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Four Indicted in Pirate Bay Case 709

paulraps writes "Suddenly the founders of the Pirate Bay are not so hearty. The four men behind the popular file-sharing site were indicted in Sweden on Thursday on charges of being accessories to breaking copyright law. And this is more than just a shot across the bows. The prosecutor reckons that they can be hooked for 'promoting other people's copyright breaches' but there will be no walking the plank: instead, they face fines of up to $200,000 and the confiscation of all their hardware. 'The Swedish prosecutor listed dozens of works that had been downloaded through The Pirate Bay site, including The Beatles' Let It Be, Robbie Williams' Intensive Care and the movie Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. Plaintiffs in the case include Warner, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI.'"
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Four Indicted in Pirate Bay Case

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  • by bigmouth_strikes ( 224629 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:25AM (#22245926) Journal
    This is a really interesting case, since the recording industry association and lobby (Ifpi and Antipiratbyrån) seems to have made their homework this time. This case will probably go all the way to the supreme court or even to the european court and both sides seem to be well prepared for this showdown.

    The interesting argument brought up is that the defendants are in this to make money, and the prosecutor says he can prove elaborate plans to split the quite hefty incomes from advertising that the Pirate Bay is raking in. While linking to copyrighted material may be legal, making money from actively enabling people copyright infringement probably is harder to sneak by the courts.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by russ1337 ( 938915 )

      to split the quite hefty incomes from advertising that the Pirate Bay is raking in.
      If the sums are that hefty, why aren't Hollywood doing it?
      • If the sums are that hefty, why aren't Hollywood doing it?
        Hollywood? Hollywood are making quite hefty sums from ads and everything else (though usually they'll ad for themselves). In fact, they are the ones that have the money to lobby the Swedish administration into suing the operators of one of the worlds most visited websites.
      • by darthflo ( 1095225 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @11:53AM (#22247188)
        "Quite hefty" is a relative term. In relation to the Pirate Bay with four people behind it, the alleged $4m of advertising income p.a. are hefty. Assuming they spend $2m p.a. on hosting (very probably a lot less, actually), they'd make $500k per person and year, quite a hefty salary, if you ask me.

        The MPAA members, OTOH, probably consider anything without a "billion" suffix chump change. Their combined revenue is in the hundreds of billions (too lazy to dig up all the numbers, but it's bound to be in the $100-200bn range). They employ thousands of people. DIS alone has some 130k employees. $4m is somewhere in the range of one of their CEO's pay.
    • by gnutoo ( 1154137 )

      You must believe that there's something wrong with sharing. You can talk about money and laws the industry has made up, but you are ultimately recommending control and censorship of the internet. Freedom for all should trump the ability of a few to make money through obsolete publication models. Really, how impressed should I be that fifty year old media is available on the internet? The case would be laughable [slashdot.org] if it did not have the potential to do so much harm.

      • Below is the list of the copyrighted materials that the people behind The Pirate Bay are being sued for having helped being infringed upon.

        At the time of the raid against TPB, most of these weren't even 2 years old I reckon. So even though I agree with the sentiment that "fifty year old media" probably should be available for free for the common good, I fail to see what your statement has to do with the pertaining issue.

        Music:
        Backyard Babies record "Stockholm Syndrome"
        Joakim Thåstr
    • by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

      making money from actively enabling people copyright infringement probably is harder to sneak by the courts

      Microsoft is screwed if this is true.
      Afterall, how many of those downloaders and uploaders were using Windows to do so?
      Windows enabled them to do so, and Microsoft is making money off of it!

      How does one "actively enable" by the way?
  • they face fines of up to $200,000. . . .


    Could this news item from Sweden [cbsnews.com] have anything to do with these possible fines?

    • next time, use batteries in the device. and 'show' an AC plug so that people 'feel good' about pulling it.

      oh rats. I just gave a really good secret away. rats.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by esocid ( 946821 )
      So let me get this straight. If you copy a CD the MAFIAA wants $1.5mil but if you, in the eyes of their courts, are a major distributor you only get a $200,000 fine. I seriously doubt that they will be able to prove any sort of copyright infringement.

      The Swedish prosecutor listed dozens of works that had been downloaded through The Pirate Bay site, including The Beatles' Let It Be, Robbie Williams' Intensive Care and the movie Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire.

      I'm sorry you fail prosecutor. Understand t

      • by Pofy ( 471469 )
        >So let me get this straight. If you copy a CD the MAFIAA wants $1.5mil but
        >if you, in the eyes of their courts, are a major distributor you only get
        >a $200,000 fine. I seriously doubt that they will be able to prove any sort
        >of copyright infringement.

        Apart from this being two different countries, it is worth noticing that the $200,000 mentioned is NOT really a fine. The only fines one can get in a criminal case are based on ones income and there is a maximum of about $25,000. For more severe cr
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Arrrrrr!
  • by EasyTarget ( 43516 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:26AM (#22245954) Journal
    Nothing has been downloaded through the Pirate bay's site.

    Plenty has been downloaded because of it.

    All the legal arguments are going to hinge around this vital distinction, so it would help if the submitter could have been bothered to get it right.
    • by EasyTarget ( 43516 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:29AM (#22245992) Journal
      ..or if I could have been bothered to realise the submitter was just quoting the prosecutor (who is doubtless very aware of this distinction, and will seek to blur it at every possibel oppertunity..)
    • by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <{moc.nosduh-arab ... {nosduh.arabrab}> on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:42AM (#22246140) Journal

      It wasn't the submitter:

      The Swedish prosecutor listed dozens of works that had been downloaded through The Pirate Bay site

      Of course, he could have also listed dozens of works that have been downloaded through Microsoft Windows, through the phone company, through Dell, etc ... since they didn't host the files either.

    • by xtal ( 49134 )
      By this arguement, you could extend it to say Slashdot is liable for promoting bittorrent PTP through news and discussion.

      I hope this lawsuit gets tossed in the rubbish bin where it belongs.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:26AM (#22245956)
    So if we can prosecute swedish people for crimes that aren't crimes in their country can we also give speeding tickets to drivers on the autobahn that drive over 55 mph?
    • by Salgak1 ( 20136 )
      At this rate, everyone who voted for Bush will be brought up on trial in Europe for "enabling crimes against humanity". . . Go-go MPAA-RIAA-crime-family lawyers, go!! What's next, getting prosecuted for whisting the tune to a hit song without paying royalties ?
    • by pnewhook ( 788591 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:58AM (#22246368)

      So if we can prosecute swedish people for crimes that aren't crimes in their country can we also give speeding tickets to drivers on the autobahn that drive over 55 mph?

      Apparently the government thinks so. The US government recently had a Canadian arrested on Canadian soil for selling marijuana seeds on the internet (something that's not illegal in Canada). At no time did this person set foot on American soil, nor did he ever break Canadian law. Everything he did was above board right down to declaring exactly what he did on his Canadian tax return and paying taxes on the income. All profits were even donated to charity.

      Yet the US government felt that they had the right to arrest him. More info here: http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h9Y7CVPeypqV77yWBmI45x_mP9SA [google.com].

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by putaro ( 235078 )
      The prosecution is happening in Sweden under Swedish law. No need to add gratuitous America bashing to the discussion.
  • by noidentity ( 188756 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:28AM (#22245972)

    instead, they face fines of up to $200,000 and the confiscation of all their hardware.

    Good thing they didn't copy a CD, otherwise they'd be paying $1.5 million [slashdot.org]!

  • by russ1337 ( 938915 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:28AM (#22245986)

    'The Swedish prosecutor listed dozens of works that had been downloaded through The Pirate Bay site, including The Beatles' Let It Be, Robbie Williams' Intensive Care and the movie Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. Plaintiffs in the case include Warner, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI.'"


    It's been said 1000 times: These things were not downloaded FROM the Pirate Bay - they just provide the reference as to where they could be downloaded from. Do you think that by listing The Beatles and Robbie Williams I'm supposed to have sympathy? By listing Harry Potter are they 'thinking of the children?' - is the list of big media supposed to be scary? TPB are very careful not to break Swedish law. They don't care what the laws of other countries are - (I'm looking at you USA) as they live in SWEDEN they are only concerned with Swedish law.

    I hope they come out squeaky clean - as they should as they have not broken their countries law.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )
      It's been said 1000 times: These things were not downloaded FROM the Pirate Bay - they just provide the reference as to where they could be downloaded from

      IAAL, but not a Swedish (or European) one, and I know your argument wouldn't necessarily be convincing in a US court. It's a technicality, and a judge (or jury) would probably be more interested in TPB's intent and whether TPB's actions helped result in the copyright violation.

      From the Model Penal Code:

      (a) A person, acting with the mental state

      • by Salgak1 ( 20136 )
        Gee, then compliance to the letter of the law, when it inconveniences the MPAA-RIAA Crime Family is now a crime ?
      • by russ1337 ( 938915 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:53AM (#22246290)
        Its not good sighting the US penal code. This is from the /a>Swedish penal code [sweden.gov.se]:

        A person who, with the intention of committing or promoting a crime, presents or receives money or anything else as pre-payment or payment for the crime or who procures, constructs, gives, receives, keeps, conveys or engages in any other similar activity with poison, explosive, weapon, picklock, falsification tool or other such means, shall, in cases where specific provisions exist for the purpose, be sentenced for preparation of crime unless he is guilty of a completed crime or attempt. In specially designated cases a sentence shall also be imposed for conspiracy. By conspiracy is meant that someone decides on the act in collusion with another as well as that someone undertakes or offers to execute it or seeks to incite another to do so.
        I expect that is what the prosecution will be focused on.
  • Indict Google... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fredklein ( 532096 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:29AM (#22245994)
    Or let them go.

    Just have their lawyers show up in court with a laptop (with wireless connection and the appropriate software installed) and go to Google. Search for "Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent" and click a link. Viola- bittorrent starts up. Therefore, Google can be used to search for torrents, therefore they should be charged, too. If they are not charged, then it demonstrates selective prosecution. The same goes for ANY search engine.
    • Just have their lawyers show up in court with a laptop (with wireless connection and the appropriate software installed) and go to Google. Search for "Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent" and click a link. Viola- bittorrent starts up. Therefore, Google can be used to search for torrents, therefore they should be charged, too. If they are not charged, then it demonstrates selective prosecution. The same goes for ANY search engine.

      Or better yet, ask to see the prosecution's laptop. Then do a search using it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 )
      Do you consider the point of Google to be indexing illegal torrents? Or do you consider the point of The Pirate Bay to be something other than facilitating piracy?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Gee, I was under the impression that the Pirate Bay was just a tad more popular than that. With that nominal amount of infringement I'm left wondering what the big deal is.
  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:36AM (#22246074)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by s_p_oneil ( 795792 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:42AM (#22246138) Homepage
    ...that the damages being sought are less than the RIAA demanded from that woman who downloaded a few songs. I mean, $200K apiece for 4 people? I'll bet if they asked people to make Paypal donations to help them pay their legal fees and/or fines (while keeping the site up), they'd get millions pretty quickly. A lot of people would pay to keep a service like that up.
    • by RattFink ( 93631 )
      The $200k is a court fine not civil damages.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by a_n_d_e_r_s ( 136412 )
        Actually its not court fines. It's illegal gains. It's the money 'earned' by selling ads on Pirate Bay.

        Like a bank robber are not allowed to keep the money he robs from the bank, the people behind Pirate Bay arent allowed to keep money gotten while doing something illegal.

        The sum is the total of all invoices for ads on Pirate Bay which was found as part of the raid of Pirate bay offices.
  • Is there anything legit on The Pirate Bay? Yeah, I know they don't choose the content to go on it, but I'm just curious.
  • by BlueParrot ( 965239 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:47AM (#22246208)
    IANAL but as far as I know the police in Sweden is not actually allowed to search your property unless the crime you're accused for is serious enough that it could result in a prison sentence... So what they are basically saying is the police broke the law?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mmcuh ( 1088773 )
      It was the prosecutor who ordered the raid in 2006, on the grounds that The Pirate Bay was committing copyright infringement, though he knew full well that he would never be able to charge them with anything more serious than conspiracy to or accessory to copyright infringement - he even said so himself a few months before the raid. This was reported to the Swedish watchdog authorities, who dropped the case after asking the police and the prosecutor "You didn't do anything wrong, did you?" and getting the r
  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:48AM (#22246228)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Bit's should be free in a perfect world but in the real world it takes effort to organize those bits and economics is a way to spread the effort around fairly. So, it's just a fact that when any torrent/warez site says they don't host the files they only link to them or metadata about them (torrents) that they are only obeying the letter of the law. The spirit of the law is that despite the occasional legal use for these sites the vast majority is based around infringement. As I see it, the distribution
  • by dada21 ( 163177 ) <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:57AM (#22246354) Homepage Journal
    ...but by lawsuits?

    Honestly, I think The Pirate Bay is the best thing to happen. Because of it, we've gotten rid of cable TV. My wife and I will download a TV show or a movie before we buy it, watch a few episodes or minutes, and then go and buy the legit copy. The Pirate Bay is today's equivalent to reruns or syndication for television shows, or Blockbuster or NetFlix for the movie industry. The monopolists are just mad because they lose control over which productions to push and which to let fall by the wayside. Even better, torrent search sites also replace Nielsen for rating what is popular. I can find the latest popular movies just by sorting by seeds, and because of this I have purchased about 40 movies that I would NEVER have even heard of. Heck, the wife and I actually bought the Bourne trilogy because of The Pirate Bay -- the TV commercials and trailers were so bad that we would never have even thought of it.

    Am I a pirate? In some ways, yes, but we own tens of thousands of dollars worth of music, TV DVDs, and movies, and I attribute it solely to being able to taste before I buy. I think in the past year we've had MAYBE ten torrents that I forgot to erase when I realized I didn't like what I saw.

    Remember who these large production companies are: they're multi-tiered organizations where the right hand doesn't talk to the left hand. These companies do many things:

    1. Raise money and invest in productions (i.e., producing)
    2. Market finished productions (i.e., advertising)
    3. Protect the industry insiders (actors, directors, producers, and crew) from competition by locking the distribution medium (i.e., monopolizing)

    Now, the future is getting rid of them. Want to raise money for a money or a TV pilot? Invest in making a trailer. Put it out there. Get people interested to fund your production, maybe even sell bonds (of course the SEC and IRS will prevent you from doing this versus a market economy where people understand the risks inherent to investing). Once you've raised enough, you go and shoot the flick. Give it away online at low res, or evne at high res, and sell value added products to raise the funds. If people love the production, they'll pay for it. We do. Many of our friends do. Most of my family does.

    I laugh when people try to get great shows back on the air, like Serenity. Joss Whedon is one of the most vile monopolists ever. It's his fault directly for the death of Firefly. He could get online, start a money raising campaign, and go back to business. But he wants to pander to his union/monopolist buddies. He loves the residuals he receives on the backs of others. He's part of the industry, and that's why I'm glad Firefly failed, even though we love the show and watch the legal DVDs regularly. Screw Joss, screw Hollywood, and screw the industry twice over -- they're not ready for a truly market-based economy of art, where people subsidize the FUTURE production of more content by purchasing the previously produced content.

    The Internet will destroy these monopolists/mercantilists quicker and quicker every day. Their only option to "save themselves" and their grotesque profits is to use the laws that THEY created, prompt the pawns that THEY elected, and force people to pay money that the people earned through labors they actively did. The people behind the Pirate Bay spend an amazing amount of time keeping it running. The users may submit content, but the servers, Internet connections, software code and overall support need labor to keep it running. TPB deserves every penny, and then some. Maybe TPB should produce a high budget movie or TV series.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      There's no evidence out there that people in general spend more because of torrents etc, only less. Individual anecdotal evidence barely passes the sniff test (you spend thousands but have only managed to find ten things you didn't like?!), and certainly shouldn't stand up to the scrutiny of an online forum otherwise so keen on the scientific method.

      Bonds as a way to fund pilots?! How can you sell a bond when the investment is expected to lose all its money? Bonds are fixed income investment vehicles, and

  • Making Money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fozzyuw ( 950608 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @10:58AM (#22246358)

    John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of global music body, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries, said: "The operators of The Pirate Bay have always been interested in making money, not music.

    Does anyone read that and NOT think: "What's the difference from Record labels?" =P

  • crap (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @11:00AM (#22246390)
    I'm not done downloading that 17 gb of private MySpace photos yet!!!
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Alsee ( 515537 )
      Oh dude, ya gotta finish that torrent, It's like totally worth it. Somewhere around gig 15.5 I saw a nipple.
      Or, ahhh, at least I *think* I was a nipple.

      -
  • by burris ( 122191 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @11:47AM (#22247096)
    A lot of people are saying "Why isn't Google in the dock, I can search for infringing torrents!?" Well in the USA, Google and other search engines are protected by the DMCA. Yes, not all of the DMCA is bad, in fact, pretty much only the copy protection anti-circumvention stuff is bad. The rest is pretty good, it indemnifies ISPs when their caches or search indices contain infringing material. All they have to do comply with the takedown protocol.

    See, in the US, if you're operating an index like Google or Napster that works on an automated basis or is controlled by your users, you don't have to worry about infringing material, until you have actual knowledge of it. Once you have actual knowledge of infringing material you have to do something about it. Thats the difference between Google and Pirate Bay (besides the fact that TPB is not in the USA.) Once Google has actual knowledge of infringing material they take it down and they are OK.

    Furthermore, Google's service just finds torrents. TPBs helps you find torrents, but they also host the torrents. After you've download the torrent from TPB, TPB's tracker helps you connect to the other peers for exchanging the requested infringing material. Combined with the actual knowledge of infringing torrents on their site, that's a lot closer to contributory infringement than anything that Google does.

    Back to your regularly scheduled TPB Swedish Legal Follies.

  • by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @01:23PM (#22248518)
    The RIAA should be careful what they ask for...because they just might get it. The RIAA's entire case and frame-of-reference is that they are providing better entertainment product that anyone else and that all copying of their product is stealing material goods from them. They are then attacking people who download and 'consume' RIAA product. These attacks, they believe, will stop the downloading for free and return to the purchase of individual units of RIAA product on disk media.

        This is not true. The distribution of free entertainment product is an established fact now. It's not going to go away. Nor will the RIAA/MPAA ever be able to charge for downloaded product what they charge for the product on disk. The market has changed.

        By persecuting people who consume downloaded RIAA/MPAA product, they will not bring these people back to overpriced entertainment product, they will create a secondary market of non-RIAA product that is available through low or no-cost download.

        The RIAA is destroying the market for their own product.

        They assume that because the RIAA product is better entertainment quality now that it will always be better entertainment product that non-RIAA material. But non-RIAA entertainment will get better over time given the large audience.

        The RIAA should refocus on what they do best. They should be taking all the dork music and videos on YouTube and the alt-RIAA music sites and giving recommendations for improvement. Then they should offer contracts to marginal bands for low cost distribution of music and videos. They need to learn to function inside the 'long tail'. If they don't then someone else will and they will lose the opportunity to enter and profit in this new market.

        Most likely, the RIAA will split the music business into two basic parts; a mass-media world of a few stars and an 'underground' of no stars, but groups with clusters of devoted fans. This exists today, but what the RIAA will create in the coming years is a market where the people in the musical underground will have no interest in the rock/pop star world . A market situation will arise where large sections of the population will have a 'magnetic like-pole' adversion to RIAA mass pop product. This would be bad for the RIAA (I know, they're just a front company, but I mean all the companies that fund the RIAA) because it will cause them to permanently lose 1/3 to 1/2 of their current market.

        If that happens, then it won't matter if they lower their product prices, or remove the DRM. Because a large segment of the musical market will have a fundamental aversion to their product, and won't consume it under any market conditions.

        This is the true danger to the RIAA in their current actions.

Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.

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