It's not hard to write in a few exemptions for police and people who are authorised to handle the evidence and testimony. After all, police can confiscate narcotics and keep it at the police station without having to arrest each other for illegal possession.
The real problem starts when the trials need to be investigated by, for example, the press. It's not uncommon for child abuse cases to be full of exaggerations, lies and other absurdities. Making it illegal to possess the written testimony, would make it impossible to reveal what's going on, even for journalists.
Lolita was called worse than "titillating trash" when it was published, and the author was called a "pervert". If a similar law had existed back then, it would most likely have been banned.
Correct, there are people who find "Lolita" vile. And more importantly, at the time it was published, it was banned in many places. It's only in retrospect it's considered an important part of literary history.
If we outlawed written depictions of sexual abuse, we could write in exceptions for literary classics, but that would only protect those works who are *already* considered classics. It would prevent new classics from being created.
The notion that people have no way to think about or discuss concepts that they have no words for is flawed, since, to use your own example, the concept of democracy clearly came about well before anybody had an actual word for it.
But without proper words to describe it, the problem is contained to the precious few people who have the capability for independent thought.
Like how the Party tried to introduce Newspeak, key of which was not so much a "simplification" of the language but the absence of certain words (like "democracy") so people would have no way to think about or discuss those concepts.
What do you mean? Newspeak has always existed.
It sounds like you're overdue for another re-education.
I'm pretty sure Bodström never admitted publicly to telling a prosecutor what to do, as that would be quite blatantly illegal. He was investigated for that and denied it.
Correct. Like I wrote, he admitted he had a talk with the prosecutor about Internet piracy in general. That US diplomats contacted the Swedish government and asked them to take care of the Pirate Bay problem just before that, and the public prosecutor changed his mind about Pirate Bay just after that, was, of course, pure coincidence.
Let's pretend every single thing you say - the usual defense presented by TPB defenders - is absolutely true. The fact remains that none of this says proves anything at all about whether TPB actually were guilty or not. It's pure misdirection. Talk about everything but the actual ruling, or the legal issues at stake. You're looking for bias in the judge's affiliations and connections - but what about his actual words, reasoning and ruling?
Ok, let's talk about the reasoning. Huge damages (by Swedish standards) were awarded because the copyright violations were considered to be "commercial". However, the prosecutor never proved that the Pirate Bay founders earned any money from the site. They only proved that their ad seller in Israel had made a profit. They were found guilty of commercial infringement because a subcontractor hade made a profit! That's like saying the Red Cross is a commercial organisation because the company they buy their trucks from makes a profit.
Since the founders still seem to have a modest lifestyle, I doubt they made any significant amounts of money from the site.
They were also judged as a collective, even though they had very different degrees of involvement in the site. Peter Sunde (brokep) wasn't really one of the founders; he was just a supplier. He was found guilty because, on one occasion, he had agreed to collect an invoice the Pirate Bay made out to an ad buyer. That's like saying a collection agency is accessory in any crimes committed by the company they collect invoices for.
Courts don't reason that way in other cases. For example, if a company commits fraud by sending out fake invoices, nobody ever claims their collection agency is an accessory. If a company handles toxic substances irresponsibly, nobody ever claims their supplier is accessory to environmental crimes. It's not a supplier's responsibility to check the legality of their customer's busines, not even if they have reason to suspect it may be illegal.
On the main issue (accessory to copyright infringement), they may have been guilty, because they flaunted that their site was used for piracy. But if different judges had been ruling, they may have been found innocent, because the were just providing a service that could be used for both legal and illegal purposes. Much like stores can sell equipment for getting free cable or distilling alcohol, knowing full well that >90% of it is used illegally.
I think it could have gone either way, but the copyright lobby made sure the judges saw it the "right" way by systematically inviting them to conferences and paid jobs where they could be presented with the copyright lobby's point of view.
(A ruling which was confirmed by higher courts!)
The judges in the higher court were also affiliated with copyright organisations. Pirate Bay went to trial in two instances, and in both of them, some of the judges were members of pro-copyright organisations.
They didn't make any efforts at all to stop it - or even pretend to try.
There's no legal responsibility to police your site to remove illegal content. The DMCA is not applicable in Sweden, and the copyright holders never sent any Swedish take-down notices to Pirate Bay.
In fact, if they set up a system to monitor and take down torrents, it could make them more liable, since the prosecution could now claim they ha
I think you have good points. I wasn't actually trying to glorify the British empire, I was just trying to show that it's not that different from the USA. Both justify their wars by claiming they're spreading their superior social order to the rest of the world, and that it's actually a selfless sacrifice on their part. The British are as justified in making that claim as the Americans. They called it "the white man's burden"; I don't know if there's an American term for it.
Yes. Rule of law protects the weak from the strong. In medieval times, it protected the landowners from the king (e.g, Magna Carta). In modern times, it also protects the common man.
Without rule of law, the rich and powerful wouldn't even need to go to court to fuck you. They'd just send out their private army and beat you up or kill you.
"Sony Ericsson" was a joint venture by Sony and Ericsson. Sony didn't own Ericsson. The project has ended, and Ericsson has left the mobile phone market to focus on providing the infrastructure (i.e, mobile antennas and switchboards).
But it was on the planning stage, and they never got so far as to try to bring the explosives on board. According to many experts, it's unlikely to have worked (Bruce Schneier).
....aaaaand that's pretty much it. I (as regular Pirate Bay user) won't give into discussion about how it's unfair (life's unfair), how court was bought (again, prove this), etc.
I wouldn't say "bought", but it's well documented that several of the judges were members of pro-copyright organisations, i.e, organisations with the goal of strengthening copyright. It's not a secret; the judges admitted it in public after the newspapers pointed it out.
It's also well documented that the lead investigator working on the Pirate Bay case, was hired by Warner Brothers during the investigation, and started his job there the day after the investigation was concluded. Once again, he admitted it publicly.
It's also a well-documented fact that the public prosecutor initially decided to not prosecute the Pirate Bay, because he didn't consider what they did (publish links to copyrighted material) to be illegal according to Swedish law. US diplomats had a talk with the Swedish government and demanded they do something about the Pirate Bay problem (publicly admitted). After that, the Swedish justice minister had a talk with the public prosecutor about the problem with pirate sites (again, publicly admitted). The public prosecutor then, by pure coincidence, changed his mind and decided to prosecute Pirate Bay after all. This was a minor scandal when it was revealed in Swedish newspapers (and the Cablegate papers, which are even more incriminating, hadn't even been released at that time).
As I have understood, Pirate Bay founders/owners maitained civil disobedience during investigation and trial.
Not true, or at least not proven. The Pirate Bay founders claimed they had handed over control of the site to other people and were no longer running it. That may or may not be true, but the prosecution couldn't prove otherwise.
The USA doesn't need to make any cash payments to show their gratitude. They can just give Sweden a little extra allowance in the next trade agreement.
Between defeating the Communist block, rebuilding the western Europe, including Germany, as well as Japan after the WWII and then protecting them militarily (as well as many other countries, S. Korea, Israel, etc etc) for over 50 years, thwarting countless dictators and having an instrumental and unique role (unfortunately without much help from Europeans) in transforming the world from the one in which majority of people lived under dictatorships, only a few decades back, to the current world in which majority of people live in freedom, the US has benefited the world in more ways than any single country in history. Not to mention providing a shining example of 250 years of unbroken stable, free, democratic government, while various European countries lurched from absolute monarchies, to fascism (in Spain and Greece into the 1970s) and communism (in half of Europe into the 1990s). You and the other psychotically anti-US Europeans are a bunch of ungrateful cunts even if you are too ignorant too realize it.
What about the British Empire?
They spread civilisation to Africa, Asia and the Americas by giving them an educational system, a legal system, infrastructure, a common language, and so on. They freed countless countries from despotism and replaced it with rule of law. They brought peace to unstable areas by providing a stable government. They built up industries in other countries and brought them from a medieval or bronze age state, into the industrial age. They championed individual rights and humane treatment, when most of the world's governments treated people as disposable. They were a shining example of civilisation and law and order to the rest of the world.
Of course, they ultimately did it for selfish reasons (to benefit the companies that traded with the colonies, and provide taxes for the Crown), and a lot of innocent blood had to be spilled for the greater good. But is it any different today?
I really hate to defend the TSA but there is a legitimate infiltration vector that this does address - that employees beyond the checkpoint can being in substances and transfer them to passengers.
Still doesn't make much sense to me -- surely it must be easier and safer to screen all the staff and deliveries *before* they enter the airport, than going around and randomly scan drinks after they've been bought by customers.
Of course the problem with quoting these statistics is that they are one-sided and it's impossible to know how many terrorist attacks have been thwarted by TSA. Some in the government may have some idea, but they aren't talking. Maybe the TSA stopped 10 attacks and saved thousands of lives in the past month alone.
This is false, since the authorities DO talk about attacks they've stopped before they came to the public's attention. And why wouldn't they? The terrorists already know they've been stopped, and by letting the public know, they authorities justify their own existence.
This has happened a few times in Europe. But the attacks have always been stopped by traditional investigative work, not by airport screenings or other measures added after 9/11 2001.
Slashdot Mirror
P.S. Not just banned from publishing, which Lolita was in many places, but also illegal to possess.
It's not hard to write in a few exemptions for police and people who are authorised to handle the evidence and testimony. After all, police can confiscate narcotics and keep it at the police station without having to arrest each other for illegal possession.
The real problem starts when the trials need to be investigated by, for example, the press. It's not uncommon for child abuse cases to be full of exaggerations, lies and other absurdities. Making it illegal to possess the written testimony, would make it impossible to reveal what's going on, even for journalists.
Lolita was called worse than "titillating trash" when it was published, and the author was called a "pervert". If a similar law had existed back then, it would most likely have been banned.
Correct, there are people who find "Lolita" vile. And more importantly, at the time it was published, it was banned in many places. It's only in retrospect it's considered an important part of literary history.
If we outlawed written depictions of sexual abuse, we could write in exceptions for literary classics, but that would only protect those works who are *already* considered classics. It would prevent new classics from being created.
Clearly, he's never seen My Little Pony fanart...
The notion that people have no way to think about or discuss concepts that they have no words for is flawed, since, to use your own example, the concept of democracy clearly came about well before anybody had an actual word for it.
But without proper words to describe it, the problem is contained to the precious few people who have the capability for independent thought.
Like how the Party tried to introduce Newspeak, key of which was not so much a "simplification" of the language but the absence of certain words (like "democracy") so people would have no way to think about or discuss those concepts.
What do you mean? Newspeak has always existed.
It sounds like you're overdue for another re-education.
I'm pretty sure Bodström never admitted publicly to telling a prosecutor what to do, as that would be quite blatantly illegal. He was investigated for that and denied it.
Correct. Like I wrote, he admitted he had a talk with the prosecutor about Internet piracy in general. That US diplomats contacted the Swedish government and asked them to take care of the Pirate Bay problem just before that, and the public prosecutor changed his mind about Pirate Bay just after that, was, of course, pure coincidence.
Let's pretend every single thing you say - the usual defense presented by TPB defenders - is absolutely true. The fact remains that none of this says proves anything at all about whether TPB actually were guilty or not. It's pure misdirection. Talk about everything but the actual ruling, or the legal issues at stake. You're looking for bias in the judge's affiliations and connections - but what about his actual words, reasoning and ruling?
Ok, let's talk about the reasoning. Huge damages (by Swedish standards) were awarded because the copyright violations were considered to be "commercial". However, the prosecutor never proved that the Pirate Bay founders earned any money from the site. They only proved that their ad seller in Israel had made a profit. They were found guilty of commercial infringement because a subcontractor hade made a profit! That's like saying the Red Cross is a commercial organisation because the company they buy their trucks from makes a profit.
Since the founders still seem to have a modest lifestyle, I doubt they made any significant amounts of money from the site.
They were also judged as a collective, even though they had very different degrees of involvement in the site. Peter Sunde (brokep) wasn't really one of the founders; he was just a supplier. He was found guilty because, on one occasion, he had agreed to collect an invoice the Pirate Bay made out to an ad buyer. That's like saying a collection agency is accessory in any crimes committed by the company they collect invoices for.
Courts don't reason that way in other cases. For example, if a company commits fraud by sending out fake invoices, nobody ever claims their collection agency is an accessory. If a company handles toxic substances irresponsibly, nobody ever claims their supplier is accessory to environmental crimes. It's not a supplier's responsibility to check the legality of their customer's busines, not even if they have reason to suspect it may be illegal.
On the main issue (accessory to copyright infringement), they may have been guilty, because they flaunted that their site was used for piracy. But if different judges had been ruling, they may have been found innocent, because the were just providing a service that could be used for both legal and illegal purposes. Much like stores can sell equipment for getting free cable or distilling alcohol, knowing full well that >90% of it is used illegally.
I think it could have gone either way, but the copyright lobby made sure the judges saw it the "right" way by systematically inviting them to conferences and paid jobs where they could be presented with the copyright lobby's point of view.
(A ruling which was confirmed by higher courts!)
The judges in the higher court were also affiliated with copyright organisations. Pirate Bay went to trial in two instances, and in both of them, some of the judges were members of pro-copyright organisations.
They didn't make any efforts at all to stop it - or even pretend to try.
There's no legal responsibility to police your site to remove illegal content. The DMCA is not applicable in Sweden, and the copyright holders never sent any Swedish take-down notices to Pirate Bay.
In fact, if they set up a system to monitor and take down torrents, it could make them more liable, since the prosecution could now claim they ha
Yes, I was just trying to point out the similarities between the British Empire and USA to the GGP.
I think you have good points. I wasn't actually trying to glorify the British empire, I was just trying to show that it's not that different from the USA. Both justify their wars by claiming they're spreading their superior social order to the rest of the world, and that it's actually a selfless sacrifice on their part. The British are as justified in making that claim as the Americans. They called it "the white man's burden"; I don't know if there's an American term for it.
Yes. Rule of law protects the weak from the strong. In medieval times, it protected the landowners from the king (e.g, Magna Carta). In modern times, it also protects the common man.
Without rule of law, the rich and powerful wouldn't even need to go to court to fuck you. They'd just send out their private army and beat you up or kill you.
Yes, but I took the wrong bait :)
It seems he had a syringe with liquid explosives to set off the main charge.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/underwear-bomber
Sweden has lower corporate taxes than the USA.
"Sony Ericsson" was a joint venture by Sony and Ericsson. Sony didn't own Ericsson. The project has ended, and Ericsson has left the mobile phone market to focus on providing the infrastructure (i.e, mobile antennas and switchboards).
But it was on the planning stage, and they never got so far as to try to bring the explosives on board. According to many experts, it's unlikely to have worked (Bruce Schneier).
....aaaaand that's pretty much it. I (as regular Pirate Bay user) won't give into discussion about how it's unfair (life's unfair), how court was bought (again, prove this), etc.
I wouldn't say "bought", but it's well documented that several of the judges were members of pro-copyright organisations, i.e, organisations with the goal of strengthening copyright. It's not a secret; the judges admitted it in public after the newspapers pointed it out.
It's also well documented that the lead investigator working on the Pirate Bay case, was hired by Warner Brothers during the investigation, and started his job there the day after the investigation was concluded. Once again, he admitted it publicly.
It's also a well-documented fact that the public prosecutor initially decided to not prosecute the Pirate Bay, because he didn't consider what they did (publish links to copyrighted material) to be illegal according to Swedish law. US diplomats had a talk with the Swedish government and demanded they do something about the Pirate Bay problem (publicly admitted). After that, the Swedish justice minister had a talk with the public prosecutor about the problem with pirate sites (again, publicly admitted). The public prosecutor then, by pure coincidence, changed his mind and decided to prosecute Pirate Bay after all. This was a minor scandal when it was revealed in Swedish newspapers (and the Cablegate papers, which are even more incriminating, hadn't even been released at that time).
As I have understood, Pirate Bay founders/owners maitained civil disobedience during investigation and trial.
Not true, or at least not proven. The Pirate Bay founders claimed they had handed over control of the site to other people and were no longer running it. That may or may not be true, but the prosecution couldn't prove otherwise.
What have you done to help the unjustly accused and the jailed because of unfair laws?
I can't speak for the GP, but I voted for the Pirate Party in the last two elections (one national and one EU election).
P.S. In Swartholm's case, I doubt there's any conspiracy, though. He doesn't seem important enough to spend millions on.
The USA doesn't need to make any cash payments to show their gratitude. They can just give Sweden a little extra allowance in the next trade agreement.
Between defeating the Communist block, rebuilding the western Europe, including Germany, as well as Japan after the WWII and then protecting them militarily (as well as many other countries, S. Korea, Israel, etc etc) for over 50 years, thwarting countless dictators and having an instrumental and unique role (unfortunately without much help from Europeans) in transforming the world from the one in which majority of people lived under dictatorships, only a few decades back, to the current world in which majority of people live in freedom, the US has benefited the world in more ways than any single country in history. Not to mention providing a shining example of 250 years of unbroken stable, free, democratic government, while various European countries lurched from absolute monarchies, to fascism (in Spain and Greece into the 1970s) and communism (in half of Europe into the 1990s). You and the other psychotically anti-US Europeans are a bunch of ungrateful cunts even if you are too ignorant too realize it.
What about the British Empire?
They spread civilisation to Africa, Asia and the Americas by giving them an educational system, a legal system, infrastructure, a common language, and so on. They freed countless countries from despotism and replaced it with rule of law. They brought peace to unstable areas by providing a stable government. They built up industries in other countries and brought them from a medieval or bronze age state, into the industrial age. They championed individual rights and humane treatment, when most of the world's governments treated people as disposable. They were a shining example of civilisation and law and order to the rest of the world.
Of course, they ultimately did it for selfish reasons (to benefit the companies that traded with the colonies, and provide taxes for the Crown), and a lot of innocent blood had to be spilled for the greater good. But is it any different today?
Norway is a very rich country these days, due to their oil income.
Ethnocentricity?
You're probably thinking about Switzerland (a republic situated in the Alps in Central Europe, known for its chocolate, watches and banking system).
Sweden (a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe) is not known for its banking system. We do have Volvo, Ericsson and The Pirate Bay, though.
I really hate to defend the TSA but there is a legitimate infiltration vector that this does address - that employees beyond the checkpoint can being in substances and transfer them to passengers.
Still doesn't make much sense to me -- surely it must be easier and safer to screen all the staff and deliveries *before* they enter the airport, than going around and randomly scan drinks after they've been bought by customers.
Of course the problem with quoting these statistics is that they are one-sided and it's impossible to know how many terrorist attacks have been thwarted by TSA. Some in the government may have some idea, but they aren't talking. Maybe the TSA stopped 10 attacks and saved thousands of lives in the past month alone.
This is false, since the authorities DO talk about attacks they've stopped before they came to the public's attention. And why wouldn't they? The terrorists already know they've been stopped, and by letting the public know, they authorities justify their own existence.
This has happened a few times in Europe. But the attacks have always been stopped by traditional investigative work, not by airport screenings or other measures added after 9/11 2001.