Norwegian Police Deal Massive Blow to MPAA Lawyer
Pirate-chasing lawyer Espen Tøndel has been told by the police that they will not spend their valuable resources chasing file-sharers. Undeterred, Tøndel wrote to the Department of Justice demanding a meeting about the police’s decision. They responded all right - and denied him a meeting.
Today, Norway appears to be a much safer country for petty file sharers. The Hollywood lawyer Espen Tøndel has been told by Kripos (serious crime police) that they will not be spending time investigating small-time pirates.
Like many lawyers in the anti-piracy arena, Tøndel tries to blur civil and criminal law to obtain leverage. The police are clear - their priority is investigating real crimes, such as murder and robbery and sadly for him, file-sharing does not fall into those categories. Tøndel must now make his claims against alleged pirates in a civil court.
Following this major setback, Tøndel wrote to the Department of Justice and demanded a meeting with them. He complained that copyright holders need to go through the criminal system as without the help of the police, all they have is an IP address. They cannot sue an IP address, they need a real name and identity.
Unfortunately for Tøndel, the response wasn’t what he’d been hoping for -the Department of Justice completely refused him a meeting- leaving him to start suing IP addresses, which he’s not allowed to do. Ouch.
On Sunday, Trond Giske, Minister of Culture in Norway told VG.no: “We have no plans to do anything similar to the Brits. To identify the users is quite a substantial process, so we plan to focus on only those who upload movies and music illegally. We are cooperating closely with the industry, and are well aware of the money they are loosing because of the illegal downloading.”
Norwegian political commentators are suggesting that Norway’s biggest political party and government, Arbeiderpartiet, aren`t going to change their policy on this because they are afraid of losing votes amongst the 18 to 30 year olds.
So can Norwegian file-sharers feel safe from prosecution now? “No, they can’t. I’m just saying that we will use most of our resources on those who uploads illegally” said Giske in a tone suggesting it’s only serious uploaders who need to take care.
Back in November 2007, Tøndel reported 14 people to the police for sharing the movie, ‘Kill Buljo’, even though the director of the movie didn’t agree with this course of action. I expect there are at least 14 BitTorrent fans smiling today, shortly to be joined by thousands more.
Norway joins Canada in a growing group of common-sense countries which refuse to waste public resources on petty file-sharers. Other countries - such as Germany and the UK are particularly weak. Although they don’t directly involve the police, they allow lawyers to blatantly (ab)use the system by claiming they are prosecuting a criminal case, simply in order to obtain a file-sharer’s identity. They then drop the criminal case, only to pursue a financially lucrative civil one, a tactic favored by lawyers Davenport Lyons to un-mask alleged BitTorrent pirates in the UK.
It’s uncertain at this point if the imminent raids suggested by Tøndel back in October 2007, will become more or less imminent following this statement by the police. Even though the Department of Justice won’t speak to Tøndel, we did, but sadly he doesn’t seem to have a statement for us right now.
Special thanks to RayJoha who made this article possible
Previously: EU Invests $22 Million in Next-Generation BitTorrent Client
Next: Buying The DVD: Unhelpful And Unethical
78 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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Ha ha ha ha, bet he not smiling now!!! ;-)
Hi, czech warez web is http://www.torrentyzahubicku.net FUN :-D
[quote comment="294257"]use logic against idiotic lawyers who seem to think they can abuse the system.[/quote]
ROFL! I totally agree 100%!
I expect to see DDoS on DCMA sites in few days if this shit don’t stop.
I also think that ISPs should change too.
FBI GOES TO HOLLYWOOD! http://www.live-performance.6x.to/
Fuck Trond Giske. I hate that guy.
(Great news though!)
great news! although i still feel safe in the uk, our police carnt catch a cold. lol glad to see some governments with some common sense
The industry just doesn’t want to understand, that there is no way that (file)sharing can be stoped. It’s in human’s nature. Ever since first printing mashine was invented “piretes” copied the works of Shakespeare, Goethe etc. - thanks to this “pirate” copies we can enjoy most of the classic literature now - the “official” editions were too small and had vanished with times. In the museum of Geothe (German writer of XIXth Century) the book that was believed to be “original” turned out to be “pirate” copy - and author himself had it on his bookshelf!!!
when something is in the process of getting lost, one is LOSING it.
slack bastards.
someone have to stop these anti-piracy companys, its going to far, they cant control the internet. they cant control us, they cant tell us whats wrong and whats right. stop them now
Is that guy in the picture a bit cock-eyed ?
Looks like he’s not all there mentally if you know what I mean.
Good at books, retard socially.
@34
No-one thinks Tøndel is mentally OK. Too bad we don’t have so many homes for the mentally ill anymore :( Used to be one 30 minutes from me, if he was there I would’ve visited him every day :) Well, not really. Just saying it ^^
My last post was ment as an reply to #35, sorry everyone.
What a Fucking Douche bag
The RIAA and MPAA has had ample opportunity to make money even though people are sharing content for FREE through AD SUPPORTED applications (which have been shot down) like Spiralfrog, Qtrax and others. In fact even Napster tried to get a license for Ad Supported media where the artists would get paid according to the number of files Downloaded. Instead the industry wants to cry fowl and act like they are your Daddy and your a snobbish child when in fact they are acting as children and the common citizens who file share are indeed the adults. If they are going to act like babies then let us treat them just like they are acting.
Voodoohippie
(Defender of FREE cyberspace)
Well… the guys a cunt for sure, and like all cunts… a time comes when they get fucked!
I never really had any doubts that this would be the outcome. Now let’s just hope that the political parties start adopting the stances their youth parties are holding on “piracy” - namely that it should be legalized. Oh, that’s right; apparently most (I think there were two exceptions) of the political youth parties in Norway now want to legalize filesharing.
Filesharing IS legal (At least here in Norway)
Sharing ilegal files on the other hand, is not.. LOL
Hei, Tøndel.. Go fuck your self ok?
This is off topic but someone should remove Recent Searches at the bottom of the page… kinda sick
[quote comment="294624"]This is off topic but someone should remove Recent Searches at the bottom of the page… kinda sick[/quote]
I agree, it’s full of those MPAA, RIAA goons searching for CP to make torrenting look bad.
Them copyright cops will stoop to any level.
[quote comment="294224"]I smell pwnt toast.[/quote]
No, it’s the smell of victory on the horizon.
Yarr, ramming speed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSEIAa_G7As
Trond Giske only tries to not piss off his friends in showbiz, it has nothing to do with the actual politics
Good to see some people have some common sense!
Damn. I was so hoping to use the police to settle my civil suit vendettas. Too bad the Norwegian prosecutors can’t be bribed like they can in Sweden.
Sucks to be you, Mr.Tøndel.
I just got here in norway because of my citizenship.back in the Philippines we download a lot of torrent because its also safe to download there.hehe
now that im here in norway i was scared of downloading torrents because my uncle said that we are being monitored.I think we have a connection from telenor?do you guys think its safe to download torrents now?is this news really true?hehehe
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