Submitted by Old World 1, New World 0. The four defendants in the landmark The Pirate Bay case, taking place in Sweden, have all been found guilty, and sentenced to one year in jail. They also received a hefty fine of USD 3.58 million to 17 American media companies, among which are Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM Pictures, Columbia Pictures Industries, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, and Activision. The defendants have already stated they will appeal the decision.
The four defendants have been fould guilty of being accessories to breaching copyright law. For all the goody two shoes on OSNews, The Pirate Bay is a website that in and of itself doesn’t host any copyrighted content, as it only hosts .torrent files. The craziest little detail that will most likely be overlooked by most news outlets? They have only been found guilty of having made just 33 copyrighted files available for illegal filesharing. And for that, you get one year in jail, and a 2.75 million EUR fine. Perspective, anyone? I could kill someone in this country and be out on the streets sooner.
The media companies are obviously full of glee. “Today’s verdict is the right outcome on all three counts. The court has also handed down a strong deterrent sentence that reflects the seriousness of the crimes committed,” said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s boss John Kennedy, “This is good news for everyone, in Sweden and internationally, who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will be protected by law.”
The Pirate Bay founders, Peter Sunde, Carl Lundström, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, have already stated they will appeal the decision.
(fail)
I hope the appeal is successful. TPB people are a fine bunch of freedom fighters and I’d hate to see them go down for standing up for the truth.
Freedom fighters? Exactly what are they freedom fighters for? Free Music? They may stand against the RIAA/MPAA but that is not what this case was about. If you want to fight the big megacorps then go for independent labels, don’t distribute their works (legally or illegally)
Standing up for the truth? Exactly what truth might that be?
They are the controllers of a very prominent bit torrent tracker. They have voiced their opinion that they believe they are not breaking the law and that if their users are breaking the law then it is the users problem. This puts them at the forefront of the battle of users copying entertainment versus the producers but it does not make them freedom fighters.
Let’s just call them what they are. Avant garde in tech if you must, but not truth seekers or freedom fighters, that is just a load of crap. They facilitate copyright infringement on a massive scale and run a site dedicated to just that. This makes many people happy and gives them easy access to free copies of media but that is it. This may or may not be legal in Sweden and honestly I do not care. Legal or illegal, right or wrong, this is what they are doing and what made them “famous.”
Very good post! What was written here is the closest to what I consider the truth about the whole subject. I find the arguments defending them to be rather immature and poorly thought out. They were not fighting for any rights or freedoms, other than the freedom to promote piracy. Honestly I really could give a damn, but what bugs me is the disingenuous defense given by their defenders. The truth of the matter is people are just nervous their favorite site to obtain pirated software and movies may go away.
The only thing that bugs the living shit out of me is that way too many of the people that defend PB, just happen to be the same people whining about DRM, anti piracy protection, and copy protection schemes. How f**king dumb does one have to be to not connect the dots.
I DO have a problem with locking up people who provide a service which CAN be used to do something illegal.
I guess this will be overturned, even if it has to be at the third instance.
CAN? ffs! the thing is called “pirate” bay. what did you expect? At least name it “torrent” bay.
Also there’s no reason why they can’t only index legal torrent.
You guys are only pissed off because getting illegal content off the Internet will get slightly harder. Don’t worry lol, there are still many ways to steal media.
Edited 2009-04-21 16:20 UTC
This is indeed very interesting. If you rape a 15year old in Sweden you get in average 6 months jail. So conclusion: Building a search engine for Torrents is twice as bad as raping a child.
This is so sad… luckily Pirate Party exists!
Rape or statutory rape? This may sound like an incredibly dumb question, but you have to understand that in most (all?) localities of the United States it is a crime for someone over 18 (or something in that area) to take a 15 year-old to bed. This is called statutory rape, even if it is consensual, whereas non-consensual intercourse is always simply “rape”.
If a Swede would serve only 6 months for the latter, I see your point.
Ye know too much.
As far as I know (IANAL) you cannot be taken to court (here in Sweden) for having sex with a minor if he/she agreed on it.
Besides, I know people who have beaten their girlfriends and even confessed to it, without even a fine or a single night in jail. Though a friend of mine recently gave away a number to a drug dealer to someone who wanted to buy some, they recorded his call and now he is being prosecuted (my friend, not the dealer). Justice is a funny thing.
Well, at least we live in a free democracy where the people are in power.
Not that it matters much, but usually in European countries the age of consent is 16. It is considered that below that age you’re not mature enough to give your consent, so if someone over 18 has sex with someone below 16 (and not below 13), it’s statutory rape. Below 13 it’s rape, no matter if the girl (or boy) gave consent and there was no violence.
Yet in many countries a 14 year old having sex with a 12 year old will see the 14 year old placed on a sex offenders list for the rest of their life (regardless of whether there was consent or not) and also in many countries a 13 year old who is accused of committing a crime such as murder will be tried and sentenced as an adult.
So in general, the law is an ass…
Edited 2009-04-18 01:13 UTC
I think you will find that this occurs mainly in the English speaking world. The age of consent for females is typically 12-14 in most other countries.
I would imagine that a lot of people would be in favor of it, too. Democracy does no good when the people themselves are OK with their government violating personal freedoms. And there are few plights more hopeless than being subject to the tyranny of the majority.
Off-topic:
Statutory rape in Sweden has been a crime since 2005. If someone under the age of 15 has sex with someone three years older, then the older person can be convicted of statutory rape and be sentenced to 2-6 years. Whether the younger person has given consent or not is a moot point since people under the age of 15 are not legally able to give consent.
“Regular” rape carries a sentence of 2-6 years, and if the crime is violent in nature, the sentence is 4-10 years.
Except that the penalty for raping 10000000 of those 15 year girls would probably be a lot worse than the one year they got for contributing to pirating of 10000000 movies. Assuming that linking to pirated material is a crime, then that punishment is not really that bad.
Don’t get me wrong…I don’t think it should be a crime to only link to content, but I think your argument is BS.
Edited 2009-04-17 15:30 UTC
And your argument is wrong because you’re assuming that the victims are the movies. The victims in this case is if one we’re going to use your argument are the media companies and not the movies themselves.
Regarding the ‘pirating of 10000000 movies’ – how can you compare piracy where nothing is objectively lost to rape where something objectively is stolen off the victim. The best way to describe piracy is this; lets assume your next door neighbour has a garden statue you like. You like it so much that you take a picture of it and go to a sculptor to get an exact duplicate of it made so you have a copy. Because you have copied the statue – has your neighbour objectively lost anything (apart from being able to boast having the only statue of that form in the street)?
This ‘pirating of 10000000 movies’ that media companies raise is nothing short of a ruse because it is based on the principle that every person who downloaded a movie were going to purchase a ticket to the theatre or purchase the DVD but due to piracy availability chose not to. I can tell you here and now that I have downloaded movies with no intention of ever actually going to see it – so if the pirated version wasn’t there I still wouldn’t have gone to see it.
Edited 2009-04-17 19:53 UTC
With your logic how can you say something was stolen off the rape victim? They still have their body. OK, they may have lost their virginity but their body remains. No, I do not approve of rape just pointing out your logic. I feel piracy and rape should not even be compared. Nor do I feel the punishments should be compared. Rape is horrible and illegal. Piracy is illegal. Those who do either and get caught should not cry when their punishment does not seem fair. Ask the victim if the crime against them seemed fair. Piracy also can not be justified by claiming you would not have bought the product. It is still piracy. Buy it or go without. Anything else is breaking the law.
Edited 2009-04-18 00:31 UTC
I think that analogy does not hold very well, because you are trying to imitate the sculpt by using other artist work. So its production cost is very similar. You are just taking the idea. It would be like I have a movie I really like, so I buy a copy and hire different actors to perform that movie. Its cost would be closer to the original movie.
I think a better analogy would be taking a picture to a painting you like and then send that picture to a print shop to print a poster of it. The cost of production here is very low or not that high as hiring an artist to do a replica.
Edited 2009-04-18 03:53 UTC
The number of files included in the case was not even near that. Besides, this is a case against money, rape is a crime against a person. Please, there should be some difference. The worst thing that can happen with a crime against money is that someone gets broke. The worst thing that can happen with a crime against a person is death, or a lifetime in your fathers basement including him raping your kids, whichever is worst.
Anyone?
Seems like it is in fashion.
Seriously though, did not Benito Mussolini say that fascism was when Corporations and Government combine to create laws for the populace to obey?
Is that NOT what a fascist state is?
-Hackus
PS: RIAA, MPAA can suck my <censored>
Glad I’m not the only one to see the fascist connection. 100% agree, *collusion* between corporation and states is just fascism — especially when dissidents are sent for 1 year in prison.
Is this a strong word? Yes. I regret they deserve it!
This is where we are heading in society – where governments control everything that we do and where business does deals with governments to play them above the law and twist the law(s) to suit their own desires.
We are heading down a far worse road than what George Orwell envisioned in 1984 – in that, the government was it, business, individuals all had to obey. Our modern fascist governments (led by the US, UK, Germany and Australia, amongst many others) are destroying our individualistic rights, whilst empowering themselves, and empowering business and making business largely immune to the laws that affect the ordinary populace.
This is not going to get better. There will be no government that comes along and reverses this trend. People go into politics for power, not for righteousness, no. The only way we will overcome this is civil disobedience, and mass civil disturbance, whilst tearing down the fabric of modern governments. Pretty much what is happening in Thailand at the moment. And even then, we see governments are quite happy to involve their military powers and kill ordinary people, who in reality, are sticking up for their rights, and for what is *right*.
It’s a pretty sad, f–ked up world we live in, and it’s only going to get worse. Far worse. I’m glad I have a limited lifespan, it limits how much I will have to see.
Dave
Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but if you really believe nothing will get better, and the best thing you can say is that you’re glad you have a liited life span so you won’t have to see it, why are you alive? You don’t have to be, you know, if you really can find nothing to look forward to, you might as well end your suffering now.
Or, are you just being overly dramatic, perhaps for effect? That seems more likely.
Having said that, I wish I could disagree with the main points of what you say, but I can’t. Have any of you read The Acts of Caine, by Matthew Stover? In that series, the studios (basically the MPAA) along with other businesses have taken over everything, they haven’t subverted the government… they are the government, and individual rights don’t exist at all, and it happened gradually at first until a catalytic event happened that enabled big businesses to step in and grab complete control.
The thing is, one person can’t bring change, it takes massive unrest and demands for reform as you’ve said… and most people don’t seem to really give a damn–they’re quite happy to sit in front of the latest reality TV show, and Fox News (or whatever equivalent in other nations, in the U.S it’s Fox and similar networks) and get brainwashed and conforted.
It’s enough to get one depressed if dwelled upon ad infinitum, but though one person can’t change the world, one person might be able to change just their corner of the world a little bit. Not much, but enough tiny stones will start a rockslide if pushed just the right way…
Yes, you are correct in your assertions – I am trying to shape those around me with the *real* truths of the core problems, sadly, most people have been so deeply brainwashed that anything other than the BS that the think is hearsay.
As to your other point, my personal, theological, and religious viewpoints do not allow me to take the path that you’ve outlined. Plus, I intend to be as much of a thorn in the backside of society as possible for the duration of my life. Having to put up with all of this BS is enough, I’m giving a bit back 😉
Cheers,
Dave
Have you ever stopped to consider that your so called *real* truth is a bunch of crap you’ve been taken in by and the so called “deeply brainwashed” people are rational people who’ve seen through your faulty analysis. Just because people disagree with you doesn’t mean that you’re right and they’re brainwashed.
You can believe that if you want. I’m very positive that history, if it’s remembered at all, will prove me right.
Dave
Most people are.
I have enough friends who are conspiracy nuts to have found an inverse correlation between how sure someone is that they have The Truth(tm) and how wrong they probably are.
Such penalties should be extended to all sites that index torrents that are of illegal nature. I can only hope that someday all warez/illegal content site managers will be put in jail.
I’m not even going to waste my time arguing with you, so I’m just going to paste what I said in another forum:
How much did they pay you to write this crap? Do you seriously think that one lousy court ruling is going to end file-sharing? You are as delusional as your corporate puppets are.
P.S. I’m a pirate too…whoohoo…careful…
Edited 2009-04-17 21:55 UTC
Oh boy! Maybe we’ll see Google fall to the media companies next! Search for anything and include “torrent” in your search terms, and who needs The Pirate Bay? I’m sure there are billions of .torrents in Google’s cache too. Same goes for Yahoo, and even Microsoft (though using their Live search is about as pleasurable and useful as sawing your own foot off).
This decision is a loss for everyone, perhaps especially the media companies. They’ve just moved the arms race to the next phase. Now that it’s illegal to host a search engine, technologies like Tor will become more prominent. Distributed torrent indexing anyone? Setting up a whole P2P web-ecosystem, outside of the usual definition of “server” and “client” wouldn’t be too hard. There are many P2P protocols out there already.
Y’know I have purchased maybe two or three music CDs in my life. I own hundreds of movies, however – legally mostly ( I buy them when the prices fall to where they should be ($5 or less) ).
I am a pirate – I even frequented The Pirate Bay.
I download my movies now when they are new because I do not have time to waste at a nasty movie theater ( nasty, smelly, imbecile humans ) and I am not about to be forced to wait months and months before a legal DVD version is available.
I remember back in the day when the internet was barely even called such a thing and a reoccurring discussion could be heard from almost any American’s mouth: how to evolve with times.
I specifically remember when file sharing started taking off – for music in almost complete exclusivity – and the immediate recognition that the recording industry would need to evolve so as not to be overwhelmed by the freedom of ‘archivable’ data transmission.
The math done by experts predicted that the industry would face a hard time if they failed to act to provide a legal and simple manner by which their product could be purchased in a digital format. The recording industry looked at the up-front cost of evolving versus their profit margins and stock holder expectations and elected, instead, to remain idle ( at their OWN peril ).
At that time dial-up was the norm, and it would take more than an hour or so to download a single song. The internet was a much smaller world, with AOL being thought of as being the internet itself. Then came Napster. And the news stories. And the lawsuits.
The correct reaction would have been to out compete AND file suit. Instead the industry decided to simply file a lawsuit. The kids behind Napster said in, IIRC, their first interview that they tried to talk to various heavy-weights in the industry but were unable to get them to understand the concepts of non-physical mediums as a profitable venture.
Napster should have been ad-funded, with a different ad for each song downloaded, with proceeds split between Napster and the recording companies & artists. These old-school idiots saw that they only would make up to a few cents per download – they didn’t get that they would have a much larger pool of buyers with considerably lower production costs and even lower distribution costs.
They didn’t realize that a $3 profit for each of a million album purchases paled in comparison to 50 cents per album with what would easily be 100 million downloads of the biggest favorites. Little did they also fail to realize that many will prefer the physical medium regardless of the price or the digital alternative – audiophiles & the general populace in fact.
Even today, with the many alternative ways of pirating any given product, most sales are in line with the underlying economic and political environment. Some media has taken a larger hit from this, as it was so destined.
Any given sell item is destined to see less sells if they have become relatively more difficult to purchase. It doesn’t matter even if the item is or is not otherwise available, a fall in sells will happen if it is harder to purchase.
Now, the bar for access is simply typing a few keys and a couple clicks of a mouse button – then you have access to ALL the songs you can find. And you also have movies, games, etc….
That is a LOW bar. The price is only a part of the picture. A rather small part, overall ( as is being proven with the iPod fad ). Access is key.
Just think about it. I don’t own an mp3-player, I don’t have a use for one. I have a radio in my car and a bunch of computers and a TV which is connected to one of my computers. This is an increasingly common scenario. I don’t own a CD player, I don’t think. That is odd, certainly. Heck, my only working DVD players are in computers. I do have an old tape deck system, though – and a few tapes.
I am not old, I am only 27. I’m not stuck in the past, simply I’m in the near future already. In order for me to LEGALLY purchase any given album, I have to get in my car and drive AT LEAST 25 miles or so, then I have to HOPE the store has what I want. I have to deal with partially uplifted & slightly evolved lemurs the entire time, doing my best to wake a few of them from their stupor just so I can get away from their painful theta-heavy energy fields.
THEN, I have to drive home again. I can’t enjoy my CD in the car – I only have a tape deck which doesn’t work anymore ( though the radio is good enough ). Once home, I can’t play the CD until I have started the process of encoding the data into a longer lasting format ( though at least I can do this at a nice 320kbps ) which is also much more accessible to where I listen to my music most – at home ( anywhere at home, in fact ).
Then, I finally put the CD on my desk, where it adds to the clutter of CD cases and other current paraphernalia until I finally sort things up and throw the disc into a plastic bin for physical archival.
All that, normally just for a single song – maybe two. Which brings me to the final point.
Are YOU really willing to pay $20 for a single song? Considering most people only like one or two songs per album, $20 has become too high of a price to pay. Back in the day $20 was all their was. That was a monopoly on the medium. That has ended.
Now more and more artists are getting smart and embracing the internet, as has Apple with their silly little store. The model ain’t a bad one, but the prices are still too high. It will slowly break under its own weight, but that pressure will merely lead to lower prices and greater users. The happy medium will be found.
Remember – there are 7 billion potential customers in a fully connected world.
–The loon
PS – yeah, I rambled on…and on… and ….
EDIT: eh, geez.. how’d I miss that??
Edited 2009-04-18 08:37 UTC
OMFG!! My freedom is being compromised
They won’t let me illegally share stuff 
Ok it seems like if I’m against theft and criminal activity, I get -9 negative points.
If I go steal your car stereo, and whatever other items are in your car, will you give me my points back plz plz plz? **makes puppy face**
Edited 2009-04-18 14:11 UTC
I’m not taking any side but I bet that the Judge & Jury are the kind of people that believe the internet is a “series of tubes” and command line interface is evil…
Edited 2009-04-17 11:54 UTC
What makes you think Sweden has a jury-based judicial system ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Sweden#Lay_assessors_and_juries
The “tubes” meme is sorely overly used. Besides being a decent analogy for the audience, it seems that most have no context on the history of it.
Like it or not, the record companies see themselves loosing money, and the brat-like attitudes of the “me” generation are right out front with extreme disregard.
This last part what you said really does strike a note. There truly is a sense of entitlement of today’s generation that believes they should just not have to pay for anything anymore, everything should just be free for them, without really explaining who pays for the costs.
Makes me think about the crowned parasites during the french revolution. They didn’t understand why this unwashed mass of peasants didn’t want to pay their taxes. After all the king had done for them, allowing them to eat meat once a week and stuff, how ungrateful they were…
Sheesh, that analogy makes no sense what so ever. These studios are not taxing anyone. They are charging for a non-essential service; you dont have to send ANY money to them or consume any of their products. I could see if they were food producers trying to keep people using their seeds to grow their own food….but these are ENTERTAINMENT companies. Please get some perspective.
I thought the analogy was directed at those who think they are entitled to something for nothing. When they find out that people don’t like that, they are surprised or, in this case, found guilty because they didn’t stop the tyranny.
What entity exactly do you think creates and enforces these laws that they punish others with? The studios are indirectly taxing others through government enforcement mechanisms and laws designed to give them monopoly status for their material where it would not exist in a free market, or at least not in a form we would recognize today. Those companies receive special privileges from government and in exchange we are supposed to get fair use rights as a minor concession.
Intellectual so-called “property” is not affected by the laws of economic scarcity and therefore those who utilize these mechanisms are dependent upon the government to enforce their artificial monopoly upon the rest of the population, often with the effect of slowing economic and cultural progress.
This does not mean that there would not be any agreements regarding what we now consider intellectual “property” in a free market, the difference would be only what could be achieved through contractual relations and showing that taking others ideas without giving them credit is a considerable vice that should not be tolerated. As it is today the middlemen who control the distribution of content are typically the ones to be enriched and not the creators of the ideas themselves. This problem has been lessened to a greater degree in recent years, but it still remains an issue.
This government-granted monopoly has unseen effects upon the rest of the economy as well, as pointed out by Frédéric Bastiat almost two hundred years ago. We have no way of knowing what music and culture was not created because of this interference.
You’re right. Nobody is forcing me to watch movies put out by these companies. I’m sure there’s a thriving market of mainstream independent cinema. I’m sure I can go to a shop and buy a nice, long, full length feature film produced by someone NOT a member of the MPAA. How about going to the local cinema to see it on the big screen? Yep, that’s definitely possible today. There’s plenty of competition in this world, and always room for a budding young director to get all the finance he needs for a risky movie that might not fit the current trends of super heroes, romantic comedies, and movies of books. Sarcasm aside, Joss Whedon showed during the Writers’ Strike, with Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, that a director doesn’t need a movie studio or a TV network to make something entertaining. And he’d never have got that by a board of executives for television or cinema. As long as those bastards in suits are restricting the flow of creativity, I feel they do owe me, for crippling the entire evolution of western culture.
As for music, most of mine either comes from Jamendo or OC Remix, so there really IS a good independent scene there, no sarcasm.
Edited 2009-04-17 22:39 UTC
i’ll get downvoted to hell for this. but, the ‘me’ generation is truly the horde of baby boomers. they consume like no other, with little to no regard for the future and for others. it is their ineptitude and lack of accountability that has done a number on the world’s economy. it is their marketing thinktanks that have created the hannah montanas of the world and convinced today’s young people that they *need* all of this mass-market drivel.
the thing is, they thought that people would just keep on spending forever and ever. well, it freaking backfired on them. big surprise there. their cartels grew bigger than we should have allowed. they refused to embrace technology and evolve with the times. screw them.
this supposed ‘me generation’ of today has done WAAAY less damage than what we are stuck with right now at the hands of these wretched douches. cry me a freaking river, kids download music. boohoo. well, the baby-boomers turned investment into a get-rich quick scheme. destroyed the value of real estate. turned art into a mere commodity. waged freaking unjust war.
i am so sick of blaming young people for what is essentially the fault of greedy old men in suits.
it’s because of these people that so much technology is being created specifically to LIMIT what people can do. i remember cringing years ago when first learning about DRM, thinking to myself “gee, so this is how they’ll ruin things”. it’s extremely depressing how technology used to be so empowering. now, you have to train yourself to get around artificial limitations just to function.
screw them.
Beautifully said – There are a few baby boomers out there who understand things but the vast majority find it a hell of a lot more convenient to use my generation as the whipping boy their failure to get a grip with a changing world. What is even worse is the belief that they shouldn’t have to compete for positions with companies – that they are entitled to a position after a certain period of time, “I’ve been here for 20 years therefore I an entitled to become a manager”, “I’ve been here for 20 years and I shouldn’t have to compete with a younger employee who is smarter and more efficient”.
What I find funny though is there is a backlash within this generation against many of the things pushed by the baby boomers. There is active rejection of political correctness, females are now telling the self appointed ‘feminist leaders’ to go take a hike and allow people to decide what they want to do (instead of these feminist elite’s wagging their finger in disapproval of a female who decides to be a stay at home mum). So I have a lot of hope and maybe the next generation will finally purge the last remnants of the the baby boomer generation where the pyramid scheme of government monopoly on social welfare (and pensions) is given a good hard look at and regulation of peoples personal lives by way of the war on drugs is finally recognised as being an ill-conceived policy.
Edited 2009-04-17 20:12 UTC
<Since_Were_Off_Topic>
I hate to break is to you mate but when Gen X & Y get old they’ll behave exactly the same as the Baby Boomers. You see, when the Baby Boomers were young they radically rejected the materialism of their parents. What once were Hippies are now the grey old fogies in suits.
Once Gen X & Y start acquiring enough property, cash, status etc they too will seek to defend their position from later generations. The problem will be Gen X & Y will be so much more techno-savvy that their tyrrany will be much harder to avoid (unlike the bumbling Boomers). It is inevitable that the ideals of (most of) the young will be corrupted as they age.
The problem you see is attachment to things (material & status). The only way to stop it is to let go of that attachment – which nearly everyone cannot do (“Oh I can’t, I’ve got a family to feed, a mortgage, and a BMW to buy so it’s ok if I get laws passed to rip-off young artists and their fans”).
Don’t think you are immune to this effect or you’ll make the same mistake as the Boomers.
</Since_Were_Off_Topic>
ps. Good on you Eugenia for rejecting the RIAA and “copyright infringing” stuff. That’s leading from the front!
Edit: typos
Edited 2009-04-17 20:38 UTC
You can’t talk your way out of the fact that the multi-trillion dollar debt incurred during the Reagan administration was unprecedented in the history of the United States of America, and resulted the Baby Boomer generation having the distinction of being the first generation to leave the nation less wealthy than the last. If Generation X and Y are spoiled, selfish jerks, it’s because they learned from the masters.
Seeing as though we’re already off-topic here’s another flame magnet…
The baby boomer generation is where this started and it has become worse through the 2nd and 3rd generations (X & Y) but not because they have “learned” from the masters. The baby boomers were the original rebellious generation, it was the age of hippy communes where you flipped the bird at the world and did little other than engage in free sex, free drugs, anything FREE – sex, drugs and Rock ‘n Roll remember.
The problem with Gen X & Y is that the baby boomer generation is responsible for changing the three R’s (Respect, Responsibility, Rights) into the one R – RIGHTS (and always THEIR rights), by introducing (and continuing to introduce) laws that prevent any form of effective discipline of children. Because of those laws people can no longer EXPECT that children will show respect for others and take responsibility for a) doing their fare share of the work and b) being responsible for their actions, in order to earn PRIVILEGES that those children instead see as their RIGHTS. Thus the gen X & Y children have grown into adults who exhibit that same mentality, so as the generations progress the situation worsens. If you look at just about any of the media (government) dubbed “serious” issues in our society they stem from this, and some of the REAL issues never make it into the media and aren’t being addressed because they would highlight the failure of these laws and this way of thinking.
However, someone being held responsible for the actions of SOMEONE ELSE is just wrong, so the wider implications of this decision are concerning. The internet grew as an information sharing medium so torrents and sites that index them are just an extension of that. The fact that they (Pirate Bay) were uncooperative when it came to links to copyright materials muddies the waters a bit, but in a technological world where every desktop computer is equipped with an operating system that can be used for sharing files, and every desktop computer is susceptible to external attacks (yes even Macs and Linux boxes) that can allow stealth activities without the owner of the machine having any clue about what is going on, I cannot comprehend how the laws under which they were judged can be upheld, especially considering the history of the internet. And the question has to be asked “How did these companies know that these links were to copyright material? Surely they didn’t engage in illegal downloading to find out?”
Certainly their name didn’t help the situation, but if they had notices on their site stating that it should only be used for sharing non-copyright materials (and I don’t know if they did because I never used it) then they have fulfilled THEIR responsibility. From that point on the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of those populating the torrent database by making the material available, which is who? The computer’s owner? Well, maybe…
that is a ridiculously defeatist way of looking at the situation.
the boomers have done WAY more to damage their integrity than any generation before or since. as a matter of fact, once they were old enough to grab at power and capital, they changed the rules so that nobody else could have a fair chance. since their generation came into adulthood, *they* have had a firm grip on media and politics. executive vs. employee wage disparity has exploded. excessive data mining and privacy threatening advertising practices have thrived. paranoid surveillance governments have asserted their dominance. nobody has kept them in check because the people with power and money managed to convince all the underlings that if they worked hard enough, they too could have it all. the fangled modern idea of the ‘american dream’, sprawling antiseptic suburbs, living on credit, the nasty 80’s culture of greed and reaganomics was all their creation. and it’s all collapsing now.
and it HAS to.
young (and young-ish, like myself) people don’t have the same chance to ‘make it’ because they’ve usurped all of the capital and property for themselves. it’s extremely difficult for a person my age to own a home or expect a stable job. beacuse of their crappy real estate prospecting over the past few decades, home prices are unnaturally high. we simply don’t have what they did in any case.
people of their generation were lavished with comfortable benefits on the job, such as amazing pensions and health coverage. yet, now that they are in power, benefits to employees have a negative effect on profits… whaddya know? no more pensions… crappy health care.
they were the absolute MOST privelidged and set-up generation ever. and, selfishly, they have hoarded all of the power and resources and refuse to cede power even though their time should’ve been up by now.
it is dangerously presumptuous to say that everybody will follow in their footsteps. especially since THEY created this reality for themselves.
i realize that everybody in that generation is responsible, and ultimately it just comes down to the people with the most power. it will be difficult, but i would rather die than follow in their filthy footsteps.
you know HOW i do this? by not playing the investment markets like a blackjack table, for one. as a musician, by not even considering dealing with the music cartels. by living within my means. by participating in and supporting open source projects. but most of all, by absolutely REFUSING to take it for granted that every generation will repeat the absurdities that preceded them.
bad me. somehow in my pre-submitting editing, i mangled that little paragraph. i meant to say “i realize that NOT everybody in that generation is responsible”. and the “it will be difficult” was the beginning of a sentence that i deleted. grrr. granted, all of that should’ve been obvious, in the context of my post. but, better safe than risk misrepresenting myself i guess. that, and unlucky me didn’t catch the error in time to edit. oh well.
Hmm..maybe they’re loosing money because their business model is obsolete and they’re spending too much on products people don’t want to pay for?
It’s not like they havent cried wolf before. Remember how tapes was supposed to kill the recording industry because you could *GASP* copy records from other people.
If they were living in a country and I was the ruler…all 4 would have been shaved, castrated, and shipped off to a mining camp for 20 years.
I am a capitalist. Companies spent the money to make profit. If you’re on US soil – you do not deserve American citizenship…you belong in China (where everyone pirates/boot leg everything).
Companies indeed spend money and need to, at least, break even.
But…
Don’t you think that 100.000.000$ is a little bit too much to produce a movie?
At least, I want to see a complete list of payments for such a movie to find out where the most money is going to.
I hope you can understand when I say that actors should not make millions of dollars for a few weeks of work. I work very hard and just get around with my pay check. And I should give some of it to overpriced movies? No thank you.
Why do you think you have a right to determine how much or where the mony for media goes? Thats just one of the common “justifications” for “stealing”
Why not go to the store and slip some drinks in your pocket because the margins the soft drink companies are too high?
Copyright infringement does not equal stealing!
-Ad
Still. People are upset that actors make way more money than they actually deserve. I want to see a nurse or a janitor get the same salary as Brad Pitt or Britney Spears.
I am from Sweden so I am not really into the whole ‘the market can take care of itself’ kinda thing, nor do I think that everything should be controlled by the government and the state. But I strongly believe that if you leave the market along it will NOT end up well, just as it won’t if you let a dictator control everything in a country. Extreme capitalism is as bad as extreme communism.
The market has gone crazy. Famous movie stars are making millions and people that actually contribute to an essential part of society barely get around.
However, I think that the biggest problem is the lack of adaptation. A new business model is needed. And it’s not freaking impossible. Linux companies can make money without charging for the software. The fact that they are not as big as Microsoft has nothing to do with the business model. Google doesn’t charge you for using their search function. Facebook doesn’t charge you for registering. We in Sweden don’t pay for health care. You don’t have to pay for borrowing a book at the library. The Metro newspaper is free. There are a lot of stuff that you can give away for free if you are just creative enough to find a business model that’s outside the box.
And no, I don’t think that media should be financed by tax money but I do believe that there are tons of ways to make this happen. Spotify is a great example of letting people consume media without paying.
There is a new generation growing up, and why should they just accept that things will keep on working as they have before? Things always change, for better or worse. But to be successful you need to adapt and change. You need to try new things.
And I agree with a former poster, this generation will be as greedy and full of bullshit as everyone else when they grow up. It’s human nature to be a fscking douchebag.
That is called the water/diamond principle. Between water and a large diamond, which is more valuable to you? Obviously water, since you need it do survive. But why don’t people pay thousands of dollars for water like they would a diamond? Because it’s more rare …
Just about anybody can be a janitor or a ditch digger, but it’s rare to find somebody who can draw $100 million at the box office, or throw a straight fastball at 90mph. That’s the reason they get paid more.
True, but they don’t make money off of the software either. It’s usually something else, like selling support or hardware.
Anyway, most (if not all) the examples of online services you listed that people don’t have to pay for are ad-supported. Is that what you really want… ads plastered all over everything? Personally, I’d rather just pay money for it.
First off, Google, Facebook, Youtube, and Hulu..etc. are all paid for through advertisement. Not much different than radio or TV that is free over the air. In other words they have moved a very old model onto the internet, nothing too innovative. Newspaper may be free, but the ads that pay the newspaper certainly are not. Point is ads can not pay for everything. Ever wonder why your favorite TV show is canceled, even though it seemed to be getting decent ratings? Well the cost the advertisers were willing to pay did not equal the cost to air, so again nothing is free. Personally if given the choice, I would rather pay for something for an ad free environment over ad sponsored any day.
Second, while in Sweden you may not pay for healthcare as many other European nations, there is still a cost. Europeans such as yourself pay a tax rate that is unseen here in the U.S. In fact I find it completely idiotic when fellow Americans whine and complain about taxes. These recent “Tea” parties were just an embaressing joke, considering that 99.99999% of the morons in the crowd were lower-working class dimwits who usually do not even make enough money to pay taxes. But anyways, the point is it is all a trade off in the end. We in the U.S. do not pay high taxes period, but we also do not get free healthcare and higher education. But the notion that you get “free” healthcare is incorrect, it is not free but rather just collectively paid for.
Well said, what you wrote is true.
Seriously, dude. Did you think that I believe that the money appeared from thin air? Who are you and why are you underestimating my intelligence like that?
The point was, again: business model! A different kind. A new one. Yes, the ones I pointed out are ads, taxes, etc. but that does not matter. There are tons of new ways to generate money that we haven’t even thought of yet.
And if you don’t want ads to pay for the music you consume, take a long, long look at Spotify. Really long. Than look at it again. Think about it. It’s ads but… ? You fill in the rest.
And by the way, how can one NOT make enough money to pay taxes when they are a percentage of your income?
You always have the choice to not watch those movies.
That’d require actual integrity, something a great majority of the people on both sides seem to have lost along the way.
And I usually don’t. Not even through BitTorrent.
It’s going to the talent, mostly. Why shouldn’t they get paid as much as they make? They’re the draw and they know it. Until we stop worshipping the ground they walk on, it will remain that way.
I’m a talent too.
I make my company save thousands of dollars each year.
Do you think the saved dollars are put on my banking account?
Do you think my bosses worship me?
You might find it dead normal that some people with some talent get millions. And I too agree that some people with great talents should be awarded! Nothing wrong with that.
But why are only artists talented?
Or big company bosses?
The nurse in your local hospital who helps people day in day out… THAT person is talented and should be awarded.
And that goes for everyone.
Oh dear, it seems you’re a bit confused. You’re not a capitalist, you’re an idiot.
It’s possible (common, even) to be both.
Hypocrite. Piracy is only when the weak commit it, it’s law when the strong ones do it.
Edited 2009-04-17 12:43 UTC
That was over 200 years ago, it’s time to move on.
Maybe you can remind me of the time period in which Dickens was alive. Then you can explain to me what the behavior of publishers in the United States at that time has to do with anyone who is alive today.
1. It is still hypocrisy when you want that everyone forgets your sins just because some time has passed. Just because it was “ok” (legally) 160 years ago doesn’t make it morally correct.
2. This is fundamentally a problem of wealth distribution and added value. The artists certainly generate added value. But who gets to be wealthy?
The point is that this is an issue which doesn’t really depend on a moment in history – how much money do artists make (or at least how well they live compared to the rest of the population during their lifetime). I’d say that the average artist has about the same financial situation as he did 200 years ago – of course related to his time.
I hope you do realize that most of the money in almost all the creative domains goes to the middle man – not to the artist directly. For example a while ago TLC (pop band) was hugely popular. And they got about 5 cents per dollar earned.
What we have now is pirates fighting against middle men, neither of which I like. But I’d much rather have the middle men under pressure, trying to actually generate some added value, than them being left alone.
And the difference between Dicken’s time and now is that the middle men have grown much stronger, have allied and made huge companies which are able to defend their rights everywhere. I don’t believe that many artists will starve, even if they never sell an album from now on. Anyone heard of live shows? Concerts, tours, TV shows, parties, etc, etc?
Edited 2009-04-17 18:50 UTC
The arguments for intellectual “property” remain essentially the same. Certain aspects of life have not changed dramatically in the last couple of hundred years. Outside of dramatic decreases in poverty due to the acceptance of market economies, very little is different.
*cough*global financial crisis*cough*
I’m surprised people didn’t ignore this attention seeker; a quick glance at his profile tells you that in roughly three years he/she has made 45 posts and everyone of them being nothing more an attempt to grab attention by trying to he funny or being a massive troll.
Who really cares?
The fact is, this is little more significant than any 4 random members of the public being prosecuted. The only difference is that they made a website that accidentally, and quite randomly, got very popular.
One way or another, people will carry on copying and sharing, and trying to change that is a bit like trying to stop the sun rising in the morning.
There’s still the ongoing battle against ISPs.
There’s still the fact that encrypted file sharing hasn’t even started to go mainstream.
There’s still the fact that the above combined with knowing a bit more about who you’re sharing with hasn’t even begun, either. Right now, we’re sharing with random individuals on the internet we don’t know, and it’s difficult to prosecute people. Imagine how hard it will get to prosecute people once this large group of people starts breaking down into inter-connected groups of people who know and trust each other?
The fact it sets a legal precedent is significant. While we remain apathetic crap laws will continue to get passed against us and then exemplary cases like this are set up to set a precedent that will guide judicial decisions from then on. This outcome is not yawn-worthy at all.
I agree with that pirating copyrighted material is against the law(for distribution beyond “fair use”, like between family members). However one has to have some kind of perspective like someone said, it is in the eyes of the court more bad to share a movie that to rape a little girl… Thats absurd. Anyway TPB didnt actually share the material, one can argue tho that they aided the crimes(they were sentenced for aiding) but as one that followed the trail I cant beleive that they got a conviction with the incompetense of the prosecution…
No joke.
Google also indexes torrents. I can find quite a lot of pirated material with google search, Yahoo, Microsoft search and many other sites.
If someone ask me where he can find cocain and I tell him there is cocain in Columbia, am I a drug dealer? What if the cops ask me where is the murderer? Telling them where he is makes me a murderer too? I better shut up then! If TPB did indeed copy 33 copyrighted material, they didn’t make a business out of it. Their business is pretty clear and it is not based on pirating. If the “industrials” (or should I say parasites?) do get $33 million from them, let me tell you that they won’t see any of my dollars for a very long period of time. They already have way more than enough.
Yes, you would be close to being a drug dealer if you’d setup a shack to give away detailed information about secret drug sources which drug seekers may have no way of knowing otherwise.
YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT THIS INCORRECTLY.
Never say “pirated material”. Somalian and Indonesian raiders have provided nothing in this case.
Instead say “copyrighted material”. Then you’re in the right frame of mind for seeing how ridiculous this really is. Nearly everything on the Internet is actually “copyrighted” (news sites, blogs, even personal photos posted are copyright by default). Yet on the Internet it accepted that it may all be downloaded for free and without a copyright license needing to be signed.
Personally I think it is better to choose Free Software and music from independent artists and avoid copyright material entirely. Then the companies that are against user freedom will feel the pain when we don’t accept take their stuff so we don’t have to accept their draconian terms.
If you do want something copyrighted then pay the damn license fee – but that is just Feeding The Beast (helping out companies that want to restrict your freedoms).
Avoiding copyrighted material entirely would be a daunting task… For example, free (libre) software is protected by copyright law. Sure, some folks call it “copyleft”, but it’s just a play of words. As for independant artists, they retain copyright on their works even if they are distributing their music for free (gratuit).
To avoid copyrighted material, you would have avoid books, games, news, pictures, software… and pretty much everything you mentioned. Even this website.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I get your point. I’m just finicking as you do with pirated vs copyrighted material… 😉
That said, you mentionned that it’s commonly accepted to download everything on the Internet for free. It’s only accepted because it’s impossible to enforce the law on so many things. Still, it doesn’t mean the authors are forfeiting their rights.
For instance, Getty are suing many commercial websites using their images without permission. Sounds evil, but they have to pay to freelance photographs they’ve hired.
If it shouldn’t be acceptable to include GPL code in a proprietary program, then it shouldn’t be acceptable to take pictures on the Intertubes without permission. It’s not “ridiculous”, it’s being fair.
Is it still lawful practice to record a song from fm radio to tape? Can I give it to my friend without fear of going to jail? Is this different than Internet radio and a HDD? What about VHS or DVR and television? They are illegal too? WTF?
The illegality was the distribution. Making a backup copy, or something akin for personal use is much different than making a movie, or software, available for millions to download.
The problem with PB was they were a mass distribution point for millions, and the fact they flaunted this and stuck their middle finger in the face of everyone was really just not smart. Even their name was bound to attract attention.
With you so far.
Millions of what? TPB have never hosted a single file that was distributed via. BitTorrent. They simply indexed the torrents. The Pirate Bay has not distributed a single byte of unlicensed material.
Notice what the article says: they were found guilty of being accessories of breaching copyright law, not that they were doing it themselves.
Yes but that isn’t the argument that the post I am replying to is making.
This is exactly the problem here. TPB apologists advocate moving on from thinking of old, but insist on it when dealing with the notion of torrents and piracy. Indexing is just a technical term. In the end, it doesn`t matter if TPB hosts a single byte of warez. Their game is giving access to pirated material. They even NAME themselves Pirates and flaunt their invincibility. Not for now, they don`t. I am all for open source and less tight media control, but TPB IS piracy, no matter how you look at it. They got their heads in the clouds, and now they will fall down.
And to hide under wings of Swedish laws is kind of contrary to the notion of freedom for everyone. Internet is supposed to be global, worldwide. You cannot eat your cake and keep it a the same time.
Edited 2009-04-18 01:11 UTC
Yes, which means it has a very specific meaning.
TPB just provided an index: it is the equivalent of pointing at a market stall and saying “That one over there”. It is the same as what the like of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have been doing for decades now: the difference being that TPB has specialised in BitTorrent files.
Let me ask you a question: let’s say there are no indexes like TPB. I have a webpage somewhere with a couple of links to a few torrents, some licensed, some unlicensed. If Google indexes my page, is Google commiting the same crime as TPB?
Yes, you are 100% correct, but sadly, law, and judges, and governmental interference make sure that it is not looked at in such a manner.
Money talks, the RIAA and MPAA have a lot of money, and I can guarantee you that there was governmental interference in this case, to make *sure* that the ‘defendants’ lost.
Dave
It might not have been the smartest thing to do, but I can’t help but admire and have respect for their nerve and the guts to do it.
I don’t get it. Do you suggest, that I can copy a song for my friend, but I can’t “distribute” it. What if I have ten good friends? Is it “distribution” already or not yet? What about eleven friends? What if they copy that song for their own friends and so on and after a year one million people will listen that song? Is it mass distribution already and should I go to jail? Where is the border?
You can copy a song off a CD, make a million copies of it even, so long as you keep every copy for yourself. As soon as you give one copy to someone else, that’s distributing, and you have “broken/infringed/whatever-the-term-is” copyright. Doesn’t matter if you hand over 1 copy to 1 person, 1 copy to a million different people, or a million copies to 1 person — it’s the act of giving (or distributing) that is the problem.
If it’s just one or two copies here and there to a couple of people, they probably won’t come after you. But if you’re distributing tonnes of copies of tonnes of copyrighted works to tonnes of people, then they’ll come after you.
Their legal advise indicated they were doing nothing wrong according to Swedish Law (which is not yet under the sway of the laws of the USA, where corruption is so accepted and entrenched it goes by names such as “professional lobbying”). Therefore, they are perfectly entitled to Flip the Bird to people providing illegal (in Sweden) takedown notices.
True it would attract attention. False that having a name including the word “Pirate” is a cause for conviction.
Staying under the radar by choosing an innocent-sounding name and hoping not to get noticed by The Lidless Eye of the RIAA is hardly a sensible legal strategy either.
Wrong!
TPB distributed nothing that they didn’t have copyright over. Their conviction was for “enabling” copyright infringement of others.
Note: People are successfully prosecuted for possession of copyrighted material even if they didn’t distribute it further. Often this encroaches on “Fair Use” rights in countries that have such laws. The media companies are producing laws (DMCA, ACTA) that remove established Fair Use rights, and then getting signal legal cases (eg. TPB) to set precendents so they can override the existing rights you used to have. Make no mistake, this is intentional law-setting by corporate stealth.
You all should visit this site.
http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
They have a really great amount of information online, including two books. One of which is their new book Intellectual Monopoly. I doubt you find any people who are more capitalist than the people on this site. They view patents and copyrights as crony capitalism and interference in the market by the state. Even if you don’t agree with this position I think it is worth the read if you are interested in issues involving patent and copyright.
People needs to stop consuming crappy Hollywood movies and listen more classical music.
I wish to give my two cents here.
First of all – they knew they had pirated material on their website and they never denied that. The porpose of the site was to let people share files with eachother. Pirate Bay made no attempts to hide the fact that they did not care a single bit wether the .torrent files pointed to illegal content or not because of the simple fact that there is no law that says you can be charged for something a user share. It is like if you sell a Honda motorbike that can go 300km/s. It would be stupid to think that if the buyer exceeded the speed limit the seller of the bike would be charged for the crime.
No the outcome of this trial is seriously wrong. A site owner can not be hold responsible for illegal actions by its users. If I would post a link to a .torrent file here – will OSNews be in jeopardy of beeing illegal?
Since the site owner is responsible for the content of his\her website: yes Osnews would be in danger theoretically. But only after they were told to remove the illegal content or the link pointing to the illegal content but they did not do it.
Anyone that hates the RIAA but still pirates their music is the worst kind of hypocrite. If you disagree with the RIAA/MPAA, the only ethical thing to do is not consume their products. If you disagree with big budget hollywood movies, then you better never pirate one.
Don’t whine about how they should be making better content with less money. Obviously they are making things that people want, since their music and movies are pirated by millions. I have no problem with the RIAA/MPAA trying to protect their rights. Sure this sentence is overkill, but what else are they supposed to do? You want something, you either pay for it or go without. It’s not like music or movies is a life essential.
This is nonsense. Disliking movies != disliking the way their parent companies do business.
The MPAA has no product. The people who do the hard work to actually make movies have a product, but the MPAA controls it and exploits it, because they’re a freaking cartel.
Your reply to the guy was similar to that stupid reply Linux wheenies give to people who don’t like the distros: “Linux is only the kernel”, they say, to avoid the real issues the users are describing.
The guy before you was right. If you don’t want the current state of affairs, you simply do NOT pirate and you do NOT buy these corporations’ works. The Gandhi approach WORKS, and it’s the only one that does.
You use Creative Commons and indie stuff, LIKE I DO most of the time (I have minimized my purchases of big RIAA/MPAA relases, and I mostly get indie music). Our mp3 players at home doesn’t have a single pirated song in it either.
I have written more about all this on my blog post (wrote it before this article went live). http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/
I agree with you and would have attempted to say the same thing had you not beat me to it. Unfortunately, at least in many circles our opinion is not shared. I do not understand the entitlement mindset of p2p users.
If you object to a company morally or find the price too high then avoid the product. The p2p generation and opinion of the masses may bring about change to the entertainment industry. In my opinion the change will likely be for the better for the consumer, but the method is not ethical. The ethical way to bring about change is to abstain, not to infringe upon the rights of others.
I say everyone boycott the movie, music and all such industries and go opensource.
Uh huh, good luck getting most people to go along with you. It’s not a bad idea at all, but I’m a realist… face it, they’re producing products that a good number of people obviously want, or they wouldn’t bother to pirate the movies and/or music (if you can call some of that mainstream crap music, that is).
But that is exactly what amazes me so much. There is a DEMAND for a product:
– Music
– Comes as download
– Fast connection
– Small cost
– No DRM, because it makes the product almost worthless
We can see that the music industry fulfills only 3 of 5 wishes their customers have. You cannot expect people to buy an obviously broken product for a huge amount of money.
I guess average people who can pay $60 for electricity, $60 for heating and $25 for Internet cannot be expected to pay more than $10-$20 per month for music.
If they spend this amount for 2 songs or for 200 songs should not matter to the music industry, especially as the distribution costs are really small, and the archives are so huge you could not listen to every song they have in a whole lifetime. And for an amount of a few cents per song, people would simply download the stuff without “test listening” before.
So I should entertain myself by… using and/or programming free/open-source software? What a wonderful pastime.
I guess that installing ports and watch text scrolling for hours can be a form of entertainment to some computer freaks. Ahh, the nostalgia of installing Gentoo from stage 1…
People consome music, movies, video games and other products from these industries for entertainment. Programming or configuring computers sounds like work. While many people enjoy volunteering, I’m not sure your average computer user would trade his games or his music for programming lessons, or listening DeCSS code while driving.
Freedom has died today, those who cant understand this, may proceed to the next comment. Do you really think that this is about the stuipd movies and s*itty music? Wait and see, NWO – Freedom – 1:0
and the battle continues….
The four defendants have been fould guilty of being accessories to breaching copyright law.
Basically they (TPB) are not drug dealers, they are middlemen for the drug dealers. Like pimps or madams. They go around and arrange for meetings between drug dealers and druggies. With no drugs on them, it’s hard for cops to bust them.
Google or Yahoo is more like a phone book. Where, yes you could dial a drug dealer, but they don’t have a special drug dealer section in the yellow pages.
I don’t know if the verdict is a good or bad thing. I do know that it does seem to make some sense to me under the context I described.
Also, I believe they filtered their content for things like child porn, but did not for copyrighted content. I believe that turns a corner on some legal issues. It’s like the difference between a moderated forum and unmoderated. IANAL
-Bounty
….I suppose more people will go to the theater now that the verdict is in.
</end sarcasm>
Not a big deal, I suppose Swedish prisons are like pansions and a year there would not harm them.
Also, I find ridiculous that for rape you get just 6 months. In Russia, this is minimum 3-6 years and up to 15 years in extreme cases. And if you are in prison for rape, everyone there will rape you during all of your sentence.
So, 1 year in pansion conditions is very light sentence.