BPI Threatens To Sue UK Pirate Party Leaders Personally Due To Internet Proxy
from the wac-wac-wac'ing-that-mole dept
With the BPI (the UK equivalent of the RIAA) successfully getting access to The Pirate Bay blocked via many UK ISPs, it's apparently turned its quixotic sights to the UK Pirate Party for daring to set up a proxy -- as if there aren't hundreds, if not thousands, of other existing proxies out there, and plenty of ways for people to get to the site if they really want to. And, rather than just threaten legal action against the Pirate Party UK (PPUK), the BPI has lovingly sent threat letters to six members of the PPUK National Executive, suggesting that it is ready to sue each of them personally. The BPI is claiming that it has to do this, since it can't sue the party directly, and apparently takes offense at some claims that this is an attempt to bankrupt the leaders of the PPUK. Of course, that's hogwash. Being threatened with a personal lawsuit -- especially by an organization that represents a group of multinational, multibillion dollar companies -- is, without question, a threat of being bankrupted. The BPI does have another choice: give up this silly game of whac-a-mole, stop trying to censor the internet, and teach its member companies how to adapt with new and smarter business models. But, apparently, it's easier to bankrupt your critics.
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Filed Under: free speech, pirate party, proxy, threats, uk, uk pirate party
Companies: bpi
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It will be nice to see the Pirate Party get some representation in parliament, so they can really start fighting back against these maximalist assholes.
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i do wish you would watch your language, Mike. swearing at an entertainment industry like this and inferring that it has a brain or common sense could easily get you into serious trouble!!
the update on torrentfreak:
'BPI’s Adam Liversage told TorrentFreak that they had no other option than to go after individual members as the Pirate Party is not a “legal personality.” No direct threats were made to bankrupt any of the members.
“Our solicitors then wrote to PPUK’s National Executive seeking legal undertakings that they would remove the proxy. ‘Pirate Party UK’ as an entity cannot give undertakings – it has no form of legal personality and it isn’t incorporated – so the proper legal course is to write to the members of PPUK’s National Executive personally.”
“The subsequent allegation made by Loz Kaye that BPI has “threatened” him or other party officers with ‘bankruptcy’ is completely untrue. BPI has not threatened Pirate Party UK officers with bankruptcy.”
Liversage further said that BPI first tried to resolve the matter amicably for a number of weeks. However, Pirate Party UK continued to make clear that they had no intention of removing the proxy.
if there are no threats here, then i dont know! if someone told the BPI or any other of the industries to shut down a proxie that gave access to movies to, say, the people in China, they would tell whoever to piss off!
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"Our solicitors then wrote to PPUK’s National Executive seeking legal undertakings that they would remove the proxy. ‘Pirate Party UK’ as an entity cannot give undertakings – it has no form of legal personality and it isn’t incorporated – so the proper legal course is to write to the members of PPUK’s National Executive personally."
This is entirely true.
"The subsequent allegation made by Loz Kaye that BPI has "threatened" him or other party officers with ‘bankruptcy’ is completely untrue. BPI has not threatened Pirate Party UK officers with bankruptcy."
This is open to interpretation. The BPI have accused officers of the Party of acting illegally, and told them they were instructing solicitors to write to them. There is a clear implied threat of litigation there. Litigation in England is very expensive (£100,000+ for a first instance decision), and I imagine that is enough to bankrupt most of the people involved.
"Liversage further said that BPI first tried to resolve the matter amicably for a number of weeks."
My understanding is that they sent an email (which was leaked to the press before the Party had a chance to read it) asking that the proxy be taken down. The Party said no. They then emailed that they were sending in lawyers. Whether that is "trying to resolve the matter amicably for a number of weeks" or not is another arguable point.
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"This is entirely true."
I am not in a position to say what their instructions to their solicitors were, or what the content of the letter they sent was, only that the Party doesn't have separate legal personality, and cannot give undertakings, which are real things.
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That's pretty much your message in a nutshell. It's incredibly over-simplistic and silly, but there it is.
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Its not difficult to make money on the internet in this day and age.
In fact the BPI members had to be dragged kicking and screaming into MP3 downloads which now account for the majority of their revenue.
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And your message is what? Waste time, money and effort on plans that have been shown over and over and over again not to work? Or to do what I'm suggesting and do what actually does work.
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Utter bullshit. Copyright has been working for centuries and it's still working quite well today. The ones messing it up are the selfish scumbag pirates that you spend day after day defending. Good grief, even your silly book club uses books produced under the copyright model. Stop pretending like your alternative methods have proven themselves so worthy that we can just chuck the current system. You are far, far, far away from that point. Keep up the great work in exploring the alternatives, but please stop being such an angry douche about the fact that the vast majority of the world disagrees with you.
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I hope that we can see off this ludicrious legal posturing and expose the BPI for the outdated and desperate institution they really are.
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i too have donated and i too want what the entertainment industries are doing exposed for what they are really doing, ie, trying to make a load of money without doing anything themselves. the trouble is, the UK government has too many friends in that industry and will back it to the hilt, whilst also ordering (behind closed doors, of course) that the courts do whatever the industries want. let's face it, look at what the UK courts have done to those running websites that only link to other places on the net, a practice that has not been changed to illegal as far as i know. those people have been imprisoned simply because the judge has basically 'made the practice illegal' and decided to rule accordingly, in favour of the industries charges
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MAFIAA You Must DIE !
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What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
Click here for Mike "Streisand Effect" Masnick!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Help make Mike the #1 quipper on the net! -- Click one for The Quipper!
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Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
Hey, try using TV Tropes's link! That way, you're wasting your time over there as opposed to using the same link every single time!
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Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
"deliberately and knowingly linking to infringing content"
Wrong! That is not how a proxy works, there is no linking involved. Please try again.
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Re: Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
That keyboards, mice and proxies have vast non infringing uses should not be used as an excuse.
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Re: Re: Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
[1] Remember, internal leaks account for almost all pre-released infringing content, and a lot of post-release infringing content as well. So every step of the process needs to be unbreakably copyprotected. Sure, it's going to be hell to create stuff when a group of creators can't easily copy their work to each other, but that's what you get for wanting entitites further and further away from the actual infringement to be held responsible for facilitating said infringement.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
Any copyrighted work needs to be available to the person who bought it, and so they can copy it using various techniques. Any encryption used to try and enforce copyright has one huge flaw, the audience and attacker are the same person.
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Re: Re: Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
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Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server
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Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
"knowingly linking to infringing content"... Can you please post a link to a film available to download directly from the Pirate Bay's servers.
Oh you can't because there exists no actual infringing content on the Pirate Bay, merely little lines of numbers and letters.
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Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
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Re: What's the purpose of Pirate Party's proxies? -- Infringement.
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"Throughout, the party and I have been open to dialogue. Contrary to reports I offered to meet Geoff Taylor for discussion, but this has been rebuffed..."
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@ "wac-wac-wac'ing-that-mole" & "whac-a-mole"
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Please Leave...
Second, he's referencing the game, you blockhead! You're calling Mike out on a spelling error, compare to your growing number of grammar and spelling errors. Funny...
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Re: @ "wac-wac-wac'ing-that-mole" & "whac-a-mole"
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Re: @ "wac-wac-wac'ing-that-mole" & "whac-a-mole"
Idiot.
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Re: @ "wac-wac-wac'ing-that-mole" & "whac-a-mole"
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up the anti on crazy
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Keep shooting MAFIAA, your foot is starting to get unsteady.
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We never said nuttin
We never said nuttin like that, foirst we tried to rezun wid da guy. We told him to clear outa town. When he wasnt willin' to do dat we tolds him if he was still around by da weekend we wud break both his legs, but we didn't say nuttin about hospitals da only time we said anything that cud be miscontrused in any ways was when big frank told him that hospital food is hard to eat wit no teeth.
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