back to article Landmark copyright trial against Pirate Bay gets underway

The copyright infringement trial against the four men behind The Pirate Bay kicked off in Stockholm this morning. Charges were brought against the defendants (Carl Lundström, Peter Sunde, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg), who are behind the operations of the infamous website, in January 2008. The four are accused of …

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  1. The BigYin
    Thumb Down

    The real criminals...

    ...are the likes of the IFPI who block free trade and support price-fixing cartels.

    I don't use torrents for illegal content as I like having the DVD/CD (I use it mostly for distros etc), but I can understand why some people would given the restrictions placed on DVDs playback and distribution.

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  3. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Thumb Up

    Neither party cares much about PB

    What it boils down to is not what happens to PB, Mininova or a million others, but what precedent gets set by this case. Is pointing at something dodgy, make you complicit or not? I think both parties simply want concrete definition within copyright law. Whether they get it or not, will be interesting to find out!

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  5. M
    Pirate

    Go on Lads!

    Arrr Me Hearties!

  6. Ron

    I can find Torrents on google

    Fair enough they say that they are just providing links to torrents and not providing the actual data itself. Google provides links to torrents. If i google anything and add .torrent on the end i'm sure i'll find some reference of it somewhere on the net and be able to download it for free shortly afterwards.

    Now is googling for a torrent the same as using pirate bay to search for a torrent?

  7. Joseph
    Jobs Horns

    Google to the rescue.....

    Me thinking Google might want to help pay for their defence. If they are found guilty, it could set a precedent and it could mean Google could be held liable for all the pirated material that could be found on it's search engine.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Real reason

    The real reason that the copyright mafia is loosing money is because they failed to grasp the new technology when it first appeared (i.e. Napster), it's their own fault. So the RI Ass A should immediately sue themselves for damages.

    And remember folks, home cooking is destroying the restaurant industry

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    It's A Showtrial...

    ...Nothing more. These guys have been hauled up before the courts to be 'made an example of' for benefit of the world's uncomprehending media. Anyone educated in these matters knows beyond all doubt that shutting down one torrent site is a completely redundant gesture. Corporations fail, fail, fail to understand the nature of 'teh interwebz' and the sheer invention of the millions of young people (in particular) who populate it and understand it far better than they are ever given credit for. For every one of these pyrrhic corporate victories, you can expect to see five more torrent sites spring up... and so it goes on.

    The suits don't get it. Court cases like this are just another example of just how far behind the curve the lumbering corporations are with respect to the web and how young people use it. Clinging to fond memories of outdated business models and a once limitless revenue stream, these corporates now look increasingly like sad-faced dinosaurs staring through wide, doomed eyes at an ever growing light in the sky...

  10. Toastan Buttar
    Pirate

    Not a foregone conclusion by any means.

    Although the entire raison d'etre of TPB is obvious to anyone, the prosecution have a tough time ahead trying to pin anything on them within Swedish law. Just because they're doing something which the RIAA finds unfair, and being cheekily defiant about it in the process, doesn't mean that they have necessarily broken any laws.

    This is going to be interesting. I do like a meaty courtroom drama.

  11. Daniel Garcia
    Flame

    My support for TPB guys

    copyright (of digital information) is artificial scarcity(it is <quasi>free to copy and share) and therefore unsostainable to apply to reality.

    you can try, and then fail.

    you can try harder, and then fail more.

    the main change created in the order of thing in our society by internet was making the sharing of digital information <quasi>free. A major step in the process of de-scarcitify our economy by technology. Therefore a major break from the capitalist theoretical model(towards something else that probably is not propely understood or named).

    Just imagine that you can have a can full of nanobot able to replicated anything you want from mud and thin air. that will the end of the process( if it ought to occur).

    Flame, because the scarcity lovers are many...yet.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If convicted all assets should be seized

    If convicted these perps should see long prison sentences and all assets - personal and Biz should be seized.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I suspect they will have the book

    thrown at them. Sure, other sites may act in a certain way like this, but they tend to discourage or cover themselves legally.

    Copyright infringement is wrong, we have fair use, but just blatantly taking the fruits of another person's endeavours is just wrong.

    What it has highlighted though, is the problem artists face and that includes developers, with the organisation of distribution around the works. There are ways to sell your own works now, and I hope more follow that path.

    Do things like Pirate Bay hamper innovation, I think they do. If you were going to work on say a song for 1 month, say 4 months of your free time. Then to lose control of that work can be quite crushing, and many would consider the risk too high, to bother.

    What is an appropriate punishment here, their actions have to be dissuaded, but I don't think anyone wants a draconian punishment, outside of the creative distributors.

    I think a group should be formed headed by artists, and these two jokers should work for minimum wage for two years in creating a distributed distribution system that can be monetized.

    They should be given the headache of business without the rewards, and that is perhaps the G&S approach to this 'crime', because that is what they have been doing to other people.

  14. xjy
    Paris Hilton

    Baying on the beach

    Since when was a Bay guilty of the things the vessels on it get up to? Or a piece of land of the things people do on it or to it? Or a telephone/communications infrastructure of the actions following or not on the messages passing through it - encrypted or not, ironic or not, psychotic or not? Or clothes for the actions of the people wearing them (bit dodgy this one at times - crabby old scumbag judges and pretty young women who are a bit tipsy wearing hot clothes and getting raped). But who sues the vodka pusher for that?

    A very important point raised in Svenska Dagbladet (big Swedish morning paper) today, by the Head Librarian of the Swedish equivalent of the British Library, is that the Pirate Bay's facilitators are being charged for alleged crimes committed by other people that they have not and in fact could not themselves yet have committed. Pre-emptive justice - our great freedom-loving Western cultural tradition...

    Oh boy are the lawyers gonna have a good time with this one!

    (Paris cos she likes vodka and sexy clothes and is a kind of infrastructural facilitator for various things that pass through her so to say...)

  15. xjy
    Paris Hilton

    Baying on the beach 2

    PS - Swedish currency is kronOr, not kronEr.

    (Paris cos she knows the difference between "eeeee's" and "oooooo's")

  16. michael

    @Robin Field

    but the pepol who make maps with the banks marked on them and all the roads round the bank shown do not get done?

    this is where the legal gray area is and this is why it is going to be a hard case to prove

  17. BRAINPLAN
    Flame

    Re: I suspect they will have the book

    Firstly it’s not 2 people it’s 4 people running the site. Secondly they themselves have not breached any copyright (certainly not here in Sweden), they have merely developed a site that facilitates the searching of torrent trackers – trackers which do exactly that.. they track. They don’t contain any of the original material, they point to no locations where a user may find the data they just allow a client to ‘track’ other torrent clients that are being run by users who are sharing the file themselves.

    Lastly I don’t see how TPB can stifle creativity, if your creation is say a good song and you or your band are consistently good you have a free distribution platform and will get a following by word of mouth and other shared downloads... believe it or not some people will actually buy your music if it gets released, others will come and see you on tour and buy merchandise... there are many ways to make money from music you have created without a fat percentage going to a fat cat record producer/label.

  18. mego
    Alert

    @Robin Field

    Wrong analogy bud.

    What you mean to say is:

    ""

    If you only operate the petrol pump that fills the getaway car, you're still charged with armed robbery. Running "search" engines facilitates the distribution of the illegal content, and makes them guilty.

    ""

    There ya go, fixed it for yer.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    End the Internet then

    I'm with Richard Stallman on this - the old business models and walled garden broadcast models supported by copyright laws are now outmoded by the pace of technological change and must be abandoned as they are simply unsustainable in the interconnected information age.

    Lets just go a step further and claim that the internet is complicity in facilitating illegal filesharing of copyrighted works - ergo the internet must be dismantled.

    All information can now be copied and widely distributed at near zero cost by commodity hardware - its over for the old ways of thinking; new business models must be developed.

    Let those who stand in the way of progress walk the plank...!

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    MattG

    Its funny how if you can make money off something as a corporation its legal.

    If my memory serves me correct Sony won the legal challenge in USA to be able to sell to public video recorders to enable them to record stuff.

    Now there protesting that a site that just shows you where to get hold of stuff some legal and some not, the site holds no illegal content anymore than your recorder manual explaining how to illegally record off the air waves.

    In the UK it is technically illegal to record off the airwaves due to IP infringement.

    Yet where are the companies showing adverts saying please dont record off the TV your breaking the law I have never seen one

    Then there FACT adverts saying someone who DL's a program off net is same as nicking your car, its chalk and cheese, just makes me laugh.

  21. Keith Doyle

    The "suits" will get it eventually

    Once they tire of throwing money away playing "whack a mole" with services like this (or their shareholders do).

  22. Alan Fisher

    whether or not

    you're a freetard, don't you find it worrying that the Swedish police were pressured by the US Govt on what is, in essence a CIVIL MATTER? I find it scary that the Big Boys Inc. are able to influence politics in this way.......

    As a matter of high principle (ie US Govt keep their snouts out of other people's sovereign laws and judiciary) I hope the members of Big Boys Inc. lose!

    And yes, as mentioned this move is scare all freetards away...just like they did with Napster....and Limewire...and.....oh what do you mean it made it woooooorse??

  23. paulc
    Alert

    guilty...

    yup, the fix is already in... the decision already made... they'll be found guilty, their assets seized, their Domain seized as well all in order to stall them in appeal for years with no money coming in... it's the usual big business litigation model...

  24. Gary Walvin

    Honesty Box

    I've alway liked the idea of an Honesty Box website.

    If you download copyrighted material by whatever means and you like it, you can make a donation.

    That way I'd get what I want, when I want it, in a medium that I want and I can still recompense the copyright owners.

    What I don't want is to be forced into buying a physical disc to clutter up my house, wait for someone to post a rental copy to me or buying an inferior mp3 file.

    I'm happy to pay, just give me the option.

  25. bruceld
    Pirate

    Backlash...

    I can afford to buy movies, music, software, etc. I do so when and if I find something worthwhile to pay for, but then if I read the fine print; I don't even own what I paid for anyways, just a license to use it. I apparently have the right to keep a legal backup copy of what I paid for, but it's illegal to do it. Stupid isn't it?

    Most intelligent human beings do not enjoy being controlled. They especially dislike super rich bullies that have the power to sue someone for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars even if they only earn $8.00 an hour, a single income family and have to support a disabled child. People don't like bullies that know how to manipulate our ignorance justice system so that someone can be convicted without a trial or proof of any wrong doing, even if they don't even OWN a computer or internet (identity theft/open wireless networks).

    TPB is just as guilty as a map book, Google maps, or any other search engine that indicates an address or location of where I can physically walk in to a shop and steal a movie, CD or software. TPB is just as guilty as Microsoft and all computer/hardware manufacturers because they are all just as guilty at enabling people to pirate. Googling for a file name as well as .torrent also makes Google just as guilty as TPB because Google is hosting information that tells anyone where to locate a file that could potentially be copyrighted.

    if the IFPI is successfully wins the case against TPB, this would set a very dangerous precedence against everything and everyone. It's been good that Sweden understands my previous paragraph, but the IFPI and all companies linked to them are very skilled at manipulating the ignorance of those that are employed in our justice systems.

    I'm against large and super rich companies and their lawyers that will stop at nothing to ensure that they can get as rich and as fat as they possibly can at the expense of stepping on little people who truly can not afford to buy a movie or song. This is why there has always been a backlash against the MPAA and RIAA, and if they win this one, they're in for an even BIGGER backlash from people like me that can afford to buy their crap.

    This is going to be a very bumpy ride...

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They have political backing too

    Correction: this site is famous, not infamous.

    Read this statement from the Swedish parliament member:

    http://sigfrid.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/decriminalize-file-sharing/

    Sweden is incredible country. The democracy traditions seems deeper here than in many other places, even USA has something to learn and not to teach this time.

    And I still cannot buy the MP3 on Amazon, because I do not live in USA. The reason is not payment because I can buy the books. The only way to culture is to download via P2P. Who is guilty for that?

    Myself I work in IPTV industry and believe me I am sick of negotiations with arogant copyright owners. They get more than 50% of profits from DVD factories and distribution shops and they do every and all efforts to stop online competition. They behave like they are living on the Mars last five years and never been on the Internet. They ask to invest millions in crazy DRM systems that is plain stupid waste of money because movies I am trying to offer to my users already long ago are on the Internet available to anyone. And I just want to make it less expensive to view a movie to my end user. End users do not want to pay for expensive DRM systems.

    I listen to my customers what they want. Do they?

    At my location customers agree to pay 3-5USD for movie if they can watch it with a click on their remote. They will not bother with downloading if offered at this rate. Or shall the content be available only to very rich people? 60USD for the movie? This is one month salary in some countries, get real.

    Only the free unlimited internet sharing can teach a proper lesson to this arrogant,. people discriminating, industry and move it forward (remember the failed schema when world was divided into rich and poor DVD zones? Who would like those who decided that I live in Zone5 and they live in Zone1?). Today everything can be obtained for free and yet how Apple is managing to make billions selling the music online? People WANT to support THE authors, but they do not want to pay for the legacy and expensive distribution channel including environment poluting DVD factories, numerous intermediaries, DVD store electricity bills etc.

    The content delivery models and especially pricing need to change. Amazon must immediatelly sell everything worldwide DRM free and the industry will collect billions. With reasonable prices few users will waste the time to download not clear what quality from unclear sources.

  27. david bates

    “It has been particularly harmful....

    ....in distributing copyrighted works prior to their official release."

    So that would mean that the problem starts (and ends come to that) within the music industry itself?

    You dont say...

  28. Soruk
    Pirate

    Toorgle

    Toorgle is just a Google Custom search - for hunting torrents. How long before the RIAssA and MAFIAA go after google?

  29. Matthew Gardner
    Gates Horns

    Hope they win!

    Funny comment

    "Guilty !

    By Robin Field Posted Monday 16th February 2009 13:10 GMT

    If you only drive the getaway car, you're still charged with armed robbery. Running "search" engines facilitates the distribution of the illegal content, and makes them guilty.

    Now, when are the courts going after Gooooooogle :)

    You miss the fact your found guilty as you new the robbery was going on, if the robbers got in a taxi, the driver would not been done as an armed robber.

    Pirate bay are a search engine there no more guilty than Sony for selling a DVD recorder and the discs to facilitate the recording of TV which is also illegal in the UK as is in most countries.

    It infringes the right holders in a more guilty way than TPB do so who are the guilty ones here.

    Get with the times if TPB are guilty then so are Yahoo, Google, M$ and the rest.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    content?

    “It has been particularly harmful in distributing copyrighted works prior to their official release. This damages sales of music at the most important time of their lifecycle.'

    or to put it another way, people realise it's mostly just filler and don't bother to buy it

    They are just annoyed as they can't control the try before you buy impact of torrents like they can traditional media such as radio stations.

    Wans't it for pre-releasing that they went after the UK site last year, and I wonder what's happened to that case.

  31. Neil
    Thumb Down

    uk reg?

    What I wnat to know is el reg is a uk based news site, yet, fine conversion is to silly dollars. a fine of 1.2m kronor ($143,500)

  32. Dick Emery
    IT Angle

    Searching for torents on Google

    Onlt appears to search websites with links to torrents on them. AFAIK Google does not link to the torrent files themselves. The websites however do.

    This is the difference I see between TPB and Google. PB links to the actual torrent files whlst Google just links to websites that list links to torrent files.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    TV addict

    And here's another reason to use P2P, I like Canadian humour. But does the Aussie networks buy Canadian? No, they buy American. Which means I don't get to see Little Mosque on my telly, I have to download it! Not to mention the vicious butchery performed on Top Gear to fit the ads and timeslot. So I download to get it all!

    Killing off TPB is just another form of censorship, so all you get to see on the box is what the ubiquitous 'they' want you to see, an endless sea of American crap.

    AC because of the black helicopters from RIAA.

  34. David Barr

    It all hinges on this...

    Is the site designed to primarily help distrubute pirated information, or is it designed just to track all kinds of torrents.

    It's clearly not designed for all kinds of torrents, or all kinds of data in the way www, email or usenet is. The clue is in the site title, "Pirate" it entirely exists to allow piracy.

    There is free to distribute material on there - "Ubuntu" got roughly 450 hits. That is really just a grain in the sand of the beach of stuff available there. The entire top 100 for example is copyrighted material.

    So I think it'll all hinge if the judge either agrees that they're just a gateway with no control over what is listed, or if he decides that they're specifically there to facilite copyright "theft" (It's not theft).

    Anyone who comes out with the arguement that they're just the same as a Google's search is blatantly lying, but it'll require the judge to come out and draw a line. Toorgle however is more of a grey area.

    What's worse though, the neanderthal belligerant recording industry, or the self righteous freetard?

  35. shane fitzgerald

    Who cares?

    They shut it down and another will pop up - the demand exists for these sites and it is impossible to remove them all without closing down the entire internet... suprnova.org being closed down just made piratebay the top dog (And I see that piratebay have been given this domain and reopened suprnovaorg again too.)

    The rights and wrongs are not going to matter - at the end of the day nobody will close down all the file sharing options on the internet. They are wasting money in the courts....

  36. gribbler
    Go

    What lost revenue?

    How do these muppets in the IFPI calculate their loss of earnings?

    It is completely inaccurate to suggest that an illegal download is equivalent to a lost sale, because the majority of these downloaders would just go without rather than paying for the content. Personally, if I download something and I like it, then there is a fair chance that I will buy it. So actually, they are making more money through sites like TPB enabling me to 'sample' their products for free.

    Case in point? Family Guy and Futurama.... 2 TV shows that got cancelled but popularity on the web (with illegal downloads) spread the word about these great shows, so people bought the DVD's and they came back to TV as viable commercial shows. This would not happen without free online distribution networks which allow niche products to thrive and help them to build the necessary momentum to become commercially viable.

    The sad thing is that in most cases the only way to get hold of good content is to download it illegally. I live in the UK, so I really don't want to wait until 18 months after something is first shown in the USA to get hold of it here. And when it does become available, I don't want to have to buy it on some stupid fucking plastic disk, I want it in a nice non-DRM digital format so that I can use it on my PC, laptop or PMP, or just put it on a memory stick or on my ftp and watch it round a friends house.

    Until the traditional media providers distribute content the way I want it, long live The Pirate Bay!!

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Piracy is SUCH a problem, yeah right

    - Its killing innovation

    - No one is making music or films any more

    - Actors salaries continue to plummet

    - Multimedia TV channels are disappearing daily.

    Get real - piracy has been around for 30 years, 10 of those since Napster.

    Maybe its time for everyone to boycott the MAFIAA. Start with EMI, Sony, Universal & Warner.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    google also tracks torrent sites...so they should also be RIAA'd to death

    go to Google, type in eg "curious case of benjamin button filetype:torrent" and the

    top 10 results are all .torrent files that get you the file - courtesy of your BitComet et al.

    hmmm, thats pretty much the same facility that PirateBay give you...oh, but they

    have a comment system that lets people know if its good/fake etc and also gives

    more details like seeders/leechers. but I'm sure that google can improve

    their engine too.

    so. the difference is?

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Someone has moved the goalposts...

    All the evidence points to the fact that technology has moved the goal posts.

    The old rules and legal regulatory framework in relation to copyright on music, image and film no longer stands up in the interconnected information age with zero cost copy and distribution being available to the masses. Attempting to litigate against the advance of technological and cultural progression is doomed to frustrating failure.

    Richard Stallman has been promoting debate on these themes for some time - here in a (freely available) talk from Aberystwyth on Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks

    http://www.6809.org.uk/media/rms-aber20020605-part1.ogg

    Similarly this BBC article talks about new music phenomenon in Brazil being grassroots and democratic; utilising low cost commodity production, distribution and marketing -

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/7872316.stm

    The days of making a record and then living in luxury for the rest of your days off the royalties are over.

  40. Steve Roper
    Pirate

    Re: Searching for torrents on Google

    "Onlt [sic] appears to search websites with links to torrents on them. AFAIK Google does not link to the torrent files themselves. The websites however do."

    So where does this stop then? The torrent files themselves are only links to a file on people's computers. So a link on a torrent site to a torrent file is already a link to a link. Google is linking to a site that is linking to a file that links to a file on someone's computer; there's already at least two levels of link recursion on the torrent site itself. So by your reasoning, torrent sites need only link to a link to a torrent on another domain and they're off the hook? OK, so if TPB links to torrent result pages on Mininova and Mininova links to torrent result pages on TPB it's all perfectly legal?

    Facilitation is facilitation however many links down the chain it is, so either torrent files are legal in themselves, or ANY site that provides a means of finding them directly or indirectly (including Google) is not legal. To reinvoke the bank-robber analogy, am I guilty if someone (TBP) asks me (Google) where the bank is so they can tell someone else (the torrent file) who is going to tell the would-be robber (the downloader)? Is the person who asks me guilty? The person who tells the robber? Or just the robber himself?

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Sorry, no time to comment...

    ....I have about 23 torrents on the go.....

  42. Stephen
    Flame

    creativity will survive...

    "Then to lose control of that work can be quite crushing, and many would consider the risk too high, to bother."

    there were no labels or studios when the first cave paintings were made... nor the first songs.

    labels and studios have had a good ride over the last few decades screwing artists and making ungodly money doing so.

    most intelligent artists knew exactly what they were getting into and did so anyway.

    now it's time for the labels and studios to take the same kind of responsibility... it's not their right to make money as they have, it is a privilege we have given them. they seem to of forgotten that... and the internet is allowing people to remind them who is really in charge here.

    it's just a shame they have, as so many people point out, turned a blind eye to the future and wish for the very profitable days gone by.

    when the brake system in your car begins to fail, pressing them harder will help in the short term... however if nothing new is done, eventually they give out entirely and you lose control.

  43. alan

    Re Anonymous Coward 16:41

    In the UK it is technically illegal to record off the airwaves due to IP infringement.

    No its illegal to keep the recording for more than 30 days.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pirate or not?

    I lent my friend season 4 of Futurama (no money goes to the show makers).

    He could have bought it himself (money goes to the show-makers).

    He could have downloaded it himself (no money goes to the show makers).

    So are either of us pirates now?

    How many of the legal people involved have lent/borrowed books/CDs/DVDs/Videos?

    Isn't the borrowing a CD the same as downloading? Either way you get to listen to the music and no money goes to the producer of the CD.

  45. Toastan Buttar
    Stop

    Re: Pirate or not ?

    Most, if not all, copyright notices on CDs/DVDs that I've read strictly prohibit lending. I'm not saying it's right or reasonable, but it's there.

  46. John
    Paris Hilton

    Re:Pirate or not?

    quote:

    "Isn't the borrowing a CD the same as downloading? Either way you get to listen to the music and no money goes to the producer of the CD."

    ....

    Yes, which is why the pigopolists have restrictions on the boxes telling you not to lend or resell.. Have you been pirating for so long you don't recall a dvd or cd case ;))

    As for me, I download a lot, I also buy a lot. I only have a finite amount of money I can spend on movies and music as I have yet to consider it worthwhile to take out a loan for dvd's.

    Most DVD's I have bought are movies I previously downloaded first. If a movie was tripe I don't buy it and have saved myself £10-£15 and I buy something else.

    At no point does anyone "lose" a sale as I really won't spend any more than what I do already regardless of if I downloaded or not. What I do have however is a dvd collection of around 300+ titles which I have managed to keep to 90% *great* movies, ones I really like and watch time and again rather than the crap hollywood sometimes shovels out.

    The Pirate Bay and its ilk have helped me to make informed buying choices (isn't that what we are told to do?), and as far as I am aware they haven't broken Swedish law have they so wtf are the yanks doing. Lets hope the judge in the case is legit or its all gonna go pete tong.

    Paris Hilton as thats a nice download if your stuck for one :]

  47. Ian
    Dead Vulture

    RE: I suspect they will have the book

    "Copyright infringement is wrong, we have fair use, but just blatantly taking the fruits of another person's endeavours is just wrong."

    Are you sure about that? I mean, you've been taught to believe it just like some muslims have been taught to believe blowing themselves up amongst innocent civilians is right but that doesn't mean it is a fundamentally correct belief.

    I'm not commenting either way on whether I think it's right or wrong, but your wording is the type of wording the RIAA/MPAA loves- "taking the fruits", well no, that's not true, you're "copying" them. While you've been taught to believe that the copyright system is correct and that copying a song someone else made is wrong, just stop and look at the bigger picture- how many meals do you cook that are from recipes that were created by someone else before you?

    You see this is the fundamental battle here, historically it's been too hard to prevent someone copying the recipe for jacket potato, or fish and chips so it's always been seen as foolish to try and do so. Historically it was quite hard to copy movies, and music that was produced on physical media and so a business was built around the fact people couldn't copy it. But then it became possible to copy it and it's become easier and easier to do so. The music industry is trying to hold on to a philosophy that with the prevalence of ease of copying is about as possible as someone inventing a new combination of pizza topping with run of the mill products from the supermarket then banning anyone else from making it such that they can only buy it from him.

    The fact is, music, movies and software are anomalies when it comes to protection by copyright law, they're anomalies that have been allowed to exist because the facility wasn't previously commonplace to allow easily breaching these rights. Recipes, house designs, flower arrangements as random examples off the top of my head amongst many other things all easily copied and hence realised that it's foolish to try and make it illegal to do so. On the other hand, something like car design is illegal to copy simply because it's too hard for the masses to copy such a thing. What we're seeing here is a business that was built on that premise entering an era where suddenly that premise has been whipped away. We're seeing the fallout of something moving from controlled distribution to easy distribution by the masses and those who previously held that control are lost and confused by the transition. It's going to happen, they have no choice in it, the cats out the bag, it's already too late. It's just sad that people like those running the TPB making this point in a rather subtle manner have to suffer in the process of moving towards the inevitable.

    One final point is that this hasn't just been brewing recently, it's been brewing since people could copy casette tapes, it's just become ever more prominent and ever easier to do since then and the music/movie industry have become ever more desparate as their entire business model slips from under them. They have a choice of changing their business model and adapting or they have a choice of struggling until their very demise, so far, they're simply choosing the latter and losing even the battle for hearts and minds in the process.

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The deciding factor here....

    ...is going to be whether the judge looks at the legal aspects or the moral aspects of the case.

    TPB clearly know that their site breaks the spirit of the law, rather than the letter.

    From a purely legal point of view, they're fine. From a moral point of view (IOW, if the judge simply concludes that they have just come up with a clever way of circumventing existing law) they are treading murky water, and may yet sink (or win on appeal, but even if the Swedes win round 1, the RIAA may strangle TPB with appeals and subsequent legal actions )

    Of course there is then the whole raft of points as to whether there should be a moral case at all (as copyright is in some way wrong), or whether the courts are being used a s protectionism for a failing business model- but that's something for another day.

    Personally, I think that the RIAA is probably just hugely miffed that someone else has again beaten them to a working distribution model- I wonder if they want to clamp down on the TPB's of the world so they have a clearer market to launch some legal BT service into.

    Could it be that Freetard actions are actively stopping happening what they most want? Maybe the death of napster bought about Spotify? Maybe the death of TPB will lead to Spotify for films?

    JS

    PS: Irony Alert- one of the most famously neutral nations in the world, charging headlong into the copyright wars. How can some folks get so riled up about a c in a circle, but not WWII? Or were they secretly on our side back in the big bunfight?

  49. Saucerhead Tharpe
    Black Helicopters

    thing that bugs the bejasus out of me is

    I have bought the DVD

    I then have FAST lecturing me. i can't fast forward them, I've paid £14 to start off with being annoyed at the film. If there are trailers for other films or adverts then I am even more hacked off.

    Makes me tempted to rip the actual film to a non ad-ridden format even when I own the film.

  50. Soruk
    Go

    50% of charges dropped!

    According to TorrentFreak at http://torrentfreak.com/50-of-charges-against-pirate-bay-dropped-090217/ half of the charges against TPB have been dropped after just one day.

  51. Matt
    Joke

    @Pirate or not?

    yes you are. please take yourself to the nearest prison for "rehabilitation", failing that hand over $10,000000 in lost revenue.

    Seriously, you can't sue someone for making it easier to break the law. All car makers make it easy for me to break the law by speeding, and they get rich out of it too!.

    In fact they deliberately make cars that can break the speed limit so they do so knowingly. They know people will use their product to break the law. better sue them.

    hmmm... who wants to come in on the class action? when TPB lose, we can site it as precedent!

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @Saucerhead Tharpe

    I agree - there is nothing more annoying than buying the DVD or BluRay and then being given a 3 minute anti-piracy video that you cant skip. I've slapped the 10-25 quid down for that product - i dont need those lectures. and no, stealing a car is nothing like making a copy of a DVD anyway! Pure FUD!

    anyway, back on topic - any pirate who's selling 'knock of Nigel' (poor people called Nigel these days! incriminated just by your name) would rip the DVD, edit those messages and be hawking off a better product than what I bought. how ironic, it sucks.

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