Pirate Bay founders found guilty

[bhartman36]

Regardless of what political organizations the Pirate Bay guys belonged to, what they were doing was wrong on its face. As someone else has said in this thread, they made no attempt to even pretend they weren't encouraging and facilitating copyright violations. How moronic do you have to be to call your enterprise "The Pirate Bay" and think you'll actually get away with it?

If they hadn't been so overtly encouraging copyright violations, that would be one thing, but it's hard to have any sympathy for the situation in the current circumstances.

[sirbruce]

I'm not sure explicitly aiding copyright violation is wrong on it face. See the thread where some people can't even agree that copyright violation is wrong, period. Or the thread regarding whether or not certain python scripts explicitly aid in copyright violation.

Even if we could agree that copyright violation is wrong, providing tools or mechanisms to make it easier for other people to commit copyright violation is not necessarily wrong. Even if those tools were originally intended to commit copyright violation.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by b0rsuk

Nice ad hominem there, HarryT.

Certainly it's an argumentum ad hominem, but I personally feel that it's an extremely important one to be aware of. You may of course feel otherwise - that's fine with me.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Or "homosexual" in other quarters. Or "Jewish".

Yes, attatch a label of something you don't like to someone high in the food chain of any business or organization and use that as a big club to bash everyone who works or does business there. The ideals of Fred Rodgers are truely dead.

Not so much. You would never hear "jewish conspiracy" thrown around by a news anchor the way you might hear "socialist" or "neo nazi".

[Good Old Neon]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

One interesting similarity between Europe and the US is that you throw around the term "neo-nazi" in much the same way that some in the US use "socialist".

That’s absurd – there are major distinctions between what is implied by socialist and neo-nazi. The only persons who still get their panties in a bunch w/r/t anything that even remotely resembles socialism, typically spend their days listening to the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity, when they’re not reading Ann Coulter.

Which is to say, morons.

Please, provide information linking socialism in the US, with anything that approaches the violence and hatred supported and espoused by the neo-Nazi movement – in Europe or elsewhere.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

That’s absurd – there are major distinctions between what is implied by socialist and neo-nazi. The only persons who still get their panties in a bunch w/r/t anything that even remotely resembles socialism, typically spend their days listening to the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity, when they’re not reading Ann Coulter.

Which is to say, morons.

Please, provide information linking socialism in the US, with anything that approaches the violence and hatred supported and espoused by the neo-Nazi movement – in Europe or elsewhere.

I'm talking about how the word is used in a conversation. Harry used it to end the discussion: "He must be evil; he's a neo-nazi".

[Good Old Neon]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I'm talking about how the word is used in a conversation. Harry used it to end the discussion: "He must be evil; he's a neo-nazi".

Whoops, my bad.

My apologies.

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

That’s absurd – there are major distinctions between what is implied by socialist and neo-nazi.

This is understood.

See e.g.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Your wikipedia quote seems like a fine definition. But in most day-to-day discussion here in the US, the operative definition of "socialist" is "farther left than the speaker approves of."

in the same way Neo-Nazi is (in Europe) commonly used as describing "Neo Nazi is farther right then the speaker approves of" and is often mend as an AdHominem to end any unpleasant discussion (he's a neo-nazi, just dont listen to him!)

--edit its ninja-day

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I'm talking about how the word is used in a conversation. Harry used it to end the discussion: "He must be evil; he's a neo-nazi".

Would you be good enough to point out where, precisely, I said that anyone was "evil", please Nate? To the best of my knowledge, I said that I found the gentleman's views to be "distasteful" and "unpleasant". Hardly the same thing.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Jovvi

Well I think this is a sad day for Sweden because it kind of shows that the courts are totally inkompetent in the use of Internet. I´m not surprised bu I´m sad.

But most people guessed that they would be found guilty in the lowest court and not found guilty in higher courts. But I have not had time to read the Swedish papers and web sites yet so I do not know if people are surprised or not.

Concerning income from pirate bay I read all the transcripts from the trial and to me they did present evidence that there was any income at all that had not been used to costs for computers and other things.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Regardless of what political organizations the Pirate Bay guys belonged to, what they were doing was wrong on its face. As someone else has said in this thread, they made no attempt to even pretend they weren't encouraging and facilitating copyright violations. How moronic do you have to be to call your enterprise "The Pirate Bay" and think you'll actually get away with it?

If they hadn't been so overtly encouraging copyright violations, that would be one thing, but it's hard to have any sympathy for the situation in the current circumstances.

Well, I do not think that a neutral provider of links that do not look at any of the content and do not remove any of the content is a bad thing and it is not obviously illegal. It is the provider of the content that should be responsible for it and have to remove it.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

I'm not sure explicitly aiding copyright violation is wrong on it face. See the thread where some people can't even agree that copyright violation is wrong, period. Or the thread regarding whether or not certain python scripts explicitly aid in copyright violation.

Even if we could agree that copyright violation is wrong, providing tools or mechanisms to make it easier for other people to commit copyright violation is not necessarily wrong. Even if those tools were originally intended to commit copyright violation.

Some people might disagree that copyright violation is wrong... however, if The Law says it is wrong, that means violators will get punished for breaking it.

I agree, simply providing the tools isn't wrong. Providing them, then calling out "If you use these to violate the law, we're all for that!" will get you in trouble.

At least they weren't accused of actually pirating the material, but only of being accomplices...

[bhartman36]

“The trial of the Pirate Bay is an excellent example of how ugly, stupid companies motivated only by their greed and inertia, want to prevent people sharing music, movies, or anything, on a purely altruistic basis,” they said in a statement.

It's quite rare that you hear a statement so dense with nonsense.

1) The Pirate Bay people didn't have "purely altruistic" motives.

2) People trading files aren't "sharing" anything. When you "share", you either a) give something to someone temporarily, b) give someone something to keep, leaving less for yourself, or c) keep something in a communal area where multiple people have access to it. None of these definitions apply to this kind of "file sharing". The Pirate Bay was facilitating file transfers, which resulted in reproduction of files, not "sharing".

3) It's not just "ugly, stupid companies" that have a stake in this. Anyone who produces intellectual property has a stake in it.

I do not think that DRM is the ultimate answer to this. DRM is a temporary, necessary evil while companies/IP providers figure out if there's an actual market for these things. (You can't really find that out if you essentially give them away right out of the gate.)

I would personally love to see all e-books distributed in open epub, MOBI, or (although I don't really like the format...) PDF format. Pirate Bay and similar sites slow that process down, though. If you know people can get something for free, you have a hard time justifying starting a venture to sell it to them. The venture itself costs money, after all.

I think this is a bad day for the Pirate Bay guys, but it might just be a good day for ebooks...

[Ervserver]

It ain't over till its over

[tompe]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

1) The Pirate Bay people didn't have "purely altruistic" motives.

The motivation for the three pirate bay persons (Lundström is not among the pirate bay people) seems to vary but nobody had to make money as a motivation.