The weird part was how both the presiding judge and a key member of the judicial conduct committee had BLATANT conflicts of interest and failed to recuse themselves.
In theory, they could at least have been responsive to complaints that put them on notice of violations of copyright law *in sweden*.
Given the common usage of a torrent, to facilitate the sharing of files, it can be easily established that TPB was aiding and abetting the sharing of anything whose torrents they were hosting. If that content was infringing, and TPB knew it under swedish law, then they have no defense.
"You're US, we're swedish, STFU" is no excuse if you are still violating swedish copyright laws in the process. Such legal notices, while being possibly frivolous in the US, may nevertheless have imputed mens rea in any cases actionable under swedish law.
In practice, the long arm of the almighty dollar will snuff out any semblance of justice long before issues like the above are even raised.
In particular, the blatant bias and conflict of interest in the justice system of Sweden is alarming.
TPB was convicted before the indictments were even taken off the printer.
Since they use technological means to enforce their economic whims.
And for legal reasons, it's illegal to circumvent, thanks to the draconian DMCA making it a crime.
Conveniently enough, Microsoft abuses this to prevent you from making homebrew games work, since homebrew and piracy have the same effect on their licensing revenue.
You could simply say "my network my rules." and invoke host fiat to declare who can and cannot use your network and with whatever rules you see fit to enforce.
If you're culturally expected to open your network up to potentially untrusted users, then I'd say there's something wrong with your culture, especially if you're the one paying the internet bill.
Ethics are a hindrance in a dog eat dog world where you can make more money stabbing other people in the back (before they stab you) and paying off your politicians and regulators (before your competitors pay more).
If you want to bring economics into the picture, you should also take into account the opportunity cost of forgoing a chance to squeeze content providers for access to its customers.
Basically, capitalism is emphatically about providing a service and good to those who want it most and are willing to pay the most for it, and using greed for money as an incentive grease to make the market.
What happens is that people are greedy enough that if they find a loophole that allows them to get the money and skip out on the services and goods, they'll do it.
Capitalism does well to exploit mankind's inherent greed. Thing is, greedy people like to cheat.
Unfortunately the incumbent provider TDS disagreed strongly enough to slug it out in court, and while the referee had the city in the corner, TDS sucker punched them during the bell by getting an injunction against the city and builing their own network while the city's hands were tied.
What people don't realize is that they don't have any power at all.
Not as individuals.
By and large, the vast majority of people are dumb sheeple that do as their media overlords tell them. Which forms a positive feedback loop that keeps the politicians and corporations in power.
Challenging that would require an organized resistance movement to turn the tide. Which would promptly attract persecution from the govcorp complex. There would be a few martyrs along the way, for sure. Martyrs that if they were smart would have to have been willing to create a better world with no hope of actually being part of it.
Laws against wrongful termination and whatnot are bigger bosses, as are the judges who will hand your bosses ass to you if you get fired improperly.
Unfortunately, unless corporate policy or a superior boss higher than yours in the corporate chain of command says otherwise, you do not have the right to deny your boss access to a system belonging to the company you and them both work for.
It might even be against the law for you to give your boss the password, if that bigger boss happens to be something where compliance would result in a HIPAA violation.
As far as cops making up laws on the spot, they too answer to a higher authority. Not only do they have lieutenants and a police chief, plus the mayor watching them, but ultimately if they want to make anything *stick*, they need to have a judge sign off on it in court.
Just because you have to obey orders in a chain of command doesn't give your boss free reign. He has a boss too, and HE has a boss, and so on. In a corporation this chain runs all the way up to the CEO, and he answers to the board of directors.
In theory, using real return addresses would be required to avoid being blocked by egress filtering that would rightly drop martians on grounds of source IP spoofing.
In practice, egress filtering usually sucks balls these days.
One thing that could work well is for LOIC to randomize a configurable number of tail bits on the packets it sends out. Enough to avoid being pinned, but not too much to run afoul of egress filtering.
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The weird part was how both the presiding judge and a key member of the judicial conduct committee had BLATANT conflicts of interest and failed to recuse themselves.
In theory, they could at least have been responsive to complaints that put them on notice of violations of copyright law *in sweden*.
Given the common usage of a torrent, to facilitate the sharing of files, it can be easily established that TPB was aiding and abetting the sharing of anything whose torrents they were hosting. If that content was infringing, and TPB knew it under swedish law, then they have no defense.
"You're US, we're swedish, STFU" is no excuse if you are still violating swedish copyright laws in the process. Such legal notices, while being possibly frivolous in the US, may nevertheless have imputed mens rea in any cases actionable under swedish law.
In practice, the long arm of the almighty dollar will snuff out any semblance of justice long before issues like the above are even raised.
In particular, the blatant bias and conflict of interest in the justice system of Sweden is alarming.
TPB was convicted before the indictments were even taken off the printer.
It depends on if modding your Ford to allow non ford components counts as violating the DMCA.
There's technical reasons all right.
Since they use technological means to enforce their economic whims.
And for legal reasons, it's illegal to circumvent, thanks to the draconian DMCA making it a crime.
Conveniently enough, Microsoft abuses this to prevent you from making homebrew games work, since homebrew and piracy have the same effect on their licensing revenue.
You could simply say "my network my rules." and invoke host fiat to declare who can and cannot use your network and with whatever rules you see fit to enforce.
If you're culturally expected to open your network up to potentially untrusted users, then I'd say there's something wrong with your culture, especially if you're the one paying the internet bill.
That's called lying.
Far politer and much less argument to say "because I said so now STFU and play by my rules if you wanna access my network."
If you're going to fuck with other people's internet access at least have the balls to admit it.
Don't be like comcast.
Only root CA certs are self signed. Non root CA certs are signed by their superiors in the food chain.
Ethics are a hindrance in a dog eat dog world where you can make more money stabbing other people in the back (before they stab you) and paying off your politicians and regulators (before your competitors pay more).
In short, the gold rush is beginning.
Considering the high demand, Google Fiber should make multiple awards.
Maybe Google could get into the ISP business.
Even if conflicts of interest would prevent Google from direct involvement, I would heartily welcome Google Fiber franchising.
Getting revenge on a site you hate? Priceless.
Not to mention being required to admit to it would probably contradict the 5th amendment.
You will either
1) Get the respect of your boss.
2) Get fired and replaced by someone more desperate than you for a job.
3) Go on strike with your union buddies
In the court of public opinion perhaps.
I still have an unreasonably optimistic belief that british crown court will be less easily swayed.
If you want to bring economics into the picture, you should also take into account the opportunity cost of forgoing a chance to squeeze content providers for access to its customers.
Basically, capitalism is emphatically about providing a service and good to those who want it most and are willing to pay the most for it, and using greed for money as an incentive grease to make the market.
What happens is that people are greedy enough that if they find a loophole that allows them to get the money and skip out on the services and goods, they'll do it.
Capitalism does well to exploit mankind's inherent greed. Thing is, greedy people like to cheat.
I agree with you 100 percent.
And apparently, so did Monticello.
Unfortunately the incumbent provider TDS disagreed strongly enough to slug it out in court, and while the referee had the city in the corner, TDS sucker punched them during the bell by getting an injunction against the city and builing their own network while the city's hands were tied.
Dear feds:
Buzz off.
You have a point.
Mainstream culture is also legion.
What people don't realize is that they don't have any power at all.
Not as individuals.
By and large, the vast majority of people are dumb sheeple that do as their media overlords tell them. Which forms a positive feedback loop that keeps the politicians and corporations in power.
Challenging that would require an organized resistance movement to turn the tide. Which would promptly attract persecution from the govcorp complex. There would be a few martyrs along the way, for sure. Martyrs that if they were smart would have to have been willing to create a better world with no hope of actually being part of it.
Damages only get split in a class action suit, which is many suing one.
It doesn't work that way the other direction.
Maybe I got egress and ingress mixed up.
I figure that egress is when packets leave, and ingress is when packets enter.
Laws against wrongful termination and whatnot are bigger bosses, as are the judges who will hand your bosses ass to you if you get fired improperly.
Unfortunately, unless corporate policy or a superior boss higher than yours in the corporate chain of command says otherwise, you do not have the right to deny your boss access to a system belonging to the company you and them both work for.
It might even be against the law for you to give your boss the password, if that bigger boss happens to be something where compliance would result in a HIPAA violation.
As far as cops making up laws on the spot, they too answer to a higher authority. Not only do they have lieutenants and a police chief, plus the mayor watching them, but ultimately if they want to make anything *stick*, they need to have a judge sign off on it in court.
Just because you have to obey orders in a chain of command doesn't give your boss free reign. He has a boss too, and HE has a boss, and so on. In a corporation this chain runs all the way up to the CEO, and he answers to the board of directors.
In theory, using real return addresses would be required to avoid being blocked by egress filtering that would rightly drop martians on grounds of source IP spoofing.
In practice, egress filtering usually sucks balls these days.
One thing that could work well is for LOIC to randomize a configurable number of tail bits on the packets it sends out. Enough to avoid being pinned, but not too much to run afoul of egress filtering.
Joint and several liability.
Since they were attacking *as a group*, each of them is responsible in full.