Yep, it seems the court ruled that their intent was to help illegally distribute copyrighted works and sentenced each of the four to 1 year in prison and a $905k fine.
Source: http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-the-verdict-090417/
Quite interesting, I think.
As I've yet to see any proof that TPB has amassed wealth for it's creators, nor proof that software corporations lose sales from piracy, that is assumption, not fact.
Evidence points to the contrary in the case of the RIAA, that music sales increased because of piracy.
As long as there is no proof in any court cases, gladly we have judges that can dismiss ONE or both sides to their silly attempts and back to undeniable evidence.
And yet, is music still being pirated?
It's not about right or wrong, it's about legal and illegal in that analogy. And copyright laws were rewritten to suit the needs of the entertainment companies.
Also, once more, pirating is not stealing, because there's no physical transfer of goods.
Virtual presence of goods justify snatching it off and in my PC Hard-Drives?
Since when?
Oh, i get it -- the fiberwires buried in the Atlantic ocean just appeared there out of thin air and such pipelines of communication are the property of nobody.
What about satellite X? Some rocket had to ship it up there.
It may be a fictional loss now but as you say, the market is developing. Loss of someone buying a bargin bin title a couple years later is still a loss. More importantly, you are assuming a significant percentage of that developing market is capable and willing to recognize when the time of "OK" pirating is over and the time to start buying begins. Whether this is good for buisiness will not be apparent for another 10 or 20 years, when we see whether the relative handful of paying customers now are followed by the large majority of currently non-paying users.
Almost certainly the defense knew about this from day one. They were just holding it until they needed to come back from their clients' loss.
Of course, if the prosecution knew about it, it would likely get someone disbarred (in the US, anyway). But what is gross misconduct for prosecutors is legitimate good strategy for a defense.
That's all in one's point of view. Yeah, if you were a rich guy, he's a thief. If you're the poor, he's a benefactor. If you are some poor schub in the middle, he's the bastard you blame because the local rich guys can no longer pay you to continue doing your job.
I am assuming nothing. Romania has a blossoming tech sector, Romania has a 70% piracy rate.
100% of zero is zero. No piracy, no tech sector in Romania, no tech sector in Romania, no tech software in Romania.
To complain about piracy in Romania is to complain about having 30% of something. When and how many of them become honest customers does not change the fact that piracy created the market.
So you still haven't really answered my question. Do you think this means that piracy should be legal? Do you think it should be legal in Romania, or everywhere? Do you think it should be legal to pirate the software that these Romanian pirates are making?
I think companies should stop fucking me in the ass because some Romanian making $8k a year is stealing Windows. It doesn't do them any good, it doesn't do the Romanians any good, and it doesn't do me any good. Legality is irrelevant.
Romania?
How far is it for a "server to server" continual connection from Sweden?
But then again, THIS transfer of goods would be proxied enough times to throw in a few Spam feeds, a couple of mirror stitches, a fair amount of flow calls re-pings and eventually loop it all at once on some mysterious portable fleeing out by 747 to multiple destinations to spread around like the next trojan hoax, right?
The symptom is clear, the cure is simple. Pull the plug, reset.
I doubt anyone has that much power though. I might be wrong.
Since the structural collapse piracy is aiming for is social chaos.
Sounds familiar?
Piracy is not always a loss... Some year ago, in China, you was with the free Linux that gov wich use and million of people with pirated version of Windows OS... Microsoft was happy with the situation...
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134488/
By 2001, Microsoft executives were coming to the conclusion that China's weak IP-enforcement laws meant its usual pricing strategies were doomed to fail. Gates argued at the time that while it was terrible that people in China pirated so much software, if they were going to pirate anybody's software he'd certainly prefer it be Microsoft's.
Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft's best long-term strategy. That's why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China's 120 million PCs. "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," Gates says. "Are you kidding? You can get the real thing, and you get the same price." Indeed, in China's back alleys, Linux often costs more than Windows because it requires more disks. And Microsoft's own prices have dropped so low it now sells a $3 package of Windows and Office to students.
Now that the Linux threat was removed from China, Microsoft is the master there... and recently, a lot of China people fear the "black screen of death", a new protection again pirated version embedded in Vista software...
So, yes, piracy can be bad for everything who is free ( in these example Linux )... some business organize themself leak of their product... it is cheaper that a big worldwide publicity campaign... good thing is that Microsoft have adapt the price of his product in function of the income in the country where they distribute their product... better a million time a little something that nothing at all...
Now, let see the Stardock case, sins the game and piracy... Stardock don't care to much about piracy, and their product don't use any usual protection system ( only a serial )... this lead to a cheaper product ( don't need to pay for a protection system )... Stardock have choice to have enough low price when compare to other distributor, have ease the work of pirate due to the non copy protection... result for sins was around 1 million $$$ invested and a return around ten time bigger... at the technology level, with Sins, Stardock have choose a software who was able to reach and run on a lot of computer, low end system are able to run sins... the people who own these low end computer can be poor people, without a high band internet connection, not able to download gb of pirate date each day...
My point is simple... piracy is bad but fight it lead to no valuable result and cost a lost of money ( that honest people finance by buying legal product )... i think that the Microsoft way or maybe the Stardock way who is better... in place of swim againt the flow, they float and follow the stream... they create cheap product, who can be used by a lot of system... Result is mone money return in the long time for lower expense... Only request for so system to work is to have a good product !!!
Piracy are like the hookers... they have always exist and will always exist... use them for your benefice if you can, fight them is a loose of money that your honest customer need to finance... else ignore them... use the energy and money for make better product in place of fight in a war that you cannot win in the long term...
You really like that word "irrelevant". I don't think that word means what you think it means.
It sounds like you don't want to answer my question because you feel intuitively that there is something wrong with the answer you would have to give - that you think that some people (you, your friends, and "poor" or "good" people) should be able to pirate whatever they want, but that other people ("rich" or "evil" people and corporations) should be forced to pay for everything. I think you're avoiding having to actually state that by claiming everything is irrelevant. Especially since you claimed that law should be law and that it needs to apply to everyone equally.
The problem is that the long term trend, if it continues, ends with everyone pirating everything. MS didn't make money because of piracy. They made money despite piracy. Their primary income is from nations that pay for their software, primarily U.S. and European businesses. Sins didn't make money because of piracy; they made money because some people still feel that piracy is wrong and were willing to pay for the game. But things are getting worse every year - piracy used to be something that only a small section of game players did. These days, it seems that almost 70% of the PC gaming crowd are pirates. And for certain genres, like the ones we all like, the piracy rate is more like 90%. If it reaches 100%, we're done. PC gaming will disappear except for MMO's and other online-only games. Almost all development will switch to consoles. Is that what you really want? If not, what do you think companies should do about it?
Exactly what SD, GPG & IG are doing. In short, showing love to their patrons.
In my own case, Sins have make money because of piracy... i have first pirate sins... not because i like pirated software or because i have no money, or because i don't wish to pay... simply because the game have go out there in Europa several month after the US... Being a modeler for the 7DS mod, i was needed to test my own work in Sins... Once released here, i have directly buy the boxed version... with entrenchment, same difficulty for have it but it was resolved in a short time... As today, i have buy 3 boxed version of sins and 1 entrenchment... next month, it will be one sins and 6 entrenchment...
Being a old guy, if the pirated version was not in my hand at the beginning, and was needed to wait several month for have a legal one, i will have forget about it and move to something other... so, yes, in this case, sins have make money ( and will make more ) because of a initial pirated version...
Yes, i use pirate when i have no other choice... in case of very expensive software, i use pirate version for test the software ( was the case for Poser 7 pro but now, i have a legit version )... i spend several hundred of euro each month in software or enterterment media...
Their patrons responded to this love by pirating 10 copies of Demigod for every 1 that was purchased. Then they overloaded their servers because Stardock had massively understimated how many pirates there were. Then, all the pirates created a storm of negative PR about how the servers sucked, all of them pretending they had bought the game. This resulted in several low reviews on game sites, a huge loss in profits, and tons of extra work trying to stabilize the servers and enforce some new online-activation (DRM) in order to just get their game working for those few who had actually paid for it.
Love doesn't work so well.
Let me add this as well: Stardock does not CONDONE piracy. They still believe in copyright. They still attempt to enforce their copyright. They still believe in Intellectual Property, and their right to sell copies of their software. They are still a corporation. They still rely on copyright law to make profits. The only real difference between them and others is that they put less DRM on their games. They are essentially saying that they can't afford to fight piracy, NOT THAT IT'S OK. If they had their way, no one would pirate their game. They just don't want to use DRM to do it.
So don't confuse DRM-lite companies with pro-piracy kids. Stardock would still tell you you're a douche for stealing their game; they would still tell you that corporations have the right to enforce their copyright, and they'd still try to stop you if it was easy and didn't cause any problems for their paying customers.
I think you missed what I was saying. You ARE one of those people who still feel bad and pay. You pirated it first, but you still seem to have a little bit of conscience about it. You tell yourself you only do it when you have no choice, and you sometimes pay for games if you feel bad enough about playing them for months without paying. You do this because piracy is still illegal and frowned upon. I think, though you may not admit it, that you believe piracy is a bad thing, and that's why you pay for some things and tell yourself that you only do it when you have to.
If you hadn't felt that way, because it became both legal and morally acceptable to pirate everything (which is what a lot of anti-copyright folk desire), then I doubt you would have paid for it. Why would you, if you could have it for free, and there was nothing illegal or morally wrong with it?
Irrelevant: Not having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand.
Stop asking stupid questions and attempt to demonstrate at least a high school reading level before nitpicking my post. This idiotic attempt to disqualify my points by labeling me a pirate is getting old, I don't give a fuck about your ego.
What Romania does is none of my business. Romania is a sovereign country and should be treated as such. Forcing them into copyright laws they weren't ready to accept accomplished nothing. Legality really is irrelevant.
Copyright is a social contract. Society cedes a right, in this case the right to copy something they've come in contact with, in order to gain something, in this case the plentiful production of those products. It doesn't exist unless society says it does. Romanians weren't interested in copyright because it didn't benefit them any to be forced into paying a months wages for a crappy computer they couldn't afford to use. Most of them still arent for that very reason. Copyrighted materials from our country are not plentiful because they are not affordable.
We're too fucking stupid to sell them at a price they can afford, and they're too fucking poor to pay what we're charging. Making it illegal didn't change the fact that the average Romanian had to pay four months wages to get a top of the line computer. Enforcing the law wont change the fact that they still have to pay two months wages today.
Enterprise level DRM like Starforce that is designed to thwart real pirates with their own cd factories doesn't do them any good, and doesn't do me any good. Ubisoft wasn't evil for using Starforce, they didn't use it because they were a corporation. They used Starforce because they were fucking stupid and couldn't do basic arithmatic. A guy making eight grand a year in country x isn't buying a fifty dollar game that plays on a two thousand dollar computer, lets fuck over our customers and waste a bunch of money so it's harder to pirate!
Now that I've yet again demonstrated why you're an idiot for obsessing over irrelevant details, I'll repeat my statement. I think companies should stop fucking me in the ass because some Romanian making $8k a year is stealing Windows. It doesn't do them any good, it doesn't do the Romanians any good, and it doesn't do me any good. Legality is irrelevant.
Educate thyself, no one else will.
aren't they having it a retrail due to judge's biased involvement with copyright support groups. I wonder how that is going to go.
IF a thief was in court and the Judge was a member of an anti-thief club, I'd find it difficult to call this a conflict of interest.
What this sums up to is the many variable standard of livings according to national "regions" or currency variations worldwide.
a--) I must "upcost" a purchase for a Toyota car made in Nagano, Japan and bought at a retailer downtown a Canadian city, for example. Import/Export, taxes, shipping & handling, etc.
b--) I rent a tiny apartment 300$/month in Québec, but IF i must move to NY city *for the same surface area* i'll have to stack up 2500$US to the local landlord.
c--) Food, shelter, transit - name it.
d--) Softwares.
If salaries aren't "enough" in Romania to keep up with more industrialized countries "levels", shouldn't they find a way to compete on international offers? I hear there ARE excellent engineers (electronics, security, etc) in that European country (almost smaller than NewFoundland, btw) -- shouldn't they then concentrate offering their services for a fair price - competitive enough worldwide?
Have a look at the "Lichtenstein" economic figures? And their GNP ratio?
Surprisingly, it's the location or the population?
Arabs got the Barrels.
Japanese have the Nintendos, TVs, Cars.
See, take your spot and raise the bars - for yourselves. Or let China take over by quantity & productivity for LOWER the costs in workforce expenses.
Why else do you think Mexicans build Volkswagen cars? They're paid in Pesos.
While GM workers in Detroit need 150,000$+/year to barely earn a "family" living near Michigan lake.
Whether or not piracy should be legal is not "irrelevant"; it's a very important question; basically THE most important question relating to the entire concept of copyright and piracy. But it seems you'd rather fly into an insult-hurling rage than be forced to think about it.
You try to give me some morality... but it is not really the case... i am a "collector"... something download from the internet ( torrent or legal digital download ) have no value for me... i wish and will the boxed version, with his manual, his poster, the printed cd, etc ... in the case of sins, i have more reasons... i have wish to play online, i have not wish waiting week for a torrent update ( i have complain about impulse in the past but now, it work great )... for me, game are not only game but are collection item... of course, i like only strategy game ( like sins, NWN, harpoon, totalwar, etc )... they are game that i can enjoy for a long time... by example, i have always my boxed version of Harpoon from 20 years ago... recently, i have discover that ACSI have take over after the banckrupt Three-Sixty Pacific and have buy the last version from 2008 ( miss only the Harpoon 3 Pro released in April 2009 because i am not more in the Navy and these version is only for professional military)
I am not a pirate but i use them when i need... morality is not a issue for me... i have a job, i earn money and i wish spend these money on product... if distributor make it difficult for me to buy something i want, i use pirate... if product ask a CD/DVD to be always in the drive, i download a crack since i wish beware my product a very long time...
I am a Linux guy and i love all who is free... but in Linux world, "free" don't mean "free of charge", it mean "freedom"... and a lot of game distributor limit my freedom to use a product i buy, limit my freedom to buy, limit my freedom to choose a securised method of payment, etc...The funny thing is that US is called the country of freedom but lately, all the freedom restriction are exported from US !!!
Impartiality is necessary when an individual acts in a certain capacity such as judge !!!
In these case, since the judge was linked with the 3 lawers of the accusation, i have doubt about the impartiality of the judge... a doubt is enough for make the judgment non valid...
Look at the reverse situation... if the judge was using PirateBay actively for download software free of charge and he will have in court, remove all charge and free the guys... What will you think ?
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