... aren't the torrents.
It's the correspondence!
http://thepiratebay.org/legal
The best ones are those where the non-pirates are really insistent, like the websheriff lawers:
Subject: Re: Re : WHITE STRIPES / Pirate Bay - TorrentsFrom: anakataTo: Jgela1@aol.comDate: Thu, 26 May 2005 14:01:41 +0200On Thu, 2005-05-26 at 06:11 -0400, Jgela1@aol.com wrote:> > Web Sheriff> Protecting Your Rights on the Internet> Tel 44-(0)208-323 8013 / Fax 44-(0)208-323 8080> websheriff@websheriff.com www.websheriff.com> > STRICTLY PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL> ATTENTION ADDRESSEES ONLY> > Dear Frederik,It's spelled "Fredrik".> We would refer you to our notification of yesterday's date regarding> the above, the contents of which are self-explanatory (hereinafter> referred to as the "Notification"), to which we have yet to receive> the courtesy of a response.We would like to refer you to our Legal Threats section, on which we,while having much fun, ridicule people like you.Thank you for your contribution.> Notwithstanding the fact that you contend that torrent hosting is> legal in Sweden (which we would dispute), ...and I would like to refer you to the relevant court cases.Unfortunately, our legal team partied quite heavily last night, so theonly reference I can provide you with is Högsta Domstolen (the SwedishSupreme Court) NJA I 1996 page 79.> you also seem to fail to recognise that your web-site is accessible> all over the world and that, as such, your actions and, furthermore,> your refusal to act, opens you and your company up to the possibility> of law suits in - inter alia - the United States and the United> Kingdom. Such law suits could result in your being refused entry to> both the US and the UK Damnit. You got us there. Now I'm so scared I pissed my pants. Whereshould I send the invoice for cleaning them? > Accordingly we would strongly recommend that you immediately comply> with the Notification, failing which we shall be obliged to advise our> clients' attorneys to take against your company (and your company> officers) without further notice. Wow, we have something in common! See, I also have obligations of myown. For example, I'm obliged to provide entertainment to our users.> We would also warn you that, if such steps do prove to be necessary,> our clients' attorneys would also (a) notify the Swedish tax> authorities of your commercial activities, You mean our non-commercial, loss-generating activities? > ( notify the Swedish government of your illegal activities, (c)> notify the Swedish record industry association of your pirate> activities and (d) notify the IFPI of your piracy activities.Do you seriously believe that these parties aren't already aware of thesite? You may want to read Swedish media...> We shall look forward to hearing from you.We look forward to receiving more of your so exquisitely designed HTMLe-mails with the shiny wanna-be-police-star.> Whilst writing, we would further caution you against communicating> or otherwise posting any remarks that could be construed as being> defamatory of our clients (or Web Sheriff) or that could otherwise be> injurious to our clients' (or our) genuine business interests.> Similarly, we would inform you that the copyright in the Notification> and, indeed, this e-mail is vested in Web Sheriff and that, in the> event that you attempt to publish either the Notification or this> e-mail on your web-site (or elsewhere), appropriate action shall be> taken for infringement of our copyright (we trust, in this regard,> that you will concur that Sweden does recognise copyright). We trust, in this regard, that you will concur that publishing youre-mail is not in violation of Swedish copyright law. When our lawyer'shangover has passed, he will be more than happy to explain the juicydetails to you.> Naturally and notwithstanding the foregoing, all accumulated rights> of our clients - including, but not limited to, the right to institute> proceedings against your company in the United States - remain> strictly reserved. You also have the right to institute sodomizing of yourself. Preferablywith barbed wire, but retractable batons might also work if you pushthem far enough.> Yours sincerely,> > WEB SHERIFFI wanna be a cool WEB SHERIFF when I grow up. Do I get a shiny star anda six-shooter?
Second Email & response
Subject: Re: WHITE STRIPES / Pirate Bay - Torrents # 2From: anakataTo: Jgela1@aol.comDate: Thu, 26 May 2005 20:36:08 +0200On Thu, 2005-05-26 at 10:53 -0400, Jgela1@aol.com wrote:> > > Web Sheriff> > Protecting Your Rights on the Internet> > Tel 44-(0)208-323 8013 / Fax 44-(0)208-323 8080> > websheriff@websheriff.com www.websheriff.com> > > > > > > > Dear Frederik,> > Hello.Hi! Please, learn to quote properly in your e-mail messages. You canlearn from how I do - I promise you that proper quoting is not patented.> - We know all about your immature responses to rights owners.What did you expect? I mean, I still wet my pants damnit, but only whenI'm scared by big mighty policemen like you.Now you need to pay for another cleaning .> - Fascinating.Not as fascinating as the fact that you don't seem to get the hint, orthe fact that someone might actually be paying you to send poor attemptsat scaring people...> We would suggest that you nominate attorneys in the US who can accept> the service of proceedings on your behalf. If you do not do this, then> an application can be made to the Federal Court to serve proceedings> out of the jurisdiction (ie. in Sweden). This would simply mean that> our clients would seek to recover more costs from you for the> additional application. Once proceedings are served overseas, a> default judgement can easily be obtained unless you elect to defend in> the US. I hereby nominate Mr. Lionel Hutz at I-CAN'T-BELIEVE-IT'S-A-LAW-FIRM.He's a fictional character, but that should be enough to receive yourfictional servings in your non-existent case.> Not when the ultimate content (ie. of the combined torrents) What the [my mom told me not to swear, so I deleted this word] is acombined torrent?> belongs to third parties ... ... these are their rights to exploit,> not yours (as you shall no doubt discover). Now that's what I call a miserable attempt at a cliff-hanger. Let meguess, you failed your literature classes? Just like you failed lawschool and the police academy, and became MR WEB SHERIFF. John, is thatyou?> - That would be a matter for the appropriate authorities to decide> upon once a formal referral has been."once a formal referral has been" ? Me fail english, that's unpossible!> - Our clients would ensure that the matter is progressed in tandem> with the IFPI > Tandem, is that kind of like spooning? Mommy doesn't allow me to watchporn, especially not gay porn starring people in fake police uniforms.> until such time as these activities are ceased permanently ... At the current rate, I would approximate that you will succeed slightlyafter the heat death of the universe, or the Armageddon, whichever comesfirst.> .. this is only a matter of time ... ... Another miserable cliff-hanger. > then you would be held to account to all of the parties whose rights> you have infringed. > - Regrettably, you may well be in receipt of further communications> from us.Yes. You are consuming valuable disk space, CPU time, and bandwidth.Should I put it on the same invoice as the pants cleaning?> > We trust, in this regard, that you will concur that publishing your> e-mail is not in violation of Swedish copyright law. When our lawyer's> hangover has passed, he will be more than happy to explain the juicy> details to you. - You are wrong ; unauthorised publication is a> copyright violation, which is actionable in virtually every> jurisdiction in the world (including Sweden).> I managed to wake him up (at least he wasn't passed out in an alley thistime), and after he finished laughing, he wrote a nice response for you.Since you have proven to be such adepts at Swedish law I feel a bit badabout telling you this. In Sweden not everything is protected under thecopyright laws. A text, for example, has to reach a certain level of"artistic" and/or individuality value. Itÿs arguable that a, more orless standardized, e-mail notification of infringement of copyright doesnot measure up to this required standard. In any case one can onlyreclaim actual damages in Sweden. And proving that the ´unauthorizedpublication of your copyrighted material¡ (as in your e-mail) has causedyou any actual damage or loss of profit, related to the infringement andnot the plain stupidity of your own wording, seems to us to be an almostimpossible task. Knowing Swedish law and the Swedish justice system Iwould guess from none to zero. And for your information Sweden is acivil law country and we do not use the idiotic jury system that isfavoured in the common law countries. (you might want to get atranslated copy of the Swedish copyright law ´Lag (1960:729) omupphovsrätt till litterära och konstnärliga verk¡. We are sure that sucha respectable company as the ´web sheriff¡ must employ a vast staff oftranslators. Good luck!> > Naturally and notwithstanding the foregoing, all accumulated> rights> > of our clients - including, but not limited to, the right to> institute> > proceedings against your company in the United States - remain> > strictly reserved. > - We have read all of these (supposedly funny) insults that you> publish before ... ... you might not be laughing when proceedings are> issued against you in the United States (amongst other things). As you might know American law is NOT applicable in Sweden. Even thoughUSA seems to think, from time to time, that there is only one law, justas there is only on god. In your own law your courts claim onlyjurisdiction (under the ´long arm statutes¡) over non-state residenceonly in certain cases. Namely when the ´defendant¡ has minimum contactsin the state where the suit was initiated. In the case Asahi Metalindustries Co., Ltd v. Superior court of CA the U.S. Supreme court ruledthat such ´contacts¡ did not exist since the defendant had no offices,no agents, no employees or property and so on. Much like our case. Theonly thing connecting us with the US is the fact that our torrents areaccessible worldwide. Not being an expert on American law (we havesomething in common. Isnÿt it fun how people from all over the world areconnected through our own ignorance?) we still are of the opinion thatthere is no, excuse the language, chance in HELL that you will be ableto initiate a suit in an US court against our us and have us summoned tothe US.That means that such a suit will have to be initiated in Sweden, underSwedish law. As to this date Swedish law does not forbid the activitiesrelating to having bitorrent-tracker. Nor does any Swedish precedentexist that forbids it. We are confident in our assessment that ouractivities are perfectly legal and they will continue until such a timethat the Swedish lawmaker changes the law. It might be hard for you to get what Iÿm about to say through your thickJohn Wayne foreheads, so bear with me. The tracker provides the useronly with .torrent files which contain no copyrighted data. The actualcopyrighted material is to be found on the individual machines of ourusers, not on our servers. > - Yes, when you grow up.> My mother says I'm a big boy now .> > >
You're pretty amusing. And clueless.
You can see who the pirates here are by the attitude. I hope someone is taking down names...
Just about everyone I know, none of whom are "pubescent children who have never done a decent days work", has at some point pirated something, and many still do so very often. Claiming that piracy is something that only teenagers and kids do is just wrong, and claiming anything else is lying to yourself. It's not some marginal phenomena, it's something that a lot of people do without a second thought.
Oh, and piracy isn't theft, it doesn't remove the original work.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theft
" the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny."
Sure you might think it's wrong, but it IS NOT your traditional theft but something else.
Somehow, I bet Jafo is spot on. Almost any conversation with a self-righteous digital pirate shows just who are the clueless ones.
If we assume that one will not purchase an item that has been pirated, and we then assume that there is an amount (however small) of piracy that ultimately results on someone refusing to purchase software for the sole reason of having already pirated it (a fairly obvious effect, regardless of how many people insist "Oh, I never really would have bought it anyways", a statement that cannot be 100% accurate), we can assume that piracy ultimately causes the loss of funds for the creator of software. While normally this would be a boycott, rather than theft, piracy allows one to "boycott" a company while continuing to use thier product(s). Thus, theft.
We could also assume that piracy offers the chance to test a product without buying it, which might result in a sale that wouldn't have happened otherwise, which ultimately results in more profit for the creators of the said product. Is that theft?
The uneducated argument of all pirates.
Try this one on for size:Copyright Infringement; involves engaging in one of the practices that are exclusively reserved for a copyright owner, without a license to do so such as the reproduction or distribution of copyrighted works.
Yeah, that works better.
ah, the other side of the coin (so to speak)
I don't agree with piracy and those that do (IMHO) are theifs and low lives, but, I'm not going to lose any sleep over the fact that you're a pirate.
a person's inability to accurately review or preview an item prior to purchase is sale by deception. then there are the return policies of companies that sell these goods. "I'm sorry, we can only provide you with another copy of the same item that you purchased", or "I'm sorry that you lost your receipt, but our records show no purchase in that amount on that day", or "why can't I put my itunes on my zune". It's always been the buyer beware, looks like some believe in payback.
I guess my point here is that; these sanctimonious companies have created an environment where to some of those that feel such policies to be unfair or have been burned by them to be fair game for retaliation.
I once saw a preview for a movie that when I went to see the movie found out that I had already seen all the good parts, the rest was crap.
no, but funny you should mention this movie. the original "Click" is an X-rated graphic novel. and yes I have a copy and it is hot. and I do wonder if they pirated the idea from the book???
Jafo, "sticking it to the man" does not belong exclusively to petulent "gimme, gimme" teenagers... nor did it originate with them.
Sticking it to the man originated with the downtrodden working class, many of whom were paid extremely low wages while their employers lived luxurious lives in plush mansions and could afford to throw food away.. Many of the working class earned barely enough to survive themselves, and thus were often required to steal from their employers in order to feed their families.... hence "sticking it to the man"
I grew up with "sticking it to the man" during the late 50's and 60's in the UK, when the local farm hands were paid 3 pounds 7 shillings and six pence (of which 18 shillings went back to the farmer for rent) for a 48 - 50 hour week. The farmer practially owned the whole village and lived an oppulent life while village residents struggled to make ends meet... and the farmer wondered why village residents "stuck it to the man" by stealing milk and crops to survive. Oz was founded and largely developed by those poor souls who did nothing more, for example, than take a loaf of bread because their children were hungry.
Me, I'm all for sticking it to the man. My first job was for a multi millionaire cabinet maker, and a 45 hour week netted me 1 pound 5 shillings and 4 pence. After board and lodgings, fares to work, etc, I was left with 3 shillings (30c) to manage a week while my employer cruised the Caribbean, basked on the French Riviera and holidayed 8 months of the year. So yeah, if there's a legal way to part a greedy fat-cat from his/her excessive profits, then I say go for it. I mean, it's not like the bastards can take it with them to the grave.
A happy, reasonably paid employee is going to be more content, supportive and less likely to steal from his/her employer... same goes with happy consumers not stealing from stores, etc. I've said it before and I'll say it again, economic oppression is the greatest cause of crime. Thing is, greedy corporations/companies just don't get it and crime continues to flourish.
Internet-piracy is ultimately an act where the "pirate" obtains a service without the consent of the service provider.
It is not theft, robbery, a terrorist attack or a Grand Theft Movie/Music/Software/etc...
It is - at best - fraud.
And where there's fraud, there's a victim. But in this case nearly all victims are lying about how much the "pirate" damaged them.
Just because someone downloaded a bunch of movies doesn't mean that he'd have otherwise bought them. At least not when you'd be thinking about it.Same with software.
Music may be a bit different. I know a guy called Broddo who, in his youth, bought a shitload of LPs and CDs which are mostly artistically worthless. You know all this stupid plastic Stock/Aitken/Waterman music by Kylie Minogue, Banamarama and Rick Astley and whatever else? When Broddo buys music nowadays, he goes for high quality recordings of classical music. If he's just interested in hearing something someone else recommends, he checks youtube or downloads it. He listens and forgets about it. If it's good he keeps it.
In days gone by he'd ask his friends if they have a recording or even the original and if so, he'd copy it from them. Some shit he'd buy himself and lend it to friends. If there was no way of copying music he'd hear less music, but he'd not buy more music. At least not significantly more.
Anyway, the crappy music he bought in the past would be worth about 5.000 € in these times. If anyone bothered to sue him for his mp3 collection he'd face an american lawsuit with a claim value high enough to pay all US debts and pave all streets in gold. At least if you use the Joel Tennenbaum benchmark.
In short: The RIAA claims are pure bullshit. They still rake in billions with crappy music despite "losses" due to so called piracy. They just want even more money, even when some passerby listens to a song through an open window.
Next step? Thinking about a song: $1,00 or $20,000 lawsuit?
If I were into making software and told that my customers would be downloading the full version (for free) and then later deciding whether or not it was worth thanking me with a tip, I'd sure as hell be ready to go broke, no matter how good the software was. We have demos for a reason, as well as review services and friends. Buyer beware is all but nonexistant.
I'm not against downloading for the use of backups, or if one owns the original copy. However, using torrents to use programs while screwing over the very company who made them, I'm very against.
And I'm against a company charging, say 49.99$ for a game in an online store for US, Canada and Mexico, and then charging 49.99€ for that same game in Europe. Given that euro is stronger than the dollar, I call that unfair. I've seen this practice many times and I say, any company which does things like that deserves all the pirates they get.
And now something completely different!
@Willythemailboy:
Trial by jury is an inherently unjust and biased system. Instead of a panel of competent, unbiased judges, you have a bunch of civilians who are probably bored, allmost certainly prejudiced, and would like to get it over with as soon as possible. Yeah. That's justice.
Yes, you see otherwise all the international criminals would scamper to whatever country doesn't want to cooperate, like they did at the end of WWII.
Really, well then why have a court at all? Just take the guys out in the back and shoot them. I haven't heard of such practices on the news though. I might add that "presuming guilty until proven otherwise" is actually a daily practice at the Guantanamo and Abu Graib. Not that anyone gets a trial there.
Trust me, all the big war crime defendants get an attorney to represent them and often have entire legal teams at their beck and call.
If you mean to imply that "I think he did it" can be used as evidence, then you're mistaken. ICC proceedings can take an extraordinary amount of time to complete, precisely because its a very meticulous process involving particulalry nasty crimes.
Yes, they poke a cattle prod up your arse until you sing. I hear they still keep the old Inquisition tools in the cellar for the "special" clients.
Last time I checked, there was more than one judge on a single case. And it in any case beats the jury system. Who is more likely to deliver an impartial and just verdict - a panel of judges, experts chosen for their knowledge of law and objectivity, or a group of laymen who know didly squat about law and come prepackaged with their own ideas of how the law should work?
Considering that the ICC deals with particulalry nasty stuff like war crimes, I should think so! I don't want Adolf Hitler to appeal, do you? Alas, the tyranny of my mind is not the actual case, thus OF COURSE you can appeal. Don't believe me? Here's their official section dealing with appeals.
Yeah, what's with that? I mean, I like that "can't touch it" with the US justice system... "yeah, so I ordered the execution of those ten thousand civilians, but you said I didn't and set me free, so NYAH NYAH NYAH! They found the mass graves? Too late, ahahaha!"
Right.
Spot on. Only, self defense should not extend to "don't want to play!" As you said, a lot of head honchos would find themselves in the hot seat and a very embarassing situation would develop where "important" people would have to answer for the same crimes petty warlords are tried for. It might cause the public to think, wait a minute, I thought *they* were the bad guys!
And there would likely be a lot of trouble over that, so maybe its better that the big fishes are untackable. For now.
The point of all this above is to illustrate how propaganda can distort an image of something. People listen to the nay-sayers, not bothering to use their own minds and educate themselves on the subject before passing a verdict (which is why the jury system stinks). Same as you totally misunderstand the way ICC works, people misunderstand the way international law works, and especially, the way law in other countries works.
In most countries, their system of law has been refined through the will of the generations of people who *live* there. It may be different that your country's law, but just because you think its stupid, or unfair, does not mean its country automatically deserves to be attacked or sanctioned.
by your profile it would seem that your life experience is quite different than mine. here, just because a judge is a judge dosen't mean they will be unbiased. Even our supreme court has voted along party lines many times. figure in those judges locally elected and one can come across some fairly biased judges. trail by jury is suppose to take away the simple black/white perspective of the law and allow the gray areas of human nature and circumstances to be a part of those decisions. it's not a perfect system but our forefathers put it in for some pretty damn good reasons back then, I think they still hold true today.
blame europe - they set prices and tariffs
Which is why law isn't, and never will be, fair to everyone. But in lack of something better, it does serve its purpose in most countries.
A trial by jury isn't fair in any way though, because the panel hasn't studied law. Because they did not actually study it, they are not in a position to determine wether or not an action is illegal (except on a very rudimentary level). It's never a question of justice in that case, it's always a question of which of the two lawyers does the best job in convincing the jury how to interpret the law.
Actually judges should be unbiased, atleast on laws that are involved with the case. If a judge is anti-homo, and the defendant is a homosexual, and the defendant suspect the verdict being influenced by the judge's opinion then he can .. whatever the legal term is but they can complain and if his objections are indeed relevant he can demand another judge. This is a fundemental right! Judges need to be objective, if maybe he's not, then exit judge, viva le (new) judge!
This was also the case in TPB's admin's case. The judge in question was member of some anti-piracy groups (two I believe) and they complained about it. In the end they (don't know who exactly, maybe another form of court?) decided that the judge was not biased, and simply part of those groups to "be informed on both sides of the case". Also some other stuff was taken into consideration, for instance the TPB admins didn't say anything about it till after the verdict, which was deemed a tad bit late to start complaining. Don't have all the further details on it though.
"Report claims P2P users buy more music, not less"
http://musically.com/blog/2009/04/21/report-claims-p2p-users-buy-more-music-not-less/
Having sat on more than one jury, I fully agree. But it's still a Constitutionally protected right the government can't strip citizens of by signing a treaty, they would need to amend the Constitution first. Travellers and tourists take their chances outside the US, but Americans inside US territory and members of the armed forces cannot summarily be stripped of this right.
And yet almost everyone but the US and Israel *have* signed on to it, including countries like Sudan, which continued committing war crimes even as they signed on to the court treaty.
Added on after the US opted not to sign on. It's good that they saw such a glaring error in the system, too bad they didn't get it right to begin with.
Yes, they do use physical evidence (but without proper chain of evidence control that we take for granted), but more often it is depositions taken from people that will never appear before the court. This means the defense never gets to cross examine or challenge the testimony in any way. Again, violations of Constitutional rights that would require amendment to address.
Whether they have done so or not, the fact remains that there is no systemic control preventing them from doing so. Again, would need Constitutional amendment to be adressed.
And having one of the five people on the panel actively working for your conviction is fair how?
It forces the prosecution to get it right the first time. It also prevents continuous trial, recharging and retrying someone immediately after an acquittal as a means of holding them indefinitely despite not being able to get a conviction. Again, constitutional issues need to be addressed before the US could sign on.
As I previously stated, the idiotic definitions of war crimes would make many legitimate self-defense actions war crimes, while the threat they are defending against would not be. Launching rockets against Israeli towns is not a war crime by ICC standards, but firing back at the launchers can be. Using a passenger plane as a suicide bomb is not a war crime (by which I mean training someone else to do so, as the persons actually doing it are beyond prosecution), but shooting said plane down would be. Both the person ordering the shot and the person taking the shot could be charged.
A change in the internet protocols would start with the death of anonymity.
Korea already started with having everyone requiring a 13 digit pin, anyone that wanted to even leave a simple comment would have to enter it.
Brazil and France have made attempts at it and there has been talk of it in the US to.
Tracking, catching, and prossicution of pirates would become much easier.
It may not stop piracy completly, but it would bring a huge halt to much of the current userbase.
motion for a change of venue
Click on this for a quick rundown of some "Criminal activities" fraudulent enough to snoop eventual worthy Lawsuits, worldwide.
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