TPB Files Police Complaint Against CPIAC for Copying Website 268
Last week, a Finnish anti-piracy agency copied the CSS and HTML of The Pirate Bay. Today, TPB announced that they have filed a police report and are preparing to sue for copyright infringement:
"The Pirate Bay, the world’s largest site for cultural diversity and file sharing,
has today (Monday 2013-02-18) reported a suspected crime to the Finnish police.
The suspected criminals are the Finnish anti-piracy organization CIAPC
(locally known as TTVK). The reason is that CIAPC have copied files from which The Pirate Bay is built,
to produce a fraudulent parody site. While The Pirate Bay may have a positive view on copying, it will not stand by and watch copyright enforcing organizations disrespect copyright."
The Pirate Bay is also arguing that parody laws do not apply thanks to recent legal precedent.
Moooom~ she hit me! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hopefully commentors will understand it isn't TPB which is being hypocritical here.
"Well did you hit her first?"
Win-Win (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Win-Win (Score:5, Insightful)
Either way, it makes for an interesting play. It will be interesting to see how this plays out - is it really the same set of rules that everyone has to play by, or do those rules only apply if a big corp says they do...
Re:Win-Win (Score:5, Informative)
If they lose, they prove a point: copyright laws are only in favor of a few. If they win, they expand their list of successful trolling.
Exactly this. I'd be willing to bet that everyone on TPB side of this complaint knows that it is ridiculous, but, win or lose, they will prove a point.
Re:Win-Win (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, the people complaining about the hypocrisy of TPB here are really missing the point. This isn't hypocrisy, it's high satire with the legal system playing the straight man. It's brilliant.
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If TPB wins, the copyright maximalists end up with egg on their face over a law even they can't seem to follow. I will admit that the TPB winning this case is actually the worst outcome. Though the hay they can make while it's going on is almost worth it. I'm imagining the copyright maximalists are going to have some pretty interesting defenses.
But, if they lose, it's really clear that this is all about making sure the rules apply to the 'right' people. And it will done in a really public way that tells th
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If they lose, they may just show that putting a link on your website saying you want to be copied makes it legal to copy it.
Re:Lose-Lose (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it personally hypocritical for a slashdotter to pirate software while getting paid writting software from paying customers and then getting angry at GPL copyright violations.
GPL deserves equal treatment under the law. If and when the law goes away, GPL will no longer need to exist.
Re:Lose-Lose (Score:4, Interesting)
If copyright went away, nobody could be required to distribute source code, of any of the other things the GPL requires for permission to use code thus licensed. (There wouldn't be much point in intentionally withholding things like source code without copyright, though). They would simply have no grounds to sue for copyright violation for their modifications to it. The GPL is not about restricting people from exercising legal powers they shouldn't have, it's about requiring people to do things to help the users of software, and it leverages those legal powers people shouldn't have to accomplish that.
A better viral copyleft license that would require people to behave exactly as if copyright didn't exist -- and consequently, would not lose any power if copyright really stopped existing -- would be one that said something like "you have permission to use, copy, modify and distribute copies of this software so long as you do not prosecute or litigate for copyright violations of any modifications you contribute". That would need a lot better wording of course, but the gist is "I'll pretend copyright doesn't exist and not sue you for copying this, so long as you do likewise and don't sue anyone else for copying your modifications of it. If you do sue anyone, then I'll sue you." If the grounds for such lawsuits went away, then it would simply become impossible to violate the license, and nothing would be lost.
Many people naively think that's all the GPL requires, but there's a lot of details that keep it from being quite so simple.
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I find it personally hypocritical for a slashdotter to pirate software while getting paid writting software from paying customers and then getting angry at GPL copyright violations.
What the grandparent does not understand is we live in a society; where you don't always get to make the rules. There is nothing wrong with things should be different and at the same time playing the current rules to your own maximized advantage. You don't get a choice about not following them when they are detrimental to you after all.
Sometimes you don't get your way all the ballot box or in the halls of the legislature. You must take your lumps when that happens, might as well enjoy the sugar too; yo
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It sounds like the precedent already exists and is the entire reason they are doing this. They want the new precedent applied to the very people who fought for it.
Couldn't be better (Score:5, Insightful)
Talking about them being hypocritical is nonsense. They are rolling on the floor laughing while they poke at CPIAC with the very laws that were being used against them. I reckon this will just run and run, and I'll thoroughly enjoy it.
Re:Couldn't be better (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the joy here is that, off hand, I can't think of any argument that CPIAC could raise in their defense which will not later weaken their own efforts/assertions.
Furthemore, should the try to defend themselves against this, it will provide AMPLE opportunity to use the things that they've already said in court against them, which is pretty substantially amusing from a purely kharmic perspective.
Short of CPIAC saying, "you're absolutely right, we're guilty as hell, please fine the ever-living-shit out of us!", any statement/argument that they make can only weaken them when they attempt to prosecute their agenda against others down the road.
-AC
Missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
If you first though is hypocrisy, you've missed the point.
If you believe a tool or process is broken, and have advocated about how it needs to change, then using said tool to directly illustrate how broken something is is far from hypocrisy. In this case they are using it to highlight the hypocrisy of the groups promoting high levels/draconian enforcement of copyright.
There is also the issue of actual content theft. Not the MPAA/RIAA's so called theft, where a distribution control is being breached, but taking content developed by another and claiming it as your own. You know, the thing copyright was actually invented for.
Remember, even the Pirate Party doesn't call for a total abolition of copyright, just a reform to more reasonable terms instead of multiple lifetimes.
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright was invented to control distribution and restrict "unauthorized" use of the printing press. The issue of plagiarism was the bait and hook. Some copyright laws of the past ignored the issue of authorship entirely. The law is designed to protect publishers, not the creators.
Kopimi... no? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand, actually. TPB proudly displays the anti-copyright symbol (Kopimi [kopimi.com]), so are they not explicitly granting permission to use their HTML and CSS? While the CIAPC are dicks, it seems hypocritical to grant permission to copy only when they like the person.
Re:Kopimi... no? (Score:4, Informative)
"""
Our site (and all of its contents) is free of charge for anyone for personal usage. Organisations (for instance, but not limited to, non-profit or companies) may use the system if they clear this with the system operators first. [...]
"""
TPB do still "want to be copied" (which is all the kopimi indicates, it's not a legal declaration that you are waiving your copyright), as long as it's the right people doing it for the right reasons.
I want to have sex, as long as it's with my g/f rather than Bubba from cell block H.
Fair Use (Score:2)
"fraudulent parody site" -> sounds like fair use to me.
Re:Fair Use (Score:5, Informative)
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Except it does not contain child porn, so it is very different in practice.
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That's essentially what the copyright organisation is doing here. They mimicked TPB appearance, changed some graphics and texts and where links lead to.
Cultural Diversity? (Score:5, Funny)
ROFLMAO
the world’s largest site for cultural diversity
How is hosting torrents for copyrighted material cultural diversity? I tried to download "Debbie Does Dallas" and the )(*@)(# file was subtitled in Swedish! What good is that? Is that what they mean by "cultural diversity?"
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So how was "Debbie gör Dallas"?
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Pretty good except everybody was grunting "Smergen" and "Bork" for some damn reason.
You have to laugh (Score:2)
But i think its a good move for the reasons many have already mentioned.
One point i think has been missed, is as i understand it, TPB is ok with people using their CSS and stuff, as long as they ask permission first.... which the CIAPC didn't.
I wonder if this was actually a bit of a sting job or an IT guy within the CIAPC having a laugh.
Boss: We want to make a parody of TPB Mr. IT Guy... whip us one up.
IT Guy: LOL... oh boy, i'm going to have some LULZ here.
Not sure where I stand on this (Score:3)
On the one hand, yeah, pirate site complains about piracy, lol. On the other hand, TTVK Ry seem to be complete hypocrites and I can't really criticize TPB too much for exposing their hypocrisy. On the gripping hand, isn't there some better way to expose said hypocrisy than via the system that the Pirate Bay's very existence opposes? And, on a different tentacle completely how (if at all) is this different from Ron Paul, "Mr. Libertarian Free-Markets" trying to use the UN to seize a domain name he's unwilling to pay for? I disapproved of Representative Paul's actions, does that mean I'm logically/morally/ethically committed to seeing TPB as being in the wrong on this one? (FWIW, in general, I support TPB and am displeased with Ron Paul - I don't want to let either position color my thinking unduly.)
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Insightful)
You are an idiot if you don't understand the whole statement they are making by this. In particular, it's important to note that the webcode in question IS copyrighted by TPB. Furthermore, TPB does not host anything which they do not have the copyright for.
It is not like TPB is suing to make money - it is simply a political statement, and a very good one at that. I hope they go far with this, because it really is completely legit and fair.
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Furthermore, TPB does not host anything which they do not have the copyright for.
Maybe, but they certainly are serious partners in crime. Torrenting would be helluvalot harder if there was not an indexing service like TPB available, even if you had all the decentralized magnet links in the world.
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Hardly. Google is also such an indexing service. Just google for whatever with the name torrent behind it. I can assure you it will be at least as effective as TPB.
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Its not technically a legal licence unlike say Creative Commons.
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They want to hit anti piracy group where it hurts.
How can antipiracy group look good when THEY break laws they are supposed to protect on behalf of their clients.
WIn/Win TPB, good job!
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Insightful)
WHat do they want to prove? That copying copyrighted material is illegal? Do they really want to go there?
I don't thing that's even a question? Isn't intellectual property infriction pretty conclusively illegal without having to prove it
Very silly idea, and not at all thought through. Unless they did think it through and still determine that this was something worth pretending to pursue.
I disagee. They are calling out the hypocricy of the copyright group when they do the one thing they are agaist. It's like PETA having an annual moose hunt. In addition I think this calls into attention the state of currect copyright law. If the group claims it was a mistake, it clearly shows that even the "experts" have no clue how to stay withing the law.
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Insightful)
TPB doesn't copy copyrighted material that doesn't belong to them. Apparently, CPIAC does though.
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly.
TPB (which does not host any pirated material whatsoever) had their copyrighted site design stolen by a group that has been lobbying the government to put people in jail (for longer terms than rape or murder) for copying copyright material.
The copyright lobby group is now trying to say "no no, it's parody" but they've been lobbying hard to get parody removed from the list of exemptions and have recently succeeded.
Thus, TPB is attempting to hoist them on their own petard.
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Interesting)
The copyright lobby group is now trying to say "no no, it's parody" but they've been lobbying hard to get parody removed from the list of exemptions and have recently succeeded.
Microsoft wouldn't be happy if you used a pirated copy of Microsoft Word to write a parody of Harry Potter. These guys try to create a parody of a website, not a parody of someone's CSS code.
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Insightful)
From http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130218/10364722017/pirate-bays-lawsuit-against-anti-piracy-group-more-about-exposing-double-standards-enforcement.shtml
TPB has now said that it has reported the parody CIAPC site to the Economic Crime Unit. Why? Well, it appears the whole thing is really about exposing the double standard by Finnish law enforcement. You see, recently, Finnish prosecutors went after a parody site by Finnish "software developer, researcher and internet activist" Matti Nikki. So, TPB, is noting that it just wants to see the law applied equally (by which it means, showing how farcical the law is, knowing that law enforcement will never prosecute this):
“In a similar case, the prosecution and the Helsinki Court of Appeals have found that a parody site can violate the moral rights of the original author. Changing the logo or making slight edits to the text are not enough to remove this liability,” they informed the police.
The Finnish EFF supported this claim, explaining to TorrentFreak (in the link above) that seeing how prosecutors reacted would be quite telling:
“It’s interesting to see, how the police reacts to Pirate Bay’s demands. On facts the case is indeed very similar to Matti Nikki’s case, in which the prosecutor decided to bring the charges on behalf of Save the Children.
“The law should be the same for everyone so now the objectivity of the Finnish police is going to be tested. Anyway as others have already pointed out, even if Pirate Bay loses the case, it’s a victory for their cause.”
So, while others were mocking, it appears there was a much more serious thought process going on here. One of the following possibilities are likely to occur:
Finnish prosecutors do absolutely nothing, thus exposing their complete double standard in enforcing the law.
A lawsuit happens, and TPB "loses" the case, as it's an obvious parody situation which should be allowed -- and thus, TPB reinforces the protections for parody.
A lawsuit happens TPB actually wins the case, which most people would equally recognize as preposterous after seeing the initial press coverage of the story.
It's looking like this was, yet again, a more clever move than many gave them credit for initially.
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The site doesn't belong to law enforcement. It's just a regular "registered organisation". Anyone can register one, it costs about 100EUR to do so.
What happened is that this organisation filed a crime report with police alongside evidence which police (that is actually law enforcement organisation) investigated.
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. And now it is up to prosecutors to either charge CPIAC like they have done to others and show CPAIC to be hypocrites OR ignore the matter and prove that not all are equal under the law as implemented.
TPB Claim of Infringement Against CIAPC is Valid (Score:5, Informative)
Making a parody site may be 'fair use', but actually copying CSS and HTML is infringement. If CIAPC wants to create a parody site they can write their own HTML and CSS to mimic TPB look and feel. Actually copying CSS and HTML is a violation of copyright which 'fair use' will technically not protect.
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The Finnish EFF supported this claim, explaining to TorrentFreak (in the link above) that seeing how prosecutors reacted would be quite telling:
Well, I guess it's time to give more money to the EFF.
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"what if the court finds that there is actual infringement going on and orders damages not be paid until piratebay ceases providing magnet links to other infringing material on their website?"
I don't think that's possible. It would be different case against pirate bay, and this case is not against pirate bay, so the judge can't just order the damages not to be paid. This is not USA.
So you don't think the copyright organisation needs to obey the law, but pirate bay should?
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'Stolen'? Nonsense.
Reality requires a transfer of possession for theft to have occurred. Copying a site design is not theft. It is simply a copy of an idea which is something that does not exist in reality and thus is not property, but instead is an abstraction that describes something in reality(in this case an arrangement of data on a server). To steal the design of a site, they would have to deprive the owner of the actual thing which the idea of the site design describes. This would require taking actua
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It's hoist them with their own petard. A petard is a device similar to a hand grenade so the explosion could propel the bearer into the air if the bearer dropped it or the target threw it back at the original bearer.
Old school rocket jumping. Got it.
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Look it up before you educate others.
Calm down a bit before you got mental at others. The GP's statement that
A petard is an explosive but it's not like a hand grenade at all.
Except for them both being portable explosives? Sure, the GP could've picked a closer match from the modern arsenal, but not one that most people would be more familiar with than hand grenades.
Re:Pirate a pirate (Score:5, Insightful)
Pirating from one who calls themselves a pirate, does make you a pirate.
Re:Hah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Glad someone gets it. Do people really not understand that this is intentional irony? TPB is making a mockery of the system, not protecting IP...
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At this point in the game, it's throwing fuel in the fire, the only unique thing is it's coming from the other side of the fire for once. The copyright system is broken, and I'm sure at least part of tpb's meaningfulness is proving that.
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Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
How? One side is hosting copyrighted content and the other is not. Furthermore, one is a commercial entity, and the other is only making a hilarious political statement. Sorry, but I only see hypocrisy from one side.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
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Where there is a market, someone will invent a mechanism.
Before copyright there were patrons of the arts for the high end stuff, and people throwing coins at traveling musicians and story tellers at the low end. The former can quite easily be replicated today, with governments and crowdsourced funding also playing a role. The latter still exists today, with bands doing gigs, book readings by the author etc.
And do not underestimate the power of user generated content. YouTube has grown very fat and happy on
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Re:Hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, I thought you would pull that one. When you say:
an assurance that nobody else is going to take credit for what they did (or do you think that plagiarism would even have any meaning without copyright?)
You confuse 2 separate issues. Plagiarism has meaning independent of copyright, and can be stopped just fine without it. Or do you think teachers use copyright law to detect cheating on essay assignments? Search engines are great at instantly discovering plagiarism, no need for copyright.
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I would hazard to suggest that copyright needs to be fixed, not dismantled entirely.
I'm not versed enough in legalese to know what all the ins and outs of a fixed copyright would look like, but I can say that it would not include (nearly) perpetual terms. Of all the faults of copyright, the fact that works effectively never enter the public domain under current copyright law is by far the worst.
Some anti-fishing laws would help a lot too. Its one thing to go after an infringer based on strong evidence. I
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Or do you think that the general public will be truly satisfied with unending ads, unwanted porn popups, spam, and amateur cat videos?
We have at least three industries that, de facto, work without copyright today: Fashion, food and magic shows. There seems to be no shortcoming of cookbooks, even though anybody can copy all of the receipts. Fashion is more innovative than either books or films, simply because they have to, as anybody can copy them. Magic shows is a bit of a corner case, as professional courtesy helps reduce copying.
Based on those examples, I would argue that removing copyright in a industry is in no way certain to reduce
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Yeah, like art and local music.. oh wait
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Copyright is unnecessary. You forget it is only a means. The goal is "Progress of Science and useful Arts", but since when has copyright been the only way to achieve that? Never. You should ask whether copyright helps at all. With current capabilities, copyright is actually more of a hindrance than a help. The Internet is vastly more capable of handling the work of publication and distribution than antiquated businesses that insist on using far more expensive physical means for those same tasks. I qu
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's not copyright that has been the only way to achieve that... it's exclusivity.
There has *ALWAYS* been exclusivity on content distribution... even before copyright.
Exclusivity used to be implicit because copying works was so difficult and error prone that it was typically not worth anyone's time or effort to try to copy somebody else's work without authorization.
Copyright is supposed to be the modern equivalent... except it doesn't work when people disrespect it. When publishers lose confidence in copyright to protect their interests of exclusivity, they can and will resort to other means, which will ultimately reduce the availability of content for the general public.
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This is utter apologist bullshit.
People have always been able to copy - some by ear, others by writing.
This is nothing new. A whole class of monks was dedicated to copying religious texts, centuries ago, both in the East and the West.
Then you come out with this gem:
What the hell is wrong with you? Your argument for copyright protection is based around the idea that only the people who distribute stuff produce it! They don'
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Maybe exclusivity was the only way which drove creation of IP in the past, but it is certainly not the only posibility and it is pretty bad choice. With exclusivity, you have same problems as with copyright: you cannot effectively share, archive, catalogue, remix and build upon the IP.
We must think of a way of supporting creators without the need to artificaly limit distribution. There certainly are many ways how to do that.
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They "facilitate" copyright infringement, which is not a crime in most countries unless it is done for money, about as much as Google or any search engine.
Maybe it should be crime. I would understand if facilitating copyright infringement was a crime.
Now, as you mentioned Google, they don't directly facilitate copyright infringement. See, there's this little difference that TPB deliberately indexes only pirated content. There's quite a difference.
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Re:Hypocrisy (Score:4, Interesting)
Its not hypocrisy, its forcing them to live by the rules they themselves created. By doing this they expose the rotten double standard of copyright laws.
Imagine if the powerful had to live by the rules they created. No more police violence because the police could not mug people, no more wars Because murder would be illegal for the powerful too, no more bank shenanigans because the bankers could not burglarize people anymore. So many ills in society over.
So lets make the bastards follow their own rules I say.
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The pirate bay wants to make them follow the rules, when the TPB exists only because of the rules they don't follow?
It's hypocrisy. You can't see it because TPB is on "your" side.
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The pirate bay wants to make them follow the rules, when the TPB exists only because of the rules they don't follow?
Which rules is TPB not following?
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The ones about intellectual property, that they are also suing about?
TPB's isn't using another site's style sheets or HTML.
Re:Missed opportunity to take the high road (Score:5, Insightful)
That statement would have had no effect whatsoever except amongst the minority of readers of sites like slashdot. The CPIAC would simply have ignored them and gone on with business as usual.
Filing a formal police complaint forces the organisation to show up to court and explain themselves in front of a judge. There are now legal consequences to their ignoring the statement; up to and including jail. Their responses will be on public court records where they can be used against them in future cases; their hypocrisy will be on display for all to see.
Moreover, a potential court case draws more widespread attention as it will be covered by a much greater spread of media outlets.
They are taking this opportunity to publicly embaress the organisation and expose the hypocrisy they represent. They are grabbing this opportunity with both hands and running with it. Releasing a smug, toothless statement that makes nerds feel good but does nothing to advance their cause would have been the real missed opportunity here.
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That statement would have had no effect whatsoever except amongst the minority of readers of sites like slashdot.
Me thinks you greatly underestimate the size of the "tech aware" community...
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I don't know how this ends up working out but there are some interesting prior cases against file sharers in Finland that might or might not apply.
In general, Finnish courts have accepted the inflated "theoretical loss of income" figures from content providers in the past lawsuits. There have been couple of larger cases with a BitTorrent site and a DirectConnect hub where the administrators of those services had to pay 800 000 and 680 000 euros for damages for "making available" copyrighted works and distri
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They'll come out of it looking like giant trolls, which they are, and which some folks will find hilarious.
You started it... (Score:2)
Miss Universe...
Tssk!
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I can't figure out what they mean by putting the kopimi link on their pages.
Is it only supposed to apply to the data that the torrents contain (in the sense that a torrent contains actual torrenty data, and the instructions for how to get other data)?
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or in the literal sense: taking an exact copy of the hosted files.
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-$1000 in lawyer costs.
+$100,000 in free publicity across the tech media.
Balance sheet still looking good...
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You clearly don't know the reason they're doing this, which you could have easily gleaned if you read the damn article. This isn't about money. The message from TPB itself states that any money CIAPC may have to pay will no go towards TPB. The whole point is to very publicly shame the organization for doing exactly what it fights and lobbies against others for doing.
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Free publicity :$BIGNUM
$BIGNUM - $LawyerlyChat = Nice dividend.
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Who said a single thing about "stole"? No one said this was theft. This is a matter of copyright infringement, brought against an organization which lobbies against the exact thing they've just been caught doing.
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they lobbied it not to be the case(even without direct copying of css with zero attribution).
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Hasn't TPB changed ownership since then?