Day 3 – The Pirate Bay’s ‘King Kong’ Defense
Written by enigmax on February 18, 2009The Pirate Bay trial is moving forward rapidly and again the day in court has ended early. On the third day the prosecution presented the amended charges. The defendants all called for acquittal while Carl Lundström’s lawyer scored points with the already legendary ‘King Kong’ defense.
The third day of the trial started with prosecutor Håkan Roswall who presented his updated/amended charges to the Court, taking into consideration the developments of yesterday (50% charges removed). He characterized these amendments as a “small change”.
The defense lawyers responded saying, “We don’t agree that this is just a small adjustment of the claims, but we’ll return to the matter later.”
According to IFPI’s Peter Danowsky, the damages claimed from The Pirate Bay are the same as if the site had ‘legally’ obtained licenses to distribute the music world-wide, regardless of whether all the downloaders had later decided to buy the music or not. Effectively, they are trying to say that one download=one lost sale. They are talking about imposing the costs of a “global distribution license” on TPB.
For the song “Let it Be” by The Beatles, IFPI is asking for 10 times the damages, since the band’s music isn’t officially available online. Interesting logic here – perhaps if The Beatles music was made officially available, people wouldn’t even need to pirate it. The same 10X multiplier is used for all material ‘made available’ before official release, referring to this charge as a special “preview license.”
Peter Danowsky disputes the claims of the defense that they have no funds and cannot pay damages. He called TPB “organized crime on a grand scale,” which netted “significant revenues.”
“If I have all this money they claim, someone has apparently stolen it from me,” Peter Sunde twittered in a reponse.
“Maybe [they are not able to pay] the whole of the claimed damages, but a lot anyway,” said Danowsky. The damages being claimed against the four defendants total 117 million kronor ($13 million).
Sony complained in court that The Pirate Bay never remove torrents on copyright holders request, but that they have the ability to do so since they remove torrents that are named in a way that doesn’t reflect the material they link to. They note that The Pirate Bay has a bad attitude to complaints and ridicules the complainer. Sony says they have suffered many lost sales, suffered damage to their goodwill and other damages to their market.
Henrik Pontén from Svenska Antipiratbyrån (Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau) said that their position is very similar to that of the IFPI. Their claim for damages is based on what it would’ve cost for The Pirate Bay to have acquired a global distribution license. This value was doubled to account for an alleged “loss of goodwill”.
Next up, Monique Wadsted for the movie industry. She talked about various alleged infringements, including those on the TV show ‘Prison Break’. Again, she feels that since the infringements took place before an official launch of the media, the damages are calculated based on the cost of a special “global preview license”.
During the second half of the morning session the defense lawyers had the chance to respond. Due to the reduction in the charges, the four defendants say they have no responsibility for the charges that remain.
The lawyers representing all four called on the court for the acquittal of their clients.
Fredrik Neij’s lawyer pointed out that the download figures as reported by the site were far from accurate, and that they should therefore not be used as evidence. It was further argued that uploading a torrent does not mean that the copyrighted files are also ‘available’, since it then has to be seeded. The torrent files, on the other had, are not exclusively on The Pirate Bay, and can also be found through other search engines such as Google.
Gottfrid Svartholm’s lawyer stated that users generate the content on The Pirate Bay, and that his defendant has no control over it. Peter Sunde’s lawyer pointed out that his client was merely the spokesperson of the site, and said that Peter was not responsible for anything else. It was further argued that the correlation between the number of downloads and damages suffered by the copyright holders is non-existent.
As Carl Lundström’s lawyer, Per E Samuelsson took the floor and pointed out the weaknesses in the prosecutor’s case. The defense argued that prosecutors have failed to prove that Lundström has been involved in any transfer of any copyrighted material. He played the King Kong defense.
“EU directive 2000/31/EG says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer. But the admins of The Pirate Bay don’t initiate transfers. It’s the users that do and they are physically identifiable people. They call themselves names like King Kong,” Samuelsson told the court.
“According to legal procedure, the accusations must be against an individual and there must be a close tie between the perpetrators of a crime and those who are assisting. This tie has not been shown. The prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia,” the lawyer added.
After the King Kong defense the court decided to adjourn the court case, which will continue tomorrow on day 4. Thus far, the trial is ahead of schedule.
Peter said that after today’s proceedings they all went for some pizza, where they met the whole opposing side. He asked if they could pick up the check. “They refused,” he said.
Previously: Download Steal This Film – Spectrial Edition
Next: BitTorrent Still King of P2P Traffic
191 Responses
“If I have all this money they claim, someone has apparently stolen it from me”
They should consider using the Chewbacca defense, I’ve heard it’s unbeatable albeit pointless.
Don’t blame this all on my, good article again by the way.
looking good thus far…
hope it continues to go well…
“Sony says they have suffered many lost sales, suffered damage to their goodwill and other damages to their market.”
^ That’s all wonderfully theoretical.
There is reasonable doubt that any of the admins directly participated in copyright infringement.
Good luck with the trial guys!
Correct Digg link can be found here
http://digg.com/tech_news/Day_3_The_Pirate_Bay_s_King_Kong_Defense
Hahahahahahahahaha!!
Very good article/report
It looks good for TPB.
Buena defensa, esperaría que se agarraran mas de las leyes suecas así poner punto final a este estupido asunto, espero que el dinero no gane en esta corte.
kingkong defense…
EPIC WIN LOL!!!!
what’s so funny about the kingkong defense?
mahaha, hes right though
It’s True!!! Anakata made me do it!!!
talking about king kong really has no point it just makes a simple argument twice as difficult to comprehend.
it would have been a good argument actually.
EPIC WINNING LOL!
imagine they would have encouraged people to buy what they download. it would have taken just one tiny banner to blast them not guilty.
lol @ writing your own self-referencing wikipedia article to make the “King Kong Defense” seem more important that it actually is.
/facepalm
“EU directive 2000/31/EG says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer.”
Could that not be more clear to the opposition? Seems patently obvious to me; the only question is if the TPB is an “information service,” as defined under law. And if there is no legal definition for “information service,” then there is a glaring hole in the prosecution, the law, and the defence. It needs to be cleared up. However, if “information service” is defined under law, and TPB doesn’t meet the requirements, then there *could* be hell to pay…. Let’s see what Day 4 brings.
great to see the pirate bay admins having good spirits for the case
Madonna earned 242.000.000 US $ in 2008.
” He asked if they could pick up the check. “They refused,” he said. ”
Nice ….. would love to have been a fly on the wall at that.
And the award for most popular user on TPB at the moment goes to….
http://thepiratebay.org/user/KingKong/
Funny as hell that they offered to pick up the check and the cunts “refused”. Owned!
Sorry seems to be the hardest word.
Day 4 in the big brother house.. (1984)
The Prosecutor is cowering in the corner.
The Judge: “WTF LOL, fuck this, get out my court!”
Brokep and TiAmo have been acquitted.
Anakata however is facing a murder charge for killing the Prime Minister at the age of 2.
No Comment! (Not Recognisable)
EPIC WINNING LOL!
>Shame we have no TPB-themed copyright-free KingKong pic for the article :(
check your inbox mate.
The MAFIAA has suffered “damage to their goodwill” all right. Irreparable damage, in fact. Either way, TPB has helped to deliver a fatal cannon blow to these clowns.
thanks for the pic “some guy”! I added it
What no pizza? What a bunch of sore losers.. really..
They owned your huge industries, they owned you in court, and then they even try to buy you pizza.. now that’s just unsportsmanlike to not accept.
And WOW were they trying to pull the ‘poor me’ crying game.. no evidence just.. YOU HURT OUR GOOD WILL!! .. WAHHH WAAHH WAHH.. stfu idiots. TPB FTW.
I think it may have been Peter asking if the prosecution wouldn’t mind picking up the food bill for the defense ;)
hey law people.
how can something alread paid for be classed as a copyright infringement when no money is made from torrenting? puuuuuuuuuurrrrleaaaase. lol.
one person buys it, then lends it out, its that simple. the liscence has already been paid, stop being greedy. ph~*ck the RIAA and all involved. its about time you gave something back and that time is NOW!
what about usenet, they charge for getting access to the very same stuff. go sue them.
long live the torrenters.
Great article. The best coverage in English that I have found.
well time to track down that defense fund and donate
Our heroes!!! May you come out of the courtrooms victorious
Wow, what a non-sense!! Filesharing is the futur and they continue to attack OUR FUTURE.
I’m in Canada i dont like the state to control all the world!
They even control SWEDEN!!
loss in the millions, lol.
accurate loss figures are stupid in this case, as simply because someone is willing to get something for free doesn’t mean they’d be willing to pay for it.
Like, say, a videogame. I recently went on some european magazine’s registration and got a free copy of Dark Messiah, so I downloaded it via steam and played it (broken game, by the way). That doesn’t mean I was going to attempt to acquire Dark Messiah if that promotion did not exist.
hahaha.. Epic win you guys…
Great comment from the prosecution about dropping half the charges being a small adjustment. Another “small adjustment” like that and it’s all over.
PG2 is blocking TPB as Beyond The Network AMERICA.
What if a user bought a movie they liked after downloading it to review it – shouldn’t that be deducted from any damages as it resulted in a sale??? ..think of listening to an entire song for FREE on the radio costing you nothing or even hearing the song playing in a music store or just asking to listen to it before you purchase it to know you want to own it – why can’t this be applied to a movie to know it is worth owning? if it is good I’ll buy it to support the creators, but don’t rip me off with crap movies that sucker viewers with fancy trailers. The movie industry needs to get with the program. Downloading TV shows… well just add Adverts and put them online for free like Joss Whedon’s “Dr Horrible” shown online for free then a small charge to buy it through iTunes in electronic form – people bought it.
This is nothing more than Media giants getting all pissy that they can’t control everything. I don’t believe for one minute that they are experiencing any kind of loss from downloading. Just a check to their websites can show that they are still raking in profits of the millions and billions.
If Big Business didn’t practice questionable business practices and gouging the public by overcharging for their product, you probably wouldn’t see so much downloading.
Awww. I guess Lars Ulrich will have to rent out his tennis court to offset losses now:(
Let the way not be barred to that galley where me head eats its fill of words and images that otherwise can’t be seen…without presenting green.
Long Live ThePirateBay! and God bless piratbyrån’s steely will and balls.
I’ll have to agree with Trelew…
release CDs at US$ 2.50 per CD via iTunes (world wide the same day!)
release Movies at US$ 5 to buy via iTunes (world wide the same day… perhaps a week or two after theatrical release!)
Problem solved!
Make your content available for a reasonable prices, in reasonable time frames and most importantly in an easy fashion and everyone will buy.
Until then deal with the fact that people will download your content simply because they don’t want to wait another 6 months to a year.
Reality bites…
Does this remind anyone else of the Chewbacca defense in Southpark?
“It does not make sense!”
“Look here, look at the monkey..”
*Head explodes*
If the court read this thread, they would put TPB in prison for life. You make an excellent case for the gross criminality of piracy.
“Sony says they have suffered many lost sales, suffered damage to their goodwill and other damages to their market.”
Oh yes, the damages suffered by companies are shocking enough! But try to especially think about the purses of individual artists like Madonna! She earned but a measly 240 million US $ last year! Bon Jovi earned, what, 157 million US $? It’s ludicrous, I know! And don’t even get me started with Bruce Springsteen and his 156 million (*cringe*) US $…
@45 A victim of retardation
Your mentality is contrary to evolution. File-sharing has happened. Bit Torrent has been used. There’s no going back. Adapt or die. Adapt or die. Simple as.
Survival of the fittest and all that jazz.
Plus, anti-evolutionism isn’t hip man.
@ A victim, the court is sleeping now, they tired from the show :)
MPAA=monopoly of ancient asswipes
piracy=threat
They and the fascist IFPI
are afraid that if people can produce and publish their films, music and books it will destroy their monopoly.
they seek to force the courts of the world to make sure they get their
cut.
lol Virate :D
So fucking epic.
Now finish em with the Chewbacca defense!
@45
Sarcasm detector overload.
someone should make a movie about all of this.
And then put it on tpb.
Hurt their good will? By them over charging? lol? Oops my bad. Sorry to tread on your toes Sony. Since when has good will EVER been involved in money making. Never has, never will. pscht. they got money they dont even know what to do with. I’ll buy the stuff I like. It’s nice to have previews. First rule of company law, be better or lose businesss. Quite simple guys, dont fuck up the next James Bond movie like you did Quantum of Solace? Just to name one. Movies and games these days have just gone downhill. And you cant blame lack of purchasing games or movies for it. There are still millions of reviews left right and centre for these things both on and off-line. Just make beter content. Get these million dollar singers and actors to get off their arse once in a while and support their producers and directors? *Rolls eyes* Come off it IFPI. Get real.
“They note that The Pirate Bay has a bad attitude to complaints and ridicules the complainer.”
I agree. You should never be rude, especially if they can use that against you in court.
(No, I’m not a torrent hater, and I love TPB. So shut up)
in fact copyright past 10 years is about ABBA being lazy and stingy, GET off your butt and keep working leanr how to take that cash you get and invest it wisely and save some for a rainey day.
NIce he actually gave us more ammo
SONY ROOTKIT …SONY ROOTKIT
I hope they don’t, but I think they will lose. Simply because of their name. It indicates intent.
Still I’ve said it a thousand times but this won’t do anything to filesharing. It’ll move to Encripted Rapidshare-like sites, friend-linked ftp and physical hard disk transfers.
The copyright holders have already lost. The only question is how many lives they ruin in the meantime.
The answer is as many as they can while it still makes financial sense. So share share share boys, the more financial damage it causes the better.
They need to get with the paradigm change.
how dare these swedish MAFIAA clows?
Claiming that some advertising beside the html page on tpb is causing them good will and reputation damages?
first, as if no one ever heard of adblog software.
and second: the only thing where the MAFIAA member SONY lost goodwill was when they (tried to) rootkit the PCs of the good willing buyers of their physical product!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit
Hey Victim. I am amazed you are back. I didn’t know you were stable enough of a life form to last this long.
Do everyone a favor and just shut the fuck up already. No one in the whole world gives one tiny shit about anything you have to say. Not a soul. Nope, not one.
“I think they will lose. Simply because of their name. It indicates intent.”
Well, the name was given to this “company” by the privious “owners” the Piratbyran guys.
Those 3 of the 4 defendants just kept the name of it. That does not show intent, but only good capitalistic behaviour in sticking to old conservative values like keeping brandnames even when they are “stupid” For example in IFPI “phongraphic” industry. the phonograph is long gone, so why is not the industry belonging to that device too?
I agree. TPB can certainly still be pirates. The IFPI even has a more sinister background, they started their organization in fascist italy and have since edited wikipedia to hide same (traced by ip)
http://copyriot.se/2008/04/08/what-the-ifpi-tries-to-conceal-about-its-origins-in-fascist-italy/
sorry, had to go get this.
at 14:46 by The_D00d said
According to the swedish law in question, 2§
Rough translation:
information services: Services that normally is done for a fee and that are provided at a distans, in electronic fashion and on the request of an individual service recipient.
So there is a definition and it is sufficiently broad to cover the pirate bay.
I went to see Transformers in a movie theatre when it premiered here in Sweden. I can say this much… If I PAY to see a crappy CGI movie, I atleast expect them not to fill it from start to ending with COMMERCIALS!!! I was soooo infuriated by this and thought “they should have paid ME to see this movie”.
Now, If people downloaded it and watched it for free, then it would be just like putting on the TV where commercials pay their bills and they sneak in a series and a movie here and there just too keep people watching the commercials.
SVT (Swedish Television), on the other hand, is a free network and has no commercials what so ever. Now, I pay a TV tax to watch SVT which I gladly do becuas its quality TV. Same should apply for the rest of the media business.
“I think they will lose. Simply because of their name. It indicates intent.”
Intent is not enough. There must be both malicious intent and malicious act. Even if malicious intent were proven (through the name), malicious act must be as well.
The TorrentFreak TV girl is pretty hot
The Python Defense would have been more effective. The industry claims to be losing income due to piracy. Monty Python saw a sharp INCREASE in sales after voluntarily making all of their shows available online for free. NIN saw a similar response to their online release. The industry cannot prove they lost a penny and TPB can actually point to evidence that suggests they may have GAINED income through the spread of their product to a wider audience.
XENU SPEED, MY BROTHERS!
“Peter said that after today’s proceedings they all went for some pizza, where they met the whole opposing side. He asked if they could pick up the check. “They refused,” he said.”
ROFL.
I support TPB in this but I dont believe for 1 second that they dont have MILLIONS OF DOLLARS stashed away in a swiss bank account….if you dont believe TPB is making millions of dollars every year, your clueless
Upload a pic of yourself to this website and show the movie/music industry what we, the criminals, really look like: http://filesharer.org/
“This is what a criminal looks like” – support The Pirate Bay!
Hmmm….The king kong defense sounds like they are passing the buck to us the file sharers!?
Be good to get to the crux of the matter instead.
just say it ” look at piratebay accounts and see the 13 millions dollars ..are there? oooh hell no!
so how they steal it? impossible to dodge against a virtual site !! i think they loosing time ..let Pirate obay be Free and close case!
#41
Hell no. iTunes blows goat. Lossy formats and DRM? Crappy payment methods? No thank you.
If you believe TPB is making millions of dollars every year, your clueless.
Undoubtedly there is significant goodwill damage to these companies here, particularly from trying this case. It’s only fair that the accused compensate the plaintiffs for said plaintiffs’ self-damaging actions.
Viva La Piratebay
I like TF alot but what the hell was he thinking with the ‘legendary’ King Kong defense..
dude.. it was just an example.. not some kinda mystical move..
There trying to delete the Wiki page or merge it into TPB Trial, I cant say I blame em.. i mean really it was just a sentence..
Poor choice mate.. sorry.
(insert moody music here,”fata morgana”)
ah, no matter the outcome, hollywood and company are pwned.
time for change my friends…
I can see the headlines now “TPB crushes hollywood in court “. Then hollywood will cry it was an unfair trial. Its unfair for tpb do do what they do right but its just buisness screwing the smart consumer. I fucking love tpb I am a support and we are not going down ever
@73
I think that it’s a slight reference to the Chewbacca defence from South Park..
not that I think it warrants wiki’ing or a TF article. It would be cool if the Defence Lawyer had meant it as such of course.. perhaps if he’d ended with “That does _not_ _make_ sense!”
Seriously, iTunes is the megafail. Generally, when you’re competing with free, you want to make sure your product isn’t freakin’ inferior to what is out there for $0. iTunes = DRM, a lossy format, a poorly designed site/software, and a price that is often not even competitive with physical media (no resale value for digital downloads either). This does not make for an appealing alternative to free.
The record companies missed the boat. Who even knew what the RIAA was ten years ago? Now, any music fan knows what these criminals are up to and they are universally despised. There’s nothing they can do to regain our good will but to die like the dinosaurs they are.
The prosecution is getting raped in court.. LONG LIVE THE PIRATE BAY… The Music\Movie Industry are figuring out just how screwed they are.. You can imagine what Glockman is saying right now.. How much do you think they spent to take on The Pirate Bay??
I love Peter. I laughed my ass off when I read that he offered to pick up the check for the opposing side.
That guy should run for Office.
“65 Feb 18, 2009 at 17:50 by j
I support TPB in this but I dont believe for 1 second that they dont have MILLIONS OF DOLLARS stashed away in a swiss bank account….if you dont believe TPB is making millions of dollars every year, your clueless.”
I dont believe for 1 second that you support TPB.
Millions of dollars? Fuck you.. You think millions of dolars would have gone unnoticed?v HA?! You fuck! There would have been sooo much taxes on their asses that no one could have been able to overlook that income.
If they secretly earne millions of dollars then they are REALLY in a lot of trouble. The government dont take tax fraud lightly. They’d serve a lot of years for that.
Thankfully, your just a fucking MAFIA prick and none of it is true.
Soon they’ll divert their attentions to the home user’s IP address – then they’ll start sending invoices home with menacing demands.
Changing router mac addresses daily to force a new/different Ip address will make it difficult to track especially mid-download. Also TrueCrypting the hard drive will make me tell them to ‘go f**k themselves’.
Correct me if I’m wrong on this?
…If they see that a ‘person’ was seen entering your home, but there’s no body and no smoking gun, can they prosecute you for murder?
One thing which is interesting are that a .torrent-file is directly generated from another file. If is illegal, then I think the .torrent-file should be it too. It’s not only a link, it also check that you actually get the file the .torrent-file was generated for in the first.
TPB should not be taken down, but they should remove illegal torrents when they’re asked.
I actively buy vinyls, but there’s no way I would spend my money on a CD – and have to go through the trouble of converting it to flac/mp3 for my computer / portable use. I would also never buy as many vinyls as I do if it wasn’t for having the ability to try before you buy.
In all seriousness, what do you really do with a CD these days?
Go TPB
“If I have all this money they claim, someone has apparently stolen it from me”
This surely is a great way to answer the question to pay the fine. :D
Loved it.
sounds like the railway tracks are being laid
I think that the most amusing thing about the entire filesharing-debate is that all the arguments claiming that filesharing is wrong are the exact same arguments that were used when they first introduces libraries to the cities.
“If you let people lend books for free than the publishing companies won’t make any money!”
Swedish IFPI site hacked haha
Here’s the translate:
http://tinyurl.com/ifpihack
Maybe TPB should file a lawsuit against the prosecutor for negligent prosecution.
“he asked if they could pick up the check. They refused…”
that could mean he asked them to pay, or offered to pay himself. wonder which one, itd be funnier if he asked them to pay his check, either way… Fn hilarious
Its funny hollywood has all the money but when a poor person asks for a slice of pizza they get frowned upon and laughed at.j Ust like the world watched and celebrated the fall of the berlin wall. People around the world will watch as the mighty tyrant known as hollywood is crushed and will fall. Win or lose this trial filesharing will be the victor its time the world stopped being so capitalistic. Its time we did a campaign let’s drop off leaflets where ever we can let’s download and burn random music or movies onto dvd and leave them lying around our cities for people to pick up and watch
they could always use the “monkey defense” too
“ladies and gentleman, look at the monkey….look at the silly monkey!”
*head explodes*
Every man women and child needs to BOYCOTT all plaintiffs in this case. Do not buy any product from them. If you want to access their content, pirate it! Do not pay them a penny; they are nothing more than a greedy corporate MAFFIAA!
Good luck TPB! Wish you all the best for the case! You rock!!!
Small mistake:
“The torrent files, on the other had, are not exclusively on The Pirate Bay”
“had” -> “hand”
Keep fighting!!! Long live freedom!
<3 TPB
if the whole big crisis that they say is the root of all our problems is true, then destroying one of the biggest markets , as IT and internet is, would be just considered suicidal.
a bit torrent carries except our lovely torrents, benefits for the ISPS, benefits for the energy companies, benefits for the IT companies..
its like trying to keep the market down so things don’t get better for the economy..
it just doesn’t make sense..
leave no job ten different type of markets, so just one makes the whole profit.
those people should be in trouble instead for having unfair competition policy to the rest.
ask the guys of piratebay what kind of compensation schemes they would recommend additional to the banners on http://www.rightmedia.com/
@94 – benefit to other companies
what about the hard drive manufacturers!?! seriously who the hell needs 300+ GB hard drive for normal household usage!
I work for a company that sells cleaning supplies to companies like Seagate, WD, Hitachi and Samsung… my boss likes to lecture about the evils of filesharing (this damn generation, think you get everything for free…) I dont think he realizes drive manufacturers represent a big portion of our business…
in my country minimum wage is ~350$ and ONE CD costs 15-25$… so, do I pay for my food or buy a cd? :D
Big companies earning billions of dollars from selling shitty music and movies… Maybe I want see independent movie or listen underground music band, why dont they sell that stuff? It is sometimes better than what I can see in cinema ar listen on radio…
It is big company problem anyway, if they cant guard their stuff from getting in wrong hands, it is not TPB problem that it gets online… Someone else did crime not TPB…
TPB FTW!
#88, Dante Xavier
“Win or lose this trial filesharing will be the victor its time the world stopped being so capitalistic.”
You know, some filesharers, like myself, are actually very capitalistic.
Anakata too is.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7511095/Against-Intellectual-Property-by-Stephan-Kinsella-
Bottom line is that good bands can’t earn a living because of leeches like the guys from Pirate Bay. I hope those cheap lazy bastards rot in prison.
the real bottom line is that the MPAA and the ifpi are afraid that when people can make, publish and distribute their music, films and literature they will lose their monopoly.
They and their clients want the courts worldwide to make sure they get their cut. And when they dont
give them legal recourse to prosecute.
With all the big record companies ‘Gimmi Gimmi Gimme’ more money —- Is’nt that the root of the current financial Crisis ? Aren’t there enough evidence that they are responsible for the current situation ? I have not seen ANY lawsuit for these guys…
Does anyone else think that TPB are being rather disrespectful? Though I am on their side when it comes to the charges, I don’t agree with the way they respond to the opposing side.
@99. You are a liar if the music is good people will buy it. Take iron maiden for example. They are hardworking and put on a great show. They are there for the fans people who download music go and buy it if they like it no one wants a cd with load of songs that are crap. Why should I go out and support the likes of the riaa because they flood mtv and the radio stations with artists they tell us we should like
@dante
agreed. It is amazing to me how little play the current grammy nominees have gotten over the US airways. Its great stuff and you almost had to go online to get it.
You have to pay them to play it.
If you can’t beat them, join them
I think i smell an EPIC WIN
Hollywood is disrespectful towards towards tpb so why can’t tpb be disrespcectful back? After all hollywood lies cheats slanders and bribes their way into taking tpb down. Hollywood has no idea how BT works. They can’t accept the fact TPB doesn’t want to be held responsible for and babysit users who upload so called illegal material. The world needs to wake up and see socialism is much better then capitalism which will destroy this world even more. What’s wrong with working to purely benefit society what’s wrong with wanting to spread cultuar around the world. What is wrong with paying for what you find worth while . After the customer is supposed to always be right. Tpb are not lazy people they lead normal jobs like everyone of us they are being harrassed by people who don’t believe in free speech and a fair system
“Pirate Bay Lover” asked
“hey law people.
how can something alread paid for be classed as a copyright infringement when no money is made from torrenting? puuuuuuuuuurrrrleaaaase. lol.”
Not a law person, but my understanding is that in the USA it is illegal to break the copy protection of a DVD that you own, and load it onto your computer, even if no one uses this copy except you. When I went to an iTunes store to ask the tech guy there how I could load a DVD to an iPod, he said he could not answer the question because it was illegal.
The prosecutors are just a bunch of technology idiots and computer illiterates. Since they don’t have any necessary education to understand P2P technologies, I would use telephone book analogy to educate them. A lot of music stores are listed in my local telephone book (the Yellow Pages, I mean). If someone goes to one of the stores to buy a CD which happens to be pirate copy, would the prosecutors go after the store or the telephone book publisher?
The fact that a copy is illegal to make a copy for your own in the US, is not illegal in may other countries in the EU
The evil Sony empire again…who would have thought that?
Suck Fony!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suck_Fony
@62
Not as hot as Anna: http://bambuser.com/channel/spectrial
@72: Well, that`s not correct, one of our biggest IT online papers has this line all over: “PLAYED THE KING KONG CARD”. And the sentence is on its way to become legendary here in Norway. EPIC WIN LOL
@ 101
I disagree, if anyone is disrespectful its the prosecutors taking 3 years and all they come up with is this bullshit..
what a waste! I also listnen to the live stream and i think the defence is showing alot of professionalism, while prosecutors are only talking imaginary numbers and messing things up for themselves.
Pirate Bay and P2P will continue to rise above any obstacles, may it be legality or technology. No one can defy the will of the people from all over the world. Together we will defeat anything and anyone who try to take away our freedom. I am a strong support of P2P. Keep kicking ass in the courthouse.
Haha, so funny.
Here’s a fan group on facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=51431713378&ref=mf
GO GO Defense
Long live TPB!!
The Pirate Bay Rulez!!
THANK YOU FOR HAVING THE BALLS TO STAND UP TO SOME OF THE BIGGEST COMPANIES IN AMERICA!
@13 HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS
Wait, so, uh, did he offer to pay for their pizza, or did he ask them if they could pay for tpb’s pizza?
http://thepiratebay.org/
The current homepage image made me Laugh :)
#109 Nick:
The problem is that those “good bands” only ever see $1 at the most from each album sale.
Unless you are an established hot shot like U2 or Metallica you zero chance in negotiating a better deal.
Take Radiohead for example. They released their recent album online first. Users could decide how much they wanted to pay… yet the album still appeared in the CD sales charts once it was released on a physical medium.
I’ll say it again. The record companies and movie hot shots need to start making their product available in a timely manner for a reasonable price and the piracy issue will solve itself.
Even if the companies manage to win this battle, they will surely lose the war.
I wonder, I download some music from groups I have never heard of, record it to play at work, and it sucks. Do the record companies, then, owe me for the wasted disc? I have been opened up to so much music that does not get played on the radio with TPB. So now, I am more inclined to see these groups live and the ARTIST get the money and not some record company. I had never heard an Arthur Lee song, ever. How about Opeth? Listen to the radio, hear Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Fleetwood Mac. Listen to whats available on TPB, hear the world! Say no to communism and socialism.
Despite the fact that I support the Pirate Bay, I must say that I’m a little perturbed by aspects of their defense.
It is implied that those who run the pirate bay are not responsible for what is uploaded, nor are they concerned about the legality of its content. And yet, they regularly remove links to child pornography and such like, implying that actually they do have an interest in the legality of certain content. But if this is the case, then they are moderating the content according to one law but not another. This surely flattens the notion that they are just a ‘neutral service provider’ with no interest in the content of a torrent. I’m surprised the prosecution haven’t exploited this hypocrisy – perhaps they are unaware of it.
Anyone have any thoughts on this issue?
@118
As you may or may not recall, Sweden is not a part of the United States, nor ever will be.
TPB has broken now laws under Swedish rule, and now Team America wants to take down a perfectly legal search engine. They might as well take down Yahoo and Google while they’re at it.
GO TPB!
I can see the future now the mpaa and riaa will get a law passed that states no artist can represent themselves and must pay the manaditory fee to the riaa for the right to make music. Same goes for indipendant films they will need the consent and representation of the mpaa to have the right to make a film
Funny but the guys at Pirate Bay make a buttload.
They’re multi-millionaires off the site alone – while I like their site – they’re such liars in that they want to pretend like they are the heros but really they’re criminals.
I don’t particularly like what the record and movie companies are doing, but I don’t like how guyts like Peter at TPB pretend like they don’t see a cent when in reality all the ads and revenue they create from them go into their pockets. They make millions and only like 5% of the 20+million estimated they pull in each year goes to server costs and maintaining the site. The rest is pure profit – and they relish in it.
TPB guys do ridicule the dmca-like requests it’s even up on their site. I don’t mind them doing this in fact it’s actually quite fun – but by not complying with those requests they are basically guilty of ignoring the requests. Now they’re trying to pretend like the contenst isn’t moderated and that that they don’t mock the requests.
I don’t know I’m conflicted – on one side I like piracy on the other side I’d be hella pissed if it was my product that someone was stealing/pirating/distributing.
@132
I can’t say that they are removing things like child porn because of possible legal ramifications because I don’t know. They may simply find the material offensive and don’t want to associate themselves with it.
If they are filtering torrents because of legal reasons, than your right, they are not just a neutral party.
Having said that, I don’t believe TPB to have done anything immoral. If they have done anything illegal, it has yet to be seen as the trial is still ongoing.
Morality =/= legality , at least not always.
just my thoughts
If tpb guys are so rich why do they work average jobs and live in typical apartments.why should a person of sweden comply with a law drafted in the untied states by saying we must comply with the dmca is basically saying america is king and we must do what they say hollywood is rich and is trying to get money from people who have nonw that’s like trying to get blood from a stone I for one am not going to bow down and kiss americas ass
ThePirteBay.org should make a movie of this.
It is time for all netizens to boycott every corporate tyrant from the internet.
@ Afaragus
You simply “know” this? Your an idiot!
Follow the trial instead!
Base your “hate/love” on facts not fantasy numbers from lobby organisations..
@135
mpaa/ifpi propagandist.
@ Afaragus 2
Also DMCA has no meaning to TPB what so ever..
love the coverage! keep it up.
@Brilliant Death
Your argument cannot work because no one wants to imply that TPB should let pedophiles roam free.
It’s the pedophile defense: you make the other side’s position synonymous with aiding pedophiles ;)
Wow! This is EPIC! Wish they made a documentary about the entire trial.
Torrents are the future! Why can’t they see that? Stopping The Pirate Bay isn’t going to stop piracy. If by some miracle (or curse), they manage to stop torrents, there will always be newer forms of piracy that will emerge.
The Pirate Bay FOREVER!!!!
Child porn is wrong, getting cultural diversity around the world is not
“Sony complained in court that The Pirate Bay never remove torrents on copyright holders request”
Geee wonder if it has something to do with the fact they are not legally required to do so because the MPAA has not bought control of their government…
@135
proof please.
TPB are doing nobody any favours by acting the fools in this case, least of all themselves.
The fact that their website is predominantly used to exchange infriinging files, the fact that the name they chose reflects that intent to commit “piracy” and the fact that they are unresponsive to take down notices will all work against them. As will the fact that they compare themselves to Google, whereas Google don’t operate trackers. TPB are just handing it to the prosecutors on a plate.
Ultimately they will be found guilty on minor criminal charges, then they will be sued into the ground. It must be a reassurance to all those who contributed to their “purchase” of islands and old sea forts that their money will be lining the silk lined pockets of the IFPI when the inevitable verdict is reached.
But the harm that these clowns have done in setting up an easy precedent will do untold harm for just about every filesharer. Other torrent sites will fold as a consequence of the inevitable ruling.
As for Piratebryan’s “huge support” in Sweden, well, let’s just say that as they didn’t even scrape 1% in the elections, I rather think that the average Swede is more embarassed than proud of them.
It will all be over soon, the Ronald MacDonald antics,the teenage posturing, the Pirate Bay and just about most of the BT scene.
Shame, it was good whilst it lasted
anyone seen tpb homepage?
There’s no doubt that these charges, and the RIAA and MPAA lawsuits are direct result of the industry’s late reaction to digitally distributing their own media. If they had been open to a new marketplace (as if that comes along every other day), then they could have had stores up online back in 2000 selling their material and they wouldn’t have “lost” as much income. The legal bills they’re accumulating would be far better spent on developing an online store from which to sell their properties.
That said, the strangest thing about the tone of these comments is that a number of people talk about how horrible the content that Hollywood produces is, but they don’t say they don’t download it. Why are you downloading a torrent of Mandy Moore’s music if you hate it so much? Why are you downloading a torrent of Transformers if you know you hate Michael Bay movies? Clearly you don’t want to pay for something you think is going to be crappy, but why are you wasting your time with something that you think is a piece of crap?
Spend your time seeking out that independent movie/music and start talking them up, or better yet, go make your own movie and post it online or your own music.
These companies certainly aren’t hurting the way they say they are, and they’ve missed the biggest marketplace opportunity since VHS (by the way, when they were filing the same sorts of lawsuits and charges).
Take it from someone in the industry, they use torrent downloads as marketing research for upcoming projects. That’s why product placement in films such as Transformers is still so prominent. In the end the companies are in far more danger of the average person making music/movies in their basement that are far better than what they spend their millions on.
If you stop downloading their crap, they’ll notice too.
“Sony says they have suffered many lost sales, suffered damage to their goodwill and other damages to their market.”
Sony did that themselves when they implemented a rootkit on their music CD’s and defended the practice.
As previously mentioned by someone, usenet charge for access to similar content. So what do Sony etc go after… someone with Pirate in their name. That’s just lazy. Sony and their cronies continue to show how behind the game they are.
Whilst they pamper and indulge their supposed ‘A’ list, massaging their egos with buckets of cash they have forgotten to support or seek out new and original talent or treat their customers with any respect or loyalty.
People would pay a ‘reasonable’ fee for a product but are usually screwed for extra cash to support various execs drug, hooker, gambling, extra yacht habits.
Every musician knows there is little to be made from song sales now and that’s not due to piracy. Live tours & merchandise is where its at now.
Filesharing will always exist now and will evolve quickly into some other futuristic form.
Meanwhile the dinosaurs will slowly lumber around thinking WTF! to themselves whilst blaming everyone but themselves for missing a trick.
God bless the pirates and all that sail with them.
Yeah, Sony has really dropped the ball…
Fuzzy Wazzy was a bear?
wouldn’t you be shitting yourself if your username on tpb actually was king kong?
why has nobody sued ebay for selling illegal software / music?
better guple it
First of all, we don’t share files, we share little tiny pieces of unrelated data. The goodies I download come from all over the world (I’ve been learning alot about flags!).
Secondly, Sony’s good will went to hell when I started playing downloaded music and it blew out my Sony speakers! That is the problem with the WHOLE DAMN BUSINESS! When a working person has to work more than 2 hours to earn enough to attend a concert, buy an album or get the T-shirt, IT’S TOO DAMN EXPENSIVE! One of my favorite bands is the Eagles. When they went on the “Hell freezes over” tour, the regular working stiff couldn’t afford two weeks pay to see them. I have boycotted them ever since. P2P file sharing has come about because big business has gotten too greedy. History shows, when the cats get too fat, the pirates come to play! GO FOR IT PIRATES BAY!!!!!!!!!!!
All the supporters of hollywood answer me this
Why must i be stuck using windows media player to play files that are enhanced or have drm or are a digtial copy dvd what if i like to use media player classic or vlc? not everyone has windows or likes to use windows media player
how can a company known to screw up peoples computers with a root kit like sony did be allowed to demand any compensation
why must people out side of canada and the usa have to wait 6 months or more to see their favorite tv shows in their country
Why must the riaa shove rap and hiphop and pop stars down our throats when ever we watch mtv or much music
why is it ok for the mpaa to use a bribed investigator in their trial againts tpb isnt that corruption?
what about the numbers hollywood gives for losses but can never back them up in a legit manner
what about back catalogs? I mean i can go on TPB and find stuff from years back thats never been given the chance on dvd by hollywood so why care if someones uploading it if you have no intent to release it.
what about losses format music at a high quality for a fair price?
what about the record breaking box offices figures? how can that mean they are losing money?
the fact of th ematter is hollywood isnt going broke and can never operate in alegit matter and give their would be customers the proper answers and respect they deserve
I am just looking for answers thats all? can anyone answer these questions for me
oops forgot about extortion attempts as well how does 24 shared songs equal millions in damages or how the riaa told college students to drop out if they couldnt afford the fines
how can you sue people and get money if they have no money to begin with why destory these peoples lives and take away what little they have when you already live a much better life then those small people ever will
I am just looking for serious truthful answers thats all? can anyone answer these questions for me
its obvious TPB represents the voice of filesharing and what most people want from hollywood maybe they and the mpaa can get together for a peaceful chat and hear each others views
Hollywood has become as much the realm of fat cats and robber barons as were the European royalties after the “discovery” of the Americas. Governments came about because the biggest fat cat didn’t want competition to get in the way. This is why extortion by anyone except “government” is illegal (can you say taxes?) Ever notice that in any revolution, the first thing the rebels do after victory is to implement a “new” tax structure.
I bought Let It Be on vinyl, bought it on casette, bought it on cassette. Haven’t I paid for it enough times?
@151 “Why are you wasting your time with something that you think is a piece of crap?”
Even though I don’t do this, I do understand that it is human nature.
Oh god! This tastes like crap! Here try it!
You can’t deny that you haven’t seen this sort of thing before.
This is 2 good and now all king kong product gets free advertisement and sales boosts up, yeah TPB is just bunch off great guys who change the World!
I think file sharing is a right, but access to media is a privilege.
It seems fair that the entity that provided the right should be allowed to set the rules and revoke the privilege, right? An example would be driving; if you don’t follow the rules, the privilege will be taken away.
Because, if it weren’t for the providing entity, there would otherwise be no privilege.
Anyway, $15 to see a movie that costs thousands/millions to produce seems like a fair trade-off. Or if you can’t make room in your budget for it, it’s not the end of the world.
We love ya’ll tpb! if ya’ll get sued just the users donate it :) i’ll be glad to do that
A few things that warrant a response…
1) Not stopping a crime is not assisting the crime. If someone is using their free service to commit a crime and they don’t stop it, they’ve done nothing wrong – they just haven’t done the “moral” thing. Saying they took criminal part in it would be like saying a cashier is guilty of being an accomplice to theft if they see someone in their workplace being robbed, but don’t stop the person. The company provided the place for it to happen, the cashier keeps it running, but the robbery would be no fault of the cashier’s.
2) Yes, they are saying it’s the users who are committing illegal acts – that’s because they are. TPB doesn’t host the copyrighted material, and they don’t initiate any transfers of it. All of that is done by users, and users are the ones guilty of these so called crimes.
3) “Good bands need the income to survive.” There are two kinds of bands out there: Those who are big (in terms of living well of the proceeds), and those who haven’t made it yet because they aren’t known. Those who are big already don’t need the income they’re supposedly losing, and those who are trying to get their names out there are only benefiting from the ultimate in free advertising. Music lovers talk about the music they like, they don’t just download stuff to huddle in a corner and listen to… They discuss their interests with other music lovers to find more to listen to! A lot of musicians have embraced this, and are doing well for themselves. One example is Jonathan Coulton… He has a donation link specifically for people who already downloaded his music elsewhere :) (He’s a really nice guy about it, too.)
4) “If it’s crap, you wouldn’t be downloading it!” Just because it’s not worth $15 for someone to go to a movie showing doesn’t mean it’s crap. If theaters charged $5 for tickets, they’d see an INCREDIBLE increase in sales. It’s just a matter of how much it’s worth to a person, and most of the crap ( ;) ) put out by the entertainment industry these days isn’t worth nearly as much as they’re trying to charge for it. The world’s got money issues right now, America especially – demand is going down, and the quality of the “supply” is, too. While you would think that piracy would be decimating the entertainment industry, that’s just not true. I forget the source on this, but a couple years ago when there was another major p2p news series (I think it was when they started suing 13 year olds for millions of dollars), the plaintiffs were actually reporting record profits and could cite no factual point where they had lost revenue because of filesharing, and that all losses were implied – which is still true.
There are two more things I’d like to say.
The first is that if the service provided by TPB is guilty of facilitating crime, then the industry itself is, as well. They put out media that can be copied and have the protection removed from it! If they didn’t do this, there would be no illegal copies of said media. By putting it out there, they’re just encouraging it to be pirated!
The second is simply this: There’s been a lot of referring to these greedy bastards as America. America hates these greedy bastards as well, and is very much looking forward to their downfall.
Viva TPB!
This trial is as political as it is baseless, the only reason why The Pirate Bay is being tried is because of political pressure by billionaire companies on Sweden’s ministry of justice, there is nowhere near enough evidence to convict and there is barely enough evidence to start a trial.
Plus, even if there is a loss of money to these companies… It just means some celebrity will have to buy a million dollar car instead of a 2 million dollar car… As SAD as I feel for them, I think they’ll survive.
HELP improve the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_Trial article. World has to see what’s happening.
The Pirate Bay are making millions from the torrent tracker! and I hope they make millions more!
(millions of happy people, that is =D )
Sony… Good Will… Dont make me laugh. Two words. ROOT KIT.
#24 as soon as they say sorry theyve admitted what theyve done was wrong
and what would life be without TPB?
actually there’s always tvfreeload and google ($whatiamlookingfor.’rapidshare’) (that’s php syntax), I’ve managed to get things that weren’t on torrents that way.
In some circles the word ‘landmark’ gets bandied around pretty loosely (thank god i don’t move in those circles). Lets all hope we can look back on this landmark ‘trial’ and be thankful that sanity prevailed.
I can’t help but think what Bill Hicks would have to say about this and countless other f$#ked up sh!t going on in the world today.
For those interested, user ‘godcanjudgeme’ has been kind enough to ‘make available’ (?!) some of Bill’s finest material:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4675814/Bill_Hicks_-_3_Shows__1_Doc__amp__more_-_AVI_-_Godcanjudgeme
This might be a good time to download ABBA’s “King Kong Song” ;)
There has got to be a better way. How can users have the content for free while the providers make a reasonable profit. The answer my friends is simple. The only solution that will ever work is for the entertainment industry to start levying taxes or to become nationalized and subsidized by the government.
I’ve boycotted EVERYTHING Sony since they pulled that rootkit stunt. Needed some earbuds, not Sony.
Needed a DVD burner, not Sony.
Needed a DVD player, not Sony.
Needed a new HDTV, not Sony. As long as there are alternatives, it’s NOT SONY.
#109 Nick….
You clearly don’t understand how bands make money. 99% of bands make their money from TOURING and from merch sales, not from album sales. Album sales revenue is a small drop in the bucket for most professional acts. The record industry happily pockets that money.
This is common knowledge among the music community. I’m guessing you are not a musician.
you are always great!!!!!!!!!!!! And all sensual and sincere Ageless people are supporting you faithfully at
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Whats this statement about loss of sales Sony? Unless you f**king ask the downloader if they would’ve bought the cd/movie rather than download it illegally, you can’t possibly make that statement. Anything i have downloaded, i wouldn’t have bought anyway, so I don’t see that i have caused any loss in sales.
Interestingly i was reading the other day that bands dont give a sh1t about piracy as they make all their money from concerts. So the more downloads, the more people go to their gigs. THey make more money and their greeedy labels get bypassed.The only c*nts that are losing money are the money grabbing record labels who have been robbing artists for years.
Good luck with the trial boys!
> “Sony says they have suffered damage to their goodwill”
LMAO. Now whose fault is that?
*************
If someone orders child porn from somewhere and it is delivered through the mail… do you take the postal service to court for transporting it? or in this case “making availiable” the pirate bay is basicaly the postal service but not even to the same extent. they dont even deliver it… the post office should be held liable for what they send from door to door more so then the pirate bay should.
you never go after the middle man but in this case you cant very well take 22 million people to court. its just unrealistic. so they are just going to have to adapt… like they did with tapes and VCR’s… get used to it you cant stop it…
Viva La Pirate Bay
THE PROSECUTION HAS PUT FORWARD AN AMENDED CHARGE. I’M JUST WONDERING IF THE NEW CHARGE WOULD HAVE BEEN DEEMED SERIOUS ENOUGH TO WARRANT A COURT TRIAL UNDER SWEDISH LAW, OR, WAS IT A CASE OF THE PROSECUTION HAVING TO RAMP\SEXYFY UP THE ORIGINAL CHARGES TO CIRCUMVENT THE EXISTENT SWEDISH COPYRIGHT AND INTERLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS? KNOWING THAT THE NEW CHARGES WOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED SERIOUS ENOUGH TO INITIATE A COURT ACTION. BASICALLY THE INITIAL CHARGE WAS CRIMINAL: THE THEFT BY PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT, CONCERNING, AND IN CONTRAVENTION OF SWEDISH COPYRIGHT AND INTERLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, AND PROFFITEERING FROM THESE ACTIONS. THE AMENDED CHARGES: THE ENABLING OF THEFT BY NON-PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT, NOT CONCERNING, AND IN NO WAY TO BE CONSIDERED AS IN CONTRAVENTION OF SWEDISH COPYRIGHT AND PROPERTY LAW,(A COMPARISON WOULD BE TO CHARGE GOOGLE WITH ASSISTING A BURGLAR BECAUSE THE BURGLAR CONSULTED THE RELEVANT GOOGLE MAP BEFORE SETTING OUT TO COMMIT THE CRIME, AND THEREBY INDIRECTLY PROFFITEERING FROM THESE CRIMINAL ACTIONS BECAUSE THEY HAD PLACED ADVERTISEMENTS ON TNE WEB PAGE USED.
P.S. FOR THOSE YOUTUBE PATRONS WHO ARE TO NOW FIND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO REMOVE PHOTO’S ETC FROM YOUR RESPECTIVE WEB PAGE, HA HA HA HA HA LANGLEY\QUANTICO HAS IT ALL AND THEY THANK YOU FOR THE FREELY SUBMITTED PERSONAL INFORMATION. BUT BE NOT CONCERNED BY THIS AS THE U.S.
HAS A SOLID REPUTATION FOR ENSURING ACTION ONLY AGAINST THOSE IT CAN INCONTRAVERTABLY (BY USE OF AGREEABLE DOCTORATE THESIS, UNSUPPORTED AND MIS-REPRESENTED EVIDENCE ETC’) PROVE BY PRE-JUDGEMENT AS GUILTY OF ANY CRIME THEY OR THEIR CORPORATE SPONSORS CAN IMAGINE. BUT THAT’S ONLY AN OPINION HELD BY SOME AND MAY BE BEING RECTIFIED BY THE NEW ADMINISTRATION. BUT I WOULDN’T HOLD BREATH WHILST WAITING,
QUI TAM FOREVER
Did they really know who they were messing with? They wern’t messing with some backyard pirating organisation, with the pirates copying films and selling them. They took on a website which has been running for years, legally, under the knowlage that there was nothing that anyone could do about it.
This is like trying to sue a piece of paper for what was written on it. The prosicution will lose, just bringing more attention to the pirates and torrents themselves. They took on a handful of people to make a statement to the wider world and this has backfired on them, because they had no idea what they were doing.
Next time, try something slightly easier, like suing the millions of people using torrents. but we know they won’t do that either.
Hope those poor kids soon get out of this.
Whence cometh data?
‘cheque’ not ‘check’ :-/
“Interestingly i was reading the other day that bands dont give a sh1t about piracy as they make all their money from concerts. So the more downloads, the more people go to their gigs. THey make more money and their greeedy labels get bypassed.The only c*nts that are losing money are the money grabbing record labels who have been robbing artists for years.”
Ive heard this a before aswell. What they need, is a big name in the music industry to step in and say this on record. Someone iconic! Just make sure its not MJ.
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