The Pirate Bay Trial Day 3: The ‘King Kong’ Defense

http://torrentfreak.com/g-defense-090218/

by rogercosseboom • 17 years ago

43 53 17 years ago

torrentfreak.com

rms2• 17 years ago

I can't believe they are going to win this. This is going to have interesting long term consequences.

Hexstream• 17 years ago

I believe "winning" is a bit of an understatement here.

bep• 17 years ago

I do believe it. Sometimes is worth remembering that the laws of the USA are different to the rest of the world, and under Swedish law, is very probable they will win.

mikecuesta• 17 years ago

I can't see the link, who's winning??

twopoint718• 17 years ago

It doesn't seem that clear, but it does look better for TPB than I would have expected. Half of the charges against them have already been thrown out, and they are making the argument that, as the administers of the site, they don't post torrents, users do. The prosecution has to point to these specific users (who may have screennames such as "King Kong", hence the title).

vaksel• 17 years ago

http://tinypaste.com/a86a3

here I did a copy paste for you

rogercosseboom• 17 years ago

Further Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_kong_defense

jacoblyles8• 17 years ago

I find the legalism of the defense tedious. Automating the process of being an accessory to a crime should not be a defense for it. "I didn't help people break the law, the automated program that I created did" just doesn't fly with me.

This ought to be a conversation about intellectual property. If you believe in it, there is little justification for the legality of TPB. If you don't, then TPB is fine.

The defense's arguments seem juvenile.

gruseom• 17 years ago

You find legalism tedious in a legal defense? Seems to me that's the one place it's appropriate.

jacoblyles8• 17 years ago

I guess I should be more clear. Their defense is probably the best strategy for defeating the charges in a court of law. But the tone of obvious righteousness that the defendants and the internet community has taken on seems unwarranted given the flimsy nature of their arguments.

Or maybe someone can explain to me why helping people break the law should be legal.

Arguing minutiae might be a good way to win in court. But outside of court, the term "legalistic" has a negative connotation. Legalistic arguments are seldom a good way to convince people that you are right. I don't understand why they seem to convinced so many people with such a legalistic defense.

jscn• 17 years ago

But they're not trying to justify themselves on ideological grounds, they're making a legal defense. A successful legal defense will not necessarily be the same as a mature and reasonable argument that you or I would find convincing.

jacoblyles8• 17 years ago

That's true. Maybe I should have said that I don't find their case convincing.

When the logical weakness of the defense's argument is combined with their showy grandstanding - well it looks like the adults are suing the children in this case. People here seem to be enjoying their antics, but to me it makes them look non-serious.

Edit: The Pirate Bay's fans are pretty annoying and un-serious, too. There is no nuance to their thoughts. Take a look at this comment thread:

http://torrentfreak.com/u2s-new-album-leaks-early-despite-pr...

I wouldn't want to sit down to a cup of coffee with any of those people, that's for sure.

jonny_noog• 17 years ago

Maybe the "legalism of the defense" wouldn't be so effective if the prosecution had some vague idea what they were talking about.

Perhaps any group planning on bringing this kind of case to bear should require that every member of the prosecution team use torrent sites for a number of months before they start the case. Know thy enemy. At least that way, they'd have first hand knowledge of how torrents work and what the technical details actually are, so as not to come off looking like complete idiots when they get half their charges thrown out almost immediately.

But then I guess there's the risk that prosecutors might change sides? :P

njharman2• 17 years ago

By that logic. People who make cars should be charged with same crime as those who use cars to commit a crime, shoes too, near about everything in fact.

"You honor there would be a 10x reduction in robberies if it was not for the defendant's complete disregard for civil order and their criminal insistence on making available dangerous technological gadgets that enable and facilitate criminals escaping with their ill-gotten gains at speeds upwards of 100mph!" <optionally slam hand on desk and stare at jury over top of glasses for effect>

jacoblyles8• 17 years ago

In another thread, I used the example of the getaway man for a bank robber.

You see, the getaway man doesn't actually rob the bank. He doesn't steal anything. He doesn't even know why his friend wanted a ride to the bank. He gives his friend rides all the time, and most of those rides are perfectly legal.

Too bad, he still gets locked up.

mixmax• 17 years ago

One thing is for sure: Thepiratebay is much much better at marketing than the recording industry.

mariorz8• 17 years ago

I would be more inclined to support the guys if I didn't believe they were making boatloads of money with the site.

Herring3• 17 years ago

They're not ripping you off, why do you care? Does poverty make you more virtuous?

mariorz8• 17 years ago

I see no intention or interest at all in maybe piping back some of that money directly to content creators. I'm aware of the logistical problems that would entail, but trying something like that would be truly commendable and even revolutionary (even if insignificant economically).

They seem to present themselves as if they were doing this purely out of love or their beliefs, while serving some of the most atrocious ads on the www.

I see them constantly mocking the media's business interests while they themselves have obviously a big money interest on the matter.

I think that makes them less virtuous.

globalrev2• 17 years ago

Is the pirate bay making money?

mariorz8• 17 years ago

Considering the insane amounts of traffic they get and the kinds of ads they serve, I'd be hard pressed to believe they weren't making a small fortune.

jacquesm2• 17 years ago

this is pure speculation, but since we're down that road anyway: The Pirate Bay has hosting in quite a few places, but many of them are in Europe where you pay a good premium for bandwidth. Yes, they have some good advertising contracts but I'd be very surprised if it didn't eat up just about what it makes.

The reason for this is that I think their user demographics are shifted towards people that do not really want to pay for content ;)

drawkbox• 17 years ago

The 1 download = 1 lost sale is totally flawed. It is probably closer to participation rates online for anything which is less that 1%. Probably closer to 1000 downloads = 1 lost sale or even 10000 downloads = 1 lost sale. Some people have re-downloaded content that they have previously bought on multiple formats.

humanlever• 17 years ago

A judge in the US has agreed: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/01/judge-17000-...

njharman2• 17 years ago

In response to the preview global license and 1 download = 1 lost sale. I'd argue that the buzz created by the torrent release of Lost increased it's viewership/ratings and the owners in fact owe my clients a percentage of show's profits for their marketing efforts. I'd point out that my theory has just as much evidence as their theory on lost sales, Actually since Lost was profitable there is more evidence for preview torrent increasing profits than there is for it costing sales.

And you should not be able to claim lost sales for something you are not currently selling or plan to sell in immediate future.

manish• 17 years ago

The era of IP, pay per download etc is going to fade away, music companies are better off make money by subscription from user to download all the music they want. Something like oreilly safari http://my.safaribooksonline.com. This would atleast for now make users stream or download from official sources.

The Pirate Bay Trial Day 3: The ‘King Kong’ Defense

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