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-   -   Pirate Bay Founders Going to Jail (https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=237639)

Purple Materia November 27th, 2010 4:32 PM

Pirate Bay Founders Going to Jail
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ology.com
This fits right into the recent shock and awe campaign against Internet piracy (read about OnSmash and RapGodFathers if you haven’t already). Yesterday, founders Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, Carl Lundstrom, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg of The Pirate Bay Bittorrent site were denied their appeal to their jail sentences, having been found guilty of assisting the piracy of copyrighted material last year, and are facing hefty charges for their crimes.

The Swedish pirates (minus Gottfrid, who was stricken with “illness”) appeared in court yesterday and were awarded ten, eight, and four month jail sentences respectively along with a hefty £4.1 million ($6.3 million American dollars) fine for their crimes against various record labels.

Francis Moore, CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry represented the music industry at the hearing, and gladly applauded the sentences doled out to the Swedish music pirates:

“Today’s judgement confirms the illegality of The Pirate Bay and the seriousness of the crimes of those involved,” she said. "We now look to governments and ISPs to take note of this judgment, do the responsible thing and take the necessary steps to get The Pirate Bay shut down."

Yes, The Pirate Bay is still up and running, and according to their blog, the site is “the most resilient bittorrent site” on the Internet. It’s a good site for what it does (I may or may not have used it), and is ranked as the 91st most popular website in the world, having over 4 million registered users. If you’ve never visited, it’s a website that indexes Bittorrent files including music, movies, video games, and various other “illegal” things." Though it still operates, it has been banned in a handful of countries including Germany, China, and the U.K. Check it out if you're interested: thepiratebay.org

No, ICE, I'm not condoning the use of the website.

Ouch. That really sucks for them. A grave day in the name of piracy.
What are your thoughts about this?

Amai November 27th, 2010 4:50 PM

They broke the law, so they should be in jail.

HeyMikey November 27th, 2010 4:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amai (Post 6312176)
They broke the law, so they should be in jail.

Yeah this basically. Not meaning that I'm pleased, though. I used to use TPB quite a lot, and illegal or not, a lot of work and contribution was put into that place.


Quote:

Though it still operates, it has been banned in a handful of countries including Germany, China, and the U.K.
Just nitpicking the article here, it doesn't seem to have been banned here in the UK. I can still load pages on it just fine.

JakeyBoy November 27th, 2010 5:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeyMikey (Post 6312189)
Just nitpicking the article here, it doesn't seem to have been banned here in the UK. I can still load pages on it just fine.

Same. However that might have something to do with the next thing I say - I'm pretty sure I heard about this ages ago. What's the date on the article?

Stratos99 November 27th, 2010 5:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amai (Post 6312176)
They broke the law, so they should be in jail.

lmao, do you even know the fine line they're walking or are you just going to nod your head along in ignorance as if they just killed somebody?

HeyMikey November 27th, 2010 5:06 PM

@ JakeyBoy, I'd link you to the original article, but I don't have enough posts to post URLs yet. :v

The article is dated 27/11/10. So, yesterday.

JakeyBoy November 27th, 2010 5:10 PM

Ok. I guess I'm thinking of the time it got "closed".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stratos99 (Post 6312207)
lmao, do you even know the fine line they're walking or are you just going to nod your head along in ignorance as if they just killed somebody?

Are you actually disputing whether downloading half the stuff on TPB is legal or not? Really? The fine line you are referring to is for morals.

Stratos99 November 27th, 2010 5:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JakeyBoy (Post 6312225)
Are you actually disputing whether downloading half the stuff on TPB is legal or not? Really? The fine line you are referring to is for morals.

What users upload to the site isn't the fault of the owner, what is being legally disputed is the negligence to take things down and if you've been following the lawsuits you'd know it took quite a while and a lot of loopholes for them to finally get arrested.

As for me the moral line you're referring to it doesn't exist for me, I know that if I download a copyrighted file it's illegal but it doesn't provoke any emotion from me on whether or not what I'm doing is right or wrong in the sense where morals apply because I know the companies aren't going out of business.

Yes, "really".

KanadeTenshi November 27th, 2010 11:43 PM

Piracy is going to still be on, regardless of if TPB keeps running or not.
There are always going to be other methods.

txteclipse November 28th, 2010 1:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amai (Post 6312176)
They broke the law, so they should be in jail.

This.

Also:

Quote:

As for me the moral line you're referring to doesn't exist, I know that if I download a copyrighted file it's illegal but it doesn't provoke any emotion from me on whether or not what I'm doing is right or wrong in the sense where morals apply because I know the companies aren't going out of business.
You don't have to have morals, but that won't excuse you from justice.

Alice November 28th, 2010 1:58 AM

Ironic, the guys who are actually paying money to keep the site running go to jail, but the 4 million people who are actually pirating get nothing.

WonderGirl November 28th, 2010 2:00 AM

Noooooo!!! First Mininova, then LimeWire, now TBP? ;__; Oh wait... TPB still works here :D But still, piracy is going to continue. Another site will come up and it's going to happen again and again, illegal or not.

Rich Boy Rob November 28th, 2010 2:47 AM

LeSigh.
This is why we should elect the equivalent to the Swedish "Pirate Party".
It's only the big roller companies that back this sort of thing in the first place.

This pretty much sums up my point:
Quote:

How piracy works.
[Everything in this post is purely my own personal opinion, and may not reflect the opinions of everyone working at Mojang Specifications!]

Large parts of the culture these days exists in a world where copies are free. Copying a physical book costs money, but copying a digital movie is free. In fact, simply moving a movie from one hard drive to another actually copies the movie first, then deletes the original. Copying games is also free. No resources are lost, nobody loses any money, and more people are having fun.

To people who want to get paid for their digital works, myself included, that is a bit of a problem. All of society and economics is based on an old outdated model where giving something to someone would rid the original owner of their copy, so everyone who wanted a copy had to buy one from someone else who would lose theirs, and the only source of new copies was you. There might be actual development costs involved in making these copies. For example, for every wheel in the market, someone had to make that wheel. With digital copies, you only need to make the wheel once.

I won’t bother analyzing why people copy games and other digital media, as that’s really a moot point. We’ve got an amazingly effective way of distributing culture that is extremely beneficial for humanity, but it clashes with our current economical models. Piracy will win in the long run. It has to. The alternative is too scary.

If someone pirates Minecraft instead of buying it, it means I’ve lost some “potential” revenue. Not actual revenue, as I can never go into debt by people pirating the game too much, but I might’ve made even more if that person had bought the game instead. But what if that person likes that game, talks about it to his or her friends, and then I manage to convince three of them to buy the game? I’d make three actual sales instead of blocking out the potentially missed sale of the original person which never cost me any money in the first case.

Instead of just relying on guilt tripping pirates into buying, or wasting time and money trying to stop them, I can offer online-only services that actually add to the game experience. Online level saving, centralized skins, friends lists and secure name verification for multiplayer. None of these features can be accessed by people with pirated versions of the game, and hopefully they can be features that turn pirates from thieves into potential customers.

Please don’t interpret this text as me being fine with people pirating Minecraft. I’d MUCH rather have people pay for it so I can reinvest in hiring people and developing more cool games in the future. It’s also quite possible that if I get into a business deal with a larger company, there might be a larger push towards fighting piracy mostly because they’d require it, and I understand why they’d want that.

But why fight the biggest revolution in information flow since the printing press when you could easily work with it by adding services that actually add some value beyond the free act of making a digital copy?

In other news, I’m voting for either Piratpartiet or Miljöpartiet in the Swedish elections on Sunday.
-Notch, Developer of Minecraft

Rogue planet November 28th, 2010 9:56 AM

I think it's far more immoral to take away the rights and imprison two people that have done no harm to anybody, and their only "crime" is causing companies (that are already incredibly rich) to lose potential revenue. Why are they wasting time with people like this when there are real criminals out there? Oh right, it's because they pose a threat to the precious capitalist system.
I agree with Stratos and Rich Boy Bob.

The only reason they're doing this is to try and scare other people away from piracy. It won't work.

And don't let the law define your morals guys. If suddenly chocolate was made illegal, would you say that it's immoral to be eating chocolate? How can you put these guys on the same level as murderers, rapists, armed robbers and other real criminals?

I ""illegally"" download all of my movies and music simply because I don't have any money. If suddenly I was unable to download these things, it wouldn't make me go out and buy them instead, because I simply don't have the money. Whereas as I am able to download these things, it means I can check them out and then if I like them a lot I can spend the little money I do have on seeing a band live or supporting them in other ways. If I couldn't download anything in the first place then they would get nothing from me.

Sorry for not having thousands of pounds to give to rich media companies, guess that makes me an immoral criminal!

Nick November 28th, 2010 10:05 AM

As much as I really like this discussion, the topic itself relates to a website, so it belongs in Life, the Universe, and Everything.

mondays suck November 28th, 2010 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeyMikey (Post 6312189)

Just nitpicking the article here, it doesn't seem to have been banned here in the UK. I can still load pages on it just fine.

Same here in Germany, I can access TPB without problems. Maybe that is going to change in the next few days though, I don't know. ... as if it wasn't already bad enough that half of Youtube is blocked here, the government is slowly but surely becoming as restrictive as the nazis or "communists" were. Except that this time not they are the manipulative bastards but these accursed corporations are. Even in the golden age of internet piracy, they still have been as fat and overprivileged as they have always been, so why should they do something? To get even more money? Hahaha, it's more like people would rather not buy anything, well that's at least my opinion. So what is these people's point, other than trolling society?

...this text makes no goddamn sense and what makes sense has probably already been mentioned, but whatever.

Also, my vote for the next elections (sadly it's still 3 years until then...) :

twocows November 28th, 2010 11:42 AM

A lot of people in this thread are misunderstanding the lawsuit. TPB doesn't host illegal content, it hosts what are essentially LINKS to illegal content. Torrent files are files that point to resources that are distributed on a peer-to-peer network. They aren't charging them with hosting illegal content, as far as I'm aware. They're charging them with aiding copyright infringement, which is a far more accurate charge.

Now their argument is that they shouldn't be responsible for what their users do. They argue that they're like Google in that they just host a service and that their users are breaking the law, much like Google doesn't break any laws by linking to an illegal MediaShare file or something. A few years ago, they would have had a better argument in saying that they didn't have the capacity to filter illegal content, but then they started doing just that to filter child pornography and kind of screwed themselves over.

The prosecution's argument, as far as I'm aware, is that unlike Google, they laugh in the face of copyright law every chance they get, and that they're fully aware that most users on their site use it for illegal purposes and they even help them do so without getting caught. Personally, I don't think it's their job to suck up to the copyright industry, but it doesn't cast them in a good light, and apparently that's all that's necessary.

560cool. November 28th, 2010 12:45 PM

I hate stealing. I think my parents educated me properly. That's why I buy my music, games, videos and everything digital. I never used bitTorrent (even though I know a LOT of children and teens which do so, some which even offered to help me learn torrenting. I promptly refused) and never intend to.

Torrent sites will always exist. PirateBay gets shut down ? "np dudes and dudettes, got a new serva and a ton of bribe 1 :-D". You just can't hunt them down.

As for the 4 founders...I think they got what they deserved. Stealing is a crime, so I see no reason not to put them in jail.

Also, what about the users of PirateBay ? Didn't they commit crimes as well ?

saul November 28th, 2010 1:11 PM

These guys need to be in jail. I'm sorry, but that's the cold truth.

The argument that I've been seeing online (and above) is that they're not hosting the illegal files, they're not putting them up. Essentially: they should not be responsible for what their users post. The fact is that they should be and are responsible for what their users post.

Did anybody learn anything from the Amazon fiasco a few weeks ago? Yes, yes, yes, they are absolutely responsible for what people post.

Furthermore, (all of that aside), the creators' intentions for the site are clearly to provide an outlet for people to download pirated content. It doesn't take a genius to figure this one out. Pirated content. Pirate Bay.

And the argument that it just feeds to our capitalist society--that piracy doesn't hurt the big corps: it does. They lose loads. Not enough to kill them, but loads. And if you let this slide, then where do you draw the line?

Stratos99 November 28th, 2010 2:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by txteclipse (Post 6313174)
You don't have to have morals, but that won't excuse you from justice.

I didn't say I don't have morals, but I don't find it morally wrong to download digital media illegally. If you would refer to the quote Rich Boy Bob posted you'll see my feelings on the matter.

Oh and I can still visit TPB as well, I think they're waiting on the ISP's to take charge at this point and all we can do is hope they don't follow suit.

Rogue planet November 28th, 2010 3:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saul (Post 6314126)
And the argument that it just feeds to our capitalist society--that piracy doesn't hurt the big corps: it does. They lose loads. Not enough to kill them, but loads. And if you let this slide, then where do you draw the line?

I didn't say that they don't lose revenue from it.

But am I really supposed to feel sorry for them? Why should decent people be branded as criminals just because they can't afford to pay for music, movies and video games? People have to spend their money on much more important things. As a result there's nothing spare and if you can't afford, you're not allowed entertainment, apparently. I don't feel guilty from downloading anything at all. Oh no, a company has lost out on gaining my money when they already have millions, how awful!

Remember they're losing potential revenue, not actual revenue. If I couldn't download, then I wouldn't buy. I'm sure a lot of other people who torrent illegally feel the same. So the amount of people who torrent can't be used to determine how much they're actually losing out by. And even if you did add that much, how much percentage are they actually losing? I bet it's nothing when compared to what they're already gaining.

If I borrowed a game from a friend for the weekend, completed it, and never bought the game, does that make me a criminal?
It's exactly the same thing. Except I am borrowing the game from a stranger on the internet. I don't sell the game, I don't make a profit from it, nobody is losing out, I just get a few hours of entertainment.

leo33wii November 28th, 2010 4:13 PM

it's stupid really. i have to agree with stratos99 on this.
music is art... and when art is finished, it no longer belongs to the artists. art is made for the people and for them to interpret them.
i would know because i am an artist who paints. i get money well i sell it. but when people reproduce it, i have no beef when they sell it. i know that my stuff is going around and i can legally prove where it originated when someone tries to claim it as their own.

it's stupid really. i have to agree with stratos99 on this.
music is art... and when art is finished, it no longer belongs to the artists. art is made for the people and for them to interpret them.
i would know because i am an artist who paints. i get money well i sell it. but when people reproduce it, i have no beef when they sell it. i know that my stuff is going around and i can legally prove where it originated when someone tries to claim it as their own.

iRyu November 28th, 2010 4:36 PM

I don't get why they went to jail. As twocows said, they are only links for the people to use the peer-to-peer network. If they went to jail, almost every website where you can download things should be banned too, like mediafire, megaupload, ffinsider and such considering they actually are distributing the files. Rather than making them go to jail AND pay 6.3 million, why not make them pay so that the money oculd be distributed among the ocmpanies that were involved, and make them shut the website down, it's not like they killed anyone. Or, make them make those who have use the pirate bay pay for the use of it, like other websites do?

Shanghai Alice November 28th, 2010 5:25 PM

Oh noes. Not the Pirate Bay. I'm a bad person, and I will cease pirating immediately.

After all, torrenting the image song for Furude Hanyuu is equivalent to baby-eating, but not releasing it/charging a fortune for it because you can is perfectly moral.


Piracy is not theft, asshats. (No, that wasn't directed at anyone here. Please don't cry...)

I'm a capitalist, but...


EDIT: Wait, they're going to a Swedish jail? Can I take their place? I've heard that Scandinavian prisons are really... "horrible." :P

txteclipse November 28th, 2010 5:39 PM

Quote:

Why should decent people be branded as criminals just because they can't afford to pay for music, movies and video games? People have to spend their money on much more important things. As a result there's nothing spare and if you can't afford, you're not allowed entertainment, apparently.
This right here is my problem with all of this. You are not entitled to entertainment. If you want entertainment, you need to earn the money to pay for it. Alternatively, if you don't agree with how much money you have to pay, you need to try and change things, whether by boycotting products or whatever.

As for the whole record label thing, people complain about how big companies are swindling them all the time, but when it comes to getting your hands dirty and actually trying to make things better, everyone suddenly gets quiet. The reason? Stealing removes motivation. It makes you lazy. Why should you work for something when you can have it for free? But it's that attitude that caused these problems in the first place. People need to wake up and realize that things are going to stay the way they are (or get worse) unless someone takes it upon themselves to fix the source of the problem instead of working around it.


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