High Court orders British ISPs to block "The Pirate Bay"

[nogle]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I find it astonishing how people twist themselves into knots defending TPB.
The Pirate Bay is not necessarily engaging in , or facilitating, piracy. Seriously?

I think you will find that the majority are not defending piracy, and even don't care about nor use the pirate bay. But they have questions about the process used to block access and upon examining the logical extension of the process used, worry about what else could happen.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I am definitely not supporting any draconian laws and widespread monitoring like SOPA. But I also am not afraid of ghosts and think the world would be a better place with TPB gone. You can't stop everything and it makes no sense to even try. But they are taking it much too far. IMHO an easy call.

It was gone for a day, tops, before the UK Pirate Party restored access and the new URL started to spread around. So what next? Prosecute a political party for contempt of court? All that would do is provide even more free advertising for TPB.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That may very well be true, but it doesn't excuse their illegal activities. It's like saying "Fred's a drug dealer, but it's OK - he's kind to small furry animals". The fact that these people may perhaps also buy content does not "legitimise" their illegal downloading of other content.

It does not legitimize piracy. It does counter the claim that filesharing is financially damaging to the entertainment industries... if the sharers are buying substantially more in order to share with people who won't buy at all, the infringement is not financially harmful. (On a large scale. In individual cases, I'm sure some are harmed and while others are helped tremendously. We hear anecdotal accounts from both of those; large-scale data are not widely available.)

It's much harder to make a case against non-damaging activities. Not impossible--financial damage isn't the only measure of copyright infringement--but it does hamper media companies' ability to convince the public of the evils of filesharing if they can't say what damage it does to them.

It's closer to "Fred's a drug dealer, but he's okay - he spends his drug money on youth centers and ambulances." It's harder to prove he's evil if he's obviously helping the community, in addition to whatever harm he's causing. Proving he's criminal wouldn't be too difficult--but proving he's a menace and substantial resources should be spent stopping him is more difficult.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You seem to be confusing "cause" and "effect" here. There would be no need for more draconian laws and monitoring if these people whom you side with weren't illegally downloading stuff.

I am not confusing cause and effect, nor does my post suggest any such confusion. I'm merely stating that I don't think the "cause" (piracy) results in sufficient harm to justify the "effect" (draconian laws and monitoring). I agree something illegal is happening and that's bad, but I disagree with any solution that basically amounts to swinging a sledgehammer around in a crowded room to squash a fly.

Originally Posted by stonetools

Spoken like a guy whose work can't be pirated-yet!

If the product of NL's labor could be distributed free on the Internet, thus costing him income, he would not have this wise and understanding attitude about piracy.

Some of my labour is in fact distributed for free on the internet. Lengthy agreements and documents that I've drafted are available online for free on SEDAR, as are legal memos abd court documents that I've written. I have no doubt that others have benefited from my research and have never credited me or provided any money to me.

Originally Posted by nogle

I think you will find that the majority are not defending piracy, and even don't care about nor use the pirate bay. But they have questions about the process used to block access and upon examining the logical extension of the process used, worry about what else could happen.

This, a thousand times this. Some can't separate the process from the result; if The Pirate Bay is bad, then anything you do to stop it must be okay because stopping it is okay. If you disagree with the process, then somehow you must be supporting piracy generally.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

To make the knife store analogy a little more accurate you should change it to something like this.

The Pirate Bay is like a shop that sells knives and then tells you: "look, now take that knife to the second floor, they have a jewelry store there you can rob, we even provide a special back entrance for you. And nobody has ever been caught since they don't have surveillance video". You should add that the name of the store is 'Knives for Crimes', to keep out the cooks and other pesky customers.

To make the analogy even more fitting, you could say the store has a great number of monitors showing video links to places that are easy to rob.

You seem to be a little confused about my analogy. BPI took the ISP to court, not TPB. In my analogy the shop was the ISP. It should have been obvious since the title of the thread clearly states that the ISPs were taken to court, and my analogy was that the shop owner is taken to court.

I would say that you are trying to make an analogy between your hypothetical shop and TPB, but it would be a complete failure because TPB doesn't actually host anything.

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

The "casuals" will go wherever Google tells them to go. The only reason TPB is top of any Google search now is because of the number of visitors it has and the number of people clicking those links. Artificially reduce the number of visitors TPB gets and the next biggest pirate site will dominate Google. Then you're back to square one.

Why would a "casual" need to find a torrent site? Why use a search engine to find another search engine?

Originally Posted by elcreative

I gathered that its legality wasn't exactly established even there as the owners have declined to defend anything by scattering around the world to avoid legal actions... not being finally found illegal doesn't mean legal, just means decision pending...

It's not innocent until proven guilty?

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Both. TPB have the ability to remove infringing files, but refuse to do so.
They actively encourage users to upload them.
The site is designed to facilitate infringement.
TPB are guilty (as found by the judge) of authorising the users' infringements.

How can TPB authorize if they don't have the right to do so? You can only authorize if you have the authority.

Originally Posted by HarryT

This seems like a pretty damning judgement, and one which fully merits action. The fact that there are other criminals committing similar crimes does not mean that action should not be taken against these particular ones, surely?

But action isn't taken against TPB.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

It should be the same as with youtube. If you get notified that you have illegal links on your site then you should take them down immediately. And you should also be proactive, trying to make sure that your users don't post illegal links. The Mobileread moderators take down such links all the time.

What is the difference between having abcdefgh and abcdefgh.com in a post? Technically if you write abcdefgh[dot]com, it's not a link.

To those who are trying to say that TPB is not about piracy:


If you want to learn more about copyright math:

[stonetools]

Some of my labour is in fact distributed for free on the internet by my own choice. Lengthy agreements and documents that I've drafted are available online for free on SEDAR, as are legal memos abd court documents that I've written. I have no doubt that others have benefited from my research and have never credited me or provided any money to me.

FTFY. Good on you for doing pro bono work, but I'm sure you don't want ALL your work to be Pro bono

This, a thousand times this. Some can't separate the process from the result; if The Pirate Bay is bad, then anything you do to stop it must be okay because stopping it is okay. If you disagree with the process, then somehow you must be supporting piracy generally.

You know, these seem to me to be weasel words. If you actually are against piracy,then you need to suggest what legal process that YOU would find acceptable. Saying that " I oppose piracy, but then I oppose any attempt at law enforcement against piracy" leads me to suspect that you actually don't oppose piracy at all.
After all, I'm sure you oppose car theft and also support law enforcement against car theft. You don't go around saying, "Any attempt to punish car thieves MUST lead to a violation of the rights of us all."

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Why would a "casual" need to find a torrent site? Why use a search engine to find another search engine?

The issue is not about people "needing" to find torrent sites, but about links to pages on TBP being returned by entirely innocent searches.

But action isn't taken against TPB.

Of course it is. Action was taken to block access to TPB. That's very much "against" them even if they weren't the defendents in the case.

[stonetools]

How can TPB authorize if they don't have the right to do so? You can only authorize if you have the authority.

The court has apparently rejected those and the rest of these arguments. Apparently, in the real world these nice distinctions you espouse cut no ice in the face of the actual avidence of TPB's actions.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

[/I]
FTFY. Good on you for doing pro bono work, but I'm sure you don't want ALL your work to be Pro bono

Not all lawyers' works, but all legal opinions and court rulings, are in the public domain in the US. Lawyers don't get a choice about copyrighting many of their most complicated and influential creative works.

You know, these seem to me to be weasel words. If you actually are against piracy,then you need to suggest what legal process that YOU would find acceptable.

No, it's perfectly reasonable to say, "I'm against [illegal activity] but am not sure what methods would be both effective against it and fair to the non-lawbreaking public."

Saying that " I oppose piracy, but then I oppose any attempt at law enforcement against piracy" leads me to suspect that you actually don't oppose piracy at all.

Nobody said, "I oppose any attempt at law enforcement against piracy." Several people have spoken in favor of legal action against piracy--in cases where evidence is brought to a court, and a plaintiff and defendant both have the right to present a case, and a ruling is made by a jury.

The objection is not to law enforcement but to an attempt to circumvent the need for court cases by imposing restrictions on people and organizations who aren't directly breaking laws, but whose legal actions allows lawbreaking to go on in their presence. Courts going after ISPs for activities being coordinated through TPB are punishing a lot of ancillary people; if those breaking the law are the uploaders & downloaders, find them.

If they are too numerous or scattered to find... the legal system may need changing, because punishing the search engines will just lead to new search engines being developed elsewhere. (Currently, the proposed changes in the legal system are more punishments for the ancillary people, not any attempt to find & punish the people breaking the current laws.)

Does Smith & Wesson get prosecuted for murder based on making it easy to commit?

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by stonetools

After all, I'm sure you oppose car theft and also support law enforcement against car theft. You don't go around saying, "Any attempt to punish car thieves MUST lead to a violation of the rights of us all."

I agree yet car theft still exists so naturally law enforcement is going to need better tools to stop it. Cutting the hands off of thieves would be a good start and is not unprecedented in some parts of the world. Anyone who disagrees is of course in support of car theft.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

How can TPB authorize if they don't have the right to do so? You can only authorize if you have the authority.

Authorise was defined in the ruling.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by cjr72

I agree yet car theft still exists so naturally law enforcement is going to need better tools to stop it. Cutting the hands off of thieves would be a good start and is not unprecedented in some parts of the world. Anyone who disagrees is of course in support of car theft.

Don't be ridiculous. There's no need for violence. All we have to do to prevent car theft is paint the owner's name on the front of the car and etch pictures of all authorized drivers into the windows.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Why would a "casual" need to find a torrent site? Why use a search engine to find another search engine?

I assume the casuals are people who search for something they want, then when the top results all say DOWNLOAD FREE HERE they click on those instead of BUY NOW ON AMAZON on the next page.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by stonetools

If you actually are against piracy,then you need to suggest what legal process that YOU would find acceptable.

Detection, accusation, then evidence gathering if the accused denies it. With the burden of proof being on the accuser rather than the accused, and a jury to decide guilt or innocense. It's worked well for centuries with every other crime, there's no reason it can't work with this one.

[cjr72]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Don't be ridiculous. There's no need for violence. All we have to do to prevent car theft is paint the owner's name on the front of the car and etch pictures of all authorized drivers into the windows.

I like that, and it goes without saying that the cars can never be borrowed or resold to anyone.