* They do not hold any copyrighted material on their servers. They only hold .torrent files (not under copyright) and run an open tracker (which simply notes which IP addresses want a particular data hash).

* Any .torrent files they do hold are uploaded by third parties.

* They do not participate in the sharing of copyrighted material. (Even if they did, this should be tried as separate cases against each individual.)

If they should be found guilty of anything, it should be indirect copyright infringement. However, I think even that decision would be questionable, as they have no easy way of telling if a .torrent file points to copyrighted material, or if the material has been released by the copyright holder.

Something tells me that the judge has caved in to political pressure and not made a verdict purely on the weight of the evidence.

They could have done so, but chose not to. Had they tried to filter out the works of copyrighted material and worked with the copyright holders to protect their works, they would not have lost on trial. They could have successfully argued that they were doing their best to limit their liability and could cite their cooperation with copyright holders. Instead they showed the middle finger.

To relate this to cellphones, if a company created cellphones that specifically assisted criminals in furthering their criminal activity and marketed it that way, they would be shut down by law enforcement and the court systems. Imagine a cellphone that cloned other calls and made international calls using other peoples’ accounts. That would be wrong, and the company that marketed this phone would be targeted by the legitimate account holders for phonejacking. You can’t blame the cell carriers like AT&T or Verizon for the illegal operations of a rogue cellphone company. You blame the company who designed an application that allowed criminals to use cellphones to clone other phones.

Its not the technology- its the application.

Now I have tremendous respect from PatB. the guy is an IT security guru and never talks through his hat. he has a strong point of view that is often contrary to what most people think. I thought leaving it here would stimulate conversation. I do not think we’ll be losing readers with this. We’ve occasionally posted controversial material in the past, and people haven’t stopped reading us.

Just thought I would lighten the topic up a bit.

xD

And I AM actually suprised at the verdict. Just look at the argument in these comments. Even if the TPB was to be found guilty in the end, the trail seemed fairly hastened to me. Nine days? Maybe the Swedish courts make more efficient use of their time than the ones here in the US.

I also don’t think the attitude of defiance is limited to the creators of TPB. There are plenty of torrent sites, and this has essentially been a “middle finger” to the people that have chosen not to be raped by Hollywood. I am almost positive this will only increase the amount of torrenting and lead to even more secure servers and locations of servers, only creating more illegal material cycling around.

This concept shouldn’t be to impossible for right wing nutjobs to come to grips with. How are the ones prosecuting TPB not “asking for it”?

Also Gwenny and Matthew, I don’t think were given a fair rebuttal from PatB, just some talking in circles really.

Yes, the The Pirate Bay has allowed internet users to “steal” SOME material, but the isps and the internet as a whole has allowed ALL of the copyrighted material to be “stolen”.

Also, without computers there would be no cybercrime, or trafficking of any materials. The manufactures of computers and OSes are directly responsible for ALL internet crime, maybe not legally, or maybe so, I don’t pretend to know the law like some others do, but logically and ethically, yes, they are.

And I have nothing against the writer of this article, but I am shocked this appeared on GAS. I would not be suprised at the percentage of users actively use torrents, or at the amount of potential traffic a “geek” site could lose with a post like this.

My two cents. Steppin’ of my soapbox now.

Google can also be used to find illegally downloaded material. But google goes out of its way to make sure this type of material is not easily found and even eliminates it from its search results. Google limits their liability and works with content owners to come up with ways to protect copyright.

Pirate Bay gave everyone a big middle finger. You shouldn’t be shocked at the verdict.