Following up on Torrent Shutdowns

dantheman82 and others have submitted a number of links about the recent closure of torrent mega sites like suprnova and torrentbits. The Unofficial Suprnova Closure FAQ comments that some torrent site maintainers have been arrested and that Suprnova was closed over fear of similiar fate. DeHavilland notes that the finnish police raided an unnamed torrent site. There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.

What does mobilizing foreign police actually mean?

[enoraM]

> There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is
> that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.
This would be scary, if you think that taking sites down was not just and legitimate. I don't know the facts about finish rights, but under german right suprnova could have been shut down.
It's not always the US pushing and picking on people and maybe it is not in this case. At least I believe, that the finnish police made it's own independent decision.
With Indymedia It actually seemed to be some tougher mobilizing:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/10/07/204217.shtml? tid=153&tid=219 [slashdot.org] This may or may not be the case with suprnova.

Donvitorrent

[Tribbin]

I find this one a good substitute:

http://www.donvitorrent.com/ [donvitorrent.com]

unnamed finish site

[f4k3r]

the "unnamed site" that was raided was FinReactor, there was a video (of something) about it on thepiratebay a few days ago

MPAA had nothing to do with the finnish raids

[edgrale]

Actually it has been reported that MPAA had NOTHING to do with the finnish raids.
The KRP (Keskusrikospoliisi = FBI?) has publicly said that the MPAA has not been in contact with the finnish authorities. Here is a site [itviikko.fi] (in finnish) that says it all.

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[ultrabot]

At least I believe, that the finnish police made it's own independent decision.

That's what the Finnish police themselves say. What's interesting is that MPAA has been attempting to take the "credit" for the raid. Sure, everyone knows they are lying bastards, but one would expect them to pick lies that are not so easy to check...

Re:unnamed finish site

[Keruo]

and despite of MPAA claims, it had absolutely nothing to do with the raid
National Bureau of Investigation(KRP) made announcement that they(MPAA) were trying to fish off free publicity from their investigations, and had nothing to do with the shutdown

This isn't new. Remember anon.funet.fi?

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Everyone remember when anon.funet.fi [venona.com] was raided at the request of scientology?

With enough money to fund attorneys you can apparently get other countries, especially the Finnish, to comply.

Yes, it's all the Americans...

[Anonymous Coward]

(rolls eyes) If you've seen a recordedmovie through legitimate channels in the past 2 decades, you've seen the copyright warning. This warning invariably says something about how the members of some mysterious fascist organization called "Interpol" voted unanimously to enforce copyrights. It may also mention the Berne convention as reason or impetus to do this.

Hint 1: The "inter" in "Interpol" stands for "international".

Hint 2: Berne isn't even remotely in the US.

BBC Article

[Richie1984]

The BBC has an interesting article [bbc.co.uk] on the suject of SuprNova going down, as well as some general information on BitTorrent and the MPAA.

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[SlayerofGods]

I don't know the facts about finish rights, but under german right suprnova could have been shut down.

That's kind of funny, because under American law (yes the dreaded DMCA) suprnova was safe from lawsuits because it just acted like google as a clearing house for information and didn't actually run the trackers with infringing material.

Re:BooHoo

[DeathFlame]

Last time I checked, US law doesn't apply everywhere.

So they are not CLEARLY offering illegal content, as...

Wait a minute. Let me actually look this up. I'm applying patent law thinking to this...

*looks it up*

Oh fuck. Okay, so copyright protection usually DOES apply in foreign countries, assuming they signed the Berne Convention, are members of the WTO or signed the WIPO Copyright Treaty.

Re:BooHoo

[HTH NE1]

These sites were CLEARLY offering illegal content.

Um, last I heard the actual .torrent files did not contain any illegal content. Unless telling someone where they can buy drugs is illegal, all they were were links that identified a tracker which does not carry the content, only tracks who does.

And did they even host the .torrent files themselves or did they link to .torrent files on another site? If the latter, that's 3 links removed from the exchange of the content.

And again, the content isn't what's illegal, it is the copying of the content from others without the legal right (namely the copyright) to do so. Just because you have a TV episode on your computer doesn't mean you acquired it illegally. Perhaps you have a pcHDTV card.

(I am aware of the 2600 DeCSS case which made links to illegal links illegal, thus making it illegal to make any links to outside sites as they can all eventually be made to point to illegal content, and without your knowledge, control, or consent. I just find that ruling ridiculous.)

Re:Doing their bidding

[mzwaterski]

If you disagree that copyright violations should be criminal matters, you should be complaining about Congress, not companies or police forces. If the law states that copyright violation is a criminal matter, then it is up to police forces and courts to enforce that matter. The fact is that copyright violation is currently a criminal matter under certain circumstances and it should be therefore be enforced. Enforcement should only end if Congress changes the law or the courts deem the law to be an infringment of constitutional rights.

To learn what makes copyright violation a criminal offense, read this: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/CFAleghis t.htm [usdoj.gov]

SUPRNOVA WAS MORE THAN JUST WAREZ

[Anonymous Coward]

Suprnova had much more than just copywrited works. Its music section was a great way to distribute your garageband's latest Album. Its Game section was a great way to distribute your latest shareware game. And its movie section was a great way to distribute your latest film. Someone should really start a suprnova for truly free indie content.

Criminal copyright law is not entirely new

[Kaseijin]

Until recently, copyright law in the US was a purely civil matter....

The bar has been repeatedly and drastically lowered in recent years, but copyright infringement for commercial gain has been criminal since the 1800s.

Re:SUPRNOVA WAS MORE THAN JUST WAREZ

[natron 2.0]

ever hear of legal torrents? http://legaltorrents.com/ [legaltorrents.com] check it out. lots o good LEGAL stuff!

Re:numbers??

[BlueArchon]

http://stats.lanwan.fi/ficix/sum.cgi [lanwan.fi]
Stats for the Finnish Communication and Internet Exchange, which is a interconnect between pretty much every ISP in Finland.
The drop from 7Gbps to 5Gbps happened at the same time as finreactor closed down.

Re:International Copyright Law

[mzwaterski]

You have a conclusion: The sites were not violating copyright law
Followed by some facts: They were listing links that went to other links that connected to a tracker that connects seeds and peers to each other in order for them to share the love.

But you fail to provide any justification for your conclusion based on your facts. What element of copyright law are they missing? Maybe you should read: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/circ92.pdf [copyright.gov] before forming your conclusion.

This is hilarious...

[Kjella]

I don't know where Linus wrote his code, but let's say most of it was in Finland. Now, if somebody was breaking his copyright (by e.g. not complying with the holy GPL) in the US, would US police react? Would it be "scary that [Finnish] copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding."?

The day companies manage to prosecute people for violating foreign laws, I'm worried. But this is local law enforcement acting according to local law, and is exactly how the judicial process is supposed to work (that those laws might be bad, is a problem with the legislators, not the police).

As for suprnova not violating copyright law, feel free to go there and take over. I'm sure they'll let you run it on your liability. Test your faith in slashdot pseudo-lawyering and take a stand.

Kjella

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[deetsay]

>>At least I believe, that the finnish police made it's own independent decision.

>That's what the Finnish police themselves say.

IIRC the Finnish police said they acted because copyright holders (Microsoft) had filed some kind of complaint against the site (FinReactor) back in 2002...

Re:Irony?

[Zorilla]

sware (swâr)
v. Archaic

A past tense of swear. [reference.com]

The facts on copyright and international relations

[JonKatzIsAnIdiot]

When confronted by mindless Slashbot tripe such as:

There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding.

I find it refreshing to look at the pertinent facts:

• the Berne Convention, which first established the recognition of copyrights between sovereign nations, was the brainchild of Victor Hugo, a French author.
• The aforementioned agreement was first adopted in Berne, Switzerland. - Berne Convention [wikipedia.org]
• The European Union extended copyrights to life of the author plus seventy years in 1993, a full five years before the US did with the Sonny Bono act - European Copyright Harmonization [wikipedia.org]
• As mentioned elsewhere, the Finnish police acted independantly, with no input from any of those 'evil American copyright owners'

The anti-American whining is making you look stupid. Stop it.

Annan has not been accused of taking money.

[ChessHacker]

then ask why Kofi Annan and company were personally involved in the Oil for Food scandal.

There is absolutely no evidence that Kofi Annan has personally profited from the oil-for-food program.

Remember, this program was set up at the behest of the US, with support from the UK and was, according to UNICEF, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Sectio nID=15&ItemID=6861 [zmag.org]

Re:Exactly

[Rei]

Oh, for God's sake, not this tired old tripe again.

Kojo Annan worked for Cotecna, *In Nigeria*, and left before Cotecna had the Iraq contract. He had deferred comp (like Cheney has from Haliburton), but has done no work for them since.

How did Cotectna get the contract - string pulling, right? WRONG. The previous contract holder was Lloyd's Register. Lloyds left on almost no notice, leaving all inspections of goods held up until a new company could be found. An incredibly short bidding period was consequently given, and whatever companies bidded had to be able to start work immediately. As a result, and due to the very limited number of inspection companies, only one company offered a bid; Cotecna. When you have only one bid and all good shipments into a country of over 20 million people are held up until a contract is granted, the choice is obvious.

Furthermore, OFF did not benefit Saddam to the tune of 23 billion dollars. Kickbacks through OFF contractors are estimated at around 5 billion dollars; the rest (of which the amount is controversial; some US investigations have said only 5 billion) are from oil smuggling, which is outside the scope of OFF.

FURTHERMORE, OFF's 661 committee, which was in charge of blocking contracts, had absolutely no authority to either investigate companies for giving kickbacks to the Iraqi government, or to block them even if it knew about this. Their charter authority was only to block banned items from getting to Iraq. There was a body that could block contracts, but it wasn't an OFF body: it was the UN security council. I.e., *our government* could have investigated and blocked contracts (it only took one government). It didn't. The 661 committee actually complained about suspected kickbacks to the security council; it didn't act.

Also, you seem unaware of how kickbacks work. The kickbacks aren't kickbacks to the company; they're kickbacks to the Iraqi government. In order to get the contracts, the company would have to raise their prices. On paper, the company would have been making a much larger profit as a consequence, but in reality they were only paid for what they initially would have charged, and the Iraqi government would get the extra money. Kickbacks are almost standard in many 3rd world countries, but Iraq was just a particuly sensitive case.

Next: Your claim that Kofi is ineffective, and that you think the world will cheer when he's gone. Well, lets just do a quick search:

"Kofi Annan and Pope John Paul Top the List of Most Popular World Leaders in Five Largest European Countries"
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/ allnewsbydat e.asp?NewsID=821

"Person of the Week: Kofi Annan
For turning the fight against AIDS into a world war and for his popular reelection as U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan is our Person of the Week" (many more details about his tenure follow)
http://www.time.com/time/pow/article/0,85 99,165905 ,00.html

Whole bunch of links related to him, his policy platforms, and why he's so popular in the world (outside America)
http://www.globalpolicy.org/secgen/

Kofi's win of the Nobel Peace Prize:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/200 1/10/12/ un_nobel011012.html

I could easily keep on going.

Lastly, for Reagan. You claim:
"... used the proceeds to fund essentially anti-Communists during the Cold War"

Go read a summary of what the contra war was like, for starters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras (general summary)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_t he_America s (used to train the contras, among others)
http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/icases/inus /inus_iju dgment/inus_ijudgment_toc.htm (world court judgement against the US)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte (covered up abuses in Honduras so that we could train Contras there)
http://www.wakeupmag.co.uk/articles/cia5.

Wrong

[DarkMan]

This particular fallacy needs to die.

Under the DMCA, specifically the section 512(d), sets out the criteria under which the 'search engine ' examption applies. The following key points are worthy of note:

Section 512, paragraph (d),

A service provider shall not be liable ... if the service provider :

part (1)(A) does not have actual knowledge that the material or activity is infringing;

(B) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or

(C) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;

Thus, this can only apply if the site owners are never aware that the material they are indexing is infringing.

A simple look at the front page of Suprnova.org is enough to belie that.

If a site wished to claim 512(d) as a defense, they would have to demonstrate to the court that they did not know any of the material they indexed was infringing.

Now, there might be a defense, under the multiple layers of abstraction, in that Suprnova indexed .torrents, which were merely pointers to the infringing data. That's nothing like a 'I'm just a search engine like Google' defense, however.

Simple rule of thumb: If it's common knowledge that a site is were to look to find infringing materials, and is of little other use, 512(d) won't apply (on the grounds that it beggers belief that a site owner would have no grasp on _why_ so many people were using thier site).

Disclaimer: You're not paying for this, this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice, contact a lawyer in your juristriction.

The Cost of Movies and Internet Bandwidth

[SumDog]

The Cost of Movies and the Economy of Internet Bandwidth

Originally there was Napster and people shared music. The music industry put a stop to that, so then we got all the Gnutella clients (Bearshare, Kazza, Limewire, etc.) which broadcast searches and requests all around the Internet wasting insane amounts of bandwidth. Although new versions of the gnutella protocol minimize the wasted bandwidth, it's still pretty bad and now the industries are going after individual users who share media.

Bittorrent was never designed as a file sharing protocol, but websites like supronova.org helped pave the way for it. Bittorrent is efficient and semi-anonymous (you can never tell who the original uploaded is and you'd have to design systems to keep extensive logs in order to prosecute one person for sharing massive amounts of stuff).

Now with bittorrent sites being shut down, we're likely to see a combination of the two (i.e. distributing torrents and trackers via a gnutella style P2P network). In other words, the MPAA and RIAA are going to be responsible for people making more inefficient, bandwidth wasting protocols.

In light of all of this, think about where the money is going. Why the fuck should the movie industry care? Their actors get paid in the millions for a year or two of work. Acting is not work and to be honest, many of the actors at the playhouse at my university can do just as good a job as some of these big names. It's ridiculous how much they get paid for Acting!.

The movie industry are a bunch of money grubbing whores. We measure a movie's success in how much money it makes, however ticket prices keep going up! There's no way a modern movie can compete with the classics when movies were a dollar for new releases. I truly wish movie success rates were based on ticket sales and not on how much money they make.

Instead of shutting down sharing sites for poor college students who love movies, how about paying the actors a reasonable amount, distributing more money to the pre-production effects crews and camera-men and then reducing ticket prices back to $3 ~ $5.

AntsP2P could solve Bitttorents problems

[Anonymous Coward]

How About Ants p2p it has swarming ,resume encryption point to point and end to end ,a Http tunnel for posting hashes and a embeded IRC chat for one of its bottstraping methods its in beta so the user base is small but it has potential . .Its open source and heavily developed at this current time .Only one drawback for most users ,its a JAVA app

Azureus and Ants developers are colaborating on a hybrid client useing some sort of distributed trakers and the Ants core for plusible deniability .
Ants Developer Grwen personal webpage
http://www.myjavaserver.com.nyud.net:8090 /~gwren/h ome.jsp?page=custom&xmlName=ants

Re:Not a balance of power issue.

[mOdQuArK!]

Not exactly - the U.S. Constitution says that the U.S. Congress can allow you to temporarily restrict other people's use of the expression of ideas, for the purpose of promoting the progress of Science & the Arts.

It _doesn't_ say that you actually "own" the expression of those ideas - that's just the meme which has been encoded into laws by the special interests pushing for the corporate control of what should be a free-flowing exchange of ideas.

FreeNet

[echav]

Why do not use FreeNet? Isn't it secure and free of censorship? http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] They could post the torrent files in FreeNet without that fear. Even eDonkey's links could be on the net. I know it's kind of crapy search and go thru this net, but maybe it can work and we all be a little bit out of MPAA reach.

'American' Copyright owners - Finnish Consumers

[ukdiveboy]

> There's a lot of scary things here, but to me what is most scary is > that American copyright owners can mobilize foreign police to do their bidding. If the (American) copyright owners can mobilize Finnish shops to sell the music and Finnish consumers to buy the music, why is it suprising that Finnish police cannot be mobilized too? Incidentally: Sony Music - Owned by Sony - Japanese BMG - Owned by Bertlesman - German

Re:Irony?

[flossie]

When you copy a copyrighted work wgich requires payment for legal access to said work you are depriving the copyright owner(s) of the money that would have been generated by the sale of that item. Is that not theft?

No. It is copyright infringement.

When you copy your friend's CD you are not stealing from your friend,

Correct

you are stealing from the people who own the rights to the material contained on that CD.

No, you are infringing copyright.

Why is this point so hard for people to grasp?

Because copyright infringement is not the same as theft. They may both be wrong, but they are not the same thing.

I almost agreed with you

[PCM2]

Giving away your fair-use copies CAN also be legal fair use as well in some circumstances; it can also be illegal copyright infringement in others. It is a legal grey area -- giving a copy to a relative is unquestionably OK. Giving a copy to 10 casual accquaintances is probably OK. Giving a copy to everyone in a class you are teaching might be OK. *SELLING* a copy is *NOT* OK.

You almost had me, up until the paragraph quoted above. Unfortunately, your opinions sound very nice but they don't have much of anything to do with the law as it actually exists. [copyright.gov] In particular, your idea that selling a copy of something is the only clearly defined form of infringement is one of those hoary old fallacies that needs to go away, just like the story about mailing yourself a copy of a manuscript in a sealed envelope to "prove" copyright. They're nice wives' tales, but they just ain't fact.

"Fair use," in and of itself, is nowhere clearly defined in the copyright law, and its interpretation is largely left up to judges in individual cases. Whether or not a given case of suspected infringement constitutes Fair Use is determined on the basis of several factors, [copyright.gov] including the nature of the work infringed and the purpose for which it was copied.

I can assure you that several of the examples you cite are most certainly not Fair Use; checking a book out from the library does not give you the right to give a copy to a relative. ("Unquestionably"? Are you so naive you actually believe that?) And I certainly hope you don't teach any classes, because if you do, you might want to do a little bit of research before you find yourself in a mess of trouble with your boss. [ucop.edu]

Re:This isn't new. Remember anon.funet.fi?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's anon.penet.fi, not funet. Funet is the finnish university network, which never had an anonymous remailer.

And IIRC, it was originally raided over child-porn, not scientology. Although those guys are responsible for more than their share of raids too.

Re:Not that scary

[Quikah]

The US became party to the Berne convention in 1988.

Re:Doing their bidding

[Qrlx]

Copyright infringement is now a criminal matter. It's criminal even without causing any economic harm. See the No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act) of 1997.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, or arguing against it. Couldn't tell from your post. But the way it is now, if I burn a copyrighted CD and just plain give it to you, the FBI could make a federal case out of that.

And yeah it sucks. However it's completely predictable esp. considering that "IP" is pretty much all America manufacturers anymore. Well and food and cars. But IP has the biggest margins.

Re:The key phrase in the indictments

[sangreal66]

The term "financial gain" includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.

Also note the full definition of criminal enfringement as outlined in the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997:

(a) Criminal Infringement.--Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either--

1. for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

2. by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.

The full text of the act can be found here

suprnova mirror-site

[BoomTechnology]

I know this is listed in the faq but for those who didn't check it: http://www.bi-torrent.com/ is pretty much a complete mirror of suprnova :) bit of a different gui. no pop-ups.

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[mooglez]

He's talking about the Finnish Law, which allows the downloading, but not the distribution.

Hollywood can push around EU member police forces!

[Anonymous Coward]

The EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive creates powerful new enforcement measures to be applied throughout the EU that permit Hollywood and recording industry executives to civilly prosecute consumers for minor and non-commercial infringements of intellectual property rights.

The enforcement directive creates a broad new Right of Information which requires Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to disclose personal information about their customers to recording industry executives for civil prosecution of Peer-2-Peer (P2P) file-sharing and other activities.

It also provides for Anton Pillar orders or midnight knocks that permit private citizens homes to be raided by recording industry executives, and Mareva injunctions, which freeze consumers bank accounts and other assets without the need for a court hearing.

The directives Rapporteur, French Conservative MEP Janelly Fourtour, will directly profit from the new EU law she rushed through the parliament without a usual Second Reading debate. Fourtours family owns the worlds largest entertainment company, Vivendi-Universal, and has today been granted powerful new enforcement provisions to prosecute consumers for minor and non-commercial infringements.

Now that the faq got "owned"...

[Frying Ferret]

well the faq is gone, replaced by:
OWNED BY YOGI! MOUAHAHAHAHAH

You fucker steal artists !

REAL FAQs ARE HERE AND HERE

Greetz to : b, th*m*r[ChezLeCoiffeur], Croc-La-Pute

FREE TORRENTS HERE

----------------------
with links to riaa and mpaa documents.. anyone want to post what the faq originally contained?
going to http://www.silentdragz.net/ now lets you browse all the directorys... joy

Re:Now that the faq got "owned"...

[after]

http://files.andreib.com/2004/12/21/suprfaq.html [andreib.com]

Look at HTML code, the real content was just commented out. Clever ;)

FAQ Hacked

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else notice that the link to the FAQ has been hacked? Anyone braver than me figure out what they hid behind the link to "free torrents"? I have a hard time imagining hackers siding with MPA*, but the internet takes all kinds.

Re:linux isos on suprnova

[Anonymous Coward]

If you didn't see Linux iso's on suprnova, you weren't looking.

They always had a Debian torrent list going, and usually had Mandrake and SuSE torrents as well.

Re:OWNED!!!!!!

[CowboyMeal]

Interesting. If you view the source, the FAQ is still there, they just commented it out.

Limitations on the NET Act of 1997

[Geoff-with-a-G]

Ah, the NET Act! Good cite!
But you got it wrong.

But the way it is now, if I burn a copyrighted CD and just plain give it to you, the FBI could make a federal case out of that.

NET Act, Section 2, Criminal Infringement, sub a:
"(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $ 1,000 shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.'"

So unless that's a really valuable CD, you're in the clear. Same goes for computer software. Your warez copy of Doom 3 isn't a criminal offense, but if you're stealing Enterprise licenses for Photoshop or Windows 2003, you might be in trouble.

Re:copyright is not american only

[shark72]

" Is a flawed business model not a legitimate concept? Would you prefer different wording?"

The phrase "flawed business model" is typically used on Slashdot to refer to a company that's taking action that's contrary to Slashdotters' interests. For example, bringing civil or criminal charges against a copyright violator, or releasing closed-source software, or not supporting Linux. The trouble is that declaring said company or industry to have a "flawed business model" appears to be a universal bromide, and it's seldom that the Slashdotter follows up with a viable alternative.

More than that, other evidence typically shows otherwise. Let's take the movie and music industries. Sure, it's relatively easy to pirate their stuff, and sure, they must allocate money toward stopping losses -- but so must just about any business. Adversity is part of running a business, and successful companies address problems directly. You don't simply give up, and you don't capitulate to others simply because they'd like to have your product for free.

The record and film industries with their "flawed business models" are largely doing just fine. Apple just sold its 20 millionth download, Universal has launched an online-only label, and the record companies and Apple are laughing all the way to the bank. Meanwhile, Magnatune [magnatune.com], a worthwhile experiment in exploring the "capitulate to piracy and just give away stuff for free" business model, is struggling.

Re:hosting sites in friendly sovereign states

[kobaz]

Because havenco specializes in hosting secret (aka not public) sites that store potentially controversial things. I believe they buy their bandwidth from countries in europe. All it takes is enough complaints to havenco's provider to get their net connection pulled, they aren't immune to that.

Re:Where do you draw the line?

[UltraDerek]

I dislike comments such as these because they are not fair to the pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies can be cold-hearted, conceited, self-centered, and money-driven, which in no way differentiates them from any other corporation on this planet. Furthermore several of the giant pharmaceutical companies rank amongst the most charitable in the country (see a recent BusinessWeek for the list, the criteria used by Businessweek was not great but got the point across that a few of them donate a LOT). Moreover with your particular case of citing AIDS drugs, Merck - the company recently villified for their problems with Vioxx, donates AIDS drugs to poor African nations at cost, meaning they don't make back any of the many millions they have put into R&D for their AIDS drugs (mostly vaccines). Merck also has a program, where they will provide for free any of their drugs prescribed to patient's on Medicare who have gone over their drug limit. I just like to point out that pharmaceutical comapnies are no worse than any other companies, and in some instances are a good bit better.

Re: C&P of source

[JustAnotherBob]

Last updated 21/12/04 5:50:14am GMT

PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU ARE VIEWING THIS FAQ AT ANY OTHER LOCATION THAN HTTP://WWW.SILENTDRAGZ.NET/SUPRFAQ THEN IT IS NOT AUTHORISED. PLEASE REPORT IT TO THIS ADDRESS [mailto], THANK YOU.

Forums Link [silentdragz.net] Contents:

1. Has SuprNova.org really closed? [slashdot.org]
2. When will SuprNova.org be back? [slashdot.org]
3. What about the torrents I'm currently downloading/have queued, will they still download? [slashdot.org]
4. Will joining the IRC channel and spamming about some random nonsense and/or "BRING SUPRNOVA BACK UP" help at all or bring SuprNova.org back? [slashdot.org]
5. Where can I download torrents from now? [slashdot.org]
6. Who is the owner of SuprNova.org? [slashdot.org]
7. Is BitTorrent closing? [slashdot.org]
8. Does the current situation mean I can break the channel rules in #SuprNova.org and use "!list" and "@find"? [slashdot.org]
9. You know this HTML code is very sloppy, right? [slashdot.org]
10. Where do I send additions/corrections? [slashdot.org]
11. Why has SuprNova.org closed? [slashdot.org]
12. What's happening with eXeem? [slashdot.org]
13. How do I turn off the joins/parts/quits? [slashdot.org]
14. Are there any plans to release the SuprNova.org source code? [slashdot.org]
15. What does MPAA stand for? [slashdot.org]

1. Has SuprNova.org really closed? top [slashdot.org] Yes, it has. 2. When will SuprNova.org be back? top [slashdot.org] Never as it was. If it eventually does come back up, it won't feature ANY links to torrents at all. 3. What about the torrents I'm currently downloading/have queued, will they still download? top [slashdot.org] Maybe, probably. However if they don't, it has nothing to do with SuprNova.org's closure. If the tracker for that particular torrent is still online and there are seeds, your file will still download. 4. Will joining the IRC channel and spamming about some random nonsense and/or "BRING SUPRNOVA BACK UP" help at all or bring SuprNova.org back? top [slashdot.org] NO. So don't. Really, don't. 5. Where can I download torrents from now? top [slashdot.org] http://www.tvtorrents.tv [tvtorrents.tv]
http://www.btefnet.net [btefnet.net]
http://www.fulldls.com [fulldls.com]
http://www.tv-swarm.com [tv-swarm.com]
http://www.bi-torrent.com [bi-torrent.com]
http://isohunt.com [isohunt.com]
http://torrentspy.com [torrentspy.com]
http://thepiratebay.org [thepiratebay.org]
http://uk-torrents.com [uk-torrents.com]
http://torrentreactor.net [torrentreactor.net]
http://filelist.org [filelist.org]
http://newtorrents.info [newtorrents.info]
http://demonoid.com [demonoid.com]
http://elitetorrents.org [elitetorrents.org]
http://lokitorrent.com [lokitorrent.com]
http://www.lickmytaint.com/bt.html [lickmytaint.com]
http://www.420joint.com/bt/ [420joint.com]
http://www.torrentsearch.com [torrentsearch.com]
http://www.bitconsole.com/ [bitconsole.com]
http://www.uknova.com/ [uknova.com]
#BT-GM on EFnet [irc]
6. Who is the owner of SuprNova.org? top [slashdot.org] Sloncek is the owner. I advise you leave off mailing/PMing him for now, he will be flooded with t

Re:This isn't new. Remember anon.funet.fi?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was anon.penet.fi and although it was "raided", the administrator (Julf Helsingius) never had to turn over any information and shut down the site voluntarily. Julf eventually won whatever case was raised against him, but he was still nervous enough to shut down the site.

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[msmikkol]

How does that even make sense?

The Finnish copyright law allows making personal copies of published works. Computer programs are an exception, covered by a later addition to the law. This makes downloading movies and music legal, since it is considered equal to copying library CDs or taping radio broadcasts.

However, providing copies of copyrighted works is generally prohibited without permission from the owner of copyright. This makes sharing music and movies illegal. It it admitted that using BitTorrent to download material is in the gray zone, since you are (most probably) also uploading material at the same time. As far as I know, no court has taken a stand concerning BitTorrent downloads, but I guess we'll have one soon.

Re:unnamed finish site

[crysaz]

Finreactor was divided att two. To forum loaded with ed2k links and to torrent tracker. Tracker was located in Belgium and had around 10 500 users. All finns. Of course this was a huge subject att irc and still is. There is a good collection of all news and logs in finnish http://www.gamebase.fi/fr/ [gamebase.fi].

To point out few interesting ones:

• http://www.gamebase.fi/fr/peerguard.jpg [gamebase.fi]
• http://www.gamebase.fi/fr/sf_truecrypt.png [gamebase.fi] (12.9. FR got busted)
• http://www.gamebase.fi/fr/tracker.fintorrent.jpg [gamebase.fi]

there was a video (of something) about it on thepiratebay a few days ago

The video was from 7 pm news reporting about this case.

Re:What does mobilizing foreign police actually me

[Alsee]

Someone who goes into McDonalds and gets a hamburger is not distributing hamburgers. Someone who clicks a link and views(downloads) a webpage is not distributing that webpage.

The person distributing that hambuger is responsible for complying with healthcodes and other laws. The person receiving that hamburger has no way of knowing, and no responsibility for, whether that hambuger was was made and sold in compliance with the law.

The person distributing a webpage is responsible for complying with copyright and other laws. A person who clicks a link and views (downloads) that webpage has no way of knowing, and no responsibility for, whether that webpage was made and distributed in compliance with copyright and any other law.

By your logic you are guilty of countless copyright violations merely by your normal websurfing. You are guilty every time you read slashdot and you view a post where pasted in the text of a New York Times story, and your guilty every time you come across a page containing a copied icon or anything else.

It's not really possible to distribute something unless you have a party who's willing to receive it.

(A) That's a pretty serious brainfart. Have you ever received a flyer on your cvar windshield? Have you ever received spam? Have you ever received junk mail? Have you ever clicked on a link and had goatse or some random file type pop up? I can't believe you even suggested that it's not possible to distribute something without a party who's willing to receive it.
(B) Even if you have a "willing receiver", only the giver knows what he's giving and it's source and whether he needs and has the rights to distribute it. If you go into WalMart and buy a novel, you are not a copyright infringer if it turns out the author of that book copied dialog from someone else's book. You were a willing receiver of that book, and even if you spotted that there was copied dialog from another source your legal presumption is that the author licenced that dialog. You are not expected to hunt down the author/publisher of that book and attempt to verify that he had the proper licence for that dialog. And it is that author that copied that dialog that is liable for copyright infringment damages, not you.

It's the exact same thing with trademark infringment. If someone sells you a Rollex watch *you* are not guilty of trademark infringment if they weren't licenced to make and sell Rollexes.

Case after case your claim that receiving something makes you guilty is absurd. The law places the responsibility and liability on the person making and distributing copies, only that person knows the source of the material and whether he obtained any required rights. And if he didn't have the required rights then he is the one who owes damages to the copyright holder to compensate for those copies.

-