The pirate bay

Hirmuinen · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:27 pm Post subject: The pirate bay

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8003799.stm

So they finally found their way and 4, 500 000$ fine on top of that. Where do they think these 4 guys can pull off these dollars? This is completely rediculous to let companies demand an unrealistic price and lobby the courts to change the laws to their likings(same happened in Finland where Nokia and bunch of other international corporations demanded to change the constitutional law just because they "felt" like it, of course the law was passed just recently).

These guys have to pay the fine for rest of their lifes and still can't even come relatively close to pay back.
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Bender · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:16 pm Post subject:

what were the laws like originally?

also there is no way they won't appeal this, i'm surprised this wasn't thrown out.
_________________

Like most of life's problems, this one can be solved with bending.

2:50 AM - -=|CT|=- Dr. Crunk: whenever a girl is like "oh what are you thinking about"
2:50 AM - -=|CT|=- Dr. Crunk: i say nothing cause saying dudes wouldn't go over well

3:34 PM - El.Tawxic: I wish I was a horse

Erwin Rommel · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:52 pm Post subject:

Quote:

"It's so bizarre that we were convicted at all and it's even more bizarre that we were [convicted] as a team. The court said we were organised. I can't get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you're going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime.

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-=|CT|=-Descartes

Hirmuinen · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:11 pm Post subject:

Bender wrote:

what were the laws like originally?

I'm not too familiar with swedish laws, but pirate bay isn't hosting these files and it just works as search system, which is same as Google. This isn't illegal to provide search system and some how these guys got 1 year jail sentence, because supposedly they were helping/assisting to illegal file sharing. Same as I could say Google is assisting me to download child porn.

As for Finland. We had private rights breached by a law that was first tried to push forward by Nokia and it was stramped down because it's presentation and usefullness was in question. Now it was pushed again and "rumours" says that Nokia said they would leave Finland if this law wasn't passed this time(there was some sort of security breach in Asia where one employee stole information and a competing company used the technology that Nokia designed), and that would be the reason why the law was passed so easily without taking into account that it was constitutional law they were changing.

The law let's companies/corporations/househoulds to monitor your internet/email/ip, but just the address and read the name of the emails without actually giving allowance to read them. This law is useless on it's own and even the people who pushed this law admits that. So what was the point to do this, if they aren't going to add something to it? I mean the law is already there and our politics have no idea what this law is for; one of them said "well if it prefents the breaches for corporations then I quess it's usefull". And this law gives the companies/corporations more power than our police forces on this area.
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Vlad Piranha · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:40 pm Post subject:

So I take it that I'm the only person who thinks this is freaking awesome?

RK-Mara · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:15 am Post subject:

Down with lex nokia.
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Hirmuinen · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:10 am Post subject:

Vlad Piranha wrote:

So I take it that I'm the only person who thinks this is freaking awesome?

That they were convicted because by the law they didn't do anything wrong? They are pushing the technology forward with bittorrents and whatever these people makes next. I bet there woudn't even be online stores for games/music if it was up to corporations to decide, or prices would be 2x higher than they are now(still way too high imo!)

Couple of years ago I thought this Hollywood court woudn't get in here, and that our goverments and laws would protect us from things like this. So if you were even conviced the law would support to "rehabid" the person back to society, instead of U.S model where you would be put 10 years to prison and asked questions later.

And this Pirate bay thing won't change a thing, just like Napster didn't, or whatever copyright law corporation pushes in. The whole internet usage and downloads has exploded and will continue to grow. You just can't stop it, and I'm damn glad about that because without it I woudn't know 1/10th of the music/movies I now do. If they would pull the internet plug off, we would just be copying dvds/tapes and sharing it with each others.
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Vlad Piranha · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 11:37 am Post subject:

We can't just allow people to put up websites and not regulate anything on them.

http://www.reputationdefender.com/viewPress?press_id=330

I looked this up because I remember reading the article. Operating within the confines of the law doesn't mean that people have clean hands. American law couldn't stop AIG from bringing the world economy to its knees.

Hirmuinen · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 2:01 pm Post subject:

Vlad Piranha wrote:

We can't just allow people to put up websites and not regulate anything on them.

http://www.reputationdefender.com/viewPress?press_id=330

I looked this up because I remember reading the article. Operating within the confines of the law doesn't mean that people have clean hands.

I don't see how that has anything to do with Pirate bay...
Article talks about your civil rights and that they are being protected, while pirate bay's operators are not being protected by the law but convicted by multi-billion corporations. I don't like it that they can change the copyright/internet laws whenever they please by lobbying. We should just give all of our rights to corporations, so it would save the time and trouble of going to court.

Even we have laws to protect your rights from internet abuse. But if you are being convicted by one, the court will decide what is good punishment, NOT the victim who demands 40 billion for mental damage. Punishment takes into account how much you make and what is enough to get you back on track, you know, to actually live your life after it. We don't put bullets in their head.

//
And this brings to point, is copying illegal/should it be punished(we would have 70% of our youth in prison or paying bills) and how much does it really hurt the music/movie industry(aren't there good things in pirating...?). These numbers that how much they should pay are completely pullet out of their asses, because the standard thinking that 1 downloaded album means 1 lost sale is illogical. Instead of modernizing their markets and distribution they have decided to go on with this suing rampage that just isn't changing anything, more likely to increase pirating, you know just to protest...
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Bender · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 10:45 pm Post subject:

If the lobbying point you make is really true, that really does suck, but I don't think you can argue that these guys are completely innocent here

Also I'm pretty sure the money thing here is in attempts to make a statement, I don't think they expect money like that to be actually paid

And I also agree with the problems with saying 1 download = 1 lost sale, because that is just complete bullshit
_________________

Like most of life's problems, this one can be solved with bending.

2:50 AM - -=|CT|=- Dr. Crunk: whenever a girl is like "oh what are you thinking about"
2:50 AM - -=|CT|=- Dr. Crunk: i say nothing cause saying dudes wouldn't go over well

3:34 PM - El.Tawxic: I wish I was a horse

Vlad Piranha · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 1:10 am Post subject:

Quote:

supposedly they were helping/assisting to illegal file sharing. Same as I could say Google is assisting me to download child porn.

Well, if Google was created and maintained for the explicit purpose of finding child pornography, you can bet that things would be a bit different from a legal standpoint. Intent is a huge part of the law. It is used to prosecute in conspiracy cases and is what separates manslaughter from premeditated murder. The fact of the matter is that these men created The Pirate Bay specifically for the purpose of assisting a community in the act of using torrents to pirate software. They were fully aware of the fact that this was happening as lawsuits were previously brought against them bringing these acts to their attention. At that point they could have intervened and protected the rights of software companies, but instead made a conscious choice to protect pirates.

To address the concept of good things in pirating, I totally agree that it can help in many ways. That's where the gray areas become dangerous. The CIA torture debate is still raging since both sides have a different concept of the greater good. This is really no different in that respect.

Also:

Quote:

Smear someone in a traditional media outlet, like a newspaper or a talk show, and you can end up in court. But the law that Congress passed in 1996 establishing basic Internet regulations prevents website hosts from being held responsible for what outsiders post on their sites. In other words, the law says that the kind of defamation that would get the New York Times sued is fair game on JuicyCampus.

My point is that people shouldn't get extra protection simply because they're consciously aiding and abetting crime by a different means. That was the point of the entire article.

Hirmuinen · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 8:24 am Post subject:

Vlad Piranha wrote:

They were fully aware of the fact that this was happening as lawsuits were previously brought against them bringing these acts to their attention. At that point they could have intervened and protected the rights of software companies, but instead made a conscious choice to protect pirates.

They choce to protect their own rights and follow their country's law, not U.S or what corporations demands them. And if by the swedish law they don't have to obey the U.S law and don't have to take actions on these corporations threats, then why should they?

Vlad Piranha wrote:

My point is that people shouldn't get extra protection simply because they're consciously aiding and abetting crime by a different means. That was the point of the entire article.

But this time they were convicted of aiding a crime, but no actual crime was convicted... Question

. And if a criminal is the user, then Sweden has over 1 million criminals - those who makes the sharing possible.

You can use Google to do the same thing or put copyrighted stuff on Youtube(that was tried to put down by Viacom), and there is no way for them to control all of the data that get's put in there(You can supposedly even have a link to torrent straight from Google search). Pirate bay has millions of users every day and hundreds of thousands linked torrents, theres no way to control all of that from a non-profit group of people. So can these four people be blamed for this if the users uploads and download the files, they share the actual files that are on their computer. Can Google be blamed if people create illegal sites and I search these specific sites or is the blame on the people who created these illegal sites?

There's also a lot of legal stuff put on Pirate bay, so the site wasn't made for illegal sharing only, but sharing everything, just like Google shows you everything by choocing what you want to search.

I agree this whole thing is not white and black, and the whole internet copying, copyrights and internet laws in general are really blurry on these cases. You can't bring model that worked before 90's or 80's to this day, because copying isn't same as stealing a car. And there shoudn't be "examples" to put on and definetely not put pressure on countries, like Sweden's, independent justice systems by outsider(U.S ect.).

Sweden's political pirate party has gained a lot of new members after this whole Pirate bay thing since it started when police(by order from high politician, which is illegal in sweden's law) raided their servers. They are now the 6th biggest party and probably will still grow, so this whole thing just isn't working.
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Bender · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 11:31 am Post subject:

I think you are missing the point that a statement is trying to be made here to deter these activities, and thats why the consequences are overly harsh

Aren't sentences delivered completely by the judge's discretion anyways? I mean after the verdict the judge can award whatever they want to whoever they want, and if one side sees the sentence as unfair they appeal the decision? And since there is not much precedent to this I'm not surprised that they got harsh sentences, they probably just got a judge that agreed that this was a fuckton of stealing going on
_________________

Like most of life's problems, this one can be solved with bending.

2:50 AM - -=|CT|=- Dr. Crunk: whenever a girl is like "oh what are you thinking about"
2:50 AM - -=|CT|=- Dr. Crunk: i say nothing cause saying dudes wouldn't go over well

3:34 PM - El.Tawxic: I wish I was a horse

Hirmuinen · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 12:52 pm Post subject:

Bender wrote:

I think you are missing the point that a statement is trying to be made here to deter these activities, and thats why the consequences are overly harsh

I know what it means. It hasn't worked in U.S and it won't work here.

Bender wrote:

Aren't sentences delivered completely by the judge's discretion anyways? I mean after the verdict the judge can award whatever they want to whoever they want, and if one side sees the sentence as unfair they appeal the decision? And since there is not much precedent to this I'm not surprised that they got harsh sentences, they probably just got a judge that agreed that this was a fuckton of stealing going on

To convict these guys you need to change the law in Sweden, these guys still haven't uploaded any illegal stuff or distributed it. They tried to bust them with that and they failed, so even today Pirate bay can work.

What I'm trying to say with Google and PB is that they both work with the same fundemental level - both offer free information across the world. PB works with the swedish laws, just like Google is working with the laws in any country it is operating. And whether users abuse the PB system shoudn't change the fact that these 4 guys can't be held responsible for their users actions, because you can't control it even if you tried to or wanted to.

This is my opinion and like I said this isn't black and white thing. I think there can be good compromise in all of this copyright issues, but on it's current form I just can't agree with whatever these corporations are trying to achieve. The whole thing just blew out of their hands, well over majority of swedes thinks this was wrong and support these PB founders.
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Vlad Piranha · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 10:45 pm Post subject:

The humorous thing is that the entire world is angry at the United States' government for allowing AIG's greed to torpedo the economy. That also was within the confines of the law. My biggest point is that there is a clear right and wrong in alot of situations and that the law is inadequate. Also, popular opinion doesn't always mean much. Just because massive amounts of people believe something should be allowed, it doesn't make it right. Historically, if it were left to a vote and not government action, blacks in America probably still wouldn't have the right to vote in certain areas of the country. That's just sad.

I'm sure the huge fine is an effort to turn them into some sort of example and set a precedent. I personally don't want to see their lives destroyed, since that would be unethical. They're guilty of aiding crime and probably some sort of conspiracy. I'm not sure about Sweden, but in the US that would be a year or two in a prison at worst. They aren't involved in each and every individual act, so they can't be punished cumulatively with these fines. If anything, the site should be shut down as part of a plea bargain and this should all just go away.