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- Regulation will put better practices ..... good move ....
- Yup you are right this is a flick .....
- Yes there is considerable wielding of power into the hands of few .....
- This is some good reflection .... but controversial in many aspects
- Yah the impact of free news have determinent effect on many players ....
3 years ago
I've been meaning to write more on this and just haven't had the time to do so. Here are my quick thoughts:
I came down on the industry's side in Grokster, so I'm hardly an apologist for peer-to-peer sites. If I were a Swedish citizen, I'd probably be on the same side in that debate, although I don't know enough about Swedish law to evaluate the claim that the Pirate Bay isn't illegal.
To my knowledge, I've never "pooh-pooh[ed] rights holders' efforts to go after users who have made the works they own available online," although I've occasionally pointed out that it doesn't appear to be having the desired deterrent effect. To the contrary, I've criticized folks like EFF for not taking the problem seriously.
Finally, my criticism of DRM is based largely on the fact that DRM doesn't reduce P2P sharing. If it did, I might be more sympathetic to claims that it should receive legal protection, but why give special legal protections to a technology that doesn't perform as advertised? (DRM may discourage "meatspace" infringement, but that no more justifies prohibiting circumvention tools than banning CD-R drives in the 1990s or VCRs in the 1980s--which would have had similar deterrent effects)
I think the really interesting thing about this case is the implications if the courts should find the Pirate Bay is legal under Swedish law. That would effectively overturn Grokster, and it's not clear what the appropriate legal response by the United States would be.
3 years ago
Surely you wouldn't approve of the Swedish police mounting this kind of raid against a lawful site?
3 years ago
2 years ago