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Jail for The Pirate Bay's founders
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Says the Beeb: "A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world's most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case. Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail. They were also ordered to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages."
On the face of it, good news. I think people who download copies of music and films and other copyrighted media without bothering to pay for it are thieves myself. Slightly old-fashioned view, it seems. On the other hand, I'm absolutely bloody horrified.
For this judgment goes much further than this and appears to set an absolutely terrifying new precedent. It seems now to me that a legal principle has now been established that means the owners of every server is now responsible for every comment, every word and every file that appears on that server's websites. The implications for this are pretty scary for pretty much any website that has any form of user participation in it, whether it be a message board or any kind of blog that allows comments. The corporates must be rubbing their hands in glee at this prospect and our governments must be delighted at the prospect of censoring the internet. I never thought I'd say this about The Pirate Bay, of all places, but here's hoping that this verdict is quashed at appeal.
Over to the masses...
On the face of it, good news. I think people who download copies of music and films and other copyrighted media without bothering to pay for it are thieves myself. Slightly old-fashioned view, it seems. On the other hand, I'm absolutely bloody horrified.
For this judgment goes much further than this and appears to set an absolutely terrifying new precedent. It seems now to me that a legal principle has now been established that means the owners of every server is now responsible for every comment, every word and every file that appears on that server's websites. The implications for this are pretty scary for pretty much any website that has any form of user participation in it, whether it be a message board or any kind of blog that allows comments. The corporates must be rubbing their hands in glee at this prospect and our governments must be delighted at the prospect of censoring the internet. I never thought I'd say this about The Pirate Bay, of all places, but here's hoping that this verdict is quashed at appeal.
Over to the masses...
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
They should all be boiled in oil.
It's not over though. TPB wont go down without a big fight.
This is purely a media stunt and a political agenda being fulfilled. I expect it will be overturned on appeal. As far as I'm aware, there have been no new laws since all of the other times these blokes have been seen to be doing nothing illegal. It would be against UK law to link to illegal content. It hasn't ever been against Swedish law. And since they haven't ever shared any copyrighted material themselves, it's ridiculous to suggest that they could be guilty of copyright infringement. But if you get a self-righteous judge with a point to prove, I guess the actual law doesn't matter. It should be overturned on appeal, and if it isn't, it should be overturned at the European court. If the Swedish politicians want to outlaw Pirate Bay, then they can use the democratic process to enact a new law, rather than bypassing it with a circus of a court case.
I love The Pirate Bay's front page atm:
I've never used the site in my life, and I quite like them.
Erm, no it doesn't. The only precedent it sets is that of prosecuting people who host or link to copyrighted files. I don't know where on Earth you got the idea that copyright legislation could be used to "censor" the internet and to target message boards or blogs with user comments.
:yes:
And, to add, it only sets that precedent in Sweden
and this is the point I don't understand. Do these companies really think they'll take TPB down when they aren't doing anything illegal? I wouldn't be that bothered about this news if they also took action agaisnt other torrent trackers like ISOHunt.
They know TPB hasn't done anything illegal, never has since they opened. If they were, the raid that happend in 2004 (?) would have seen the end of them, but nope. They were back online within 3 days.
This just has to be a "warning" to other torrent trackers, maybe they're wishing other trackers will shake in their boots and shut their doors to prevent themselves being sentenced to a year in jail, and a huge fine.
Has any information been released as to whom is registered on TPB? If any action will be taken agaisnt those who have actually seeded lots compared to the leeches? They are the ones who are illegally doing it, not TPB.
I guess in a few years copyright law will try to change in places like The Netherlands, China, Mayalisia, Antartica.
But has anyone watched the videos posted by the guys at TPB after they heard their verdict? They're not baffled by the news one bit, they don't really care. Probably because they know they would win the appeal, like they have done for years. Jailing those 4 doesn't mean the end of TPB.
In the same way maybe a condom shop opens up in the red light district to take advantage of other people's illegal activities. Not doing anything illegal in itself, but the idiots who are like 'No its wrong!' decide that this is 'supporting' the illegal market (of copyrighted material / sex).
That's how I see it anyway. Though from what I've read the pirate bay people are actually not rich at all and they pretty much laughed at the £2m or whatever fine.
basically how a commercial entity or organision of commercial entities (e.g. american union of slave trading etc. or whatever it was called) once again abusing it's power and money to change policy or law to benefit itself.
east india company was probably the biggest such example even having it's own army and it's own diplomatic relations with different countries, it basically told countries what they were going to do or weren't going to do.
I remember when Napster went under in Summer 2001. That, in my opinion was a much bigger ruling :-)
But the thing is, I could understand them being prosecuted for it through ad revenue if they ASKED people to click their links, but they don't. That in itself is agaisnt many Ad publishers TOS'. The merchandise, maybe. But you don't HAVE to buy in order to use them, same with registering... so I don't see how that is a case agaisnt them. The owners have openly said many times they don't make profit. ALL the money made from the adverts goes directly back into keeping TPB open.
You'd think they make loads of money from it, but they don't. If you can now be prosecuted for linking to illegal material by using advertisements to cover your costs, where do you draw the line? There are thousands of warez forums, other trackers, you can even say video hosting companies are to blame also. I understand that you have to comply, if a request to take it down is posted, if you do remove it then you'll be fine. But the whole point of them being offshore is that they don't have to comply. Specially if it's just a link. I'm not going to use the excuse many use. Which is Google indexes the links they aren't any different, there is a difference, one is made to post the links, the other just farms them because of it's function.
Even just for being one of the bigger guys, does that mean you can be sued?
Other laws are already being used to censor the internet - libel law, for example. In September 2007, a post was published on the blog of Craig Murray about Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov. It made unflattering allegations of criminal activity against him. He could easily have denied the allegations, but instead, he used his wealth to hire law firm Schillings to bully web hosts into taking down Murray's website - in other words, to silence them. It's not the first time this has happened either. I can refer to countless other incidents where celebs and various rich people are contacting the lawyers to demand articles are removed, even when they're true.
UPDATE: Here's one more for you that I've since come across whilst reading the blogs. According to libertarian blogger Anna Raccoon, Goldman Sachs are currently demanding that another blogger, who is extremely critical of the way the company operates, closes down an entire website that he runs. Why? According to law firm Chadbourne & Parke's, the site in question "violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights". So no entering into any debate by Goldman Sachs about whether this criticism is legitimate - no, because it allegedly "violates" some of their "rights", it has to be shut down. Cunts.
Still, as long as you get paid for your work as one of Blunkett's bobbies, you won't care, will you?
But none of this is at all relevant to the Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay linked to copyrighted material, illegally.
If you want to be pedantic about it, then yes they were censored but only because they were breaking the law.
Are you suggesting then, that because we're online it's ok for people to alledge other people have comitted a crime or done something awful with absolutely no evidence? In that case, I think you steal from work and I'm going to set up a Facebook group to prove it.
It might be a load of bollocks, but because it's on the internet you're arguing that I should be allowed to say it, regardless of the damage it may cause you or your family.
LMAO. And? I get paid to enforce the law and support the community I'm based in, and if other people are to be believed, I do a damn good job at it too.
What exactly is the point you're trying to make? That because I wear a slightly different uniform from a PC I must have an underlying political agenda? That I automatically support the Labour party in everything they do (even though none of this thread has anything to do with me, PCSOs or the Labour party)?
Erm, no.
Technically, the Pirate Bay didn't link to copyrighted material, their users did. They were not sentenced on the basis of linking directly to copyrighted stuff themselves only on the basis of being "accomplices", i.e. making piracy possible through server infrastructure and the use of torrent technology. I could go on forever discussing whether this is right or wrong, but a valid argument is that the owners of an infrastructure have been made liable for what users did on their server and how that will affect owners of internet infrastructure in general beyond file sharing. If such cases will take precedence in similar cases, say a regular web server containing normal web pages and the owners are deemed liable for url's that its users publish I think we're heading into a dangerous and undesirable path.
On the other hand it is very possible that the sentence will have an unsignificant effect if any at all. Piratebay is just one of many , and if one goes, another pops up, and as the music industry struggles to keep track of sites and the bureaucratic process of signing lawsuits they keep loosing revenue instead of making arrangements to offer legal file sharing where users may purchase content.
epic
kind of what we've known all along though