you are the numbnuts who doesn't know how stuff works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay
May 2006 police raid
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The raid
Wikinews has related news:
The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån raided
People in Stockholm protesting the raid. 3 June 2006.
The new ThePirateBay.org logo instituted the morning of 3 June 2006 and taken down shortly after. The pirate ship in the Pirate Bay logo also bears the Home Taping Is Killing Music logo.
At around 11 a.m. UTC[18] on 31 May 2006, a major raid against The Pirate Bay and people involved with the site took place, prompted by allegations of copyright violations. Some 65 police officers participated in the raid, shutting down the site and confiscating its servers, as well as all other servers hosted by The Pirate Bay's ISP, PRQ Inet. PRQ is owned by two of the current operators of The Pirate Bay.
Three people, Gottfrid Svartholm, Mikael Viborg, and Fredrik Neij, were held by the police for questioning, but were released later in the evening. Mikael Viborg, the legal adviser to The Pirate Bay, was arrested at his apartment, brought in for questioning, forced to submit a DNA sample and had his electronic equipment seized.[19]
All servers in the server room were seized, including those running the website of Piratbyrån, an independent organization fighting for file-sharing rights, as well as servers unrelated to The Pirate Bay or other filesharing activities like a Russian opposition news agency.[20] In addition, other equipment was also seized, such as hardware routers, switches, blank CDs, and faxes regarding air conditioning.
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Political issues
The Swedish public broadcast network, Sveriges Television cited unnamed sources claiming that the raid was prompted by political pressure from the United States, which the Swedish government denies. Specifically, the claim is that the Swedish government was threatened with WTO trade sanctions unless action was taken against The Pirate Bay.[21]
There have been claims of ministerstyre (lit. "minister rule", when a politician pressures another government agency to take action, is a serious crime in Sweden) in connection with this allegation.[6] A letter titled "Re: The Pirate Bay" from the MPAA to Dan Eliasson, the Swedish State Secretary, was dated two months before the raid and hinted at trade reprisals ("It is certainly not in Sweden's best interests to earn a reputation as a place where utter lawlessness is tolerated" and urged him to "exercise your influence to urge law enforcement officers in Sweden to take much needed action against The Pirate Bay".[22]
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wrote in a press release: "Since filing a criminal complaint in Sweden in November 2004, the film industry has worked vigorously with Swedish and US. government officials in Sweden to shut this illegal site down." MPAA CEO Dan Glickman also stated, "Intellectual property theft is a problem for film industries all over the world and we are glad that the local government in Sweden has helped stop The Pirate Bay from continuing to enable rampant copyright theft on the Internet."[23] The MPAA release set forth its justification for the raid and claimed that there were three arrests; however, the individuals were not actually arrested, only held for questioning. The release also reprinted John G. Malcolm's allegation that The Pirate Bay was making money from the distribution of copyrighted material, a criticism denied by the Pirate Bay
Prince and Village People sue for damages
On 15 February 2008, Swedish news site E24.se published news that the British legal firm Web Sheriff is filing suit for damages against The Pirate Bay on behalf of its clients Prince and Village People, with other acts like Van Morrison and Chet Baker as possible co-suitors. The lawsuit will be pursued both in American and in Swedish courts. According to Swedish lawyer Lars Sandberg representing Web Sheriff, it has not yet been determined whether to sue the four individuals previously charged or "those companies that are associated with the site".[45] In early February four individuals connected to The Pirate Bay were charged with complicity to violation of copyright law, and the Swedish prosecutor has demanded that 1.2 million Swedish Kronor be paid to the state.[46]
you can also ask DVD jon- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd_jon
After Johansen released DeCSS, he was prosecuted in Norway for computer hacking in 2002.The prosecution was conducted by Økokrim, a Norwegian crime unit investigating and prosecuting economic crime, after a complaint by the US DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Johansen has denied writing the decryption code in DeCSS, saying that this part of the project originated from someone in Germany. His defense was assisted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The trial opened in the Oslo district court (Oslo tingrett) on December 9, 2002 with Johansen pleading not guilty to charges that had a maximum penalty of two years in prison or large fines. The defense argued that no illegal access was obtained to anyone else's information, since Johansen owned the DVDs himself. They also argued that it is legal under Norwegian law to make copies of such data for personal use. The verdict was announced on January 7, 2003, acquitting Johansen of all charges.
This being the verdict of the district court, two further levels of appeals were available to the prosecutors, to the appeals court and then to the Supreme Court. Økokrim filed an appeal on January 20, 2003 and it was reported on February 28 that the appeals court (Borgarting lagmannsrett) had agreed to hear the case.
Johansen's second DeCSS trial began in Oslo on December 2, 2003, and resulted in an acquittal on December 22, 2003. Økokrim announced on January 5, 2004 that it would not appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
perhaps you'd like to pay the litigation fees in the event that seun is prosecuted by any software vendors as to rapid share etal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapidshare
Some ISPs intentionally block sharing sites like RapidShare so as to avoid legal issues due to the propagation of pirated copyrighted material.
On 19 January 2007, news broke that German collections agency GEMA had claimed to have won a temporary injunction against both RapidShare.de and RapidShare.com. "The latter is said to have used copyright protected works of GEMA members in an unlawful fashion."[2] To date RapidShare has claimed not to have any knowledge of the content uploaded by the users and of not being in a position to control the content. Through its injunctions the District Court in Cologne GEMA had now however made it clear to the company that the fact that it was the users and not the operator of the services that uploaded the content onto the sites did not, from a legal point of view, lessen the operator’s liability for copyright infringements that occurred within the context of the services, the spokesman added.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_and_the_law
The Basic Copyright Law Issues
At this time the development of the law in this area is in its infancy.
In the United States, for example, a record industry trade association, the RIAA, on behalf of the four (4) largest worldwide record companies, has launched an estimated 30,000 cases over a 4-year period, all against people whose internet access accounts have, according to the plaintiffs, been associated with peer-to-peer file sharing accounts using FastTrack technology, e.g., Kazaa, LimeWire, Gnutella, iMesh, and others. The suits are based upon a report of an internet investigator who claims to have detected a "shared files folder". At the core of these cases is the allegation that the defendants "made available for distribution" the song files in a shared files folder. See, e.g. Elektra v. Barker[4] and Warner v. Cassin[5], two pending cases in which the legal viability of that accusation is being tested, for an examination of the legal issues. So far only one case against an alleged infringer is known to have gone to trial[6], and no other fully contested cases are known to have been determined by a trial, summary judgment motion, or otherwise. The trial which did go forward took place in October, 2007, and resulted in a verdict of $222,000 for "making available" 24 song files having a total retail value of $23.76, or less. The defendant is moving to set aside the verdict, and if that does not succeed will be filing an appeal. So the question of whether 'making files available' over a peer to peer network is actionable, is an open question in the United States.
all of the above apply in countries where some form of rule of law is followed. in nigeria, the first thing that will happen - is the good old men in black with a contingent of EFCC officials , smashing down seun's door, breaking everything while the senior officers preen for the cameras. |
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