy of the film Song of the South, the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, or the English version of the video game Mother (the Famicom game before Earthbound) while fairly compensating the author? And how should one compensate HBO for Game of Thrones without compensating Disney for ESPN, an unwanted service?

Re:Digital rights? Is that what we're calling it?

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

You are absolutely right! Last week a friend of mine wanted digital copies of some of my CD's. Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, and of course...Bach. I told him to sod off with that glowing feeling in my gut, the knowledge that with one less dirty rotten thief these artists have a better chance of being fairly compensated for their works and will continue to create new music. Plus, I'm sure that when these artists die their works will be released into the public domain in a reasonable amount of time.

Re:Digital rights? Is that what we're calling it?

[Runaway1956]

Speaking of sophistry - I'd like to know which artists are going hungry due to piracy, and which artists are going hungry because *IAA affiliated companies don't pass the profits on to the starving artists. Give me a list of artists who have missed a meal because pirates "stole" their music, so that all us "pirates" can send them a dollar or two. Oh, those poor suffering artists! The idea just hurts my soul!

Re:crowdfunding for this fight!

[hazah]

Straw-man. Unlike the aggressor, the people are average and live average lives with average incomes. Unlike the aggressor, there is not an endless coffer from which to resupply. When the choice is to eat, or to fight an uncertain battle, the fallout is far from surprising.

Re:Digital rights? Is that what we're calling it?

[mcgrew]

You should read Doctorow. It won't cost you a dime, he puts his books on boingboing for free and credits that for his standing as a best selling author. IINM "Makers" is the one with a good explanation for teh worth of piracy, but I could be wrong. Hell, read them all, they're free. You might wind up with a few copies on your shelf and him with an extra buck or two.

I wonder why libraries never put print authors out of business? I wonder why I have a dozen Asimov books on my shelf, when every single one of them is or was available at the library? After all the library is a monstrous pirate haven, with all those people getting books, CDs, and DVDs for no cost whatever! The horror! Close down all the libraries!

Nobody ever lost money from piracy, but many talented artists have starved from obscurity. And IMO anyone who can't understand that is not very intelligent.