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porphy · 04-17-09, 11:44 AM

These guys got sentenced 1 year in prison and 30 millions to pay. They were found guilty as accomplices for the crime of illegal file sharing for 20 songs 9 movies and 4 computer games.

The court case was about this specific material only and the Pirate Bays part in how this media content was made available for illegal distribution. Whatever one thinks about illegal file sharing, the punishment for the specific crime tried in court is totally ridiculous.

The initial amount of money claimed from the legal right holders was 100 millions. Everyone knows there is no established or very clear way to calculate this stuff. It will be interesting to see how the court reasons to establish that sum of 30 millions... Compared to other cases, like manslaughter or even a cruel murder, where the guilty part might have to pay some feeble sum for their crime this really makes me think something is wrong in parts of the legal system.

These guys obviously advocate totally free file sharing without control of the content. Voicing that idea is not a crime, not even when you run a bit torrent server where copyright material is found indexed. It seems to me that they where in part convicted for their thoughts and attitude to the whole media industry and copyright holders. They played hard and fast, trusting that the bit torrent technology would protect them, that is, if no illegal content were ever stored on their server or passed through they would be safe. They were probably found guilty as they didn't care about the consequences, which actually can be a crime in some cases. But as other have pointed out, there are a lot of companies out there that doesn't care at all if their services are used for making illegal file sharing easy, as long as their customers pays them good money....

During the trial the question was asked if the legal right holders had tried to locate or contact the persons who uploaded the torrent files for the movies etc. The answer was in every case "no". They didn't even try to find the guys that actually committed the crime, but went only for The Pirate Bay guys and wanted them convicted as sort of accomplices in the crime, which someone else they never had any contact with decided to do. The case, as presented in court, was not very strong in some parts, and I can't shake of the feeling that the guys were found guilty and heavily fined from the the reasoning of something like this: "we already know that they advocate totally free file sharing, and that means they accept crime, and that means that The Pirate Bay was set up to make illegal file sharing easy". Yes, maybe, but I don't think that was very well proved in court, and certainly not with respect to the specified illegally spread material, which The Pirate Bay never handled or distributed themselves.

I look forward to follow the next trial, in this case.

cheers Porphy

04-17-09, 11:44 AM	#7
porphy Commodore Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 603 Downloads: 4 Uploads: 0	These guys got sentenced 1 year in prison and 30 millions to pay. They were found guilty as accomplices for the crime of illegal file sharing for 20 songs 9 movies and 4 computer games. The court case was about this specific material only and the Pirate Bays part in how this media content was made available for illegal distribution. Whatever one thinks about illegal file sharing, the punishment for the specific crime tried in court is totally ridiculous. The initial amount of money claimed from the legal right holders was 100 millions. Everyone knows there is no established or very clear way to calculate this stuff. It will be interesting to see how the court reasons to establish that sum of 30 millions... Compared to other cases, like manslaughter or even a cruel murder, where the guilty part might have to pay some feeble sum for their crime this really makes me think something is wrong in parts of the legal system. These guys obviously advocate totally free file sharing without control of the content. Voicing that idea is not a crime, not even when you run a bit torrent server where copyright material is found indexed. It seems to me that they where in part convicted for their thoughts and attitude to the whole media industry and copyright holders. They played hard and fast, trusting that the bit torrent technology would protect them, that is, if no illegal content were ever stored on their server or passed through they would be safe. They were probably found guilty as they didn't care about the consequences, which actually can be a crime in some cases. But as other have pointed out, there are a lot of companies out there that doesn't care at all if their services are used for making illegal file sharing easy, as long as their customers pays them good money.... During the trial the question was asked if the legal right holders had tried to locate or contact the persons who uploaded the torrent files for the movies etc. The answer was in every case "no". They didn't even try to find the guys that actually committed the crime, but went only for The Pirate Bay guys and wanted them convicted as sort of accomplices in the crime, which someone else they never had any contact with decided to do. The case, as presented in court, was not very strong in some parts, and I can't shake of the feeling that the guys were found guilty and heavily fined from the the reasoning of something like this: "we already know that they advocate totally free file sharing, and that means they accept crime, and that means that The Pirate Bay was set up to make illegal file sharing easy". Yes, maybe, but I don't think that was very well proved in court, and certainly not with respect to the specified illegally spread material, which The Pirate Bay never handled or distributed themselves. I look forward to follow the next trial, in this case. cheers Porphy __________________ "The only remedy for madness is the innocence of facts." O. Mirbeu "A paranoid is simply someone in possession of all the facts." W. B. Last edited by porphy; 04-17-09 at 12:09 PM.