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

#171

Post by tptacek » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:01 PM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #165

tptacek wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticize me as much as you want! I don't take it personally. If you end up being right, I'll benefit from it --- no matter how you choose to phrase it. I'm sorry you feel I'm being snide. I don't intend to be. Regardless, each successive HN "legality" discussion drives me further towards some conclusions (here I'll use 'nerd' as a shorthand for "people such as myself who come from a tech background and like to argue…

Thank you for putting into words exactly what frustrates me about the legal system! You've exactly captured how I find myself reasoning about the law, and now that it's so explicit, I see that that's clearly wrong. This is similar to an epiphany I had when reading a blog post explaining intellectual property through an analogy of the "color" of a portion of code. How intention and legal action shape the color, wherea…

Google: [law color bit copyright]. First hit. :)

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

#172

Post by hythloday » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

drucken wrote: post #82

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading this as the UK doesn't have a system of judicial review, i.e. the courts being able to strike down legislation as being non-compliant with some prior and of presumably higher authority law. Is this correct?

Correct. "Unlike the United States and some other jurisdictions, the English doctrine of parliamentary supremacy means that the law does not know judicial review of primary legislation (laws passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom), except in a few cases where primary legislation is contrary to the law of the European Union." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_review_in_English_law

But not the whole story - the UK has jury nullification[0], last tested in the aftermath of the Falklands War. The "few" cases include laws in contravention of the Human Rights Act, which has been used to get judicial review (not necessarily successfully) of issues such as "do prisoners have a right to hardcore pornography", "does a university fee of more than £3000/year act as a barrier to education", and "what is the legal right to privacy"--i.e. a fairly large surface area.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification#England

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

#173

Post by dkersten » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:06 PM UTC

andr3w321 wrote: post #107

I hate the whole ethical argument when it comes to copyright infringement. The fact is an unenforceable law is pointless and should not be law. I don't know what the solution is -- and I wish people would spend more time debating and talking about a workable solution rather than complaining, but blocking sites that link or illegally host copyrighted content will not solve a thing. Remember when illegal music download…

The workable solution is for content producers to take a long hard look at their business models to see if maybe they can profit without criminalizing a large percentage of the population.

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

#174

Post by base698 » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:11 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #155

Flimm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kickstarter model works fantastically well for creative people that already have a following/track record. For someone trying to connect with an audience the first time, not so much. The restrictive copyright model works fantastically well for creative people that already have a following/track record. For someone trying to connect with an audience the first time, not so much. Even the few musicians who hit it bi…

Not necessarily true. The label era was dominated by intermediaries (managers, A&R specialists), but those intermediaries were constantly in search of new bands to promote. Many musicians (authors, filmmakers, your_medium_here) don't necessarily have the skills or desire to become experts in publishing and distribution, and the breakdown of existing models also means the breakdown of cross-subsidization for less comm…

"don't necessarily have the skills or desire to become experts in publishing and distribution,"

They don't have to be experts, they just have to be good enough. If the decision is 100% of profits goto a label or 30% go to Apple if I just learn how to use iTunes, I think they'll choose iTunes...

Publishing means to make public and that isn't anything special any more, it's been commoditized.

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

#175

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

glogla wrote: post #98

rmc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pirate Bay is just a collection of merely 90MB of magnet links which can be downloaded anywhere on the Internet in the blink of an eye. Someone made a torrent of the torrents on the Pirate Bay (at one point). Here's the magnet link: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:938802790a385c49307f34cca4c30f80b03df59c&dn=The+whole+Pirate+Bay+magnet+archive&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%…

That's interesting. Is there way to get actual version of this?

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by gcb » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:28 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #118

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…

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…

1. the site is not hosted in the US. (or UK)

2. The decision is for ISP. So no argument regarding the piratebay is valid at all.

3. The ISPs are not fitting into any of those rules.

4. If ISPs must block access to the pirate bay, then it must block access to every connection that would infrige a law if the territorial barrier were removed. In this case, a US/UK person accessing something that is illegal in the US/UK but not illegal where the pirate bay is being hosted.

consequences of number 4 would include:

AT&T DSL will have to block access from California residents to http://dmv.ny.gov/, as that site promote speed limits and GPS placement on the windshield that are illegal in california.

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

#177

Post by Ralith » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:30 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #156

zanny wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every argument against copyright infringement assumes there is some evil destitute world on the other side of having it in place. We have never in the modern age in any modern first world country ever had an extended time WITHOUT copyright to see what would happen. Everyone just assumes every artist, developer, and investor would disappear overnight and everyone would turn to stone as content is freely distributed. O…

The problem with kickstarter style (under those conditions) is that if you wait long enough you will get it all for free anyway. Unless you have large amounts of money to donate it would be very difficult to get the snowball moving. For example if you saw something with a $100,000,000 target and $0 in donations, if all you could afford was $20 would you bother to put that in? Also people are often quite bad at knowin…

> For example if you saw something with a $100,000,000 target and $0 in donations, if all you could afford was $20 would you bother to put that in?

Given that, inherent to the way kickstarter works, it wouldn't actually cost you money unless the target was met, of course I would.

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

#178

Post by Flimm » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:34 PM UTC

Tycho wrote: post #146

vibrunazo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everything has to be 'for the greater good' or for the 'long term benefit of the new age economy' or whatever in order for people to support it. Are you saying people who defend copyright. Conciously are only being fair to a small subset of the population. But unfair to the majority. And a net loss to humanity. And still they defend copyright? I don't think so. It seems to me, those who defend copyright have th…

A lot of the people (me included) defend copyright because it's a net benefit to the individual, and a fair benefit too (not unfair to anyone). Whether it's a net benefit to humanity, however you measure that, is neither here nor there. It probably is, but those are not the grounds we're arguing on. It's sort of like defending privacy. You don't defend it cause of some net benefit to humanity. Who knows, maybe the wo…

I'm concerned about individual rights too. In fact, it's my concern for individual rights that leads me to reject overly restrictive copyright, (among other things). I find these rights to be valuable: freedom of speech, freedom of creativity, and property rights. (To be clear, by property, I do not include imaginary property like copyright.)

Why shouldn't I be able to make back-up copies of the DVDs that are bought with good money? Why should the descendants of Tolkien be able to censor any works of art that includes hobbits? Why should Time Warner be able to censor me from singing happy birthday in public? Why should Google be blocked from bringing out-of-print books to the public? Once a work is published, I don't see why an author should be able to control what's no longer theirs, any more that I would expect a plumber to dictate what I'm allowed to do with the plumbing in my house. Both plumbers and artists labour, and they deserve rewards for their labour, but they do not deserve the right to control my use of what I have purchased from them.

For me, the right of sharing culture is a given, and the right to restrict other people from sharing culture is at best a necessary evil.

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

#179

Post by Locke1689 » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:39 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #169

wallawe wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they are more capable. But are you saying that these opinions aren't worth listening to as well? "Without understanding your opponent's argument, you can't fully understand your own." If nothing else this can be an educational experience thanks to you and tptacek.

Sometimes nerd opinions about the law are worth paying attention to. Sometimes they aren't. Part of what put me on my recent CISPA jihad is that CISPA is a case where I think nerds actually had a chance of collecting the context required for informed debate; unfortunately, the CISPA debate got hijacked by militant activism. But there are cases where nerds clearly have little to offer. Look at the old Reiser threads i…

It seems to me that the most appropriate role for domain experts (including computer science) is anticipating results in that domain. For example, my primary objection to SOPA was not the original justification for the law, but merely the likelihood of unintended consequences and broadening of the law beyond reasonableness. The ramifications of a law on a technical domain (like DNS, say) seem more appropriate for expert commentators.

Would you agree?

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

#180

Post by tptacek » Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 8:44 PM UTC

gcb wrote: post #176

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…

1. the site is not hosted in the US. (or UK) 2. The decision is for ISP. So no argument regarding the piratebay is valid at all. 3. The ISPs are not fitting into any of those rules. 4. If ISPs must block access to the pirate bay, then it must block access to every connection that would infrige a law if the territorial barrier were removed. In this case, a US/UK person accessing something that is illegal in the US/UK…

I wasn't directly addressing this particular judgement; a judge already addressed it. Exactly what makes you sure that (4) is how the law is going to work in this case, though?