Pirate Bay-trio to sue Dutch copyright group

These Pirate Bay guys are like the Three Stooges, only far less funny.

They seem to be deluded about their place in society, talking such nonsense as "We want people to be aware of all the laws that are broken by our political opponents in order to silence us".

I think that these narcissists are so fond of their (self-proclaimed) image of being swashbuckling saviours, they simply can't let go of the publicity. They are afraid of having to revert back to the nowhere that they came from.

I hope they will soon disappear into their respective manual jobs in the local supermarket, and leave us all to deal with the real world, and the real people in it.

The three pirate bay boyos are front men for others among them the tax offender Lundström, this is more4 smoke and mirrors for a gullible mainstream media to follow as well as a growing bunch of low income music and film customers. Think Hitler on the internet and you will understand "The Game" a little better.

First i will like to say about the comment left by Bushido, this is about freedom and if you cant agreed to that please go back under the rock where you came from.

Holland always sue for no reason, i agree with the TPB group to counter sue the Brain group.

to me the Brain group have NO brain.

in order to counter the sue you need to know about it, using twitter as the communication tool show how low they are...

So many errors in one comment.

1. You said "They seem to be deluded about their place in society ...". The fact that they get so much news converage, and make so much discussions around it should say some thing about their place in scoiety. Don't u think so?

2. You continue: ".. their (self-proclaimed) image of being swashbuckling saviours...". Again, since they get publicity, what ever they say has much more effect that you and me. They don't need to self-proclaim any thing. I can self-proclaim that I am a saviour but no one would listen. It not the case for these guys.

3. And "... manual jobs in the local supermarket". Insulting people working in supermarket as brainless robots. Good job!

4. and finally: "and leave us all to deal with the real world, and the real people in it." Talk for your self. Leave you (not us). These guys are real and they had and have much more influence in the real world with real people than you. So, just take it easy.

boring old dull story.

does anybody really care anymore about this?

@ATT - No "errors" - simply truth. As to your overprotective stance of these idiot's, there were, and still are many proponents of freedom and such. There are even many, many platforms who serve those who believe Intellectual Property to be part of that "Freedom."

The fact that TPB stooges are quoted in the article as saying ""We want people to be aware of all the laws that are broken by our political opponents in order to silence us," makes little sense when facing the fact that they broke many laws themselves, not least allowing the peddling of the largest amount of child pornography in the World.

They were caught, they were convicted, their rights were recognised within the parameters of the law. They even profited from the outcome.

They should now go away, quietly, get a job in a supermarket somewhere, and try to grow as human beings, instead of fighting for something that they themselves have systematically raped and abused.

Exactly these are people who are parents themselves who are quite happy to maintain a platform for all kinds of illegal activity so as to ensure that they can sell other peoples intellectual property rights in my opinion to secure both political as well as financial advantage. They will of course dress it up in terms of "digital freedom" but they are smart enough not to attack the FRA. GCHQ, or NSA ... work it out!

BREIN, a foundation dedicated to preventing intellectual property theft - nothing more to say - theft is theft whichever way you look at it - I really hope these theives spend a long time in a real jail

Wow....seems BRIEN thinks they are transparent.... Bushido, conboy, DAVID T, and billyb are obviously BRIEN employees...

"Theft"

Look the word up and you may find

theft NOT EQUAL TO copyright infringement - which is what downloading is, but that takes the whole spin out of it doesnt it?

The industry has worked hard to push copyright infringement as theft, but it has never been so, and never will.

Now excuse me while I start up utorrent and infringe on someones music copyrights by copying some files to my computer (therefore violating the music labels distributing right)

Again another bunch of misinformed posters who know nothing about the technology and the laws in Sweden (such as Bushido and DAVID T). I wonder how long and how many threads it will take for people to understand this?

Torrents are not illegal, plain ands simple. Anyone can download a torrent and still have not committed copyright infringement (which as eZee has kindly pointed out is not theft). So no matter how they try to spin it there is nothing illegal on the “The Pirate Bay”, for those who work in supermarkets lets write it again... there is nothing illegal on "The Pirate Bay"

I and any of you can have 1000’s and 1000’s of torrent files on our computers and we still have not broken the law. If choose to goto the Pirate Bay and download the torrent file for the last episode of Top Gear I still have not committed a crime.

But yet people have no problem with illegal laws that are made to intrude on our privacy or let their ISP’s take orders from the entertainment industry in cases of blocking sites, throttling bandwidth and disconnections.

Whilst I agree that 'torrents' themselves are not illegal, they are, in fact, illegal if being used to transport/transmit/transfer illegal material, or indeed something that does not belong to and is not licensed to the person transmitting or receiving.

Further, it is illegal to knowingly transmit or receive child pornography, something which the users knew/know that they are doing to the largest extent ever in history. The Pirate Bay also knew this was going on, yet unlike other platforms, did nothing to stem this open peddling of child abuse.

To say that there was no culpability on the part of TPB, would be like someone lending their house, their bedroom, their bed and their sheets, freely to any paedophile's, to use for the systematic rape of innocent children, then to say "I'm innocent! It's about freedom, man! I just lent them the bedroom!"

@Bushido

Your analogies would make pencils and pens illegal if used for copying or drawing illegally. Stop being silly. TPB has not done anything illegal.

I have one question? How do you know child porn was on TPB? I have never run across it in any of the public domain media I've downloaded off of TPB. Have you been looking for it and downloading it off TPB?

Isnt this all history now?

The new owners of TPB have said they will introduce (or have already?) a monthly subscription charge.

For the users this is good as TPB will continue (and everyone has always been saying its not about the cost but that the site has stuff they cant get elsewhere)

The subscription fee will be used to pay copyright owners.

So everyone is a winner?

ALL INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE FREE

there are always going to be torrent sites, or DC++, or newsgroups... how come NO ONE has cracked down on newsgroups EVER, you can download everything MUCH faster from newsgroups, and it is all "illegal" aswell.

Did anyone ever crack down on people recording songs from the radio? It's the exact same thing.

The only way you are ever going to stop illegal downloading is by limiting or controlling access to the internet. This will be a HUGE blow to freedom, and will be an ENORMOUS blow to the advancement of our civilization as a whole. It's time for corporations to adapt to technology, rather than forcing technology to do what they want.

ALL INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE FREE in order for our civilization to advance at the fastest possible rate, which should be everyone's priority, rather than GREED (which is all this is). Has ANY film company gone bankrupt due to illegal file sharing? It would be an ENOURMOUS news story if one had, but no, they are ALL making money.

Information needs to be free - amen to that. Some of us have long campaigned for academic journals to be open access to aid researchers in the third world. Fortunately, this is now happening and it wasn't brought about by illegal downloading. Whether or not Star Wars needs also to be free to download is, however, another matter.

Regarding your pseudoargument as to whether a film company has gone bankrupt, I have no idea. I haven't seen any of the majors go under, but some of the minor companies perhaps. Furthermore, the fact that the majors are still standing now says nothing about their future prospects since they are undoubtedly being hit hard by those who steal. In addition, EMI, one of the world's largest music companies, is undoubtedly in deep trouble. Try giving your argument to some of the thousands who were recently made jobless from EMI. Because a company is still standing doesn't justify taking from it and those who have their pensions tied up in its shares.

Internet freedom is an extremely serious issue. Ironically, its those who abuse it who are most likely to ensure draconian curbs will be put in place. They are the ones who have clouded the issue such that the general public associates their cause with the right to download Titanic for free. There will be no lasting damage to a society in which someone is forced to pay to watch Titanic - its not much of a cause. If such folk are serious about fighting government snooping (which is a real cause which can cause real damage) then the best thing they can do is desist from stealing so that the real issue is highlighted and the majors have nothing to whinge about. However, it seems that downloaders are too immature and selfish to consider anything approaching restraint and self-sacrifice.

I pretty much doubt whether anyone involved in the "fight for internet freedom" has any understanding of the concept of freedom in a society and how limitations in freedom come about. This is a pity because its their behaviour which may lead to certain valuable freedoms needlessly being taken away.

Like in everything in life there are groups of idiots who do their best to ruin a good situation for everyone. Many of the Pirate bay defenders are just the latest in the lines of idiots.

Theft is theft no matter how you try to dress up your defence. It is funny how "greed" of the film/music companies is used to defend the GREED of the downloaders. Yes that is also greed!

I download bittorrnets, but I also buy DVD's and CD's almost as often as in the pre-download days, so I get "more information" without penalising artists and companies who employ tens of thousands of people around the world.

You stupid selfish f.ckers who download everything and expect it all to be free will ruin it for the rest of us.

Sorry to say but in the eyes of the law and the entertainment industry you are just as guilty as the next person who downloads.... that is why the laws around digital right management are just plain stupid (the whole DMCA should be abolished). Actually in a sense if you buy any media and circumvent the DRM or rip the DVD into other formats to use on multiple devices you are just a guilty...

It’s not the downloaders that ruin it for everyone, it’s the industry that just doesn’t understand the current situation and refuses to change their business models and embrace technology.

I've heard that argument quite a lot and its very unconvincing for a number of reasons. For example, I'd be grateul if someone would care to outline *in detail* (since the devil is always in the detail) how they could change their model and make profits and continue to invest in new products. Its easy to spout off that someone needs to do X and Y if you're not the person who needs to do it. Another reason why its unconvincing is that its born of a selfish desire to carry on stealing and somehow justify it.

You mentioned other aspects of the law which have anomalies. True, but many of the actions you mention are technically illegal but are de facto accepted as a longstanding custom and practice. As ever, the devil is in the detail.

Basically, your arguments are simple but the issues aren't.

Also, if you're going to get excited about freedoms then why not go away and protest about something meaningful like repression in China instead of your right to watch Star Wars without paying.

You are 100% correct that the entertainment companies regard what I do as being just as bad as anyone who downloads everything for free. I also agree that the entertainment industry has been way to slow to react to new technology.

BUT...

The people who download all of their music and videos for free, never going to the cinema, never buying a CD or DVD and never renting a video, are the ones who are ruining it for everyone else.

If people kept their spending habits on entertainment remotely similar to the pre-download era, and limited their downloads to obscure hard to find albums/movies or to stuff they would not normally purchase, then the entertainment industry could have used this technology as a marketing tool to grab a wider audience and overlook the downloads.

The whole piratebay situation shows that there are a lot of idiots who expect to be entertained for free and get angry the loudest when their avenue of theft is potentially thawted.

Yep well I guess downloaders have the same spending habits as they did in the pre-vcr days, ie. nothing on dvds.

Thing is that before VCRs, film companies made no money from DVD or videos... none, zip, nadda. Then along came technology and gave them a financial golden period of 30 years or so... in the eyes of the film companies, technology was a good thing!

Now technology develops and reduces their massive incomes... now technology is a bad, bad, naughty thing.

My heart bleeds for the poor film stars and executives who can no longer afford a new ferrari every year.

And the dumbest thing is that all their complaining and bullying wont work either. Rightly or wrongly internet piracy is here to stay. What happened when they closed down Napster? Kazaa, DC++, BitTorrent etc. Ok, so Pirate Bay my go, buth there are literally hundreds of other download sites to choose from. All they do is publicise the fact.

Ok, Ipred comes along.. so VPNs are started and Ipred is made irrelavent. If the Music and Film people were half as clever as the pirates, we would all be enjoying cheeper (or even free) music and films legally. But no, the dimwits have shot themselves in the foot.

Oh and by the way, most of the highest grossing movies of all time have been made during the download era. Guess that shows how much the industry is really being damaged by file sharers.

And what about the thousands laid off from EMI ? Your whole post is full of cliche and ill-thought through argument.

You're also quite wrong about the effectiveness of the response of the "establishment". Slowly but surely laws are taking effect. As was seen in Sweden, the rate of illegal downloads dropped massively after the introduction of such a law.

They will outgun you because ultimately you don't have a case and they are powerfully connected and you're not.

The only annoying aspects to this whole shambels are that (a) as mentioned, you'll spoil the party for many ( b ) by your reckless behaviour you risk some further draconian measures being introduced to deal with illegal downloading but which also put at risk real freedoms I care about (c ) its a sad state of affairs when the right to watch Star Wars without paying is what stirs someone's conscience. There are real injustices out there, go and find one and campaign accordingly - middle class victimhood is an unappealing cause.

What about the thousands layed off at Volvo? I supose you think that is down to file sharers as well? No, people lost their jobs at EMI because (in case you havent noticed) there is a recession at the moment and EMI seems to have been rather poorly run during the "boom" years. As I pointed out, the film industry is producing films which take ever increasing ammounts of money so piracy is not really effecting them (check it out for yourself, of the 20 highest grossing films of all time, 16 have been released in the last ten years). Boom! thats one arguement blown out of the water. As for the music industry, well maybe they should start producing music worth buying rather than complain when someone downloads Lady Gaga, Pink or some other trash...

True, but as anyone who knows anything about the subject could testify, file shareing is on the rise again due to things like VPN's and will soon be back to pre-Ipred levels. It was the same when Napster was shut down, a short term effect but in the long term file sharing just grew!

Whats all this "You" business? I never said I downloaded illegally! Even if I did I wouldn't admit to it here as this would not be a very bright thing to do in todays surveillence climate. What I object to is the fat cats pretending to act all superior and moral whilst ripping people off, swinging court cases in their favour and generally acting like hypocritical, bullying thugs. Oh and if the idea of businesses effectively buying court decissions isnt something worth stiring ones "conscience" and worth "campaining" about than I wonder what is.

Obviously doesnt seem to bother you though...

Erm are you taking into account things like inflation with that statement?

Top 100 before and after addition of inflation

Errrr ummmm

People went to the cinema and drive-in's to see the latest movies and did so on a regular basis.

This is a disgraceful attitude. You are basiclly saying stealing from the wealthy because they can afford it. So do you hang around Östermalm looking for rich people to steal their wallet or handbag? Oh look over there, someone left their GPS on the window of their Porsche, I might just take that as they can afford it.

Good job

Oh dear, someone p*ssed in your coffee.

I'm afraid my arguments don't boom away, especially with your pseudoarguments. To pretend that EMI's problems are not significantly related to downloading is utterly facile. Look at their annual report.

Also, your argument about illegal file sharing post the law change is dubious. The fact is that current downloading levels are way below they were the pre-law era. To assume they're going to rise to the pre-law levels is wishful thinking. "People who know about things" often tend not to know so much after all, as the recent financial crisis shows.

Plus, as Littlest Hobo also commented your argument about the highest grossing films is also flawed.

As for the "you", well you'd have to be paranoid if you thought anyone was going to use any information you left on an internet forum to get you for file sharing. The you is a supposition, granted. However, I've yet to meet anyone who was so passionately in favour of file sharing who wasn't doing it.

Finally, you mention that being able to watch Star Wars for free is a serious issue. Compared to human rights abuses around the world its not.

Grow up.

These people who want everything for nothing, Generation Z, are going to ensure the demise of western economic dominance. By the time their children are at uni, they'll be learning Hindi and working at outsourced call centre or assembling toys for Chinese children to play with

Littlest Hobo makes a good point and I must admit that I didnt take into account inflation. However the figures he provides are a little misleading as they are "based upon domestic theatrical box office receipts" and do not take into account video and dvd sales and rentals. I would accept that fewer people visit the cinema these days. If i wanted to see Gone with the wind in 1939, I would have no option but to see it at the cinema. However these days a (if not the) major part of a films revenue comes from DVD sales so unless someone can show me otherwise, my point remains entirely unchanged. Film makers make more these days than ever before, even taking into account inflation and piracy.

Not at all. I'm saying that these people have been ripping us off for decades. I could go into an ethical arguement about how these companys pass their product off as culture and then seek to over charge the public for access to it but quite frankly I think it would be wasted. Remember piracy is not stealing dispite whatever the industry says. Theft is the act by which some thing is taken with the intent to permanently deprive the owner. If someone downloads a movie which they would never have rented, bought or seen at the cinema, no one is deprived of anything... thus it is not, repeat not, theft. It may however be copyright infringement which is illegal and that is why I dont do it.

I never mentioned Star Wars so I politely suggest that if you wish to comment on my post, you shoul at least read it thoroughly first. Otherwise you may look rather silly. And whilst I would admit that this issue is not as serious as the horrendus events that occur in the world every day, it is obviously serious enough for you to make repeated postings about it.

Well this is baseless suposition. The fact is that on the day the new laws were introduced, overall internet traffic in sweden did show a sizeable decrease. However this traffic has by all accounts now returned to almost pre-law levels. The pro-Ipred lobby will tell you that illegal downloading in sweden has decereased, but this is in fact impossible to say as most serious downloaders will be using untraceable VPNs or other methods to disguise what they do by now. So what we are saying is that supposed traffic of illegal down loads in a particular way may have decreased by an unassessable volume. Hallelulah, what a success for Ipred! That was worth impinging our privacy for...

So because I dont agree with you, can show your arguements to be rather baseless, illinformed and vacuous and I am prepared to argue a different viewpoint, I should grow up?... Your maturity is truly staggering!

That is an offensive and facile question. Just because I believe a law is wrong does not remove my right to critisie it and to infer that I may break it is a rather crude and vulgar attempt at oneupmanship. If you want to argue a point with me, then kindly do so based on inteligent and informed debate rather than nasty, vicious inferenses.

Star Wars was mentioned since it is an example of the type of film which is largely downloaded. It crystallises the copyright issue as being one primarily of entertainment. We aren't talking about big business preventing someone finding somewhere to live or something to eat. We're talking about some people getting annoyed that some of the things they use to entertain themselves with are a bit more expensive than they would like. This is utterly trivial. To get so passionate about the right to download movies shows a spoilt attitude and the "grow up" comment remains very appropriate, not least since you want to propagate a silly myth that internet piracy has no victims.

I'm afraid internet piracy has real flesh and blood victims, eg those who have lost their jobs at EMI. This also illustrates that the money paid to record and film companies isn't deposited straight into the pockets of Tom Cruise, Paul Mccartney etc as many would like to think. Rather its used to pay normal people and pay taxes etc. If you want to hold the position you do then please try not to pretend that its a victimless activity - this is just plain silly.

There are of course good arguments to make about unfair copyright laws but its just that you haven't made them. Eg, I mentioned the availability of academic journals to third world researchers. However, there an open access agreement is being reached without breaking the law.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earler, widespread intenet piracy is not the real issue of concer, rather its is one of internet snooping. You have clouded the issue by your widespread theft and your actions may well contribute to draconian laws being implemented and freedoms being taken away.

I have adequately dealt with all of your points in my prevoius posts and so wont repeat them again at nausium. All you seem to be doing is to repeat the same nonsense in the vain hope that if you do it will become true... I wonder who exactly has the childish attitude?

Oh and by the way, your last sentence is libelous, so if you have any evidence that I participate in "widespread theft" then please share it. Otherwise you should retract the statement and issue me an appology.

Really, by saying things like "grow up" and making unfounded accusations, you are showing that a sensible debate of this subject is quite frankly beyond your capabilities.

I am not try to argue that all copyright material should be free, it’s not the “free” downloaders that ruin it for everyone. It’s anyone who breaks the law in the eyes of the industry. It doesn’t matter if you download a DVD rip and then buy it later. It doesn’t matter if you bypass the DRM on media or HW that you have bought, the law does not care and the industry stance would not change, they have proven that time and time again.

I am a simple man so to me the issues are not complex, quite simple really.

They spend millions upon millions on useless DRM solutions, which in the end only piss off the paying consumer. They spend millions and millions on flighting torrent sites when torrents are legal. They spend millions and millions forcing ISP to block sites and throttle bandwidth to the end user when they have no idea what is being downloaded. They spend millions and millions getting useless and illegal laws passed.

If they only would be willing to invest in the current technology and improving the copyright law for todays market.

Love for hate iTunes, it showed that people are willing to pay for music downloads something the industry still has not fully embraced. Finally with iTunes you can pick up DRM free music but the rest of the industry has been slow to adopt this. Why?

Move onto Spotify, a wonderful service. I am happy to pay my 99kr per month to support this company. Sure the music library could be larger (not bad considering the licensing fee they need to pay to the industry) and the GUI is a bit lacking but it’s a good service and has the potential to be great. Now if only Apple will approve the iPhone Spotify App I would be a happy camper.

These types of service could be improved and applied to the rest of the industry worldwide. Imagine what they could create for the end user with all that money they have thrown away.

But really how much has downloading effected the industry? A great example if when the movie “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” work-print version was leaked onto the internet before the cinema release 20th Century fox went nuts, claiming that the box office results for the opening weekend would be lack luster. The film made a whopping $85 million in the opening weekend and to this date it has made $363 million.

I'm afraid your responses were extremely inadequate. All you've done is repeat slogans.

For example, you didn't address the issue of the real and flesh blood victims. You merely pretended they don't exist and ignored them. There are good arguments you could have used here, eg research which claims that illegal downloading has had a small effect on the record company problems; you should acquaint yourself with it.

Nor did you attempt to address the complicated issue of internet freedom and the relationship between copyright violation and snooping. My assertion is that you risk dangerous laws through your behaviour. You could have attacked that point in detail but didn't. There is a complicated debate to be had here.

As for the "libellous remark" one anonymous user supposedly made by one anonymous user to another one that you download movies, without btw any implication btw on the critical issue of the scale of any such activities, well "grow up" seems appropriate again. Do you really believe that anyone here would think you would have been wounded and slurred by that assertion, whoever you are ?

Yep, my posts were full of slogans... such as erm...

I would have done if my point had not been made adequately (dispite your finger-in-ears denial) by other means, but I thank you for strengthening my case still further.

My behaviour? I have stated quite clearly that I dont download illegally, so I assume you mean exercising my right to have an opinion. So I cant express a point of view which is in opposition to yours without the risk of dangerous laws? Dear oh dear...

I can tell you what I can do and that is have an informed and reasoned debate without resorting to playground insults and unfounded allegations! The thing is that you make some good points Nomark (even if I dont agree with all of them), however you detract from them by your use of silly jibes and frankly vacuous staements. Repeating "grow up" every post may make you feel superior just makes you seem, well incapable of mature discourse.

In addition, you should really be more careful about your groundless accusations as one day someone may take action against you. The internet is no longer "anonymous" and people have been sucessfully prosecuted both in sweden and abroard for just this kind of libelous statement. I am not the litigious type, but I feel sorry for you in that you need to resort to slurs in order to back up your feeble and misguided arguements. You really should retract your statement and appologise for making it as you are clearly in the wrong and this would be both the moral and mature thing to do. I wont hold my breath however as I dont think your up to it.

Hiding behind percieved anonymity to make libelous statements is a cowardly abuse of the freedoms we have to express ourselves!

Your behaviour on this thread does more to back up my arguement than I could ever hope to achieve!

Yes, regardless of your statement I made a decision to disbelieve it. If it makes you happy then regard "you" as referring to a collective mass who condone illegal behaviour. My "grow up" statement was founded on the principle that crying passionately about issues of the cheapness of non-essential forms entertainment is childish in view of the thousands of other issues worth taking a passionate stand on. I stand by it. Railing about libels is also childish in my opinion - I stand by that as well.

Also, if you want to attack my arguments do so with well motivated logic and research - don't just ignore them. They were stated clearly on a number of occasions.

Reaching for the Ignore button...

Still not man enough to appologise for your lies I see!

Indeed they were and in the main shown to be inaccurate and even dishonest.

On the contrary, I was extremely honest. To apologise would be dishonest. If my points regarding illegal downloading were inaccurate and dishonest you should prove this. You wrote they were shown to be wrong but in fact you provided no evidence at all to show this. Rather the opposite in fact.

There is a serious debate to had. I suggest you inform yourself of the research surrounding the issues. There is plenty out there.

As a final point, I especially stand by the remarks about childishness, as exemplified by (a) the "libel" comments ( b ) the inability to attempt refute any argument with anything other than "I think you're wrong" comments and then to pretend otherwise and ( c ) working yourself into a tissy over the price of light entertainment. Oh, and (d) hitting the ignore button and pretending to be hurt.

Nomark you haven't really supplied much depth either, in the case of EMI and layoffs how does that relate piracy? EMI and entertainment industry has long tried to prove through stats the effect of piracy on the decline of sales. For example the movie industry numbers are based on studies released by the MPAA (and they would never taint the numbers would they?). Can other studies from the Institute for Policy Information which gets it’s funding from the MPAA (and Universal) be trusted? The music industry stats com from the IFPI which is owned by Warner and guess... EMI. Anyone who works with stats knows that in the end you can make any stat work in ones favor.

Has piracy effected CD sales... of course it has but not to the tune of 20.5 billion as some studies have shown. Times have changed...the consumer has changed with tech. I know a number of music lovers who haven't bought a CD in years. They buy their music online (iTunes for example) and instead of bypassing the DRM and re-encode the file they just down load it (it's faster)... is it a loss of sales for the company? Not at all. Have they stole something? Nope. Have they committed copyright infringement? Yup.

I claimed that piracy had a significant effect on the lay-offs, which is supported by industry estimates - I'll dig out the ref.. Whether its the full several thousand or a smaller number is irrelevant to my point, which is that there are flesh and blood victims, something which nobody ever wanted to acknowledge in this discussion.

Usage of the terms stealing/copyright infringement is certainly a moot point. I use the term stealing in a looser sense as taking something which doesn't belong to you and depriving someone who owns a certain right associated with that property. This is indeed commonly used terminology by many commentators. Whether it satisfies a dictionary definition of stealing is pretty much irrelevant to my posts - if one replaced the word stealing with "illegal copyright infringement depriving companies of revenue and the state (and by extension us) of taxes and jobs", wouldn't change the thrust of any of my points.

As for the numerical estimates, this is a grey area and, in the context of my posts, I certainly never prophesized the wholesale destruction of the music industry, rather significant damage to it, possibly including the loss of one of the majors.

However, the fact is that it is seen as a problem and progressively more severe laws are being in put in place against it, many of which may well now (or in the future) infringe on certain liberties I value. The best way to stop this process is to remove the pretext for them, which is illegal downloading. However, since this involves a certain degree of self-sacrifice on the part of the downloaders, I can't see it happening. Ultimately, they will carry a large degree of responsibility in this matter.

It does not matter if EMI or any other entertainment producing company is going under or even still making huge profits. It does not change the fact that downloading is theft.

Sorry Renfeh old chap, as I pointed out earlier downloading is absolutely not theft even though it may seem so in your eyes and the corrupt companies portraying it as such. Simply repeating this falsity does nothing to make it more vaild. Downloading certain material may be infringement of copyright and it is this which people have been prosecuted for and the owners of Pirate Bay were convicted (blatantly unjustly) of aiding in the infringement of copyright. Theft is a word which is inaccurately bandied around in a vain and deceptive attempt by the copyright owners in order to bolster their rather flimsy cases. Please dont fall into the trap as it detracts from any serious points you try to make.

You can call it what to want, quite frankly I don't give a flying f.ck what you want to call it. It does not change the fact that the massive amount of illegal downloading of entertainment material instead of the legal acquisition of the same product is causing people to loose money that rightfully belongs to them.

What I cannot believe is that people like you think that you have the right to download what you want for free and expect that the people who spent money to produce that entertainment get nothing for their return. Just because these companies are slow to adapt to new technology is NO justification for your illegal activity.

There it is again! I have clearly stated that I dont download anything illegally even though I disagree with the law. Which part of that is so hard for you to understand?

What is it with you people? If someone doesnt agree with your point of view you make unfounded and erronoius statements about them. It is pathetic really and only serves to illustrate the weakness of your collective arguements.

Come on mate. It is actually possible to have a discussion without such inane and futile accusations you know. You know, you take the time to post on this forum and yet you embarrass yourself in this manner!