Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on February 13, 2009, 07:52:32 am

Title: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Kosh on February 13, 2009, 07:52:32 am
 Wonder if anything will come to it (http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/13/0132213)


Quote
Operators of The Pirate Bay stand trial on Monday in Stockholm. The four defendants from the popular file-sharing web site are charged with being accessories to breaking copyright law and may face fines or up to two years in prison if found guilty. The four defendants have run the site since 2004 after it was started in 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån. The Swedish public service television announced that they are going to send a live audio stream from the trial. It will be broadcast without editing or translation
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Rick James on February 13, 2009, 07:58:27 am
Brokep, TiAMO and the others seem to have very high hopes for this trial, but there's probably at least five-to-one odds in favor of the plaintiffs pulling something out of their collective ass to make life frustrating for defendants at the most inopportune time.

Still, even if The Pirate Bay is closed, according to Brokep there are already multiple backups in place, so this trial is really a futile endeavor at best, unless one of course considers the terrible precedent which could be set if the plaintiffs win...
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Flipside on February 13, 2009, 08:04:02 am
On the plus side, DRM is currently under close inspection by the FTC because of possible violations of consumer rights...

http://www2.ftc.gov/opa/2008/12/drm.shtm

Already groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have submitted their views to the FTC, mostly to the negative.

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/02/09
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Dilmah G on February 13, 2009, 08:07:40 am
Nooo! Not TPB!

And secondly, why the hell did they wait till NOW to press charges
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: redsniper on February 13, 2009, 11:47:45 am
Didn't have a case?
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Polpolion on February 13, 2009, 12:18:21 pm
 :(
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Nuclear1 on February 13, 2009, 12:21:36 pm
Good, now they just have to go after bittorrent, BushTorrent, demoinoid, isohunt...
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: captain-custard on February 13, 2009, 04:13:06 pm
Good, now they just have to go after bittorrent, BushTorrent, demoinoid, isohunt...


and then the new back ups each of these sites will create , so lets do the maths ........ 5-5 = 20   we win ;7
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Dark RevenantX on February 13, 2009, 05:40:09 pm
****.  Just ****.

Edit: uh-oh.  While posting this, I got an SMF error.  Having experience with running a SMF forum, I know you've got the beginnings of server issues.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on February 13, 2009, 06:51:44 pm
Not to mention the word filter doesn't seem to be working. 
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: ssmit132 on February 13, 2009, 07:00:12 pm
I didn't pay any attention to that when I glanced over it the first time.

I don't really know how to respond to this. :nervous:
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on February 14, 2009, 06:45:12 am
Nooo! Not TPB!

And secondly, why the hell did they wait till NOW to press charges

Because it takes quite some time to build a case from the amount of hardware and so on that they acquired during the raid, obviously.

And they're being charged with _accessory_ to copyright violations. Accessory is ****ing easy to get convicted for. It more or less takes that you just hold a guys jacket while he punches the living **** out of someone, regardless of whether you knew his intentions or not before you received it.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Dilmah G on February 14, 2009, 07:17:37 am
Nooo! Not TPB!

And secondly, why the hell did they wait till NOW to press charges

Because it takes quite some time to build a case from the amount of hardware and so on that they acquired during the raid, obviously.

And they're being charged with _accessory_ to copyright violations. Accessory is ****ing easy to get convicted for. It more or less takes that you just hold a guys jacket while he punches the living **** out of someone, regardless of whether you knew his intentions or not before you received it.

Hmmm, fair enough. Well they sure as hell have the goods on TBP, I have no idea how they're going to mount a defense. Regardless, as has been said, they have numerous backups.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: MP-Ryan on February 14, 2009, 12:35:33 pm
Good, now they just have to go after bittorrent, BushTorrent, demoinoid, isohunt...

Actually, they can't touch the BitTorrent protocol because it is merely a file-sharing technology, which is actually being utilized by large businesses as a modern distribution medium in some cases.  The protocol itself isn't violating copyright, it's individual users.  That makes BitTorrent a virtually untouchable system.  Sure, they can go after seed sites for seeding copyrighted material, but the diffuse nature of the technology makes shutting down copyright violators virtually impossible.

While I personally ensure I pay for licenses for all my software or use open-source software which is available for free, I DO hope that the industry will eventually be forced to recognize that DRM strangeholds on legitimate customers will not reduce piracy.  Ultimately, they are forcing the consumers who actually are willing to pay for their material to suffer because of people who wouldn't buy it anyway.  And in many cases they are driving customers to pirate or modify their products to ensure they don't have issues with the DRM scheme.

I don't support software piracy and I think the attitude of "I'll just download it" is wrong, but I do think the industry needs to realize that the measures it's taking are driving consumers away.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Daniel P on February 14, 2009, 12:58:12 pm
Good, now they just have to go after bittorrent, BushTorrent, demoinoid, isohunt...

Is it still legal to get  a Playstation CD. I got a game and it got a big crack in it and I am planing to back it up.

If I get caught I show them the Bad CD.  ;)
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Dark RevenantX on February 14, 2009, 06:48:24 pm
I'll pirate something once in a blue moon, but it's only either 1. out of necessity (absolutely need Photoshop in order to complete a required-to-pass-the-class school assignment) or 2. having absolutely no money to buy something I've been trying to get for years.  And in many cases, the pirated version works better than the DRM-infested one, which is kinda sad IMO.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Pred the Penguin on February 14, 2009, 07:13:26 pm
Is it still legal to get  a Playstation CD. I got a game and it got a big crack in it and I am planing to back it up.

If I get caught I show them the Bad CD.  ;)
Can unmodified PS3s play back-ups?
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Rick James on February 14, 2009, 09:32:46 pm
Is it still legal to get  a Playstation CD. I got a game and it got a big crack in it and I am planing to back it up.

If I get caught I show them the Bad CD.  ;)
Can unmodified PS3s play back-ups?

Depends on the quality of the backup. Precise bit-to-bit copies have a better chance of running, but it's difficult to say precisely what a basic copy would do--Sony hardware is finicky over little things like what brand of media is used, and the delightful irony is that not even Sony CDs/DVDs work all the time.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on February 14, 2009, 10:10:39 pm
I assume most of the viewers here have seen Steal This Film Part 1?

This isn't the first time the operators of TPB have had a run-in with the law.

In fact, it is speculated that, when they were taken in by the police some years back, the Americans were pulling the strings. Specifically, the MPAA.

At any rate, the operators of TBP have claimed that they've shortened the time it takes for TBP's servers to restart themselves in the event of any run-ins, so I'm not really that panicky over this.

As it has been stated before, the protocol is legal. It's only a matter of using it to download what, so in that sense, there really is no case against TBP because they only host tracker files that are essentially a list of instructions for the BitTorrent client to follow in order to download the actual content.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on February 17, 2009, 12:25:52 pm
Well, if anyone's interested to know, the prosecution dropped half the charges today, removing the acts of producing copies infringing copyright and instead having it be "making works available to the public" (not bad for a farce set to continue for another 11 days). The evidence presented so far does not feel very convincing to me, they might have trouble proving that the downloads were actually facilitated through the pirate bay.

Also, IFPI has become cider.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on February 18, 2009, 05:49:47 am
This is my take on the whole issue in short:

(http://kevinchiu.org/emote/facepalm.jpg)
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Charismatic on February 18, 2009, 12:19:59 pm
I think they should loosen up hold. I personally think it should be a choice. The internet is made for sharing data and information. I personally pay for and buy dam near most all of my CD albums. I take pride in that. But some things you just cant get online or via ebay, so get it where you can.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on February 18, 2009, 03:19:44 pm
You might have heard of the king kong defense (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_kong_defense) by now.

While it may be a bit too early to celebrate, as they aren't out of the woods just yet, but it's certainly looking brighter for the defendants.

(http://www.hexellent.com/files/14/epicwinlol-lagupplost.png)

This is my take on the whole issue in short:

(http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/facepalm.jpg)

To be honest, I didn't even see that you had a picture posted before I quoted you, as opera doesn't show any red Xs when images fail to load. I guess the host you're hotlinking from takes offence to such practice for some reason.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: karajorma on February 18, 2009, 04:25:55 pm
To be honest, I didn't even see that you had a picture posted before I quoted you, as opera doesn't show any red Xs when images fail to load. I guess the host you're hotlinking from takes offence to such practice for some reason.

He should consider himself lucky. Dekker made the same mistake with a site that took an even dimmer view of it and very nearly got permabanned as a result.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on February 18, 2009, 08:56:24 pm
Eep...I've hotlinked this twice already! Should I remove them?

And I noticed that you've changed your title again, karajorma.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Charismatic on February 20, 2009, 01:39:06 pm
And I noticed that you've changed your title again, karajorma.

For all those who don't read Pt 1 sized text. Here ya go! Into the light with you!
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Rick James on February 20, 2009, 02:43:02 pm
Day 5 of the trial concluded recently (http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-trial-day-5-peters-political-trial-090220/).

The plaintiffs really are just embarrassing themselves something fierce. One of the plaintiffs' representatives broke legal procedure by revealing "evidence" which had not been revealed pre-trial:

Quote
After the break, it was IFPI’s Peter Danowsky turn to start questioning Peter, beginning with his education. Peter says he dropped out of school but later learned English and computer programming from the Internet. Danowsky then turned his attention to ad-company Random Media, again referring to emails from TPB.

Then, in a repeat of yesterday’s performance, the Prosecution started again to introduce more evidence that had not been cleared pre-trial. Danowsky continued to present new evidence in the form of some newspaper articles to try to contradict what Peter had said.

According to multiple reports, not only was the defense annoyed at the Prosecution’s unacceptable actions, but the judge was too. The judge reprimanded Danowsky and the defense told him to cut out this American-style trial strategy. The Court then adjourned for 10 minutes to discuss the situation.

Upon restart, the judge said the decision is that any new material the Prosecution is planning to bring up needs to be submitted before the questioning has started, as is proper. The Prosecution then claimed to hand over all their surprise material they were holding and the Court took another break so that Peter could read through everything. This was later confirmed to be 9 new documents.

(http://kevinchiu.org/emote/facepalm.jpg)

Waaaaay to fail, Prosecution.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on February 20, 2009, 03:03:03 pm
Well, yes. The judge sounded quite unhappy (the prosecution seems set on annoying the **** out of him and the lay judges)

Favourtie quote from that debacle semi-out of context (translated, obv.):
Quote
Completely wrong, american, trial...

Lundströms hearing was a bit of a ground gaining for the prosecution, however, in my opinion. Anyway, we'll see how it goes next week.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Dilmah G on February 20, 2009, 07:07:41 pm
The prosecution does fail. I heard they didn't even know what a .winrar was
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on February 21, 2009, 06:47:04 am
The prosecution does fail. I heard they didn't even know what a .winrar was

That I didn't hear myself. They did however not know what tar-gzip is.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on March 02, 2009, 09:24:09 am
Well, tomorrow's the last day, then we'll probably have to wait a month or two for the verdict. The assertions today was ****ed up, but tomorrow it's the defendants turn.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on March 02, 2009, 09:15:25 pm
Am I right to assume that this isn't the first time they've been sued?
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Dilmah G on March 03, 2009, 03:39:41 am
Am I right to assume that this isn't the first time they've been sued?

I think they were in the process of it a few years ago, but prosecution didn't have the goods.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on March 03, 2009, 10:06:50 am
Am I right to assume that this isn't the first time they've been sued?

You'd be wrong. This is the trial which the raid in 2006 resulted in.

Anyway, verdict will made known April 17.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on March 03, 2009, 10:09:39 pm
Ah, okay. It's all related.

I thought it had already passed over.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on April 17, 2009, 04:01:54 am
So, today is the big day, and the verdict is released as I'm writing this. According to leaks, the pirate bay lost the trial.



So, yeah, they were found guilty. I imagine news sources will pick up on it soon. 1 year of prison each, apparently. wtf.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Blue Lion on April 17, 2009, 04:07:01 am
Whoopsie
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: kode on April 17, 2009, 04:23:19 am
Not that this ever was anything more than act I of this spectacle. There'll be an appeal, and then probably another one.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: Rick James on April 17, 2009, 04:25:22 am
Indeed. This is just the beginning of something that will last for a hell of a lot longer than just a one-year prison sentence. My gut tells me that the defendants won't even be in prison all that long.
Title: Re: Pirate Bay operators on trial
Post by: BlackDove on April 17, 2009, 04:27:22 am
This is what happens when you can buy verdicts.

I like the comment on the aftonbladet article.

If you rape someone, you only have to pay 30-40 thousand.