“Wireless TPB

The good people at the MAFIAA decided to sue. Not TPB, not the owners of TPB. Not even TPBs ISP. They decided to sue TPBs ISPs ISP.

And you know what? They won. They made a court believe their #lies and they made them force the ISPs ISP to shut down access to TPB.

TPB can be compared to the organisation that builds the roads for cars to drive on. The ISP can be compared to the organisation that creates the asphalt for the roads. The ISPs ISP can be compared to the organisation that creates the tools needed to the asphalt to be created. You would normally not sue that organisation if a car speeds.

The MAFIAA has spent millions of dollars and endless amounts of time to get this ban in order. Our guess is that they also bribed a bit to get it since it violates so many laws not only in Sweden but also in the EU, not to mention violations against human rights. And what do they have to show for it? 3 hours of partial downtime.”

OMG….more ridiculous (stupid?) as it goes….bah who has never wanted to get original stuffs… I still wait for games to go around Rs300~750 to buy them (those cheap edition..still original bt sold more previously to cover initial investmemnt) and should be worth it at the very least….. When will they get it that you can still make profit with quantity :S….ohh well

I am no law expert but if the claims are true…makes it quite a frightening world be live in whereby money > everything, even stupidity.

*sighs*

From a purely legal point of view, the aforementioned people committed an offence and were rightly punished. But even from other viewpoints, this was a right decision. You keep arguing that TPB could have had other motives for carrying out whatever activities they were doing, but in all logic, that cannot be true! They make more than $3 million a year, so they are definitely in it for profit-making, whatever one might say. And for God’s sake, the site was established by Piratbyrån, a Swedish…anti-copyright organisation…So you cannot tell me that they had noble intentions at heart when they were founded by anti-copyright, pro-piracy organisations.

You also asked about Google. Well, i think Google’s activities constitute fair use, because contrarily to TPB, the contents of Google are not restricted to one particular domain. TPB made audio, video, porn and the like available, while Google’s contents are not limited. But then again, i dont know. Nowhere is there any information on how Google reconciles what it does with the law relating to intellectual property. And of course, they’d be mad if they released said info! They must have some pretty sound IP lawyers who’ve drafted sturdy parameters so they can keep out of trouble. Where there has been blatant infringement, they’ve been fined, but on what basis would you sue them in other situations? Authorising infringement? Hmmm, that only requires you to take reasonable steps to limit the use of the means you have under your control to legitimate use. Google could debate that owing to the sheer amount of contents, it cannot take such measures…Not convincing…Just wondering, until someone finds the basis on which Google can be sued.

Now to one interesting point you raised: about the dvd drives and the knife. I’ll ask you to refer what we said at the very beginning about authorising infringement. When you have under your control the means through which copyright can be infringed, you have to take reasonable steps to limit its use to legitimate purposes……………..Did you notice it? The flaw in your dvd drives / knife argument? THE ONE WHO MAKES THEM NO LONGER HAS THEM UNDER HIS CONTROL WHEN YOU BUY THEM!!

In the case of CBS v Amstrad, the defendant manufactured tape recorders that allowed you to tape songs you hear on the radio. The plaintiffs claimed that they were authorising infringement, but they raised the excellent point that once the customer bought the tape recorder, it passed out of their control, so they were not authorising infringement.

As for self-defence, what’s so weird about it??? Isnt it logic that you should only attack someone when you are in actual or imminent danger of being attacked yourself by that person?? Otherwise, anyone can claim that they think X is going to attack them soon, so they attack him first! I can say that i think Selven will attack me because i argue too much about copyright with him, so let me attack him first!

See the danger of giving too large an interpretation to the expression “being in danger”? You have to be in danger, right now, with your attacker in front of you or pursuing you, intent on hitting or killing you, and the only way to get yourself out of that situation is to hit or kill him before he gets you.

One thing i dont get: why did you bring suicide in in your last two posts??

Don’t read only the “illegal activities” part, read “PROMOTING illegal activities.” “Promoting illegal activities” in TPB’s context is NOT selling ad space, it’s providing people with the means to infringe copyright, providing them with a site that COULD be used to download copyrighted material.

May i ask, how is it promoting illegal activities in a way that google doesn’t???
TPB never as far as i know forced anyone to “download from torrents” it just “posted the links there”. Its up to you to decide whether you want to use it wisely [to use it as a way to track down who hosts what] or to use it to download illegal contents…

It does not matter that TPB’s intentions were noble (which i doubt); the moment they gave people access to the means to infringe copyright (even if they did not intend it), they would be guilty of authorising infringement if they did not take necessary steps to limit the use of those means to legitimate purposes (as already discussed).

The intention does matter… because if we were to judge like that, google must be closed down, viewsonic or whatever manufacture of monitors should be closed down, because those also provides you with means to access illegal contents, creative, asus etc.. who makes dvddrive should be also sued, because they provide you with the means to infringe copyright.

Where i want to come is that, given a knife, its all up to you [the users] to decide how they are going to use it. The knife manufacturer nor the concept of knife shouldn’t be held responsible for the decision of users and pirates.

There’s another case, Moorhouse v University of New South Wales, where the uni was sued for providing students with coin-in-the-slot photocoping machines but not supervising what use was being made of those machines. The uni did not tell he students to infringe copyright (just like TPB didn’t tell users to do it), but by failing to prevent it, the uni authorised infringement, just like TPB.

Again this is a case of pure illogical reasoning. A pure example how the decadence of the human society, a perfect example that shows the enslavery of humans in a system they don’t dare question the validity and just apply it dumbly for all cases.

The If the univ was sued in such a case, so must the manufacturer of photocopy machines….. even Chester Carlson, the inventor of the photocopy machine must be sued (since he is dead, he must be defamed) because he provided the whole world with a way to infringe copyrights…

I believe those law makers just tend to go forward with making rules immediately without proper study and analysis of the technology and or concepts in questions.. and they just write stuffs that just seems “by the book “ok”"

About TPB’s laudable attempt to help in the fight against piracy: had this been the case, they should have raised that as a defence, shouldn’t they? They should have argued as vociferously in Court as you on here that they were really trying to help track down pirates and point out the flaws in the laws. But they did not do it, or they failed to convince the Judges on a balance of probabilities, i suppose (that is, more convincingly than the other party) they they were well-intentioned.

Maybe they were not as bright as me to think of it this way (LOL).
Maybe their lawyers ate their money.
As for there failure to convince the judges.. well its not something new..

Judges are human beings, they are flawed, they have emotions, they don’t think logically under pressure.
One shouldn’t assume that the verdict judges comes with is always right, they are not perfect beings, they are just ordinary human beings like you and me who just happen to have learnt more facts about the legal system.

So, saying that they failed to convince they judges doesn’t really say anything other than “the person(s) acting as judge or jury members present just on that day thought they were culprits or maybe failed to understand the reasoning”.

How can you make a judge and a few jury members believe that sarah killed john infront of you in the morning when sarah has 2000 good friends who stands as witness (false witnesses) saying that she was with them in the morning having a bukakke party where sarah was on the receiver end… SO it would be your word against 2001 liars… and sarah used a bodysuit and left no prints, dna or skin behind?

Basically, you will be framed for killing john.

Was the judge right? Was the jury right? They are just ordinary human beings, you just can’t assume they are always right!

Another thing i have noticed about legal proceedings, i have sued a few people (and won), when you go in the court and you tend to not dress properly (i.e to all the world you appear a screwed up person), they will raise an eyebrow and treat you differently… so if the whole world [in the news and all] it says TPB was at fault… then for the judge, you are already cooked meat.. unless some miracle happens.
[though e.g in mauritius, you can wait for time to pass by (stall a case) wait for everyone to forget and bribe judges ...(contact me privately for such hot news ) ].

so coming back to tpb.. logically they were not supposed to be fined… or at the very least to be fined alone.. it should have taken down a lot of people and businesses. even bsd, windows, macosx, linux and other os should have gone down along.

The Court will only consider what has been put before it; it is not for the Judges to go looking into why TPB acted as it did.

here in lies the flaw with the legal system.. they just treat people or whatever they are to judge as shit or just as … yet another number, this whole system is wrong.. each case is different and should be well analysed before proceeding anywhere. 1 year is mostly enough to analyse most stuffs, they just stall everything and make as if everything was done [though ofcourse there are cases which are complicated.]

(note: am not saying judges are incompetent.. am saying they are human and flawed like the rest of us).

Real court cases arent like those you see in the movies, where people shout what they like when they like, coming up with new arguments in the middle of a court session

Indeed i know, i have been to a few [sued a few ].

In reality, courts only interprete the law; they are only concerned with what the law is, not what it should be. And they most certainly do NOT base themselves on assumptions to reach to conclusions!

EXACTLY!
and interpretation of something is relative to each individual!
It does seem to be that they assume TPB provided links for users to download pirated contents, and didn’t think of the alternative possibilities that exists that says “another way of seeing it is that it posted those links so as people know that those are illegal contents!”

So in this case, it does seems the court isn’t seeing all routes related to the problem.
It is just seeing only the path that seems agreeable by the majority.. without using any logic.

Thirdly, you again asked about the difference between TPB and the neighbour, because you misunderstood what i said about ‘promoting illegal activities’. And again i tell you that the illegal activity in not ad space-selling but authorising copyright infringement.

But TPB didn’t infringe any copyright!!!
Did TPB copied any copyrighted materials whether digitally or non digitally??

People copied copyrighted materials by their own free will… copyrighted materials offerred by pirates [who are the real criminals], so why the heck is TPB being fined?
It just blatantly shows that the inability of the court to understand the difference between a link and a host!

Like a said… google also provide links.

both posting a link and selling adspace is something legal!
Am i not allowed to say (if it is a fact) that “john is a terrorist”?
If yes
then i do have the right to say “rapidshare hosts illegal materials”
and i also do have the right to say “rapidshare hosts illegal materials at http://www.rapidshare.com/210439845903/someIllegalMaterials.rar ” <— if i don’t have the right to say this when it is a fact, then where is my freedom of expression??

I haven’t given anybody a cd of illegal materials, nor have i copied it and make it available to everybody, i just said it is available there, and by common sense you are supposed to know that you must stay away from illegal materials!

If you are not actually or imminently in danger, you cannot claim to be acting in self-defence. So, not getting yourself in a situation where you could be in danger is NOT self-defence.

Weird boundaries… because if the person was in danger and waited till the end, that would seem like being a moron or suicidal.
Even suicide is illegal, so one should get in trouble and wait till the last moment instead of just staying away from trouble? ( my layman opinion about this )

And let’s face it, if someone stole something from you, you’d report it to the police. If you know who stole it, you’d ask him to give it back or threaten to go to the police. If he doesnt agree, you’ll either go to the police or try to take the thing by force. And if you chose the latter, you’d probably be charged with wounds and blows!

Very true! I guess i missed that part of wounds and blows since i was remembering how long courts cases takes. (and how police just treats people like shit :p (specially if the later isn’t even wearing his badge for me to get a name to sue! Asking for his name just invites foul words.. and acting cool with a shit grin makes em even more pissed off!) ).

So the best thing to do is go to the police, tell them who you think stole your belonging, and let them do their job!

indeed

Jeez, no offence, but you’d better be careful, because ignorance of the law is no excuse…

Very true indeed.

I tend to stay away from troubles most of the time.. they just seem to keep catching up to be as soon as i report something as a proper citizen to the cops… (cops are the biggest goons in the country!)

Don’t read only the “illegal activities” part, read “PROMOTING illegal activities.” “Promoting illegal activities” in TPB’s context is NOT selling ad space, it’s providing people with the means to infringe copyright, providing them with a site that COULD be used to download copyrighted material.

It does not matter that TPB’s intentions were noble (which i doubt); the moment they gave people access to the means to infringe copyright (even if they did not intend it), they would be guilty of authorising infringement if they did not take necessary steps to limit the use of those means to legitimate purposes (as already discussed).

There’s another case, Moorhouse v University of New South Wales, where the uni was sued for providing students with coin-in-the-slot photocoping machines but not supervising what use was being made of those machines. The uni did not tell he students to infringe copyright (just like TPB didn’t tell users to do it), but by failing to prevent it, the uni authorised infringement, just like TPB.

About TPB’s laudable attempt to help in the fight against piracy: had this been the case, they should have raised that as a defence, shouldn’t they? They should have argued as vociferously in Court as you on here that they were really trying to help track down pirates and point out the flaws in the laws. But they did not do it, or they failed to convince the Judges on a balance of probabilities, i suppose (that is, more convincingly than the other party) they they were well-intentioned.

Either way, they have only themselves to blame for not coming up with this argument or for failing to do so adequately. The Court will only consider what has been put before it; it is not for the Judges to go looking into why TPB acted as it did. TPB had to raise that defence.. Real court cases arent like those you see in the movies, where people shout what they like when they like, coming up with new arguments in the middle of a court session, people bursting in with new evidence, etc. In reality, courts only interprete the law; they are only concerned with what the law is, not what it should be. And they most certainly do NOT base themselves on assumptions to reach to conclusions!

Thirdly, you again asked about the difference between TPB and the neighbour, because you misunderstood what i said about ‘promoting illegal activities’. And again i tell you that the illegal activity in not ad space-selling but authorising copyright infringement.

Concerning “non assistance à personne en danger”: if ignorance of the law could kill, you’d have gone up long ago! No offence! You are bound to assist a person who is in actual or imminent danger only when it does not pose any danger to your own life. It is up to you to assess how best to intervene, or whether to intervene or not.

As for self-defence, that applies only when you are defending yourself or someone else against an actual or imminent attack. If you are not actually or imminently in danger, you cannot claim to be acting in self-defence. So, not getting yourself in a situation where you could be in danger is NOT self-defence.

And finally, if you stole back the thing that was stolen from you, you wouldn’t be stealing, Einstein. And let’s face it, if someone stole something from you, you’d report it to the police. If you know who stole it, you’d ask him to give it back or threaten to go to the police. If he doesnt agree, you’ll either go to the police or try to take the thing by force. And if you chose the latter, you’d probably be charged with wounds and blows!

So the best thing to do is go to the police, tell them who you think stole your belonging, and let them do their job!

Jeez, no offence, but you’d better be careful, because ignorance of the law is no excuse…

I still cannot agree with your neighbour example, because the neighbour selling boulettes to the drug dealer’s customers is not illegal, but TPB selling ad space while promoting copyright infringement is certainly illegal.

The neighbour placed a board saying “heh my neighbour sells drug” & and he sells boulettes. <– from your logic, selling boulettes isn’t illegal, and also pointing out that the neighbour is selling drug is also not an offense,, because he might have been showing that for cops to come and arrest the guy, because he made that so obvious.

Then you say “TPB selling adspace while promoting illegal activities..”<– does this mean selling ad space is an illegal activity?
Secondly, let’s take the second part of the statement, “while promoting illegal activities”, he didn’t told you to “go and use pirated stuffs” <– as far as i know, on TPB it was always mentionned that piracy is bad and that you can download legal stuffs for X amount of money. But people just chose the “click here to download a torrent”!

How can you claim that TPB promoted illegal activities if when one really think about it, it could have as well been TPB’s way of infiltrating pirate networks, this way to get all updates on latest torrents and who are leeching what and who are seeding what…
so… is it is really NOT neutral [when the law is supposed to be something neutral and not to come to judgement from assumptions]. You said TPB is promoting illegal acitivities because people go on TPB then after that choose to do illegal activities… even if TPB told em not to do or didn’t told em anything about it. Neither did TPB encourage it… it can just claim that it used all those materials to show the world how incompetent the law is and is trying to help.. but how is it being rewarded? by getting fined? pffft pathetic!

Neither does showing ads nor does giving links is something illegal as long as you were not forced to click on the links!

The very activity carried out by TPB is illegal, hence the fundamental difference with the neighbour, whose boulette selling activity is not per se illegal.

I’ve explained this above , now tell me the difference between TPB and the neighbour.. other than one selling boullettes and the other showing ads!

As far as i know, i can just make a site and display ads without any content!
I can also shout out [give a link] saying “heh this is a pirated content, buy legal content here instead of illegal ones”.

Concerning the robber:

If you saw someone being robbed and you did not act, you may be sued for “non assistance à personne en danger.”

Which means i must put my life in jeopardy for any human being in danger, which could in turn lead to the guy attacking me, and if i can’t defend myself, then it would mean i am voluntarily inviting trouble or death.

In one way of the other, inviting death would be suicide which is illegal [pfft where is freedom nowadays].
Secondly, if i refrain from getting myself in stuffs that can eventually get me killed, i am acting on self defense?

[ps. This is only for the sake of the discussion, hell it isn;t in my nature not to help people, so probably i wold get in :p]

Secondly, be careful with the use of the word accomplice here, because a person can only be an accomplice if he has committed a positive act, that is, he has DONE something. Il n’y a pas de complicité par abstention ou inaction.

Give you that, since i am not used to those legal terms.

One of the essential elements of the offence of larceny (vol) is the fact that the stolen object must belong to someone else (you cannot rob yourself). So if someone steals something, and you steal that thing from him, claiming that since it doesnt belong to him it wouldn’t constitute larceny, your argument would fail because the requirement is that the thing must not belong to you, not that it must belong to the one you stole it from.

Interesting, you should really be on my msn, from that reasoning it means that if someone robs me and i seek person justice and rob him again, there was no robbery, since my stuff is with me… rob the robber there are a lot of robbers here, i should get em to steal a few of my stuffs once a while to spice my life a bit i think.

I still cannot agree with your neighbour example, because the neighbour selling boulettes to the drug dealer’s customers is not illegal, but TPB selling ad space while promoting copyright infringement is certainly illegal. The very activity carried out by TPB is illegal, hence the fundamental difference with the neighbour, whose boulette selling activity is not per se illegal.

Concerning the robber:

“Just like i can sit here and not say anything if ever i saw a robber robbing somebody, and still be called his accomplice.. just because i wanted to use my freedom of staying silent?”

If you saw someone being robbed and you did not act, you may be sued for “non assistance à personne en danger.” Secondly, be careful with the use of the word accomplice here, because a person can only be an accomplice if he has committed a positive act, that is, he has DONE something. Il n’y a pas de complicité par abstention ou inaction.

Thirdly, when i said: “Just like you cannot rob a robber and claim that he robbed the thing in the first place, it doesnt belong to him, so you cannot be accused of robbing him!”, i was trying to point out that just because someone indulges in an illegal activity, it does not give an individual the right to punish him. One of the essential elements of the offence of larceny (vol) is the fact that the stolen object must belong to someone else (you cannot rob yourself). So if someone steals something, and you steal that thing from him, claiming that since it doesnt belong to him it wouldn’t constitute larceny, your argument would fail because the requirement is that the thing must not belong to you, not that it must belong to the one you stole it from.

NOTE: There is no copyright issues in selling drugs, so the example doesnt really hold water! Criminal law and copyright arent really brothers, if you see what i mean!

not really copyright restricted, it is an example which “englobes” any activity that has the secondary effect of promoting illegal activities.

Which brings me to your second point: the neighbour. It would have been touching had the guys at TPB been motivated by the same noble spirit as your neighbour’s in denouncing others’ copyright infringement,

Well… if the neighbour is showing a billboard displaying a sign to everybody to show “heh the drug dealer is next door” (e.g TPB giving you links to torrent [saying 'heh illegal materials are found there, plz do something about it'])… does that mean you (TPB) has to stop living or earning a living?? I.e using the neighbour example, if the guy sells boullette (TPB does ads), and drug addicts comes to his place to have boulette then goes to shoot themselves (and users click ads)… is that the fault of TPB (your neighbour???)

It shouldn’t necessarily be mentioned that you have to use legitimate means to prevent infringement, c’est sous-entendu. In law, you have to obey both the letter AND the SPIRIT of the law. And the spirit of the law can never tell you to use illegal means to do anything!

nicely said.

Just like you cannot rob a robber and claim that he robbed the thing in the first place, it doesnt belong to him, so you cannot be accused of robbing him!

Just like i can sit here and not say anything if ever i saw a robber robbing somebody, and still be called his accomplice.. just because i wanted to use my freedom of staying silent?

(say, of the order of Rs 100 ($3) per album) = I am currently looking for one such site where I can download these paid albums.

Can you please give me the link?

Thanks a lot.

Regards