Quote:
Originally Posted by murraypaul
TPB have made it very clear they have no interest in involving themselves in any actions like this.
The printing press analogy fails because they aren't printing lots of different things, some of which are illegal, almost all of the material they aid in distributing is illegal, and that is the focus of the site, hence the name.
Part of the finding in these cases has been that is that there is no significant non-infringing content. That is why 'normal' sites, where a small proportion of content was infringing, would not be addressed in the same way.
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Whether they choose to involve themselves or not is irrelevant, they should be provided an opportunity to be heard (whether or not they take it is their prerogative) before their site is blocked; otherwise, on what basis is the determination that they're doing anything illegal even made? Something is criminal once it has been determined to be so based on a fair hearing in a criminal trial, not because, "well, it has the word "pirate" right in the title!"
As I said in the passage of mine you quoted, my discomfort comes from the fact that The Pirate Bay wasn't involved in this investigation and, in fact, there was no criminal investigation; the finding was made in a civil case, not a criminal case. I don't necessarily disagree with blocking a website, if it is done through a process that ensures the affected parties can present evidence and make arguments and where the trier of facts balances the cost of suppressing the speech against the benefit.
With respect to the printing press analogy, I'm not going to get into an argument about it; analogies by their nature are imperfect, so mine wasn't without its faults. Although, as I have already pointed out a few times, there are in fact large sections of The Pirate Bay devoted to non-infringing content. And while The Pirate Bay may be "devoted" to infringing content, it doesn't actually appear that they host anything infringing or illegal; that is a determination for a UK criminal court to make, not the two of us arguing on a forum.