Sweden fines Movie Socialist $650,000 for sharing a single film

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Sure, it's no Somalia, but Sweden's been fighting plenty of its own battles against piracy -- of the digital variety. The former home of Pirate Bay, the infamous online repository for everything the RIAA and MPAA stand against, has just fined an unnamed 28-year-old man 4.3 million krona (about $650,000) for uploading a single film to a torrent site. Granted, an anti-piracy group called Rights Alliance described the man as the country's "worst ever" pirate, according to a BBC report, so just because this fine covers only one film, he's likely responsible for ripping off plenty more. In fact, the same court that assigned the fine also convicted the man of sharing 517 other flicks -- that charge brought a rather tame punishment, including a suspended jail sentence and 160 hours of community service.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/18/sweden-pirate-fine/
 
Hah if I were the judge I would have him come up to the stand, give me his hand, I would put his hand up to the Mic and slap him on the wrist and let him go.
 
Intellectual property rights discussion. Oh yes.

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I'm a bit shocked considering Sweden for the longest time was where the Pirate Ship was moored.
 
From each, according to his ability to act or sing, to each, according to his dire and crying need to be entertained or die.

Not sure even ol' Karl Marx would approve of that one...
 
Ok, I'm comfused. Why is that book copyrighted?

I couldn't tell you, asking Kinsella would be your best bet. Maybe if you ask him politely he will divulge the circumstances surrounding that and appease your curiosity.

One thing you can be certain of, though, is that it doesn't affect the implications of the content in the book.
 
Ok, I'm comfused. Why is that book copyrighted?

Copyright is automatic - regardless of whether an explicit indication of this status is present or not (in the form of the usual "copyright notice"). Under current IP law, the only way for a book NOT to be copyrighted is for the author to explicity renounce the copyright and release the work to the "public domain." Works in the public domain can be altered and changed by someone else, who can then claim copyright over the altered work. In that situation, my understanding is that the original author of the work can, under certain circumstances, actually be sued for copyright violation if he makes revisions to his original and releases those changes publicly.

There are other issues attending the public domain that make it problematic as well. Another important factor is that various "free" distribution licenses (GNU GPL, Creative Commons, etc.) require copyright claims in order to be considered enforceable under currrent law.

The short of it is that the current system pretty much forces people to play the copyright game because there are just too many pitfalls and "gotchas" if they try not to. This is why anti-"intellectual property" folks like Kinsella write books with copyright notices. It's potentially a huge PITA for them if they don't.

Some people seem to imagine that they've discovered some sort of hypocrisy in the fact that many anti-"intellectual property" advocates have copyrights on their books. But there is no more hypocrisy, contradiction or paradox to be found in this than there is in the fact that many people vehemently opposed to the income tax still file tax returns and pay income taxes. In a world with the rules they advocate, they would not need to do so and they would not do so. But they don't (yet) live in a world with the rules they advocate - so they do as they do (copyright their books, pay income taxes, etc.) under the rules of the world they actually do live in ...
 
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