The Pirate Bay Found Guilty → Re

Clearly the court had sufficient evidence to find the group guilty. The people involved with the Pirate Bay may not feel that it is their responsibility to police what their service is used to transmit and receive, but the law states otherwise. The material may not touch their servers, but they are in fact assisting users in attaining this material. They are also generating revenue through advertisements. Perhaps they should alter their thinking.

Given that logic so Google, Microsoft, HP, Dell, Dlink, Cisco, and the Power Company all helped in assisting in copyright infringement.

Your logic is flawed. Google is a search engine. Microsoft manufactures windows. HP and Dell manufacture computers. D-link and Cisco make networking hardware. The power company makes electricity.

The pirate bay allows you to search for torrents, and it also updates trackers. This alone is not the problem, but they should remove information, from their systems, that is violates copyright law. The idea that these sites are only intermediaries is archaic. The law has changed with the passing of time and either these entities will evolve with the changing laws, or they will fail.

What law is that??

And pirate bay is a search engine also.

All those companies mentioned are evolved and assisted with copyright infringement. For now the law stopped with pirate bay site but could easily be broadened. Yea not likely but with the **aa you never know. They at least may introduce a piracy tax when units are sold computers routers ect.

Yes pirate bay was setup for this specific purpose so they get what they deserve.

And what, exactly, should have been removed?

The title? Not protected under copyright. The HashID? Again, not copyrighted nor copyrightable. The description, not protected under copyright.

They didn't host the actual file. Just like Google, you search "Gone with the Wind" and it contains pointers and other information about the item searched -- but not the item searched itself.

This is a bad decision.

You are forgetting a simple fact, those other businesses (HP, Microsoft) all make lots of money. The priate bay does not (at least I am sure not as much as Microsoft pulls in a a net profit). And if you target the large corporations then you will shake the US economy yet again - this is why corporations can get away with screwing customers but not individuals or small businesses.

And S&W aid in gun crimes, Ford in high speed chases and Capt'n Morgan in drunk driving.

This twisted logic of yours is how we will end up with lame laws like McDonald's being liable for making people fat.

And if that can be proved, then they too should be charged. But it is only Google & MS and their search engines that would be at risk. And only if they refuse to remove offending links when requested by copyright owners. TPB refused to remove copyrighted links when they were requested.

google could never be made to remove links. however they could just say it is up to site owners to use robots.txt.

that said after things like the latest Xmen leak, maybe Hollywood should think about making their ship tighter as well. because all the prelaunch pirate copies come from somewhere and its not someone buying or lifting it from walmart.

quote:

---

TPB refused to remove copyrighted links when they were requested.

---

TPB is under no legal obligation to do so. If you recall, they seized TPB's servers and had to return them.

That would be easy to prove.

Lets say I have copyright material that I am allowing to be download. My HP (computer), Microsoft (Windows) Dlink (Router), RoadRunner (ISP) and local power company all assisted in the crime. Should they be charged?

Take out any one of them and my ability to commit this crime is gone.

You could even expand it further to backbone providers core internet equipment makers ect.

This is a good point, of sorts... They all facilitate the same thing that's always been done in a 'community' - sharing.

50 years ago, one kid bought the vinyl album, and all the friends got to listen to it, and a few copied it too.

The only thing different now is the 'community' is larger.

Proved? Youtube gets takedown requests daily. Proved? Go look at virtually ANY usenet service. All of these companies are blatantly engaging in copyright infringement by actually HOSTING the work, not just pointing to where it can be found.

Meanwhile the MPAA steals Linklines blog software, strips all information about the author violating the license agreement and uses it. Perhaps the MPAA shouldn't be complaining about copyright infringement when the MPAA themselves engage in it.

That isn't clear at all. Quite the contrary, it is your supposition. We can hope that judges and juries make their decisions based upon "sufficient evidence," but the simple fact that the court found these defendants guilty is not prima facie proof that it did so based on "sufficient evidence."

actually it is....