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BitTorrent site guys going to jail

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by The Big Ragu, Apr 17, 2009.

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  1. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8003799.stm

    For those of you who use a BitTorrent client, such as Vuze, to download (i.e. engage in piracy) various things, including movies and music, you are probably familiar with the Pirate Bay, which is a website that is the best torrent tracker. In recent years it has been run by a bunch of Swedes and they have been involved in lawsuits for a while and kept staving off efforts to shut down the site. They were shut down for a few days last year and relaunched defiantly. But they were still being prosecuted criminally in Sweden.

    A Swedish court came down with a verdict, apparently, and four guys are going to jail for a year and were ordered to pay the equivalent of more than $3.5 million in damages for copyright infringement. Interestingly, though, the site (http://thepiratebay.org/) is still operational and because it is run by individuals it looks like it may remain so. I'm trying to figure out how this works. As with most peer-to-peer sharing, their argument has always been that they are just providing an informational site. They aren't actively engaged in giving away copyrighted content and can't control what their users do. I think that is why the site remains operational. But apparently, the argument won't keep them out of prison.

    EDIT: I really should have put this on Sports & News, I think, so I am going to move it.
     
    The Big Ragu, Apr 17, 2009
    #1
  2. Pastor

    Pastor Active Member

    The site will continue to run because the drivers are mirrored on other systems not located in Sweden and not run by these guys.
     
    Pastor, Apr 17, 2009
    #2
  3. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    It makes it interesting that they are still criminally liable.
     
    The Big Ragu, Apr 17, 2009
    #3
  4. Dirk Legume

    Dirk Legume Active Member

    I have never used any of the torrent sites (not over moral issues...I just have never understood how they work, I am not that bright) But it seems that from a legal standpoint, the Pirate Bay guys are the ones who are liable, because even with the mirror sites, they own that one.

    I would think you just keep going through layers until you find the source, and theres the guy you prosecute.
     
    Dirk Legume, Apr 17, 2009
    #4
  5. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    I think the Somalian Pirates should set up sites like this. Since they are a lawless country nobody will prosecute them. And this way they make money, and we get our illegal stuff. Oh yeah, and this way they stop attacking our ships.
     
    mustangj17, Apr 17, 2009
    #5
  6. KG

    KG Active Member

    I understand how it's hard to prosecute, since it's users that feed/seed these sites (I still don't get how that really works), but you'd think they would be able to actually shut the site down if they can send the guys to jail.
     
    KG, Apr 17, 2009
    #6
  7. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member



    <blockquote>Research by Raynor Vliegendhart of the Tribler P2P team at Delft University of Technology has shown that BitTorrent is more vulnerable to a global collapse than anyone has ever predicted. By collecting statistics of a sample of 283,032 torrents with 52,634,797 connected peers, he found that over 50% of all torrents were tracked by The Pirate Bay. . . .

    Raynor told TorrentFreak that if The Pirate Bay goes down, many of the other trackers might collapse as well. “If The Pirate Bay goes down the load will automatically shift to others. This is because most of the Pirate Bay swarms also include other trackers. When Pirate Bay goes down it would overload others until they fall also. Meaning even more stress and further casualties. This is likely to end in a BitTorrent meltdown.”</blockquote>http://torrentfreak.com/p2p-researchers-fear-bittorrent-meltdown-090212/
     
    2muchcoffeeman, Apr 17, 2009
    #7
  8. KG

    KG Active Member

    By reading that last one, I assume they have servers that can only take so much?
     
    KG, Apr 17, 2009
    #8
  9. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    Bingo.
     
    2muchcoffeeman, Apr 17, 2009
    #9
  10. Pastor

    Pastor Active Member

    They are criminally liable for that which they provide on the servers they run.
     
    Pastor, Apr 17, 2009
    #10
  11. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member



    I am not legally up to snuff on this, but the genius of a torrent is that there actually isn't any copyrighted material sitting on these guys' servers, right? Just trackers. And then you use your own client to initiate the download.

    Again, I don't know how any current law really addressed something like that, and I don't know what is what in the Swedish legal system, but at the least I can see making a compelling legal argument that they personally have never violated anyone's copyright.
     
    The Big Ragu, Apr 17, 2009
    #11
  12. Pastor

    Pastor Active Member


    I'm not disagreeing. However, it is my understanding when I first heard about the case a while back that their servers did, in fact, have a ton of stuff on it.
     
    Pastor, Apr 17, 2009
    #12
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