A Swedish appeals court on Friday upheld the copyright convictions of three men behind The Pirate Bay, a popular file-sharing site that remains in operation despite attempts by authorities to shut it down.

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Convictions upheld in Pirate Bay file-sharing case - Yahoo! News

I realize AMHD has a strict policy on torrent matters but my question is this?

Do you agree that they should be convicted or not? The site doesn't actually host any copyright-protected material itself. Instead, it provides a forum for its users to download content (purchased or burned) through so-called torrent files.

I confess my ignorance of much of the issues related to net downloading . My instinct is to side on the protection of intellectual property.
I don't see how artists can make a living if their work is given away . I mean just the name of the site'Pirate Bay' gives away the nature of their business. I am correct in assuming that they are running their site for profit by giving other people's work away for free ?

I am unsure about the profit part but I am positive they're bringing in some sort of revenue from this site.

Here's my concern though. Pirateabay.org is just one of many sites similar in nature. Isohunt.com, mininova.org, btjunkie.org, etc... the list goes on.

P2P Clients are no different. They have clamped down on Limewire (no longer downloadable) but there are many in it's place. Frostwire for example is EXACTLY like limewire.

What's there plan to stop it all?

Is Itunes really different? I can buy a song off ITunes and burn it too DVD and distribute that way, granted it's not P2P like Frostwire and Limewire but I guess the moral of my story is no matter what is done, there will always be a way around this. One site goes down, 2 more pop up eager to take its place.

I for one will admit to piracy (on a small scale). For those who have downloaded hundreds of movies and thousands of songs, what happens to them? (nothing for the most part)

Lol maybe they are like that other altruistic site from Sweden that publishes information that doesn't belong to them.

What site would that be? (I edited my post too)

Is cost an issue here? I mean if someone is looking for a Windows 7 OS to install, they can find it via P2P clients or torrent sites and avoid paying hundreds of dollars for it. Is pricing a factor? Is the lack of punishment a factor?

Who's to blame, what's to blame?

All I know is that with the increase of technological capabilities this issue will never be avoided. Someone will create a program to distribute media in place of another program that gets shut-down!

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Is Itunes really different? I can buy a song off ITunes and burn it too DVD and distribute that way, granted it's not P2P like Frostwire and Limewire but I guess the moral of my story is no matter what is done, there will always be a way around this. One site goes down, 2 more pop up eager to take its place.

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Again I confess ignorance to a lot of this... But I recall from the days when I was making copies of cassettes that an arrangement was made with some organizations representing the artists for royalties automatically collected per blank cassett sale. As I understand it Itunes has a similar deal ,and for all I know ,the blank CD suppliers might just do that too.

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Originally Posted by ITstudent2006

What site would that be? (I edited my post too)

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That would be Wikileaks .

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Is cost an issue here? I mean if someone is looking for a Windows 7 OS to install, they can find it via P2P clients or torrent sites and avoid paying hundreds of dollars for it. Is pricing a factor? Is the lack of punishment a factor?

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I keep hearing these ads on the radio asking employees to rat out their bosses who install programing they don't pay for. The reason they are right to do so is because in reality there isn't much difference between this activity and shop lifting .

Hello IT:

If you wrote a book, and the only way you could make money on it is to sell copies, you'd be pretty pissed about people making copies and putting them on the internet for everyone to copy. It IS your property, after all.

excon

Excon: I'm not saying that P2P & Torrent clients hsould be allowed, I don't know why the explanation of piracy was directed toward me I just figured it'd be a good topic to talk about beings I am in computers and it seems to be a matter everyone is aware of.

Tomder5: Maybe CD manufacturer's and suppliers do but if they don't they should because everyone knows their music is being burned somewhere and it is there property and they should be getting a piece of the pie. But then again, if these "royalties" were paid evenly among all artist's, directors, actors etc... what happens to those who are more successful then others? A small-timer gets just a big a piece as the big-timers!

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But then again, if these "royalties" were paid evenly among all artist's, directors, actors etc... what happens to those who are more successful then others? A small-timer gets just a big a piece as the big-timers!

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Excellent question . I think the artists have also been screwed by their industry since the time recording began ane ,except the few stars in the game ,have gotten the short end of the stick. I don't see how that improves however by pirating their work.
I think most of the major artists get their investment back in the concert touring scene where they lead the crowd in 2 hr. karaoke performances .

I agree. The big-timers aren't deprived of money because of pirating by no means. It's the small-timers I feel sorry for who are looking to make a name for themselves and depend on their products revenue to kickstart their careers.

Here's another question. I just bought the new One Republic CD. Should I be able to to it on my computer and share it among my networked PC's? Essentially it's like Limewire.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

I confess my ignorance of much of the issues related to net downloading . My instinct is to side on the protection of intellectual property.
I don't see how artists can make a living if their work is given away . I mean just the name of the site'Pirate Bay' gives away the nature of their business. I am correct in assuming that they are running their site for profit by giving other people's work away for free ?

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That site works in the same way as AMHD works. Users have the option of clicking ad links and that's where the money is generated from. Not the selling of property. Its like an electronic version of yellowpages. But in this case it directs the user to links where things can be found.

I don't believe they should have been prosecuted for what they were doing as they had no control over content. It would be different if they had control. All they did was link it and others did the rest.

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Originally Posted by ITstudent2006

I agree. The big-timers aren't deprived of money because of pirating by no means. It's the small-timers I feel sorry for who are looking to make a name for themselves and depend on their products revenue to kickstart their careers.

Here's another question. I just bought the new One Republic CD. Should I be able to to it on my computer and share it among my networked PC's? Essentially it's like Limewire.

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By U.S. law your allowed to make copies for personal use. You can even back up a copy. What your not allowed to do is give one of those copies to a friend without destroying the originals.

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I don't believe they should have been prosecuted for what they were doing as they had no control over content. It would be different if they had control. All they did was link it and others did the rest.

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Not sure what was happening here . Are you saying they were directing others to sites that ripped off content and therefore they weren't doing anything wrong by directing people to pirate sites ?

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Not sure what was happening here . Are you saying they were directing others to sites that ripped off content and therefore they weren't doing anything wrong by directing people to pirate sites ?

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They were directing people to other places. I don't know exactly what they were but from the way it read they just had link content and not actual software of any kind that they were passing on.

Like doing a search on Google or Yahoo. It creates a link page. Its my understanding that is what they were doing.

Sounds at best a gray area if they were directing people to sites for the purpose of downloading content unlawfully.

It is nothing like Google. They say they just provided the medium for this material to be downloaded. They didn't direct to any other site, when downloading a torrent of piratebay I believe you stayed right on piratebay. I would assume others worked this way too, if not then I couldn't see a reason of conviction for them, but they did something wrong to be in the position they are in.

At best shouldn't they be charged with aiding these "criminals"? Accomplice of sorts?

It's no different then me owning a garage that I know is filled with stolen cars stolen by others. I'd get in trouble!

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Originally Posted by ITstudent2006

It is nothing like google. They say they just provided the medium for this material to be downloaded. They didn't direct to any other site, when downloading a torrent of piratebay I believe you stayed right on piratebay. I would assume others worked this way too, if not then I couldn't see a reason of conviction for them, but they did something wrong to be in the position they are in.

At best shouldn't they be charged with aiding these "criminals"? Accomplice of sorts?

It's no different then me owning a garage that I know is filled with stolen cars stolen by others. I'd get in trouble!

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Here is the difference. If no one else is charged with a crime then how can you be an accessory to it? This looks like a case more to do with deep pockets then anything else. Also during those last few sumits there have been new international piracy laws that have been put in place. And things are getting more formal. Like in the U.S. the government wants the right to read everything electronically and eliminate privacy altogether at the ISP level. Its getting really weird. The internet was never intended to be the way it is and everyone now wants control over it.