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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."
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!"
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
I didnt know about it before and now I do. Thanks sweden. Now sue yourselves.
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?
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.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
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?
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Prosecuted for the distribution of knowledge? I thought the Danes would be better than that....
Now they are going to arrest you too.
Compromising police operations. That's a paddlin'.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
>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!
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.)
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.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Worst, most pathetic, stupidest attempt at sarcasm ever attempted.
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.
Have gnu, will travel.
apparently, from another thread, another AC posted this
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
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.
Imagine all the people...
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.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
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!
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.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
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.
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.")
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
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
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.
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.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
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.
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.
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
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Blahblahblah latest movie home release!!! Own it today!!!
Oops. Perhaps they should say "license it today" instead if that was what they actually mean.
This space unintentionally left blank.
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.
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?
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.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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?
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.
...first thing *I* thought of.
Don't see how that would lead to anybody's arrest; it doesn't even WORK any more.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
"Decreasing supply doesn't increase demand."
... 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'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).
Hmm
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
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.
"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.
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.