3 ms·

> If I had an American company and I was getting legal threats from an organization in another country that was citing their country's laws, you can bet I'd do

> If I had an American company and I was getting legal threats from an organization in another country that was citing their country's laws, you can bet I'd do everything I could to avoid having to comply... regardless of whether or not I was actually breaking any laws at all. Maybe this is true as a statement about what you would do in this situation. But it does not much resemble the behavior of most actual organizations engaged in a legitimate line of business. (To be sure, some may try to avoid the U.S. market entirely. But TPB has not done that. They're content to serve U.S. users, just not to obey U.S. laws.)

joemi 10y ago
> But it does not much resemble the behavior of most actual organizations engaged in a legitimate line of business. Attempting to avoid taxes through legal loopholes is exactly the behavior of many large business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement#Companies_using_the_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement#Compa... In case you think taxes are a completely different scenario (an opinion which I would take issue with), companies trying to avoid other laws in other countries also happens very often. See Google vs. Spain, for example, where Google fought to not have to change their practices to comply with local (Spanish/EU) laws. Complying with laws in another country often means having to change how a company does things. Change almost always means costs for the company, either in rebuilding things, retraining people, or general loss of revenue. Therefore it's often in a company's best interest to resist such change, if they think they have a chance they can.
- pdabbadabba 10y ago
  The comparison to taxes is instructive. But works against TPB. With taxes, on the other hand, there is, as you say, conclusive evidence that companies bend over backwards to avoid (e.g.) U.S. taxes. This is because those taxes are burdensome to very many (probably all) businesses. Most businesses with the resources to do so will therefore go to great lengths to avoid those taxes. The evidence of companies' efforts to avoid DMCA obligations, on the other hand, is tellingly different. Unlike taxes, most companies do not go to great lengths to avoid DMCA obligations. This includes foreign companies with large user bases, and sites that facilitate the sharing of media such as YouTube, Flickr, Tumbly, Vimeo, etc. But TPB does. This tells you that DMCA is more of a burden on TPB than on most companies. I wonder why that might be... I genuinely cannot believe we are still debating whether a primary purpose of The Pirate Bay is to facilitate piracy. Of course it is.
  - joemi 10y ago
    > Unlike taxes, most companies do not go to great lengths to avoid DMCA obligations. This includes foreign companies with large user bases I'd love to see something that backs this up. > I genuinely cannot believe we are still debating whether a primary purpose of The Pirate Bay is to facilitate piracy. Of course it is. I'm not debating that at all. I'm just arguing that someone trying to avoid a foreign law that (at least debatably) does not apply in their country is by no means an admission of any sort of shady intentions, but is in fact simply common and sound business practice.

joemi 10y ago

> But it does not much resemble the behavior of most actual organizations engaged in a legitimate line of business. Attempting to avoid taxes through legal loopholes is exactly the behavior of many large business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement#Companies_using_the_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement#Compa... In case you think taxes are a completely different scenario (an opinion which I would take issue with), companies trying to avoid other laws in other countries also happens very often. See Google vs. Spain, for example, where Google fought to not have to change their practices to comply with local (Spanish/EU) laws. Complying with laws in another country often means having to change how a company does things. Change almost always means costs for the company, either in rebuilding things, retraining people, or general loss of revenue. Therefore it's often in a company's best interest to resist such change, if they think they have a chance they can.

pdabbadabba 10y ago
The comparison to taxes is instructive. But works against TPB. With taxes, on the other hand, there is, as you say, conclusive evidence that companies bend over backwards to avoid (e.g.) U.S. taxes. This is because those taxes are burdensome to very many (probably all) businesses. Most businesses with the resources to do so will therefore go to great lengths to avoid those taxes. The evidence of companies' efforts to avoid DMCA obligations, on the other hand, is tellingly different. Unlike taxes, most companies do not go to great lengths to avoid DMCA obligations. This includes foreign companies with large user bases, and sites that facilitate the sharing of media such as YouTube, Flickr, Tumbly, Vimeo, etc. But TPB does. This tells you that DMCA is more of a burden on TPB than on most companies. I wonder why that might be... I genuinely cannot believe we are still debating whether a primary purpose of The Pirate Bay is to facilitate piracy. Of course it is.
- joemi 10y ago
  > Unlike taxes, most companies do not go to great lengths to avoid DMCA obligations. This includes foreign companies with large user bases I'd love to see something that backs this up. > I genuinely cannot believe we are still debating whether a primary purpose of The Pirate Bay is to facilitate piracy. Of course it is. I'm not debating that at all. I'm just arguing that someone trying to avoid a foreign law that (at least debatably) does not apply in their country is by no means an admission of any sort of shady intentions, but is in fact simply common and sound business practice.