HN Gopher Feed (2017-12-14) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
How the US Pushed Sweden to Take Down the Pirate Bay
383 points by pawal
https://torrentfreak.com/how-the-us-pushed-sweden-to-take-down-t...___________________________________________________________________
Feniks - 2 hours ago
Still up though. I use it every once in a while because its on TOR.
My ISP has to block some pirate sites now.I'm from the generation
that grew up with digital piracy. I am accustomed to have all media
available. From nineties anime shows to strategy guides for
videogames.
jakobegger - 5 hours ago
And despite all these efforts, I'm still a happy user of the pirate
bay whenever I want to watch something that I can't find on iTunes
or Amazon. For me, the Pirate Bay has been the most reliable way to
find stuff over the last years, for so many things it's still
better than all the paid alternatives that I use.So much money
wasted on futile attempts to suppress a website...
dom96 - 4 hours ago
Does anyone have any insight on how TPB has managed to stay
online this long?
Cthulhu_ - 4 hours ago
IIRC it was sold / transferred to an unknown party and hosted
outside of any jurisdictions. The mistake the original owners
made was that their names could be traced back from the
website.
aurbano - 3 hours ago
> hosted outside of any jurisdictionsI'm curious about this -
does it mean hosting in a country that "doesn't care", or is
there some other option that I'm unaware of?
Feniks - 2 hours ago
There are shady hosting companies who don't ask a lot of
questions. Some of them even accept BTC. At the end of the
day TPB is just ones and zeros in a basement somewhere.
johndoe90 - 5 hours ago
I hope TPB will teach copyright owners a lesson that there's no
point and no way to fight piracy.
[deleted]
shaan7 - 4 hours ago
There is, just make it easier (and in some cases, even
possible) for people to pay for content (see the comment above
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15920913)There are always
people who are ready to pay and people who will go to every
length to not to. Instead of focusing on giving a good
experience to the first crowd, companies end up screwing it up
and then waste time on trying to force the second crowd to pay.
digi_owl - 3 hours ago
That reminds me of the fanfare up in the cold north when
Netflix expanded their offerings those shores. Only that once
one checked the catalog on offer, it was downright anemic.
Several TV series lagged by multiple seasons for
example.Never mind that since then Netflix have lost the
right to distribute quite a few movie catalogs that may hold
hidden classics, as they shift their focus onto producing
their own content and the copyright holders wants to keep the
percentages that Netflix got for themselves.This however
leads to market balkanization and drive people to once more
consider alternative sources.
scandinavegan - 3 hours ago
I read a great article years ago where a Disney executive
argued that they had to view pirating as a competing business
model, and provide a better experience instead of just trying
to shut it down.Disney and pirates compete on price, quality,
availability, ease of use, and so on. Price is going to be
hard to compete with since pirated stuff is free, and I guess
they are attacking the availability of pirated material to
increase their own by comparison, but what I wish they would
focus on is to make it easier for the user to find the stuff
they want. If I knew I could go somewhere for all of Disney's
catalog of shorts and feature films, I'd be happy to pay a
small amount per movie or subscribe for continuous access.
Instead it's spread across multiple services, or you have to
buy individual DVD boxes and try to assemble your own
collection which is a lot of work. They could make it a lot
easier for me to watch that specific short (now I go to
YouTube and hope it's there) or movie (I check if it's on
Netflix or another streaming service, and if not, I skip
it).My (limited) experience of NFL.com is that they've done
great when it comes to making it easy to watch current and
older games, with options to subscribe to all games or just
one team. The English Premier League doesn't have the same
centralized streaming service I know of and instead depends
on selling the rights to TV channels to show games, which
leads to consuming a lot of pirated material if you want to
follow a specific team all season or want to watch all
concurrent games.If the content providers just compete in the
areas they can affect, most people will pay to use it it's
more convenient than the alternative.
icebraining - 2 hours ago
Disney is building their own streaming service, so you may
get your wish. Not sure about the "small amount", tough.
sharmi - 5 hours ago
For the one TPB that has survived, there are several file
sharing websites (decent ones that are actually usable) and
torrent sites that have been pulled down and the copyright
owners have prevailed. I think this more points to the
technical acumen of the ppl behind TPB.I am not taking strong
sides against or for fighting piracy. I do hope the greater
share of the profits do end up with the original authors and
not the content distributors.
digi_owl - 3 hours ago
These days TPB is little more than a indexer of magnet
links.I think there was a claim floating around that one
could offer all the TPB magnet links in a simple text file
that would be a maybe a MB in size.
anc84 - 2 hours ago
It's more but not even 100MB: https://archive.org/details
/pirate-bay-torrent-dumps-2004-20...This does not include
the descriptions though.Also check out
https://github.com/sergiotapia/magnetissimo
Teever - 1 hours ago
I downloaded it once. The entire catalog of TPB in magnet
link form worked out to 63mb zipped IIRC.
sveme - 5 hours ago
There's the extremely annoying tendency at least at German
streaming providers (iTunes, Amazon/Google Video) to remove
rental access to movies about nine months after DVD release or
when a second movie of a series is about to arrive at the
theatres. Only buy access remains accessible. Now that physical
video rental stores are on terminal decline, online stores have
an effective oligopoly without real competition and push
customers towards paying a maximum. The only alternative in this
case remains thepiratebay.
madez - 3 hours ago
Aren't you afraid of receiving a 'Abmahnung' for torrenting?
tekmate - 2 hours ago
I'm still dumbfounded that the practise of setting up torrent
honeypots by agencies like waldorf&frommer is actually legal
WA - 1 hours ago
That's why you use a VPN when downloading Torrents.
dotancohen - 1 hours ago
Abstinence is not an alternative?I've never understood why so
many people feel that they have to see every superhero movie or
every Blockbuster.
WA - 4 hours ago
For Germans: Create a US iTunes account, buy USD iTunes gift
cards on eBay Germany, put in the account. Rent from the US
store.
rkachowski - 4 hours ago
This proves the exact point that customers who wish to
legally pay for content have to jump through a ridiculous
number of hoops.Register an account in a different country,
pay for a gift card in another currency, suffer international
transaction fees + currency conversion rates, then manage
multiple accounts with different balances depending on when
iTunes has juggled around it's regional stores.Or just visit
pirate bay.
dx034 - 2 hours ago
Isn't that as bad as downloading via torrent? In many
countries the sole consumption is not considered illegal
(only sharing is), so violating iTunes terms could be even
worse theoretically.And as a side note it could open you up
to getting your main account blocked by Apple if they start
cracking down on that.
chrisper - 5 hours ago
There is also the issue that movies in Germany and such only
have the German Audio track in 5.1, but the English one is in
2.0. How ridiculous.
coldtea - 5 hours ago
But most Germans don't care for the english track in the
first place, being used to subbed dialogue.
chrisper - 4 hours ago
But there is no technical reason not to include other
languages in 5.1? I would get the argument for DVDs and
maybe live TV, but not for streaming...
egeozcan - 4 hours ago
There are a lot of immigrants, like me, who can speak and
understand German but miss a lot when watching
movies.Subtitles would help a lot but even that is missing
with a lot of providers (I wonder what people with hearing
disabilities do).
distances - 3 hours ago
At least Netflix has always German subtitles. For series,
English subtitles too most of the time, but practically
none of the movies have those in English which I find
quite weird.
jhasse - 4 hours ago
It's changing. I'm seeing movies in English a lot more
often in cinemas than I did 10 years ago.
jacobr - 5 hours ago
It's really cool that many torrents that are over 10 years old
are still seeded.
jyriand - 3 hours ago
I subscribed to Amazon Prime, thinking that I can stream series
and movies that I was interested in, only to find, that only
things that I could watch were shows produced by Amazon
itself(Man in the High Castle etc), channels and movies were
restricted content because of my location. I don't understand why
it's still an issue.
bederoso - 3 hours ago
You can blame that on the studios, they make licensing content
extremely complex.Streaming services (Amazon, Netflix, etc)
would love for you to be able to access their catalog from
anywhere (as you can see since Amazon allows you to watch their
own content from anywhere) but are limited by contractual
clauses and/or exorbitant fees, which make this sort of deal
not worth it.Studios are used to a territory-based model
instead of a globalised market, since that's pretty much how
cable works, so when you negotiate content with a studio the
contract will tell exactly which territories you're allowed to
stream the content from.
juliendorra - 2 hours ago
It is still an issue because of the way the market is
structured. Movies exclusive distribution rights are sold
separately to distributors in each country to maximize
revenues, in advance if possible. (Or once the movie has toured
festivals for independent movies, making it impossible
sometimes for years or forever to buy a digital download in
one?s country)
marcoperaza - 3 hours ago
So I see that you run https://eggerapps.at/ , where you sell
various pieces of software that I'm sure you've spent a lot of
time creating and perfecting.How would you like it if I set up a
mirror with cracked versions of all of your apps, and then
successfully diverted all of your sales to it?And then when you
sue me, how would you like it if I openly mocked you? I'll post
your takedown letters on a section of my site where I call you a
fool, do the digital equivalent of spitting in your face, and
continue to flagrantly violate your rights.That's exactly what
the Pirate Bay does and I don?t understand how someone who sells
their painstakingly created intellectual property could support
that, let alone admit to participating in it.Edit: na85, and what
if I only divert 10% of the sales? Why should I now be totally
innocent?
[deleted]
na85 - 3 hours ago
>and then successfully diverted all of your sales to it?No
doubt you can back up this assertion that the pirate Bay
diverted all or at least the majority of movie sales.
rprime - 2 hours ago
Given that he himself is a creator and someone directly
affected by piracy (in this case software cracking) I assume he
knows what he's talking about.As a creator as well, I am aware
that my software is out in the wild and people are using it for
free and so far I've yet to notice any harm coming from it,
quite the contrary. Even if we live in a connected world, we
still don't live in a fair world, having a credit card or a
PayPal account is still a hard thing to obtain in quite a bit
of countries and so it happens that from time to time I receive
emails of users that are using cracked version of my software
offering to snail mail me checks or asking me for alternative
payment methods, in these cases me knowing that they get enough
joy of my apps is payment enough.In my case I do believe this
is free marketing, in the end a good chunk of users come back
and buy the apps if it's truly useful for them and counting the
others that wont buy it as lost sales is stupid as they would
not spend the money anyway.
thriftwy - 2 hours ago
I wonder why isn't there torrent-search-over-DHT yet?I mean, this
is known point of vulnerability.Maybe it's because owners of
popular bittorrent software don't want that feature?
jokoon - 1 hours ago
btdb.io and btdigbtdig seems better as it doesn't have annoying
pop ups, which are constantly brought up on btdb, even with
ublock origin and noscript. I would not be surprised that btdb is
buying ads from an ad provider that sell js injections to a MPAA
operated third party.btdb is nice because you can sort by seeds,
you cannot with btdig.To be honest I stopped using classic
torrent indexers entirely since I started using DHT indexes. They
have much larger choice. The issue is that you cannot "post"
magnets links on the DHT automatically (I think you cannot), so
the DHT works as long as people are finding magnets or torrents
elsewhere. It's bringing more decentralization, which mean more
chaos but much less traceability.
metafunctor - 1 hours ago
Completely beside the point... perhaps useful for the non-native
English folk. I was wondering what sort of message a "cable" is in
this context, because it is obviously not a length of cable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_cable
ploggingdev - 5 hours ago
If you're interested in learning more about The Pirate Bay, the
founders and the trial, watch the documentary called TPB AFK (The
Pirate Bay : Away From Keyboard) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTOKXCEwo_8One of the founders of
TPB, Peter Sunde started:* Njalla (https://njal.la/) - a privacy
focused domain registration service* Flattr (https://flattr.com/) -
a tipping/micropayment service to support content creators* A VPN
service - https://ipredator.se/Another link that you might find
interesting, his interview with Vice :
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkjpbd/pirate-bay...
Marazan - 5 hours ago
Does it talk much about the financier Carl Lundstr?m's role in
TPB?He never gets mentioned much for some reason** Because of his
far right connections
ploggingdev - 4 hours ago
IIRC it does, but only briefly. He bought advertising space on
TPB and it became a controversy. The TPB guys were falsely
accused of being right wing extremists for doing business with
Carl Lundstr?m.
Marazan - 3 hours ago
Woah, woah. He was a co-defendant at the trial. He was more
that just a dude who bought some ad space.
[deleted]
icebraining - 2 hours ago
The allegations by the prosecution are of a bit more than
that: https://gigaom.com/2008/02/02/who-is-the-fourth-man-in-
the-p...
fsloth - 5 hours ago
"The new confessions of an economic hitman" by John Perkins is a
very good exposition of the close ties of state and corporate
powers in the US and how they co-operate to increase the capital
wealth of the elite.It's more autobiographical than a research
document, and has some unproven claims, but no one has punched
holes in the important claims there AFAIK.
antigirl - 4 hours ago
do people still use piratebay ? there are better alternatives now
mac01021 - 2 hours ago
For example?
jokoon - 1 hours ago
DHT indexes, btdig and btdb.io
dghughes - 59 minutes ago
People aren't stupid they know it's wrong to download a movie or
music they didn't buy. But everyone agrees the response by the US
law enforcement is overreaching and out of proportion.Convenience
is the real reason people went to websites such as the Pirate bay
not stealing, people don't buy fast food for their health.The rise
of cheap and reliable streaming video websites such as Netflix
changed that. That's all anyone wanted a convenient reliable way to
legally watch and pay a reasonable amount.
cup-of-tea - 4 hours ago
The copyright industry has had far too much power for many years
now. But when I talk to people about this nobody cares. For most
people the products of this industry are just "content" which they
use to waste their time so I suppose it makes sense that they don't
care too much about it. The tragedy is that the copyright industry
controls a large and continually growing part of our culture and
their power is only increasing.I was there when a UK music tracker
called OiNK's Pink Palace was shut down. The police raided the
home of the site owner before dawn and even the home of his father
who had no idea what his son was up to. Copyright industry writers
wrote the news article, claiming it was "extremely lucrative" and
included gems such as "Within a few hours of a popular pre-release
track being posted on the OiNK site, hundreds of copies can be
found".The site's owner was found not guilty in court several years
later, but not before the copyright industry essentially ruined his
life.But how does this happen? If you talk to most people they
don't understand copyright at all. They think it's some kind of
privileged status that you have to pay for, like a trademark or
something. Most people are not even aware that they hold
copyrights. And why would they? Can the average person summon the
police to help protect their copyright? Of course not. It's not
even a criminal matter. The police being involved seems nothing
short of corruption.
ptero - 1 hours ago
> But how does this happen?IMO both the patent and the copyright
laws, at least in the US, are broken. The original goal was good:
encourage individual inventors to make technology that the whole
society will benefit from at a price of some limitation on use by
society for a short period of time. In the current system, "the
whole society will benefit" part does not work because time
limits are too high -- at the modern technology pace, in 20 years
most inventions are obsolete.I think the best way to fix it is to
drastically shorten the time the invention is protected, which
would require major compromises. Unfortunately, the discussion
now seems very polarized: it seems to be "all information should
be free" against "copyright everything and it needs to last
longer, longer, longer" as major camps with little in the middle.
expertentipp - 3 hours ago
Copyright hoarders (not necessarily content creators) consider
anyone sharing the content they hold copyright to as competition
and attack will full fury, destroying humans' lives and jamming
the local jurisdictions. They use all available strategies - top-
down (PB in Sweden), bottom-up (cease and desist letter plague in
Germany). How anyone competent allows them for doing it is
unimaginable, there must be fraud and corruption involved.
aquadrop - 2 hours ago
It's not all black and white though. Pirating torrent site
realistically don't care if pirated stuff is from copyright
hoarder or content creator. It's easy to say "those corporate
money grabbers are evil" but in reality nobody cares who to
pirate from. I've seen one writer who was relatively popular,
beg his readers to buy his books instead of pirating it,
because publisher was going to end his contract, because it was
just not very profitable with all the pirating. I fail to see
glory for pirating in that. One programmer I knew decided to do
shareware in early 2000-s. His program became pretty successful
in several months (2-3x times larger revenue than average
salary in the country at the time), he could live off it. First
time he got cracked and program went on pirating sites his
sales were damaged considerably, he added some protection, new
features etc. After some time he got cracked again and sales
were damaged again. This time he said "screw it", stopped
working on the program and got regular job. I fail to see glory
for pirating in that.Of course I understand the appeal of
pirated content, sometimes it's the only usable way to get
something, especially for some old movies/series. And it put
pressure on large media companies for content delivery
technologies etc. But it's not all fun and giggles, it's a
complex issues requiring global discussion and compromises.
Feniks - 2 hours ago
I've developed my own golden rule: if something is 5 years or
older its public domain.TPB and digital piracy in general
functions as a library of Alexandria. Nobody in our society
gives a shit about keeping things available. It's all about
NOW and MONEY. So much entertainment would be lost without
the internet.
wil421 - 1 hours ago
Ever heard of a real library? They will order almost any
book from other libraries. The one in my county is even
free.
eli - 2 hours ago
Are there other areas besides digital media where you think
it's acceptable to take copies or something to which you
are not legally entitled?
tazard - 1 hours ago
Are there areas other than digital media where you can
make copies so cheaply and easily?
JohnBooty - 1 hours ago
Does that question make sense outside the domain of
media?
vanderZwan - 1 hours ago
> legally entitled?When discussing the validity of
copyright laws, using legal entitlement as an argument is
pretty circular, don't you think?
croon - 1 hours ago
Everything you've learned in your life, in school or
out;Do you give proper credit to the
creator/author/inventor/discoverer of that knowledge, or
refrain from using it?The question isn't whether this
happens to be legal or not, the question is whether it
should be, and to what extent.Do you have any example
which you were wanting to compare to, or was the question
deliberately open-ended?
pessimizer - 1 hours ago
I sometimes sing songs in front of people.
lostcolony - 1 hours ago
To -make- copies, not -take-.And yes. Every photocopy a
text book? Ever trace out a comic book panel or other
image? Ever make copies of a photo (obviously more common
digitally, but could be done in the film age too) that
you didn't take originally? I've done all of them,
they're all things I'm not legally entitled to do.
space_fountain - 38 minutes ago
I feel like there is a key difference in all the examples
people are giving. Taking a picture of a text book for
personal use is a only a small part of the complete work
closer would be scanning the entire thing. Further
assuming you keep it to personal use it's also very
different than spreading it to others.
croon - 1 hours ago
> It's not all black and white though. Pirating torrent site
realistically don't care if pirated stuff is from copyright
hoarder or content creator. It's easy to say "those corporate
money grabbers are evil" but in reality nobody cares who to
pirate from.Some do, some don't.I don't doubt your anecdotes,
but I doubt it's true as a pattern.Something being pirated 1M
times never means 1M lost sales. It could mean 2K lost sales
or it could mean 200K lost sales.The book your writer wrote,
did it build on a genre, area of expertise, setting that
inherently draws inspiration from earlier works? Where do we
draw the line on what you can borrow?If copyright law was as
established and enforced 400 years ago as it is today,
Shakespeare wouldn't exist (in our knowledge).We want some
kind of middleground. Creators should be compensated, but
complete all-encompassing DRM means only a fraction of people
would've watched Game of Thrones to discuss it at the water
cooler, Kanye West (regardless of what you think of his
music) wouldn't be able to release most of his music, etc.
netzone - 2 hours ago
I agree. And this is why I no longer pirate stuff, if I can
get it legally in a reasonable way. For me as a non-american
though, there is a serious lack of content available to me,
which means that if I want to watch something, sometimes the
only available option is to pirate it.
barking - 2 hours ago
Or when the legal way is unpleasant. I couldn't watch GOT
on sky Atlantic with its ad breaks every ten minutes.
delecti - 50 minutes ago
That's a much less sympathetic position. It's one thing
if there's literally no way to consume a piece of
content. The copyright holders aren't losing money there.
It's another if there's a perfectly viable method
available but you want to put on your toddler voice and
say "but I don't want it that way."
freeflight - 1 hours ago
> sometimes the only available option is to pirate itI once
had to pay 500? for torrenting an episode of The Americans
that I had no way of buying legally, at least in my country
at that time.The only thing I regret? Using torrent and not
some alternative where they can't get you for "illegal
distribution".
imglorp - 38 minutes ago
I think the content industry is the one really driving this whole
net neutrality thing, even more than the ISP business. If you
follow the money, content is around a $2 trillion annual
business, and ISPs are only a few hundred billion.
okreallywtf - 35 minutes ago
Do you have a source to a link between the content industry and
anti-NN? I assume there is more to it than just "they have a
lot more money".
scirocco - 2 hours ago
Reminds me of the case with TPB. The court argued for large sums
of ad revenue and the founders were like: ?no idea where that
money went because we never saw it?
marcoperaza - 3 hours ago
He was running a website that revolved around violating millions
of copyrights. Why shouldn't he go to jail? What gives you the
right to take someone else's painstakingly created artistic
creation and give it away for free to thousands of people,
depriving them of the exclusive right to sell their own
work.Copyright is both a criminal and civil matter. The civil
court system is useful for many things, but it is limited to
monetary damages, which is not very helpful when the damages are
in the millions and the defendant isn't very wealthy. The penal
power of the criminal system is not appropriate for individual
people downloading music, but it certainly is for a sophisticated
operation involving the illegal distribution of millions of
copyrighted works to hundreds of thousands of users.== Edit
==Some responses, since I'm rate-limited:>In most cases i read
about it's more a matter of the current copyright holder versus
the facilitator. Not a matter of the creator versus the actual
downloader.Two points.1. How do you think the current copyright
holder got the copyright? They acquired it from the creator by
either paying in advance or after the fact or as part of some
ongoing deal.2. If you run a market that you know is used almost
exclusively by people selling contraband, do you think that's
legal just because you're not the buyer or the seller? In case
you don't know, it's not, and you'll go to jail just as if you
had sold the contraband.>If the defendant isn't wealthy after
distributing all that content, is the content worth millions? Or
is the government-enforced business model worth millions?Yes,
intellectual property isn't worth anything without government
enforcement. But we've decided to, as individual societies and as
an entire world by treaty, to provide such enforcement, because
we think recognizing such property rights is good for our
society.And as for the first point, how much you make by
violating other people's rights isn't that relevant. If I steal a
truckload of iPhones and give them away for free, I still stole
them. I realize IP is very different from physical property, but
the profit of the crook isn't that relevant in either.
zouhair - 2 hours ago
You do know he was found innocent.
Spearchucker - 3 hours ago
Surely if what you say is true, the courts would have found him
guilty, no?
marcoperaza - 3 hours ago
>Surely if what you say is true, the courts would have found
him guilty, no?What are you actually arguing, other than
pointing out that he was acquitted? A jury's determination of
a person's guilt in a particular case doesn't tell you what
the law is, or what it ought to be.Edit: gnode, that?s not
true. Only determinations of law, which are only made by
judges, are precedent. A jury verdict, which only determines
questions of fact, is not precedent at all.
gnode - 3 hours ago
In a common law system, findings of a court set precedent
for future trials. So yes, juries do tell you what the law
is by telling you how to interpret it.
b3lvedere - 3 hours ago
"What gives you the right to take someone else's painstakingly
created artistic creation and give it away for free to
thousands of people, depriving them of the exclusive right to
sell their own work."In most cases i read about it's more a
matter of the current copyright holder versus the facilitator.
Not a matter of the creator versus the actual downloader.That
is exactly the weird paradox that has been going on, especially
with the infamous Pirate Bay.The users think they are a super
server with super hero admins that "give back to the man".The
justice system thinks some super tech criminal is earning
millions. They think that, because organisations like the MPAA
give out an estimate on what "could have been earned if all
those people would actually pay full price for the content they
are now consuming".Numbers are magic.. especially if there's a
currency sign before them.
humanrebar - 3 hours ago
> ...depriving them of the exclusive right to sell their own
work...i.e., messing up their business model> Copyright is both
a criminal and civil matter.Sure, but there's a strong case
that copyright infringement shouldn't be felony.> ...the
damages are in the millions and the defendant isn't very
wealthy.If the defendant isn't wealthy after distributing all
that content, is the content worth millions? Or is the
government-enforced business model worth millions?
icebraining - 2 hours ago
If the defendant isn't wealthy after distributing all that
content, is the content worth millions? Or is the government-
enforced business model worth millions?I don't think he
should go to jail, but this is an odd rebuttal. If I steal
your car and sell it for $300, because I don't really need
more money, will you claim just that amount as your
loss?Obviously copyright law pushes up the price, by
introducing scarcity, but that doesn't really have anything
to do with how much he made.
ekianjo - 3 hours ago
> Copyright is both a criminal and civil matterOh yes?
Copyright infrigement is pretty much a victimless crime -
nobody is removed from any of their property - at most they
might be losing some monetary compensation, but that's
something that can be evaluated and compensated if that is the
case.Not sure how you can justify putting folks in jail based
on that fact.
eli - 1 hours ago
Couldn't you say the same for embezzlement or tax fraud?
shakna - 1 hours ago
Tax fraud is against the state, those funds that go towards
the foundational things required by our society, such as
electricity, drinking water, and access to other
services.Everyone is a victim.
dpwm - 3 hours ago
> He was running a website that revolved around violating
millions of copyrights. Why shouldn't he go to jail? What gives
you the right to take someone else's painstakingly created
artistic creation and give it away for free to thousands of
people, depriving them of the exclusive right to sell their own
work.Why should an individual be treated so differently to what
a company would? When was Youtube's office raided? To this day,
Youtube holds immense collections of music for which nobody has
bothered to file even an automated takedown notice.The point
that the parent made is that copyright is only criminally
enforceable if held by the moneyed few. The power that has been
handed to large corporations by the back door is immense and
there is very little symmetry; even when the magnitude of the
damage is orders of magnitude greater.In the UK they have
effectively been granted the power to block domains for
customers of the ISPs that represent a significant majority of
the UK market. This is in a court that routinely allows pre-
hearing legal costs of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Unless
you work for the media companies and have insider knowledge,
how can you even be so sure that the media companies are not
acting with the complete contempt of due process that they have
repeatedly demonstrated.> Copyright is both a criminal and
civil matter.Only fairly recently, and not without controversy
from the people that observed it.
tlunter - 2 hours ago
I don't work there, but it seems naive to think that YouTube
hasn't worked with law enforcement or these industries
directly to remove these copyrighted works. If your rip is
simple or obvious enough, YouTube blocks it immediately
before it's published. That seems very different from hosting
a site specifically for pirating copyrighted works.
dpwm - 1 hours ago
When I referred to repeated demonstrations of contempt of
due process I was largely thinking about the over-zealous
takedowns where fair use has applied and that it is just as
likely that with being granted direct blocking of an ever-
increasing number of domains that some claims are over-
exaggerated to the court and the threshold for evidence
lowered.I acknowledge that it seems very different from
hosting a site specifically for pirating copyrighted works.
But there was a time when Youtube arguably blurred the line
and gave publicity to the "our users just posted it and we
didn't know about it" defence.There's a real societal risk
to treating what would formerly be called culture as
intellectual capital and granting extreme powers to owners
of that capital. Though the costs of distribution have
never been lower there comes a point where the cost of
distribution exceeds the expected returns. Even if the work
is distributed for free, there is still a cost.If we're
going to allow the whole one download equals 0 < x <= 1
lost sales thing that seems to be increasingly accepted
now, then you are implicitly allowing that it is the lost
sale that is the problem. As such, distribution of out of
print material without fee is as damaging because if I
listen to n hours per week of material then I am not buying
that n hours of material and I have deprived a sale. The
same can be said for any intellectual capital, even
copyleft, that does not make money. Effectively, it becomes
a divine right to have customers which is a bizarre line of
thinking that seldom seems to be explicitly stated.I have
listened to works that I could not, even though I strongly
desire to, buy on CD or obtain by lawful download. There
are some who argue a particular line that has the corollary
that the work should be lost forever and I should never
have heard them. By the lost sale argument I definitely
shouldn't have and should instead have spent money on new
culture that personally I find quite grating.There are
books, games, software, songs, albums, movies and TV series
for which the copyright persists and effectively makes it
civilly or criminally unlawful to distribute for free. In
these cases I would certainly think twice before taking on
the burden of becoming that distributor.
dustinmr - 2 hours ago
Your argument is based on intent. YouTube shows their
intent to not infringe by the effort they put into removing
infringing content.But the GP discards intent as a relevant
point and says if you host it, you should be thrown in
jail, regardless of intent.Likely, somewhere in the middle
is more reasonable. But the parent is correct in that the
volume of infringing content on YouTube appears to be
significantly larger than just about anywhere else, and no
one is raiding their offices. No one is going to jail.So
the asymmetry is striking. If it were all purely civil
rather than criminal, I'd get it.
marcoperaza - 1 hours ago
>But the GP discards intent as a relevant point and says
if you host it, you should be thrown in jail, regardless
of intent.I said no such thing to be clear.
space_fountain - 42 minutes ago
Does great Britain? I know the US has the DMCA which
among many other things says people can't be held labial
for infringing content hosted on their site if they
respect and follow DMCA take down requests.
[deleted]
b3lvedere - 2 hours ago
On paper you are absolutely right. Does it make it right? Maybe
so, maybe not."But we've decided to, as individual societies
and as an entire world by treaty, to provide such enforcement,
because we think recognizing such property rights is good for
our society".Remember Aaron Schwartz?
gatmne - 2 hours ago
Legality aside, whether sharing copyrighted information is
amoral or not is determined by one's own values. Some people,
myself included, see a person's right-to-share to be far more
important to humanity than the authors ability to employ an
ill-suited business model to profit off his or her work. There
are many ways to generate profit other than to infringe on
others' right to share. Humanity does not owe you a successful
business model, and certainly not at the expense of it's right
to share.> What gives you the right to take someone else's
painstakingly created artistic creation and give it away for
free to thousands of people, depriving them of the exclusive
right to sell their own work.Users sharing copyrighted work
does nothing to prevent authors from profiting off their work.
Conflating sharing and business is what got us in this mess in
the first place.
msc1 - 2 hours ago
Think about 3rd world countries. I'm relatively better off
than my peers (2 cars, own a house etc.) but I can no way
afford Hex Rays IDA Pro, Burp Site Professional, Navicat
Premium or JetBrains and this list goes on... They cost more
than my two or three months of rent.My parents are both
medical doctors and their medical books are not affordable if
they were sold in US prices but they have 3rd world print
editions and they can legally buy these copies. Software
vendors have to adapt to tthis too. Gaming companies already
adapted this and I've never pirated any games since Steam.
I'm a paying netflix, spotify customer because they are
priced for the country they operate and as you can guess I'm
not torrenting music or movies either.Internet is global but
purchasing power is not. Ethically, I see no problem in
torrenting. Human knowledge is "on the shoulders of giants"
and in philosophical perspective -I'm not advocating this-
even copyright is on shaky grounds (Property is theft! -
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon)
freeflight - 1 hours ago
> Gaming companies already adapted this and I've never
pirated any games since Steam.The first to adopt this, very
successfully, had actually been Apple with their approach
to selling mp3s.While everybody was still busy trying to
sell overpriced physical albums, complaining about the
"digital thievery", Apple took this as an opportunity with
iTunes. iTunes made buying music digitally as convenient as
it was pirating it, at the same time iTunes allowed
customers to only buy specific songs (at reasonable
prices), instead of forcing them to buy whole albums.Valve
did something similar for gaming with Steam, that's true,
but it took Steam way longer to get there than it did take
iTunes. Imho Steam has also regressed quite a bit in that
regard, it used to be a place for good deals but
increasingly feels like a platform to shovel around
shovelware for badges and trading cards.
omio - 2 hours ago
Wow that is a name I haven't read or heard in years.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, father of modern anarchism.
beloch - 2 hours ago
I'm sure there are many reading this who have absolutely no
sympathy for pirates. They're stealing and that's that.Well, how
do you feel about your government blackmailing, extorting, or
otherwise "strong-arming" other sovereign nations in order to foist
its laws upon them and then hiding that from you? (It really is a
minor miracle this cable was released at all.) Is it truly worth
stooping to such measures to ensure that Micky Mouse remains
copyright protected for all time everywhere? Don't other nations
have the right to make their own laws? How would you feel if some
other nation foisted it's laws on the U.S. in such a manner? Why
does the U.S. government go to such extremes for private enterprise
anyways?[1]Piracy is bad. What the U.S. government has done in
response is worse.[1]I suggest you google the United Fruit
Company's history the next time you're eating a Chiquita banana for
a real eye opener.
[deleted]
koliber - 3 hours ago
Interesting aside: is the redacting technique vulnerable to an
analogue of the "timing attack" on certain crypto?The name of the
employee in the wires has been redacted. I wonder if the physical
size of the redacted box, together with the fact that this is a
name, together with a database of public employees, could be used
to uncover the identity of the person.By comparing the size of the
redacting box with the lines above and below, we can guess that 6-9
characters are masked out (including the space). This is an a rough
parallel to a timing attack used against crypto. The DB of public
employees could be thought of as a list of candidate inputs.Weak
redacting?This reminds me of a law in Poland where a person accused
of a crime can not be named. Media will blur out photos and state
something to the effect of "Mark W. an executive at XYZ Corp.,
stands accused of ...". If the accused is a well known actor with a
unique first name, this becomes a running joke.
[deleted]
upofadown - 3 hours ago
Canada has been on the 301 watch list for a long time now. There
have been some attempts to get off it (theatre camcording law) but
it turned out that that the real reason a country is put on the
list is a lack of fawning obedience to the US copyright cartel. A
country that is perceived to not be toeing the line is put on the
list. If there no actual policy reason to be there the copyright
cartel just makes stuff up.So these days the list is meaningless
and is roundly ignored by Canada. Sweden probably should of did the
same thing.
ronjouch - 6 hours ago
Honest question: why is this surprising / newsworthy?
fsloth - 5 hours ago
Because exposition of abuse of power requires proven concrete
examples.
zdkl - 6 hours ago
It's important to not forget what the web used to be, in order to
have some context for what it's becoming (see Net Neutrality).
jacobush - 6 hours ago
At least to me a Swede, this [datacenter] "... was raided by 65
Swedish police officers" is so incredibly out of touch with
normal reality in this country, on so many levels.* Copyright
infringement case assigned to that many officers? Unheard of.
High profile murder investigations don't get that many.* We have
this peculiar law, that ministers are NOT TO meddle in the
running of government agencies. Yet, this is what we got.* From
cautious "see what happens" attitude among prosecutors with
regards to copyright infringement and copying for personal use -
to a big leap: not only an attempted (though only partially
successful) witch hunt of Pirate Bay founders, but also inventing
a whole new crime, called "accessory to copyright
infringement".Not that I don't agree that what Pirate Bay did was
at times shady, but the whole thing made me believe without a
doubt a few things:- US as a case of "wag the dog". The trade
associations (RIAA etc) in the US can easily make the state do
their bidding. And the US state as an institution is quite weak,
when it does these things so quickly. What that implies, is that
there is no thinking things through. No serious cost/benefit
analysis can possibly have been made. "How much ill will from
foreign countries is this move worth? Fuck that, do it now."-
That Sweden would be pushed around so quickly. I must have been
naive, but it was surprising how not even a symbolic attempt at
saving face was made here. Our domestic response was decisive and
swift. Can't help but make you wonder what we could be made to do
to ourselves over something more serious than fucking copyright
infringement. Dance, monkey, dance.
staticelf - 5 hours ago
Yes especially when pretty much all other crimes except murder
and stuff like that are disregarded nowadays. Swedens judicial
system is completely broken.
draugadrotten - 5 hours ago
...And police officers and whistleblowers like Peter
Springare that dares to speak out about it are ostracized and
made persona non grata.
jacobush - 5 hours ago
Though I agree with much of that, I didn't want to conflate
what happened 10 years ago with the current situation. The
current situation needs it's own whole topic/thread.Edit:
though now we are talking about current situation anyway, I
feel there is a chance to turn things around for the better.
But it would probably involve many very big adjustments, one
being massively higher salary for police officers. (Like 30%
more.)
bionoid - 5 hours ago
Norway is the same for the record. There was a local case
recently where the police knocked down an innocent man on the
street, handcuffed him, and charged him with assaulting a
police officer. There were something like 30 eye witnesses,
still he lost in court, police clearly giving false
testimony. Luckily he did win the appeal.
jacobush - 5 hours ago
"Luckily he did win the appeal." ... so system is not
broken?Edit: I misunderstood. I thought the officers were
punished. Sorry.
bionoid - 5 hours ago
They knocked him down on the street, arrested him,
charged him, dragged him through two years of trials.
After winning the appeal, the chief of police mocked him
openly and called him a liar. There was ZERO
repercussions for any of the involved officers.That's not
broken?edit: and you could look up the historical cases
like Tonny Askevold. Charges of first-degree murder was
dropped. The police can and will do whatever the fuck
they want.
staticelf - 3 hours ago
The difference is that in Sweden the police doesn't do
anything. Even if you give them a lot of evidence they drop
the cases all the time.I have personal experience of this.
digi_owl - 3 hours ago
"Henlagt grunnet bevisets stilling" (effectively claiming
that the case will not be investigated due to lack of
evidence) have become a running joke in Norway.
draugadrotten - 5 hours ago
As a comparison to the 65 police officers that raider the
Piratebay datacenter,gang murder investigations in Malm?,
Sweden nowadays involve 3 police officers.Source:
https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2016-12-10/tre-poliser-istallet-f...
expertentipp - 2 hours ago
The "disproportional resource allocation" of the police and
authorities begs for further investigation.
croon - 5 hours ago
My wife had her credit card info stolen, and used it for about
$3000, which was all that was on it. I recognized the site they
used for purchases (also in Sweden), and called them up. They
were very forthcoming and froze the account/purchases upon
number verification (the card was already locked to be disposed
at that point). They obviously couldn't give out any personal
information to me, but they had information available on who it
was for any police inquiry.I relayed this information to the
case handler, and yet immediately after I get a form response
of "We've shut this case down since it's obvious there's no way
to solve it".We only needed the report to get our money back
through insurance, but it really pisses me off that the police
doesn't have resources to solve a case that I have solved for
them, yet can spend _65_ officers on a political sham.
Tepix - 5 hours ago
I've had the same thing happen with a flight that was booked
with my credit card on the same day that I cancelled it
(probably some guy at Mastercard making some extra
money).Booking a flight seems like it's something that's very
easy to track down who benefits, doesn't it?
ahoka - 4 hours ago
Then why do you keep voting a government like this?
digi_owl - 3 hours ago
All governments are fucked.I have seen up and coming
politicians in Norway basically become big media's
mouthpieces over this topic, because otherwise their
political carer is toast.Damn it, when the law was up for
review. The panel had strict rules about what parts of the
law they could recommend changes for. Effectively they were
only able to consider of the copyright duration should be
extended or not.
thomastjeffery - 6 hours ago
It need not be "surprising" to be worthy of discussion.The fact
that the US has so much control over international copyright law
enforcement is a big deal.The fact that a site that does not host
copyrighted material was taken down in the name of copyright law
is a big deal.
erikb - 5 hours ago
What he says is not that he doesn't know it. What he says is
that everybody knows it since years and the article doesn't
contain anything that hasn't been known already.I wouldn't
fully agree with that, but his question is quite clear, imo.
aquadrop - 5 hours ago
Well, since it was about things that long ago, new people
grew up for whom that might be newsworthy.
[deleted]
jokoon - 1 hours ago
It confirms that american businesses can apply pressure on a
geopolitical and diplomatic level, which is scary.Laws should
apply to their own countries. If a foreign business can influence
how the law is applied, it should be perceived as the US doing
things that should be out of its reach. That's something empires
do, and if they keep doing it, it will taint a bad image on the
US.
pferde - 5 hours ago
Got to love the 'privacy' instead of 'piracy' typo in the first
cable screenshot:"2. Summary. In a visit to Sweden last month to
raise the growing concerns about Internet privacy in Sweden, the
Motion Picture Association of America (MPA), together with ..."
louhike - 6 hours ago
I've discovered some days ago that the thepiratebay.org domain was
available again. Is it linked to the original one or is it just a
proxy?
kowdermeister - 6 hours ago
I use it often so somebody keeps it running, actually there are
dozens of mirrors running on various ccTLD-s. The source must be
available somewhere online so you can spin up your own instance.
Mayzie - 5 hours ago
It is. As The Pirate Bay don't host any .torrent files, only
magnet links, on memory the entire site came to under 200mb.
[deleted]
callesgg - 5 hours ago
It was only down for a few months. I have read that other people
are running the website these days.It has degraded a bit but
essentially it works fine most of the time.
Strom - 2 hours ago
What do you mean by again? Was it blocked by your ISP previously,
or do you mean that it used to redirect to others like .se?
Because I'm pretty sure the .org domain has continuously worked
for me since 2004 when it was registered.
marcoperaza - 4 hours ago
And why shouldn't the US have pressured Sweden to take down the
Pirate Bay? The people running that site are openly and proudly
flouting copyright laws and allowing American-owned (among other)
content to be downloaded without payment to the owners.Very large
portions of the US economy are dependent on international
enforcement of copyright and patent law. If the US isn't using its
leverage over other countries to make them enforce intellectual
property laws, then it is failing to protect its citizens' economic
security.
Strom - 2 hours ago
Yes it might be very much fine from the US perspective to do
this. Things change however once you look from the other side. It
can easily be in the economic interest of other countries to not
pay the US copyright holders, especially 100 years after
something was created.So this is not so much about claiming the
US is doing something against the interest of US citizens. This
is about other country politicans/judges/police being corrupt,
taking benefits from USA and acting against the best interests of
the people they promised to defend.
praxeum - 3 hours ago
Not only that, but the people running TPB has earned millions
from advertising revenue, literally earning money off other
peoples' work.
jesperlang - 6 hours ago
Wow, 10 years ago already? This was quite big here in Sweden back
when it happened. It's scary how quickly these things slip out of
our conscience (at least mine). It's chilling what you can get away
with by just staying cool for while... Or is the short term damage
in PR not worth waiting it out for the long?
coldtea - 5 hours ago
>At the time there were some rumors that Sweden would be placed on
the US Trade Representative?s 301 Watch List. This could possibly
result in negative trade implications. However, in a cable written
April 2006, the US Embassy in Sweden was informed that, while there
were concerns, it would not be listed. Not yet at least. ?We
understand that a specialized organization for enforcement against
Internet piracy currently is under consideration,? the cable reads,
while mentioning The Pirate Bay once again.Typical, not so subtle,
blackmail.One wonders what would happen if, say, the leader of some
disclosure website was residing in Sweden and a superpower wanted
him...(From a comment below on TPB case: "The judge was Thomas
Norstr?m. Swedish public radio revealed that the judge, Thomas
Norstr?m, is a member of several copyright protection associations,
whose members include Monique Wadsted and Peter Danowsky ?
attorneys who represented the music and movie industries in the
case. According to the report, Judge Norstr?m also serves as a
board member on one of the groups of which Mrs. Wadsted, the Motion
Picture Association of America?s attorney, is a member." -- hurray
for independent justice in any case..)
marvin - 2 hours ago
The best part: The vast majority of all Scandinavians honestly
believe that we have almost no corruption and that out justice
system is so close to perfect that it is hardly necessary to
discuss improvements.
robert_foss - 3 hours ago
Overall the whole series of events was pretty offensive, and once
again it paints the picture of the US being a schoolyard bully.
RobertoG - 2 hours ago
Business as usual, but better the bully than the
psychopath.From Wikipedia's "1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'?tat":"[..]
The United Fruit Company (UFC), whose highly profitable
business had been affected by the end to exploitative labor
practices in Guatemala, engaged in an influential lobbying
campaign to persuade the U.S. to overthrow the Guatemalan
government. U.S. President Harry Truman authorized Operation
PBFORTUNE to topple ?rbenz in 1952; although the operation was
quickly aborted, it was a precursor to PBSUCCESS."Reading about
those things, one get the impression that the Department of
State works for the Camber of Commerce, instead of the USA
citizens.(1).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
paganel - 1 hours ago
> Reading about those things, one get the impression that the
Department of State works for the Camber of Commerce, instead
of the USA citizens.If I'm not mistaken the first permanent
"embassies" were set up by the Venetians (mostly) and the
Genovese, and their role was essentially just that, i.e.
protecting the economic interests of their "home" entities.
It so happened that most of the time protecting the citizens
who happened to reside in foreign countries also meant
protecting their home-city economic interests, but that
mainly happened because the citizens involved were traders
themselves. So, in a way, you could say that what the
Department of State is now doing is just the continuation of
the initial idea of a "foreign embassy".
RobertoG - 1 hours ago
Surely, the role of the embassy of a power, ruled by a
oligarchy of merchants and aristocrats, it's very different
from the expected role of the embassy of a democratic
federal republic.Just joking. As you say, business as
usual.
realusername - 6 hours ago
I remember the piratebay trial being a gigantic farce where some of
the judges had ties to copyright organisations. It's crazy how much
power have these mafia-like organisations.(edit: spelling)
erikb - 5 hours ago
> mafia-like organisationsWhy not write "governments"? It's much
shorter.
[deleted]
draugadrotten - 5 hours ago
The judge was Thomas Norstr?m. Swedish public radio revealed that
the judge, Thomas Norstr?m, is a member of several copyright
protection associations, whose members include Monique Wadsted
and Peter Danowsky ? attorneys who represented the music and
movie industries in the case. According to the report, Judge
Norstr?m also serves as a board member on one of the groups of
which Mrs. Wadsted, the Motion Picture Association of America?s
attorney, is a member.That this passed without causing a conflict
of interest is astonishing. https://www.csmonitor.com/World
/Global-News/2009/0423/pirate...Also worth mentioning is that the
lead investigating police got a job from Warner Brothers very
soon after the trial was successful. Thank you, job well done.
https://techcrunch.com/2008/04/18/officer-who-investigated-p...In
recent news, the chair of Swedens Supreme court judge Stefan
Lindskog has been implied in shady financial transactions, and is
under investigation by the police. The belief we once had that
Sweden had a low level of corruption can be put to history. And
of course even having a low level still means there is some
corruption. https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/polisen-utreder-
hogsta-doms...YMMV.
paradoja - 5 hours ago
It is my impression that corruption measures usually indicate
corruption available or actively done by normal people without
power (eg. bribing officers to get licenses or similar
things).Corruption by big corporations and similar things is
usually another thing (although if things are corrupt in the
low level, they will for sure be in the higher levels).
marksomnian - 5 hours ago
Nitpick: "without causing a conflict of interest" is incorrect,
as there most definitely was a CoI. You probably meant to say
"conflict of interest scandal" or words to that effect.
Cthulhu_ - 4 hours ago
> Also worth mentioning is that the lead investigating police
got a job from Warner Brothers very soon after the trial was
successful.Can you blame them? Thanks to that case the guy got
a lot of experience in the area of copyright violations and
online piracy, that's valuable knowledge to have and they could
use someone to advise them.You're implying that he did it for
the cushy job he got for it, but I have my doubts. Maybe if you
can prove he got the offer before the investigations started?
tonyedgecombe - 3 hours ago
It's hard to prove but there is still a dirty smell around it
all.
ckastner - 3 hours ago
It never ceases to amaze me how much influence the MPAA has.Movies,
while extremely popular, don't generate that much money: in 2016,
total box office results in the US were under $12bn [1]. That's the
entire industry.Apple alone makes that much money in three weeks'
time.Amazing, that you can apply such pressure to politics, with so
little.[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/187069/north-
american-bo...
wellboy - 3 hours ago
What about licences for when the movies come out on dvd and are
shown on the numerous tv channels in 100+ countries. I can
imagine then this figure amounts to a multiple, maybe $40B?That's
a large industry definitely and a powerful one.
FanaHOVA - 3 hours ago
And streaming rights for Netflix/Hulu/Whatever other platform
there is (lots of them). TV royalties are also paid every time
the movie is aired.
wellboy - 40 minutes ago
Indeed and this per year. So, you're looking at $400B over
ten years.
ekianjo - 3 hours ago
> Movies, while extremely popular, don't generate that much
money: in 2016, total box office results in the US were under
$12bn [1]. That's the entire industry.It's underestimated since
it's a global business, plus they there's a very long tail for
every movie to turn a profit, DVD/BR releases, TV, and online
reselling, renting, etc... and the fact movies remain their
property for 75 years+, and for some companies like Disney they
retain the copyright forever, and keep sellings goods like
cupcakes as well.
astura - 2 hours ago
American box office results are far from the only source of
revenue for movies. Their is foreign box office, DVD/Blueray
sales, digital sales, digital rentals, streaming fees, and
broadcast fees.In Blockbuster's heyday their revenue alone
surpassed American box office sales.
samwillis - 2 hours ago
Don't forget product placement, in film advertising,
endorsements (both in film and around its marketing)...Oh and
merchandising... that's a big one!
digi_owl - 3 hours ago
It's because so few care about copyright. It is seen as something
dry and stodgy that only affect artists and their
publishers/labels.This perhaps because once the cassette
recorder, never mind the VCR, came to be, most nations on the
western side of the wall decided to not go full police state and
thus added a "friends and family" clause to their copyright
laws.This meant that a person could create a copy, if it was
meant for a direct friend or a relative. This avoided having to
park a copyright cop in every home in the nation.Never mind that
producing analog copies from tape to tape cause of a noticeable
loss of content with each generation removed from the
original.But the computer, never mind the internet, changed all
that. It made mass copying not something that required massive
machinery in a warehouse, but something every kid could do in
their own home. Especially as bandwidth and storage capacity kept
improving at a massive rate.And digital copies do not degrade
like an analog one does.
icebraining - 2 hours ago
The organizations also play a game of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Remember Home Taping Is Killing Music? By their propaganda, the
music industry should have died multiple times in the past few
decades.
spodek - 2 hours ago
The framers of the U.S. Constitution knew the risks of the
government creating and granting monopolies, however limited. The
incentives are to remove the limitations and expand them.The
industries formed by these government-granted and defended
monopolies have removed most of their limitations and keep growing.
We see the benefit to them. They make big blockbusters that people
enjoy watching, so we see that benefit.The costs keep growing too,
such as this article and the deprivation from the public domain of
nearly a century of work. Meanwhile, technology has lowered the
costs of production and distribution, making investment for most
works unnecessary, obviating the need for a monopoly.Have the costs
grown to outweigh the benefits? The monopolists' power can maintain
the monopolies past when that point so it's hard to tell, and
people with different values will disagree, but this article points
in that direction.
wimagguc - 5 hours ago
To remove pirated movies from the interwebs there are two options
really: either attack content providers / trackers etc, or, find
the users directly.In Germany, as soon as you start a torrent
client, your traffic is being monitored by bots and agents, and if
you upload something inappropriate you (or your host) will get a
letter from a law firm with a heavy fine. (I know of two friends
who had to pay $600 and $3000.)
_Codemonkeyism - 5 hours ago
"In Germany, as soon as you start a torrent client, your traffic
is being monitored by bots and agents"How is traffic monitored
when I start a client? Don't I need to download/upload something
to get monitored? Is the monitoring connected to trackers I
download from or ISP monitored?"[...] with a heavy fine."Was it a
fine or some kind of fee? ("Abmahngeb?hr")
wimagguc - 5 hours ago
I'm not familiar with the German legal system but the sum did
depend on what they've uploaded. (It was detailed in the
letter, if I remember correctly, $600 for half an episode-of-
whatever and $3000 for multiple movies.)As for the traffic
monitoring, indeed, I'd imagine it to be honeypot tracker where
all content/traffic is visible rather than something installed
on the ISP side.
JohnStrange - 5 hours ago
No it's not the tracker, it also works for magnet links and
people get letters for downloading.There are companies who
join the download swarm and register all other downloading
parties. That's very easy with bittorrent, since the protocol
is (originally) designed for fast download sharing without
any regard to anonymity or pseudonymity.[1] The process is
not reliable for providing evidence of copyright
infringement, though, and the German system mostly works by
scare tactics of lawyers - many people don't want to risk a
lawsuit even if they could win it.[1]
https://torrentfreak.com/thousands-of-spies-are-watching-
tra...
zaarn - 5 hours ago
These companies are the scum of the scum, tbh, I recall I
once got a letter claiming I must pay about 6000? for
illegally downloading "Debian 5 Linux Netboot ISO" and
"Ubuntu 12.04 x86 Full ISO" or something along those
lines.They sent some awfully scary letters for what amounts
to legally obtaining an ISO file.
notzorbo3 - 2 hours ago
I used to run an abandoned warez site when I was young. I
received a lot of cease and desist letters from
"lawyers". They usually failed to identify the infringing
material, failed to show they had the right to act on the
copywriters behalf and a staggering amount of them
confused trademark infringement with copyright
infringement. Also, ever last one I received via email.
Yeah, right, like that's going to hold up. I ignored all
of them and never got even so much as a follow up.In
other words, such things are considered low-hanging fruit
by these companies. Just throw it out there and see what
sticks.
zaarn - 1 hours ago
Luckily the german system is less strict than the DMCA,
you can fact-check any letters you get, you only need to
act if you know (for certain) it's illegal
akerro - 4 hours ago
> $600 for half an episode-of-whatever and $3000Insane, you
can get a good VPN from TorGuard, PIA or NordVPN for 10x less
than half of an episode!
Tepix - 5 hours ago
I think he is saying that there are companies monitoring the
trackers.
scandinavegan - 3 hours ago
At least a few years ago in Sweden, all cases where someone had
payed a fine for downloading pirated material due to such letters
was because the person admitted guilt. The anti-piracy
organizations had no way of forcing someone to pay, because none
of the evidence would hold up in court. They tried to submit
screenshots of IP addresses, but since it's easy to spoof it
wasn't enough to convict someone.I don't know if this has changed
in recent years, as I haven't heard anything about it recently.
danielwarna - 5 hours ago
Copyright holders have been sending those kinds of settlement
demands in Finland as well. They seem to be monitoring the
torrent swarm for relevant IP addresses so that they can demand
that ISPs hand over account holder's names. ISP are by law
required to hand over this information if the users has shared
something illegally to "a significant degree".They settlement
demands have been between 500? and 3000? and they have usually
been lowered in the cases that have gone to court. A few have
however ended up footing legal costs in the tens of thousands.
exDM69 - 4 hours ago
> ISP are by law required to hand over this information if the
users has shared something illegally to "a significant
degree".ISP's only hand over data by court order but in the
past few years, court orders have granted this right to pretty
much every request from the copyright holders. ISP's are now
contesting this and there were two recent judgements in the
courts to allow ISPs not to hand over the data. See this [0]
(in Finnish).So the situation is now better in Finland,
partially because the predatory abuse from copyright holders'
law firms sending out tons of "fines".[0] https://www.turre.com
/operaattori-voitti-oikeudenhaltijat-tu...
amelius - 5 hours ago
So no Tor exit nodes in Germany, I suppose ...
zaarn - 4 hours ago
IIRC there are Tor exit nodes in germany, they also filter some
traffic but only on the lowest amount of effort they have to do
legally. Ie the usual suspects: illegal porn, illegal torrents
(usually also porn) and websites not conforming to strict
german industry standards.
mrighele - 3 hours ago
How does the node operator know what traffic should be
blocked (i.e. that something is illegal porn or illegal
torrent) ? Is there an official source that says for example
which website should be blocked and that is enough ?
r3bl - 2 hours ago
I have a Tor relay (not an exit node) running in
Germany.Once I started reading other people's experience of
running an exit node through that ISP (Hetzner), it turned
out that the hosting company was the one receiving these
reports and forwarding them to you. After it, the
consequences can range all the way from warnings to
physically shutting down your server until you do something
ridiculous (IIRC send them a physical mail).Since I didn't
want to risk my server being shut down for whatever reason
(there are some other uses of it non-Tor related, and the
rest of the monthly bandwidth goes towards Tor relay), I've
decided to just not run the exit node.I'd say it's still
very useful to the Tor network, since it handles something
like 400 GB of Tor traffic per day.
Strom - 2 hours ago
Unlikely that there is a public list, but a node operator
could certainly compile such a list based on angry letters
they receive.
mrighele - 2 hours ago
That would be my approach too, but I was wondering if
this would be enough to stay out of trouble.
zaarn - 2 hours ago
Under german law, yes, notice-and-takedown is basically
all you need to adhere to; if you are aware of illegal
activities, you must take measures to stop them. (But
unlike the DMCA for example, you are allowed to verify
any notices thoroughly before taking action, you only
have to listen to verified claims)
zaarn - 2 hours ago
I was sort of joking a bit but I do know that german node
operators block some traffic.However, it's on a purely
notice-and-takedown basis, which is the DMCA of germany but
more broadly applicable; if you are made aware of illegal
activity on your network you must stop the activity and
take reasonable measures to prevent future abuse. They can
also fall under the network operator laws in which case
they are not responsible for the traffic at all but I'm not
sure if that is applicable to tor nodes or not.
chrisper - 4 hours ago
In Switzerland piracy for private reasons (non-commercial) is
legal!
LaundroMat - 4 hours ago
In Belgium, you're allowed to download, but not to upload.
chrisper - 4 hours ago
Hmm... maybe it is like that,too. I'd have to do some
research.
madez - 3 hours ago
In Germany downloading is no problem, too. Uploading is
what they try to get you for.