Maelstrom Janus Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 yes well it was you who made the first analaogy to winning and loosing so youre probably right... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maelstrom Janus Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Perhaps if people went after the gun maker there'd be fewer people being shot in the world ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Maelstrom Janus wrote: yes well it was you who made the first analaogy to winning and loosing so youre probably right... of course i'm right ..that's why i was appointed the job of giving out the awards to the best players.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latisha Pexie Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 This is America. It goes against our very founding principles. The issue with this bill is that it is unconstitutional. If you want to live like that there are other countries to move to. Might I suggest Iran? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ganelon Darkfold Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 SOPA does nothing to protect the rights of individual creators, the only thing it is intended for is to protect the profits of corporations that are using an outmoded business model. Copyright laws need to change, because the world has changed since they were originally written. PIPA and SOPA aren't what's needed though. What is needed is something that fairly protects creators at all levels from unfair/illegal use of their ideas. It would have to work by due process of law, and be structured so that it can change with changing times and tchnology better than the original copyright laws. SOPA isn't even a band-aid fix. It's a free license for censorship and for large companies to more effectively crush out small entrepeneurs and individual creators who aren't "signed with a big label". Nobody really thinks that a single creator complaining about a theft of intellectual property will get the sort of action that larger companies complaining will get from SOPA, do they?? I'm kind of surprised SL isn't supporting the blackout, considering how much of the economy of SL is made up of independent creative efforts. Pretty much everything in an SL shop or the marketplace is intellectual property. Most products and services in SL are the work of individuals or small independent teams, which are the very people that won't benefit from SOPA's alleged "protection". More tools for large concerns to use to oppress and suppress are not what the world needs. If it passes, SOPA will affect a large chunk of the world, not just the US, and the effect will not be a beneficial one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maelstrom Janus Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Youve used that old chant before ...or some American has...we aren't all loyal Americans here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ciaran Laval Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Maelstrom Janus wrote: What a laugh for ages we've had people on these forums droning on about people stealing their ideas and designs even going to court... Now they've got a law designed to stop it and another gang are moaning.... god bless america land of the corporate and the free SOPA is firmly in the be careful what you wish for camp. Yes people have been moaning abount intellectual property rights but that doesn't mean any law designed to tackle the issue is a good law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 From what I've read in this thread, it seems to me that there's an awful lot of scaremongering going on here. Not so much about SL but about what the law can and will cause to happen in general. For instance, someone wrote that, if someone accuses something on a website of being illegal, ipwise, then the whole website, and the whole of all other websites that link to the website, can be closed down without any kind of "due process". The american politicians may not be all that they could be, but no body of politicians is stupid enough to pass a law where that can and will legally happen. Stuff like that, and many other things that have been stated in this thread, is just not going to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Maelstrom Janus wrote: And if people are so absolutely up in arms about censorship why havent there been a few more complaints about the mysterious deletions of posts from this forum... ???? They probably have been up in arms about it but their protests got deleted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andra Rosca Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Phil: At some point sharemongering becomes awareness raising. My own Government (Australia) is trying to do a similar blacklisting of sites. China, Syria already do it. The ground swell against this trend is thankfully raising as people become aware of what this can do. Will it happen as predicted? According to its already happenng before the laws are in place. I recommend this video! SOPA is an exciting corporate leveraging technique, but we are the ones who loose our freedoms in the process. Many are saying sites can be closed off without 'due process' , scaremongering? Not even the SOPA suporters are saying that is a mis-quote. There is a system already in place for hunting down and closing pirate sites, it just requires a lot of paperwork and the burdon of proof in on the complainant, as it all should be. The eff have this page on the subject. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireFox Bancroft Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Don't think for a moment just because you live outside the US you're immune to SOPA/PIPA/ACTA. SOPA alone gives the RIAA and MPAA the power to extradite you and detain you for trial. They extradited a kid from england so they could sue him into oblivion before. I'm sure they will exercise that powere even more once SOPA passes. Watch this video allt h e way through and it'll explain everything. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc&feature=channel_video_title Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanielRavenNest Noe Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Penny Patton wrote You are seriously misrepresenting the issue here. You are correct, Penny. The proposed law talks about "facilitates a violation" (SOPA section 103 B). That means having a marketplace so pirates can sell their stuff, enabling web links in local chat or by clicking an object so you can reach a pirate site. Facilitate means "making it easier to do something", and those features do in fact make it easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanielRavenNest Noe Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Ganelon Darkfold wrote: Copyright laws need to change, because the world has changed since they were originally written. PIPA and SOPA aren't what's needed though. . . .What is needed is something that fairly protects creators at all levels from unfair/illegal use of their ideas. You are correct that the world has changed, and that is why your second sentence is impossible to implement. The old media (paper newspapers, books and magazines, movies on film shown in theaters, broadcast television and radio, vinyl records) all required expensive studios and printing/pressing/transmitting hardware. So only a few people could do it, and pirated copies were hard to make and easy to catch (try setting up a pirate radio station, for example). In the digital age in which we live in, every single one of those media types can be done with a computer and a few accessory devices (video camera, music keyboard). So instead of just a few being able to create and distribute media, it's pretty much all two billion internet users. Of course, a few people distribute stuff they did not create, wherein the problem lies. But the network cannot tell a photo of your cat from the latest Hollywood movie. That's because all the internet does, the sum total of it's function, is moving packets of data from one place to another. It doesn't know what those data packets mean. That only happens when some program loads the data and a human looks at it. So to prevent unauthorized copying, you would have to stop every single method of sending data, not just kill some websites. http is the protocol used for the Web, but in addtion there is email, ftp, udp, removable disks, thumb drives, wireless routers, and many other methods to move data. All of them can move both legal and illegal content. The way to address the problem is not acting like King Canute trying to hold back the tide. The way to catch commercial pirates and counterfeiters is to "follow the money". It has to get to them somehow, so trace the money and it will lead you to them. For the casual copiers who are not making money off it, do what iTunes, NetFlix, and Steam do: provide better service at a reasonable price, and people will be very happy to do business with you. For the hard core "will not pay for anything" group, they would never be your customer anyway. You have not lost any business from them, so stop worrying about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexi Zelin Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I'm confused aswell, LL's should very much be against SOPA and PIPA bills passing. I am disapointed that they did not black out SL today. I put a banner up on my very popular marketplace store AngelRED because I opose this 150%. I am an American for one.. I'm an artist and a creator.. I have paintings on Deviantart which deviantart I am disapointed in too because they are also a site that should have been in on this because much like SL if this bill passes they very likely will shut down due to being fined over all the many occurances of copyright abuse by it's users. All user created sites, communities and virtual worlds and games will be compromised if this passes. It is very likely that they will no longer exsist. Maybe the Mayan calender meant 2012 will be the END OF THE INTERNET because if this bill passes, the internet will NEVER be the same.. SL will most likely close . I use SL as a RL income through my store. I create full perm clothing templates and make a good living off of it. I and many other creators, realtors and others who depend on SL as real like income may very well lose that luxury if this is passed. I ask that ALL SL STORE OWNERS CHANGE YOUR MARKETPLACE BANNER TO BLACK CENSORED AS I HAVE. This will spread the word. The more people know about the horrible affects this bill can have on our virtual world the more we can all do to help veto this bill! Please visit my marketplace store so you can see my banner and hopefully others will join in on my protest! AngelRED Couture https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/46889 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanielRavenNest Noe Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: For instance, someone wrote that, if someone accuses something on a website of being illegal, ipwise, then the whole website, and the whole of all other websites that link to the website, can be closed down without any kind of "due process". The american politicians may not be all that they could be, but no body of politicians is stupid enough to pass a law where that can and will legally happen. Stuff like that, and many other things that have been stated in this thread, is just not going to happen. Unfortunately, such rules are in the SOPA text. Section 103 allows a "a holder of an intellectual property right harmed by the activities described in paragraph (1) occurring on that Internet site or portion thereof." to send a notice to payment networks (credit cards and paypal) and advertising networks (Google AdWords), and they must shut off their services to a website within 5 days. Afterwards both sides can go to court to get relief or further action, but the cutoff of money can happen with a form letter similar to a DMCA takedown. Of course, it's hard to pay for lawyers if all your income has been cut off. Actions to remove a site entirely from the web can be taken by the Justice Department once they have decided on their own (Section 102) that a site is comitting criminal copyright infringement. All they need is a judge to approve the action, and they can go to the site's service provider and have them shut down, before the site owner has a chance to respond. Site owners do have the ability to contest the takedown, but that is after the fact. Here is the text of the SOPA bill, it's incredibly twisted legalese, but feel free to verify what I said: SOPA Text Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkady Arkright Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote:...Stuff like that, and many other things that have been stated in this thread, is just not going to happen. You simply do not, and can not, know that. I don't think freedom and democracy is best defended by people who can't even conceive of it being successfully attacked because "everyone involved has honourable motives and common sense", which is what you're implying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qie Niangao Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: ... The american politicians may not be all that they could be, but no body of politicians is stupid enough to pass a law where that can and will legally happen. Stuff like that, and many other things that have been stated in this thread, is just not going to happen. American politicians are not stupid. It's not stupid of them to support these bills. It makes perfect sense because they are all, every single one of them now, sold to the highest bidder. In the case of SOPA / PIPA, the buyers are big media, but on every issue, the US Congress is for sale. This isn't the way the US Congress has always been "for sale", where some number of legislators are corrupt. This is systemic, where every one of them must be corrupt in order to have any chance of election. And for this we can thank the US Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision, which ruled that corporations, as persons under the law and therefore entitled to free speech, must be allowed to spend as much as they want to influence elections because such spending is "speech". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Naminosaki Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 its not a matter of clear or clean if you have acctually read the bills and know about them in the end SL will be shut down by this bill. clean or not! its that kind of attitude that will make us lose sl, because not alot of people understand the actual effect this will have one everyone. not just SL users Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 This is a general response to some points, and not aimed specifically at Arkady. I know that people outside the U.S. can be extradited, and I'm happy with that. An extradition order could only be obtained if there is a case to answer so, if the person has done something that they should answer for, I'm content for them to be extradited to the U.S. - like the english kid who hacked into a U.S. defense computer (I think that's what he did). Getting an extradition order isn't automatic on request - not in the UK, anyway. A case for it has to be made in court. I know that, if passed, the new law will affect people outside the U.S., and I don't mind that at all. If SL were closed down, it would affect many people outside the U.S., including me, but I can't have any complaints about that because the U.S. is free to do with U.S. entities as it sees fit, and it's not the business of those of us outside the U.S. Sites that break the law deserve to be closed down. Sites that link to those sites may or may not deserve to be closed down. It would depend on the nature of a site's link. If a link is assocated with text along the lines of, "Click here for your free copy of <whatever>", and the free copy is illegal, then close them down. I have nothing against that. But if the link is innocent, it just won't happen. It seems to me that the biggest objection to the proposals can be summed up as, it will affect ME, and I don't consider that to be a good objection. If the law gets passed, and it succeeds in stemming to flow of pirated stuff, then it can't be bad and, to be honest, SL is full of illegal copies. Where do most of the textures come from, for instance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkady Arkright Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote:Getting an extradition order isn't automatic on request - not in the UK, anyway. A case for it has to be made in court. Wrong - A treaty specifically designed to speed up the extradition of terrorists as part of the "War On Terror" is being used instead to extradite an alleged 'expediter of copyright violation' from the UK, when the offense he is alleged to have committed is not in itself clearly illegal in the UK. Since Blair removed a lot of the protections the UK used to have against the acts of politically-motivated DA's in the USA (as part of his attempt to ingratiaite himself further with George W) it has been used to extradite a number of people from the UK on dodgy premises, none of whom could genuinely be described as 'terrorists'. It's also worth noting that not one IRA terrorist (a much closer fit to the original purpose of this treaty) was extradited under this one-sided piece of nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 It still has to go through the courts and, therefore, a case must be made. It's not automatic on request. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: Sites that break the law deserve to be closed down. Sites that link to those sites may or may not deserve to be closed down. It would depend on the nature of a site's link. If a link is assocated with text along the lines of, "Click here for your free copy of <whatever>", and the free copy is illegal, then close them down. I have nothing against that. But if the link is innocent, it just won't happen. It seems to me that the biggest objection to the proposals can be summed up as, it will affect ME, and I don't consider that to be a good objection. If the law gets passed, and it succeeds in stemming to flow of pirated stuff, then it can't be bad and, to be honest, SL is full of illegal copies. Where do most of the textures come from, for instance? if the link is innocent it just won't happen? heheh..were you not around after napster was shut down and the MPAA and RIAA went on a rampage filing lawsuits on tons of inocent people..even dead people LOL it will happen you can bank on it ETA: i'm just gonna grap this from another post... =================================================== Nine years ago the RIAA won a groundbreaking suit against Napster.com in what would become the beginning of a nearly decade-long flood of litigation. The incident seemed to be a tipping point for the Entertainment Industry, as both the RIAA and MPAA up until then had enjoyed little success in stemming the piracy movement which was growing at exponential rates across the world. Peer-sharing, while still relatively new at the time, looked like it would be snuffed out in the legal battles to come; the populace that had taken to services like Napster were too afraid to continue for fear of being sued. The RIAA alone had managed to sue upwards of 35,000 people after their win against Napster, and when they had finally announced in late 2008 that they would stop filing lawsuits on a grand scale, they still reserved the right to sue particular offenders whom they deem to be the worst. In the meantime, the duo turned their attention to the Internet Service Providers, in an attempt to exert a measure of force on those companies to handle offenders by disallowing them internet access, a move which the European Union has declared something of a human rights violation. Showing colors strangely unlike any expected, American ISP’s have actually resisted this pressure, disliking the implication that one industry can control another on little more than a whim. The behavior of the RIAA/MPAA during the last decade has been nothing short of a schoolyard bully who has the teacher in his pocket. It’s not just the consumers who’ve had enough of the Industry’s nonsense, the ISP’s and even the actors and musicians who just ten years ago claimed they were being robbed are now standing up to call out the associations for their wonton disregard for their own customer-base. It’s important that it be stressed that it was not only the outlandish number of people that had been sued that brought this about, but several cases in which the RIAA, chiefly, managed to cross the line in such a way that the public could not help but demand action. Here we take a look at some of those most ridiculous suits they filed that they immediately regretted, as well as some associated lunacy that could affect you. The Late Larry Scantlebury Seven different recording labels banded together to bring the fight against a man named Larry Scantlebury. Larry was a vietnam veteran who loved reading books in his spare time, along with spending time with his wife and spoiling his three grandchildren. The RIAA was suing Larry for allegedly stealing their content, as usual, when during the long drawn-out process, he died. Where normally this kind of incident would lead to candle-light vigils, and scandal about a man dying while being sued by the RIAA, this only got more vile. Immediately upon hearing that the accused had passed away, Warner’s lawyers told his surviving family members that they had 60 days to grieve before their depositions were expected, and at that time the RIAA would consider amending the charges before moving on with the case, against them. Fred Lawrence and His Grandson The MPAA sued a Wisconsin Grandfather named Fred Lawrence for illegally downloading four movies via peer-to-peer sharing. True to form, they contacted him demanding $4,000 with the threat that if they didn't get paid, he'd be facing a lawsuit; when Mr. Lawrence flatly refused to pay them he found himself facing a potential $600,000 in damages. As it turns out, his 12-year-old grandson had downloaded the movies for no particular reason, since they already owned three of the four offending titles. This entire episode was especially stressful to Mr. Lawrence, as legal experts explained to him that even if he fight and won against the MPAA, the association would be fully within their rights to sue his grandson afterwards. Sarah Ward: Mega-Pirate Mrs. Ward was a 66-year-old retired schoolteacher who sculpted in her spare time, and suffered from mild dyslexia. She rarely used the computer for anything more than checking her e-mail, or the weather, and enjoyed listening to celtic or folk music. The RIAA sent her notice in late 2003 that she was being sued for illegally downloading and trafficking several million dollars worth of music using the peer-to-peer file-sharing program and network KaZaA. Specifically cited in the charges was her extreme pirating of artist Snoop Dogg. Also interesting to note is that KaZaA was strictly a Microsoft Windows application at the time, and Mrs. Ward’s old Apple machine would not have been running it. Tanya Anderson 42-year-old single mother Tanya Anderson was informed by the RIAA in 2004 that she could either settle out of court or face legal action for her early morning piracy antics. She learned that she had apparently been downloading the rap song “Shake that Ass, Bitch” at 4:24 in the morning under the username “gotenkito.” This was news to her, and she promptly counter-sued the RIAA under state Racketeering laws. At the time, she worked for the Department of Justice, but was forced to leave for health reasons shortly after her legal woes began. She was severely disabled, and with the loss of her job added to the already soaring legal fees she was in for hard times. To put a nice cap on it all, the RIAA not only called her 10-year-old daughter’s school impersonating the girl’s grandmother in an attempt to get information from her, but they also threatened to “interrogate and confront her little girl at the offices of the RIAA lawyers” if Ms. Anderson did not drop her counter-claim, which she disclosed in her deposition against them. Lola Scruse In 2006 a grandmother of three, Lola Scruse, who was also 66 years old, and on dialysis. She lived off of Social Security checks, and she didn’t know much of anything about computers or the internet other than the fact that she owned one and paid for the other. Her grandchildren would use her computer when they were over to visit. Lola was informed by the Court that she owed $6,000 for 872 songs that she had downloaded illegally, and that she had already lost the case due to default judgement since she never responded to the initial lawsuit. She was already handling monstrous medical bills for the dialysis, and now with this figure added, she was quite upset. Lola’s since been more mindful of what her grandchildren are doing on her computer, and the RIAA has since targeted more grandmothers who don’t respond to strange court documents about things they don’t understand. Berry the Hobo Chaz Berry fell on hard times, and became one of New York City's thousands of homeless people. He was going about his business in early 2007, presumably just being homeless, when he found out that he was being sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement. Apparently, the Industry lawyers had found that they couldn't locate Mr. Berry, and were aware that he was in fact homeless. That didn't stop the process server from adhering the summons to the door of his former apartment. They reported to the Court that they had "made every effort" to locate Mr. Berry, and requested default judgement in the case. After much legal ado, the case was dropped against Mr. Berry, and the RIAA barely escaped the courtroom without sanctions on their legal team. Jammie Thomas: First in Court In 2007 the RIAA took a case all the way to a jury in Federal Court, suing Jammie Thomas on 24 counts of illegal file-sharing. This was the first case to go all the way to court, as every other had either been settled or was tied up in litigation and negotiating settlement. Being the first, it was extremely important to both sides of the issue, which at the time was red-hot in all media venues. At the time of the trial, well over 20,000 other suits were active, and the RIAA had a point to prove. In the end, the jury found Thomas guilty on all 24 counts, and set an award to the plaintiff of $222,000, despite the testimony of expert witnesses that proved a degree of reasonable doubt. The Displaced Granny: Rhonda Crain In 2006 Ms. Crain, a grandmother who had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina to East Texas, was told by the RIAA that she had the option to pay them the pittance of $4,500 or see them in court. They explained to her that they knew all about her KaZaA account name "kcrain" and that her sharing of tracks by the likes of Usher and 50 Cent, totalling 572 songs, were well documented. Ms. Crain ended up settling in court with the RIAA under stipulations that she delete the offending files, and she did not have to pay them any damages. The judge in this case had decided that simply paying for internet access that someone else uses to download files does not make a person entirely liable for those downloads. It's too bad Mrs. Scruse didn't have that judge. Brianna LaHara At just 12 years old, Brianna LaHara was forced into settlement with the RIAA and had to pay $2,000 in damages for illegally sharing music. The breakdown was roughly two dollars per song. Out of 261 defendants in the first round of mass-suits, Brianna was the first to settle. At the time, the association had stated that it was only going after offenders who had been shown to have shared more than 1,000 songs illegally, and that anyone who stepped forward before a suit was filed against them would be given amnesty, though only for tracks officially represented by the RIAA. Not many people actually took the chance, since it would have only opened them up to secondary suits from interest groups working in tandem with the RIAA. This also came at the same time that the association was targeting universities and the students who used their networks to acquire music through them. The Ghost of Gertrude 83-year-old Gertrude Walton was sued for illegally sharing over 700 songs on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks in early 2005, under the username "smittenedkitten." The problem with the case, was that Gertrude Walton not only did not own a computer, or know how to use one, but had in fact died in December of 2004. The RIAA quickly dismissed the case, after the entire known world laughed them out of court. Tenenbaum Fights Back In 2007 a man named Joel Tenenbaum decided not to settle and took his case all the way to court when he was sued by the RIAA. He began the adventure defending himself, but as time wore on, the RIAA lawyers delayed as much as possible, stalling whenever the opportunity presented itself. When the delays and court actions got too thick for him to handle without help, a Harvard Law professor named Charles Nesson stepped in to carry the mantle. The team then proceeded to not only stand their ground, but to attack the RIAA in both open court and open media. Not stopping their, Tenenbaum and Nesson called on the Court itself, declaring that allowing the RIAA to sue for such large amounts was unconstitutional, and violates Due Process. To truly make their point sink in, and gain massive attention Nesson brought to the foreground the fact that the RIAA itself used the very same argument in its own defense in a previous round of suits in which it was accused of the unauthorized use of music samples. The Pirate Bay Of all the sites on the internet dealing with peer-to-peer sharing, The Pirate Bay is widely known as the largest and most established. Based in Sweden, TPB has operated with near-impunity to American copyright laws, at least until recently. The MPAA tried repeatedly, at one point on a weekly basis, along with its sister association the RIAA, as well as several other special-interest groups and even Microsoft itself, to frighten the operators of the site to shut down by threatening legal action. In 2006 the MPAA released a public memorandum exalting in their success and stating that TPB had been shut down, and commending the U.S. and Swedish authorities for doing such a wonderful job in "the raid". There was a raid, and there were technically arrests, and seizures, but TPB was only shut down for 3 days and largely unaffected by the loss of equipment. The MPAA's press-release actually backfired, and became a more effective marketing tool for the Swedish Pirate Bay here in the U.S. than anything they could have done themselves. It read like an advertisement, showcasing what is available, for free, if one were to visit TPB. The full release can be read here. When the site came back online, it had an even larger following than it had before the raid. In 2009, after amendments to Swedish laws, the Pirate Bay founders were put on trial for breaking Swedish copyright laws; this was the first time they could be prosecuted by anyone. In the end, all four founders of the site were convicted on less than half the original charges, and sentenced to one year in prison and required to pay large award sums to the groups behind the suit. Under Swedish laws, however, no sentence is legal until all appeals are carried out in full, meaning The Pirate Bay's founders are unaffected by the outcome and will remain so for several more years to come. Sue and Sue Alike: Real Networks vs. MPAA IN 2008, during the feverish litigation-fest the U.S. Government was hosting for the MPAA lawyers, Hollywood reacted violently to a new piece of software released by Real Networks, called RealDVD. The software was simple, it basically broke the Industry's DRM (Digital Rights Management) on DVD's so that consumers could copy the DVD or save it to their computer for posterity. The MPAA began using the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or the DMCA as it's more commonly known, to sue every entity that has come in contact with this DRM-bypassing software. The drama became even more spectacular when Real Networks turned the tables and counter-sued the MPAA, and demanded the court rule that their software be legitimized under a previously-established set of laws governing software and technology for the consumer. Technically, at that point, both sides had laws to substantiate their own claims, and the entire ordeal became a media fiasco dubbed "Dumb and Dumber" in the headlines. Recently, the MPAA has accused Real Networks of destroying evidence that showed the source of their code, which they claim to be "hackers." Shawn Hogan When the MPAA attempted to get a piece of the action by suing Shawn Hogan for illegally sharing Meet the Fockers in 2006, the case received a lot of media attention. This was partially because of the fact that Shawn never shared the movie, nor did he download it to begin with. He also owned the movie on DVD, but this wasn't what had made headlines; Shawn's ire for justice at being slandered in such a way drove him to hire a legal team to prove that the MPAA was wrong, and in their research they discovered that the Industry never actually owned the copyright to the movie in the first place due to clerical errors at the time of the filing. The case was quickly dismissed. These ridiculous cases aside, the RIAA and MPAA continue to wander around the internet harassing innocent bystanders as they see fit. The RIAA raised eyebrows again in late 2007 with the sudden declaration that ripping your own CD's to your computer is illegal, which surprised many owners of mp3-players who had read the manuals to their devices. As strange as this was, it didn't really surprise people, as RIAA had also just sued XM Satellite Radio only a year beforehand, for selling a receiver that could record songs.The MPAA recently made headlines by in a landmark decision made by Swedish courts. The case will spend years in further litigation in Stockholm, but it was the verdict that nobody ever expected, given the amount of times the MPAA has targeted the Internet's most notorious peer-to-peer sharing hub. This is clearly an issue that has no clear end in sight, and in the meantime, the best anybody can do is cover their own end, whether they actually participate in piracy or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madman626 Fall Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 oh bull you all over acting to this. you really think i have not read it ?,, you all act like you have have something you not too sure about that you wanna hide . You all at one time or a other took on about copyrighted stuff for how long now ? i still stand by it if you dont have anything you couldt have you dont have anything to worry about . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 You'll be pleased to know that I'm not going to quote your post, Ceka The thing is that the illegal free downloading, and anonymous sharing, of copyrighted works was, and probably still is, very widespread, and the people who do it really do know that it's illegal. I accept that young children wouldn't realise it but most of those who do it would. If those organisations sued everyone who is guilty of it, the frenzy described in your post would seem like the calm before the storm. You don't imagine that owners of The Pirate Bay actually thought that what they were doing was just fine and dandy and legal, do you? They were putting two fingers up to the copyright owners and the law, and stealing the stuff. That's a case *for* the pursuing of thieves - not against it. Yes, in the midst of it all there are cases that shouldn't have happened, and very upsetting as they are to those on the wrong end of them, they are just a tiny number amongst the myriad of cases that *should* have happened. I'm afraid I have no sympathy at all for anyone who gets sued for downloading something for nothing when they know it shouldn't be free. It's not alright - it's theft. I appreciate that some lawyers can be very cold-hearted barstewards, and that type of lawyer shouldn't be on the suing end of things, or at least they should be kept in check by people with common sense and a heart, but it doesn't mean that the myriad of thieves of copyrighted works should not be sued - and sued heavily. It's by heavy costs to the thieves that people in general are scared away from doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkady Arkright Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Phil Deakins wrote: The thing is that the illegal free downloading, and anonymous sharing, of copyrighted works was, and probably still is, very widespread, and the people who do it really do know that it's illegal. It didn't used to even be 'illegal', it was a civil matter between two parties. The courts were simply used as an independent arbitrator to decide between them, the police weren't involved in any way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
Flickr
Recommended Posts
Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now