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Piracy United States

Bulgaria Approves Draft Law That Turns Pirate Site Operators Into Criminals (torrentfreak.com) 24

Posted by BeauHD from the response-to-US-criticism dept.
A draft law that aims to criminalize and prosecute those who "create conditions for online piracy" has been approved by Bulgaria's Council of Ministers. The proposed amendments are Bulgaria's response to heavy criticism from the United States, most publicly via the USTR's Special 301 Reports. It's hoped that prison sentences of up to six years will send a deterrent message. TorrentFreak reports: Last week the Council of Ministers approved draft amendments to the Criminal Code that aim to protect authors, rightsholders, and state revenue. "Crimes against intellectual property should be perceived as acts with a high degree of public danger, not only considering the rights and interests of the individual author, which they affect, but also considering the financial losses for the holders of these rights, which also affects the revenues in the state budget," the explanatory notes read.

The stated aim of the bill is to solve identified weaknesses by upgrading substantive law to counter computer-related crimes against intellectual property. The text references those who "build or maintain" an information system or provide a service to the information society for the purpose of committing crimes. The notes offer further clarification. "The bill aims to prosecute those who create conditions for online piracy -- for example, by building and maintaining torrent tracker sites, web platforms, chat groups in online communication applications for the online exchange of pirated content, and any other activities that may fall within the definition of 'information society service' within the meaning of the Electronic Commerce Act (pdf) and which are carried out with the specified criminal purpose."

The Bulgarian government notes that the amendments are part of its response to criticism in the USTR's Special 301 Report. [When countries are placed on the USTR's 'Watch List' for failing to combat piracy, most can expect years of pressure punctuated by annual Special 301 Reports declaring more needs to be done. Bulgaria was on the Watch List in 2015 when the USTR reported "incremental progress" in the country's ability to tackle intellectual property infringement, albeit nowhere near enough to counter unsatisfactory prosecution rates. In 2018 the United States softened its position toward Bulgaria, removing it from the Watch List on the basis that the government would probably deliver.] The fact that Bulgaria has been absent from the 'Watch List' for the last five years is down to "specific commitments" made by the authorities, with progress being monitored closely by the United States in respect of Bulgaria's future status. The draft approved by the Council of Ministers last week envisions sentences of up to six years imprisonment and a fine of up to $5,600. According to the draft, there is no intent to prosecute individual users who simply consume pirated content.
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Bulgaria Approves Draft Law That Turns Pirate Site Operators Into Criminals More

Bulgaria Approves Draft Law That Turns Pirate Site Operators Into Criminals

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  • but will torrent users who simply consume be listed for there uploads / seeds as that is kind of "createing conditions for online piracy"

  • A decent size pirate site makes that kind of revenue per day.

  • Pretty arrogant wording in the bill (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @08:41PM (#63476820)

    Crimes against intellectual property should be perceived as acts with a high degree of public danger, ...

    First, this is pretty myopic weasel wording that ASSUMES there is only ONE context.

    What about retro computers where the platform is long dead? Copyright holds culture hostage due to greed. Pirates keep a part of our history alive. What "public danger" is there in sharing old software?>

    Second, even a patent attorney can be Against Intellectual Property [mises.org]. Where is the discussion from BOTH sides showing the Positive AND Negatives for IP ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      In most real hostage situations, the captors generally try to keep their hostages alive instead of just letting em die of starvation.

    • First, this is pretty myopic weasel wording that ASSUMES there is only ONE context.

      They assume that they own every idea in existence. Therefore there is only one context: They are a bunch of swindlers rent-seeking like the mob.

      What about retro computers where the platform is long dead?

      "If I ain't makin money off it, youse ain't either!!!!" - Copyright holders. They'd burn down the whole world if it meant them earning a penny.

      Pirates keep a part of our history alive. What "public danger" is there in sharing old software?>

      The kind they paid their government stooges for: Life ruining circumstances, permanent debt bondage, and fealty to their "superiority." Of course, I've left death off of that list, but only because they have yet to achieve

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Toad-san ( 64810 )

      Let's face it: copyright theft _is_ stealing, and _should_ be against the law. If there are "extenuating circumstances", exceptions to the rule ... hey, change the rules! But don't blame the owners and authors. Okay, you can blame Mickey Mouse (what a rip!) ... but who's greedy when they refuse to consider paying for what they're stealing? Hey, I've downloaded, copied, played my share of music (looking at YOU, Dire Straits, sorry 'bout that). And maybe a few movies from Youtube or wherever. But they'

      • 1. Copyright was started by publishers [wikipedia.org] (Licensing of the Press Act 1662) before it became the Statue of Anne [wikipedia.org] (aka Copyright Act 1710) to prevent OTHER publishers from profiting by copying. Disney hijacked copyright extension but the problem was around LONG before.

        2. The dangers of long copyright was debated back in 1841 [archive.org] by Thomas Babbington Macaulay.

        3. No, copyright is NOT stealing. Lawyers are not idiots. They are EXTREMELY precise in their words:

        * Stealing refers to PHYSICAL loss of an object.
        * Copyri

  • Re: (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kurkosdr ( 2378710 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @09:40PM (#63476896)
    On a semi-related note, a side-effect of Putin's invasion of Ukraine is that Russia and Belarus don't care anymore whether they are on some US 'Watch List', since they can't have access to anything from the US via direct channels anyway. In fact, Belarus recently legalized copyright infringement of audiovisual material and software from "unfriendly" nations until December 2024. Makes you wonder why anyone bothers doing copyright infringement for commercial gain from an EU country like Bulgaria anymore. Imagine if companies in Belarus start offering direct downloads for copyrighted content, or software cracking groups start operating there in the open. I mean, copyright relies on the fact that copyright infringement is at least somewhat hard and or risky to pull off. But this could stop being the norm.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kaur ( 1948056 )

      Russia and Belarus don't care anymore whether they are on some US 'Watch List'

      The war is actively removing Russia away from all Western legislation, agreements and legal principles.
      Trademarks, criminal justice, human rights - none of those work across Russian-Western borders any more.

      Now the question is - how many other countries follow Russia's lead?
      Belarus - only as long as it keeps the current regime. The nation itself is very pro-European (well they are Europe). Will the Central Azian states lean towards China, or stay with Russia, or do something else?

    • When the West is basically at war with Belarus, you as a westerner, would trust to run software pirated by entities from Belarus? Do you trust it doesn't have trojans that can be weaponized? Generally people trust pirated software to some degree because they trust some cracking groups, some websites, some repackers and such, but that was at a time of peace when politics and military weren't involved.

      • Cracking groups in such countries can always start operating in the open as fly-by-day enterprises and publish white papers detailing their modifications, and even charge for their services. Most people forget that the "underground" nature of software cracking is so because copyright enforcement is a thing. Before copyright was invented, you had printing presses ready to take copies of books published by the bigger publishers and churn out their own copies, all out in the open as a fly-by-day enterprise, be

  • Bulgaria Approves Daft Draft Law (Score:3)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @11:16PM (#63477014)

    Fixed that for ya.

  • Political context in BG (Score:5, Informative)

    by fraxinus-tree ( 717851 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @02:15AM (#63477184)
    Bulgaria is in the middle of a political crisis. The council of ministers is a temporary one assembled by the president because the previous parliament failed to elect an ordinary government. It is likely that the present parliament won't create a viable council of ministers either. On the other hand, the president and his ministers don't have much of a support in the current parliament configuration. Whatever they did draft is not going to be approved by the parliament if it is ever scheduled for vote. The parliament dealing with an IP-related law when a great deal of other outstanding issues require immediate attention is also unlikely. In short, the draft in question is going to be at least profoundly reworked before it could be put for vote. It is much more likely to be scrapped altogether.

    • ... the middle of a political crisis.

      Which makes the sudden urge to spend Bulgarian money protecting (mostly) US corporations, even more nonsensical.

      • ... somewhat. The authors know pretty well that the bill won't go.

      • I believe they are heading towards a new round of elections, so money from lobbyists can be put at work in ads, hoping for a good outcome of those said elections.

        • A weak theory either. Maybe someone buys themselves an indulgence - see, we are not completely and absolutely pro-Russian, we are doing something for the US - knowing very well that the bill won't happen and they won't have to pay the political price thereof.

    • Indeed. I've lost count how many general elections we had in the last period.....

      So I kind of chuckled that of all the issues BG faces this found a way to a western site.

      I know it's tech related, but we get some news about the war on /. , for example, under the "stuff that matters" banner.

      So, in that context, the fall of the government last year because it turned out we literally saved Ukraine with ammo and fuel from day one (using Russian refinery with Russian petrol; all the production was redirected to U

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