Pirate cops bust LITTLE GIRL, take her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop
In their zeal to excise the cancer of copyright-infringing downloads, a Finnish anti-piracy group sent police to the home of a nine-year-old girl, where the coppers confiscated her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop. The Pooh-impounding plods were unleashed upon the young lass by the Finnish Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre ( …
This topic is closed for new posts.
Re: On the upside...
the torrent is mightier than the gun
Re: On the upside...
And so ends the whole concept of childhood. Now children need to have lessons in the three R's and copyright law?
What a narrow minded apologist. It starts with criminalising children with attempted copyright infringement. Where does it end?
Re: On the upside...
Online anonymity done properly either involves hacking networked equipment belonging to others or being very slow. Not suitable for downloads, as those hacked for this purpose risk getting blamed or brave souls who operate Tor exit nodes do. Better to stay on the right side of the law and keep Tor for political activism which really needs online anonymity.
On this one, given that politician's careers depend upon this, much better that millions of kids learn how to use their votes once they are old enough to ensure candidates which have a clue on the copyright issue do better than those who have sold out to the maximalists in the hope of getting good old fashioned press coverage in exchange for a bad reputation online. I'm all in favour of bringing down the voting age to 16 - too many older voters in my generation are still mainly influenced by old media which belongs to the maximalist side.
Re: On the upside...
Well I'll go ahead and invoke Godwin at this point. It was just this sort of indoctrination of a false morality and rules under fear of certain retribution in children that directly resulted in a mass backlash against the state and the rise of fascism all over Europe in the mid twentieth century. I say the Finns are setting themselves up for a fall if they persist in this.
On a technical note: WTF? She didn't download it, so they weren't tracking the torrent presumably. piratebay.se is all SSL. How they do that then? Forged SSL certs? Aren't there robust laws against that?
Re: On the upside...
I said pretty much the exact same thing on page 1 of the comments and get 20 downvotes for it - go figure
Fine does not fit the crime
If it had been a bar of chocolate that was pilfered would there have been a €600 fine?
Re: Fine does not fit the crime
But bars of chocolate are not HALLOWED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THAT MUST BE DEFENDED AT ALL COSTS. Lawyers' well-being depends on this! Think of the lawyers.
Re: Fine does not fit the crime
There's a lot of intellectual property in a choccy bar, maybe they should start suing on the grounds of IP infringement lol. Not the actual chocolate bar manufacturer's, but a shady cabal of chocolate bar resellers who claim to act in the public interest and do everything in secret.
Re: Fine does not fit the crime
@Destry All Monsters (13:36)
I AM thinking of the lawyers.
That's why your earlier advice to "...learn to use guns. Lots of guns..." made such perfect sense.
Re: Fine does not fit the crime
I AM thinking of the lawyers, & the thoughts I'm thinking over ths involve cattle prods, rolls of carpet, spades & bags of quick lime :)
Re: Fine does not fit the crime
You didn't buy that choccy bar, you only licensed it!
Oh wait, I think that's beer...
Why the NDA?
I'd have thought the enforcers would want their successful prosecutions widely publicised, in order to deter others. So why try to keep it hushed-up? The NDA request would have been long before those responsible knew the age of the accused.
Re: Why the NDA?
they don't want to make it public, they want to extort money from the people who cannot afford to fight, which is usually why they downloaded in the first place!
Always make isolated attacks on weak and straggling herd animals
It's far better that there be rumors that goons are bloodying the noses of random people and shake them down successfully if they so much as twitch, as to have a public spredsheet which shows that a bunch of greedy clowns are making away with a few quid in so-and-so-many cases and are getting told to fark off in so-and-so-many cases with no followup.
Re: Why the NDA?
Probably the NDA is so they can selectively slam the shit out of some people and demand less from others, either at a whim or based on other metrics or demographics infor they pay to find out about the vict... Umm, target. This way, when they go to court, or even arbitration, knowing that the NDA is in force means they can get away with being inconsistent since there will be no public infor for people to crowd share.
But, if the NDA were not respected, then the next vict.. Umm, target who happens to know can in turn strong arm the henchmen prior to trial or arbitration, or just take it to a judge, who migth demand they show the judge their income stream, proof of consistent application of fines/setttlement amounts, and so on. The NDA probably just helps them avoid having their own asses ripped to shreds in open courts that determine greed and vulturism.
Re: Why the NDA?
Of course, if it gets to court, you could file a discovery motion for all the NDAs.....
At 9 years old
is she even old enough to be held criminally responsible.
Re: At 9 years old
If they use the same approach as here, it's her parents (or the account holder of the broadband connection) who will be held responsible, not her personally.
Re: At 9 years old
Only if the plaintiff can show that the parents were negligent and did not exercise reasonable control over the child. The court will likely find that in this era it is unreasonable to expect parents to sit and watch a kid surfing the internet every hour of every day.
The court will also have a duty to wider society. It is not in society's best interest to lock up people for downloading tunes any more than it was in my day when we all used to tape the top 40 off the radio.
On the other hand, the kid is systematically downloading songs and making a CD for sale to her friends, than thats clearly another matter. It is this kind of activity that the law is in place to prevent.
Thought Crime
So we are now saying that for thinking about committing a crime people have to pay large amounts of money!?!?! that is a very scary prospect and I hope they appeal on the European Human rights, lets face it they stopped a known radical from being deported surely they will stop a little girl being done for thought crimes
why does this happen globally in all countries at ounce
because of the global dictatorship.
Re: why does this happen globally in all countries at ounce
What's Oz got to do with it?
Re: What's Oz got to do with it?
If anything they are the most guilty party for their failure to intervene.
Crime often occurs in clusters
Did they also check to ensure that her Winne-The-Pooh laptop had proper licensing agreements from the estate of A.A. Milne and/or the Disney corporation? It would have been a real feather in their cap if they'd found any infringement there.
Re: Crime often occurs in clusters
And also, did she have any Hunny in her cupboard that she might have stolen from poor Pooh?
Will no-one think of the bears?
The Offence?
I thought the (criminal?) offence related to copyright infringement was the act of making a copy available?
If so the fact that she failed to download the song means there was no case to answer in the first place.
Re: The Offence?
Torrents...you start giving out the smallest chunk of data you have downloaded to anyone else who wants it.
So if you download a torrent that the original uploader never uploaded more than 99% of, you are uploading that 99% of "failed download" to everyone else.
To these legal people, sharing parts of the content is enough to claim infringment.
Re: The Offence?
So she clicks on a torrent to download a copy of the song... and doesnt have a bit torrent client on her Pooh laptop...
Is she still sharing out 99% of the "failed download" with anyone else?
I am willing to bet that she didnt have a copy of any bit torrent client and therefore was physically unable to share the torrent.
If she is unable to share anything, then it was an attempt to download that failed and therefore is not an infringement.
Always worth reiterating in these cases...
Buy Second Hand. Starve them of revenue.
Re: Always worth reiterating in these cases...
No, no, no, buy directly from the artist!
Re: Always worth reiterating in these cases...
Well, yeah, but Cubby Brocoli's family won't personally sell me a Bond Box set for Xmas...
... will they?
I did buy How To Destroy Angels' latest 'An Omen' release direct from the HTDA site on principle.
P.S.
What clown would ever downvote the suggestion that an artist is paid solely and directly for their own work?
Maybe the MAFIAA are trolling El Reg.
Re: Always worth reiterating in these cases...
No, no, no, steal directly from the artist!
Re: Always worth reiterating in these cases...
fuckin take their instruments lol lets see them play a song then
..on the plus side...
..being a Finnish copper looks pretty comfy, as it turns out they LITERALLY HAVE FUCK ALL BETTER TO DO THAN SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF CHILDREN.
Fair dos to you mates, you must have felt really proud of yourselves....give yourselves a beer...
Criminal Resposibility
I am pretty sure that in Finland the Age of Crimial Responsiility is 15 so I don't see how this could happen. Presumably if the girl refused to give up the "laptop of very little MIPS" they couldn't have arrested her. Perhaps Finnish law transfers the Criminal Reponsibiity to the parent under some circumstances? Any Finns on the forums?
Re: Criminal Resposibility
Yes, I'm a Finn, and the age is 15 years. And also the funds for the police are cut down year by year to fight REAL crime (like MC gangs, dirty contractors on building business etc.). As fas as I know, the responsibility is not transferred to parents (I asked a layer couple years ago when then 3y son hit neighbour car with his bike, and I was asked for money).
But as a taxpayer it warms my heart to see that they still has resources to send TWO non uniforms to mission important like this...http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/black_helicopters_32.png
Please tell me this is a freaking joke!?
Do the police seriously have nothing better to do then chase up copyright claims?
What the hell is going on in the western world?
Sad
"Do the police seriously have nothing better to do then chase up copyright claims?"
She was using downloading using a torrent. Unfortunately this means that she was also uploading at the same time.
The uploading (distribution) turns it from a civil offence to a criminal offence.
When Santa brings her a new laptop perhaps he'll be kind enough to also give her a usenet account (with SSL access) and a copy of "Proxies for Kids".
Re: Sad
@AC 14:08
Nope.
She was attempting to download using a torrent.
1) The fact that it's described as an attempt which was followed up by buying it legitimately the next day says it failed, and
2) Until they've released some quite detailed logs showing otherwise, there's no proof she uploaded anything. (Who's to say her torrent client wasn't configured for leech mode - ie downloads will be slow as hell but the uploading aspect is effectively negiligible?)
Either we're missing details from the story here or Finland has a keen interest in joining the Top Three in the Big Book Of Bastards category for Disproportionate Responses, Subsection: Copyright Infringement.
Unfortunately this means that she was also uploading at the same time.
Not if the download failed, which it did, as reported.
Re: Sad
When Santa brings her a new laptop perhaps he'll be kind enough to also give her a usenet account (with SSL access) and a copy of "Proxies for Kids".
No need for the SSL, do you honestly believe that ISPs spy on you still. Maybe you want a tinfoil hat for christmas!
Re: Sad
As stated in the article, she was searching for the song and stumbling across the Pirate Bay whilst using her Pooh laptop, she probably doesn't have a clue what Bittorrent is or even what a bittorrent client is, hence the failure to get a copy of the tune.
There are some clues which help paint a picture here, she was 9yrs old with a Winnie the Pooh Laptop and was downloading some pop artist popular with young girls, this doesn't smack of a serial copyright infringing pirate (although in this day an age all of that could be completely wrong).
Please let there be an international out pour of disgust at the Finnish Police and their copyright mafia.
Re: Sad
So Google linked to copyright-infringing material?
Type in name of TV show into Google, click 'videos' or 'Youtube', and maybe "20 minutes +" if needs be.
Re: Sad
> The uploading (distribution) turns it from a civil offence to a criminal offence.
Does anyone have a link to a decent translatoin of Finnish copyright law?
Because the above is most certainly untrue in the UK...
Vic.
@attempt
The police were doing what the law requires them to. The law says attempted infringement is also punishable. See Lex Karpela (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Karpela) - thanks to the EU directive, in turn probably lobbied into effect by Hollywood and the global music industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Karpela
If someone is to blame, it's the industry associations in Finland, Europe and worldwide.
For my part, I'm surprised that
the Finnish police dared to intervene personally in this parlous situation, instead of sending in the Reg's «executive editor». That would no doubt have scared the poor girl so severely that she'd never dare even think of «illegally» downloading a music file again....
Henri
Google's part in all this?
Isn't linking to torrent sites which host copyright material and make it available for download also an offence?
Re: Google's part in all this?
Anti-Pirate Bully Boy say to himself :
"Who am I going to pick on today? A little girl, or a 500lb gorilla?"
This topic is closed for new posts.
