SurfTheChannel Owner Found Guilty of Conspiracy to Defraud

Ernesto
June 27, 2012
131
fact,
surfthechannel
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The owner of TV streaming links site SurfTheChannel has been found guilty of conspiracy to defraud at Newcastle Crown Court today for “facilitating” copyright infringement . The landmark case follows a sting operation by the MPAA, who partnered with the Federation Against Copyright Theft to obtain evidence against site operator Anton Vickerman. He will be sentenced next month and faces up to 10 years in jail.

At its height in 2010, SurfTheChannel.com was among the most-visited streaming link websites on the Internet with more than 400,000 visitors a day. This popularity didn’t go unnoticed by the UK and US entertainment industries, who went to extremes to bring the site down.

Aside from the use of an undercover agent to gain access to the defendants’ house under false pretenses, the case also witnessed the unprecedented involvement of US authorities in a UK court case, in which a defendant in the US was offered a deal after agreeing to cooperate and testify in a trial overseas.

Initially, it appeared that a criminal prosecution wouldn’t be progressed, but eventually the case went ahead after all. The trial against SurfTheChannel owner Anton Vickerman and his wife Kelly started at the Newcastle Crown Court last month and came to a conclusion today.

The Court found owner Mr. Vickerman guilty of conspiracy to defraud by “facilitating” copyright infringement. Mrs. Vickerman faced the same changes but was found not guilty.

Today’s landmark ruling is the first in which the owner of a linking website was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the entertainment industry.

A previous attempt at making the same charge stick with the prosecution of the owner of the OiNK BitTorrent tracker failed during 2010.

Although SurfTheChannel did not store any copyrighted material itself, the site did organize links to copyrighted streams on third-party sites. According to the prosecution, the website was making at least £35,000 a month.

SurfTheChannel

stc

FACT was quick to herald the Court’s verdict.

“This was a criminal conspiracy for criminal profit to fund a criminal lifestyle and Vickerman is now paying the price,” FACT Director General Kieron Sharp says, commenting on the case.

FACT further informs us that they will continue to go after pirate websites in the future.

“We look at piracy in all forms with a particular focus on those facilitating access to pirated content by running sites, hosting servers, obtaining the source material and often profiting from their activity by generating revenues from membership, donations and advertising.”

Lavinia Carey, Director General of the British Video Association, hopes that the verdict will deter others from starting similar websites so legitimate alternatives can thrive.

“These businesses are relatively new and should not have to compete against pirate websites that do nothing to reinvest in the production of new films and programmes. The verdict in this trial makes it evident to all that copyright theft will not be tolerated and that such sites are criminal operations,” she says.

The UK Pirate Party on the other hand is very worried about the verdict.

“This was not a case brought using copyright law. The interest groups involved couldn’t present a case of copyright infringement and instead decided to press for the use of the common law offence of “conspiracy to defraud,” Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye told TorrentFreak.

The Party is also worried about the intensive cooperation between private interest groups and law enforcement.

“In addition to flying in the face of recent findings in similar cases, this prosecution was driven by private interests, it is well known that the very groups representing the victim helped with the investigation, were present at the arrest, given access to the evidence and were present at police interviews.

“This is deeply concerning. Add to that the unorthodox and intrusive measures reported to have been used during the investigation and the pressure put on overseas witnesses and it becomes deeply worrying,” Kaye says.

Vickerman is scheduled to be sentenced July 30th and is facing a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.

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Sabel44

he could always appeal
- Guest
  
  Or we could erase few corporate criminals such as Carie Chairman , Chris Dode or the CEO of Universal or Sony to discourage the others from corrupting cops and judges.
- amandaadams626525
  
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- http://profile.yahoo.com/OGZRCZUWH3TPHCSRCIFL7PIJHQ Laura
  
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tunkodunko

Dude that like totally insane man. Seriously.
Anony-dot.tk
Anon_guest

Hmmmmmmmmmm….what a coincidence eh??? File-sharing site makes money and the owner is jailed above and beyond those sharing without making profit..not the first time and will not be the last where money making sharing sites are targeted before those sharing without making profit…
- Danny
  
  It wasn’t a file sharing site it was a link sharing site.
  
  Should google go to prison for linking to the same content?
  - Zan
    
    please mpaa/riaa sue google for same reason.
    
    i’ll buy the popcorn.
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      I would bring that up in my appeal, that Google/Microsoft Bing/etc. have been doing this for years and have not been punished by the courts.
    - Sick
      
      I agree with you but the inevitable counter argument is that Google and Bing and other search engines index ALL content indiscriminately, not just certain content (i.e. TV shows streams) and put them in a convenient format to be easily found and watched.
      
      I’m not saying I agree with that mindset, it’s free speech, but that is what they will say.
    - Googleisguilty
      
      I agree its frustrating that Google and YouTube gets off Scott free every time. I hate them for it…
    - Guest
      
      Do you morons really want Google to be sued for the same reason too or do you want want this bullshit to end? A person is going to jail for….um…..linking? WTF? o_O
      
      Instead of fighting against the real enemy, all you guys are doing is looking for more victims. Seriously get your heads out of your arses and arm your weapons against the real enemy instead of wondering why Google is sued for the same reason.
    - hosa
      
      THAT would be entertaining, provided they are not holding hands under the table, which they probably are.
  - Andrew Lee
    
    Anton Vickerman would not be in the shit he is right now if he was a billionaire. That might be crappy but it’s the truth a universal one at that lol.. Money can pretty much buy you anything including freedom. Plus nobody in their right mind would want to take a crack at billionaires.
    
    Look at Kim Dotcom he’s not Google rich and the gov is locking down his money pretty tight but still he will come out on top. If it was a little richer to begin with I doubt it would have ever took place. The raid that is..
  - EricPost
    
    But the links pointed to a file sharing site. It’s like if you’re not selling drugs but tell someone where to buy them. Or if you aren’t killing someone but are setting up the deal to sell information to find a hit man.
    
    Obviously murder and drugs are very serious compared to file sharing but the same lines of thinking.
    - Danny
      
      Ok, for starters you can’t be done for drug dealing by telling someone where to get drugs. That would be ridiculous.
      
      Same for telling someone where a hitman might be (I rephrased your retarded argument so it makes sense).
      
      They are also not selling this information but selling ad space on their site to recoup the cost of running the servers and a little extra so they can actually live.
      
      So no its not the same lines of thinking at all, in any way, with any stretch of the imagination.
      
      Both points are void anyway due to the fact that the case is about them defrauding the MAFIAA by undercutting a competing service……. Oh wait that obviously doesn’t make sense as the MAFIAA do not have a competing service so how the hell can the be defrauded?
  - Anonymous
    
    there isn’t a hope of Google being prosecuted. they have far more money than the entertainment industries and more chance of defending themselves. which individuals have almost no chance of doing. on top of which, sooner or later, Google is going to get the right ache over being the politicians punch bag, pack up shop, ship out to somewhere else and tell the complaining government(s) to fuck off!!
- GUEST
  
  You must have dust between your ears.
  He was providing a FREE service. You know what that means? It means he was hosting for 100,000+ visitors every day. If you think your Virgin 10Mbit broadband can handle this, think again. You pay for servers, and if you do that you need to put ads up. Should he have “stopped” the ads after he’s made enough or should he reap in the rewards of time, money and sweat he put into the website? The guy deserved the 35K a month for all I know. Don’t see a fucktard like yourself setting similar up for others to use. This “victim” of a harmless “crime” was good at that…Now go pick up my luggage, bell-boy.
  - EricPost
    
    The term is bell MAN
    - No1_2_u
      
      “The term is bell MAN”; no, it’s bellboy:
      
      bellboy [?b?l?b??]
      
      n
      (Business / Professions) a man or boy employed in a hotel,
      club, etc., to carry luggage and answer calls for service; page; porter Also
      called (US and Canadian) bellhophttp://www.thefreedictionary.com/bellboy
    - Boy
      
      Actually, it is bell END :)
GoingPostal13

Kill Michael Jackson and you get 4 years.

Link to a livestream of his music videos and you get 10 years.

Justice!
- Anon
  
  Long Live to America
  
  *sigh…………………*
  - Bomb
    
    Long Live ignorance…
    Did you even read the article? Where in America are you going to get paid pounds per month? Not to mention FACT is a UK organization and the court case took place in ‘Newcastle Crown Court’. This happened across the pond buddy.
    
    Try reading the article before bashing the USA.
    - namanakadashi
      
      But the courts in the US are the ones that decided the sentence on the case of the MJ doctor. The comment wasn’t about the UK case, it was about the US case. By attacking the US’s sense of justice, you are saying that they are far more lenient than other countries. 4 years for “murder” is ridiculous.
- Noway
  
  WoW, SO TRUE!
- EricPost
  
  Seems fair to me :o)
Guest

So guess this result of this now adds weight on the side of extradition for the O’Dwyer guy. This really sucks.
- Guest
  
  No.
Anon

what the fuck is this bullshit??

“Aside from the use of an undercover agent to gain access to the defendants’ house under false pretenses, ”So now the MAFIAA is doing this to follow up pirate? What about human rights???This guy should definitely go to appeal just to taunt these bastards…..
- Danny
  
  All I can say is FACT can FACT-off.
  
  It sounds a little fishy like most of the criminal cases FACT have ‘helped’ with. Fortunately each case that FACT help with seems to fail so hopefully this guy will get off on appeal. 10 years is definitely way too harsh for a civil matter anyway.
  - GoingPostal13
    
    He was charged for Conspiracy to Defraud which is a Common Law offence (section 5(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1977).
    - Danny
      
      I stand corrected sir.
    - MadAsASnake
      
      And whom did he defraud?
    - Duke
      
      Actually, it’s a common law offence, meaning that it doesn’t come from any statute (and is highly controversial due to being broad, vague, and criminalises agreeing to otherwise legal conduct). All s5(2) of the CLA 1977 does is specify that the CLA doesn’t repeal it – which it really should have done. The Law Commission recommended repealing it in the 2000s as well, but the government, despite accepting that it was a terrible law, decided to keep it “just in case”.
    - EricPost
      
      He didn’t defraud anyone he CONSPIRED to defraud
Anonymous

‘Lavinia Carey, Director General of the British Video Association, hopes
that the verdict will deter others from starting similar websites so
legitimate alternatives can thrive.’

it would be extremely helpful if there were legitimate alternatives in the first place other than those that try to charge the same money when not supplying anything physical, only ones and zeros, relying on people paying for a computer, an internet connection, a burner, the required software, the media and the time. perhaps that’s the big plan from the entertainment industries. charge 3x what they do for a disc and force the internet to close!

so, it’s now an offence to link to other websites now, is it, even
though you have nothing illegal on your own site? time for Google etc to
start being afraid. search engines could easily be next!!
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  Hit the nail on the head. There are no legitimate alternatives that you do not have to pay for, and I don’t know about you but I am FUCKING well not going to pay AGAIN for something that I have already paid for through a cable/satellite TV subscription just because I want to watch it on a computer instead of a TV.
thedude321

Another day…another guy the MPAA throws in jail. Hey, who knows…the MPAA might be able to make a comic out of its own actions..

Envision a stupid looking guy…called No Freedom Man! :P
Pablomuuray

This is my cousin and he will be appealing it’s completey fucked up. The judge basically told the jury to find him guilty, his conduct in the whole case lead to my cousins conviction. We have good points for appeal
- Guest
  
  Perhaps someone should do a background check on the judge to see if there are connections to the MPAA and FACT or anything else related to the Hollywood industries.
- Eddy
  
  And he WILL win his appeal…this is just PR stunt and a judge wanting to make a name for himself.
  - Guest
    
    Let’s hope he does appeal and WIN. If he doesn’t appeal then he has given the judge what he wants, so by appealing he has therefore nothing to lose. If this is indeed a PR stunt by the judge wanting to make a name for himself then I hope the judge is exposed for it.
Jimbo

what the hell are courts thinking today? how can ‘file sharing’ be considered so heinous a crime as to trump murder for length of sentence? to be linking only, according to the case in question, cant be as severe as file sharing, surely? i appreciate that there is the added accusation of making money involved, but even so.
- YARIGHT
  
  no files just links…
  this judgement in say canada would be tossed….
- Guest
  
  It’s all part of the unannounced coup. The US government has been taken over by corporate special interests and has become lawless. The US is now a rogue nation, like Fiji, only with many more nuclear weapons.
Stinky

America makes more money in (literally) one second than all of Europe
(bankrupt) makes in a month. Whether you like it or not, you can and will lick our assholes and feet forever!

Yumm, yumm!
- The_seventh_guest
  
  Please allow me to rephrase what you said:
  
  “America [i]prints[/i] more money in (literally) one second….”
  
  There you go :-)
  
  America is even worse than Europe, and to fix the whole thing, they are getting into a deeper hole
  
  Happy end of the world (as we know it) 2012 ;-)
  - Jed
    
    We all know that, infact i’ve been stocking up on weed, beer, popcorn and more just to watch it all happen ! Happy end the world everyone !
- Glib
  
  The US is making money? When did that change? I believe between 1961 and today, the US has made money 5 years. Unless you’re counting corporations; those make considerable amounts of money, but calling them the US is quite an insult to Americans who get very little benefit from their US based corporations that outsource everything.
  
  And no, when you say “literally”, it should be the truth and be factual, all of Europe combined, even with the joke that is Greece, still loses less money than the US does per day. IF your “fact” were true, The eurozone wouldn’t be the worlds largest economy.
  - Stinky
    
    ” I believe between 1961 and today, the US has made money 5 years.”
    
    I agree… perhaps you should learn to speekee Engleee strupid?
- GUEST
  
  Diluting your own currency and being in debt to China is NOT making money. That’s prolonging the agony you will soon face you fucking retard. US hasn’t come to terms how they will minimize their exposure to the rest of the world, but is buying time (not fixing it with stimulus packages) so whoever is a president at the time the cake falls apart will get blamed (& worse).
  
  In summary..You’re China’s bitch, so lick their assholes and feet…Forever. Moronic Yank.
  - Stinky
    
    Learn how to spell and use punctuation and then I will respond to you.
    - GUEST
      
      There’s a few commas missing here and there, but why would I be spending my worthwhile time on debating with a MAFIAA troll, when you have nothing better to counter-argue the facts? Try harder, Stinky.
    - LOL
      
      This idiot is responding
  - Anyone
    
    total EU debt: $8.58 trillion
    total US debt: $15.58 trillion
    (numbers from Wolfram Alpha)
    
    if you remove what the EU countries owe each other it would be even lower
- Anyone
  
  The EU is a much larger economy than the US
  granted, individual EU states are smaller than the US, but most individual states of the US are also small than most EU states ;)
  - Violated0
    
    “individual EU states”
    
    That should be “individual EU countries” when we are not the United States of Europe quite yet but a Union of different countries with different languages and cultures.
- MadAsASnake
  
  Didn’t Bush give it all to China for enough resources to pound Iraq?
  - Violated0
    
    What is interesting about the United States is that once the large majority of their debt was kept internal to the USA. Back in those days they used to be the number one country lending money to other countries.
    
    How that situation has sure reversed when now the large majority of the US debt is owed to other countries and the USA is now the world’s largest loaner. China owns a very large chunk of US debt which is why the US President has arranged several trips to China begging them to let their own currency float when China keeping control harms the US economy.
    
    Well you are right that the Iran and Afghanistan Wars were largely funded from Congress increasing the US debt, The national debt has about tripled due to Bush’s Wars and Obama’s plans to stimulate the economy.
    
    What is ironic is that the United States will never have a balanced budget or to pay off their debts. This debt has always been a factor related to the US economy and both forever (excluding the odd recession) scale upwards. Even more ironic is that all this debt is not even real money but simply values on a computer system and related contracts. Even the federal reserve do not even issue real money when it is not related to anything of value and simply floats in the market.
    
    Very ironic that the entire US economy is based on investor belief not unlike a financial religion. It seems rather fragile and only needs the right match.
- Bree
  
  Oh god, my sides.
  
  I thought you were serious for a second then.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BZNR6O6HRFQDR7TEAM7MBLNLLE Mike

Yeah, Thankfully our Canadian courts focus more on citizens rights than the entertainment industries. Hopefully we can help other governments see a fair
system. It isn’t perfect, but I say it’s better than most.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120626/01121519477/canadas-own-justice-department-worried-that-digital-locks-provision-is-not-constitutional.shtml
- Glib
  
  Ya, we can’t sit on our high horse for long, with Mr. Harper’s “do whatever I want for 4 years” card we gave him, and Mr. Layton dying essentially fvcking the official opposition party, we will be screwed soon enough.
  
  Our ONLY saving grace is that our police force is essentially borderline retarded, and their chance of successfully implementing ANYTHING correctly is basically zero. Almost every person I know with something as simple as a speeding ticket can get away with it on some technicality; these same retarded fieldmice that can’t write a ticket will be the same ones filling out the paperwork for everything. Also, thankfully the labyrinth that is our Canadian justice system will ensure anything big that ever goes to the courts will take 5+ years ending in it being dismissed and being irrelevant since the landscape will have changed drastically by then. How slowly and with a lax attitude we do things up here sometimes makes me very happy.
- Freja
  
  Yeah, it’s amazing that such a decent country as Canada could be next door to the biggest bully/bastard country on the planet.
Zan

if he was making 35k a month……

imagine how much a legal alternative would make!

millions!

but no the ia’s continue to cut off their noses to spite their faces.
Stinky

Why does everyone from all over the world come to America for an education?

Because we are so stupid… doesn’t make any sense… thank you for the $BILLIONS$

Ha, ha, ha…. love it…
- GUEST
  
  The next post you make on this board; please re-think it.
  
  Foreigners coming to your educational institutions does NOT equal that the American people are smart…It just means, no AMERICANS attend the same places, you absolute moron. Thus, you lot are still fucking stupid and THAT makes sense.
  
  Ha, ha, ha…love killing you off…
  - Stinky
    
    Learn how to speekie Engliee then I will respondie dunbie.
    - GUEST
      
      Troll. Straight from the MAFIAA payroll. Are you one of the students that got paid off when they marched “for” the MAFIAA organization?
      
      Please point out where I failed to spell a word correctly, “dunbie”.
    - KJS
      
      Actually, the post you replied to uses perfect grammar and spelling so maybe you are the one who should learn to speak English.
  - Anon
    
    GUEST is right, you know. Here’s a fun exercise:
    
    Go into a STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering, Mathematical) department of any large US university. Count how many American graduate students are enrolled (if you can find any) vs. how many foreign graduate students are enrolled.
    
    Now remember that some–maybe even most–of the foreign graduate students that you see will probably return to their home country within a few years of getting their degree.
    - Guest
      
      7.4 percent. That’s how many students in STEM departments of graduate schools are foreign. Also, most will not return to their home country, although the percentage that does is increasing.
      
      Source: Commerce Department
- Guest
  
  Because ‘merica “imports” intelligence.
  
  Not much of it at home.
- Danny
  
  @27f23ae88d52e48205438efc8d3ec587:disqus you only have to look at the ‘humour’ in most US sitcoms to realise the average intelligence in the US is very low.
  
  I believe actually that the EU has the largest proportion of top rated universities in the world and the overall population of the EU is around the same as the US so that would indicate that the EU countries are more intelligent than the US.
  
  Certainly the University was invented in Europe and the oldest Universities (also still in existence) are located there (Paris, Oxford, Cambridge).
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BZNR6O6HRFQDR7TEAM7MBLNLLE Mike

huh
Anyone

who did he defraud?
people went on the site to get free links, they got free links, I don’t see any fraud
- Eddy
  
  …this is why the oink case was thrown out…and why this guy will get the case thrown out on appeal….fraud laws do not have any bearing in this case. If there isnt a law against it make a new one, dont try to make existing laws fit the ‘crime’.
- Guest
  
  In my opinion I think that the MPAA and FACT were arguing that the money that this guy was getting from the site was profiteering from linking to copyright on other sites and therefore was making money from linking to copyright. This is however wrong as the guy only provided LINKS to other sites and linking to another site is not ILLEGAL. The money came from the adverts that were on the site and it is not a crime to receive money from advertising at all. The MPAA and FACT have wrongly got it into there heads that he was making the money from LINKING to copyright and we all know that LINKING is not a crime and that the money came FROM the adverts on the site which is not a crime. I can’t believe that the Judge and the jury in this case are totally blind to what we know and see.
- Duke
  
  You don’t actually have to “defraud” anyone to commit conspiracy to defraud; just have to agree with someone to “injure someone’s proprietary rights” or deprive them of something (including something they don’t have, but might, possibly, get in the future). It’s a really, really stupid offence, and many academics (including the English Law Commission) agree.
http://twitter.com/TylerReyna TylerReyna

as Wanda explained I’m impressed that anyone can earn $5613 in 4 weeks on the internet. did you see this website (Click on menu Home more information) http://goo.gl/DLLHV
Me

How long will it be before someone starts killing these assholes at organizations like FACT? Not encouraging this, just wondering. I mean, people will kill each other over the most minor of things, it stands to reason that eventually someone is going to decide to go after these jerks.
captainkremmen

They WILL go after the likes of Google eventually. The media industries need a few cases like this to go their way first, to give them the legal precedents that then make it much easier to go after the bigger boys who have the cash to fight them. They can’t go after someone with the clout like Google until they have the legal precedents in place.
Guest

This reqlly looks like a case of the big evil guys doing ecery dirty trick they had to ruin it for some poor famiky that was harming no one.

Everything, from the lies to get his information, to get in his home and the use of an oversea force with a dubious snithch and the US being involved. All backed by the MPAA mafia. And the use of lies to make it look like he was hurting someone or doing it for money.

It’s the kind of behaviour one would expect of a hollywood villain.
Guest

And even after an article like this people will still insist TPB makes close to nothing in profit and doesn’t have a “criminal lifestyle”.

People need to start realising these popular link sharing sites make plenty of money. Sure, I love using TPB as much as everyone else but the truth is they are most likely earning millions from piracy. As for those who say “TPB doesn’t profit from piracy, it offers a service” well, that service gains it’s traffic from being a pirate website.

Sad but true :-

Anyway, off to download a torrent from TPB >_> ….
- Guest
  
  This site did not make money from piracy this guy made money from the adverts that were on the site. Having adverts and making money from those adverts does not in anyway profit from piracy. All this guy did was provide LINKS to other sites. Google and other search engines provide the same LINKS and some search engines do have advertising on them so you could well say that Google and other search engines are too profiting from piracy!!!
  - Guest
    
    He was profiting from piracy. The website was made for linking to copyrighted movie downloads. People came to the website for illegal downloads.
    
    Even TPB, refuse to take copyright file torrents down. Sure, DMCA doesn’t apply. But they still profit from piracy. If Surfthechannel and TPB had NO links to copyrighted content and can tell you, they’d not be earning anywhere near as much as they do now.
    - Fredrika
      
      > “Even TPB, refuse to take copyright file torrents down.”
      
      You seem confused, torrents, as with library index cards, are not copyrighted. They do not belong to any copyright owner, they belong to the creator of the torrent.
      
      > “But they still profit from piracy.”
      
      First of all they have revenues. Revenues does not equal profit.
      
      Secondly, they make legal ad revenues from a legal site that legally indexes legal non-copyrighted torrent files. Legally indexing legal torrents on a legal site does not equal piracy, is this fact something you have a hard time understanding?
      
      Do you not know what piracy is? Piracy is the act of performing copyright infringements, which is something Pirate Bay has never done, nor been suspected of, nor do they encourage it.
    - Guest
      
      “The website was made for linking to copyrighted movie downloads, People came to the website for illegal downloads”
      
      For your information Google and other search engines also link to copyright downloads (just do a search on the search engine and you see) and therefore you can download any copyright film using Google or any other search engine. What this guy was doing was the same as any other search engine to provide a link to something but you don’t see the MPAA and FACT taking legal action against these search engines do you for profiteering from piracy do you!!!
      
      This guy was not profiteering from piracy at all, the money came from the adverts that was on the sites and the adverts are not piracy!!! Even if this guy linked to something that copyright h
    - Anyone
      
      just because YOU go to TPB for “illegal” files doesn’t mean everyone does
- Fredrika
  
  > “Sure, I love using TPB as much as everyone else but the truth is they are most likely earning millions from piracy.”
  
  Pirate Bay are earning revenues from showing ads on its legal site that commits no piracy, that only legally indexes legal non-copyrighted torrents, that people can legally download.
  
  Any eventual piracy takes place afterwards completely out of Pirate Bays control or sight, just as Sony has no control in insight over whether or not their customers commit piracy with the CD-burners and blank media they bought from Sony.
  
  > “As for those who say “TPB doesn’t profit from piracy, it offers a service” well, that service gains it’s traffic from being a pirate website.”
  
  Pirate Bay gains its traffic from being a popular legal indexing site that commits no piracy.
  
  Secondly, Pirate Bay does not profit, i has always been a non-profit operation, where all revenues are invested into back their operations.
  
  When trying to grasp the financial situation of Pirate Bay there are a few things one must take into consideration.
  
  Since it’s been established that US Government has bullied Sweden into shutting the site down no matter what, even though the judicial systems considers it fully legal, they have to expect another illegal seek-and-destroy-raid, as the last time. Because of this, the site has multiple redundancy mirrors on different unknown locations, ready to kick in at a moments notice, if the main one should be stopped. Each such mirror location doubles the costs.
  
  Secondly, to keep those mirrors unknown location wise, and always ready, they each require separate operators, which could triple or quadruple employee salaries.
  
  Thirdly, since the government have already proven that they purposely wish to cause as much harm as possible during such seek-and-destroy-raids, not giving a damn about collateral damage, Pirate Bay might not share servers, storage facilities and other required hardware with other sites(obviously not wishing to cause innocent people harm), which is what normally enables a hosting provider
  to spread out all the costs over a large amount of customers, and keeping prices reasonable. As a result, Pirate Bay no doubt pays the highest prices in the world for their server costs spread out per visitor, regardless of if they are able to buy it from some brave hosting providers, or if they might even have to pay for facilities,
  power and hardware all from scratch.
  
  Fourth, since the operators, if they are identified, can expect a raid at their homes, and at also their partners homes, they might require multiple living locations. One official home, a front, where they can expect a raid with police trashing everything, a place where they have no valuables or personal items that they would prefer not to have destroyed or seized. But also a second secret home, where they can
  live a normal life and invest time and money into things that they don’t wish to have destroyed and seized.
  
  Fifth, let’s not forget that Riaa, Mpaa and their local counterparts for the last seven years has continuously contacted every single advertiser on the site, telling them lies and propaganda about the site committing piracy, trying to threaten or scare them to not advertise there, implying that they might end up in court otherwise. As a result, normal large advertisers are rarely seen on Pirate Bay, and ad prices
  are way cheaper than on other top 100 sites, which they have to be for Pirate Bay to be able to attract advertisers in the first place, advertisers that feel that it’s worth it, and that they get something in return for having to put up with the constant harassment from the Mafiaa.
  
  If you add these five different unfortunate and unfair circumstances up, the costs for running Pirate Bay can easily be rather enormous compared to other sites with similar traffic, and in reality, despite ignorant copyright trolls continuously spreading false propaganda that Pirate Bay has huge profits, the possibility for profit does basically not exist after all the extra costs are paid, even of they would seek them.
  - Guest
    
    The resident bot is back!
    - Fredrika
      
      > “The resident bot is back!”
      
      I’m not sure if you understand how happy it makes me, and how much it motivates me to continue to post comments in similar style as my previous ones, debunking pro-copyright monopoly trolls, when someone is stranded so completely without any actual or factual counter arguments, so that he instead resorts to Ad Hominem-tactics as in personal attacks, as you just did, proving that you can’t come up with anything else than logical fallacies.
      
      It’s a true victory and a great feeling.
      
      Please keep up the good work of making me happy and motivating me, while being unable to coming up with factual counter arguments.
    - Guest
      
      Thanks for proving my point. You practically live on this site. You have no life outside it. Congrats, you are a TF hero and a total nobody in real life. Enjoy your self proclaimed victory…Fredrika vs Fredrika.
      
      As for counter arguments, I am sure everyone has all the time in the world to sit and read your thousand word essay type replies and then reply back to them. LOL. I wonder who is the loser in the end.
    - Fredrika
      
      > “Thanks for proving my point. You practically live on this site.”
      
      Actually, no, i do not. I live in my home, which also happens to be were i do my work from, so while most other people, including you maybe, spend between 2 and 15 hours per week going to and from their work, i spend zero minutes doing that. Because of this saving of between 100 to 750 hours per year, i can happily afford myself to take short breaks from work every now and then, which i mostly perform on a computer, taking a quick glance on a couple of tabs in my browser, where i instantly see if any new comments has appeared on among other sites Torrentfreak. I spend a few seconds reading them, and if any worth answering has appeared, i do that, which also takes me a few seconds or maybe a minute.
      
      The fact that i instead of wasting between 2 and 15 hours per week on travel to and from work , spend maybe 1 hour of active time on Torrentfreak, does not prove the alleged point that i live on this site.
      
      > “You have no life outside it.”
      
      Here you on the other hand prove that you are sadly self-centred and ignorant. All people have a life of some sort, but most might not like to spend their time in the manner that you do, regardless of how that is. That doesn’t mean that their life has any less worth in the eyes of society or themselves, it only means that they are different from you. Being different from a person who is self-centred, ignorant and rude does not mean not having a life.
      
      > “Congrats, you are a TF hero and a total nobody in real life.”
      
      Is it important to be a total somebody in real life? Isn’t the most important thing that you are happy with yourself? Me spending maybe an hour of active time on Torrentfreak per week, reading articles and comments, and writing answers to some, is one of the many things that makes me happy about myself and my life. As i said before, i almost always have a big smile on my face while writing my answers. Whether or not my presence here makes me a hero to anyone is irrelevant to me in comparison to the joy i get from writing my comments.
      
      > “As for counter arguments, I am sure everyone has all the time in the world to sit and read your thousand word essay type replies and then reply back to them.”
      
      Are you saying that you are a slow reader, and an even slower writer? That’s ok, words does not come fast to everybody. Stripey in Timmy Time isn’t that fast either, but the other kids accept him.
      
      > “LOL. I wonder who is the loser in the end.”
      
      I my eyes that would be the self-centred ignorant person who manages to write around ten comments in a week with repeated meaningless personal attacks against someone, while being completely unable to come up with one single real actual counter argument instead against what that person writes.
- KJS
  
  There is no way that either site is pulling in that kind of advertising money. This is a baseless claim of the prosecutor trying to trump up the charges. Ask anyone running a popular web site, on-line ads don’t pay that much. Plus they talk about the number of visitors at its peak which means that is probably the number they are using even if on average he got 1/10th of that traffic.
  - Guest
    
    “Ask anyone running a popular web site, on-line ads don’t pay that much.”. Sure, ads don’t pay much per 1k. However, with millions of users daily like TPB they earn hundreds per day.
    - Fredrika
      
      > “However, with millions of users daily like TPB they earn hundreds per day.”
      
      Your ignorant guess on that topic does not equal facts.
    - Him
      
      as usual, your comments are full of shit! why you insist on coming here is beyond me. everyone knows what side of the fence you stand but you forget, karma is a wonderful thing
- Guest
  
  To paraphrase Jules Winnfield:
  
  Proof, motherfucker. Do you speak it?
  
  Where is the proof that SurfTheChannel was making 35,000 pounds in ad revenue a month? Where is the proof that The Pirate Bay makes millions of dollars in ad revenue a month?
  
  The proof is absolutely fucking nowhere to be found.
  
  I’m so sorry that we don’t unquestioningly believe in baseless allegations, and we demand that they actually be proven. It’s like we’re smart or something.
http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/ SJD

If I setup a website with links to MAFIAA propaganda, will I be guilty of inducement and facilitation of douchebaggery?
stacysimpsondd

Are you tired of not knowing what your employees, children, spouse are up to? This Application might be the best solution .easy to use and 100% UNDETECTABLE with so many features (Call Tracking,GPS Location Tracking,SMS Tracking….) and other amazing features.It worked perfect with me , For More Info => => SPY4U
Apexdigit

Anybody watching “The Daily Show” regularly realises that governments, including the USA government, obeys their own laws only when it suits them. They make the laws, therefore they can break the laws. It’s never been any different. They did this kind of stuff in 1915. But today everybody can see it happen and discuss it, thanks mostly to the internet. And governments have always sought to extend special favors to businesses and individuals that they believe will help them. Hollywood is the biggest and best propaganda machine that has ever existed. It’s only natural that the government will treat them with deference. The WAR ON DOWNLOADING is just WAR ON DRUGS II. Meaning it will never end and soon a stream of new people will be headed to prison or financial ruin.
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  Exactly right. We need to, if we are going to keep our current system of ‘law and government’ to get the special favors out of our government and legal system and truly make everyone EQUAL under the law, including rich people.
Anonymous

have just read a story about 15 members of a UK council that have been arrested for fraud, corruption and money laundering offenses. bearing in mind that these are government employees, stealing public money. the ‘crimes’ are similar to those in the Mega case as well as in this one. the only real differences being there’s no downloading and the entertainment industries are not involved. will be interesting to see what evidence is allowed, what excuses are used to keep sentences at a minimum and what is classed as a worse crime, actual theft of real money or the sharing of ones and zeros on plastic discs
Violated0

Sad days indeed in the UK when copyright infringement cases are no longer handled under copyright law.

I would have hoped the Judge would have pointed out “Hey guys we have an exact law for that called Copyright Fraud” but no. Now someone needs to tell the Government that Copyright laws need to be repealed when these laws are now obsolete in this high technology world.

All I can say is one day this War will be won and then all our political prisoners, like Anton Vickerman, will be freed. The Copyright Cartels in their monopoly have had near unlimited power to chip away at public rights for far too long and now the public fight back in “Intellectual Activism” demanding law changes and fairness then here we are and the battle goes on.
- Roman
  
  So true.
  
  Good thing I can finally vote. Pirate Party, here I come.
- Duke
  
  Interestingly, “conspiracy to defraud” really took off in the 70s to deal with cinema and video copyright infringement, back when copyright law wasn’t broad enough to cover it. Once the 1988 copyright act came in it wasn’t needed as much, but now FACT et al. are trying to overreach again, it has come back into favour. Plus, online copyright infringement, even it if does reach criminal levels, has a maximum sentence of 2 years in prison; for conspiracy to defraud it is 10 years.
  - Violated0
    
    Yes I recall the days of the VCR when some people were sharing their own home recordings with others and sure enough “conspiracy to defraud” was used.
    
    Overlooking a certain MPAA reference to the Boston Strangler and vunerable housewives home alone then they eventually gave up and recognized that this infringement was a market they could profit from. So VCR movie rentals and sales were born followed these days by DVD, BluRay and of course now online streaming,
    
    You do have to find it ironic that the MPAA has constantly fought technical change and progression at every step of the way and they have had to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming. It is true to say that this old market of VCR and infringement is what created their current number one best source of income namely DVD and BluRay sales.
    
    So here they are doing the exact same thing again. Let us never forget that during the past decade of vast Internet infringement of movie and TV episodes that there was ZERO lawful alternatives. So for year after year the MPAA sat and did nothing but to fight this change tooth and claw.
    
    Now we have services like NetFlix and us consumers do wish them great success but you may care to note that the organizations behind MPAA are more happy to kill this fledgeling company off because it harms their PPV and DVD and BluRay sales.
    
    The end truth is that this is all about control and the MPAA never wants consumers to use any product or service that does not have an MPAA member logo on it. There is only the ever changing and evolving consumer market and if the MPAA cannot meet the public need then someone else will. So I can only say don’t be stupid, go profit.
Spike

All you have to do is look at the last 2 letters in their acronym to know they are full of shit.

“Copyright Theft”, except infringement is NOT theft. If anyone wants to
take anything they say with credibility, the first step should be
changing their name. It worked for CRIA/Music Canada right? LOL
Neotoasty

If people are going to be sentenced 5 – 10 years in jail over invisible intellectual rights. We ought to make it worth it to go to jail for.
Jigsy

And how long before that end result of a faild abortion Theresa May extradites him?
- Guest
  
  If he is successful in the appeal then I wouldn’t be surprised that the MPAA will then lodge charges in the US and then submit an extradition order for him to brought to the US to be tried in the US for the same charge that he was charged with in the UK
http://twitter.com/SharpEdward SharpEdward

what Eddie answered I am startled that a student can profit $9416 in one month on the computer. have you read this web link (Click on menu Home more information) http://goo.gl/PuQXW
JordanKratz

MAFIAA really needs to be brought down !
I have such hate for these assholes.
ScrewEwe2

Damn, I saw that coming from a mile away.

Wait, I got schooled yesterday spouting off with that “Damn, I saw that coming from a mile away…” bullshit.

Never Mind…
http://profile.yahoo.com/HQ2YSGCYWRDKVBLFMRNMY5H77M Sharp

as Russell replied I am stunned that anybody can profit $7494 in four weeks on the computer. did you see this link (Click on menu Home more information) http://goo.gl/L6wWc
foff

Fucking governments everywhere need to pressure the networks to broadcast on the net. They should be forced to transmit over the internet just like the air. If they were forced to stream content via the internet then such linking sites would be become largely irrelevant.

The internet is now a valid transmission medium and cannot just be ignored. The laws that they are trying to fit to this linking site don’t even make sense. I don’t know why the fucking stupid judges go along with this nonsense.
Stitch

sorry he deserves it for making money off it
- Guest
  
  The money that he got came from the adverts that was on the website. It is not a crime to make money from adverts. I bet you think that anyone who makes money from advertising deserves to receive a prison sentence!!!
http://profile.yahoo.com/EJGV7L7C4MO3SWLHJJFEVAQUIU Amanda

as Anne said I am in shock that a person able to profit $6341 in four weeks on the internet. have you read this web link (Click on menu Home more information) http://goo.gl/N1PA3
Bree

What a pathetic society I live in. Mega corporations blatantly and obviously colluding with the GOVERNMENT justice system, and that’s okay?
Him

just wondering who the guys lawyer was and whether an appeal has been lodged yet? how can this case be proven when other similar cases have failed? what was the difference? what evidence was there that proved this case but not the others before? it stinks to me of a complete set up by the UK government (perhaps Vaizey?) since when has ‘facilitating copyright infringement’ been a UK law? who was the judge and what knowledge does he have of UK copyright and internet law, or was he just hoofing it?

Lavinia Carey, Director General of the British Video Association, hopes
that the verdict will deter others from starting similar websites so
legitimate alternatives can thrive.

woman is a fucking idiot! how can that happen with virtually no ‘legitimate alternatives’ available. instead of shutting down competition and jailing people, the entertainment industries need to learn to compete, giving customers what they want. if not, they will gain nothing and lose even more than they have already!
Voice of Reason

Who gives a fuck? Vickerman was a greedy, stupid, arrogant son of a bitch who single handedly destroyed suprnova and nearly killed the torrent scene before it got going, Now his greed has opened the door to a precedent for “facilitating copyright infringment”. Well done Vickerman, you’ve ruined it for us all, hope you get the maximum sentence possible you clown
Johnbland44

Voice of Reason is a contradiction in terms.

Hey Ernesto, you may want to check out http://surfthechannelfraudtrial.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/5/ for more background information on this deeply worrying case.

One thing the writer forgot to mention or was not in court at the beginning to witness, was that the MPAA/FACT Barristers asked for and got a half day private briefing session with Judge Evans with no one from the defence or the defendents being present. This was technically a Public Interest hearing. Can you imagine what they discussed in that 3 hour private session. Although the Judge had been hostile to the defendents in earlier sessions, following this private session, hostility increased dramatically.

British justice stinks
Mikanos

You guys really need to read it from someone who was at the trial:

http://surfthechannelfraudtrial.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/5/

Highlights:

*Judge leaves jury little choice after directing as a matter of law that knowingly linking to infringing content is illegal despite no such offence in the UK;

*Judge ignores SportsRadar High Court judgement that states if an infringement takes place it takes place in the country the server is based (linking to infringing content legal in Spain where SurfTheChannel was based);

*Judge states “if I have got the law wrong then a higher court than this one will sort it out”;

*FACT Ltd staff admit to “around 15 surveillance operations a month” carried out on UK citizens but say “we are a private company so don´t have to abide by the Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act”;

*Pascal Hetzscholdt admits that senior MPAA personnel including John Malcolm contacted NBCUniversal to pressure them into terminating A&E Television Networks partnership agreement with SurfTheChannel;

*Jury not told of DeBeasi´s ownership of paedophile site “JailBaitBox.com” which contained images of “girls under the age of consent that you want to fuck” according to DeBeasi´s blog;

*Vickerman provides unchallenged evidence that Anti-Piracy company´s, in particular Aiplex Software, are responsible for automated adding of around a million links to the STC website.
- Guest
  
  This truly stinks!!!! I hope they appeal and gets heard but whats the betting that the appeal gets refused to be heard.
  - Guest
    
    To add to my comment above.
    
    *Judge ignores SportsRadar High Court judgement that states if an
    infringement takes place it takes place in the country the server is
    based (linking to infringing content legal in Spain where SurfTheChannel
    was based);
    
    For the judge to ignore a High Court judgement (which outranks and precedes him) truly deserves a good hard slap.
SiCK

USE OUR SHIT SERVICE OR GO TO JAIL THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE,
another fucking disgusting miscarriage of justice
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YTEXXNGIGGYDEBQE7LCTDMQZOQ Rikki

You know, I have Comcast and I won’t be able to use any of my streaming link sites after today, because they’re going to be spying on me. I’ve already had problems with the videos not loading, so I know they’re blocking them somehow. Lately, I’ve had to download the torrents and watch on the computer, then delete them. That’s my only means of entertainment. Comcast and Cablevision and others just want us to be forced to pay for their services. I’m already paying them $63 a month for service that isn’t half the speed advertised. I may as well go to DSL if I can’t watch what I want or download anything.
Daniel

Competing against “high-quality legal sites”—my ass. There’s no legal site that comes even close to being “high quality” in any respect.

The fact that this particular competition is illegal might matter in court, but it doesn’t change the fact that it betrays the bankruptcy of Old Media. If for decades the fail miserably to sell people what they want, and instead have to resort to legal grey area tactics of defending a monopoly, this is truly an industry about to leave the building.
zhangmei856

tinyurl.com/cozaa3k

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