Two Arrests In Denmark For Spreading Information About Popcorn Time

An anonymous reader writes: You may recall Popcorn Time, the software that integrated torrents with a streaming media player. It fell afoul of the law quite quickly, but survived and stabilized. Now, out of Denmark comes news that two men operating websites related to Popcorn Time have been arrested, and their sites have been shut down. It's notable because the sites were informational resources, explaining how to use the software. They did not link to any copyright-infringing material, they were not involved with development of Popcorn Time or any of its forks, and they didn't host the software. "Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content online and are reported to have confessed."

Comments

Confessed?

[Runaway1956]

NEVER confess to anything! All they've done is to hang themselves. Gubbermint says, "We don't like what you're doing." Your response? Are you really going to tell gubbermint, "Oh, I'm so sorry - please, just lock me away for a few decades!"

The better response is, "Prove your case, assholes!"

Re:Confessed?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> are reported to have confessed ...by whom? TFA doesn't cite anything at all.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

NEVER confess to anything! All they've done is to hang themselves. Gubbermint says, "We don't like what you're doing." Your response? Are you really going to tell gubbermint, "Oh, I'm so sorry - please, just lock me away for a few decades!"

The better response is, "Prove your case, assholes!"

That's cute advice you have there. If I were to monetize the "better" response, the average victim would be able to afford "Pro..." before filing for bankruptcy.

You seem to forget just how fucking expensive it is to defend against even wrongful accusations. That IS why a lot of people settle or even plead guilty.

I never said we have a justice system. I merely said we have a legal system. There is a difference.

Re:Confessed?

[smittyoneeach]

But they each weighed as much as a duck, and therefore were made of wood. . .

Re:Confessed?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

NEVER confess to anything! All they've done is to hang themselves.

This is Europe, not the USA. They're likely to get pretty light sentences at most if not just probation and a fine. If Hitler were miraculously still alive and arrested today in Europe, he wouldn't get the death penalty and any sentence more than a few years might be viewed as excessive given his age.

Re:Confessed?

[fnj]

It depends on whether the prosecutors think they can get an easy pinch. Probably they were threatened with the wrath of Khan if they DIDN'T confess. The Man usually says something like "Look, we've got you dead to rights you know, we will squash you so thin like a bug if you make us take it to a trial. Or ... you can get off much lighter if you just confess."

Faced with the choice between the ruination of their life, or basically a bad hair day for some months, or a very few years, and considering the expense of taking it to trial, guess what most people would do.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you always run it by a lawyer, first. Cops are legally allowed to lie to you in order to get a confession. If they threaten to retract the offer when you request a lawyer, then you know it's no good.

Re:Confessed?

[ShanghaiBill]

If Hitler were miraculously still alive and arrested today in Europe, he wouldn't get the death penalty

So? The Nazi Germany didn't do anything that other countries, including Britain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, etc., had not also done. The only difference is that Hitler did it to white people.

More people were killed in forced labor on rubber plantations, than in all the Nazi death camps combined.

Re:Confessed?

[HornWumpus]

No. You ask 'Am I being detained?' if yes you say 'Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer...'

Not talking will save you legal fees too. Just shut up, let them make their own case.

Re:Confessed?

[PraiseBob]

Pleading guilty or taking a plea bargain is entirely different than confessing to a crime. In a plea bargain, you are admitting guilt for a bartered reduction in penalty, and have a contract in writing. If you confess to police, you have no more defense. The police have no capacity to grant you leniency for cooperating, no matter what they claim. Instead, you are making it easier for the court system to convict you, by a HUGE margin. You are not only confessing that you committed a crime, but also confirming that a crime occurred. Now the courts have less incentive to offer a plea bargain, and will offer a worse deal or no deal, because they are more certain of a conviction. By confessing, you are giving away the biggest, and often times only, bargaining chip you have.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is this your website?"
"Yes."

See, they confessed to distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content.
When you get to define the words and the context, it is easy to get a confession.

Re:Confessed?

[stackOVFL]

This ^, cops are not interviewing you so you can go on your marry way. The more you say the deeper in shit you'll be. Best advice I got from a cop is "zip it, zip it good!"

Re:Confessed?

[Triklyn]

you forget that under the right to be forgotten, google would probably have to delist half of the web.

Re:Confessed?

[turbidostato]

"You seem to forget just how fucking expensive it is to defend against even wrongful accusations."

You seem to forget a minor detail: this has happened in Denmark, not USA.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pleading guilty or taking a plea bargain is entirely different than confessing to a crime. In a plea bargain, you are admitting guilt for a bartered reduction in penalty, and have a contract in writing. If you confess to police, you have no more defense. The police have no capacity to grant you leniency for cooperating, no matter what they claim. Instead, you are making it easier for the court system to convict you, by a HUGE margin. You are not only confessing that you committed a crime, but also confirming that a crime occurred. Now the courts have less incentive to offer a plea bargain, and will offer a worse deal or no deal, because they are more certain of a conviction. By confessing, you are giving away the biggest, and often times only, bargaining chip you have.

IANAL, but 1) A plea bargain can be ignored by a judge when it comes to sentencing. 2) Police do not provide leniency - it's the prosecutor (in terms of choosing which crime to charge you with, asking a judge for a reduced sentence), and the court 3) It's the prosecutor who provides a plea bargain, not a court.

Re:Confessed?

[NicBenjamin]

Dude,

That's in the US. Denmark is a separate country, with an entirely separate legal system. It may be wise to tell them "yes I did those things you are alleging, and if your interpretation of the law is correct I am guilty," and then fight the interpretation of the law.

For a really prominent example of the Bad Things that happen when you try to apply American rights in a non-American legal system look at Amanda Knox. In the US claiming a confession is coerced is a no-brainer. It's pretty much the only way to get a confession thrown out. In Italy it got her convicted of (and sentenced to a few years in jail for) slander.

Re:Confessed?

[Bing Tsher E]

Wow. There's no reverse-Godwins Law, you know. You can't stretch the thread out into infinity by saying ludicrous shit about Hitler.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys are lawyers and while you are correct, a judge can choose not to honour a plea deal, unless you yourself have a ridiculously shitty lawyer OR the prosecution is just plain sadistic, plea deals are always written so that you can back out of your plea should the judge choose not to honour them.

ie: Judge says he doesn't accept the plea bargain, you are not pleading not guilty. Which is still a better position than pleading guilty OR not guilty with an admission on file.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-judge-disregard-plea-deal-give-me-harsher-sentence.html

Re:Confessed?

[Applehu Akbar]

"This is Europe, not the USA. They're likely to get pretty light sentences at most if not just probation and a fine."

Let's try applying logic to this question. If the European sentence for mass murder is assumed as being one breivik, a unit of punishment equal to 21 Earth years, then Adolf Hitler would have gotten a full life sentence of Br 4.0, and the Popcorn Time boys would get about a microbreivik suspended.

But this is law, not logic. The MPAA/RIAA occupies the same place in European jurisprudence that the Holy Inquisition did around 1500, and can probably exact similar punishments.

Re:Confessed?

[ewibble]

Hitler was worse, while I am able believe more people where killed in rubber plantations than death camps. The main purpose of the death camps was to kill, they specifically had gas chambers to kill people. While the plantations being cruel and inhumane, (well all forms of slavery really) their primary purpose was to make money, so greed was the driving factor not hate.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The group selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be completely fit.

If you wanted a work force you would not kill the children, since they would grow up to be labor. In fact why would you even capture them if you didn't want them to work. The fact is Hilter wanted them all dead, if he could get some work out of them while killing them why not.

This is the difference between murder and manslaughter, and to me murder is much worse.

Re:Confessed?

[TheCastro1689]

I honestly expect it to be more expensive there.

Re:Confessed?

[nedlohs]

Your confession is the only bargaining chip you have (assuming their aren't others to roll over on anyway).

You'd have to be mighty stupid to give it up in return for nothing.

There's plenty of time to confess before you enter your plea in court - you might as well try and get something in return rather than rushing to give it away.

Re:Confessed?

[Half-pint HAL]

This is not clear cut. It's not far off the debate on the relative cruelty of life sentences vs death sentences.

Re:Confessed?

[Half-pint HAL]

I'm pretty sure you're right. No-one in their right mind is going to say they think the website they run is illegal, but they'll happily say they run it.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apples and oranges. If you compare estimates of population reduction to known actual killing then that is ludicrous. If you compare population reduction in Europe in Hitler's time then you find these two events were not at all in the same league. The Congo estimates are very much hazy guesses. War is war and it is erroneous to assume there would have been no war in the Congo without the Europeans. Africa has demonstrated the capacity to wage horrendous war without external combatants. Did you even read the source you shared? It does not even support your claim unless you are a revisionist about the Holocaust. What happened in the Congo was outrageous but very different from what happened in Europe.

Re:Confessed?

[ewibble]

I am not actually saying that working someone to death is not worse than just killing them. It might well be. I am saying the motive of greed is not as bad intentionally trying to kill someone, because you hate them.

To me a large part what drives how someone should be punished is what drives them to do it, e.g. if someone accidentally kill you then the punishment should be less than if they intentionally do it.

Re:Confessed?

[GNious]

If Hitler were miraculously still alive and arrested today in Europe, he wouldn't get the death penalty and any sentence more than a few years might be viewed as excessive given his age.

If Hitler was alive in present day Europe, he'd be elected to office in heartbeat :(

Re: Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Police determine what you are charged with and therefore, to a degree, can offer leniency.

Manslaughter vs murder... the police charge you with the crime.

Re:Confessed?

[myowntrueself]

Pleading guilty or taking a plea bargain is entirely different than confessing to a crime. In a plea bargain, you are admitting guilt for a bartered reduction in penalty, and have a contract in writing. If you confess to police, you have no more defense. The police have no capacity to grant you leniency for cooperating, no matter what they claim. Instead, you are making it easier for the court system to convict you, by a HUGE margin. You are not only confessing that you committed a crime, but also confirming that a crime occurred. Now the courts have less incentive to offer a plea bargain, and will offer a worse deal or no deal, because they are more certain of a conviction. By confessing, you are giving away the biggest, and often times only, bargaining chip you have.

Plea bargaining (when you know you are innocent) would surely be perjury and not allowed in any civilized country? Surely?

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Free laywers for defendants in Denmark if they need them

Re: Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Dumbfuckmark. The police need to be executed, then whoever was that sent them, then whoever was they work for on up.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Take it to trial ... or you get off much lighter if you confess"? I have a sneaking suspicion that the judicial system in Denmark doesn't work that way. Without a trial there wouldn't be a sentence at all, so the Danish prosecution can't play that card. And at trial, Danish judges are not passive participants like US judges.

The likely explanation is simpler: answers given directly are valued higher in subsequent proceedings. Answers given by your lawyer months later at trial are seen as basically fabricated. This doesn't matter a lot for verifiable facts, but a lot when it comes to intent.

Re:Confessed?

[Carewolf]

Dude,

That's in the US. Denmark is a separate country, with an entirely separate legal system. It may be wise to tell them "yes I did those things you are alleging, and if your interpretation of the law is correct I am guilty," and then fight the interpretation of the law.

For a really prominent example of the Bad Things that happen when you try to apply American rights in a non-American legal system look at Amanda Knox. In the US claiming a confession is coerced is a no-brainer. It's pretty much the only way to get a confession thrown out. In Italy it got her convicted of (and sentenced to a few years in jail for) slander.

Because coercion of a confession is normal and expected in the US, and it is only the degree of coercion that make it illegal (not unlike torture in the mid 200x), so it worth discussing, and not considered an unusal or extreme charge to bring up casually. In the rest of the world, coercion is illegal, period! It is like accusing the presecusion of beating their wives or the judge of taking bribes. Even in legally dubious countries like Italy that is just crazy.

It has to do with the lack of right in America, and assuming the same lack of rights in other countries.

Re:Confessed?

[dougmc]

Free lawyers for defendants in criminal courts in the United States too! ... and from what I've heard, they're worth every penny.

Re:Confessed?

[Peter H.S.]

So? The Nazi Germany didn't do anything that other countries, including Britain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, etc., had not also done. The only difference is that Hitler did it to white people.

More people were killed in forced labor on rubber plantations, than in all the Nazi death camps combined.

That is misleading; those figures for Congo are "depopulation" losses, not people killed. No other comparison points implied, but several western countries these days are being "depopulated" due to falling birth numbers, that doesn't mean there are secret massacres going on. "Depopulation" also includes population losses from people deciding to only have 1-2 kids instead of 3-4 kids needed to sustain the population.

Sure, there were huge atrocities going on in Congo, but the numbers you are quoting aren't only about people being killed as forced labor on rubber plantation as you claim. According to your cited source, the majority died of "sleeping sickness", still a killer disease in Congo these days.

The Death camps however where targeted killing machines, murdering people sometimes minutes after they had arrived by train. They also killed millions of people in a very short time, basically a couple of years, while the Congo depopulation took 40 years. The Nazi war on the eastern front killed +27 million people in 3-4 years in comparison.

Also of interest is that the (at least) 6 millions Jews killed was just the warm-up, since Mischlinge (half/quarter/etc Jewish descent) was next, and with the "General Plan Ost", the Nazi regime basically intended to exterminate all Slavic people from Poland to the Ural mountains except for a small amount that was to be kept as slaves.

Saying that Hitler and the Nazi regime only did what the British, Belgians etc, had done previously is just plain out wrong. There has never been anything remotely like the Nazi Death camps before.

There has also never been anything in both scale and intentions that have ever matched the Nazi regime when it came to Genocide, not even Stalin's USSR.

Re: Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Police don't charge in the U.S., the state does via the DA's office at least at the local level for non-federal stuff. The Feds can still charge you for the same crime indipendantly of what the state charges you with however. The "charges" police levy - admittedly confusing wording - are recommendations to the prosecution based, usually, on evidence. Based on those recommendations and the evidence at hand, charges are filed with the court by a prosecutor. Until that time, one is merely accused - though "charged" is often the word used by us common folk. As the police recommendations are usually 1:1 what the prosecutor will put forth to the court - though increasingly the DA's office will add counts / charges of their own based n technical violations of the law. It is largely due to that fact, that DA's/prosecutors hold so much discression over what & how much to charge you with, that the plea deal becomes a viable tool. Take a plea, plead guilty to crime A and get a known sentence or roll the dice with the courts, while also being charged with crimes A+B+C+D...n. It's very unfair to the accused and serves mainly to increase "technical" convictions and allow greater BW through the courts by requiring that fewer defendants get their proper day in court.

It's also a key contributor to justice being so expensive in the states. As only the wealthy can afford the necessary legal team to put up a reasonable defense in many cases.

Also, generally speaking & as a previous commenter noted, until you (the /. "You" aka The Royal We) yourself have stared down the barrel of this particular type of weapon, don't judge those who plead guilty & take the plea deal. They are most likely poor & innocent... and deserve our pity not our derision.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize this was in Denmark, not the US, right?

Your post just came off awfully, American. You have my sympathies...

Re:Confessed?

[ihtoit]

That's a nice terrorist manual you have on your passenger seat.

See you. Trial? I just said the one word that turns you from a suspect into an enemy combatant. Now, into that eight by ten room where I'll keep you until you grow old and die.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of people killed by the Nazis in their death camps was and still remains an example of mans brutality towards their fellow man. However, the scariest thing was that Germany was not some 3rd world pest hole. They actually had engineers sit down and design factories to create the most efficient way of killing the most people. They had scientists who identified which chemicals would work best in the gas chambers. They had logistical planners create the network used for transporting people to the death camps. After the people got off the train the train would be used to transport war material to the various German fronts. They had civilian community leaders take charge and inventory the personal belongings of those sent to the camps so the items could be used to aid Germans who suffered losses during the ongoing war. Your link was about the colonization of the Congo where the vast majority of deaths were due to constant warfare, disease, and starvation.

Re:Confessed?

[kandresen]

Confessed to have posted the information is one thing, confessed to that action as a crime is another. Imagine for an instance to replace "Popcorn time", with "Bit torrent". That I made an article of how to use Bit Torrent, for instance for downloading software such as Linux - is completely legal.

I have not used Popcorn time, but I believe it is used for much more than downloading illegal movies. For instance if I made an instructional movie for how to use the computer creative commons and made it available on Popcorn time, then posted instructions for how to use Popcorn time to see the instructional movie, I believe it should be legal. In this case, is it not also legal if I simply make the instructions for how to use the application as long as I do not use illegal content in my instructions?

Re:Confessed?

[kandresen]

I just noticed TorrentFreak had a link to the English version of their site prior to it being taken down, and it had a video of using the application for watching copyrighted content such as HBO's "Games of Thrones", so I guess they really did mess up...

Re:Confessed?

[Cytotoxic]

That's just an absolutely ridiculous take for anyone even remotely familiar with the Knox case. At no point in the proceedings did the Italian justice system live up to the barest minimum standards of justice of the industrialized world.

This is not unique to Italy, although there were quite a few Italian quirks to the whole fiasco. Claiming that a prosecutor being able to successfully throw his weight around to defend the honor of the Italian legal system is somehow an indictment of the rights afforded US citizens is just plain silly.

And no, people successfully abusing their authority when they don't like what someone has to say is not unique to Italy. We just had a case in the US where a judge got pissed that some online commentors dissed her verdict in the Silk Road trial. That happened in a country where constitutional law and several directly related supreme court rulings have shown that this sort of behavior is illegal.

The moral: People with power are human beings. And human beings are capable of doing the wrong thing from time to time.

Re:Confessed?

[dodobh]

Except the British in Kenya? On in India?

Re:Confessed?

[Opportunist]

While true it doesn't really change a thing in this case. Yes, you only get to pay the fees after the verdict and yes, you only get to pay if you lose.

Sadly, the game is rigged to ensure that you lose. So you can afford to go the whole length of the case. And THEN you're broke. Because one thing is certain: You will be guilty.

Re:Confessed?

[Opportunist]

So Hitler's primary crime was to be not capitalist enough to work his slaves to death and instead kill them outright, is that what you say?

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, do the US count as a civilized country?

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Denmark, not the USA. While we technically do have a right to remain silent, you could be in jail for two years while the investigation and later court case runs, for something that would likely give six months, and it will be your own fault that you spent two years in jail because you did not confess.

But in this case, as they have - by common understanding of the law - done nothing illegal, had no reason to hide anything (these were words on a website, what you would call SPEECH), denying it would be pointless.

Re:Confessed?

[MaxSmoke]

There has also never been anything in both scale and intentions that have ever matched the Nazi regime when it came to Genocide, not even Stalin's USSR.

Armenian Genocide

Re:Confessed?

[Peter H.S.]

There has also never been anything in both scale and intentions that have ever matched the Nazi regime when it came to Genocide, not even Stalin's USSR.

Armenian Genocide

While the Armenian Genocide was horrible, it was dwarfed by the Nazi Genocide by at least a factor of ten. The German occupation killed at something 14 million civilian Russians alone.

Re:Confessed?

[turbidostato]

"Because one thing is certain: You will be guilty."

Are you implying there's no case in Denmark where the defendant comes non-guilty?

Re:Confessed?

[Peter H.S.]

Except the British in Kenya? On in India?

The British never had a policy of extermination. There was never British Death camps like Majdanek or Sobibor, nor British units like the Nazi Waffen-SS 1. Brigade or the Einsatzgruppen, that toured eastern Europa systematically killing off whole villages by forcing the victims to dig graves and then shoot them in groups so their bodies was layered as "packed sardines"; shooting the men first, then the women and children. There was never a British "Babi Yar"
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar massacre.

The British colonial rule may have been misguided, paternalistic and sometimes brutal, they never committed mass murder on populations for being the wrong race, nor did they have any policies that willfully would kill off civilians through mass starvation.

Really, thinking that British colonial rule is even remotely comparable to the murderous Nazi regime shows a sad lack of understanding how gruesome and genocidal the Third Reich was in both thinking and deed.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, it's europe. It's not customary here to ruin peoples using the legal system as as bludgeon. Most european nations don't have plea bargains. It goes to court, you get when you get, and that's it. No prosecuters trying to scare you to confess something you didn't do. We like justice here.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really want to make comparisons between killing by purpose of just killing, or letting people die because you are greedy somehow I'd like to think the one who simply kills them is at least more honest. Not that these cases are really that simple. I'd rather be just outright killed than forced to slavery that ends in death.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree here. Hating someone is a honest feeling. You care about them enough to hate them. If you just see them as something you can use to profit that's worse in my opinion. Like they are not even human. I can somehow see someone driving over another in a car because they want them dead, but someone who drives reclessly and kills by pure chance because he simply does not care about the ones he runs over is way worse in my opinion.

Re: Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is one huge problem these days... It should t matter what is on a person's mind other than their intent. What they mean to do, not why. (Except in the case of having justification, self defense etc)

"Hate crimes" are ridiculous. Saying that killing someone for their iPhone is not as bad as killing someone for their race is complete lunacy. It is not like you can punish someone out of thinking what they think, and if you think there isn't enough deterrence already then the penalty needs to be upped across the board.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

" The German occupation killed at something 14 million civilian Russians alone."

So about half of what Russians killed themselves.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in US. In other countries you actually may have to say something. Ofcourse, you CAN just shut up. That might result in cops taking you to jail to, for example, figure out who you are. Best practise around here is to actually answer if you are clearly in the clear. If the situation is even a bit messy it's better to not talk too much and get the lawyer. Generally our cops dodn't try to incriminate innocents, but mistakes do happen.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know about Denmark, but we don't have plea bargains around here. It's just not possible. The law states you do X you get Y to Z years(depending on other circumstances). Nowhere does it say confessing gets you off easier. So no scare tactics by prosecutors. I believe they are trying to bring plea bargains to some type of cases, namely financial fraud etc, because they are very expensive and hard to investigate.

Re:Confessed?

[nedlohs]

In which case you should never confess. Even when caught on video with 2000 eye witnesses and forensic evidence galore. If showing remorse and so on can reduce the sentence then there confessing can get you off easier so that isn't the case and there's no benefit at all to you, so don't do it and hope the jury is full of morons.

And around there does the prosecutor have to charge you with every crime that might have been committed all the time? They link you to a dead person via blood evidence, for example, do they then have to charge you with murder, and manslaughter, and assault (maybe you punched him and got blood all over you but he was then murdered by someone else), and littering (the dead body wasn't placed in the garbage bin), and so on and so on?

If they don't then there's prosecutor discretion involved and why wouldn't they say "confess to the murder, and we won't charge you with the littering" to make their job easier?

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

The British were the "inventors" of the concentration camps that also targeted women and children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War

Re:Confessed?

[myowntrueself]

I don't know, do the US count as a civilized country?

Apparently not... encouraging perjury? Thats a slippery slope for a legal system.

"You know you are innocent, we know you are probably innocent too. But if you just lie and plead guilty it'd just make everyones lives so much easier so go ahead, please lie under oath."

Thats not even a real legal system if it positively encourages such blatant disregard and disrespect for the process of law.

Re:Confessed?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to look up the Second Boer War.

Re:Confessed?

[JazzLad]

If I read that right(*), they didn't so much target women and children as much as the conditions were so deplorable that people died from easily avoidable circumstances (starvation, disease, etc) and those most vulnerable died in greater numbers (children, etc).

Horrific and inexcusable to be sure, and certainly concentration camps, but really nothing comparing (based on my Wikipedia reading) to the concentration camps of the Nazis. The British weren't seeking to eradicate an entire people.

(*) I was unaware 30 minutes ago of this event in History, so I certainly don't consider myself to be an expert :)

Re:Confessed?

[__aanbvm4272]

Free Lawyers? 'Worth every penny' you don't have to pay??? The courts often make $$ a condition of probation; Pay the court appointed attorney blah blah blah. In my case my defending lawyer told me to "just plead guilty." It cost me $275.00 in 1969 for a 'free lawyer.' Sure I did not HAVE to pay it. But I wanted off probation. Settling for a "public defender" was dumb. I was 18 and did not know better. NOW I DO. Do NOT ever plead guilty Do NOT even talk to an officer. Dummy up. They are there to collect enough evidence to convict someone. Sometimes we hear about 'planted evidence' etc. Justice is for the well off. Lawyers support this scenario gladly.

Re:Confessed?

[doccus]

NEVER confess to anything! All they've done is to hang themselves. Gubbermint says, "We don't like what you're doing." Your response? Are you really going to tell gubbermint, "Oh, I'm so sorry - please, just lock me away for a few decades!"

The better response is, "Prove your case, assholes!"

Torture? The dreaded Golden Girls torture? What kind of geek is that stupid? Oh.. "We'll tell your moms" OK....

Re:Confessed?

[Opportunist]

I'm talking about this case. And one thing is certain: There is no sense and logic in laws concerning sex, drugs and copyright. That's why you'll have a hard time getting a legal insurance to cover these topics.

Re:Confessed?

[OutOnARock]

exactly......

First sentence out of your mouth in a very polite tone: "Officer I have somewhere else I need to be. Am I free to go?"

Officer says yes you are, you don't say another word and you leave.

Officer say you are not free to go, the next and last words out of your mouth should be:

What is the charge? I'd like to speak to my attorney.

Re:Confessed?

[NicBenjamin]

That's all relevant to the US, not Denmark. I suspect that the legal contexts are so different that the very phrase "confession" may have a completely different definition.

ie: if you're in the US, and you tell the cops you shot that guy, but it was not murder it was self-defense; or you admit that you took those videos of the police but the statute banning videos of the police is invalid; etc. it would not be considered a confession because you aren't admitting to legal guilt. And to use those defenses effectively you'd have to bring them up very early in the investigation (just try convincing a Jury that you shot that dude in self-defense when your first story to the cops was that you were in Vegas that day).

I strongly suspect what's happened is that the cops decided these guy's sites were illegal, they brought said guys in after whatever legal paperwork is required, they said "is this your site?" and the guys said "yes." And then when they found out they were about to be arrested for posting the sites they pointed out that their sites aren't illegal. Some reporter whose fluent in Danish, but only high-level-conversational in English, and worse in legal English, called this a "confession." After all, they admitted they did what the cops were accusing them of, and did not realize that in English particular word strongly imples you're about to beg the Judge to give you the minimum allowable sentence.

Re:Confessed?

[Peter H.S.]

The British were the "inventors" of the concentration camps that also targeted women and children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

There is no comparison to the British Boer War concentration camps and the Nazi camp system, that including industrial murder machines like Auschwitz and Majdanek.

The British Boer War concentration camps were bad and thousands of women and children died in them. But unlike the Nazi camps, there was never a deliberate policy of starving or working the inmates to death.

So there was not only a huge difference in the number of dead (many millions vs around 26.000), but also a crucial difference in _why_ the inmates died; in the Nazi camps they where deliberately target for destruction through starvation and gassing, while the British Camps where merely badly and incompetently run, so the inmates died of epidemics and neglect.

Another crucial difference is that when the British politicians (both ruling party and the opposition) discovered what was going on, they intervened and brought the camps (and their mortality rates) in order again.

Popcorn is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are all cows. Cows say moo. MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOO! Moo cows MOOOOOO! Moo say the cows. YOU COWS!!

Re:Popcorn is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever you are, I like you.

Re:Popcorn is for cows.

[Triklyn]

apparently, from another thread, another AC posted this

http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

Re:Popcorn is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh hai sexconker! I see you've remembered to tick the "Post Anonymously" box today. Good for you! You're getting better at this :)

http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

Thoughtcrime!

[asimons04]

Next, we should go after the language teachers because they facilitate this illegal behavior by teaching people how to read and write. If that doesn't make sense, then you are much smarter than these authority figures because that has about as much to do with committing a crime as what these people have done.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. You're a moron. This is no different from a mob boss telling his underlings whom to kill. You would probably argue that the mob boss was simply using his freedom of speech to express his opinion. Speech has consequences and in this case, it's piracy.

Re: Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing copyright infringement to murder for hire. You're the moron.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

False equivalency, much? You're just going to equate running a website that tells people how to set up a software package with a mob boss ordering a hit, and expect to get away with that? Get back to Usenet...

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Ravaldy]

The original reference to teachers was not comparable either. These guys were operating in the same form as accomplices which means they fall within the grasp of the justice system. If teachers were teaching a language with the purpose of enabling crime they would then also become accomplices.

Copyright issues isn't as damaging to society as say a web sites that enables access to drug dealers. Unfortunately in the eyes of the law, crime is crime. My advice to anybody is to avoid getting involved in enabling illegal activities or be willing to accept possible consequences. Copyright infringement affects enough people that society will gobble down whoever gets in the way of it's rights and that's not just the people at the top of the food chain but all those working in affected fields.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Falos]

"Conspiracy to commit" is illegal. It short-circuits freespeech.

EVERYTHING short-circuits freespeech, you fuckwits. Shouting "Fire" in a theater is perfectly legal - endangering human life is not, and the 1stA doesn't grant new, override powers.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi :) I am going to teach you some thoughtcrime today...

The solution to the copyright/patent mess is to keep on sharing
till their business model is completely destroyed.
Start by ripping and sharing all the physical media you own.
And do it over anonymous overlay networks such as I2P and Phantom.
That way you can share 24x7x365 without fear of the MAFIAA.
No one needs to feed the machine (with at least $9.50 to the machine and
$0.50 to the artist) and you can Bitcoin your money straight to the
artists that make a difference in your life.
The only thing these labels and distribution companies exist to do
is to tax both you and the artist and to payoff politicians.
SCREW THAT.
Crush these useless "intellectual property" companies once and for all.
Share and share at will my brothers!

*** Approved Tools ***
http://www.freebsd.org/
https://www.archlinux.org/
http://open-zfs.org/
https://geti2p.net/
http://code.google.com/p/phantom/
https://transmissionbt.com/
http://xiph.org/flac/
http://xiph.org/paranoia/
http://www.cdda2wav.de/
http://cdrtools.sourceforge.net/
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/
http://www.labdv.com/aacs/
http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html
http://www.dvdfab.cn/mlink/download.php?g=DVDFAB9
http://ffmpeg.org/

Quality is paramount, bandwidth and storage are cheap, therefore...
CD and DVD *must* be shared losslessly, as FLAC and VOB dirs only.
BluRay *may* be shrunk to DVD-9 iso/vob before sharing.
Don't waste people's time and quality by jacking around with other formats.

Re: Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you can't see that it applies to all crimes. The mob boss at the center of the crime ring never actually does anything. He or she only speaks. In fact, in most cases, 90% of the gang never actually commits the crime. But they take part in the planning and that makes them guilty. But you would have them go free.

The next thing you know, you'll be arguing that the corporate leadership that tells the underlings how and where to pollute should be freed because it's all just speech.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, bozo. It's ANY crime. Would you argue for freedom of speech protections for:

1) Corporate bigwigs who authorize massive pollution?
2) Bankers who write memos detailing how to screw over the customers?
3) Rabblerousers who talk people into rioting with false statements?

I could go on. Let's see you argue that any accomplice can get out of prosecution by claiming freedom of speech.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Grishnakh]

Absolutely, yes, for #1 and #2. That speech should be completely free. Their actions are still illegal, but not because of any free-speech issues. Directing your underlings to massively pollute is illegal because it's illegal to pollute (whether you're the guy doing the dumping or the guy's boss who pays him to do it), not because speaking is illegal. Screwing over customers is (likely) illegal (depending on the exact points of law and the actions), but writing a memo about how to do it is not, it's free speech. If a banker wants to write a memo telling how to screw customers, but then he never actually screws any customers over, nor do any of his underlings, then he's fine. That's no different than writing a fictional story about committing a murder.

#3 is different because that falls under the "incitement" condition. And it's not about false statements either; you can go to jail for inciting a riot using true statements too. Inciting a riot is illegal, no matter how you do it.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Oh please. You're a moron. This is no different from a mob boss telling his underlings whom to kill. You would probably argue that the mob boss was simply using his freedom of speech to express his opinion. Speech has consequences and in this case, it's piracy.

What a clownish statement. First of all, ordering a hit is a crime because murder is. Saying how to shoot a gun is not. Saying how to shoot to kill is not -- gun training courses do exactly that.

I have a sympathetic ear that the real goal is 99% illegal downloads, but that is the crime. Properly speaking, nobody granted government power to regulate free speech to begin with, but these are vox populi vox dei parliaments that fly by the seat of their majorities, so YMMV.

Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge

Not one further word need be read to know this government is using power no free citizen would ever grant it to begin with in their right mind. Reason: Your own damned murderous history.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[s.petry]

The original reference to teachers was not comparable either.

It was not supposed to be comparable, it was supposed to demonstrate the dangers of prosecuting people for non-crimes based on what someone speculates as intent.

Copyright issues isn't as damaging to society as say a web sites that enables access to drug dealers.

That may be true, but you are also incorrectly attempting to equate apples to orangutans. These guys were not publishing maps to drug dealers, and even if they were that would not be illegal (at least in the US). Arrest records are public information which would give someone enough to know where to buy drugs. While it may seem sleezy to publish such a map, it certainly would not be illegal. These guys were only publishing information, not providing the tools to use the information with.

Since you can not make a fair comparison either, how about I give you one? "The Anarchists Cookbook" is not illegal to possess and not illegal to purchase (again, at least in the US). That book contains information on how to do illegal things too, and nobody is going to jail over that book.

An even better comparison may be to a crime novel. There is lots of information in those about how to break the law. Are those illegal also? How about a book that shows the parts of a Machine gun, are those now illegal because anyone can go to a URL and read how to take one apart and put it together? Machine guns are illegal right?

My advice to anybody is to avoid getting involved in enabling illegal activities or be willing to accept possible consequences.

My advice to you is to learn some history and stop defending non-event prosecution. Perhaps then you would realize how dangerous the process you are backing really is. Immunity for people who think they are in the club generally does not last very long. Chinese and Russian history is full of examples.

Re: Thoughtcrime!

[fustakrakich]

That's right. It is just speech. Go tackle the underlings who actually perform the dirty deed. Speech is only words, nothing more. By themselves they do absolutely nothing. Don't blame words for peoples' obedience to them. Make obedience illegal instead.

Re: Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bankers and corporations already have a free pass, which is why the rabblerousers exist in the first place.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Ravaldy]

Copyright issues isn't as damaging to society as say a web sites that enables access to drug dealers.

That may be true, but you are also incorrectly attempting to equate apples to orangutans

It's not because there is proof that some encouragement of illegal activities is available and not reprimanded that it's not illegal. I can jerk off in front of your house all day but until someone calls the cops about it I'm not going to be charge for it. If nobody cares it won't see the light of day. Keep in mind that US is one of the few places where hate speech is allowed and the laws are very different in other countries such as Denmark in this case.

My advice to you is to learn some history

Why are you getting personal?

My advice to you is to learn some history and stop defending non-event prosecution. Perhaps then you would realize how dangerous the process you are backing really is. Immunity for people who think they are in the club generally does not last very long. Chinese and Russian history is full of examples.

Oh look, I played with a knife and I cut myself. Why are people surprised when this happens? I don't need history to tell me that publishing information about illegal activities is playing with fire. You piss someone off enough they'll make it their life's work to ruin yours. It's exactly what is happening here. History has many example of this too.

Take a minute to review the definition of accessory to a crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no problem with drawing the line between:
Here is how to rob a bank.
and
We are robbing that bank on Tuesday.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[s.petry]

Copyright issues isn't as damaging to society as say a web sites that enables access to drug dealers.

That may be true, but you are also incorrectly attempting to equate apples to orangutans

It's not because there is proof that some encouragement of illegal activities is available and not reprimanded that it's not illegal. I can jerk off in front of your house all day but until someone calls the cops about it I'm not going to be charge for it. If nobody cares it won't see the light of day. Keep in mind that US is one of the few places where hate speech is allowed and the laws are very different in other countries such as Denmark in this case.

My advice to you is to learn some history

Why are you getting personal?

You ignoring history is not personal, it's a statement of fact. I provided two recent examples of what happens when a government is allowed to make arbitrary rulings by guessing intent. I could add Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Italy, Germany, Cuba, and I'll stop there because you should get the point. If you want to defend your position show me where history is wrong. In fact show me in history where allowing this type of ruling has not turned out catastrophically for the majority of the population.

My advice to you is to learn some history and stop defending non-event prosecution. Perhaps then you would realize how dangerous the process you are backing really is. Immunity for people who think they are in the club generally does not last very long. Chinese and Russian history is full of examples.

Oh look, I played with a knife and I cut myself. Why are people surprised when this happens? I don't need history to tell me that publishing information about illegal activities is playing with fire. You piss someone off enough they'll make it their life's work to ruin yours. It's exactly what is happening here. History has many example of this too.

Take a minute to review the definition of accessory to a crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If you want to defend your position show me where my examples were wrong instead of making up more invalid comparisons and nonsense.

How is these people publishing text any different than the Anarchist's handbook? How is this different than writing up "how to" guides for taking apart machine guns?

You are claiming that writing and publishing here is a crime because you say the subject matter is dangerous. I provided equally dangerous materials which won't result in jail. I have been courteous enough to demonstrate my position. I provided other dangerous material which would not result in publishing being a crime.. Demonstrate your yours and show me the logic. Reality please, not more unrelated fluff.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes. now fuck off you piece of shit.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Cytotoxic]

If a banker wants to write a memo telling how to screw customers, but then he never actually screws any customers over, nor do any of his underlings, then he's fine. That's no different than writing a fictional story about committing a murder.

#3 is different because that falls under the "incitement" condition.

Actually, I don't think this is correct. I'm not sure how far you have to go, but simply talking speculatively about committing a crime can be a crime. Sometimes a much more serious crime than the crime being discussed. It is called a "criminal conspiracy" and in many countries (including the US - see US v. Shabani) you don't need to take any overt actions in furtherance of the conspiracy in order to be convicted.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go fuck off RIAA shill.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Grishnakh]

I'd like to see a case where merely talking about a crime actually landed someone in jail. The way I understand it, "conspiracy" to commit a crime goes beyond just "talking about" it, because that really is thoughtcrime. "Conspiracy" involves more than that: making actual plans, paying someone to do the deed, having motive, etc. A couple of guys getting drunk and saying they'd like to kill their wives is not "conspiracy".

Re: Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand they can't actually refuse to do what the "boss" tells them to do, so it is more of a coercion into committing the crime as well as having knowledge that the crime was going to be committed and providing the means for that specific purpose.

Yeah... That's totally the same thing /s

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Ravaldy]

You're so angry and bias that I have lost interest in reading you banter.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[s.petry]

You mean to say that you can't defend your position using facts and have been called out on your BS. Humility is a good thing, you should learn to use it when you are wrong.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Ravaldy]

Nah, I don't waste time with people like you.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Anonymous Coward]

He's right. You didn't "lose interest" in reading what he said. You read it, realized you aren't smart enough to come up with a logical rejoinder, and made a pathetic attempt at excusing your failure by disguising it as a non-effort.

You will now accidentally admit this.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Cytotoxic]

This guy was arrested and convicted of conspiracy for fantasizing about kidnapping and canibalizing women in online chat rooms. He claims it was just fantasy role playing.

This is the perfect kind of case for this sort of thing - not only is the talk about something criminal, it is disgusting and morally repugnant. Really easy to get everyone worked up over something like that.

Conspiring to skirt federal open records laws? Nah, not so much. Even if officials actually carry out that sort of conspiracy.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Grishnakh]

The only problem with the cannibal guy is that he *wasn't* convicted for conspiracy. The jury convicted him, and then the trial court threw it out. He was actually convicted for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (using an NYPD computer database improperly), which isn't really a free-speech issue.

Luckily, that's one place where our legal system isn't completely broken: when some idiotic jury of one's "peers" convicts you for some bogus BS, it's entirely possible for the judge to toss out the conviction, and it does happen from time to time.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Cytotoxic]

While true, he was accused of the crime by police. Prosecutors then chose to carry forward the case. The judge allowed it to go forward. The jury convicted him based on the instructions of the judge.

Another court reviewed the verdict and found that the evidence of conspiracy was weak enough to toss it.

But the government is appealing that ruling.

It was the first case that came up on a google search - first search result for "thought crime conspiracy". The EFF got involved because of the morphing of computer fraud from hacking into a database into "violating the terms of service".

Basically, this is a nice cautionary tale for 'bad cases make for bad law'. Who knows if the original verdict or the reversal will stick? But he still faces life in prison for what plausibly was just online role playing. Yet another case where talking about something is much worse than actually doing it. Minus the cannibalism angle, you can murder someone and get much less than life in prison.

I don't know enough about the case to have an opinion. But I do know that if the people with the authority decide they want to get you, you are truly screwed. Particularly if those people are Federal prosecutors. Their power is so vast at this point that they pretty much just threaten people enough that they 'volunteer' to move to jail for a few years rather than risk life in prison.

Re:Thoughtcrime!

[Cytotoxic]

Another search turned up an old California Law Review article detailing many of the problems of criminal conspiracy laws. Apparently these statutes have been used to punish things like draft protesters, labor organizers, communist party members, etc.... among other things. Apparently there is a long history of using "conspiracy" as an end run around the first amendment to punish politically unpopular speech.

It also points out the absurdity of a law that allows for a felony conviction for conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor. So if we agreed to be a part of a flash mob that streaks through Times Square, we could be convicted of a felony conspiracy under Federal law for planning to commit a misdemeanor disorderly conduct violation in New York, even if we never actually boarded the plane to join the performance. Nice.

Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Linkreincarnate]

I didnt know about it before and now I do. Thanks sweden. Now sue yourselves.

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I usually never reject some good old Swede-bashing (said the Dane) I do fail to see what they have to do with this particular issue?

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[rjmx]

I'd suspect that it's simply the publicity they've generated by prosecuting these guys. You know about it now, don't you? Now, if they'd just let things be, nobody would have been any the wiser.

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, I just never realised the Swedish justice system had any juristiction in the state of Denmark. Or should I say whoosh, now? Mmm?

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that this is out of DENMARK, not SWEDEN. See the difference, you illiterate cunt?

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[fnj]

Streisand Effect.

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

He HAD TO say it was Sweden. If he said the correct country, he'd be "spreading information" which we now know is a crime.

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[HornWumpus]

I see the distinction, but I don't honestly see a difference.

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[spyfrog]

You do know that Denmark is one other country than Sweden, right?

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Half-pint HAL]

His refusal to distinguish is hate speech. Go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares, they're all part of greater Finland anyways.

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, it was Norway and Finland that were part of Greater Sweden.

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

I didnt know about it before and now I do. Thanks sweden. Now sue yourselves.

http://www.google.com/#q=popcorn+time Execllent.. another gooder from Sweden.. +10 for the links you rat bastards +1 for original post

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

Tsk, tsk. Such language! Your mommy taught you not to talk like that, I'm sure. Now get out of the basement, go upstairs, and confess to her.
NOW!

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is all Scandinavians look the same to you?

Be careful - someone would call you a racist except Scandiwegians are typically white.

CAPTCHA: "palest"

Re:Popcorn time loves barbara streisand

[HornWumpus]

Look and act the same. Share a culture.

Ah, the computer crime interrogations

[Anonymous Coward]

"Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content online and are reported to have confessed."

"Have you ever uploaded anything to the web pages listed on the paper in front of you."
"Hm, no, no, never heard of that one, no, no, I comment on the blogs at this one, no, no, no."
"He confessed! Get the rope!"

Is there a law?

[captnjohnny1618]

Against this:

"Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content online and are reported to have confessed."

?

If there is, then they are probably in violation. But aren't there other resources on how to do illegal things that don't get shut down? Plenty of folks have written about how to get onto Silk Road and buy drugs and yet we haven't seen those sites disappear... curious. Just goes to show they don't care about whether its illegal or not, only if it *slightly* affects their bottom line. But we all knew that already, didn't we?

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to exceed the speed limit follow these steps...

1. Turn on your car
2. Put your car in a drive gear.
3. Depress the accelerator pedal until the speedometer shows a value higher than the posted speed limit. (Try to avoid obstacles.)

I'm off to the police station to confess. Bye /.

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aiding copyright infringement is usually illegal.

Re:Is there a law?

[Zocalo]

I've no idea about Danish legislation on this so can't comment, but if there is then presumably it would apply to your Silk Road example too, but maybe there just aren't any such sites hosted in Denmark and/or by Danes that have come to the attention of the authorities there yet. On the plus side, with a good lawyer, they might just be able to get off and establish a line in the sand on this kind of thing that would then apply to sites doing similar things for Torrent index sites and similar scenarios that only link to the data, but not actually provide it. As I understand it though, there are very few (if any) applications of Popcorn Time that don't involve copyright infringment, whereas with Torrent sites there are usually at least a few undeniably legitimate usage cases to muddy the waters a little.

Re:Is there a law?

[dunkindave]

(Try to avoid obstacles.)

But in my monster truck that takes the fun out of it!

Re:Is there a law?

[fnj]

All-time prize winning post.

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. obtain knife
2. hold knife by handle, with actual blade pointing up or down, your choice
3. exert force on the knife in the direction the pointy side is toward your target.
4. exert force on the knife in the direction opposite the pointy side, away from your target.
5. repeat steps 3 and 4 until target has stopped squirming.

Re:Is there a law?

[Ravaldy]

Your analogy is good but it's not a 100% comparative. If you included information about where the police is and isn't so that you can speed without getting caught that would be more like it.

Or how to setup a police radar...

Because speeding isn't considered as much of an offence as stealing it doesn't get the same response from the authorities.

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

And with this happening, there will never be applications of Popcorn Time that don't involve copyright infrigment. I've recently started do distribute fairly big amounts of data (~2TB/day) to many users from many servers using torrent protocol, which makes this setup naturally high available and ballances the traffic perfectly. It was quite a feat to persuade my boss(es) that we won't be regarded as copyright infringers. With few servers around the world bam -- *very* cheap (almost) CDN. But it almost didn't happen! I guess many companies streaming video from files would like this very much. But this wil stop any and all bosses from approving "torrent streaming". Which I think is a great idea with vast potential.

Re:Is there a law?

[Beerdood]

In order to kill some civilians / infidels, follow these steps...

1. Combine (insert materials here) to make an effective bomb
2. Transport bomb via (specific technique) as to not arouse suspicions
3. Have an alibi of some sorts, (this) is a good one
4. Pick (specific day/time) for maximum effectiveness
5. Detonate bomb!

Hey, don't arrest me, I'm just exercising my free speech here! There's nothing legally or morally wrong about the information my website has to offer, so fuck off you socialist bastards! Also, maybe your analogy fails because while everyone that knows how to drive knows how to speed, not everyone necessarily knows how to bomb a marketplace, download illegal material, or do anything else illegal and thanks to you and you're "information wants to be free" mantra, you've just made the world a worse place?

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Popcorn time does no such thing.

There is no law against knowing where police are. Imagine it, a place where knowing 111 is an emergency number will get you arrested.

Re:Is there a law?

[viperidaenz]

What does stealing have to do with this case?
Copyright infringement is not theft

Re:Is there a law?

[sjames]

The more important difference is that the speeding could theoretically lead to someone's death, the copyright infringement could not.

Re:Is there a law?

[Ravaldy]

Your now ready to become a lawyer.

Copyright infringement is still a criminal offense (One that still has many grey lines).

Re:Is there a law?

[Ravaldy]

Which is why it's much easier to proceed with a crime that has no consequences so it's why it takes precedence over the one that is less likely. (I'm referring to the people making use of the information, not the ones providing it).

Most people could speed excessively today but don't (key being excessive). There were studies done on this and believe it or not most speed limits are set based on driver comfort zone with a few exceptions such as school zones. Most people don't want to get in an accident so they won't speed excessively. It falls under the umbrella of "self preservation".

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

The best (utilitarian) system of government is a benevolent dictator. Unfortunately we can't find the perfect dictator so we approximate their omniscience by distributing the decision-making and letting everyone act in their own interest. We need information to make our decisions (or we may as well use randomness).

I don't think it's a far leap from here to say that the more information available to everyone the better this system functions. To hide information is to play a rigged game where those that control it stand a better chance of winning.

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

In my country, it is presently a civil offense. Curiously, the US are trying to make it a criminal offense with harsher penalties than assault, rape, murder.... the US: bringing Freedom to you at any cost to you.

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your now ready to become a lawyer.

Copyright infringement is still a criminal offense (One that still has many grey lines).

No. Copyright Infringement is a CIVIL offense. It is the act of infringing on another's rights to control the production and distribution of copies of a work.

Criminal Copyright Infringement does exist. It is specifically limited to copyright infringement done willfully, and for profit ("for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain").

Re:Is there a law?

[viperidaenz]

There are only three scenarios where it is a criminal offense in my country. All of which must involve selling, hiring or for use in the course of a business.

Anything a person does for their own use is a civil matter.

Re:Is there a law?

[unrtst]

Then you may not want to read this article on Wired, "10 Guns, Bombs, and Weapons You Can Build at the Airport": http://www.wired.com/2013/12/t...
Let alone the myriad of books that have been published on exactly the topic you describe, and loads and loads of "fiction" in movies, tv, books, etc following the same. You must really hate Dexter.

Re:Is there a law?

[sjames]

Somewhere, right now there are probably 2 or more young drivers jokingly following the instructions on how to speed.

They probably don't expect it to be a problem. Honestly, neither do I.

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

By this precedent Wikipedia is responsible for everything on the web.. *lights a torch and starts handing out pitchforks*

Re:Is there a law?

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Seconded.

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instructions unclear, there is no drive gear.

Re:Is there a law?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Waze?

Re:Is there a law?

[Ravaldy]

What about being an accomplice to any of the listed scenarios?

Re:Is there a law?

[Ravaldy]

They probably don't expect it to be a problem. Honestly, neither do I.

Pretty sure nobody will use those instructions.

Re:Is there a law?

[Tukz]

You mean like the numerous apps and websites dedicated to notifying drivers of where speedtraps are currently located, which are perfectly legal and are even advertised on public TV?

https://www.fartkontrol.nu/

http://www.trafikalarm.dk/traf...

https://itunes.apple.com/dk/ap...

And I can go on.

Re:Is there a law?

[Ravaldy]

Where does it say it's legal?

It's not because its on TV that it's legal.

The Republcian's power expands

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they're ordering around the government in Denmark. Expect the Republicans to make sure those guys end-up in Gitmo. That is where they want to put us all. They want to stack us up like cordwood at Gitmo.

Re: The Republcian's power expands

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another vast right wing conspiracy.

Re:The Republcian's power expands

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in favor of being stacked up like cordwood at Gitmo!

Armed with this information, I' going to change my registration from Democrat to Republican on my lunch break.

Re:The Republcian's power expands

[Anonymous Coward]

if you think that the entertainment industry hasn't purchased both sides you are a fucking moron.

stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

Popcorn Time steals from the lives of the people who created this content. Those who aid and abet thieves should get put away.

I realize this forum exists solely to promote ripping off GoT episodes, but, come ON. Wake up people.

This thing about 'stealing helps the content makers' is just smoke the devil is blowing in your ear.

Set that life behind and get some relief !

Re:stop them !

[Nidi62]

Popcorn Time steals from the lives of the people who created this content. Those who aid and abet thieves should get put away. I realize this forum exists solely to promote ripping off GoT episodes, but, come ON. Wake up people.

You just provided information regarding the types of shows available on Popcorn Time. Now they are going to arrest you too.

Re:stop them !

[wonkey_monkey]

Now they are going to arrest you too.

Compromising police operations. That's a paddlin'.

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

>Popcorn Time steals from the lives of the people who created this content

It does? Does it do it at gunpoint, or does it just break into their houses to steal their money? Perhaps it runs an elaborate con and gets their money that way? I suppose it's software so many it's a salami slicing attack? Breaks into their bank accounts and just takes money from them?

I'm fascinated with how Popcorn Time is stealing. Please, do tell me more about it!

Re:stop them !

[fnj]

Popcorn Time steals from the lives of the people who created this content. Those who aid and abet thieves should get put away.

I realize this forum exists solely to promote ripping off GoT episodes, but, come ON. Wake up people.

This thing about 'stealing helps the content makers' is just smoke the devil is blowing in your ear.

Set that life behind and get some relief !

Worst, most pathetic, stupidest attempt at sarcasm ever attempted.

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

....and what (movie|music) studio are you signed with?

Re:stop them !

[micahraleigh]

Content producers think, "Ah, I don't want to front something like this. People won't pay for it, so I'll get nothing back". Then he doesn't hire actors, writers, secretaries, etc.

So the job is gone. People don't get that work because the thieves stole it. They didn't pull out a gun. They didn't lop off any fingers. But the people who make the stuff people want don't get to choose that work because the thieves didn't give them that choice.

Well, hey, you know what? I say the thieves don't know any better. I say the people that want that content know better. I say the people who want jobs know better. I say the GoT thieves who high-five each other all day belong in jail so the rest of us can pay lower prices for a better selection of stuff.

I say it's time for the government to do what we're paying them to do and enforce the law!

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm signed with the studio that says its time for ordinary people to pay less money for a wider selection of stuff.

I'm signed with the studio that says it's time for the government to wake up and start hauling people off to jail.

Re:stop them !

[viperidaenz]

You've confused copyright infringement with theft.
Theft is when you take something away from someone. They no longer have it.
Copyright infringement is when you copy something without paying for it. The victim has not lost anything, buy they have also not gained anything either.

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

Buggy whip producers think, "Ah, I don't want to front something like this. People won't pay for it, so I'll get nothing back". Then he doesn't hire machinists, warehouse people, secretaries, etc.

So the job is gone. People don't get that work because the thieves stole it. They didn't pull out a gun. They didn't lop off any fingers. But the people who make the buggy whips don't get to choose that work because the thieves didn't give them that choice.

Well, hey, you know what? I say the thieves don't know any better. I say the people that want buggy whips know better. I say the people who want jobs know better. I say the automobile manufacturing thieves who high-five each other all day belong in jail so the rest of us can pay lower prices for a better selection of buggy whips.

I say it's time for the government to do what we're paying them to do and enforce the law!

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any sources to back up your claims of how people don't get jobs?

My boss used to pull the same bullshit line about why patents are important. He always said "why would you work on software when people can just copy it?" and I always replied "because you want to eat and buy the next apple watch".
So eventually he did not get his patent granted, do you know what happened next? He actually continued to work on his software, because shit...he wanted to eat and the new apple watch.

Re:stop them !

[grcumb]

Content producers think, "Ah, I don't want to front something like this. People won't pay for it, so I'll get nothing back". Then he doesn't hire actors, writers, secretaries, etc.

Your argument would have more weight if we weren't in the middle of a golden age of Video/TV/Film production. The quality & quantity of the content being created, and the economic activity surrounding these activities, are all reaching record highs. More people are employed in television, film and videography now than ever before.

Re:stop them !

[Alok]

Copyright is completely insane anyway, and this has desensitized many people from breaking it at will when they can. We no longer have sane terms like 14 years after first publication (which iirc was the original term in US before all the extensions to make it a multi-generational cash cow). If that was still the case, then piracy would perhaps have not taken off in such a big way in the first place, because the public would be more supportive of creators getting reimbursed for their content.

However, with the current BS terms, it is 'illegal' to watch ancient movies or cartoons (hello Disney!) or listen to decades-old songs (Sonny Bono act) without paying for the privilege. Even most individual countries cannot set terms as they wish thanks to the Berne convention which imposes a *minimum* of 50 years. So, the public starts to pirate due to this perceived unfairness; which is their only response since the politicians are bought & paid for by the entertainment industry.

As for 'ripping off GoT episodes', those are fairly recent and shouldn't be as justified - but the problem is that when everyone is accustomed to piracy due to eternal copyrights; then people no longer distinguish carefully about newer or older works.

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

Work cheaper! You know a Mexican/Chinaman etc will.
That will lower prices for everyone.
Have your studio spend less on cocaine and advertising and more on making quality content.

If all the people were in jail, who will buy your content? They will have no money.
Everyone not in jail will have to pay 10x the taxes to keep the others in jail and still have no money to pay you...
Off to the government provided course on how to be a productive member of society in the post buggy-whip era. (Grrr why are my taxes providing for your education Grrr)

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried that line once. It didn't work. It went something like this:

I was on my way to the corner store to buy a scratch ticket, as I always have right after work at 5:10 pm every day (shows a long history of receipts for previous purchases). This day, the defendant hit my car, crippling me. I was unable to go to the store that day. As you can see from this newspaper, that corner store sold a scratch ticket just 5 minutes after the accident to someone else which won them $10 million dollars. Because of this accident, I was unable to buy the scratch ticket. Your honour, I believe this is solid proof that the defendant stole $10 million dollars from me and this is why we are having this case today.

Or, if we put it the simple way:

Party A is unable to, or chooses not to do action B (an action they would often normally perform).
B is shown that there is a probability it would lead to outcome C. However, that probability is not guaranteed, just likely.
Party D performs action E. Action E affects party A's decision to do action B, however the specific instance of action E cannot be shown to affect outcome C.

Is party D guilty of stealing outcome C from party A?

You are asking me to believe that the movie producer (A) chose, of their own volition, to stop making movies (action B); that B specifically leads to big money (C) although evidence shows that creating a movie hardly guarantees big money (but can on occasion). And then you're asking me to believe that Joe Cheapfuck (party D) watches the unproduced movie illegally (action E); leading to the movie producer not making the movie which causes him not to make big money.

And then you want me to believe that Joe Cheapfuck stole the money from him. The money that, based on history, was very unlikely to happen. The money that couldn't have happened because the movie producer didn't make the movie. The movie he didn't make because he thought that Joe Cheapfuck (who has a history of NEVER paying for a movie) would have bought *this* movie and through Joe Cheapfuck having bought this movie the big money would have happened.

Hoooooooooo boy. That is, well, insane.

Thank God judges listen to me and not you! Lest every single person in a car accident have just managed to have that million dollar lottery ticket stolen out from right under them!

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't tell if parent poster is trolling, stupid, ignorant, insane or some combination of some or all of them. In any case, impossible to take seriously.

Re:stop them !

[micahraleigh]

The headlines I've been seeing indicates Hollywood has been doing worse than ever.

Other than Frozen, I'm not sure what pinnacles you're referring to.

Re:stop them !

[micahraleigh]

You've taken away jobs and other opportunities.

Whatever distinction you're making there it has no meaning unless you are somehow suggesting that these people ought to somehow be working for free. That argument is morally viable if you are willing to work the schedules these guys do for free.

Re:stop them !

[viperidaenz]

If the cost of something is greater than the perceived value, it won't be bought.

If I don't buy a brand new car, am I taking away jobs? It's cheaper to buy a second-hand one privately where no jobs are involved in the sale/purchase. No money went to the manufacturer.

Re:stop them !

[Anonymous Coward]

Not original poster, but:
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/

Ticket sales are on decline. Revenue noticeably increasing.
Old big studios are loosing market share, their revenue seems to be unaffected.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/records/

7 out of top 10 worldwide grossing movies have been released in past 5 years. Frozen is number 8 on the list. Avatar was made in 2009 and it brought in 2x more money than Frozen. Jurrasic World, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Furious 7 were all released in 2015 and brought in more money than Frozen.
These numbers are not adjusted for inflation, unfortunately.

Make of it what you will, but my take is that Hollywood is not doing bad at all. They figured out how to make sequels of sequels and still bring in a ton of cash, for example, Furious 7 somehow managed to bring in 1.5bn wordlwide on a budget of 190m.

Re:stop them !

[micahraleigh]

If you buy a second hand car, you've just decreased the supply and thereby increased the demand. Leading to more sales.

If you steal a season of GoT, you haven't decreased the supply and the demand stays the same.

You still haven't explained if you would be OK working for free.

Re:stop them !

[viperidaenz]

a) Decreasing supply doesn't increase demand. It can lead to an increase in price though, to extract more profit.

b) Buying a digital copy of GoT doesn't decrease supply

I spend 40 hours a week working for money
I spend the other 128 hours not making money.

I also never said I infringed anyone's copyright, I simply stated you've confused copyright infringement for theft. The two are fundamentally different.

Re:stop them !

[micahraleigh]

"Decreasing supply doesn't increase demand."

Hmm ... So you're saying that if there were only 4 Hershey bars in the whole world people wouldn't pay more for them than they currently do? Please elaborate.

You are right that buying a digital copy of GoT doesn't decrease the supply. In that case the artists, producers, 1%'ers etc are compensated directly. In the secondary sales market they are compensated by being able to charge higher prices. Either way, they profit. In the case where thieves bit torrent the content around they go uncompsenated.

You might spend 128 hours not working for money, but you've decided for the people making the content they should be compensated for less hours of their working time. Would you be okay letting other people decide to compensate you for less hours of your working time without your consent?

Listen ... you're a smart guy. The problem is not that you're not smart enough. The problem is you've resigned yourself to living in a prickly, conflicted world of values. You would be upset if people did this to you. Rationality and nuance aren't going to make things more comfortable for you there. They can only obscure the mental wrestling match you fighting (against yourself).

Re:stop them !

[viperidaenz]

The Hersheys company would sell them at their regular price, the retailers or other people would buy them and hoard them to further drive up the price.

The people who made those last 4 bars wouldn't get any more money.

I'm a smart guy, I have a contract that stipulates how much I get paid and how often I work.
No one can decide to alter that on a whim. I don't rely on people I don't know giving me money for something they haven't asked for before I made it.

Re:stop them !

[micahraleigh]

"The people who made those last 4 bars wouldn't get any more money."

You're talking about what Hershey's would do. Your earlier claim was lowering supply doesn't increase demand. The verification for that is if people would pay more. Not if Hershey's would charge more.

Glad we've established you're a smart guy :)

Saying they chose a profession with thievery is common (while true to some measure) doesn't diminish being a thief oneself.

Re:stop them !

[viperidaenz]

You're a guy who cherry picks comments, takes them out of context and disregards others.

You've got a serious problem with reading comprehension.

The dog in the manger

[tepples]

So what's the lawful way to view, say, the film Song of the South or the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea? I've never tried Popcorn Time, but I know these works tend to be missing from lawful streaming services' libraries. If there is none, how does this "dog in the manger" mentality "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", as one country's constitution puts it?

Re:The dog in the manger

[Anonymous Coward]

Put simply, you don't. This is part of the "master plan" so to speak. If the media masters don't want to sell it, they want it to vanish through the very excessively long copyright durations that they use to lock content up behind their gate.

Re:The dog in the manger

[PRMan]

Are you kidding? I once saw Song of the South running in YouTube on a hacked arcade console at Disneyland. The irony of that move was delicious. But the point is, it didn't seem hard for the hacker to find.

So arrested for what they think, basically...?

[mark-t]

Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content online

That what they were distributing was information on how to break the law is wholly irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is that they were sill ultimately arrested for distributing knowledge... effectively making legislating what people are allowed to even *THINK* about.

Thought crimes?

[BellyJelly]

Prosecuted for the distribution of knowledge? I thought the Danes would be better than that....

Re:Thought crimes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I thought Europeans were "enlightened" and above the "barbaric" US. What a joke.

Re:Thought crimes?

[Anonymous Coward]

So did we (Danes). As far as I know, this is the first "distribution of knowledge" case, people over here are just as surprised as everyone else.

The website in question has been taken down before the case goes to court, which we normally would consider censorship (everyone is allowed to express their thoughts, but can still be taken to court for it, censorship is illegal according to the Danish constitution).

Fa1lzors?

[Anonymous Coward]

the go0dwiil share. *BSD is

Counterproductive

[mu51c10rd]

These arrests seem counterproductive. I was not aware of Popcorntime at all, but with this media coverage, am now more inclined to take a look at it. The media companies need to rethink their strategy. These services become more popular when they get them in the public eye (Napster, Limewire, Gnutella, PirateBay, etc.)

Re:Counterproductive

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time the Media companies will just send a elite team of "fixers" to deal with the issue quietly. No need to bother the Police or other LEO.

Re:Counterproductive

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems more effective to quietly pay them off and get them to sign NDA's.

Because... Thoughtcrime!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is likely very little if any knowledge that doesn't have a legitimate lawful use somewhere along the line...

"here's how to disarm a car alarm" ... you're a mechanic and are in the process of replacing the alarm of a car that you accidently locked the keys in, with the alarm active

"here's how to kill someone without causing any pain" ... you're the executioner

"here's how to download via bittorrent a movie" ... you're a consumer who has damaged your only copy of that movie, which you purchased legally, and you want to obtain a digital copy which has the same quality (dvd, blueray) as the one you purchased.

"here's how to build an A-bomb" ... you're the US government or a nation state, wanting to defend itself (and yes, there are private citizens who KNOW how to do this, it's not that hard, my father could build one pretty easily).

"here's how to isotopically separate plutonium-239" ... you're a chemist working at a nuclear power plant doing research on how to remove p239 from the fuel stream

I could go on and on and on...

Re:Because... Thoughtcrime!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"here's how to download via bittorrent a movie" ... you're a consumer who has damaged your only copy of that movie, which you purchased legally, and you want to obtain a digital copy which has the same quality (dvd, blueray) as the one you purchased.

This is still illegal, you have only bought a license to watch the physical copy on your dvd/blueray. If your disk gets damaged you will gave to buy a fresh one.

Re:Because... Thoughtcrime!!!

[Scarletdown]

Blahblahblah latest movie home release!!! Own it today!!!

Oops. Perhaps they should say "license it today" instead if that was what they actually mean.

How about spreading knowledge of how to murder?

[CODiNE]

Crime shows and heist films are educating bank robbers and future murderers, teaching them how to plan bank robberies and how to hide murders. They even show the process of how the police typically catch other bank robbers and murderers, further educating them on how to avoid police detection. The entire cast of CSI needs to report to the local precinct ASAP.

Re:How about spreading knowledge of how to murder?

[ewibble]

If I was planning to do a bank robbery or murder, I would not base my plans of a TV show, while they may show some actual police processes they are probably full of make believe too. While I am not familiar with actual crime investigations processes I can tell there are lot of flaws things I know about.

One example seems to be how they almost always seem to send in two people to apprehend a known armed criminal, when I would think a swat team would usually sent in. I know this is to build drama, but I doubt it is realistic.

Or the hacker that can seem to hack anything, my favorite scene is from NCIS when they are defending against a hacker. The other guy starts typing on the same keyboard in order to help. http://www.snotr.com/video/809... Besides that if you where hacking someones computer why would make windows flash up on someones screen, and if you for some reason wanted and could do that, why would you even let them type. This is to build suspense (in this case maybe comedy) not to to accurately portray reality.

Re:How about spreading knowledge of how to murder?

[viperidaenz]

Except those TV shows are fiction - those techniques don't work.
The process they show is made up to the point it doesn't usually obey the laws of physics.

Re:How about spreading knowledge of how to murder?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an entire channel of crime shows that are more real than NCIS that would be much more helpful to a criminal.
Skip the SWAT one, very depressing. Send in SWAT, take out a whole wall, bust the guy...give him probation...WTF he was so dangerous you need SWAT to get him but not dangerous enough to keep :/ But lots of detective ones with useful procedural stuff.

Even tho it got very little publicity the take-over robbery of the pot shop was most certainly inspired by a TV show or movie since it sounded like it was straight out of a script.

ROFL: nicked

Libraries are next

[dcollins117]

May as well dismantle libraries next. They are chock full of information that could be used to subvert the state. The last thing government wants is a well-educated populace.

Re:Libraries are next

[d'baba]

Nah, don't dismantle them. Too much work. Just taint them with a massive number of titles like:

Physics - Born Again
The Chemistry of Transubstantiation
The Science of Sin/The Sin of Science
Eureka, I've Found YHWH

Re:Libraries are next

[ihtoit]

or replace the nonfiction shelves with face displays of Rowling, James, et. al.

Pander to the belle du jour, tits and ass hunger of the teenage boy (or girl), while deliberately starving the wider populace of actual useful knowledge like how to bake bread (I'm utterly shocked but not surprised at how many people DON'T know how to make bread but know all the fucking cheats for Candy Crush!) or how to make and use a penny stove (without googling - what's a penny stove? Don't try and double bluff me, I make and give them away with free classes on their use)..

Re:Libraries are next

[dargaud]

Well, I used to make my own bread (when in the US where the bread universally sucks), but I had to look up the penny stove. Ha, OK, it's a can stove. But what's the penny for ?

Re:Libraries are next

[ihtoit]

in some designs the penny is the perfect weight for a pressure blow valve. This helps the stove to not explode when the internal gas pressure exceeds the ability of the stove wall to withstand it. The design I use is the single-wall with fluted inner acting as a gas jet and open top with pin breathing hole. This way the stove burns cold (it's doable) until you place the pan on top of it, as the internal pressure increases the flame grows and due to the construction it also burns hotter.

Re:I thought the Danes would be better than that..

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you've never heard of the Danegeld then.

Hamlet concurs

[Anonymous Coward]

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Until now ...

[PPH]

... I was unfamiliar with Popcorn Time. But thanks to the Danish police, I am now familiar with the service. The Danish police need to arrest themselves immediately!

Re:Until now ...

[PRMan]

I had never heard of RojaDirecta until the US shut it down. Turns out it's the best source for beautiful HD sports streams with no BS. Thanks for the info, DOJ!

Will they also

[Anonymous Coward]

put out an international arrest-order for Jimmy Wales and his associates at Wikipedia? What a clown-move.

So the story really is

[Anonymous Coward]

Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge

Really all one needs to know.

Movies are illegal content now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when are Hollywood movies illegal content?

Re:Movies are illegal content now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the people of Denmark have decided to join their kingdom as a prefecture of France and China, both at the same time!

Re:Movies are illegal content now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when are Hollywood movies illegal content?

Since Highlander 2.

Denmark is ZIONIST OCCUPIED

[Anonymous Coward]

Who do you think is so terrified of people 'illegally' downloading movies and music, without paying THE JEW? Why, the eternal Jew, the nation wreckers...

Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Beerdood]

You may recall Murder Time, the software that allows users to input data / variables and suggests the best way to murder someone without getting caught. It fell afoul of the law quite quickly, but survived and stabilized. Now, out of Denmark comes news that two men operating websites related to Murder Time have been arrested, and their sites have been shut down. It's notable because the sites were informational resources, explaining how to use the software. They did not actually murder anyone themselves, they were not involved with development of Murder Time or any of its forks, and they didn't host the software. "Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge and guides on how to murder people and are reported to have confessed."

Can we stop acting surprised or outraged when law enforcement officials make arrests based on people hosting "informational resources", when said "informational resources" are specific instructions on how to break the law or commit a crime? Seriously. If I host some "information" site on how to plan a proper kidnapping, build and plan a bombing, transport slaves, hire a hit man, purchase some CP, or even something as relatively insignificant as pirate/play music or movies - do you honestly believe you should be legally exempt from such "informational resources"? The crime of distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content online seems reasonable for any of those other horrid crimes I mentioned - if you can't discern between doing what these two did and simply teaching someone else the English language, maybe your moral compass needs some alignment.

Slashdot has an unhealthy number of libertarian-leaning individuals who tend to think they should be able to say or post whatever the hell they want, but as long as they're not actually committing a crime themselves, they should be absolved from all responsibility (legal or moral). That's fairly evident any time Silk Road or TPB comes up, always people there to rush to their defense of their existence with a "but we didn't actually do any bad stuff!" excuse. If that's you, chances are you've probably never been financially, emotionally or physically hurt by someone else's "informational resources" that were specifically targeted at you. Maybe it's time to re-think your principles and realize that "information" that supports or promotes illegal activity should be taken down, regardless of how severe the crime is. Having said that, this is fairly petty in terms of severity of their information, and I hope they don't get more than a slap on the wrist for hosting that information.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[SvnLyrBrto]

Bullocks.

And that's not "unhealthy" or "libertarian-leaning" or anything. That's freedom of thought, speech, and press, plain and simple. And the concept predates the mass adoption of the internet by decades.

Remember dead-tree bookstores? In the mid-90s, you could walk into pretty much any Barnes & Nobles, find on the shelves, and buy a copy of "The Anarchist Cookbook", Abby Hoffman's "Steal This Book", any number of the Hayduke "Getting Even" books, PIHKAL, TIHKAL, and occasionally they would even have "The Poor Man's James Bond". Any and all of those contain instructions on howto do things that were and are illegal. Some of them actively encourage those actions. And that's in a mainstream chain book store that used to be in every town of any significant population. If you checked out independent "alternative" bookstores or bookstores aimed at activist communities in large cities you'd find stuff even more colorful. And it's all 100% legal, because we punish people for ACTIONS, not writings or thoughts. And there's absolutely no reason whatsoever for that to be different because computers.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Half-pint HAL]

What's not valid about your analogy is that peer-to-peer video sharing can be perfectly legal, whereas murder never is. What Popcorn Time needs is a tracker dedicated to fully legal videos -- Max Fleischer out-of-copyright cartoons, the Blender Foundation animations, how-tos on video production etc. P2P has legitimate non-infringing uses, and there should be people focusing on doing that. Consider the amount of genuinely free stuff on PirateBay etc. It's not a notable proportion of the P2P traffic, but it still would be enough to merit its own tracker.

Re: Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I remember them. And I know that you can't find them anymore. There have been efforts - successful efforts - to eradicate them from the internet, along with plans to build 3d-printed guns and other "questionable" things. Don't bother searching for those, you will only attract attention and suffer the consequences. We're not in the '90s anymore. We are in the Surveillance Age. It's time to grow up, put aside thoughts of futile rebellion, and step in line.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Beerdood]

That's an excellent point that I failed to identify, thank you for bringing that up. While the analogy doesn't account for the fact that it's possible people could use the Popcorn Time for a legitimate purposes, the argument at this point is what threshold of legitimate use would you consider this legal or legitimate? If the primary use of a feature is for illegal purposes (like bitcoin, silk road, TPB) then it's reasonable to expect law enforcement to shut down those avenues of business for the greater good. So while only a trivial percentage of book owners of The Anarchist Cookbook (as another commenter mentioned) may actually build a bomb, that percentage is significantly higher for torrent sites (which are almost universally designed for illegal files, like 95% or more).

If a road was being used to smuggle good and law enforcement determined that 90% of the vehicles using the road were for crime-related purposes, they'd barricade that road up. The 10% that legitimately used the road would have to suffer as a result of the road closure, and while that might inconvenience them - it has to go for the greater good. Now if you're looking at Popcorn Time, that appears to have a similar use rate for pirated content - if 95% of Popcorn Time use is for pirated material, then it's hard to justify its existence as a legal means of finding a tracker for legit videos. Sort of like Silk Road. Anyway, the original point was that there's a distinct difference between teaching the English language and specifically providing step by step instructions on how to use software with a high likeliness of use for illegal material, and somehow that gets a +5 insightful

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[unrtst]

Well said.

I also have a huge issue with Beerdood's statement that, "Maybe it's time to re-think your principles and realize that "information" that supports or promotes illegal activity should be taken down, regardless of how severe the crime is". Fuck that.

Laws change, and that change often comes through education of others. Promoting women's suffrage in the 1800's should not be illegal. Documenting how a Jewish person might escape Germany in 1945 should not be illegal. I'm not surprised that those in power want it to be illegal to simply document how to do something that might have an impact on their bottom line and may violate copyright laws in some (ok, most) jurisdictions, but we should not consider that acceptable. One may argue otherwise, but I feel this would fall directly under Amendment I of the US Bill of Rights (and yes, I realize this is not taking place in the US, but these are an enumeration of what many believe to be unalienable rights).

They're not forcing anyone to read those pages; They're not distributing copyrighted works, or even links to copyrighted works; The wrong parties are being sought out there - those that are violating the copyrights should be the targets. The problem with that is that Beerdood would likely be charged, just as would most of the RIAA, MPAA, the lawyers, and most of society as well.

Re: Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of cars and roads are used for the illegal activities of speeding, illegal lane changes, running red lights, drunk driving, and a host of other crimes. Roads and cars should be banned.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

Macgyver should be in jail then.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's you, chances are you've probably never been financially, emotionally or physically hurt by someone else's "informational resources" that were specifically targeted at you.

Specifically? Not really. But I'm constantly affected to some degree by people publishing information how to exploit a 0day or general hacking guides. Despite that, I do NOT want to make publishing that information illegal.

When information on how to commit a crime is available for everyone, it's also available for people who could be affected by it and they can plan proper countermeasures. If you don't implement them (patching heartbleed, not telling your kids to not accept candy from suspicious people etc.), it's not your fault per se, but you shouldn't be surprised if someone actually uses them.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

buy a copy of [...] Abby Hoffman's "Steal This Book"

No, that's a EULA violation.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, the pages in question contained warnings that some of the content that can be watched through Popcorn time is in fact illegal, and that it was up to the user to make sure he was allowed to watch the movies he chose.

Not very different from Bittorrent, a protocol used for downloading Linux distros, but also has around 95% illegal copying. Should writing a Bittorrent howto be illegal?

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[jandersen]

Bullocks

I'm not sure I can follow you here - what have castrated bulls got to do with the issue? ;-)

But back to the matter at hand; I'm not sure this is about what is legal or not in Denmark. Danish police are not in general known for their open-mindedness; it isn't a quality that looms large in the selection criteria for the force. So, they tend to be small-minded rule followers, who are reluctant to investigate the crimes of the powerful and rich. As a consequence, Danish police are not really regarded with much respect by the Danes, and when smal-minded people are in a position of power that doesn't earn them respect, they become bullies; they go after the ones that are easy targets and easily scared.

So, should what these two have done be illegal? Probably not.
But is it illegal in Denmark? I'm no expert, but I would be surprised if it really is.

I think this is to some extent a consequence of living in a country where more serious crime isn't really abundant.

Re:Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[houghi]

You compare vido-sharing, which is an act to murder, wich is something describing a crime.

What you should compare is video-sharing and killing people.
Killing people, just like video-sharing can be completely legal. e.g. in a war or in self defence.

Counterpoint: copyright infringement is never legal, but taking somebodies life can be.

Re: Two arrests in Denmark for Murder Time (TM)

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, I remember them. And I know that you can't find them anymore. There have been efforts - successful efforts - to eradicate them from the internet, along with plans to build 3d-printed guns and other "questionable" things.

https://thepiratebay.gd/search...

https://thepiratebay.gd/search...

You were saying?

Danish in Egypt

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the websites have been shut down, the public will not be able to verify that a crime was committed. We only have the state's version of the relevant information, and the language of the submission. By the Great Pyramids, it is time to criminalize all arguments against the position of the prosecutor!

Two Slashdot Employees Arrested In Denmark

[Anonymous Coward]

Two slashdot employees arrested in Denmark after slashdot reported about two danis men who were arrested for operating websites about Popcorn Time. Remarkably, they did not link to any copyright-infringing material, not even to any knowledge or guides on how to obtain illegal content online... "Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge about websites with knowledge on how to obtain illegal content online."

don't use bittorrent to mirror files

[SethJohnson]

Your boss should have prevented you from abusing your network in this manner. Use rsync with compression enabled and be done with it.

Here's an article about the huge latency caused by bittorrent traffic on your network.

Time to clone the wayback-machine pages!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to clone the wayback-machine pages before those are gone too.

Lawyer

[Etherwalk]

NEVER confess to anything! All they've done is to hang themselves. Gubbermint says, "We don't like what you're doing." Your response? Are you really going to tell gubbermint, "Oh, I'm so sorry - please, just lock me away for a few decades!"

The better response is, "Prove your case, assholes!"

No, the correct response if you are arrested and interrogated is "laywer" and then shutting the hell up. Not being rude to the police. Your odds of saying anything that will make them change their mind and decide not to prosecute you are like 1 in ten thousand. Your odds of shutting up and saying "lawyer" helping you are much, much, much higher.

There are places where "lawyer" does not help. These are mostly places where the cops feel free to beat the crap out of you, so being nice to the cops there is even more important.

Never confess to anything, or try to explain your way out of it, or god-help-you apologize, or trust what the officer says. Lying is a regular part of police interrogation, and Cops use apologies to prove guilt because they are trained to, even though it's a real asshole thing to do. ("Do you feel guilty about your crime? If so, let me use that to penalize you more than I would penalize a sociopath.")

Re:Confessed? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

By "the authorities", who chose to twist words to fit their accusations? "You have been volunteered to be made an example ..."

Re:Aiding Fair Use is legal

[Anonymous Coward]

And there are several other legal copying activities.

Re: Copying is the opposite of theft

[Anonymous Coward]

(What were you quoting?) "Copyright" should not be transferable. Sharing is not stealing.

Danish article

[Anonymous Coward]

5 months ago, the danish news site Ekstra Bladet had an story about Popcorn Time (in danish):

http://ekstrabladet.dk/kup/pirattjeneste-ryster-netflix-og-blockbusterlet-gratis-og-ulovligt/5492102

Is that article illegal as well? I guess a LOT of people learned about Popcorn Time that day...

Re:Danish article

[BlueStrat]

5 months ago, the danish news site Ekstra Bladet had an story about Popcorn Time (in danish):

http://ekstrabladet.dk/kup/pir...

Is that article illegal as well? I guess a LOT of people learned about Popcorn Time that day...

One step at a time.

The news service likely has lawyers on retainer which means a lengthy legal battle and the outcome is less than certain.

Therefor, you go after the low-hanging fruit like these two poor slobs who are without such resources in order to build a string of solid legal court precedents.

*Then* you go after the news service(s), libraries, bookstores, universities, etc.

Strat

It's official Freedom is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Put in on an .onion site. The open-web is ruled by communist dictators now.
  http://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods/firearms (guide to shooting yourself in the head) by the same principle these people should be persecuted.
information hasn't been this restricted since.. korea.. china.. bleh .. I stick to my line 1 comment.

My thoughts;
Not yours.

Re:Reported by...

[Anonymous Coward]

"authorities" - twisting their words to fit the accusations? Never converse with "law enforcement" personnel.

Re:Confessed? reported ... by whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Inspector Michael Hellensberg from the Danish police Fraud Squad" - and would he be a reliable source?

Popcorn Time

[jittles]

I hope this doesn't get me thrown in jail but I'll tell you how we access Popcorn time in the US: You pick up your phone and dial the following number: 767-2676. At the beep, the operator will give you the latest information about Popcorn time. But I really thought that some legislator worked hard to get that service shut down?

German radios reports mobile radars all day long

[Kartu]

German radios reports mobile radars all day long.
You know, those, which photograph your car when you cross the limit.
(there are also stationary ones)
They also report when police is standing there with, cough, radar.

Is that illegal in Denmark?

Re:German radios reports mobile radars all day lon

[Ravaldy]

It's interesting you bring that up. It is currently a concern for law enforcement that applications are used to enable police avoidance. Legal steps have already been taken in some countries to counter such services BUT it's a long process when the process isn't motivated by money.

As for radars, they are illegal. If you are caught with one you get fined and the equipment confiscated.

Radio stations where I live have been warned not to do so and we have since not heard police trap locations. The laws enable authorities to punish but they usually do not proceed with charging anybody unless there's excessive abuse.

767-2676

[LionKimbro]

...first thing *I* thought of.

Don't see how that would lead to anybody's arrest; it doesn't even WORK any more.

Re:use bittorrent to distribute to many clients

[Anonymous Coward]

Your boss should have prevented you from abusing your network in this manner. Use rsync with compression enabled and be done with it.

Here's an article about the huge latency caused by bittorrent traffic on your network.

For a fix of your latency problem see: LARTC ultimate traffic conditioner I use it and do not experience these latecies on my *home* network and it also explains reasons for this to occur.

It is not caused only by bittorrent traffic it's caused by any heavy traffic on home networks. It is a fairly common phenomenon with home routers and home internet connection. This is not experienced in serverhousing networks. Also I talk about uploading sustained ~170 MBytes/second on average with peaks of ~3GBytes/second (almost one DVD per second), highly available and to thousands of clients at once all around the world from many servers on many continents.

Bittorrent have more overhead than e.g. rsync. The number of connections isn't really problem (at least in our serverhouse, they can handle, they're paid for it and our clients connect only to our mirrors -- about 10 of them) but the possibility of having any mirror shut down and traffic balancing among all our mirrors ... well I cannot see any possibility of this being done with rsync :-) And it also doesn't qualify as abuse :-) Or you can say CDNs abuse the whole internet :-) Anyway Popcorn Time like client would be great for porn sites :-) cheap hosting + bittorrent + popcorn time and almost CDN like streaming. Perfect use case. I do not condone pirating stuff from intenet, but bittorrent is a great technology which is without it normally implemented by a very very expensive hardware.