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UK Court Dismisses Yet Another Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against Torrent Tracker Admins

from the and-yet-they'll-do-it-again dept

Fri, Feb 25th 2011 5:30pm — Mike Masnick

Just about a year ago, a court in the UK found OiNK's operator, Alan Ellis, not guilty of criminal charges for running the community. Even though plenty of people had pointed out from the very beginning that it was crazy to charge Ellis with criminal charges for actions by people in the community, prosecutors still went through with it. What was even more amazing is that they continued to try to do the same thing to others as well. In the summer of 2009, we wrote about how UK police arrested the operator of the FileSoup community based entirely on claims by the entertainment industry, which showed a near total lack of understanding of the basic technology at play. It turns out that law enforcement pushed forward with the case, despite the fact that they did no investigating on their own and simply accepted the industry's claims as fact, despite numerous errors. Thankfully, the courts recognized all of this and noted that these criminal charges probably never should have been brought and dropped the case against two of the admins of the site. At what point do law enforcement folks realize that the entertainment industry is a biased party and that you can't just accept everything they say as fact?

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Filed Under: filesoup, oink, torrents, uk
Companies: filesoup

17 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:02pm

And the result will just be the industry pouring more money into judicial campaigns so they can make sure the law just rubber stamps everything they want. The law doesn't matter when the people with the money just buy what they want the result to be.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:08pm

What I find interesting is that criminal charges almost never stick, because the bar is higher and under the law and common sense there is no crime being committed.

Why?

Because mostly, copyright is a jumble of laws that are confusing, vague and I would say inappropriate, people didn't care before because who really take seriously any actor or director?

Unless of course you are talking U.S. which elected a number of celebrities because they were...well celebreties.
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Jose_X, 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:45pm

Were the defendants compensated for their trouble?
Why don't those who are found innocent get automatic compensation with a base of $X/day for the length of the trial plus fair compensation for lost income and necessary expenses?

Also, we need to have different standards for corporate-people vs human-people. The corporate person needs to meet a much higher standard day in and out on all matters.
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charliebrown (profile), 25 Feb 2011 @ 7:54pm

Face The FACT
At what point do law enforcement folks realize that the entertainment industry is a biased party and that you can't just accept everything they say as fact?

Probably around the same time that these industries stop calling themselves FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft)
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Richard (profile), 26 Feb 2011 @ 3:41am

Re: Face The FACT
robably around the same time that these industries stop calling themselves FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft)
and start calling themselves
FICTION
Federation of Idiots Continually Trying to Introduce Obnoxious New (laws)
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Steve Lanning (profile), 26 Feb 2011 @ 6:04am

Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against filesharing site Admins
I am the owner of filesoup.com and one of the accused who have had to endure this complete and utter fiasco.

From the moment the police threatened to break down my front door, barged into my home and then arrested me 18 months ago, they have continuingly and consistently ignored the procedures set out in PACE, both the police and FACT have harrassed and fobbed me off with excuses or simply ignored every inquiry I've made about this case throughout.

They have not even bothered to investigate my official IPCC complaints about the police actions and inactions and basically just put me through as much crap as they could, it has without question, been totally vexatious to the extreme.

The British "fair" judicial system ...bah!
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Feb 2011 @ 7:04am

Re: Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against filesharing site Admins
So you are saying that your site doesn't trade copyright files?
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The eejit (profile), 26 Feb 2011 @ 7:42am

Re: Re: Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against filesharing site Admins
No, it's that they failed to follow the law. Y'know, that thing that separates us from animals? And you wonder why no-one likes you.
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Planespotter (profile), 26 Feb 2011 @ 8:35am

Re: Re: Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against filesharing site Admins
No it doesn't trade copyright files at all, it may host files like torrent and nzbs, both of which in themselves are complete LEGAL.

@ Steve, Congrats mate been a long time coming.

All the best,

Planespotter, known as eazbak in other circles ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2011 @ 7:22am

How about? Law Enforcement is a biased party and that you can't just accept everything they say as fact?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2011 @ 7:23pm

U.K. is a paradise for pirates, will they be included in the 301 report next year?
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Christopher (profile), 27 Feb 2011 @ 9:01pm

Re:
Actually, quite true. Law Enforcement will lie through their teeth if they want to get you, even on the goddamned stand in a court of law.

I know that from having numerous relatives in law enforcement and them being disgusted with that fact.

We really need to realize that cops are humans just like the rest of us and they will NOT always tell the truth when they are asked.

In fact, outside of a court of law, they are ALLOWED to lie to you! How damned crazy is that? They are allowed to LIE and try to get you to admit something using falsified evidence.
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PaulT (profile), 28 Feb 2011 @ 4:29am

Re: Re: Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against filesharing site Admins
Even if it did (and it doesn't - the files hosted by the site are perfectly legal), that wouldn't excuse the actions of the police. Typical of an AC here to try and deflect from wrongdoing by authorities in order to make his point.,

One of the benefits of living in a supposedly free society is that due process is followed and the average citizen has protection from unfair police actions that would be acceptable in a totalitarian state. One of the downsides of living in a free society is that those who would do wrong are free to do so, unless prosecuted under the law. When that happens the accused are not guilty until found guilty by a court of law.

I'm sorry that living in a free society offends your own values so much.
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Planespotter (profile), 28 Feb 2011 @ 4:51am

According to an ancient Pew Internet & American Life Project report dated 2005 said that "About 36 million Americans�or 27% of internet users�say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files, according to the most recent survey of the Pew Internet & American Life Project."

So I'm wondering is the US on the 301 report?
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2011 @ 6:45am

Re: Re: Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against filesharing site Admins
He was found not guilty you nasty little shit. Now stfu and go cry to your puppet master that you lost.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2011 @ 6:55am

Re:
I heavily doubt that. Oh, I'm sure they would like to, but it wouldn't work and would probably backfire heavily. There's no doubting the US control over here in the UK, but to slap it up as official "US Orders" would cause absolute murder and a serious backlash, not to mention far too much scrutiny.
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Kirk (profile), 1 Mar 2011 @ 8:21am

Re: Re: Re: Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against filesharing site Admins
You sound like an American. Here you go, Sir! [beer]
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