http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharing-recognized-as-official-religion-in-sweden-120104/



That's it! I'm moving to Sweden! LOL!

does that mean you can no longer be prosecuted for file sharing since that would be repression of beliefs ?

Are there any news organizations independently corroborating this other than online pirate 'zines and their affiliates and fans? The source that broke the story that everyone else is citing is some element of the torrent community itself. It's like me quoting myself as a source and then picked up by everyone else.

The legal stigma? No, I'm afraid not. What it does do is add currency to the spoiled brat stigma these people have in addition to the loads of steaming pile red herring arguments these people have in order to justify stealing.

It all boils down to "I want it, I don't want to have to pay for it," no matter how much they try and act as though they are trying to foster innovation by threatening everyone's IP rights and open them up for the public domain. Even going so far as saying the consumer is impacted the most, as if the consumer is entitled for goods and services the consumer didn't intend to pay for, so by definition, that's not a consumer, that's a free loader or a parasite.

You'd almost understand pre-teens and high school age kids who haven't invested much into anything yet to not have perspective on much to think that way, but when adults are involved, that's where it really gets pathetic.

How many of these adults grew up in this warped mind set? And unless their work as adults is directly impacted by piracy, why should they mature in the least?

I'll bet that most of these adult torrent goofballs don't apply this philosophy in any other respect. For example, most wouldn't dream about stealing a car or even a candy bar, yet remain clueless or divorced from the idea that steeling someone's intellectual property and distributing it in principle is the same behavior. It's easier to do with some degree or sense of being removed from physically taking, that's what probably gives them the mindset that it's ok. If you physically had to break a lock and tress pass somewhere to get it, that might give the whole thing some perspective. But when you have the chance to be idolized in that culture, I guess that's another draw to why this is going on as a social component just as an added factor to it. Your basic blue collar, low rent thief everyone looks down on. In that community, you can become sort of famous among a bunch of 14 year olds.

I'm not in favor of bootlegging and theft, but I also don't believe it's in the long term interest of humanity to place property rights on ideas. Or an entire plant species, such as monsanto claims with all soybeans. Cuts both ways.

That's how it used to be- there wasn't always the notion of copyright or owning ideas, knowledge until fairly recently was 'community property.' If you look at ancient writers, they don't cite or attribute quotations to people like you might have learned in school to footnote your sources, in fact, that's all they did was borrow and 'rip off' each others' ideas (or were inspired by them). I always found it ironic and inaccurate to attribute an idea or quote to some ancient writer who himself was paraphrasing or borrowing from someone else.

There is a difference now however in the way someone invests lots of time and money into his product that they didn't do in the past. Knowledge might be defended if an enemy could derive an advantage from it, but it wasn't like the means to earn a living in and of itself. So, Plato, a member of the aristocracy who had his own academy never would have developed software or invested millions of dollars in something trying to recoup his investment through sales or somefink didn't have to worry about such things.

It may have been done differently in the past, but that doesn't mean it should still be done that way. Different circumstances.

Makes more sense than all of the other religions out there. Sign me up!

You know these people are full of crap when they are interested in distributing other people's content rather than developing their own and giving it away. Nor do they ever seem all that interested in helping other people develop or defend their content from other claims. It's all about their own use without paying the price of admission. They even self-apply the word pirate and wear it as a badge of honor. For some reason though they expect to do it with impunity. Pirates always knew the consequences, now it's like these ones think there shouldn't be any.

Well, they really haven't yet lived in a world where a digital pirate did face any consequences. Certainly they didn't through much of the 90s and early 2000s. That whole "The road goes on forever" thing comes to mind. Even when the whole Napster thing hit the fan, those I knew who were most active with piracy just moved to another system they thought was farther off the radar.

What's kind of interesting is how when some move comes along to defend IP rights, it often seems to get dressed in the cloaks of a dark, oppressive, censoring of free speech around the world.

People who self identify as pirates- not just people who pirate but who actually define themselves that way still for some reason don't think they can swing like a pirate. This is what's particular to these self-described groups. Brag about it all day long, then quickly act like it's an act of oppression when they get busted.

The problem is both sides are wrong, just in different ways. The whole "send us money or we take you to court" system is a farce that should not be legal. You want to prosecute? Go ahead. That's what LAWS are for. They realize, though, that many of these people don't have enough money to make it worth their while to hire a lawyer and go thru the courts. Instead they try and just get a few thousand here and there from people, even in cases when it's been proven that the person they're accusing could NOT have done it.

So they cry victim while at the same time extorting what are often poor and/or innocent people for money they feel "entitled" to have.

The real criminals are a small percentage of those they drag to court or extort from, but they can't really get to those easily, so they bide their time bullying the little people. It's like a corrupt police department--you can't argue with the laws, they're sound, it's the ENFORCEMENT of those laws, in this case not even by law enforcement personnel but by employees of some company, that is at issue.

Of course, some of these chronic offenders DO think it should all be free for some odd reason, but I have no sympathy for the either side. As far as I'm concerned, they should carry out their threat. Shut down music and film and TV. Just don't make any. Then there's no money to be lost. With the quality of stuff coming out in the last 10 years, I think that wouldn't be a bad thing.



The Jedi Master

There's only one wrong side in this. First, criminal prosecution and filing a civil action are two different things for two different ends. By definition, using the courts to enforce a claim is by definition both legal and proper. As opposed to hiring leg breakers or something when you can't turn to anyone else for help. Second, these people are committed to theft no matter what, they can't be reasoned with, the courts have to be a first resort because nothing else matters to them. The wrong notion that both sides are somehow at fault just gives currency at least in part that the pirates have a valid point. The notion that it's not their property to distribute is not in their vocabulary, threats and all, they get what they ask for, the recognition as pirates when they are pursued as pirates.

i think (besides prices pratices) ,it's more a rebellous man against the system you know ? "EA DRM sucks, they ruined my series,nerfed this,blah blah,so i'll pirate them!! that will learn them !" Remember that creation game that had millions of pirates on first day or something ? i dont know how much that impacted sales,but that sure was a voice to be heard from EA.

Yes, in the same way that other kinds of people are more defiant, for example, may ruin or deface something because there is a sign on in saying, "Keep away, no tress passing". You can tell tell they really get their jollies and get off on what they're doing, it's very smug and self satisfied- until they get themselves into some kind of trouble, though. At least street gangs recognize that they will end up dead or in prison at some point and accept that. These guys just have contempt for reality even as they want to wear the badge of being a pirate.

There's no justification for it though. Someone's IP rights will never feed some poor person's family or reverse some injustice inflicted on the public. Ripping off movies or music or software, these are just luxuries that they want they aren't willing to pay for.

The international treaty actually forbis copyright or patent of plants,animals,etc. My country battled in justice japan when they used one of our mushrooms and copyrighted it in a vitamin product.