Here is a well respected Australian commentator that challenges the existing business model for advertisers. He makes a sensible case for supporting torrents!

http://hyperreal.org/%7Empesce/Piracy_is_Good.mp4.torrent

also why do the people at the top of stuff like p2p networks and bit torrent stuff get fined. what dont the people who download or shair it get fined.

Just to set the record straight, the admin you are referring to avoided the lawsuit because he was (and still is) underage. He had his drives encrypted, that’s true, but that wasn’t the reason he wasn’t prosecuted.[/quote]

[quote comment="17725"]“At least one admin is known to have avoided the lawsuit entirely because his drive was encrypted. The police were not able to crack it.”

This is true, but the reason he avoided the lawsuit is that he was under 15-years-old, so he can not be charged in Finland.[/quote]

I stand corrected in this issue.

This is true, but the reason he avoided the lawsuit is that he was under 15-years-old, so he can not be charged in Finland. He was one of the main technical administrators in Finreactor. So, many moderators (with nothing to do with the administrators or SysOps) were sentenced, but one of the most important guys avoided it.

Investigators of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigatio threatened this guy with big fines etc, but he didn’t gave them the passwords.

Niko and All,

This is a very interesting point in this case. An uncrackable disk isn’t a clear reason for him to avoid the case. I don’t have the lawsuit files to understand the encrypted disk.

Are they sued because
a) they operated a system “encouraging” pirate?
b) they pirated the copyrighted content(eg. file, software)?
c) the 7 people aided people in b) to offend copyrighted?

My interest is:
1. What evidence the police discovered on those people’s hardisk before the start the trial
2. Isn’t the information, webserver/BT tracker log etc., enough to start the trial?
3. How did the lucky boy encrypted the disk?

Anyone has more clue? I would be happy enough to discuss it. I am available at
jirongzhou at gmail.com
skype: jirongzhou

Just to set the record straight, the admin you are referring to avoided the lawsuit because he was (and still is) underage. He had his drives encrypted, that’s true, but that wasn’t the reason he wasn’t prosecuted.

Also, we had torrent users capped at 10000. There were a lot more members on the forum section that had edonkey-links, but that part of the site was not part of this court case.

And as far as I know, there is a loop hole in the Canadian law that keeps us immune from being sued. I believe is goes something like if we only keep the data for 24 hours after viewing it, we are in the clear.

But it sucks that these kids are being fined so much for being admins of this site. Someone should open a account so people can donate to help bail em out.

See ÄKT: http://www.ifpi.fi/english/ifpi.html

Also for TTVK: http://www.antipiracy.fi/inenglish/

Finland has a copyright levy system. We pay a levy on blank media and TEOSTO is responsible for dividing this among its member composers. A lot of the money is wasted on bureaucracy, and only those composers who get their music played on radio actually get paid anything. Still it does represent individual composers, and not the corporations of the recording industry.