Pirate Bay owners sentenced to prison

I'm hoping the verdict will be overtuned on appeals. As far as I'm concerned copyright issues have no reason to be in a criminal court. It should be a civil issue.

Then of course the issue of trying to stop file sharing is about as intelligent as pissing into the wind.

 

It wont stop anyone, all they have done is force the "pirates" to find elsewhere for their file sharing needs. They managed to stop 4 people from now stealing files, well done, that was so worth your time/money/effort. Idiots...

 

If you aided in the theft of millions from a bank you'd get a lot more than a year in jail. I've no problem with the sentence at all. Though I know this won't do anything to stop piracy by itself.

 

I'd go a step further and say that piracy IS theft. With their being acutal pirates off the coast of Africa, me may need a new term to distinguish these pirates from the Somalian pirates. I think "thief" is a perfectly appropriate name.

I'm also perplexed that Snook thinks that copyright violations do not belong in criminal court. His typical responses paint him as someone who is tough on criminals, and I'd certainly think that he would want someone who steals punished as a criminal.

 

I may need some of our lawyer friends to chime in, but I believe it is only in the recent past that copyright infringement has become a crime. In the past if someone stole your copyrighted product you sued them for damages. I believe there is a current case in which Coldplay is being sued by someone for stealing their music. However, I don't believe it is a criminal complaint it is a civil case. It appears to me that it is only a crime when it involves endusers. Have you ever heard of a plagarist being prosecuted?

 

I agree with Aldeth and Montresor.

Cases involving plagarism, and the Coldplay situaion, are different IMO. In those situations, there is not really any loss of revenue to the original creator of the work - someone is just ripping off their property to create something else. With file-sharing, though, the owners of the copyrighted works are losing revenue, because (at least supposedly) the people who download the files for free would have otherwise bought the items legitimately. Not only that, but with plagarism etc., there is often a question as to whether there was any violation in the first place, as the accused will usually deny that they got their idea from someone else; with file-sharing, there really isn't any question about what's going on - it's more a question of whether it is illegal.

 

Some community service, and perhaps a FINE would have been enough. But jail??? That's wayyyy too much

 

Fortunately, TPB is pretty damn redundant after the raid. This won't cause any trouble in operation, amusingly enough.

Also, I support piracy. I think that they're doing a great deed that's sorely necessary to do. As for the people they're "stealing" from? They can rot, for all I care.

... this with several thousands of dollars of worth in legit media.

And oh, Silvershield, they got fined. 3 600 000 dollars.

 

Why do you support it? And why do you put stealing in quotation marks?

 

Because the corporate influence is doing a number on governmental structures in smaller countries - Sweden being an excellent example.

Because the meaning of copyright has been twisted around sufficiently to render it unrecognizable from the original.

Because the hunt for people without money infringing on copyrights non-commercially is beyond absurd.

Because the alternative to "pirating" like this is the old bootleg markets, which have organized crime involved.

Because pirating is the only way to keep abusive practices and pricing in check.

Because the punishment for the "crime" is absurdly out of proportion - nevermind that it wouldn't be a crime without the lobbying here.

Because the organizations against pirates resort to - to put it slightly - underhanded tactics. Breaking the law is nothing special and thanks to their size they seem to get away with it unchallenged. (A few examples of breaking the law: Downright lying on several occasions to the Finnish parliament - and the law they were lobbying for was pushed through anyway, unconstitutionally and supported by massive amounts of propaganda and lying. And unauthorized access to computer systems ("hacking") in their hunt for "pirates", even if in several cases the people were nothing of the kind.)

And a dozen other reasons.

If these sociopaths meddling in business that is none of theirs were put to death I'd cheer for whoever did it. Heck, if I were able to get away with it without consequences I'd gladly pull the trigger myself. On them and their accomplices, the traitors to our country.

 

You've answered my first question, but not my second. Let me put it another way - why do you think pirating isn't a crime?

I base my question on this:

 

It's theft and the amount of pirated software was valued at millions of dollars. Granted, most of those who downloaded the product would not have bought it -- so it's all "funny money" in the end. But even if you say one percent of the downloads actually resulted in a loss of revenue you're still talking about tens of thousands of dollars stolen. Jail time is quite appropriate for such amounts -- as is restitution.

 

Noncommercial copyright infringement was a misdemeanor, commercial copyright infringement allowed to sue for damages.

After that Lex Karpela - google using that term if you want to know more - stepped into effect and I've been supporting pirates and supporting death penalty for membership of the RIAA and associated organizations.

Eventually, I have no problem with going after commercial copyright infringement - and following, with the BSA.

I have a problem with these goons using scare tactics, lobbying and going after noncommercial infringement with penalties nobody who considers pirating a better option as far as effort/money goes can pay.

 

It's everywhere on the headline news here in Sweden.

While I don't support media piracy itself, the hunt on the individuals that use file sharing networks is beyond all proportion. You can't contain this "problem" by going after individual users anymore.

I don't buy the idea about the losses to the film companies either. I would personally gladly skip most of the movies out there if seeing them cost me 100+ crowns (10 euro/dollars) each, but might actually take a peek if I could do it free and had the time and inclination for the movie at hand. They surely don't cost all that much (per watched hour) on the cable/satellite-TV, and that's totally legal to boot. So why can't it work now that technology finally allows for Video on Demand services?

 

@ Taza:

I guess the reason I see noncommercial infringement differently is that the argument I keep hearing is “I wouldn’t have bought it anyway, so what difference would it make? Nobody is any worse off than if I hadn’t downloaded it.”

I realize that you’re not actually making that argument specifically (it’s probably closer to what Sir Rechet is saying in his last paragragh **), so this isn’t really directed at you, but let’s consider an analogy. Say Montresor is a sock manufacturer, and he sets up a store to sell his socks. There are certain fixed costs that don’t change regardless of the number of socks manufactured (equipment, rent, etc.), and then there are the direct costs of material and labour involved in making each pair of socks. Let’s say the direct material and labour costs are $4, and Montresor sells the socks for $6 (with the difference going to cover fixed costs and profit). I have $12 to spend; I don’t really need any more socks, but then again it never hurts to have some extra pairs. I decide to spend my money on Montresor’s socks, and while 2 pairs would be nice, 3 would be better. I purchase 2 pairs at $6 each, and I decide that I’m going to take another pair without paying for it (and without Montresor’s permission) on the basis that, since I’m giving him $12 for 2 pairs, that covers the direct cost of 3 pairs, so he’s not out of pocket anything since I could have spent my money elsewhere. My question is this – is my reasoning sound, or have I committed a crime by taking a pair of Montresor’s socks without paying for it despite the fact that he’s not any worse off than if I had spent my money on something else?

** @ Sir Rechet – cable/satellite companies pay the copyright owners for the right to broadcast those movies

 

The relative morality of piracy has been debated many times before, so I'll simply state that taking something that doesn't belong to you against the will of its owner is, IMHO, wrong no matter how you wiggle and jiggle the truth.

What I am thinking is that copyright owners are going to start putting in more and more security features into their electronic products. This will raise prices for those of us who are not pirates and will also inconvenience everyone (though it will, I suppose, provide jobs in this difficult economic time.) Overall, everyone loses.

 

This is certainly an issue I feel strongly about, but most of the good arguments were already made by Taza.
Fat cats don't like it if the masses can aquire entertainment themselves, because it doesn't line their pockets. I really don't sympathise. Naturally the law serves them, because they have the money. It has nothing to do with justice though. How does copyright infringement compare to boarding a ship, and threatening the crew with their lives? Calling it piracy already indicates that the propaganda war has escalated beyond reason.
Maybe if the music and movie industry was overturned and bankrupted in its current form, then we would once again get some decent entertainment.
If I choose to support an artist, I'll do it in my own way. Although I download everything, I made a point of it to buy some Futurama and Order of the Stick stuff online (but after paying the import tax, I probably won't do that again). I want to see Futurama resurrected, and like the idea of a free online webcomic.
But most entertainment nowadays is geared towards impulsiveness and flighty sensationalism. It's like a reactionary response from the entertainment industry: "OK, so you're downloading now? Then we'll only make music, movies and games for impulse buyers."
What's the response of the downloaders: "Well, then I'll listen to old music, play old computergames, and watch old series again. Star Trek is out there now, you can't un-make it. Hahahaha!"

 

I think your example is a bit complicated Splunge. I'll try another one. The Hotel Montresor isn't fully booked and has a load of spare rooms. Does that mean you're entitled to stay there for free? You wouldn't have stayed there if you had to pay and you're not costing them anything by staying. Hotel Montresor hasn't lost anything by you staying there so what's wrong?

That said there's a lot not to like about the companies themselves. Why do I have to put up with a load of copy protection stuff that doesn't stop piracy at all when I'm actually someone who's chosen to buy their products? Why do they keep releasing 'bonus content' that should have been there in the first place? A pet hate of mine is cds rereleased a few months later with extra songs. Why do I get an inferior product for buying the cd at full price when it first came out (kudos to The Witcher EE here)? Any why does downloading cost so much? The variable costs involved are clearly miniscule.

The application of the law is also an ass. I don't see any difference between this and what youtube or google books are doing. Where are the calls for billionaire US executives to be jailed? And some of the alleged infringements are nonsense. Calling a character 'Piggly Pooh' should not lead to a court case lasting years with Disney for ripping off Winnie the Pooh when they've absolutely nothing in common except one word in the name.

In the same vein patents are even worse. They're supposed to protect groundbreaking technological breakthroughs that noone else would have thought of. These days they're being given out for the slightest modification and then being used to beat others over the head with. Or else a slight modification is put in and the patents are ignored as it's a 'different' product.