Actually, no, that's not how law works. That's why we have a gigantic legal system, with courts, lawyers, judges, appeals, etc. Law is never simple, saying "if something is illegal then it is illegal" seems completely out of touch with not only the way that law works, but out of touch with the entire concept of justice.
Killing a person - is that illegal or not legal? Depends. Were they an enemy combatant? Was it an accident? Was it in self defense? Were they commiting a crime? Did they give consent to be killed? Law is complicated and ever-changing.
Yes that is how law works. You may try your best to twist what i say, but that does not make me any less right. Saying that if something is illegal then it is illegal is perfectly viable. To use your example of killing. Nowhere in the law does it say that killing is neccecerily illegal. In many cases killing is legal, self defence/self defence on other people's behalf, war, accident that lies beyond personal responsibility etc. What is illegal hovewer is MURDER. The law sets up a definition of what is illegal and then follows with a long line of exceptions, like the examples above. Law is actually pretty simple once you understand how it works, its humans that is complex. One jury may find that in one case the proof is enough, another may find it sorely lacking. And a good lawyer can get you off because he's a good talker compard to having a bad one which will send you to jail. That is however not the essence of law. We strive to follow the same rules and apply the same principles to have a system thats fair and right for everyone, but we never make it because we are all so different. To make it perfectly clear for you, "Murder is murder" is correct because if it falls outside of the legal definitions of murder it is no longer murder. The same would go for piracy etc etc thus making my point perfectly viable.
And if offering a service that lets people of their own free wil share material, be it legal or illegal without supervision is illegal then many others need to go. Heck you can without supervision send files to others via the inbuilt program on msn messenger, Sure it goes slower, which means smaller files, but remember: a 40 kb book file of copyrighted material is just as illegal as a 15 gb pc game. The law cannot separate them. Im sure you see the circle here, one cannot attack google, msn and the rest for this, thus the ruling cannot stand as it cannot contine and it needs to do just that. Perfect example of stupid people in action.
The law can and does draw lines like this all the time. See murder above. We don't say "Well, if it's illegal for Bob to kill his wife, then it should be illegal for the police to kill the insane guy shooting down innocent people in the mall" or "Well, if beating someone with your fists is illegal, it has to be illegal to touch anyone at all". Consequences, intent, and harm done are all important factors in any court case, and that's exactly as it should be. Do you honestly want to live in a place with rigid, unchangable laws enforced by robots?
And you keep going with the same silly example. Ive never said that. What ive said however is that once we have defined what is illegal it has to be applied to everyone. As i see it when they define people that run a service that lets people share things unsupervised with eachother as illegal then it has to be applied to others that do just the same. That is not the same as your example above in which case they would not be dooing the same things at all.
and as for the attitude: well its not illegal is it?
In some cases yes, because attitude can determine intent. There would be a difference in a court case where a person legitimately seemed truthful in saying that he hit someone by accident with his car, and someone who laughs maniacally through the whole trial talking about how much they love to murder innocent people, even if the physical evidence was mostly the same. In the Pirate Bay case, their attitude clearly showed their intent, that they were purposely trying to cause harm to the copmanies they were stealing (or not stealing) from, and that they had every intention of trying to keep doing what they're doing, and that they were actively trying to destroy the livelihoods of anyone who produced things legally under copyright law.
No, in no way is attitude illegal. That you can even say such a thing shows me you have absolutly no knowledge of law beyond what you can read on the internet or watch on a show. And then i cant really understand why you are trying to debate law with me, you may be an intelligent man but that does not make you qualified to debate the finer nuisances of law. No law and no judge has ever instructed a jury to try to interpret the facial and bodily expressions of a person sitting in a court of law to determine his intent. Simply because they are not qualified for that, and misreading human behaviour is all to easy. However the jury or the judge are human and so they are influenced by what they see, whether its on a rational level or sub-counscious. But that does not make attitude illegal. But offcource, i cannot speak for US law as ive never practiced it nor have i been to the US. How US law is applied is also of no matter here as it is swedish law that is beeing used. I dont argue against your right to state your oppinion, but maybe it would be wiser for you to state what you think is right based on how you think it should be compared to how it actually is, which you obviosuly have little real knowledge of.
with the guy who had put it there and the ones seeding/downloading it.
It's funny, because everytime they DO arrest a seeder, all the pro-piracy kids complain that they're just making an example of someone who is totally innocent and that the real people who should have been arrested were the ones who downloaded it, since they committed the actual crime. And anytime they DO arrest a downloader, all the pro-piracy kids complain because they're just making an example, and they should have arrested the uploader since they were the one committing the crime.
Sure they complain whenever something happens to them, just like the other side do it when its the other way around. I dont see what your trying to say here beyond pointing out obvious human nature.
but annoying someone is not illegal.
They didn't bring them to trial for being annoying.
What do you know of the reason they had for bringing them to trial? Do you know anything at all abouth what went on in the trial beyond what you can read in the tabloid? Seeing the sad lack of real evidence against them and the way the case was beeing run it seems like it lies real merit in saying that the case should never have been run at all, and that it may be something in the argument abouth us goverment pressuring swedish goverment in this issue. Now you can go on abouth the fact that they were found guilty and of how that shows that there was something in the case against them. Which is offcource wrong as we have to wait to see what is decided in a higher court. As i said before this court in sweden can be pretty strange at times, making decisions that gets easily overturned higher up. It is not like in the US i belive in which the appeal system is very different.
Also the piratebay has not made much cash at all. There was some rediculous amounts beeing circulated both in court and in the media, with amounts beeing made beeing around 4-5 million dollars, when in reality it all amounted to around 220,000 dollar for all the years they have been running it. And running such a place takes a substantial amount of time aswell as expensive stuff so its not like theyve really made any cash at all.
Let's be honest: you have no idea how much money they made. The police and the Pirate Bay owners both make two different claims. You believe the Pirate Bay owners, and some people believe the police. Unless anyone has actual evidence beside he said / she said, then let's not pretend that we know how much money they made. The only thing I can say is that it's somewhat absurd to blindly believe someone when they say the police are liars and they don't have any money, when their entire business is about breaking the law and stealing income from other corporations.
Yes, lets be honest. I personally know nothing beyond what was said and verified in the court. But i do know that there was beeing said that the piratebay had made millions of dollars in profit and i know that the procecutor could prove that they actually made 220,000 dollar. AND THAT THERE WAS NOT THE SLIGHTEST EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THE FACT THAT THEY HAD MADE MORE. Now you can offcource go and say that does not prove they did not make more. But the fact is that the procecutor worked real hard to dig up their financial record and all he could ever find was the 220 thousand dollar or close to that amount. So you saying that this is just a matter of two oppinions is silly. If there is not the slightest evidence they have made more than that would you not say it would be stupid to pretend they made more? On what basis then, your own need to look upon them as vile profiteers of other people's work? Their entire business is not abouth breaking the law and stealing income from other people. They run a place where people can share whatever they want, which they can also do so many other places. Are you at all thinking before you speak? You need to take a breath now before you make a complete fool of yourself.
But times change and they need to follow or they will be left behind.
Follow how? By giving everything away for free to ungrateful, selfish teenagers? Do you think that's a sustainable model for any actual industry?
The internet for one, something which changes the way media is acceccible to people. Its not abouth giving everything away for free. The fact is that the companies are still making good money (not counting the economic crisis we are currently in, though from entirely different reasons) and that many view what is happening as good and free advertising for their products. Example someone finds music he likes on the internet he may go and buy their album or go to a concert with the artist. I am not saying that some companies are not loosing profit over this, because they most likely do. But they are not dying. It amuses me to no end when artists like Madonna or Metallice go out on the barricades and cry over that they are loosing money to piracy. Oh so the 300,000,000 dollars you have is not enough? Well poor you. Here have a biscuit. Sarcasm aside. In most cases the ones who are loosing money here are those who allready have plenty, and the masses which often cannot afford everything gets a little more entertaiment.
My personal oppinion is that making a profit of other peoples work as in selling copied games/movies/music should be illegal. Also actually stealing a phycical copy of say a game and then putting it out on the internet is just that:stealing and the perpetrator should be punished. I also feel that running a torrent site and taking money for membership beyond what is neccesary to run the site without profit should be illegal. But i feel that it is uneccesary and somewhat foolish to go after the ones downloading it after its been put there. So in my humble oppinion the laws should change to something more appropriate for our time. Appropriate from where im standing offcource not neccesarily others.
EDIT: the ruling was made on an existing somewhat new law. As prior to that law it would not be possibly to convict them for such a crime. There was much debate as to what actual information was stored on piratebays servers as the judge wanted to ascertain that without the hash stored on pb's servers the transfers would not be possibly. Without using someone else's torrent or some other mean offcource. But no beyond that the court was not very interested in the technology. For the benefit of the people who asked. (hope i remembered it correctly)
