High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs • Hacker News Board

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#131

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #94

TomGullen wrote: post #8

It doesn't particularly concern me that this particular website is being blocked, as it's purpose is pretty obvious. Blocking it is laughably futile but it does send a clear message out. What does concern me though is that this is a foot in the door for the government to block other websites they object to in the future.

"it's purpose is pretty obvious". I don't think that's true. Clearly a lot of copyrighted material is downloaded from the site but there is a also a lot of material linked to legally. For example they now promote independent artists on their homepage who have content available on the pirate bay. Nine Inch Nails have a huge collection of unedited concert footage available. Open source software and Linux distros are av…

That's a bit like saying your historical pirate ship (the kind with sails, cannons and so on) has a cook on board to feed the crew, so it should really be considered as a floating restaurant and the plundering and sinking of other vessels is incidental to that.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#132

Post by paulhauggis » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:18 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #80

paulhauggis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although they are technically a non-profit, the people that run it are probably getting nice salaries off of the hard work of others.

The same can be said for any merchant: selling the work of others without creating anything yourself. If this makes you scream, you should be very angry at supermarkets.

"The same can be said for any merchant: selling the work of others without creating anything yourself. If this makes you scream, you should be very angry at supermarkets."

No. Do you know how a supermarket works? They have deals with various vendors and the vendors willingly put their products in the store. The vendors also get a cut when their product sells.

The pirate bay, on the other hand, makes money by giving free access against the wishes of the original authors. Those authors get absolutely noting out of it and the "non profit" funds a very nice lifestyle.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#133

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

TomGullen wrote: post #96

corin_ wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, I'd argue that creating an open space for people to share downloads (that aren't hosted on this open space) is not illegal. Second, even if by law it is, legality isn't binary. Both murder and stealing a bottle of milk from a shop are illegal, you wouldn't say "either you're for life inprisonment or you're against it, you can't pick and choose" would you? Not only can we pick and chose, our legal systems d…

I don't think linking should be illegal, but en mass linking with the blatant intent for people to exploit linked to resources... perhaps it should be? I don't know. RE: your point that open space for people to link to shouldn't be illegal, is it ok then to create a CP linking website? Would you be OK with this?

>is it ok then to create a CP linking website? //

Strictly speaking I don't think it would be illegal as long as no content on the site itself contravened the law. If you can differentiate it from a search engine that gives the links in SERPs then I'd back it being made illegal though - if you can't then Google/Bing/etc. are illegal if you can make the SERPs return a link to illegal content. Indeed a link site would be useful for the police as they'd have their job done for them to some extent. A site owner with only links would on the balance of probabilities have visited child pornography sites and so, in the UK at least, have broken the law.

This could lead to some verification being required for registering domains. Maybe then only domains verified by a domain registry as traceable to a person would be allowed to be routed. That could be automated.

I'm not saying that's how things should go but it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to think that things could go that way?

What I'd like to see in general is some balance. There needs to be a quid pro quo to tightening copyright restrictions. Giving us fair use privileges in the UK, like being able to make backups, format shifting and such would be a start. A reasonable copyright term, equable to patent terms would be better. If no such effort is made then it's all just business buying laws to suppress the masses AFAICT.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#134

Post by tptacek » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:23 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #124

tptacek wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, message board legal debates; how would we occupy our days without you? I love you most of all, "If I just did X, they couldn't charge me with Y" argument! 18 USC § 2 - PRINCIPALS (a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal. (b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by…

I know it's getting tricky to tell but, in theory at least, 18 USC shouldn't apply to the UK.

You are a Wikipedia paragraph away from knowing how irrelevant that objection is. Finding it (I'm staring at it now) is left as an exercise for the reader.

Another fun quirk of message board legal arguments, besides the propensity for participants to sincerely believe that only computer programmers possess the ability to reason about rule-based systems, is the belief that laws they don't like (or, more likely, that are inconvenient to their arguments) must be some terrible quirk of the fucked up US legal system. Sorry, no!

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#135

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

DanI-S wrote: post #84

At the risk of hyperbole: Lobbying is a catalyst for the destruction of democracy, and should be cut and cauterised from our civilization like the cancer that it is. Anybody running on the platform of diminishing the corporate voice to its legitimate, proportional volume would certainly have my vote. Whether or not piracy is morally excusable, I am certain this form of legislation is not what the British public wants…

>Lobbying is a catalyst for the destruction of democracy //

As anyone is allowed to lobby I don't think this is true. In our representative "democracy" though it doesn't seem that MPs are required to act in a representative way. That, IMO, is what destroys the idea of democracy.

If a company lobbies an MP it shouldn't make any difference. It should be the people of the MP's constituency that the company needs to lobby so that they can alter the opinions of the people that the MP is supposed to be representing.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#136

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:29 PM UTC

I can't stand it.

How can the BBC claim to be impartially reporting copyright infringement when they call it "piracy"?

It's illegal, it's often immoral, it's not shooting people and stealing their stuff though and sufficiently different, in a moral sense, to make such a claim preposterously immoral in itself.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#137

Post by jiggy2011 » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:36 PM UTC

weavejester wrote: post #109

fredley wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either it is or it isn't. If it is, a lot of search engines are in big trouble. Google links to almost every piece of illegal content on the web. You also have to think carefully about what a link is. Is a magnet link - essentially a hash of the content itself - a link? If so is posting the checksum of a piece of software copyright violation?

Unfortunately the law isn't so black and white, and depends a lot upon intent. Thinking about the technicalities isn't so important; what matters to the court is whether the individuals involved intended to commit a crime.

Yes, I think the fact the google links to basically everything would work in their defense.

It would be like prosecuting the people who print the telephone directory for advertising drug dealers because some of their numbers are listed.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#138

Post by DanBC » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:40 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #43

corin_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not with censorship, it's with what they are censoring. Very few people here would take issue with this court order if it was about a site that exclusively hosted child porn. Therefore yes, the context of "is what TBP does illegal?" To extend your (frankly poor) metaphor, he wouldn't be a drug dealer if all he did was hold up a sign pointing you towards your nearest drug dealers and he never actually gav…

Child pornography: illegal Copyright infringement: illegal censoring child porn websites: right, censoring copyright infringement website: wrong. Not sure I understand the difference? Either you're for censorship of websites, or you're against it, you can't pick and choose.

Making, distributing, or possessing images of child sexual abuse is a criminal offence. It's also an absolute offence.

Copyright violation (unless as part of trade) is a civil offence.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#139

Post by cft » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #43

corin_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not with censorship, it's with what they are censoring. Very few people here would take issue with this court order if it was about a site that exclusively hosted child porn. Therefore yes, the context of "is what TBP does illegal?" To extend your (frankly poor) metaphor, he wouldn't be a drug dealer if all he did was hold up a sign pointing you towards your nearest drug dealers and he never actually gav…

Child pornography: illegal Copyright infringement: illegal censoring child porn websites: right, censoring copyright infringement website: wrong. Not sure I understand the difference? Either you're for censorship of websites, or you're against it, you can't pick and choose.

Child pornography has REAL VICTIMS: children that are being exploited and their lives are RUINED FOREVER. There is no such thing for copyrights: did J.S. Bach write music in anticipation of licensing revenues? Is he a victim because he had no licensing revenue at that time? Is that comparable to an exploited 7 year old child?

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#140

Post by J3L2404 » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

Flenser wrote: post #85

baddox wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Child pornography: should be illegal Copyright infringement: should not be illegal

So if companies wanted to infringe the copyright of GPLed code that should be allowed?

And they should be allowed to infringe on your personal data too because it's digital and therefore easily copied. And now we get to the crux of the argument. Just because everyone will eventually die does not mean you should stop seeing a doctor. Even worse message boards saying you shouldn't even be allowed to go to the doctor!