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This just in: "Plutocracy above all"

M

Marril

New Member
As of this morning, one of the larger pirating sites I've seen on the net, good old thepiratebay.org, was shut down. There is, on the site, a rather cryptic explanation that the Swedish police seized them, but not really any clear explanation why.

On wired.com, there is a quote of, "Pirate Bay was a huge source of pirated films for people around the world, and today they are no longer," said Kori Bernards, a representative for the Motion Picture Association of America. "This was one of our No. 1 targets." Now, doesn't it strike you as a bit... odd that America is flexing its plutocratic muscle in a country they have no jurisdiction in? No laws were being broken by the site existing, and yet it goes down to a police raid anyway? Strikes me that there's something going on with the fuzzy side of the law, such that the rich don't seem to care too much about anything but their money.

Discuss.
 
Did the laws violate international copyright laws?
If so, then the interests of countries whose citizens may be affected majorly by copyright violation have a right to pursue and punish the violators of these copyrights.
 
They have a right to pursue as long as they stay WITHIN the laws of the "offending" country. It's too early to tell, but the situation is iffy. The Swedish law has yet to change, and they were definitely legal last time I checked (under Swedish law anyway).

I'll be following this story ;o
 
ryanvergel said:
Did the laws violate international copyright laws?
If so, then the interests of countries whose citizens may be affected majorly by copyright violation have a right to pursue and punish the violators of these copyrights.
Click to expand...

That is actually what annoyed America so much—they weren't breaking any laws whatsoever. TPB actually made a point to showcase hollow legal threats meant to do nothing but scare them, but that in the end had no weight behind them. I take it as no coincidence that the MPAA has a hand in it when they have no legal authority to do jack all in Sweden.

It's an illegal seizure anyway, but it's only a matter of time to see if they get away with it or not. After all, money does beat the law in today's societies (hence why I included the word "plutocracy" in the topic title).
 
America, as in the key sender of most of the hollow legal threats to them as an attempt at a scare tactic. It was the best part of the website. They'd get all these legal "threats" from America that really didn't mean anything, since America had no ability to take legal action.
 
Marril said:
America, as in the key sender of most of the hollow legal threats to them as an attempt at a scare tactic. It was the best part of the website. They'd get all these legal "threats" from America that really didn't mean anything, since America had no ability to take legal action.
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In this discussion (So, this context only), who precisely do you mean when you say "America"?
 
It is the country of origin for the legal threats. What else are you asking? If you're asking who sent the intimidation threats, the answer is pretty much any large corporation without an ounce of legal sense in their collective heads, but they are still from America.
 
Can we seperate the wholesale US-bashing from the topic at hand, which seems to be corporations' (which now are so multinational that blaming a single country seems rather =/) enforcement of intellectual property rights and the differences between one nation's laws concerning the matter and another's?

If so, and if the topic can be kept civil, the thread will stay open; if not, then it'll be locked...

'mom
 
I apologize if it seems I'm bashing America. The main thing about it is just that American corporations (or at least corporations whose strongest basis is in America) would regularly send off fallacious legal threats to this Swedish site, which would then post said threats along with their flippant responses. To be perfectly fair, there were Swedish and other foreign-to-America companies in that section as well.

The point of the thread was that despite no laws being broken, a warrant was somehow procured to shut down this site, and that this is nothing but an illegal act on the part of whoever's behind it. Given the smug and rather timely response from media corporations such as the MPAA and their international analogue, I'd say a connection isn't entirely ruled out.

It isn't bashing, or at least was not intended to be.
 
Marril said:
Pirate Bay was a huge source of pirated films for people around the world, and today they are no longer
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I haven't heard of "Pirate Bay", but as long as no one there is making any money by copying copyrighted things, I don't care what they do. Nobody should be using force against people who just copy things, because they're not using force aginst anyone. Let peaceful people do what they want.

If you want to stop people from copying copyrighted material, don't turn to the government. Find a peaceful way to discourage such behavior. If you want people to buy your movies, give them a reason to buy it instead of copying it to their computers through some website or filesharing software.

Free market solutions for the protection of copyrighted material already exist:
-Trial versions of software that expire in 30 days
-Music CDs that come with excellent art on the CD or the cover (sometimes enough to make me want to buy music instead of get it off the internet)
-Free Pokemon promo cards for seeing Pokemon: the First Movie (if you downloaded it on the internet instead of seeing it in a theatre, you missed out on the Promo cards)
-Probably some more. There are probably tons of ways to discourage people from copying copyrighted material, but there isn't much of a market for it yet, because of our culture of government dependence.
 
There is also the concept of "effective breach" to consider. Basically, that is the point where doing things the legal way is either too expensive or too much of a hassle, so in effect it becomes more efficient to do it the illegal way and just suck it up and take whatever penalties are associated with it, than to do it the legal way. It goes hand in hand with there being no incentive to actually buy anything. If you have to drive downtown to get to a store and buy that new CD or DVD or whatever, and it's marked up way beyond any reasonable price, wouldn't it be easier to save money by a few clicks and just download it? You could even get the CD case art in your favourite image file format, for free, although intangible. Is it illegal? Yes, but it is effective breach as well in some cases.

However, what happened to The Pirate Bay is quite literally like a fansub group getting subpoenad for translating an unlicensed animé, since a lot of people here on the 'Gym will understand that comparison. It's an illegal solution to something which itself breaks no laws. TPB broke no laws. The worst they did was insult companies, and last I checked that's not against the law, just in poor taste (no matter how funny it was).
 
On a lot of new material I've bought, it actually says COPYING this material, for ANY purpose, on ANY media is ILLEGAL and VIOLATES copyright laws for this product.

So... chew on that a little.

Example: New copy of Black and White 2 I bought last week.
 
i think i am missing something, here. i mean, stuff like this happens every day. i've seen footage of armed military personel raiding a completely legitimate, licensed, and authorized outdoor music event (for no reason). i've seen celebrities go free in trials that would have put most of us behind bars for years. athletes, actors, business executives, and politicians get away with all kinds of things from dwi to drug possession, to assault, to murder (depending on your point of view, i guess). i don't think this is any recent change in our way of life. it's beend going on for decades, if not centuries. every once in a while, some big name rich person will actually get convicted, but it's usually because they're a minority. mostly, i consider it posturing so that the general public will get the impression that "even the rich go to jail." the point is, though, that we live in a modern aristocracy (plutocracy fits nicely as well), but that's nothing new. the question is, what can any of us really do about it??
 
ryanvergel said:
On a lot of new material I've bought, it actually says COPYING this material, for ANY purpose, on ANY media is ILLEGAL and VIOLATES copyright laws for this product.
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It violates US copyright law, yes.

Sweden is not affected by US copyright law.

Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/01/1245241

Seems you can't keep legal pirates down.
 
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Well, if you break the laws of the US, and are in another country, the country whose laws you disobeyed often has the right to pursue those who broke the laws.

Just because you are in a different country doesn't mean you're immune. If you lived in Sweden, and hacked the CIA, you will be pursued...

Does anyone know international law well enough to really give us more information? Maybe Lawman or M45?
 
Well, let's see. According to Marril, the world would be better off without capitalism. Therefore, all peoples throughout the world would then adhere to one standard? Gee, I wonder which one (scratching head sardonically).

But, wait, if Marril is against capitalism, then she must also be against the type of capitalism that allows one person to steal another person's property (regardless of geographic boundaries or statutory limitations) in order to make a buck. Because the piracy of copyrighted material is not an act of rebelliousness against capitalism, nor is it a heroic act of a new system.

It's just one person ripping off another person.

So, then, if piracy is not capitalism, what is it?
 
ryanvergel said:
Well, if you break the laws of the US, and are in another country, the country whose laws you disobeyed often has the right to pursue those who broke the laws.
Click to expand...

.. and by the same logic, the Afghans should be able to take you lot and imprison you for not being muslim, which is against their law.

The laws of the US. Not of Sweden. The Swedes can break any US law (assuming it's a-OK in Swedish law) they want as long as they are not on US territory.

Just because you are in a different country doesn't mean you're immune. If you lived in Sweden, and hacked the CIA, you will be pursued...
Click to expand...

Sure, you would be. That goes into UN and national security though. What they're doing doesn't affect any country's government, military, defense, etc.

Does anyone know international law well enough to really give us more information? Maybe Lawman or M45?
Click to expand...

Well, this case could go under the WTO (the search was under Swedish law, this is simply speculation about international status). "There are no international governing judges," so not much international companies could do.
 
The Swedes can break any US law (assuming it's a-OK in Swedish law) they want as long as they are not on US territory.
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TPB distributing torrent files of American-copyrighted material is perfectly legal in Sweden, and protected under their laws. So, yes, MonsterOfTheLake hit it right on the head here.

Well, let's see. According to Marril, the world would be better off without capitalism. Therefore, all peoples throughout the world would then adhere to one standard? Gee, I wonder which one (scratching head sardonically).
Click to expand...

Find me the post where I said that everyone in the world should adhere to a single standard.

But, wait, if Marril is against capitalism, then she must also be against the type of capitalism that allows one person to steal another person's property (regardless of geographic boundaries or statutory limitations) in order to make a buck. Because the piracy of copyrighted material is not an act of rebelliousness against capitalism, nor is it a heroic act of a new system.
Click to expand...

How is anyone making money by pirating movies, or software, or even just downloading porn? If I downloaded a movie, I certainly wouldn't be selling it off, I'd be keeping it for my own usage. I'm not "steal[ing] another person's property... in order to make a buck." It seems strawman arguments and putting false words into Marril's mouth are someone's idea of a new fad lately... it's happening quite a lot.
 
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