Crime Pirate Bay founders sent to jail

enouwee

Non ex transverso sed deorsum
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You jail the shopkeeper if he sells the knive knowing that the buying man wouldn't kill someone without buying it at his shop.
:confused:

Please try again. There has to be something wrong with that sentence.


A) This wasn't part of the defence nor the charges. Copyright infringement has nothing to do with property rights, at least not in Swedish law.

The Four have not been convicted for copyright infringement, indeed there wasn't any by the site itself (that charge has been dropped on day two). They've been accused and convicted of assisting making available.

The verdict wasn't based on technical details but on the intent alone.
 

Ninja_sheep

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Let's just say it without stupid comparisons :p

Google has no evil intentions and just tolerates that some illegal stuff is linked.
This site just purposly links illegal sites, knowing that.

And because usually a crime has to be intended, and google doesn't do that, google isn't doing something illegal/evil.
 

tom_mai78101

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Got a few questions:

1. How are they going to get all those money?
2. Can we help them out by donation?
3. Does Google host links to (torrent files)?

They only give out links to sites who host torrent files, in this case linking from a site to another is downright legal. Torrent files itself, which may contain anything, is a virtual object, or an object "turned" into a virtual object guarded by copyright laws. If Pirate Bay were guilty because of hosting torrent files, they are hosting "the entrance" of it.

It's like links, only what you get is not a valid HTML file viewable by browsers. It's just another file used by Bittorrent and other clients, which should be "a different kind of program that we can describe it as a new browser, browsing a different type of file." In this case, many people believed that Pirate Bay is doing something legal, because they are not linking directly to files, just a small file which, when activated by certain programs, will link to those files.

The judge do believe, that such of activity is known as an indirect linking. Maybe, the companies prefer to describe Pirate Bay as "a place where indirect sharing of copyright files takes place." Maybe, that much-emphasized preferring is known by many as "bribing legally".

Sorry, I don't know if it makes clear of some point of views, but I'm sure there are reasons why.
 

Varine

And as the moon rises, we shall prepare for war
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1. How are they going to get all those money?
2. Can we help them out by donation?
3. Does Google host links to (torrent files)?

Getting the money isn't the government's problem.

Probably.

Google does have torrent sites, not sure if they host them but they show up.
 

Blackveiled

Formerly, Ban-Lord
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Why even bring up Google when it comes to searching for torrents? Of course you can search for torrents on Google, but Google is an internet index, not a website that hosts links to torrents or helping with copyright infringement. They're just making the internet easier to access, so why are you guys even bringing Google up?
 

tom_mai78101

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Does Google have links that directly gives you torrent files, instead of torrent sites?

All I see was Google only link to sites in searches, but did not link to any other kind of files, which makes it legal for Google to link to an illegal site, because it's just a site linking to another site. Pirate Bay had done links that directly links to torrent files. Whatever content it may contains, only the site-files connection may have a greater risk of being against the law. Site-site connections are always legal, no matter what contents the site all contained. Unless blocked by government issues.
 

enouwee

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All I see was Google only link to sites in searches, but did not link to any other kind of files

You didn't follow the news recently, did you? Try the following:
[NOPARSE]http://www.google.com/search?q=filetype:torrent+wolverine[/NOPARSE]
 

tom_mai78101

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It leads me to a search list ofsite pages (bad one) full of torrent files and downloads. It doesn't directly download a torrent file. It fits the site-site connection. Easyshare is a different site. TorrentReactor is still a different site. They are not Google.

It needs to be like this, if you know what I'm trying to say:

Google search -> Any hyperlinks -> A pop-up asking if I want to download this file in Mozilla Firefox. (The Download Manager pop-up, Ctrl+J)

There's no showing any other sites, like IsoHunt, Newgrounds, yahoo!, etc. in between connections. Just Google and the file only.

That way, it can fit the site-file connection.
 

enouwee

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It depends on the website. Most fake or big portals provide alternate content to the spiders than human visitors. Thus, the bots index the torrent file (or a search-optimized version of it) while the visitors get redirected to an ad-riddled page with the download link. The primary goal of those websites is not to provide you the data, but generate revenues from the people looking for that data.

Apart from its cache (which hopefully doesn't mirror the .torrent files or has been deactivated since), Google doesn't store any third-party data.

But in the end, the result is the same, you eventually get what you're looking for. Or, from the perspective of the MAFIAA: you get two for the price of one (both the search engine and the hoster).

EDIT: don't forget that The Pirate Bay guys have been convicted of assistance making available, which is what Google does. It doesn't really matter where the file is hosted. The search engine assists you in finding the .torrent file.
 

tom_mai78101

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But Google only assist users to "search" for a torrent file, while pirate bay assist users by "uploading torrent files and hosting them".

They are placed in different categories.
 

enouwee

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But Google only assist users to "search" for a torrent file, while pirate bay assist users by "uploading torrent files and hosting them".
The torrent files by themselves aren't illegal in any way as they don't contain any information protected through copyright.

Indeed, you can't know what's inside them without completing parts of or the whole download of the torrent's content. A torrent file tells you: the location of the trackers, a bunch of hashes and some filenames.

Now what's the real content of "DVD_20090419_xmwv.rar" ?

Thus, why should Google - as generic search engine - be more or less liable than a highly specialized one? Don't forget the ISPs: they're assisting the users in committing copyright infringement.
 

Varine

And as the moon rises, we shall prepare for war
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As I recall, it's not illegal to download copyrighted files, only illegal to upload. It's illegal, of course, to USE that downloaded file with a copyright if you do not have a legal license to do so.
 

enouwee

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As I recall, it's not illegal to download copyrighted files, only illegal to upload.
That really depends on your national legislation. Some countries still allow personal downloads (for non-commercial purposes) while prohibiting distribution (uploading), while quite a lot of them now forbid both uploading and downloading of copyrighted works.
 

tom_mai78101

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As I recall, it's not illegal to download copyrighted files, only illegal to upload. It's illegal, of course, to USE that downloaded file with a copyright if you do not have a legal license to do so.

That's why I said "site-file connections have a greater risk of being against the law". A bit more on the comparing side...

The torrent files by themselves aren't illegal in any way as they don't contain any information protected through copyright.

Indeed, you can't know what's inside them without completing parts of or the whole download of the torrent's content. A torrent file tells you: the location of the trackers, a bunch of hashes and some filenames.

Now what's the real content of "DVD_20090419_xmwv.rar" ?

Thus, why should Google - as generic search engine - be more or less liable than a highly specialized one? Don't forget the ISPs: they're assisting the users in committing copyright infringement.

Wait a minute. Does law goes accordingly with the word "assist"?

If one would say "ISP assist users in committing copyright infringement", "Google assist users in searching a torrent file", and "Pirate Bay assist users in hosting torrent files", then does that make it all legal?

I think that torrent files are a node the lets the client (Bittorrent clients) connect to a swarm of these transferring nodes, then activates a sharing process of "spreading" the files around, then the user can "download" the file from client to client.

In this case, the torrent files itself is legal. The sharing is legal. But having the file in possession is not.

These are my assumption. Please take it lightly.
 

enouwee

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Wait a minute. Does law goes accordingly with the word "assist"?
If you consiter the recent verdict, yes.

If one would say "ISP assist users in committing copyright infringement", "Google assist users in searching a torrent file", and "Pirate Bay assist users in hosting torrent files", then does that make it all legal?
No, because the end-user action all by itself is illegal. Nevertheless, every other actors beside the uploaders/downloaders aren't doing anything against copyrighted works.

Neither of the actors can be 100% sure that the content being exchanged is legit or is not. The ISP may not know what's being transferred over his network (it could be encrypted), the search engine doesn't know that you're looking for something illegal (it only applies your words to a reversed index) and the hoster doesn't know what data the torrent file points to.

There is a huge difference between the copyright violation itself (done by the users) and the assistance of making available. That's what the ACTA or three-strike laws are about: either breaking the chain you described above or preventing bad users from carrying out their activities.

In this case, the torrent files itself is legal. The sharing is legal. But having the file in possession is not.
The torrent file by itself isn't illegal, while sharing is if the uploader doesn't possess a distribution license for the files he's providing. No private person does hold such a license and the rightholders aren't interested in providing one. They keep holding on their old distribution methods, which are DVDs or CDs.

Rather than making criminals out of their customers, the content industry should seek general compensation (i.e. monthly payment/tax that covers the downloads) rather than lobbying for "protections" that are doomed to fail. Why can I watch/listen to radio or TV for "free", but not get the same movies or songs from the internet? Even if I'm willing to pay, I can't get some particular songs, because they're tied to a country.

Heck, I can't even subscribe to a digital satellite package because I'm living in a neighbour country rather than the country itself.
 

phyrex1an

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EDIT: don't forget that The Pirate Bay guys have been convicted of assistance making available, which is what Google does. It doesn't really matter where the file is hosted. The search engine assists you in finding the .torrent file.
Where the torrent files are hosted is very relevant in this particular case. If it wasn't hosted on their servers then they would probably have been granted immunity according to the law of electronic services. But since the torrent files are stored on their serves, for another reason than caching, they are responsible for it's content and use and thus another part of the electronic services law applies, one part that doesn't grant immunity.
There is a rather long argumentation about this in the verdict. This seems to imply that the torrent files are illegal, something I find very strange, and I haven't found anything in the verdict that confirms this.
 

enouwee

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There is a rather long argumentation about this in the verdict. This seems to imply that the torrent files are illegal, something I find very strange, and I haven't found anything in the verdict that confirms this.

If you happen to have a link to the verdict (preferably english of course), I'd be interested. All articles I found so far were more or less in-depth summaries siding with the one or the other party.

None mentioned that hosting part. Indeed, most stories even state that The Pirate Bay only acts as search engine and points to torrents elsewhere (which is inaccurate of course).
 
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