Pirate Bay Lawyers Make Closing Arguments

[Andy Chalk]

Pirate Bay Lawyers Make Closing Arguments

Lawyers for the Pirate Bay have given their closing arguments in the case against the site, claiming the site offers "completely legal technology" and that what's done with it is "an internet problem, not a Pirate Bay problem."

Attorneys representing Pirate Bay owners Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström argued that while much of the material shared through the site is copyrighted, there is no evidence whatsoever that it is intended specifically for the purposes of piracy, nor that the owners have made any money on it at all. "It is a completely legal technology that is offered by The Pirate Bay. It is an open site where users themselves upload content. There is certainly a lot of copyrighted material but this is an internet problem, not a Pirate Bay problem," lawyer Jonas Nilsson said.

"Bit torrent technology can be used for both legal and illegal means on Pirate Bay in the same way as by MySpace [http://www.google.com]," he continued. "That someone at the Pirate Bay has a cocky attitude or certain political standpoint is not sufficient to issue a guilty verdict."

Prosecutors have requested one-year prison sentences for the four men while a group of media companies are seeking roughly $12.5 million in damages resulting from revenues lost as a result of the files downloaded via the site. "Song writers and publishers all over the world are dependent on having their rights protected by law. The Pirate Bay is disregarding those rights and abusing the creativity of the people who own them," said International Confederation of Music Publishers [http://www.icmp-ciem.org/] Secretary General Ger Hatton. "We are pleased to see the creative community taking a stand in Sweden and we hope the court will deliver an appropriate judgment making it clear that it is not acceptable to run a business based on the violation of the rights of creators."

A verdict in the case is not expected until April.

Source: MCV [http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/p2p-users-await-pirate-bay-verdict-568639]


Permalink

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

as a writer, i uphold Copyright laws. Illegal file piracy is a crime and should be punished. But some files are totally legitimate and should be allowed to be downloaded. The site operators should filter incoming files for possible Copyrights.

 

[Cpt. Red]

as a writer, i uphold Copyright laws. Illegal file piracy is a crime and should be punished. But some files are totally legitimate and should be allowed to be downloaded. The site operators should filter incoming files for possible Copyrights.

If that is the case then Google should also be forced to remove search results.

 

[heliosa]

I'm just wondering, how is the pirate bay making money off of the piracy on the site? And how do they think it's the pirate bay's fault?

 

[Seydaman]

NOOO!!! don't close pirate bay!! where am i gunna get my movies???**Cry**

 

[Seydaman]

I'm just wondering, how is the pirate bay making money off of the piracy on the site? And how do they think it's the pirate bay's fault?

stupidity

 

[PuckFuppet]

Piratebay makes about 1.4K a month in donations and ad revenue.

That's it.

 

[DamienHell]

I'm just wondering, how is the pirate bay making money off of the piracy on the site? And how do they think it's the pirate bay's fault?

Very true, its in no way the pirate bay's fault, its just poor/no moderation. I don't see them getting a guilty verdict, and if they do; theres 1001 sites to take their place, a drop in a very large bucket.

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

as a writer, i uphold Copyright laws. Illegal file piracy is a crime and should be punished. But some files are totally legitimate and should be allowed to be downloaded. The site operators should filter incoming files for possible Copyrights.

If that is the case then Google should also be forced to remove search results.

do you not read at all. I mean sites like Pirate Bay should refuse to host files that are pirated.

 

[Ghost]

I'm just wondering, how is the pirate bay making money off of the piracy on the site? And how do they think it's the pirate bay's fault?

Very true, its in no way the pirate bay's fault, its just poor/no moderation. I don't see them getting a guilty verdict, and if they do; theres 1001 sites to take their place, a drop in a very large bucket.

no moderation is to blame? 99% of stuff on the site is illegal... all moderators do is remove torrents with hidden Trojans and such

EDIT: 'do you not read at all. I mean sites like Pirate Bay should refuse to host files that are pirated.'

........

 

[Dogstile]

I'm just wondering, how is the pirate bay making money off of the piracy on the site? And how do they think it's the pirate bay's fault?

Very true, its in no way the pirate bay's fault, its just poor/no moderation. I don't see them getting a guilty verdict, and if they do; theres 1001 sites to take their place, a drop in a very large bucket.

which tends to evaporate quickly, seeing as new sites are built every day that do the same thing

 

[DamienHell]

I'm just wondering, how is the pirate bay making money off of the piracy on the site? And how do they think it's the pirate bay's fault?

Very true, its in no way the pirate bay's fault, its just poor/no moderation. I don't see them getting a guilty verdict, and if they do; theres 1001 sites to take their place, a drop in a very large bucket.

no moderation is to blame? 99% of stuff on the site is illegal... all moderators do is remove torrents with hidden Trojans and such

EDIT: 'do you not read at all. I mean sites like Pirate Bay should refuse to host files that are pirated.'

........

Probably because they receive complaints about those files, they don't however receive complaints about pirated material (who's gonna complain), but if they are removing viruses then it bumps the moderation level from none to poor, which means they only remove what they get complaints about.

 

[Skrapt]

What I find scary about this case is that the prosecution keeps referring to The Pirate Bay as a 'company', I think it's actually a little sad that after all the evidence presented that they cannot fathom the idea that a website can be run outside of an hierarchical structure where no one is attempting to make money.

Seriously though, I'm not a fan of pirates but to be honest with the industry becoming increasingly aggressive, arrogant and regressive and holding the same sets of values they held 10 years ago - a court of law shouldn't be protecting these guys. The law is there to prevent crime, not to shelter the actual companies from having to adapt their business model to a changing world. And the music/video industries unwillingness to change in the light of recent launches like Hulu/BBC iPlayer/4OD/Spotify just shows that they are not willing to accept that P2P technology can provide a suitable business model and seem to be increasingly willing to put CEO's in court stating on the record that every album downloaded would have been purchased so they are entitled to all those 'lost profits' plus goodwill compensation?

Plus the whole case is a sham anyway, the 4 people charged likely have little/no involvement in the running of TPB anymore and are simply acting as figureheads. Plus the evidence presented by the prosecution simply shows a lack of forethought and knowledge of what they are dealing with.

 

[edgeofblade]

If Pirate Bay goes under, 100 more sites will vie for their usership. Prosecuting these guys is like cutting the head of the Hydra... several more will sprout from the stump.

So what have we learned?

Go to law school. Study copyright law. Get rich prosecuting. Because these guys are never going away, and the industry will never understand why.

no....wait.... someday there will be a super-virus that infects the worlds computers and builds a HUGE P2P botnet with no central control and no head at the top. Think Skynet minus killing humans. ...Or not?!

 

[Fronken]

Yeah, stop internet downloading...that'll work, why dont you stop people from smoking as well?, or perhaps rid the world of alcohol.

Point being: There is no way to stop piracy, there is no way to moderate it, it will ALWAYS be around and if they so shut down 500 torrent sites, there are still 500 more to take their place, It can't be done, so stop wasting money on it, use the money on things that actually matter, Education, Rehabilitation etc...Things that actually make a difference.

 

[Cpt. Red]

as a writer, i uphold Copyright laws. Illegal file piracy is a crime and should be punished. But some files are totally legitimate and should be allowed to be downloaded. The site operators should filter incoming files for possible Copyrights.

If that is the case then Google should also be forced to remove search results.

do you not read at all. I mean sites like Pirate Bay should refuse to host files that are pirated.

Well they don't host any information that is in anyway copyrighted unless someone adds a book or something in the description. All they host are .torrent files which basicly contains links to trackers and some info about the file.

 

[sheic99]

I'm just wondering, how is the pirate bay making money off of the piracy on the site? And how do they think it's the pirate bay's fault?

Very true, its in no way the pirate bay's fault, its just poor/no moderation. I don't see them getting a guilty verdict, and if they do; theres 1001 sites to take their place, a drop in a very large bucket.

which tends to evaporate quickly, seeing as new sites are built every day that do the same thing

That's actually the opposite of evaporation.

 

[SilentHunter7]

I'm just wondering, how is the pirate bay making money off of the piracy on the site? And how do they think it's the pirate bay's fault?

Very true, its in no way the pirate bay's fault, its just poor/no moderation. I don't see them getting a guilty verdict, and if they do; theres 1001 sites to take their place, a drop in a very large bucket.

no moderation is to blame? 99% of stuff on the site is illegal... all moderators do is remove torrents with hidden Trojans and such

EDIT: 'do you not read at all. I mean sites like Pirate Bay should refuse to host files that are pirated.'

........

...except they don't host the files. They host links to bitTorrent trackers.

 

[Skizle]

do they honestly think they can get 12 million off of these guys? Also why dont the media giants go after the real pirates...themselves (seriusly $30 for a Blueray disc and half they crap i dont care about). point being piracy has been happening over thousands of years and we still cannot contain it