The Pirate Bay founders sentenced to prison

Can't say I feel too much sympathy- they made millions off of piracy.

Good.

Out of interest how did they make their money? I had no idea they were making profit from it, that's sickening.

Well I cant say I support the verdic. I think the whole process was a crock of shit to be honest.The tech is not the problem - nuff said...

In my not so humble opinion, simply put the current IPR laws are depriving society of the benefit they were created for in the first place. The system needs to change pure and simple...

The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998,^ ("CTEA"), amended and codified in relevant parts at 17 U.S.C. 301-304, and Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act* ("URAA"), amended and codified at 17 U.S.C. 104A, 109(a), are unconstitutional.

To hell with Mickey Mouse and friends!

Update: typo and the rest of the post which was not added for some reason.

^Pub. L. No. 105-298 *Pub. L. No. 103-465

Quoting Haree78,

reply 3

Out of interest how did they make their money? I had no idea they were making profit from it, that's sickening.

because there are a bunch of ads on the site. So both pirates and legit users that go there are giving them money by letting ads display on their screen.

The tech is not problem

According to the article at least, the major thing that was considered was their intent, not P2P technology?

Sweden is a country on Earth?

I certainly didn't realize Pirate-Bay site meant that "some stuff" was illegally shared either, obviously.

If the pioneering Napster adventure triggered the entire music industry into reacting for widespread availability of I-Podding (and what else!) songs to the masses i have to wonder if the "Swedish experiment" will ALSO prove that the web can be made an honest, profitable system based on secured Torrent principles.

This is, quite clearly, an ongoing technological battle between freedom of the consumers & software manufacturing principles of distribution, AFAIC.

Some parts of this is a bit unclear to me.

If they are guilty by intent meaning that they new and did nothing about it, that means a lot of other people are guilty as well because we all know it's happening and nobody is doing anything about it. Am I wrong?

If this is the case then it,s all bull. They took 4 people and crucified them hoping the people will shut up now. That's very low.

Well, no. They created the site with the intention of using it to distribute pirated works. That's a bit different from "not doing anything about it", since they were actively helping. At least, that's my interpretation of it.

Quoting Solam,

reply 8

If this is the case then it,s all bull. They took 4 people and crucified them hoping the people will shut up now. That's very low.

Lets be realistic and not talk a bunch of horse shit here. These 4 guys created a site called Pirate bay that linked to any torrents people post for people to download. That site was absolutely full of illegal torrent links, how much % legit torrents to illegal ones would you estimate was there? To profit from that is as low as it can get, do they deserve jail time? hell yeah. Do copyright and digital laws need to be modified? probably.

Oh they didn't host the files? That's like saying a Pimp isn't breaking the law cause he's not shagging the punter.

Quoting Spartan,

reply 4

... In my not so humble opinion, simply put the current IPR laws are depriving society of the benefit they were created for in the first place. The system needs to change pure and simple...

For those of you who might think Spartan has a point here and have not read it yet, I highly recommend John Perry Barlow's The Economy of Ideas as a good place to start serious reading about these questions. It's "only an essay in Wired," but I have yet to see a serious refutation that doesn't simply boil down to maintaining the status quo (which is basically a steady increase of IP rights for corporations instead of creators, e.g. the fact that Steamboat Willie still isn't in the public domain).

I was actually writing a crappy little bachelor's thesis on the general subject when Barlow's essay was published. I spent a week or so contemplating the idea of replacing my draft with "See John Perry Barlow's The Economy of Ideas in Wired 2.03." But I had to do a much longer, drier baby-academic essay to get my degree, so I did. I started the project because I wanted to talk myself out of what I thought was an irrational youthful opposition to (c) and the 'media industry.' I failed, in no small part because I had a serious bout with technological determinism and have never since been able to escape the conviction that modern (c) defenders are clinging to their Gutenberg-era ideas when we're well into the digital era.

And on the point of the Pirate Bay crew getting some jail time, that's fine by me in a wild-west, RPG sort of sense. Information wants to be free, and they were just using their skills and a historical moment to do a different version of the sort of exploitation that media giants like Time Warner, Sony, BMG, and Viacom do 'legally.' If you make money handing around someone else's intellectual work, you owe them a share.

Aw thats my favorite website for DL's

They just have to pay the big studios, fox etc money. All the small artists still gets nothing. Big companies from the US is opressing the entire swedish judicial system pushing through rules to stop piracy, 2 laws just got signed through this year that is going to monitor all internet and phone traffic in sweden.

And no, they did not make a load of money the piratebay guys.

They did just provide a site where people could link information, just like google or youtube... bah

Jail cell with a 56k connection , that would be irony.

They did just provide a site where people could link information, just like google or youtube... bah

Naming the site for piracy and ridiculing takedown notices about copyrighted materials kinda takes that excuse off the table.

To some they appear as martyrs.

don't get me wrong, i do hate people who just download, it takes the point of buying away

Quoting STiL ReY,

reply 12

Aw thats my favorite website for DL's

The site isn't going anywhere. They've said that several times, they still want to keep "sticking it to The Man" or something...

It's also funny to read pro-piracy peoples comments how the prosecutors case complete BS, and that these guys were convicted only because somebody bribed somebody

Quoting arstal,

reply 1

Can't say I feel too much sympathy- they made millions off of piracy.

No they didn't, they put ads on their site. (Virtually everybody do that, get your facts straight.)

Nice start on a post, hm? Anyway, it was bound this little news flash thing be brought up here too, and it's kinda amusing to see so many people getting stuff so much wrong it's hilarious.

First of all; There's no such crime as (in Swedish laws); "Accomplice in a copyright breakage". Simple as that, the charges against these four individuals are based on a crime that DOES NOT EXIST.

Second; 30 mil. SEK fine? When you get 75k SEK for murdering two children? Come one, where's the sense in that? (I'll give you a hint, there is none.)

Third; The "evidence" gathered by this and following prejudical cases (using the IPRED law) are actually breaking current Swedish laws (gathering of personal information, 2003:389), which actually make all cases based on IPRED effectively null and void.

Fourth; AND FOR THE LAST DAMN TIME: pirating ISN'T stealing. No matter what anti-piracy activists might have you believe. Stealing is *taking* something. Not copying. It's like you memorizing a full book by word - that'd make you a living crime...? Copying 1s and 0s doesn't cost anything for the distributor/creator and it's NOT a guaranteed loss of revenue either. It actually might spread the music/movie/game to people who didn't know about it earlier, and therefore encourage people to buy it. (If it's good ofc.)

Fifth; Therefore... what the big record-/movie-/game companies do not understand is that they actually might EARN something from pirating. (Maybe they're afraid that people wont buy their absolute crap if they get to try it out first, hm...?)

Though, whatever you might believe, I'm not pro piracy, I'm pro sharing. If a certain individual wont buy an album/game/movie for some reason (not having money, not knowing whether it's good or not - reason is irrelevant) he could just as well download it, as NO ONE WILL LOSE ANYTHING THIS WAY. I'm all for buying albums/movies/games when they're good and the companies behind it deserve the money, but flooding the market with crap... No. I strongly encourage to use the Internet as a "try-before-you-buy"-method. Nothing else, if a certain thing you've downloaded isn't good enough to warrant a purchase, remove it.

And also, selling products at the same prices in an online store compared to a street store isn't viable. As a bottom line it's really sad to see record-/movie-/game companies trying to force their methods onto people who are smarter than to fall for that. Unfortunately, they're the ones not really able to follow the technological development, and all consumers, sharers, techies... everyone, has to pay for that.

So please, people, don't be so naïve as to say that "ooh, all those bad pirates stealing, they got what they deserved", or "good, now the artists will actually get some money", because the only winners here (and that's what more people need to realize) are the big companies in the industry. (And a very select few of the largest artists) No one else. (And do you think they do it for justice? Or for the artists' rights? Heh, money talks, simple as that.) Do they deserve the extra money? Hell no, they're not even presenting technological alternatives to sharing or buying in a store.

This is the 21st century, everyone need to realize that. And before you go whining about my philosphy - check the law behind all this, and what's actually true. Think about the differences between stealing and copying, and see that it's not the same thing. See that the punishment scale in Sweden (amongst others) is totally out of whack, and see where the priorities are. Increase you awareness, consumers, you owe yourselves that

A sweet victory for PC Gaming!

Still a long way to go though...

In any case, this is just the ruling of the court of first instance, and it certainly won't go unchallenged. So the final verdict might take some 2 years.

In any case, in the end it is a political issue that asks for a political settlement: and as such it will be settled firstly on the European stage and then implemented on the detailed level in each EU Member State. Piracy and a free Internet could be a major issue in the coming June European Parliament elections, where people have been saying that young people don't care, but they DO care - about the web at least!

Quoting Craig Fraser,

reply 19

A sweet victory for PC Gaming!

Still a long way to go though...

Umm, a victory for the big(gest) game companies, not developers, not gamers, not anyone else. So unless you're in Blizzard, EA or Activision (or some of the other few big game DISTRIBUTORS, *note* not developers) you wont gain anything. I have no less than three friends that have downloaded SoaSE followed by them buying it (and liking the newer patches, as well). Try to argument out of that, hm? ^^ Stardock gaining three sales directly from sharing. Simple as that. And I would advise you to read my post regarding all justicial problems with the verdict. The only thing controlling this is the money from the big companies, and they're the only ones that stand to gain. No one else.

Demo.

Yeah that was why they went down - they were pretty blatant about the piracy side of things. It was the "intent". A bit like saying you didn't rob the bank when you held the door open for the robbers, showed them where the vault was, and helped them carry the money out, then advised them how to best invest it.

They didn't actually make much money off it - they had ads, so the people advertising on it in theory are the ones who made money. Will they be prosecuted? Most of their money went on the hardware to do the file sharing. Hardware that kept getting "stolen" in their words; by the police =P I have to say - ignoring the whole theft side of it - I did like that attitude. It made the anarchist me smile.

Did I use the site? Yeah once. I had a game I'd brought that wouldn't run because of the DRM on it... my Pirate Bay version worked fine. I really must replace my cheap crappy dvd player - it can't read a disk with certain type of DRM on - just thrashes.

I have to say I kinda feel sorry they were ruled against. I think the industry it's self needs to to wake up and realise that the traditional methods of distrubution have failed. I personally really think Stardock has it right. Supply the value add so that people do pay. Otherwise my hobby - playing PC games; is gonna die. If you don't get paid you don't generally work for free.

Information wants to be free, and they were just using their skills and a historical moment to do a different version of the sort of exploitation that media giants like Time Warner, Sony, BMG, and Viacom do 'legally.' If you make money handing around someone else's intellectual work, you owe them a share.

Interesting "stance" on the controversial subject.

The filming industry as a whole has certain rules & regulations (Guilds & syndicates come to mind) that PREVENTS some of the abuse.

Contracts are signed, writers & producers get their slices of the proverbial pie -- and, long term the big fat corporation(s) gimmick grabs the rest and eventually distributes whatever extra money to investors.

THAT's where i get off, investors share no responsabilities in the product nor should they steal the cash from those who did.

In that perspective, most Business Laws and some economic principles must be changed. State or Justice driven, btw.

We earn what we work for. Non-negotiable at times, power struggles between who controls capital and what remains which, as a result, stays poor and exploited by such schemes.

We retire after we worked... and got totally screwed by boss & friendly crooks of the scam.

Karl Marx warned of the consequences, people abused the situation.

Losing the value of ANY carreers if you aren't slugging baseballs over fences for Millions per year, as an example only.

The good thing is they are a warning to the others. Piracy is bad. The laws that may solve software piracy are still not complete and they are chaotic and it is a very bad thing.

On the other hand some part of the piracy is caused by media companies itself. E.g. I watch downloaded Stargate Atlantis. I spent several hours already by attempts to get legal DVDs. "We don't ship DVDs to your country..." is the response....

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

The Pirate Bay founders sentenced to prison

And over $3 million in fines