Ship of Fools?
The recent conviction of the
four men behind the notorious file-sharing site The Pirate Bay
(TPB) is only the beginning of what looks like being a long, drawn-out
legal saga.On Friday (Swedish time) the four were found guilty of breaking copyright law, fined US$4.5m and sentenced to a year in jail -- though it's hard to see what law they actually broke. In essence they've been convicted for providing infrastructure. TPB doesn't host copyright material, it's merely a repository of .torrent files -- files that may themselves redirect users to copyrighted content, or free content, or any other kind of content at all.
If this seems a bit hair-splitting, consider Google. Add the word "torrent" to practically any search and you'll quickly find links to what may or may not be copyrighted downloads. Shouldn't Google also be prosecuted? After all, they're essentially providing the same infrastructure as TPB.
The main motivation for the TPB case is of course Big Entertainment posturing. These are the guys who've prosecuted 12 year-olds, dead people and even tried to have the early MP3 players banned. None of that worked. Now their emphasis is on pressuring governments to change national laws so that mere suspicion of downloading copyrighted content will get you thrown off the net. So far, a law change in New Zealand has failed though similar proposed changes in France still have some traction.
The Pirate Bay website continues -- it's currently running from servers largely located in the Netherlands -- and the "TPB Four" plan to appeal. In an internet press conference Peter Sunde, one of the convicted, reckoned that with both parties having recourse to the Swedish Supreme Court, the case could go on for another four or five years.
In the meantime, the Big Entertainment dinosaur lumbers on instead of actively seeking ways to exploit what has been for years a new way to distribute their wares.
PC World is New Zealand’s top selling computing and technology magazine.
Comments
The distributors are pure evil with no redeeming qualities but the creative people should get paid
Posted by: roger | April 22, 2009 3:20 PM
I'd love to see them try to take on Google - now that would be amusing :)
Posted by: chris | April 22, 2009 11:03 AM
Brilliant post Macias. I've often wondered about the old records we've got, oh, and VHS video tapes. We've spent THOUSANDS on these and have a valid licence, don't we? Surely obtaining a copy of the same work on another medium is completely acceptable. Wait, no, sorry, cough up again. And if I pay for a movie ticket, what then?. These media companies have been milking it. Period. Pump out a few songs or a movie & you have a perpetual revenue stream. Contrary to their cries of poverty, piracy is not the only cause of a lack of "projected income" for these companies, a glut of manufactured garbage with an outdated distribution model has to be held accountable too. Artists should be happy that people are still listening & watching. Just because you make an album or movie, doesn't mean everyone has rush out & buy it.
Posted by: Marcus | April 21, 2009 11:28 PM
It is obvious that Sweden was leaned on by the American government.
Might is still right.
Posted by: elderlybloke | April 21, 2009 10:20 PM
Big entertainment will be forever chasing technology and wasting millions of dollars. There are new services such as tribler appearing that dont require a central server to hand out .torrent files. So who will they put in jail then?
B.E need to put those millions into embracing the technology, but of course their lawyers wouldnt get any money then and so will advise B.E to fight!!
Posted by: chris | April 21, 2009 10:36 AM
There is another side of this coin.
Let's say somebody really "stole" some games, music, etc -- and there is hard evidence of it. Felony, right?
Big companies say that is felony because it is not about the medium (the disc) but about the content. Buyer get the license for using the data, but somebody who just copied the data has no such license, thus stealing.
But! I am a buyer, a I have bought several such licenses (by purchasing books, music, etc). Now, can I:
a) _get_ a new copy of book after 10 years of using my copy? License is valid
b) copy every disc I own?
c) _get_ Blu-Ray disc with the movie I have already on DVD?
ad.a) I should be, but no company offers to follow their own license
ad.b) I should be, but due to disc-protections systems I rarely can
ad.c) I should be, because the movie is the same, so the license applies, but it would affect companies profits!
So how on Earth is this possible, that every company violates copyright law and yet they are seen as the victims of "piracy"? They are not -- I and others are victims of unhonesty and violating copyright law. If I have VHS tape with "Alien 1" the only way to get Blu-Ray with the same movie is to copy it "illegally" despite the fact it is 100% legal -- because I already paid for the content.
Posted by: macias | April 19, 2009 8:39 PM