Torrentfreak: “Swedish Supreme Court Determines Movie Piracy Fines” plus 1 more

Swedish Supreme Court Determines Movie Piracy Fines

Posted: 16 Dec 2014 02:46 AM PST

While headlines may suggest otherwise, the vast majority of online file-sharers go about their business without ever falling foul of the law. Like hundreds of millions of speeding motorists every day, most breaches go unnoticed or unpunished.

Nevertheless, that’s not to say people can forget about the risks. Breaches of copyright law can result in hefty fines in most developed countries, if rightsholders feel strongly enough about prosecuting the case.

One such case began in Sweden four years ago when police investigating another incident stumbled across content being shared on a man’s computer. The discovery, which involved material obtained from The Pirate Bay, was reported to both copyright holders and the prosecutor.

After moving through an initial case and an appeal, the prosecutor’s office was disappointed when the file-sharer was issued with just a fine. With ambitions for a scary legal precedent, those sharing files habitually should be sent to jail, the prosecutor argued.

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court but it didn’t work out as planned. The Court agreed that the defendant (known as JS) had damaged the interests of copyright holders with his actions but noted that in the majority of cases (57 out of the 60 movies) his subsequent sharing with others had been brief.

Also in the man’s favor was how the Court viewed his activities. No commercial motivation was found, with the Court noting that his file-sharing had been for personal use, despite its scale.

“Such use of the current networks and services should not be considered as an aggravating factor when assessing the penalty amount,” the judgment reads.

Sweden operates an income-calibrated system of fines known as “day fines” which are equal to the amount the defendant could have earned in a day. The Court ruled that for each movie download with a short upload, the man would be sentenced to 50 day fines.

While that sounds like the fine could increase to a huge amount, in Sweden when people are convicted of several offenses at the same time the penalty is gradually reduced for each subsequent offense. In any event the maximum punishment is 200 day fines.

In this case the man was sentenced to 180 day fines, up from the 160 handed down by the lower court. Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance who assisted with the case welcomed the judgment, but there can be little doubt that a custodial sentence (even a suspended one) was the target here.

Nevertheless, it appears that the judgment could have drawn a line in the sand.

“This is a borderline case where the sentence is located on the edge of going over to prison. If you’re looking to see what is necessary for a prison sentence, it’s not much more than this,” Supreme Court Judge Svante O. Johansson concluded.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Pirate Bay Responds to The Raid, Copies and The Future

Posted: 15 Dec 2014 08:31 AM PST

For more than a decade The Pirate Bay’s been the bastion of uncensored information. Until the raid on some of its critical infrastructure last week, the site never had more than three days of downtime.

The big remaining question on everyone’s minds right now is whether the site will make a comeback, and if so, how long this will take.

The TPB crew have remained awfully quiet and haven’t commented on the raid in public, but today “Mr 10100100000″ breaks the silence in order to get a message out to the world.

“We were not that surprised by the raid. That is something that is a part of this game. We couldn’t care less really,” Mr 10100100000 informed TF through an encrypted channel.

“We have however taken this opportunity to give ourselves a break. How long are we supposed to keep going? To what end? We were a bit curious to see how the public would react.”

Without hearing about the exact issues, we get the feeling that a comeback may be more complicated than most people assume. It seems unlikely that the site will return within the next few days, but if it does eventually come back online people will surely notice.

“Will we reboot? We don’t know yet. But if and when we do, it’ll be with a bang,” Mr 10100100000 says.

Obviously there are discussions ongoing behind the scenes on how to proceed. The entire team including the moderators comprises a few dozen people who all have their own opinions on the matter.

“The people behind TPB are like one big collective mind. There are no leaders nor any one in charge. About 30-50 people from all over the world pitch their ideas against each other and whatever comes out of that is what will be the fate of TPB.”

In recent days many “copies” of The Pirate Bay appeared online and many of these have now started to add new content as well. According to the TPB crew this is a positive development, although people should be wary of scams.

“Copycats are to be seen as a higher form of the proxies. If [Pirate Bay’s] code wouldn’t be so shitty we would make it public for everyone to use, so that everyone could start their own bay.”

“Of course there is a problem if sites like [thepiratebay].ee try to scam people. But overall, we'd love to see a thousand Pirate Bays,” Mr 10100100000 adds.

The Pirate Bay doesn’t really have a preference when it comes to the best Pirate Bay alternative and says the “swarm” has to decide which one is best. In any case, people should keep the Kopimi spirit alive as TPB is much more than some hardware stored in a dusty datacenter.

“We’ve always lived by Kopimi. We love being cloned. It would be amazing if, like in the classic movie Spartacus, everyone could stand up and say “I am The Pirate Bay,” Mr 10100100000 says.

To be continued.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.