Dutch Court Dismisses Complaint Against Pirate Bay Uploader

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Dutch Court Dismisses Complaint Against Pirate Bay Uploader


A Dutch court has ruled that copyright infringement cases are a civil matter that don't belong in criminal courts.

The first-ever criminal case involving copyright infringement in The Netherlands has come to an abrupt end. The defendant, "Stefan K," admitted to uploading 5000 books to The Pirate Bay, but his lawyer argued that file-sharing claims are not criminal matters and should be pursued in civil court. "This rule [of Dutch law] prescribes that in principle intellectual property infringement should be handled under civil law," the attorney said. "Only in exceptional cases is the public prosecutor allowed to prosecute."

Those exceptions are for cases in which the defendant is part of a criminal organization or infringes upon copyright as part of a business. The prosecutor in the case said the policy guidelines relegating copyright infringement to civil court didn't apply in this instance because of the sheer volume of content involved, but the court disagreed and dismissed the case outright.

Neither the publishers of the books nor BREIN, the anti-piracy group who reported the user to the authorities in the first place, have commented on the dismissal. The prosecutor could appeal the case but given the relative reluctance that courts in The Netherlands have shown in pursuing criminal copyright infringement cases, that may be unlikely.

Both the U.S. and the U.K. have shown a far greater willingness to jail people for copyright-related matters; the former operator of surthechannel.com was sentenced to four years in prison [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119085-UK-Internet-Pirate-Goes-to-Jail-for-Long-Time] last summer and more recently, a U.S. court delivered a 40-month sentence and a fine of over $400,000 to a man who pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal copyright infringement.

Source: TorrentFreak [http://torrentfreak.com/court-refuses-to-try-self-confessed-pirate-bay-uploader-130123/]


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Combustion Kevin

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Nov 17, 2011
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"And as the finishing touch, God created the Dutch."

I love this country, or at least most of it's judges, they tend to remain reasonable under minor offences, although they do scold you like an angry parent if you do.
 

Nimcha

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Combustion Kevin said:
"And as the finishing touch, God created the Dutch."

I love this country, or at least most of it's judges, they tend to remain reasonable under minor offences, although they do scold you like an angry parent if you do.
Ironically, most people in the country seem to think judges are becoming too soft on people with some sentences. It's never perfect, of course.
 

Kargathia

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Blablahb said:
...and no charges have ever been filed against the Brein foundation despite their constant use of illegal things to find their victims, like looking up IP adresses (which are considered covered by privacy laws) and even hacking (which is a criminal offense: computervredebreuk).

All in all the Dutch legal situation has been deeply sad in regards to the copyrights inquisition so far.
This is mostly due to BREIN's willingness to drag out court proceedings until the other party is bankrupt - and so far no pro-privacy or pro-piracy organisation has been able to even remotely match the depths of their pockets.

EDIT: brain derp. Forgot that their infringements on privacy are criminal in nature, and would as such be persecuted by the state. To the best of my knowledge these offenses aren't so grave they can be reported by anyone, and to date both the OM and victims haven't instigated any proceedings.

Honestly, I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but it definitely smells fishy.
 

Johnson McGee

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I think it's telling that in most countries the punishment for copyright infringement can be millions in fines and jail time, but for fraud targeting individuals the punishment is normally a slap on the wrist. In addition, there is a huge push to find copyright infringers while the resources police forces and government agencies devote to investigating fraud targeting individuals is pathetic at best. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but it seems clear to me in this case that the laws governing copyright were written with lobbyists' money rather than public good in mind.
 

Hagi

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Johnson McGee said:
I think it's telling that in most countries the punishment for copyright infringement can be millions in fines and jail time, but the resources police forces and government agencies devote to investigating fraud targeting individuals is pathetic at best. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but it seems clear to me in this case that the laws governing copyright were written with lobbyists' money rather than public good in mind.
Which lobbyists' exactly?

Corporate lobbyists would be able to bring in a lot of cash, but certainly wouldn't want the laws we see in this case.
Other lobbyists would want to see these laws but wouldn't be able to bring a lot of cash.

I don't really think there's any group out there that has both massive resources and a desire to keep copyright infringement a civil matter instead of a criminal one.
 

infohippie

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Smilomaniac said:
Gilhelmi said:
More criminals getting away with more crimes.
Troll alert?

Who says he got away with it? It's just not deemed fit for wasting the criminal courts time, nor should it be.
And more to the point, who says he was a criminal? The court certainly doesn't seem to think so.
 

ragestreet

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He did WHAT!? Clearly this man should be given the highest of punishments!
LET 4CHAN HAVE THEIR WAY WITH HIM!

Edit: Just joking. Good on you guy. Sharing is caring unless you're sharing AIDS.
 

Strazdas

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May 28, 2011
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ragestreet said:
Edit: Just joking. Good on you guy. Sharing is caring unless you're sharing AIDS.
What if i share ADS?

Funnily enough, noone reports when lithuanian courts decide its a criminal matter.

Capcha: uncharted island.
Ok, i understand now.
 

Detroit

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I keep forgetting to watch the news here, good thing the Escapist does it for me.
 

Thedutchjelle

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Hurray for the Netherlands.

Although I'm no big fan of pirates, I'm even less a fan of giant corporations who sue people for millions of euros.
 

Pedro The Hutt

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ragestreet said:
He did WHAT!? Clearly this man should be given the highest of punishments!
LET 4CHAN HAVE THEIR WAY WITH HIM!

Edit: Just joking. Good on you guy. Sharing is caring unless you're sharing AIDS.
I'd argue sharing is not caring. =P Pirating books of which the author is very much alive still means you don't care about his need to eat, keep a roof over his head, and so on. Pirating games means you don't care about the basic needs of a team consisting of dozens, sometimes hundreds of people.

So I won't pass judgement until I know which books he uploaded. If they're all of long dead authors, eh, no harm.
 

Lopende Paddo

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Pedro The Hutt said:
ragestreet said:
He did WHAT!? Clearly this man should be given the highest of punishments!
LET 4CHAN HAVE THEIR WAY WITH HIM!

Edit: Just joking. Good on you guy. Sharing is caring unless you're sharing AIDS.
I'd argue sharing is not caring. =P Pirating books of which the author is very much alive still means you don't care about his need to eat, keep a roof over his head, and so on. Pirating games means you don't care about the basic needs of a team consisting of dozens, sometimes hundreds of people.

So I won't pass judgment until I know which books he uploaded. If they're all of long dead authors, eh, no harm.
I'm happy with my country's courts decision to approach this with a leveled head. The law should be just, not just a scare-tactic. And Criminal law should be left for the criminals, not for a guy who uploaded:

010000100110010100100000011100110111010101110010011001
010010000001110100011011110010000001100100011100100110
100101101110011010110010000001111001011011110111010101
110010001000000100111101110110011000010110110001110100
01101001011011100110010100101110!!!
 

Pedro The Hutt

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That implies that you believe that piracy is not a crime. Which is a fallacy, it very much is. It's called "illegal downloading" for a reason. When you download a recent book, film, game, or whatever, you're basically getting it for yourself, without giving the people who worked very hard on that project, any money in return. I'm not sure about you, but that sounds very much like theft to me. Which is a criminal act, as you know.
 

blackdwarf

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I think this is fair. He still can be sued for the act, but not with a prison/criminal record above his head. Getting in prison for this would be ridiculous.

Being dutch, It seems like the dutch knows it will be a long case otherwise and wasn't in the mood.
 

Aeonknight

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Pedro The Hutt said:
That implies that you believe that piracy is not a crime. Which is a fallacy, it very much is. It's called "illegal downloading" for a reason. When you download a recent book, film, game, or whatever, you're basically getting it for yourself, without giving the people who worked very hard on that project, any money in return. I'm not sure about you, but that sounds very much like theft to me. Which is a criminal act, as you know.
inb4 "piracy isn't theft since nothing physical was lost" technicallity.

But other than that I agree with the mentallity you have. It is a crime and it does deserve to be prosecuted. Which court and which legal process is used is just a semantics arguement, which his lawyer was smart enough to pick up on.
 

Eleuthera

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Sep 11, 2008
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Pedro The Hutt said:
That implies that you believe that piracy is not a crime. Which is a fallacy, it very much is. It's called "illegal downloading" for a reason. When you download a recent book, film, game, or whatever, you're basically getting it for yourself, without giving the people who worked very hard on that project, any money in return. I'm not sure about you, but that sounds very much like theft to me. Which is a criminal act, as you know.
Except that there's no such thing as "illegal downloading" in the Netherlands. Uploading can be illegal, downloading is not. That's also why he was tried for "illegal uploading".