Man Fined For Publishing Links To Legal Sports Broadcast

enigmax
November 11, 2010
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Canal Plus
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A man who linked to two hockey games streamed live by broadcaster Canal Plus has been found guilty of copyright infringement. The 32 year-old found unprotected direct URL links to the games on the channel’s official website which would ordinarily cost money to view. A District Court decided that publishing those links on his forum amounted to an infringement of copyright.

In 2007, a man from the coastal town of Söderhamn in east-central Sweden drew the attention of TV channel Canal Plus. The 32 year-old ran a forum where fans could participate in chats about live hockey games, games ordinarily broadcast for a fee by Canal Plus.

However, due to the way the Canal Plus service was structured, it proved trivial for anyone to watch the games free of charge if they knew the direct URL. The problem here is that Canal Plus simply handed over the URLs to people who paid for the matches but since they were completed unprotected, people passed them onto friends. Making matters worse, at the time Canal Plus used the same URL time and again for all its hockey streams.

So, on two occasions in October and November 2007, at times when it was confirmed that approximately 25 people were using the fan site’s live chat facility, the man posted the URLs of the streams to his forum. Canal Plus were not amused.

In the summons against the man, Canal Plus called his actions “an assault on the entire operations of pay TV services on the Internet” and that by publishing links to the streams broadcast openly from the Canal Plus website he had illegally made them available to the public.

Yesterday, and despite Canal Plus being completely unable to show that anyone at all had clicked the links or viewed the streams, the Hudiksvall District Court found the man who posted the links guilty of copyright infringement. He was fined 3,500 kronor ($520) and ordered to pay 11,780 kronor ($1,747) in compensation to Canal Plus.

Although the fines may be almost laughably small by United States standards, this decision by the District Court has the potential to send shivers down the spine of anyone running a website who links to a media source, even when provided by an official outlet but not in accordance with their wishes.

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Amiga

Sounds to me like they were giving it away free, with thair stupidity. And went after him from embarrasment.
Blackplan

Idiots. It’s the fault of the company who failed to secure their service, not this poor SOB.
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Anonymous

Guy should appeal.
It’s the fault of the assclowns who ran the Canal Plus site and left unprotected urls.
Suing over their own stupidity, o’rly?

Also, the guy should get a new lawyer.
If the current one couldn’t prove the obvious as f@ck stupidity of Canal Plus, he ain’t worth sh1t.
BIOS HazarD

Obviously it was not intended to give away for free, but getting fined anywhere over $20 is just stupid. Maybe they need a better application.

What is to stop me from making a shitty website and suing anyone who finds a loophole…
mike

its down to the canal people, they are the ones who have an open URL to content.

this wreaks of unfairness, why was the content not more securely stored and authorised? this man should not be in court for this. its a complete joke.

canal, you are stupid to let content leak out of your servers in this manner.
Finnonymous

This is just ridiculous. Weren’t there some cases where companies tried to silence or sue people who found security holes? (M$oft pops into mind though I guess their habits have changed) though companies like Mozilla and Google pay people who find security flaws in their software, this ruling gives übergreedy archaic btards another moneymaking machine and progress a big push backwards. I hope this stays in sweden and I hope this gets appealed. If Anal Plus has already fixed that backdoor I bet they’ll put it back. It only takes another ACS:Law…
Whatever

@“an assault on the entire operations of pay TV services on the Internet”

Does this mean all pay TV on the internet is unprotected ? Time for a payTV bay ?

It is time to replace all the aging judges if they actually believe those claims. Any papers containing obvious fiction or containing anything else than the “perceived” facts should be dismissed. There should be someone at the court reading incoming papers and with a black marker take out useless sentences. If more than 10% irrelevant then case dismissed.

The link issue is so stupid that someone would probably be able to view it by just guessing.
Nix

1 gone. 5 miljon left to hunt down.
Whatever

Aside from the economic issues, how can this possibly be infringment ?
AnarchyNow

“Money for nothing, chicks for free”…
Colin

Sounds like the prosecution sold the court the idea that something had been ‘stolen’. Oh dear, it will be at least a generation before ‘net savvy people get high enough up the legal ladder to prevent this sort of miscarriage of justice. But will they be nobbled by Big Content before they get there?…
anon

Just another public crucifixion to give big brother his paranoia fix, they punish one person as if they were the entire problem, as if they invented the problem, so as to frighten everyone else who knows how cheesy their “protection” is for their “protected” content, just more under the table bribes changing hands that is where the protection really lies. poor guy.
titus

any news about rarbg downtime? thanks much
Kan3

“The problem here is that Canal Plus simply handed over the URLs to people who paid for the matches but since they were completed unprotected”

completely unprotected :)
zuluDROOG

Any decent lawyer versed in internetworking technologies should be able to formulate a decent defense based on the culpability of the webmasters at Canal. Their inexperience and/or incompetence should be brought to light. However, this would probably been sen as a brazen attempt to flummox the judiciary. All the more reason why judges need to become more acquainted with technology OR… have these sort of “criminal proceedings” brought before a more technologically aware forum.

As long as the common court system is ignorant of the technology, the defense will never have a sympathetic ear against a copyright claim.
Anonguy

So if I run a radio station, and send on frequency XX.X, and I proclaim my content to be payed content, and forbid everyone who hasn’t payed to listen to my radio on that frequency – I can sue anyone who listens to it despite the frequency being available to anyone?

If there was any cracking/social engineering/script abusing involved, I may have seen the argument, but this is plain and simply stupidity by the ones who run that stream.
Anonymous

WTF! The word “copyright” has become meaningless these days!
Mick

Yet again corporate greed and judicial pig-ignorance triumph over freedom and common-sense.

Hang them from the nearest lamp-post.
Thys

@16

Agreed.
Aficianado

Obviously no one remembers the download “British TV” where for about 4 weeks you could stream about 40 channels (incl. BBC 1, 2 ITV Channel 4, etc.,) on VLC. Some of the URL’s still work now.
Fabanon

My God! I never heard such idiocy ever in my whole life! What kind of judge was that? Moreover, what kind of lawyers where there?
They had a stupid application system, and they blame it on others! O-M-G!
Anon

its down to the canal people, they are the ones who have an open URL to content.

this wreaks of unfairness, why was the content not more securely stored and authorised? this man should not be in court for this. its a complete joke.

canal, you are stupid to let content leak out of your servers in this manner.

You guys make me laught just seeing how flawed your logic is. You will go to any extent to support wrong doings just because you are on the same boat.

How come its the fault of the company that their link was unsecured? Let’s say you left your car outside your garage without locking it. Would be fine with you if I drove away with your car? Hey, its your fault, you left your car unsecured. No, I am pretty sure you would still head over to the police station and file a complaint.

Similarly, even if I kept my home’s front door unlocked at night, it doesn’t give anyone the right to break it and take whatever they want. Get a grip people.
none

@22 What an arse.
1. You raise the old ‘stealing’ issue. Copyright infringement IS NOT THEFT for the 1,000th time – jees. A better analogy would be, I dunno, going for a swim in a public swimming bath without paying (not stopping others from doing it).
2. The ‘guilty’ man in this case didn’t even do that, all he said we ‘hey guys, that there swimming baths has left its back door open if you want a swim’. What a criminal eh.
Anonymous

^^Moron. Comparing digital data with real life situation. You’re a moron.

Let’s say you left your car outside your garage without locking it.

We won’t. We ain’t stupid like you.
Common sense. Ever heard of that?

Don’t blame your own incompetence and stupidity on others.
Anonymous

@22, I agree w/ you. While it was their stupidity that enabled this guy to exploit their systems flaws, that doesn’t mean that it’s his right to take advantage of it.

I’m a leecher as well, so I am in part guilty of the same thing, but I won’t defend myself by saying it’s my “right” to do so. I’m willfully and knowingly breaking the law, which may come with consequences that I am fully obligated to surrender myself to if caught… luckily, I know how NOT to get caught…that’s the key.

Company was dumb to have such low-tech security, this guy was dumb to post it openly on his own site, easily getting himself nabbed….
RoidRage

@ #22 and #25

I happen to have a subscription with Canal Plus. Besides the odd glitch here and there, their service is excellent. They even gave me 2 whole months for free when I signed up, complete with all the HD channels unlocked.

The old debate about how downloading is not stealing will probably never be settled and it’s easy to see why.

Some may say it does no harm and it’s digital data. Others may say well, some people are paying for said data in a physical format, how come those who download get to have it for free? The law should be unequivocal and the same for all.

In this case here, those who got the streaming links for free are just lucky. But it’s definitely unfair to those who pay to receive the content. It’s not anybody’s faults but the lawmakers.
harry krishna

@26: you paid your $ and you watched your program. what’s unfair about that?
Anon

@26: you paid your $ and you watched your program. what’s unfair about that?

What’s unfair about that is honest people pay for their entertainment while dishonest people get to enjoy the same luxury without paying. If its a paid service, you pay for it, its as simple as that.

When your car mechanic or plumbers renders you some form of service, you have to pay him. So why is digital service seen in different light? Its a service that costs money to the provider by using their server’s bandwidth.
Money money money….

In other news, the MPAA has pressed charges against a man who lived next door to a drive-in theater for watching the movies without paying. The drive-in screen towered well over the height of the man’s privacy fence. The movies were easily visible to occupants of the house next door and cars that passed by. The man confessed that he would open a curtain in his bedroom and watch all the latest hits that played on the huge screen about 100 yards away. Audio for the movies were transmitted over FM radio which the man admitted to tuning into as well from the comfort of his home.

Course this is BS, but I would believe something like this would happen nowadays.
Drive-ins still exist in parts of the US, this situation is almost no different than this Canal crapscipade…
zuluDROOG

@22

Your analogy doesn’t bear close examination. Even in the most primitive of court systems your argument would be dismissed as refutable.

So much for the idiocy within the system. Takes all kinds I guess…
zuluDROOG

@29

Until recently, my father-in lived behind a “retro” drive-in theatre. He could easily sit in his backyward, tune his radio to the FM channel broadcasting the audio and watch the movie on the big screen. Was he stealing? Very probably not. Did he invite his friends to come and watch it? Sometimes, yes… he told people that it was POSSIBLE to do what he was doing from his backyard. Did his friends take advantage of this and deprive a drive-in movie theatre of their revenue?

Aye! There’s the rub. His friends probably DID go and sit in hios backyard to watch the occasional movie. But I’m sure they were there purely to be in the comfort of HIS company rather than sit in a drive-in movie theatre…

Motive? Consequence?

Get real. This whole accusation is a farce of copyright proportions–SEE IT AT A THEATRE NEAR YOU!
anonymous

@22
IF YOU LEAVE UR CAR UNLOCKED AND IT’S BROKEN INTO IT IS YOUR FAULT
Plus ur actually deprived of something, mafiaa monopoly IS the criminal bro. Monopolizing ALL our culture they can, suffocating who they can’t, and then rationing it out like it’s a commodity is an evil abuse of power that shocks NO ONE here, we expect it, but we don’t take it. You are so easily circumvented these days. Thats good, power should be decentralized or you just get things like mafiaa or any other trade cartel monopoly bribe machine. Cmon, level with me troll. You guys are just struggling to hold the power right? Ur not this stupid right? Dunno, seems like most 40+ ers, no mater how IQ smart, are technologically fuktarded. Is that really what this is all about, the mafiaa boss is just a retard but he’s the boss so Boone says anything? I sympathize, my jobs like that also. The top guy just doesn’t get the Internet, and he looks really stupid tgese days next to our more open minded competitors. So is that it? I mean either your bosses are retards and no ones telling em, or they’re real life lex luthors (megatron/dr evil/ the bad guys leader from gi Joe, etc)
I feel like mafiaa headquarters is in a hollowed out volcano surrounded by a moat with sharks with friction lazer beams lol. Mafiaa dude stroking a cat with a metal hand like inspector gadgets bad guy LOLZ. We might have to photoshop up sumthin like that for distribution. SO LEVEL WITH ME TROLL, IS MAFIAA RUN BY OLD STUPID PEOPLE OR EVIL?
there’s also the pathetic fact that one of the few valuable things we make are culture. Germany has sick cars, japan has FREAKIN robots, and all we make is gossip girl and movies like *shudder* the time travelers wife. I mean I know if it weren’t for ‘lost’ we would be completely unnecessary as a country, but the answer is hardly to create a digital black market guys. Maybe instead of bailing out the bankers paychecks we could, like, NOT let our infrastructure crumble and become more obsolete every day. But nope, the vultures of ‘big business’ would rather pick at the body than resuscitate it. Thank god for the Internet. Big content would just sweep this all under the rug if it could. Do I think black markets are the answer? Nope. But they are a great counterbalance until big content and their flying monkeys (aka the ‘government’) decide to get real. Kinda like violence. Not usually helpful, but sometimes it’s the bet solution at the moment. Same with pirate bay. Is not paying artists the best way to distribute art? HELL NO. but mafiaa isn’t paying them either, and they’re walling off OUR culture. So until they stop being either old and stupid/ evil (they’re one of the two) we will have to do our best. And frankly were doin pretty freaking good. Were like weeks away from a open source kinect driver :) GESTURE CONTROLLED TORRENTS FTW!!!!! Ok I’m done, sorry it’s so long lol
zuluDROOG

@32

If you maybe put in this much effort into your english creative writing homework then you wouldn’t be bound by so much misguided angst. No, really, your fears and anger are well noted but… seriously… read this back in 20 years time and respond in like. Love your work.
anonymous

I have this theory that I think applies here. Hear me out. ON AVERAGE all people are about equal in intelligence, wealth, etc. So ON AVERAGE were all about equal. So ON AVERAGE tge successful people who go on to ‘run things’ are just lucky (for lack of a better word)
Make sense? We just run all the probabilities and ON AVERAGE, the people in charge are just a luck version of the same fuktard on the street.
Now I know that’s incredibly simplified, but doesn’t it explain why the world is run by idiots?
Anyone with real math skills care to respond?
zuluDROOG

Quote: Dunno, seems like most 40+ ers, no mater how IQ smart, are technologically fuktarded.

As a 45yo ex-IT professional and internet pioneer… I’m having a difficult time reconciling this. Possibly, I’m experiencing senility stage 1. Surely, denial is the order of the day. :)

Don’t be so harsh on your elders young feller. We made this place. ;)
Money money money….

In Germany, the polizei will fine you if they find your car unlocked.

If you invite a shitload of friends over for a Super Bowl party, is that copyright infringement? I mean, that’s quite a bit of cash since tickets are pretty expensive these days ….

I’m so confused by all the different ways that copyright is flaunted that I don’t even know what it means anymore…

Get rid of copyright or face people not wanting any of it that you’ll have to sue them for ignoring your content.
5318008

Here’s some links to some TV stuff online, hey TV place, u jelly?
anon

how about breaking down the url into single letters and posting them at different site
DarknezzFallz

Ok… this guy screwed up by publicly posting his find on his blog or site.
BUT…
The site staff/owners screwed up by leaving something that they offer people for money out in the open for anyone to grab by bug/glitch/human error.
The correct action should have been to contact the site and warn them of there error and giving them time to respond/act appon said flaw.
Each of us has different ways of looking into and acting appon site flaws. Doesn’t mean that what we do is correct or breaking the law. We are simply using what is provided to us by site owners when it comes to “paid” materials. The fact that this guy choose to publicly announce his finding in a fashion that left him vulnerable to prosecution is his fault specially knowing the issues we face on the internet today.

Perhaps this is something people need to start thinking before posting links.
Le Fake

The judge should get his head out of his ass and get another good look at the case.
Le Fake

The judge should get his head out of his ass and take another good look at the case.
anon

#28 in response to your “mechanic or plumbers” theory…

of course we have to pay them because it involves an agreement

But… if you have a friend who is a mechanic too and provide you the same service but for free will you still pay that mechanic?

We talk abt services here and how to get it, not people
Anonymous

Sweden?

Oh Sweden!

The Sweden government has been Hijacked by the corporation of entertainment parasites via the CIA and the Swedish citizen have better to do something about it, quick!
Anonymous

Sweden?

Oh Sweden!

The Swedish government has been Hijacked by the corporation of entertainment parasites via the CIA and the Swedish citizen have better to do something about it, quick!
sw

#28 says:

“What’s unfair about that is honest people pay for their entertainment while dishonest people get to enjoy the same luxury without paying. If its a paid service, you pay for it, its as simple as that.”

What has it got to do with honesty?
It’s boils down to being smart or stupid.
The stupid ones would pay since they knows no technology. And then there are the timids (obey) and the braves (who take risks)
me

Isn’t that their own fault for having such poor security on paid content?
anonymous

@Zulu
Sorry to group all 40+ ers together. I just like to use generalities. Regarding my ‘angst’ your damn right I’m pisses. Sure it could be a lot worse and maybe I should t complain with all the worse countries out there. The flip side of that though is that it could be better too, and that’s the side I’m taking. Sure some companies are great, but MOST of the time companies ONLY care about the bottom line, and we end up with things like rampant pollution and cancer. And then the EPA doesn’t do shut EVER. and the whole time WE pay for this charade through taxes. Damn right I’m pissed. ‘big content’ has decided that the profits of a few dumb assholes is worth stifling the flow of thought between people. Our flow of thought is what we are. We think, we share, it makes us better. It’s our biology, our evolution, it’s what makes us us. This is just science FACT. humans are better off sharing information. And these pricks want to stifle that for MONEY. hampering the betterment of humanity for money IS evil. This is fr from unique, just look around at all tge corruption. Fortunately though, we can at least do something about some of it now. Anyone who is t AT LEAST as pissed as me probably doesn’t read much….
‘puterman

this is getting ridiculous.

I mean c’mon we can download torrents from hashes now. So If I post a random 40 character selection of numbers & letters, 7b002627a322828a2297d117b8652679e3f5e2e1 for instance, can I then be tried for posting copyrighted material?
Sick of this crap

When will this crap end?, they are actually saying its illegal to share something, illegal!!, i cannot comprehend the stupidity of having a legal framework existing to stop people sharing things.
Anon

What has it got to do with honesty?
It’s boils down to being smart or stupid.
The stupid ones would pay since they knows no technology. And then there are the timids (obey) and the braves (who take risks)

So all of a sudden its about who’s timid and who’s brave? Breaking the law is supposed to be an act of bravado to you?

So someone who takes a chance by breaking into a rich man’s house and robs him off his wealth is supposed to be a smart individual because he is not afraid the take the risk?
Joshua

@ #3

Mabye, but that sounds a little like ‘It’s his fault that he was in the line of fire / wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest’ when someone dies by being shot. To use an extreme example.
Sick of this crap

@50 FUCK YOU!!, FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU AGAIN!

These laws exist because entertainment companies were lobbying and bribing politicians to bring the laws into existence, oh and not a single fucking thing is stolen when data is copied.

This is sharing content, its only illegal because media companies made it illegal and in this case the law, which some people hold up as a shining example of what is right, is fucking wrong.

Finally, there’s the asses who say *well it hurts the digital economy and causes lost profit*

You have no right to profit, not a single law says you have a right to profit, the only way you make profit is through supply and demand or being smart, these totally fucked up companies are ruining peoples lives for greed and they have none of my sympathy or respect, i simply don’t pay for media any more.
anon

too much talk about right vs wrong here. the fact is, information is easily distributed now. things change. it happens. generally businesses either adapt or go out of business. apparently mafiaa gets the third option of legislating away competition though. let the dinosaurs go extinct i say, and good riddance.
Anon

@22

Your comparison is moot.

This would be perfectly compared to a unencrypted radio broadcast. If you tune your radio to listen to it, are you guilty just because they say don’t?

Now if you break that encryption, you have willingly bypassed their security.

If you tune your computer to watch an unencrypted stream, are you guilty?

CASE CLOSED.

STFU. Owned.
@22

“You guys make me laught just seeing how flawed your logic is. You will go to any extent to support wrong doings just because you are on the same boat.”

You new or something, son?

You know what? ACCORDING TO LAW, if you leave your WIFI network UNPROTECTED and someone commits a crime/copyright infringement while tapped in to YOUR UNSECURED, UNENCRYPTED network, you are legally at fault for not securing your network

Why is it different for a company to leave their network wide open like that?

If joe citizen can be found liable for crimes committed on their unsecured network even if they are not at fault, then so can any corporation.

It is the NETWORK OWNER’s job to make sure their data has at least SOME manner of protection.

If the links were secure, and he cracked the security, then yes I would side with the court.

This is not the case in this situation.
Alex

Holy crap.
Fined for visiting a webpage with no protection? What the hell? The Internet is full of unprotected pages that people are allowed to visit. I’ve never even considered the possibility that you could get fined for viewing content on a page that has no protection like that.
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FuzzyX

This sounds totally wrong to me.

Since Canal+ did not protect the streams at all then they can be considered public.

To quote something that is public and unrestricted is simply freedom of speech.

This is like “Hey take a look here and see that I found. Awesome. Take a look”

Canal+ YOU HAVE LET MORONS HANDLE YOUR STREAMING. YOU HAVE TAKEN TO COURT SOMEONE WHO EXPOSED THE S**T HEADS RUNNING YOUR OPERATION. AND YOUR OWN SPORTS FAN!

The Court. YOU HAVE FAILED JUSTICE.

FREEDOM TO SAY AND REVEAL WHAT IS PUBLIC IS NOT COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. TRY FAIR USE.

This one will crash on appeal.
elduka

thats the biggest bullshit i ever heard! its actually laughable. if i were that guy some heads would roll
Marcus

You are all a bunch of clowns

You all say you are against DRM because it gets in the way of geting content, so you have to pirate.

Then someone sells content without protection, in a way so simple it’s only a link, and you pirate because it was not protected.

Hypocrites.
Rick

This world has gone MAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Doink

$520, not much of a fine.
townie2

so, if you see a $20 bill on the sidewalk, your just going to keep going, and not pick it up because it’s not yours? get real, same thing, your surfing the net, “find” an open URL, and watch it. sounds like big business wins again over the common little guy.
Maroan

@22 Anon: The police wont take me seriously if i report my car stolen, and i mention that i have forgotten to lock the doors. Not to mention that my insurance wont pay a dime either whatsoever, in case my car is damaged, or burned to the ground.
@55 I completely agree here. Canal+ didnt secure their systems, they are the faulty guys. But hey, money rules right?
drale

what if google had indexed this url and it was on the first page of results? no one would no any better that it was intended for members only as it would be their first page of visit.
Ninja

LoL srsly? Wtf is wrong with the Swedish system? If it was private content the channel should have protected the access to it.

Damn it Sweden, damn it. Sue Google for providing links too.
JD

@TF:

“matches but since they were completed unprotected”

Completely unprotected :)
Anonymous

Canal Plus = FAIL

(TorrentFreak should add an option so we could send article corrections)
Anonymous

To #22 and Marcus why won’t you admit that your both neo.styles and reasoned.mind, you work for the content company and that your here to troll?

Hypocrite
Anonymous

up yours canal+
Anonymous

a difference i see between this case and someone posting copyrighted content on youtube is other then being live there is an old attage(sp?) of how much justice you can get depends on how much justice you can afford. being a small company these guys couldn’t afford much.
momoola

@28 (Anon)

“When your car mechanic or plumbers renders you some form of service, you have to pay him. So why is digital service seen in different light?”

I can tell that you haven’t given much thought to the issues at hand (which is unsurprising).

By telling a mechanic or plumber to employ their services for you and letting them get the job done, you have wasted their time. Time is not in an infinite quantity. Pirates, however, do not waste the artists time as they use their own time and resources to copy the data.

Now, if you believe it is possible to inflict harm on someone by not giving them your money, then perhaps you should blame everyone in existence for that as well, and not just pirates.

By that same logic, you are ‘stealing’ potential profit away from someone else merely by choosing not to buy a product (but also not pirating it). If you would have bought it, they would have had more money, and using the above logic, it can be concluded that they have ‘stolen’ potential profit. This logic doesn’t apply only to pirates.

But, as most people likely know, basic logic states that for you to be able to steal something, it must first exist. Potential profit does not exist. If it did, then the above examples would apply, so either way, your arguments make no logical sense (as you would have to fine everyone in the world for ‘stealing’ profit that others could, potentially, have had).
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Salax

I’m a teenage amateur PHP developer and I’m smarter than these people. It’s their own fault they didn’t have any method of protection whatsoever.
jon7272

we are held accountable if someone breaks our wireless internet its our account. double standards here me thinks stupidity is no defence but the media companies get away with it
cheery44

.
Anonymous

@59
Your argument makes no sense.

First, you are attributing all arguments anyone has made to everyone who has made an argument. In other words, you’re saying because one person bashed DRM and another bashed a company for not using security, everyone on this website did both. That’s clearly not true at all.

Second, you’re comparing apples and oranges. What is suggested here is that you should secure your server to prevent people from STEALING your bandwidth. This obviously does not inconvenience legitimate users much, if at all. DRM, on the other hand, does not prevent theft (piracy is not theft) and inconveniences legitimate users to the point that it likely even infringes upon their fair use rights.
Marcus

@75

Ok, If u think DRM is an excuse for piracy and no security is an excuse for piracy, u r an hypocrite. If you do’nt you are not an hypocrite.

And second, no one is talking about bandwith, what a lot of people is saying is that it is ok to pirate because it was not a secure connection.

The fact that besides pirating, you are stealing bandwith only makes it worse.

And no, i’m not styles guy or whatever. I do work in the music business, not for a corp. I do freelance only
StreamPay

#### NOTICE THE FOLLOWING WORDS ARE COPYRIGHT 2010 MYBITCOINS AT G and are PAY TO READ#####

Do not read these words without submitting payment to Bitcoin account:
1BTCdnB6EeHhAEjbwefR62bPCJTH6zKyk7
Wiseways

An Example for your nonsense…

“#### NOTICE THE FOLLOWING WORDS ARE COPYRIGHT 2010 MYBITCOINS AT G and are PAY TO READ#####

Do not read these words without submitting payment to Bitcoin account:
1BTCdnB6EeHhAEjbwefR62bPCJTH6zKyk7
Anon

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Reality-of-Linkinging-and-Copyright-being-theftNOT?done

A perfect example of the case at hand
Doc

@76
DRM and access control are different things. DRM tries to limit access to the content, access control (e.g. login on a web-page) limits access to the content.

DRM does provoke piracy, because it meddles with the CONTENT – so if you legally buy it, it is still going to get in your way!

Access control is totally fine – you run a server, you decide who get’s your bandwidth.

In this case, Canal+ had not used DRM (which is good), yet did no access control (which is how you communicate “don’t take this” online). So this really is nothing else than publishing a webpage. How can end users be held responsible for checking if the web page they posted was supposed to be available, if the site itself doesn’t do it?

Then again, just the fact that I see the point in writing this, on a forum such as TorrentFreak does say quite a bit about the state of affairs. I would believe most Internet-enabled people to know the difference between DRM and a login…
Marcus

@80

1 – Fella, u contradict yourself. take a look :” DRM and access control are different things. DRM tries to limit access to the content, access control … limits access to the content.”

You said they both do the same thing.

2 – I know what DRM is, and i know sometimes it sucks. I do prefer MP3 to ACC. But DRM is no excuse for piracy.

3 – Again, this is not about bandwidth, although it makes it worse.

4 – The guy who was fined did know he was pirating content.

5 – Read the story, the content had control to its access, but it was flawed because of the unprotected link used for the connection. It’s like entering a cinema trough the backdoor. And it is wrong.

And, last. I know what DRM is. And i will not assume thing about you that i do not know.

However, this discussion is mute.The point i made with my original comment is that this community will say anything to justify taking value of others work without due compensation, even if they are being hypocrites. I made a general statement, of course, and it won’t fit to everyone in the community. But i belive it does for most.
Anonymous

@81 (Marcus)

“But DRM is no excuse for piracy.”

No, but the fact that pirates don’t actually take anything or harm anyone is.

I believe that it’s universally established that pirates aren’t taking the media itself as they’re merely copying data (which doesn’t deprive anyone of anything by itself). So, it can be concluded that the fact that the pirate has the media is irrelevant because that by itself does no harm to anyone.

The next conclusion that many people seem to come to is that the pirates are ‘stealing’ potential profit. That’s illogical because not only does basic logic state that for you to be able to steal something, it must first exist, but if it was actually possible to steal potential profit, everyone in existence would be ‘guilty’ of doing so.

You ‘steal’ potential profit merely by not giving someone your money or interfering with their flow of profits. Meaning, if you decide not to buy a product from a store, you have ‘stolen’ potential profit from them because if you had bought the product, they would have been better off (because they would have had more money, which is similar to artists who have their media pirated).

Not paying someone for doing a job that you requested they do is not the same as ‘piracy’ because in those scenarios, you deprive the worker of time. Pirates use their own time and resources to copy the data.

Basically, no, DRM alone is not a very good excuse to pirate something, but basic logic is.
X

Don’t exploit the stupidity of big corporations without doing so anonymously.

They tend to be volatile and litigous, even if their own stupidity is ultimately to blame.
Precedent van Rompuy

I don’t think it is hypocritical to hold the following three views simultaneously:

1) DRM should be illegal (because it prevents people from exercising the fair use rights they are entitled to under copyright law)

2) Infringing copyright should be illegal (it already is, and it is not the same crime as stealing)

3) Putting a link on a webpage to a legal video should not be illegal (because the existence of a link does not infringe copyright)
Dan

Isn’t it illegal to bait someone like this. Can website owners sue people for linking to their site; can I sue Google?

Can a store give-away freesamples of a product and then call the police for shop lifting.
MatsSvensson

I would write
“This text costs 1000$/second to read” on a t-shirt.
And then ware it at the trial so the accusing party could see it.

Should even up the balance real fast.
Anonymous

@54

It’s your comparison that is moot, because you don’t seem to understand the difference between a radio broadcast and streaming video on the Internet.

A radio broadcast it goes out to everybody that can be reached by its signal, it costs the same if 1 person receives it or a hundred.

The same is not true of most data sent out on the Internet, especially not video streams. That’s sent from one point to another.

Besides, this article is not talking about the person doing the receiving anyway, this complaint was about the person who disseminated the link. All it would take to make that an offense would be for the company to include as part of its sale to include a warning for you not to share it.

How unlikely is it for them to not have such language?
Anonymous

@86

Yeah, and the judge will laugh at you, and tell you to go to a class on contract law. That, or find you in contempt.
Anonymous

Lol sue Andy warhole for using the CocaCola logo in his art. What you say? I’m not realistic? Watch RIP a remix manifesto. Guy gets sued for drawing mickey mouse. Also kindergarden gets sued for having mickey on the building. Is Mickey a part of our culture? Does culture not build on the past? Donald Duck was not a depiction of characters like Charley Chaplin? Did Disney not use the works of Hans C. Anderson and the Brothers Grimm and than claim it’s copyright? He who is without sin may cast the first stone.
Anonymous

It was a daycare, and they were profit oriented, not charities. Would you think it right for them to make money off of those specific images?

And Disney is fine with getting a copyright on their versions of fairy tales, you can still go to the original source if you want for your own versions.
91

@32 This is really amazing ! I have never witnessed someone’s writing skills increase so abruptly and in a single paragraph. I guess writing is a therapy by itself and by the time you finished it you were already smarter. Keep up !

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