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European Human Rights Court Rejects Pirate Bay Founders' Appeal
A bit over a year since having their case rejected by the Swedish Supreme Court and appealing to the European Human Rights Court, it looks like basically all legal options have been exhausted for the Pirate Bay Founders: their case has been rejected. From the article: "The EHCR recognizes that the Swedish verdict interferes with the right to freedom of expression, but ruled that this was necessary to protect the rights of copyright holders. In its decision the Court also considered the fact that The Pirate Bay did not remove torrents linking to copyrighted material when they were asked to. 'The Court held that sharing, or allowing others to share files of this kind on the Internet, even copyright-protected material and for profit-making purposes, was covered by the right to "receive and impart information" under Article 10 ... However, the Court considered that the domestic courts had rightly balanced the competing interests at stake – i.e. the right of the applicants to receive and impart information and the necessity to protect copyright – when convicting the applicants and therefore rejected their application as manifestly ill-founded.'"
the french constitutional concil justified Hadopi by the balance between freedom of expression and property rights.
If freedom of expression (which doesn't really legaly exist in Europe as strongly as in the US) must always be balanced with property rights, only money can really speaks its mind.
What we will do? The court decided there is no right to take someone elses work without paying for it when that person does not freely give it away, nor does one have the right to provide links to such works with the tacit understanding and a wink that the person with the link does not have the right to give the work away.
Oh noes! We can't use the excuse that taking someone elses works, without paying them for it when they don't give it away themselves, isn't a human right!
Those evil European judges, taking away my right to be cheap and not pay someone for their work!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
And when you say general principle, you mean because you're too cheap to pay the person for the work they did creating the product.
Yup, keep justifying stealing someone elses works. It's really just semantics, right?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
1. Once a corporation has established a revenue stream, laws shall be written and amended as necessary to sustain this revenue stream. The only entity that may interfere with such a revenue stream is a larger corporation.
Copyright and Patent rights (are temporary, they are supposed to become public domain within a reasonable amount of time. 10 years was the limit - it should return to that for copyright, but for Patents - should revert to about 2 or 3 years due to the speed at which improvements occur.
In either case, a temporary right cannot be held to be greater than a permanent right.
The rights of corporations shall not be greater than a single human being's rights.
This needs to be the rule of the land everywhere.
The EHCR recognizes that the Swedish verdict interferes with the right to freedom of expression, but ruled that this was necessary to protect the rights of copyright holders.
Copyrights are officially worth more than human rights.
Since when is counterfeiting a human right?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
In the end, the website never hosted any actual copyrighted content. Prosecuting the owners of a website that hosts links and nothing more is insanity. Because of this case, it sets a precedent for prosecution against big players like Google and Facebook if they don't make strong efforts to remove any such links, as apparently a website is 100% responsible for every link it has, regardless of where the content of that link is actually hosted or what the content of that link is.
How anyone can be okay with this abuse of due process and the law is beyond me. This is not good for the future of internet freedom and neutrality, and ultimately freedom of expression, as this court so gleefully pushed aside for the sake of a few corporate dollars.
Where is the proof that it is necessary to protect copyright, or is this just something we all assume is true?
The question is at which point it interfers enough. Lots of things are rightfully illegal even when they interfer with freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is not an out-of-jail card that justifies anything.
That's just the thing, they were not counterfeiting, they were linking to people who were. This puts Google in the same camp. You know, if they didn't have well funded corporate owned politicians.
"The defendant once watched a movie at a friends house and he didn't own a copy of it. The majority of the movie is now physically and biochemically stored in his brain. Therefor, he is technically in possession of copyrighted materials and by describing a scene in the movie to another friend, thus sharing it, he is violating some 1200 (exaggeration) copyright laws." - At this point, I am honestly waiting for the day this article is published.
No, they were not counterfeiting.
But don't be so naive to suggest that all TPB is doing is linking (especially at the time; keep in mind that this is all about a very old court case where TPB then was different from TPB now, at least in several technical areas) - let alone that Google and TPB are to be deemed essentially equivalent in these matters.
Copyright has not been temporary since the advent of the Mouse.
Human Rights may include the right to freedom of expression. It does not follow that human rights include the freedom to copy someone else's entertainment work.
There would be a much stronger case if we were talking, for example, about protest videos or the like. And a significantly stronger case if we were talking about art making a political statement. But mostly we're talking about people who can't afford to or don't want to pay (high) market rates for entertainment. It is bad that we criminalize it, and insane that we make it a felony, but it's not a human right to get the entertainment of your choice cheaply.
The problem isn't that it's wrong to criminalize copyright theft to a small degree--it's that our criminal systems are designed so badly that small degrees of criminality can have extreme consequences.
TPB scored a win for transparency. They lost their case, but forced EHCR to publicly make that bizarre statement to justify it.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Actually, there are cases where there is no way to obtain the information even if one was willing to pay.. have a look at movie release schedules, or out of print books, or how tv programs can be delayed for months before being released in another country. It's not nearly as black and white as you'd like to put it.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
I think you'll find that in the majority of those cases, it's not your willingness to pay and the rights holder/distributor being unwilling to accept your payment - but rather your unwillingness, or incapability, to pay the amount that they desire.
Movie releases, for example, may be related to having the celebrities be present during opening showings. Your willingness to pay the $10 to go see it at your local movie theater isn't going to sway the distributor to send those celebrities over there when they could instead send them to a swanky theater in an uptown location known for such events. But if you wanted to pay $1,000,000 for the privilege, I'm sure they'd be willing to negotiate this.
The same applies to TV programs. Your local broadcaster has no intent of paying the sum asked. Perhaps a cable channel where you pay extra might.
Out of print books can also be brought back into print. If nothing else, buy the rights from the publisher and just print it yourself. It won't be the $4.95 you'd pay for the paperback in a random bookstore, though.
I'm sure are exceptions - the rights holder may withhold the work out of principle, for example.. but I don't know of any.
Whether it is reasonable that they delay releases, take books out of print, etc. rather than just accepting your $4.95 or $10 or whatever is another matter. I like to think that it is not, especially since we're talking things that can be moved to digital format (if it's not already) quite easily.
That's just the thing, they were not counterfeiting, they were linking to people who were.
Even if they were, that's not what "freedom of expression" is about.
No sig today...
What's so bizarre about it?
They basically said "corporate profits trump human rights." Not exactly Lewis Carol there.
At least it gives us Americans something to return fire with when Europeans start getting all smug about our thriving proto-fascism.
A bit over a year since having their case rejected by the Swedish Supreme Court a
- I would like to go over the personal computers of these Swedish Supreme Court members with a fine brush and reveal all of their own personal transgressions related to various copyright violations.
You can't handle the truth.
What was the illegal part?
... take someone's copyrighted work without paying them for it. Or, abet the taking and distribution of copyrighted work. It's really very simple and has nothing at all to do with freedom of speech. And someone posting on the internet that it DOES have something to do with freedom of speech or otherwise rationalize that it's o.k. to take copyright work without paying for it, doesn't make it so. And if you DO think like that, then I hope you enjoy your date with that French model you met on the internet.
It's not that bizarre an expression. I'm sure I've seen something very similar before. It simply explains how it's OK to trade freedom (of expression) for security (of exclusive rights), which we know's a good thing, isn't it?
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
No, but maybe my basic human right to speak and assemble (including by proxy using electronic means such as the Internet) should not be trumped by
- artists thinking that they deserve a royalty check every time someone in public experiences someone playing their work
- artists trying to tell me what I can do with personal property I own after I've bought it
- artists trying to turn one-time transactions into eternal sources of rent (you can work like the rest of us)
- such a system necessary to make any of that happen to any degree, including the use of corporations, industry associations, laws, and government agencies.
It really would not be a big deal if copyright infringement penalties were reasonable and copyright terms were also reasonable.
They pointed to where it was already available by someone else. And they are going to prison for that. Even though there are laws protecting them from that. Even though those laws that protect them from that and they did not comply with do not actually cover this issue. See, the DMCA in the US only covers hosting the content yourself. Google could tell the copyright cartels to fuck off and shut down their automated DMCA notice service immediately as they are doing nothing wrong according to existing law by pointing to infringing content, because *that is not illegal!*
Apparently though now copyright theft is legally equivalent to illegal drugs.
If you tell someone where to buy illegal drugs, you are committing a crime in the US and can go to prison for it. Regardless that you may not buy, sell, or use them yourself.
Now apparently even if you do not even have the infringing material in question, you are still guilty of a crime if you point to where infringing content is available. At least according to Sweden and the EU parliament.
That's why its a free speech issue. See, you are only telling people where to find it. You did not make a program to circumvent any protections on it. You did not make thousands of copies. You did not sell copies. You did not even download a copy. You talked about where to get one. Admittedly you gave specific information, but what is the difference between that and telling someone to Google for it? Or the difference between telling them to Google for it and telling them to try looking online? Is criminality of information sharing dependent upon how specific your information is then? Where do you draw the line?
captcha: common
Yep, just like it would be bad to trade freedom (or expression) for security (of medical records, financial data, conversations with your attorney, etc), right?
And if you going to insist on using that quote, at least get it right. The exact phrase is 'essential liberty'. Since when has copyright infringement been an 'essential liberty'?
Out of print books can also be brought back into print. If nothing else, buy the rights from the publisher and just print it yourself. It won't be the $4.95 you'd pay for the paperback in a random bookstore, though.
So who do you negotiate with when the rights to publish have been sold, split, lost, forgotten, claimed, claimed again, and partially resold again?
I would wager that there exists a great deal of work out there which is still under copyright, but of unknown ownership.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
In a rational and just society of rational and just laws, book, movie, and other media abandonware is fair game for copying. Given the technical state and essentially zero investment requirement of print-on-demand and CD-R/DVD-R burn-on-demand publishing, there is no excuse for EVER withholding availability.
but Copyrights are: Life of the author + 70 years in the US.
Therefore, by enforcement of the World Police (tm), this is law everywhere!
Corporate profits must flow exponentially, at all costs and forever.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Ah. So aiding and abetting counterfeiting is a human right.
> And if you going to insist on using that quote, at least get it right.
I wasn't quoting anybody. Did you see an attribution?
> Since when has copyright infringement been an 'essential liberty'?
Straw man. Pirate Bay were not distributing copyrightable information. They were distributing indexes of facts with no creative content. Only creative things can be copyrighted. It appears that many of the precepts codified right at the very outset have been forgotten or deliberately overlooked.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
And I AM the owner of a LOT of collectors editions of games, a LOT of anime inspired statues which all are basically about paying a 50 bucks premium price at least for bits of plastic costing at most a few dollars to produce.
I am willing to spend. What I am NOT willing to do is to be dollared to death. I know the usual phrase is "nicke and dimed" but it AIN'T knickles and dimes. My new ISP give me a media box with the option to record 4 streams and to use an on demand service. I explored it briefly. But 120 channels and NOTHING ON is all to true and the on demand stuff starts at 6 euro 49. I might be willing to pay for a single viewing of a movie that I cannot pause and watch another day. I might. BUT NOT AT WHAT USED TO BE FULL TICKET PRICES!
It is the horse armour problem. Betheseda ruined it with me forever by just charging to much. Had they charge half a dollar for it, everyone would have loved them. I use to pay 20 guilders, half the price of a full game for an X-Wing expansion and loved Lucasarts for taking my money. But that was a LOT of content. Horse armor was NOT a lot of content. Modders had done similar stuff, completely for FREE.
The internet and individual programs like napster changed the world, as much as the bicycle and the mailbox did. What did they change? With the bicycle poor people could extend their range for finding work considerably at little expensive. Charities used to donate them to women so they could find better paying jobs. Long before the car, and far cheaper then a horse, the bicycle allowed people to break themselves out of poverty and change the way they lived. No longer did you have to take any job you could find, you could look further.
The mail box freed women because now they could send letters without a chaperone, without asking a male to take them to the post office. It sounds silly in our days but it was a real liberator AND it was NOT intended to be so.
Does napster compare? Yes, I think so. It BROKE the music industries control over how we consume content. With Napster, bootleg tape sharing became trivial, getting just the one good song on an album became the norm. And with downloads, sales inflation to top the charts became a less useful because now people listened to their OWN music collections and those of others so they only listened to the songs they liked, not to the songs some DJ is payed to play.
I am not one of those persons who claims not to like the mindless drivel that is 99% of content these days. I like mindless drivel. I used to buy the TV-guide and circle the programs I wanted to watch and then plan my day around it. Lots of people did, popular show on, deserted streets. I USED to also listen to HALF of one LP, then half of the next because I had one of those LP stackers and that was the way things were and we humans wrapped our lifes around the limits of tech.
And then the Internet, digital content and piracy changed EVERYTHING.
I remember one friday evening at the office where we used napster to download old dutch songs and sing along with them. Songs that weren't on the radio anymore but we all remembered and could sing at the top of our voice. Had iTunes existed back then AND been usable in Holland (payment options still suck in iTunes even in 2013) it would have cost us 50 bucks or so... except I checked, the songs ARE NOT AVAILABLE ON ITUNES. Peter Blanker "Egeltje". Go ahead find it. eMule has it, usenet has it. Now take my money and get me a digital version of a tape MY MOTHER GOT FROM THE ARTIST HIMSELF FOR FREE BECAUSE I LIKED HIS SONGS! Still got the tape.
By now, there are services which indeed do offer some of the more obscure music. And that is great but... I have gotten so used to having to find stuff for free that going back to buying stuff with all the DRM, accounts and god knows what other hassles is like going back to using a horse for the daily commute. And I actually do ride a horse on occasion. It is lovely... but not practical.
Recently the BBC has started re-airing
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Only you aren't really paying the person who created the product. You are paying to the company that usurped the right to distribute that content, taking that right away FROM THE AUTHOR himself.
And please don't give me the bullshit that the author had a choice, willfully signed the contract yada yada. I know it he did. This does not change the fact that you are not paying to the author in any way.
The main reason there is an outrage about copyright laws is not the money. It is that people enforcing it appeal to moral principles, while at the same time acting like a total scumbags.
The artists need to be compensated. The current model we have is not the one I would have called fair, is what I'm saying.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Since when has TPB had anything to do with counterfeiting?
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
If offering links to illegally shared content is unlawful (not protected) speech, then how can it be used in enforcement? Without access to such speech would (c) enforcement be feasible?
Since they provided a vehicle to allow others access to counterfeit goods.
Really, it's not that complex a concept, once you accept the reality that pirating software is counterfeiting.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
And it should also be noted this court should not be confused with the European Court of Justice (ECJ). ECtHR is the court of the Council of Europe, ECJ is the court of the European Union. While the European Union main goal seems to destroy democracy and enforce neoliberalism, the Council of Europe has different goals. This is why we often see ECtHR ruling that look odd considering European Union politicis. Not this time, though.
is when you live in a place which holds "intellectual property" as a supreme law (c) by lehollandaisvolant
Doesn't there need to be some sort of pretense involved for it to be counterfeiting? I.e., if TPB had said "this is a legitimate copy from Sony", it would have been counterfeiting, but as they didn't, it is at most aiding in copyright infringement?