Half the Charges Against Pirate Bay Dropped 347
eldavojohn writes "Half the charges have been dropped in the second day of the trial against the Pirate Bay. The charges dropped are those relating to 'assisting copyright infringement,' so the remaining charges are simply 'assisting making available.' No information on how this affects the size of the lawsuit or a settlement."
Making Available (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguably, I make copyright infingement available by providing my daughter with a computer that can access the Internet.
If the argument is that putting a site up that points at known torrents is a crime, doesn't every media outlet in the world carrying this story run the risk of some culpability by promoting it?
M
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Insightful)
The secret is journalism.
If the Pirate Bay wrote a quick op-ed piece about every torrent they linked to, then they would be journalists and thus, protected. Next thing you know, they will be named thepiratebaytimes.org.
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If the Pirate Bay wrote a quick op-ed piece about every torrent they linked to, then they would be journalists and thus, protected.
But who's going to have the time to write reviews of so many feature films and their respective encode jobs?
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Funny)
If the Pirate Bay wrote a quick op-ed piece about every torrent they linked to, then they would be journalists and thus, protected.
But who's going to have the time to write reviews of so many feature films and their respective encode jobs?
If only they could harness some sort of free labor pool...
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Insightful)
So I figured I'd just post to point out what the above posts were trying to say is that..
(oh screw it you can't be helped)
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Insightful)
In my opinion, mod points are not intended to be used to express disagreement. I might say I like Macs, and you think Macs suck, so you're going to "-1" mod me? That's abuse of power, pure and simple. If you disagree with a person's comment, the proper response is not to mod them into invisibility.
The proper response is to post a reply: "I disagree" and then explain why you disagree.
Debate. Don't censor.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Debate. Don't censor.
That pretty much sums up Slashdot's policy with mod points. Don't forget that moderator abuse can be stopped with metamoderation, try it out the next time you're offered.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Funny)
A screenscraper pointed at the imdb forums, a random number generator, and a thesaurus should do the trick?
Phillip.
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Funny)
Surely you jest. Bittorrent has a huge number of legit uses - there may be a few pirates about giving it a bad name, but I for one use TPB exclusively for HD documentaries.
Yours truly,
aXXo
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Funny)
I for one use TPB exclusively for HD documentaries. Yours truly, aXXo
I find your documentaries on modern popular culture intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Insightful)
That's easy, if you use a computer. I mean use. Not click and play.
See, computers are machines made for automation.
q.e.d.
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Insightful)
If the Pirate Bay wrote a quick op-ed piece about every torrent they linked to
But who's going to have the time to write reviews
That's easy, if you use a computer. I mean use. Not click and play.
See, computers are machines made for automation.
I always thought "op-ed" meant "opinion and editorial". How does one automate an opinion piece?
See Fox News.
(News, Fox. News.)
Re: (Score:2)
You beat me to it. Plus, if you read the .nfo files and the comments attached to the torrents, you'll often get some, er, interesting reviews of the various releases.
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Re:Making Available (Score:4, Insightful)
What about a review site that just so happens to have links to the torrents being reviewed? The very notion that it might be open to such a stupid loophole is a good indication that the assisting making available charge is just a little ludicrous.
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Funny)
So it would go like this:
"This just in, user anonymous coward just posted a torrent [ ref: http://www.thepiratebaytimes.org/AdobeCS4-Windows/.torrent [thepiratebaytimes.org] ] of Adobe Creative Suite 4. They were so bold they included a serial generator and an activation crack.
Now, while we at thepiratebaytimes.org do not condone nor encourage piracy, in the interest of investigative journalism we have downloaded the torrent and wish to report that not only are the crack and serial generator fully functional, they do not install any malware on your system.
It is the opinion of the editors at this media outlet that anonymous coward ought to be ashamed for himself by engaging in such willful promotion of copyright infringement. Shame on them, again, for posting the torrent at [ ref: http://www.thepiratebaytimes.org/AdobeCS4-Windows/.torrent [thepiratebaytimes.org] ]. If you doubt our integrity and honesty we heartily encourage you to view the source [read: download the evidence] and test it for yourself.
As always, we thank you for reading our news site and will be bringing you the latest news on alleged copyright infringement shortly."
disclaimer for stupid sue-happy ambulance chasers: the links above are totally made up. If by freak chance they happen to link to infringing material, it is by sheer coincidence or the will of the LORD. I made the URL up based on the fake(?) domain referenced in the parent post.
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Funny)
Just wait until someone registers thepiratebaytimes.org and puts these torrents there :)
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I was a little surprised to see the BBC story on the case linking directly to TPB. By the argument being used by the prosecutors and some interpretations of the DMCA, that's arguably facilitating copyright infringement too ...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well you see, for normal people like the person who wrote the article such insane bullshit isn't seriously considered. It may not even have occured to them.
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Insightful)
they could argue it, but do you really think that an organisation the size of the BBC doesn't have some pretty rabid lawyers of its own?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Funnily enough, one of the most technically competent lawyers the BBC has in this field is a hot blonde!
Seriouspost.
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Interesting)
Strange. At the end of the article, the BBC actually presented information that made it seem as if they actually understood what The Pirate Bay does. Either the author of the article asked his IT guys to explain it to him or he knows what it does because he uses it to download copyrighted material. Either scenario is amusing I suppose.
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Insightful)
Strange. At the end of the article, the BBC actually presented information that made it seem as if they actually understood what The Pirate Bay does. Either the author of the article asked his IT guys to explain it to him or he knows what it does because he uses it to download copyrighted material. Either scenario is amusing I suppose.
Quite the dichotomy you've presented. But is it outside the realm of possibility that the reporter actually already knew how bit torrent worked or otherwise decided to look it up in order to compose an informed article?
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Funny)
Shit, I'll have you know the author of the article sometimes goes by the name "AXX0".
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Or they have someone on staff that's under 30, or they have someone on staff that has teenage kids, or... I found this PDF [statistics.gov.uk] which says 70% recent internet users * 12% P2P users = 8.4% filesharers in the UK. If you took out small children and the elderly from that you'd be way into double digits. It's probably more getting to the point where you need a show of hands rather than call someone up from the IT department.
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If the BBC author "knows what it does," he and other journalists would stop referring to Pirate Bay as a "file-sharing site." Use of that term is tantamount to referring to O.J. Simpson during his murder trial as "The murderer O.J. Simpson."
I disagree. Unlike murder, "file-sharing" is not inherently illegal. And TPB definitely allows the uploading and downloading -- i.e. "sharing" -- of .torrent files.
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Funny)
Here's an excerpt from the BBC article for the benefit of the cynics among us who know the media never gets technical matters right:
BitTorrent is a legal application used by many file-shares to swap content because of the fast and efficient manner it distributes files.
No copyright content is hosted on The Pirate Bay's web servers; instead the site hosts "torrent" links to TV, film and music files held on its users computers.
There may be hope for the world yet :-)
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Funny)
Except no one reads the articles.
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Interesting)
The guy just spoke about "IP numbers", "File distribution", etc without understanding the nature of the torrent distributed protocol. It's just incredible that the companies that are bringing TPB to court, with all their money and power couldn't find a more technical prepared lawyer (if there is such a thing)
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Informative)
It's a prosecutor.
The record labels do not choose their prosecutors, the state does. Keep in mind, attorneys tend to be type A personalities that seek challenges and glory in inordinate amounts.
I am sure there was some jockeying for the person who will handle this case, someone won, and he is doing it because he knew how to handle the politics moreso than because of his technology background.
It was mentioned yesterday that the prosecutor claimed to be a computer crimes expert, but that he could not get a powerpoint presentation to operate on his laptop.
M
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Funny)
It was mentioned yesterday that the prosecutor claimed to be a computer crimes expert, but that he could not get a powerpoint presentation to operate on his laptop.
That's because using a Powerpoint presentation on someone isn't a computer crime, it's a common assault.
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Informative)
....It's just incredible that the companies that are bringing TPB to court, with all their money and power couldn't find a more technical prepared lawyer (if there is such a thing)
Of course there are technically prepared lawyers! Ye gods man! See my sig
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Well, Beckerman may be far more techincally inclined than most lawyers, He still is not quite the technology person most other Slashdot posters are. His blog's main page makes that clear, although he freely admits that it is not as nice as he would like it to be.
I also find it kind of disturbing that he claims the Paypay invoice form looks like a check. It looks like an invoice form to me, albeit an unusual one, since the person paying is allowed to specify the dollar amount. I also find it a bit disturbing
Re:Making Available (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I believe that if you consult with a lawyer for information or advice, about the courts or the law, it is a legal service. This is just and right. If you consult with a doctor for information about medicine, diseases, or other such, it is medical services.
lawyers are meant to know the law, not be ambidextrous with writing HTML. In respect of a technical lawyer Beckerman's site is a great reference to legal issues regarding the RIAA and lawyers who know their stuff in court.
In terms of a car analogy: You want a car driver that can not only not be confused by a mechanic, but can hold discourse with a mechanic at a level far beyond your own capabilities. It does not matter if the driver can rebuild an engine or not. His job is not building engines, but driving cars.
So, in defense of RB's website, it's not as good as it could be but it still performs the intended purpose, and in doing so exposes you and I and everyone to great legal information. Most of us call this a legal service.
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If Mr. Beckerman decided to change his website, I, for one, would stop visiting, as it would be apparent to me that he has started listening to us assholes, rather than concentrate on righting the wrong that is 'IP'.
cheers,
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know anything about the actual Swedish laws in play here, but it seems to me that yours is just the usual, unpersuasive argument from vagueness. Clearly, both the Pirate Bay and, say, Slashdot are aiding in the making available of copyrighted works. The difference, of course, is of degree.
The Pirate Bay makes it a core objective to assist in making copyrighted files available. (Just look at their name!) When they assist in making the files available, they do it deliberately and for its own sake.*
Sla
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If the argument is that putting a site up that points at known torrents is a crime, doesn't every media outlet in the world carrying this story run the risk of some culpability by promoting it?
That seems to be a non-sequitur. How does simply reporting on this court case relate to promoting piracy?
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, it's kind of funny. At this point they are trying to make a moral case for this: Giving people the tools to infringe copyright is wrong.
But in countries like the USA their are companies that sell guns (locally and abroad, even sold them to the evil taliban). People will stand up and shout "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Well I say selling guns is more morally objectionable than providing a tool to allow copyright infringement. Torrents don't infringe, people infringe! Err, something like that.
Re:Making Available (Score:5, Insightful)
Why has it escaped everyone's notice that a computer quite trivially meets the definition of "Circumvention Device" under the DMCA? Of course, so does a brain. I kind of like the idea of suing everybody with a brain.
Oh, wait. The DMCA doesn't apply outside the USA. Never mind.
The World-wide spotlight must burn... (Score:3, Insightful)
The alliance with the ninjas pays off! (Score:5, Funny)
Only matter of time? (Score:5, Interesting)
But From TFA: "What has been shown in court today is that the prosecutor cannot prove that the
So, it is only matter of time they are back later with stronger evidences?
Re:Only matter of time? (Score:5, Informative)
At this stage of the process the prosecutor has to present the evidence he has gathered to the judge; the defence gets time to present rebuttal evidence. When all evidence is presented, it is time for legal interpretation (pleading). It is planned that the judges have all the information they need in three weeks, so that only gives prosecution a few days to bring up new evidence.
And because it is a criminal trial, prosecution can not come back with another case based on the same facts... so dropping the charges now has permanent impact.
Re:Only matter of time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they the same facts, though? Suppose I'm trying to convict a burglar, I turn up in court with evidence of his burglaries, and that evidence is ruled inadequate and he is acquitted; I cannot now convict him of those burglaries, double jeopardy and all. But he's a burglar, and afterwards he carries on in that line of work. I can gather evidence on his new burglaries, and make sure it's sound this time around.
Similarly, since TPB are certainly not going to stop linking to torrents, if they are acquitted here due to technical flaws in the prosecution's evidence, then they can't be charged again over those particular torrents - but new ones are published every day, and the prosecution could try again with a different set of specific torrents, and with more complete evidence.
Re:Only matter of time? (Score:4, Informative)
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It depends if they're being brought up on the individual actions or the entire business model. If it's the latter and they are acquitted, they can continue to do the underlying actions as they are shielded under the acquitted business model.
This is why you prosecute the actions of organized crime and not the organization of crime itself.
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And because it is a criminal trial, prosecution can not come back with another case based on the same facts... so dropping the charges now has permanent impact.
Dropping the charges now does not have a permanent impact.
Remember that they are prosecuting an idea.
The idea being that trackers = assisting copyright infringement.
The specific infringement & evidence is easily replaced.
It'll take them all of an hour to put together a new package of evidence which includes torrents using TPB as a tracker.
Re:Only matter of time? (Score:5, Funny)
Or at least better screen shots.
Re:Only matter of time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely the best way would be to download a torrent from The Pirate Bay in front of the Judge, leave it downloading during the trial (no intervention), and then once it was complete, show that you downloaded a copyrighted piece of material.
I suggest they go to "Porn -> Movies" for the in-trial example usage of the website.
To be honest, I would like to see how they can defend against the "assisting making available" argument, apart from the fact that this charge seems so ridiculous. They're not committing copyright infringement. They're not making the copyrighted files available. Nooo, they're just allowing people to make available themselves.
Re:Only matter of time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely the best way would be to download a torrent from The Pirate Bay in front of the Judge, leave it downloading during the trial (no intervention), and then once it was complete, show that you downloaded a copyrighted piece of material.
I suggest they go to "Porn -> Movies" for the in-trial example usage of the website.
To be honest, I would like to see how they can defend against the "assisting making available" argument, apart from the fact that this charge seems so ridiculous. They're not committing copyright infringement. They're not making the copyrighted files available. Nooo, they're just allowing people to make available themselves.
Immediately after which the lawyer defending them would create a torrent of his own of the trial's proceedings and seed it, demonstrating where the content is coming from and where it goes.
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I believe its good news because TPB prosecution stinks of corporate thuggery. And at the same time, RIAA and their ilk are going after innocent people with countless cases filed every year. They do not deserve anything out of this.
That just made my day.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It somehow just makes me feel better about the world when the "bully" gets a face-full of 'take that' from the underdog. I hope that the rest are dropped or mitigated to a wrist slap size judgment that allows TPB to continue operations as normal.
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If they lose this case and all these servers get taken down, new ones will spring up. It's almost better for society if they lose, because it will prove the futility of playing whack-a-mole with internet freedom. (Whether you think that particular freedom is justified, it's still a freedom.)
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I fully agree that taking the servers down would be a futile act, but in no way would losing this case be better for society. If TPB win this case then it could bring about a sea change in how copyright infringement cases are brought to trial. Further it could be the first step in a loong overdue reform of copyright law. At the VERY least it would force the big media distributors to reassess their methods of getting digital content out to consumers.
TPB has had around 25million+ peers connected through its
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Hooray? (Score:4, Insightful)
So now instead of the "making available" theory, we get to see the "assisting making available" theory.
I love how these lawyers think. If I gave a random guy in a wheelchair a push up a steep incline, and he had robbed a store sometime in the past, I would be an accessory to a crime.
Seriously, can't we just round up all of the lawyers, executives, and directors and just fucking kill them already?
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Unfortunately on the executives and directors part, they will be immediately replaced by middle managers. Middle managers make executives and directors look nice except they don't have any power...
Re:Hooray? Well, maybe... (Score:5, Informative)
A classic tactic in self-serving prosecutions is to charge a person with rape, pillage, robbery and illegal parking. Then, when the defendant is found guilty of illegal parking, the prosecutor can announce conviction, with most listeners thinking that the defendant was convicted of all the charges.
--dave
That's not how this system works (Score:5, Informative)
That's not how the Swedish/Scandinavian/German legal system works.
It's a different legal philosophy. The Anglo-American system works essentially by contrasting two alternate realities,
the prosecutor's version of events versus the defendant's version of events, and the trial is a decision between the two.
In this legal system, the prosecution and defendants work towards a sort of common reality. Along the way, arguments and evidence gets dropped until they're left with essentially the minimum of differences. *Then*, at the end, the prosecutor formally demands they be sentenced for whatever they think they can reasonably get.
It's common and completely normal in that way for charges to be changed, dropped or added during the trial. It's what remains at the end that matters, not what they were demanding at the start.
Also, district attorneys in Sweden are not elected officials, and a D.A. career is not viewed as a stepping-stone into a political one. So Swedish prosecutors aren't anywhere near as interested in media attention as American ones are.
Re:That's not how this system works (Score:5, Insightful)
it sounds like your system has some intelligence built into it. ...pity OURS is borked, so to speak.
Re:Hooray? Well, maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
Except that "making available" was thrown out in U.S. court. If they're convicted of "assisting making available" in Sweden it'll mean that the U.S. is the more liberal country and I don't think Sweden can live with that. No one in the E.U. would talk to them anymore.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is a terrible analogy.
Saying that you just pushed a guy in a wheelchair not knowing that he was going to rob a store is one thing, but in this case a better analogy would be to say "I pushed a guy in a wheelchair towards a small store knowing he was going to rob it"
TPB knows what they are doing. Hell their name says so. You can't say that they are just playing innocent here.
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Of course it was a terrible analogy. I was trying to make the idea of murdering executives sound less like crazy talk.
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Car manufacturers know perfectly well that their vehicles are used to facilitate robberies. Hammer manufacturers know a number of their products will be directly used for murder.
The question is whether they are assisting or wehther they making available public resources which are being 'abused'. If they offered $1 for each file being uploaded and then made an average of $4 per file through advertising on the download page then this would be a pretty clear cut case. If you are simple acting as a Google, then
Assisting making available (Score:5, Funny)
That's not vague or anything.
Re:Assisting making available (Score:5, Funny)
My favourite part... (Score:5, Funny)
"It's a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay. In fact it simplifies the prosecutor's case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works," IFPI's legal counsel said.
Here's to having the case simplified to the point it allows the prosecutor to focus on other cases...
Then libraries are in *big* trouble! (Score:5, Insightful)
Libraries provide all sorts of assistance. Why, they even have a professionals devoted to "assisting making available" -- librarians. I ask them where I can find a (copyrighted) book, and they not only tell me, but they let me borrow that (copyrighted) work!!! After that, I could either be following the law or not. How do they know I don't have a photocopier or scanner set up at home to "steal" the whole thing? What's worse, governments provide all sorts of financial assistance for libraries on the premise it is a "public good" to make these (copyrighted) materials available. They're obviously complicit in any copyright infringement that occurs.
Do the math! Next up: print publishers sue librarians and government for "assisting making available" copyrighted works.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, you didn't understand mine. A library lends me a book. I can read that book. I can also copy it. But the act of the library lending me that book doesn't necessitate or, in and of itself, promote copying that book. Providing a torrent link promotes copying that material, and in order to use the material pointed to by the torrent, you have to copy it. That's why its different, and that's why the post was stupid.
A copyright holder freely distributing their copyright (in your examples of Tor and the p
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Pirate Bay is a search engine for Trackers - what it searches for and indexes are torrents rather than websites or documents/pictures etc on websites ... but it is a search engine ....This is not illegal and no-one can claim it is ....
But it is also a tracker server as well and this is what the case is about ... is this illegal or not (in Sweden)? Currently the law in Sweden has appeared to be that it is but some people are not sure and want to test this (or there would be no case)
Piracy is not the iss
DUH? (Score:2)
The accual .torrent-files (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason for dropping (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason for dropping the charges can be found between the lines of this article [thelocal.se]. Basically, TPB nicely informed the prosecution that there way no way in hell that they could prove which copyright infringements originated from the trackers provided by TPB (as opposed to, say, mininova or slotorrent).
While I love this outcome (and the fact that it took TPB less than 24 hours to uproot the more serious charges brought against them), I'm not too happy about this approach. They're winning on technicalities, while I would have liked for them to win on principle.
Anyway, I'll keep dreaming.
Re:The reason for dropping (Score:5, Insightful)
While I love this outcome (and the fact that it took TPB less than 24 hours to uproot the more serious charges brought against them), I'm not too happy about this approach. They're winning on technicalities, while I would have liked for them to win on principle.
While that would be grand, I'm sure they're happy to win on whatever legal theory keeps them out of prison.
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One other thing to note is that for the cases that are computer programs (all games I think) the part of making copies are not relevant at all since it is not a criminal offence to do so if the copy is for private use. It would be a civil case only and this is a criminal case.
One other problem was the identificatio of the location of each peer. Since only those located in Sweden could be tested by the court and the prosecutor appearantly had not or could not accurately identify which one originated from Swe
Question about the prosecution (Score:2)
So was the prosecution technically incompetent, or were they aware that it was wrong and just hoped that they would get away with it? I suppose that it is possible that they expected TPB to try to make a deal rather than go to court, and so had to hurredly put a case together at the last minute.
They want to boost our morals, but they ended up boosting our morale!
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Maybe the prosecution is just a show to keep the RIAA et al happy that "something" is being done.
What has been gained? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I thought that slashdot wanted a verdict of "They are doing everything that is claimed and that is okay because it is legal". Why would slashdot be interested in the competency of the prosecution?
The competence of the prosecution is relevant to the outcome of a trial just like the competence of a slashdotter is relevant to the outcome of a comment - and yours was a massive FAIL. Correlation does not imply causation, but if I were you, I'd think a little harder before I posted my next comment. Your question is like asking "Why would Niners fans care about the competency of the Raiders" or something, just plain dumb.
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It boils down to: we understand issue rather well and think TPB is not guilty for people using it to find other people sharing files they like/need. Judge might or might not understand what is it all about, technology behind it quite complex, so it is preferable if TPB wins *whatever* way.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Because slashdot has already decided who's morally right and wrong, and the law/case is considered bought/pressured/outdated/whatever anyway. While it's tough to prove who, when and how you know that in the file sharing community there are many actual file transfers going on, not making available or assisting to making available but direct violations of copyright law as found in every signatory of the Berne convention. After all, that's why people use file sharing, it's not for some theoretical potential bu
It really looks like the prosecution will fail (Score:5, Interesting)
Weird how they are giving up so quickly. I get the feeling that the prosecution doesn't actually want to win this. Could they be going through to motions to satisfy the demands made by MPAA/RIAA/**AA as relayed through the U.S. government to the government of the prosecution to make them just shut up? "Hey! We did what you asked and it failed! What would you like us to do now?"
But even if there were some success in this, won't the result just be the development of technologies that make it even harder to prosecute?
Nailor (Score:5, Informative)
The prosecutor dropped half of the charges because he had misunderstood the behaviour of the BitTorrent. The half of the charges were about making pirated copies.
This however still leaves, as the TFA states, the charges about 'assisting in making available'. This also does not affect the claims of the stakeholders, they are still "valid". Also the maximum possible sentence is still the same.
Swedish prosecutor has been really careful with this case and propably doesn't want to risk the case with false charges. All the tracker files provided by stakeholders as the files downloaded are carefully selected. They even have listed every IP met using those .torrent files and made sure that every one of those has a Swedish IP among them. The prosecutor is also careful in using any previous cases against torrent tracker (for example Finnreactor case in Finland [theregister.co.uk]).
A Finnish lawyer Mikko Välimäki has made a blog post about the case [google.com] (Google translation, original is here [turre.com])
Don't post when you can't think straight.... (Score:2, Funny)
Just a reminder to myself not to post when I can't think straight. Imagine a better topic for the previous post, other than my nick. :)
Since they don't like linking either... (Score:5, Funny)
...I can't wait for my lawsuit for linking to assisting making available [thepiratebay.org].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Gosh, now you screwed me as well, you insensitive clod! See, my WP user page links to my /. profile, which of course has that list of comments with links to them, and I happened to post a comment in this discussion, and the comment of course has the link to the discussion it's in... so now my WP profile - which I've authored - links to illegal content. All because of you! I'm reporting your illegal to RIAA and BSA immediately, hopefully that would help cut down my prison term by a year or two for cooperatio
Beware, Google! You're NEXT! (Score:4, Funny)
"Your Honor, The Engulf and Devour Media Conglomerate, er, I mean, The PEOPLE'S exhibit A:
A Google Screenshot [grabup.com], illustrating how Google facilitates the infringement of copyright and assists in making available these copyrighted files to immoral and unconscionable thieves like THEM!"
(Prosecutor inadvertently points towards jury box. Hilarity Ensues!)
The prosecutor didn't prepare his case (Score:5, Interesting)
The prosecutor in this case (Hakan Roswall) is Sweden's most experienced and knowledgeable prosecutor when it comes to cases involving Intellectual property rights. It looks like he didn't do his homework before entering the court house. He has been working on this case for more than three years and after one day in court he realized that TPB does not copy any files at all.
I think he felt a little embarrassed after this.
Re:Go Pirate Gay!!!1! (Score:5, Funny)
Nope, they only support half the theft.
From this point on, everybody needs to stop their illegal torrents when they reach 50%. Thank you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Go Pirate Gay!!!1! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, your honor, I didn't download all of that software. I specifically avoided downloading the trojan that the packager slipped in.
Case dismissed!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We support the theft of intellectual property here, right?
Actually, I support changing the law so that copyright law only governs commercial use. But simplify that to any way that makes me evil if you like.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAAs' heroes, congress, are going to get away with it! The RIAA deserves to deny software and electronics developers their rights to manufacture and sell their own IP, deny individuals their fair use and due process rights, and to strangle our tech sector to death to defend their obsolete business model.
I join the RIAA in cheering the DMCA, and hope acta will add the right for the RIAA's government stooges to steal my computer or ipod, and kick me off the internet for a year on a mere accusation.
Corpo