Pirate Bay Goes to Court

[Select]

http://techfragments.com/news/446/Tech/ ... weden.html

[Ddrak]

They've already dropped half the charges.

I'm kinda torn on this one. While I like seeing nothing more than the xxAA get the shaft, and things like this force an evolution of new distribution models that blow apart the stranglehold current publishers have on the industry, TPB (like the WoW Glider case) is hardly a sympathetic defendant - they revel in the fact that their site does index millions of copyrighted works.

Dd

[Select]

Thanks for the updated link~ I am not a TPB fan, I prefer the private trackers, so I agree with you on that.

[Taxious]

their site does index millions of copyrighted works.

So does google...

[Kulaf]

They're bascially facilitating a crime. There's no real way to say they aren't unless they are verifying everyones right to the copyrighted material.

[Taxious]

They're bascially facilitating a crime. There's no real way to say they aren't unless they are verifying everyones right to the copyrighted material.

People that sell guns aren't charged with the crimes that their customers commit, how is this different?

[Kulaf]

Simple.....it's no different that a fence for stolen goods. They don't steal the goods.....they don't possess the goods.....they just act as a middle man for getting the goods from the buyer to the seller. But they are still guilty of facilitation.

Buying a gun is not a crime.

[Kulaf]

For reference:

1. A person is guilty of criminal facilitation if he knowingly provides substantial assistance to a person intending to commit a felony and that person, in fact, commits the crime contemplated, or a like or related felony, employing the assistance so provided. The ready lawful availability from others of the goods or services provided by a defendant is a factor to be considered in determining whether or not his assistance was substantial. This section does not apply to a person who is either expressly or by implication made not accountable by the statute defining the felony facilitated or related statutes.

[Partha]

Copyright violation is a felony? Can they prove financial gain?

[Freecare Spiritwise]

The real solution for the music/movie industries is to change their business models like they should've done 10 years ago. The more they try to stop piracy, the more they're fueling innovation. They need to stop fighting it and start competing with it. It's the law of the jungle: adapt or die.

Does anyone really doubt that say a year, or 5 years from now, anything anyone wants will be immediately available for download?

At the very worst file sharing will go back underground, where it thrived even before the internet. In the BBS days, to access anything or download anything, you had to know people.

[Kulaf]

Copyright violation is a felony? Can they prove financial gain?

Kind of a rule of thumb that anything that can get you over 3 years imprisonment at the Federal level is considered a felony.

[Partha]

They have to prove financial gain of more than a grand first. How are they going to prove that Pirate Bay facilitated all the copyright violations?

Oh, and a by the way....the article says they could get up to two years, not three. So I guess you agree it's not a felony?

[Ddrak]

Uh, talking about this in the context of US law is really dumb (and could be construed as somewhat arrogant if viewed in the wrong context). The Sweedish system looks nothing like the US system - they've yet to even prove with TPB is doing is actually a crime over there.

The difference between Google (which is now primarily served from Norway apparently, because it's easier to cool server farms when you can just open the door) and TPB is Google actively tries to remove content when they get reasonable notification of infringement. If TPB did the same thing then the **AA would have a much weaker case. However, because TPB makes a point of openly mocking anyone sending them legal letters (and a lot of them deserve mocking, don't get me wrong), they can't really argue that they weren't aware of the nature of the content.

The best analogy is selling a "good deals guide" that primarily contains the best places to buy drugs anywhere in the world.

Dd

[Kulaf]

They have to prove financial gain of more than a grand first. How are they going to prove that Pirate Bay facilitated all the copyright violations?

Oh, and a by the way....the article says they could get up to two years, not three. So I guess you agree it's not a felony?

In Sweden......I have no clue. Here in the US.....yeah it is a felony with terms of imprisonment up to 10 years.

http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/re ... s-For.html

Pui and Pruett each pled guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement,

[Kulaf]

For anyone interested in Swedish Copyright law:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/0 ... 3af6b4.pdf

[Kulaf]

Here is the relavent act of the amended Swedish code on copyrights:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/0 ... 31279c.pdf

See article 2.

From what I read....they don't have a leg to stand on and I fail to see what their law student legal advisor is basing his advice on.

[Ddrak]

The thing that's missing from that law is whether how TPB is required to act when users of their indexing service are violating copyright. Remember, it's not TPB that's actively violating the copyright law but they are certainly aware that their users are. In the US they'd have to respond to DMCA takedown requests (which are another legal stupidity - the burden of proof should be on the person claiming the infringement, not the other way around) but there's no equivalent in Sweeden.

Their defense should be simple - we provide a service and offer no defense for what our users do. If you have an issue with them, then sue them but don't expect us to get involved in either helping you or defending them. Dunno how it would fly but with no DMCA they should have a fighting chance.

Dd

[Kulaf]

Are you saying they are not in violation of section 52e?

[Partha]

Probably they will argue that the section you quoted is too broad to be meaningful. I mean, come on....define 'limited commercial use other than to circumvent' in a way that probably wouldn't kill any 'legal' businesses involving transmission of large chunks of data.

[Ddrak]

Are you saying they are not in violation of section 52e?

They could trivially argue that they aren't in the same way Google isn't.

The argument would go: "TPB aren't manufacturing, importing, transferring, distributing or possessing anything. They are providing a service that allows people to advertise things. TPB attempts to take no responsibility for what those things actually are."

The court will have to be very careful with how they decide this case to avoid making search engines illegal, and that's the essential problem that the xxAA faces - engines that index arbitrary content are trivially abused by copyright infringers.

Dd