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UK Police Launch Campaign To Shut Down Torrent Sites
An anonymous reader writes "City of London Police inform TorrentFreak that they have begun targeting sites that provide access to unauthorized content for 'criminal gain.' The initiative is part of a collaboration with Hollywood studios represented by FACT and the major recording labels of the BPI. In letters being sent out now, police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau further warns that the crimes carry a jail sentence of 10 years."
Seriously, this will in no way keep people who pirate from pirating some more. If anything it just wastes tax money and time. What could they possibly try to be achieving by doing this?
what exactly is a serious crime?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Yeah giving them the same sentence as a rapist. That seems reasonable. This shit should be a civil matter not criminal.
Are magnet links a crime?
Are they only criminal if I have advertising alongside them?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The more Hollywood tightens their grip the more torrents sites will slip through their fingers.
I am still uncomfortable with the fact that this action is yet another example where the police, who are publicly funded and granted extensive powers in pursuit of their public duty, are essentially (mis)using their powers to protect the private property rights of a select few, i.e. copyright owners.
Copyright owners who, incidentally, are rich enough to pursue their own civil action against alleged pirates. Then again, making the public pay is better for their bottom line.
police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act
When sharing information about shifting bits of data across a computer network is considered a serious crime, the corruption in the system is not only obvious but blatantly so.
Even though neither site is located in the UK, police believe that sites’ operators are committing crimes there.
Wonder how the UK police would feel if China, Iran, or North Korea accused them of commiting crimes against them... even though theyre in the UK
Once you understand that this is being done by the City of London then it should be clear that this is not the actions of a municipal authority based on a desire to protect citizens, but rather a government of a tiny yet separate legal entity within what we usually call London. This tiny legal appendix (the City of London) is home to only about 10,000 people, but is actually a state within a state owned and operated by large multinational corporations and so its governance reflects what is good for business. Not good for the public, not good for England or Britain, but good for keeping money rolling in.
watch this and you'll understand why this is nothing more than monied interests trying to protect their own. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
The 'City of London' police, is actually a special private police force responsible for the 'City' part of London which is the small financial district. It works for the City of London corporation, the private company that controls that part of London (for historical reasons a private company controls that part of London). It can be hired, quite literally you pay them money and they'll enforce the 'law':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Police
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/crime-and-community-safety/police/Pages/default.aspx
They don't have jurisdiction over Greater London, let alone the UK. They also don't have an elected police and crime commissioner. They don't have special competence in this area.
'National Fraud Intelligence Bureau' has a nice threatening sounding name, but is a private company created by the City of London police. There are a lot of these, they use them to avoid Freedom of Information act requests. Their official duty is to detect fraud in the city of London financial Financial district.
Their price list:
http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/CityPolice/About/services/feesandcharges.htm
"Further, we have grounds to suspect that as owners and/or operators of the XXXXX website, you are committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act 2007 by doing acts capable of encouraging and assisting communication to the public (under s.107(2A) of the CDPA); "
These are almost certainly torrent *LINK* sites, which don't infringe copyright themselves. Anton Vickerman was not convicted of "facilitating copyright infringement", that was a fiction that FACT spread around. The police should not be presenting false information like this.
What he was charged with, was "conspiracy to defraud", not copyright infringement.
http://www.lojo.co.nz/downloads/0686010001361150697.pdf
http://blogscript.blogspot.com/2012/02/strange-case-of-soca-and-conspiracy-to.html
Which is presumably why the 'National Fraud Intelligence Bureau" is doing the PR work. They claimed he defrauded [who?] in order to make money. Sadly the judge was so keen to prosecute Vickerman, that he let them change the definition of 'fraud'. And now potentially any business which knows it can be used to infringe copyright is open to a fraud charge.
If you are in the UK, you might wish to avoid public comment, or at least comment anonymously. Discussions are logged now, and the UK police don't take kindly to contradictory viewpoints.
A sentence of 10 Years? What are they trying to do? Get folks to take up the less illegal crime of muggings?
It did. NNTP is where it's at, but the first rule of usenet is you do not talk about usenet.
Learn to love Alaska
Seems about right as the police forces in the UK are slowly being privatized. I understand some already are and have been for a while.
When they are privatized then they need to focus on their shareholders interests first.... wonder how much stake groups like the BPI and others will have in such forces?
Not true. The file is illegal now. Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, section 296ZG.
Rather than take legal action against the competition aren't you supposed to provide a better service and let the market decide? While you can't compete with free on price you can certainly provide a better, more user friendly service. It often feels like film companies are scared to let people see their films. That it's preferable to have them sit on a shelf unwatched than risk someone seeing them without having paid enough for the privilege. Netflix and lovefilm (in the UK) only seem to have films which have been out for several years and are tied to silverlight, which is like using software from the previous century. The industry could do so much more to encourage legal consumption, but I suppose this way must be cheaper for them.
Someone could explain to me like I was a 5 year old, why our taxes are used to finance the media market, and police is working for them instead of catching criminals?
What? Didn't you know?
RIAA has kept billions in royalties for decades because they "couldn't find" the artist. Even though one of the names on the list of artists owed money were "Dolly Parton". Not exactly unreachable...
They also infringed on the copyrights of LAME programmers when Sony took no hit whatsoever from the industry for their acts.
MPAA moved to Hollywood to avoid patents and EVERYONE knows about how "Hollywood Accounting" ensures that profits are never reported, fraudulently. Look too at the similarities between "The Lion King" and "Simba, The Albino Lion".
They really do not give a shit over copyright. Only their rights.