Pirate Bay Founders On Trial In Sweden

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Pirate Bay Founders On Trial In Sweden


The founders of The Pirate Bay [http://thepiratebay.org/] are once again facing legal troubles as they defend themselves against charges of "promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws" in a trial in Sweden.

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmsioppi and Carl Lundstorm have been taken to court by a group of movie, music and videogame companies that includes MGM [http://www.sony.com] because of the huge amount of illegal file sharing that takes place through The Pirate Bay. The companies are seeking roughly $13.5 million in damages due to losses caused by the site; the men also face up to two years in prison and a fine of $143,500 if convicted.

But the four claim they cannot be held liable for copyright theft because the content being shared isn't actually hosted on their computers. "File-sharing services can be used both legally and illegally," said defense lawyer Per Samuelsson, who compared the site to "cars that can be driven faster than the speed limit".

While the accused are portraying themselves as "digital libertarians," Monique Wadsted, an attorney representing the media firms, claimed the issue was not about civil liberties but simply about respecting copyright. "It's not a political trial, it's not a trial about shutting down a people's library, and it's not a trial that wants to prohibit file-sharing as a technique," she said. "It's a trial that regards four individuals that have conducted a big commercial business making money out of others' file-sharing works, copyright-protected movies, hit music, popular computer games, etc."

"The Pirate Bay has hurt creators of many different kinds of works, from music to film, from books to TV programs," added International Federation of the Phonographic Industries [http://www.ifpi.org/] Chairman John Kennedy. "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."

The Pirate Bay has been raided several times in the past, according to a BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7892073.stm] report, and had nearly 200 servers seized in 2006, an act which temporarily closed down the site. It bounced back quickly with servers operating in different countries, however, and Warg, one of the co-defendants, made it clear that he's unconcerned about this latest effort to take it offline. "What are they going to do about it? They have already failed to take down the site once. Let them fail again," he said in a recent webcast. "It has a life without us."

Sunde, another defendant, denied Kennedy's assertions that the group had made "substantial amounts of money" from the site and claimed that they were essentially judgment proof [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_proof] against any decision against them. "It does not matter if they require several million (kronor) or one billion," he said. "We are not rich and have no money to pay."

I can't decide how I want this one to work out. On one hand, my stance against piracy has been well established and despite their noise about the legal aspects of file sharing, we all know why The Pirate Bay exists. On the other, the kneejerk tendency of media industries to bring punitive litigation against everything that even looks like a copyright violation needs to end; media consumption habits have changed and continue to evolve, yet publishers (most notably in the music industry) have struggled against that change every step of the way. Incentive is required to drag these companies into the 21st century and a few ugly losses in high-profile cases like this would be a good place to start.

The only truly satisfactory outcome? The Pirate Bay guys win the trial, then get hit by a bus while walking out of the courthouse. Sometimes, everybody needs to lose.


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L.B. Jeffries

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Nov 29, 2007
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I'd rant some opinion about this whole thing, but even if they hired a team of Ninjas to remove them, someone else would start doing it. Being broke and not giving a s*** tend to go hand-in-hand.
 

Ronwue

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Oct 22, 2008
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Interesting. Yet I remember a disclaimer stating that they host no files on their sites but links to the files. If the companies win, they will create a dangerous precedent, in which site creators can be held accountable to the stupidity of their users. It's like suing youtube for copyrighted materials being uploaded, which will never win.
 

johnman

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Oct 14, 2008
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As said in the article, just because they are being sued dosent mean that it will stop pirate bay. Its been done before and it failed. If Pirate bays taken down people will simply mirgrate to another torrent site.
 

SirSchmoopy

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Apr 15, 2008
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Sounds like I can then go watch a violent movie by Sony, MGM or Warner Brothers. Murder someone and then sue the Mexican Government for not allowing me to ride magical ponies during day light hours. Oh wait? This isn't make believe land? I can't make up my own laws then sue people for them? Damn it.


Going after the wrong people. If people want to commit crimes and download and share illegally they are going to do it. This is like going after the guys who make the metal that get used to make the guns that someone would buy to commit murder. If you shut down the Pirate Bay, another site will take it's place and by the time you shut down that one, another site will take it's place. Okay well not reallllllly but you get the point.
 

kir4

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May 1, 2008
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The unfortunate topic and view of this IS that it has become a political issue. It has been taken far beyond "hey we just want to have money where money is due" to something close to, "I want the names of every person who has ever touched your site via any kind of connection. I want you to turn yourself in for under the plea of grand theft. I want you to shut down your site; if you do not comply we will have no choice but to kill you.

Sincerely,

the MPAA and any music company. Sony, Apple, Microsoft, etc etc"

They really have no control here its violating our rights to net neutrality. If they shut down a torrent site. What's not to say they can't shut down other sites. Which then will lead to you only being able to access what they see fit. It is a downward spiral with no happy ending. The best idea is to count those illegal torrents into your yearly losses. Kind of like how retail does for shoplifting.
 

Scorched_Cascade

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Sep 26, 2008
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If pirate bay goes down then as stated above people will just relocate; off the top of my head alone theres mininova and usenet. This isn't even mentioning the fact that the internet is impossible to police and if a crack down happens people will just IRC complex links to each other I'd imagine.
 

Sir Ollie

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Jan 14, 2009
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kir4 said:
They really have no control here its violating our rights to net neutrality. If they shut down a torrent site. What's not to say they can't shut down other sites. Which then will lead to you only being able to access what they see fit.
True they don't, and your second point means they could close youtube for people uploading films clips etc.
 

AndyFromMonday

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Feb 5, 2009
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They are innocent. Why? They are not hosting Illegal files on they're computers, they are just hosting the site, nothing more.
 

Alphavillain

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Jan 19, 2008
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The scourge of copyright infringement is undoubtedly the biggest threat to the world, far more than environmental catastrophe, terrorism, or rogue states. Without PirateBay the world would be a happier place.

:)
 

AndyFromMonday

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Alphavillain said:
The scourge of copyright infringement is undoubtedly the biggest threat to the world, far more than environmental catastrophe, terrorism, or rogue states. Without PirateBay the world would be a happier place.

:)
Happy or not, they still can't take down the site nor put the guys in jail, they haven't done anything Illegal. The only ones who have are the ones who uploaded the content, so the most they can do is...sue everyone who uploaded illegal crap there.
 

The_Prophet

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Sep 3, 2008
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What do the companies want? They already have MASSIVE amounts of money and now they want to take away the place where poor/not that wealthy people get their stuff?
 

Alphavillain

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AndyFromMonday said:
Alphavillain said:
The scourge of copyright infringement is undoubtedly the biggest threat to the world, far more than environmental catastrophe, terrorism, or rogue states. Without PirateBay the world would be a happier place.

:)
Happy or not, they still can't take down the site nor put the guys in jail, they haven't done anything Illegal. The only ones who have are the ones who uploaded the content, so the most they can do is...sue everyone who uploaded illegal crap there.
Yeah, I agree. But if they catch one or two people they can always make examples of them. If someone is basically stealing someone's property (intellectual or physical) it goes beyong civil cases (suing people) and firmly into the realm of criminal activity. It depends if private individuals are prepared to take the very small risk of being caught and being made a big example of.
 

Zeeeeee

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Feb 16, 2009
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Switzerland? Switzerland!? S-w-i-t-z-e-r-l-a-n-d? Switzer.....land? Seriously....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay

The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden

Sweden

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/europe/sweden_pol96.jpg

Trail in Sweden

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2236529/pirate-bay-trial-begin
 

unangbangkay

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Oct 10, 2007
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If nothing else, TPB's position that they don't actually host the content is defensible. The site is merely a (very large) torrent tracker, and you don't even need a tracker if the torrent itself is available by other means, and has an adequate amount of seeds.

As for the media firms' argument, there should be at least evidence that TPB's owners profited directly from the sharing of copyrighted content via the tracker. Assuming that they actually did make money through operating TPB, it would likely have to be via banner ads and the like, and those are only indirectly connected to the sharing of copyrighted material. After all, TPB also facilitates legitimate content sharing (or can at any rate).

Furthermore, TPB is not the sole tracker of its content. A seed is free to upload the same content to btmon, isohunt, mininova and the thousands of other trackers available including the TPB, and as such the case can't be against only them.

Such a complex issue.
 

Jamash

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Jun 25, 2008
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I like the stupid analogy the defence lawyer is using, comparing Pirate Bay to
"cars that can be driven faster than the speed limit".
If I may extend this analogy, Pirate Bay is a street racing Supra with nitrous, racing seats, a racing steering wheel, a racing spoiler and body kit, slick racing tires, a turbo-charged engine tuned to 800HP, an anti-speed camera/police radar detector and vinyls saying "Speed Limits Are For Pussies!" emblazoned on the side.

I mean the site is called Pirate Bay for fucks sake, it's illegal intentions are obvious.
 

Anton P. Nym

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Sep 18, 2007
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The Pirate Bay guys make me gag. Even though I'm very much of two minds about file sharing, that it's a great way to distribute big files but horribly prone to abuse, the self-righteous posturing of these twits makes me root for the "hit by a bus" resolution even though I know it's wrong to do so.

-- Steve
 

kir4

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May 1, 2008
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ph3onix said:
What do the companies want? They already have MASSIVE amounts of money and now they want to take away the place where poor/not that wealthy people get their stuff?

That's the point.. Whenever they loose money in their Q4 analysis', whether it be planned or not. They always look to what could be the most major loss of income. Figure it this way:

Let's say hypothetically, BMG releases a new album from well known musician A, They forecast a 1million copy revenue within the first week. If it fails to reach this goal they assume its because it was massively pirated. It has literally become a target where they just predict and sue for things that haven't even happened yet. MPAA does the same thing, they actually say they didn't make the money they were hoping on a certain [insert anything here] because it was pirated. It has been their argument the whole time, the big bad company plays the "Oh poor little ol me I cant make it in today's society with all these leet pirates." Go and read their threats on tpb's forums.. It's literally staggering at what they threaten and make up. It's offensive to anyone with a brain to think that they can bully someone on grounds of lies.