back to article File sharing arrests move to Germany

German-language news sites and blogs are reporting that file locker site Skyload.net has been shut down and its operators arrested. According to Germany’s Netzwelt (‘Networld’), the Dresden Attorney General’s office conducted the shutdown in response to a complaint led by that country’s copyright agency, GVU. Skyload.net is …

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  1. graham_
    Alert

    what

    secret code is the tag: [edited]

    ???

    1. Vic

      Re: what

      We could tell you.

      But then we'd have to kill you.

      Vic.

    2. James O'Brien
      WTF?

      Re: what

      Seriously, I've seen some forum breaking shit on here before but Damn man that link takes the cake.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: what

        forum busters ahoy!

        .comment-text { word-wrap: break-word;}

    3. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: what

      Hmmm.. I foolishly hit reload on the page that had the original url. Now it's gone. Does the Register search box have some sort of silly iframe deficiency that lets search terms embed other pages? Or is it simply a well-placed %40 and a double decoding problem with browsers exclusively? Now that the original post has been edited, I guess I'll never know :(

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Phuck around, go to prison

    What dumbarses...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Inevitable

    More will go to prison. Denial and stupidity are not an effective legal argument.

    1. Mark 37
      FAIL

      Re: Inevitable

      Correction: Denial and stupidity ARE an effective legal argument if your name is Harry Redknapp.

  4. Wang N Staines

    That'll teach them not to mess with big corps & their political attack dogs.

    :-)

  5. MacGyver
    Big Brother

    It's sad.

    If you look at the total percentage of each country's GDP that the "entertainment" industry adds to, it's sad. Sad in the fact that they give so little to the economy, and are able to get laws enacted that can destroy any of their citizens. just to protect the profits of a few.

    Germany changed it's laws recently and tens of thousands of people are being sued for every file their IP ever downloaded with any bittorrent program. If you're a douche, you might say, "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.", but I bet these people never thought that they would be paying $100,000 for watching the "Hurt locker", or if their kids were doing it, and pulled down 500 movies, they are expected to pay 500 times $100,000 or $50,000,000 dollars. Click, click, and now they are going to jail longer than if they raped and murdered a old man on live TV. The lawyers sat on three years worth of "damaging copyright infringement", and are sending out letters for all of it at once. I know 3 people who's kids did this, and are now getting these letters, three years after the fact, with three years worth of crap that they could have put a stop to if they had been made aware of it early on. There is no defense, they are being told that all of their belongings are going to be taken away including their house, and will go to jail after that. Because in Germany, if you signed the contract, you are responsible.

    Take away everything from somebody and they are literally "a person with nothing left to loose", and those are scary.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: It's sad.

      If the parents have told the children about copyright infringement and downloading "free" films which are/were/will be in the cinema or on television is wrong, the parents can't be held legally responsible.

      Similarly, if the child gets caught by an Abzocker (con artists web site), where they can download free music(*), the parents aren't liable for the recurring subscription fees - children under 16 cannot sign contracts (including subscription services).

      * Download free music, only 50€ a month - printed in blue text on a blue background at the bottom of the form.

      As these Abzockers were becoming an increasingly popular way to make money of the unwary, the Germans passed a new law, I think in 2010, where any such restrictions had to be clearly legible and had to be on the first page of the website (no popups, no having to scroll down to read the conditions).

      Additionally, the hosting providers (in Frankfurt am Main) were also arrested last Thursday, along with the Skyload.net

      Once Kino.to was taken offline, at the beginning of June last year, the owners of Skyload.net started offering their content to other portals.

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: It's sad.

      Strange, whenever someone is slating these copyright arrests, it's like we're always hearing about these "well-meaning" parents, who just happened to have "innocent" kiddies that downloaded 3TB of movies/ MP3s/pr0n. We never hear about the slackers and crackers that had the money but no intent to pay for what they downloaded.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: It's sad.

        "We never hear about the slackers and crackers that had the money but no intent to pay for what they downloaded."

        Perhaps it is because you have bought into the industry peddled nonsense that there a re huge numbers of slackers and crackers that had the money but no ontent to pay. IMHO most people who download stuff, if they were compelled to pay for everything at the point of download, would not be able to afford it and so would just not download it. No loss to the industry there, just that people have stuff they have not paid for. You can stop them having it, but you don't get any more money in doing so.

        I remember the case of a Scottish nurse last year who was alleged to have downloaded 30,000 tracks and therefore the loss to the industry was put at (IIRC) £150,000. Let's just think about this for a moment. A nurse - not a banker. If she had had to pay for the tracks, and she wanted them, then would she have had £150,000 to spend? So how can that possibly be a loss of £150,000 to the industry? It is more likely that she might have had a few tens of pounds per month available to spend at the very most. If on the back of the downloads she did not spend her (say) £20 a month on music, then even if she did it continuously for 10 yearsm the total potential loss would be £2,400, and that assumes there weren't months when something happened and she couldn;t have afforded the £20. Too many people just suck this phoney industry spouted rubbish about lost sales up. I do NOT condone copyright infringement, but protection of the artists is not necessarily the same as protection of big business profits. If the industry took a leaf out of the fashion industry book it might get more respect, and a lot better profits.

        1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: Re: Re: It's sad.

          "....Perhaps it is because you have bought into the industry peddled nonsense...." On holiday this year, in a European country with supposed anti-piracy laws, I saw plenty of beach vendors in their organised gangs, flogging rip-off CDs to the tourists. Please stop with the pretence that it's all harmless copying by kiddies and no-one makes a profit out of piracy.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    On the other hand....

    German courts have not asked ISPs to block usenet or torrent indexers and several German ISPs routinely ignore requests from anti-P2P lawyers to link alleged P2P users' IP addresses to customer details without a court order.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you're dumb enough to pirate...

    ...you're dumb enough to be fined $10K per copy and/or go to jail.

    Everyone knows piracy is a crime. Denial will never change this. Pay now or pay dearly later.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If you're dumb enough to pirate...

      Do you think that is justice? If so, then how about we make the penalty of $10,000 if you let your insurance lapse (don't forget), or for a million other things you might forget. Would that be justice? Do you care about justice?

      Where do we draw the line?

      I don't think you thought it out very well.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Yes it is justice

        Punishment is meant to be a deterrent. If you're dumb enough to pirate then you're going to get punished and have a lasting understanding of why you were punished.

        The reason people pirate is because they feel they are above the law and they won't get caught. When they do, they cry - it's unfair. Wrong.

        1. MacGyver
          Facepalm

          Re: Yes it is justice

          Yeah, because kids never do anything dumb. /sarcasm

          Their intent wasn't malicious, they were not making money from it (the normal people with Bittorrents not the owners of MegaUpload), a lot of the time, it was just some kid clicking with a mouse. If you want to "punish" them, charge them twice the retail, but seeing as how only the owner of one of these studios could afford the $50 million dollar fine, I don't think that it makes any sense to even try to charge them that.

          What happens if Anonymous decided to spoof all kinds of law makers IP addresses to these bittorrent lawyer trolls and they started getting letters demanding them to pay millions for something they didn't do either. I bet all kinds of laws would go into effect real quick to "protect people".

        2. Felix Krull
          Headmaster

          Re: Yes it is justice

          Damn straight! I say shoot the fuckers, that's REAL deterrent and let's have none of that £10K/download nonsense.

          Speed driving? Crank up the effect on those lasers, blast the little shits off the road right there!

          1. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

            Re: Re: Yes it is justice

            You wouldn't steal a policeman's helmet and go to the toilet in it... would you?

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

    2. btone

      Re: If you're dumb enough to pirate...

      Everyone knows piracy is a crime. Denial will never change this. Pay now or pay dearly later.

      Well thanks for that mister MPAA man...

      ...factually incorrect, legally incorrect and morally incorrect...still, keep on rockin' in the free world dude...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the children are under age...

    ...then in many locales the parents can and should be held partially accountable for piracy. If the whole family ends up in jail, then they'll get a does of reality.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FYI

    More and more pirated software, movies and music have begun showing up on the sneaker nets, and trade shows.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FYI

      Cool, it's easier to arrest people in person instead of having to track them on the Net.

  10. Wombling_Free
    Alert

    RE: Phuck around, go to prison

    Sure. If you've committed a crime.

    File-sharing, like skateboarding, is NOT a crime.

    I can share MY files with whom I want.

    Of course, breaching copyright is a crime.

    Closing down file-sharing sites is like arresting all motorists because the Mafia use cars too.

    How long before they come for MS Skydrive, or Dropbox? Or are they only targetting FOORNERS?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Tell it to the judge

      You see how well Denial has worked for The Pirate Bay Boys and Mr. MegaLoad, right? If you believe copyright infringement, (aka sharing), is OK, try that defense when you get to court. You'll be sharing a cell with another person in denial.

    2. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: File-sharing, like skateboarding, is NOT a crime.

      And Bill Posters is innocent, too.

      Seriously, though, what's with the influx of rabid AC commenters on this story? It surely can't be the PR departments of media companies, and I sincerely doubt it's a bunch of artists. Although maybe if it is the latter, it might explain why they aren't making as much money as they'd like from their fans ...

  11. Alan Brown Silver badge

    perhaps..

    ..If the sentences are longer than for murdering an old man on live tv, people might start murdering copyright lawyers on the basis of "may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb"

    (And there was much rejoicing)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: perhaps..

      Killing two birds with one stone might be a good idea. We eliminate scum and dumb at the same time.

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