7 Replies to “Guilty!”

  1. Not really woo hoo!

    What the ruling means is that anyone who dares to even link to anything copyrighted, but without HOSTING that file is guilty.

    So if you post a link to a person who has ripped of say Steven Meisel, you are guilty. Google, guilty as hell. Microsoft Live, guilty as hell.

  2. i don’t actually believe it was a good ruling. the laws in sweden are completely different than the usa and hold their technology, copyright and the uses of them at different standards. doesn’t make it better or worse. just different.

    i really feel that the judge did succumb to political pressure . that’s sad.

    oh and it’s on appeal, the site’s not getting shut down, membership SURGED after verdict was announced and the site itself wasn’t in violation of any laws. so really… i don’t see how it’s affected anything except in the opposite way that the judicial/authoritative system wanted it to go.

    rocksteady,
    danno~

  3. Here’s what people aren’t understanding–they were convicted of the equivalent of aiding and abetting. They didn’t violate copyright themselves, they helped others do so. By hitting them, it’s like breaking up a drug distribution system.

    It’s not going to end things and there will be a LONG HARD road ahead, but this is an important and good first step.
    -Leslie

    1. This isn’t about Google or any other company (one of the first things you learn in law school is to stick to the actual case at hand). However, going where you are, who ever said Google didn’t violate a whole bunch of laws? They do all sorts of (at best) questionable stuff.
      -Leslie

  5. To the commenters:

    Here is a somewhat simplistic but not totally inaccurate analogy to explain what they did and why it’s different from what Google does.

    Imagine that you want to find someone who will lend, rent, or sell you a car, on the grounds that you would like to have access to a car. Google is like a car dealership/rental agency/lending facilitator. “Here are people who sell cars. Here are people who lease cars. Here are people who have cars to give away or lend,” says Google. “Have fun.”

    Now suppose you want a car, but you don’t want to pay for it, or rent it, and you don’t particularly care if the rightful owner wants you to use it or even knows you have it. (Say, for instance, you wish to obtain a getaway car for a robbery.) The Pirate Bay people are like shills for chop shops. “Here is where you can get a free car,” they say. “Here are some tools to make it very, very easy for you to steal one. But hey, *we* don’t have any cars, and we are not actually going to go with you and get it. If you do something, you know, *bad,* that’s on you! Have fun.”

    My first question to people who analogize Pirate Bay to search engines is, “Does this thing have a better, faster, or more complete search engine than Google’s?”

    Answer: No.

    “Then why do we need it? What is its purpose.”

    Answer: It’s easier to find stuff to download with this than it is with Google.

    “Aha. Then they are NOT the same. Analogy policeman says: Analogy denied.”

    M

  6. Oh, and I agree with Leslie on both counts – we’re not talking about Google, we’re talking about Pirate Bay, and even if we were, Google is hardly a sterling example of corporate citizenship.

    There is a principle in the law that says that just because not all criminals are prosecuted it does not mean that those that are are being denied due process, or that legislatures and law enforcement cannot make judgments regarding limited resources and relative importance of problems when deciding which issues to give priority without somehow being inherently injust.

    M

Comments are closed.