10 ms·

This just seems ridiculous to me. I may well get downvoted, but it needs saying. Why do 99% of the world's governments seem completely retarded when it comes to

This just seems ridiculous to me. I may well get downvoted, but it needs saying. Why do 99% of the world's governments seem completely retarded when it comes to copyright laws? How many tens of millions in legal resources were expended in bringing 'justice' here? And what does the outcome even matter? Good job, tens of millions down the drain for one year of an Estonian's time? The system would surely be better served if they just handed those millions to the actual copyright holders? The only real victory (if that's what they'd like to call it) is having taken the site down in the first place, not that that did a single thing to kerb 'illegal' filesharing... The industry has moved on and adapted just fine.

tomp 12y ago
Well, the idea of criminal justice, besides "fairness"/"retribution" (which I think is barbaric), is that it discourages future criminal action by others, who have more reason to believe they would be similarly punished if caught.
ledzep2 12y ago
They are not retarded. They are just money driven IMHO. And I bet the story behind this is no worse than the plot of House of Cards.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Some people buy a car to do whatever the hell they want with it. Others buy chunk of a nuclear superpower's government to do whatever the hell they want with it.
RickS 12y ago
My guess is that their strategy is to create a chilling effect by making an example of this guy. From their perspective, if smart people become more frightened to take on projects like this, their money was well spent. $10M is lunch money here.
- Fuxy 12y ago
  It seems to infuriate me and make me more likely to ask to be payed in cash when doing business with companies that seem to be in the gray area of the law. But in no way will I cave to this mafia style behavior. Do I now risk going to jail if any of the people o worked with use my software for something illegal?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - Xylakant 12y ago
    >It seems to [...] make me more likely to ask to be payed in cash when doing business with companies that seem to be in the gray area of the law. Money paid in cash still needs to show up in the books of the company and your tax statement. If it doesn't, you just handed them another opportunity to make you hang - tax fraud is nothing to trifle with.
    - Fuxy 12y ago
      It will be on the books but maybe as something else. I don't mind paying tax but I'd rather not get arrested for something a person I do business with did. This is the chilling effect this kind of behavior by the state has. It make people less willing to share real information with the government since it could potentially get them arrested just to make an example of them. It's all about trust and this kind of behavior makes me not trust the government or the law.
      - Xylakant 12y ago
        If it's on the books then it's on the books as "y did work for x" which is about as much as they need.
- omeid2 12y ago
  This is the most logical explanation that I know of, also considering what happened to PopcornTime.
BlueAndroid 12y ago
I work in Law Enforcement, so feel to disregard my opinion as biased , however, 75% of my work relates to child exploitation material, and an enormous amount of child abuse material disappeared from easy access when mega-upload went down. I used to find computers with lists and lists of megaupload urls. When that method died out a little beacon of happy shone for me. Now I understand that free movies trumps removing abusive material, and as rapidshare and others took a more reasoned approach the child abuse material slipped into TOR and then i2p (after we brought the house down repeatedly on lolitacity and similar places in TOR). So it was more of a temporary reprieve. But those still at it have to work a bit harder and I'm happy about that. It's all about the free movies right? Well if that's your world, you're lucky.
- pjc50 12y ago
  If people are involved in the transmission of child abuse, I'm happy for them to be prosecuted for that. I'm not happy with the approach of prosecuting people for copyright infringement and then claiming they deserve it because of the child abuse material. That's a bait-and-switch.
- goblin89 12y ago
  > 75% of my work relates to child exploitation material, and an enormous amount of child abuse material disappeared from easy access when mega-upload went down. However, this apparently did not serve as the grounds for punishment, and is not mentioned in statements quoted in the article—the whole deal seems to hinge on copyright infringement allegations.
- fluffheadsr 12y ago
  Yep, lets arrest everyone.. FOR THE CHILDREN! Everytime a case comes up you law enforcement bring up the same big scarry bad men.. Drugs, Pedophiles, and Terrorists.. GET LOST
- icebraining 12y ago
  I don't understand. They were using a service were everyone's IPs and other data were logged and could be subpoenaed, now they're using services that add many more barriers to discovering their identity, and you consider that an improvement? What am I missing?

tomp 12y ago

Well, the idea of criminal justice, besides "fairness"/"retribution" (which I think is barbaric), is that it discourages future criminal action by others, who have more reason to believe they would be similarly punished if caught.

ledzep2 12y ago

They are not retarded. They are just money driven IMHO. And I bet the story behind this is no worse than the plot of House of Cards.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Some people buy a car to do whatever the hell they want with it. Others buy chunk of a nuclear superpower's government to do whatever the hell they want with it.

RickS 12y ago

My guess is that their strategy is to create a chilling effect by making an example of this guy. From their perspective, if smart people become more frightened to take on projects like this, their money was well spent. $10M is lunch money here.

Fuxy 12y ago
It seems to infuriate me and make me more likely to ask to be payed in cash when doing business with companies that seem to be in the gray area of the law. But in no way will I cave to this mafia style behavior. Do I now risk going to jail if any of the people o worked with use my software for something illegal?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Xylakant 12y ago
  >It seems to [...] make me more likely to ask to be payed in cash when doing business with companies that seem to be in the gray area of the law. Money paid in cash still needs to show up in the books of the company and your tax statement. If it doesn't, you just handed them another opportunity to make you hang - tax fraud is nothing to trifle with.
  - Fuxy 12y ago
    It will be on the books but maybe as something else. I don't mind paying tax but I'd rather not get arrested for something a person I do business with did. This is the chilling effect this kind of behavior by the state has. It make people less willing to share real information with the government since it could potentially get them arrested just to make an example of them. It's all about trust and this kind of behavior makes me not trust the government or the law.
    - Xylakant 12y ago
      If it's on the books then it's on the books as "y did work for x" which is about as much as they need.
omeid2 12y ago
This is the most logical explanation that I know of, also considering what happened to PopcornTime.

BlueAndroid 12y ago

I work in Law Enforcement, so feel to disregard my opinion as biased , however, 75% of my work relates to child exploitation material, and an enormous amount of child abuse material disappeared from easy access when mega-upload went down. I used to find computers with lists and lists of megaupload urls. When that method died out a little beacon of happy shone for me. Now I understand that free movies trumps removing abusive material, and as rapidshare and others took a more reasoned approach the child abuse material slipped into TOR and then i2p (after we brought the house down repeatedly on lolitacity and similar places in TOR). So it was more of a temporary reprieve. But those still at it have to work a bit harder and I'm happy about that. It's all about the free movies right? Well if that's your world, you're lucky.

pjc50 12y ago
If people are involved in the transmission of child abuse, I'm happy for them to be prosecuted for that. I'm not happy with the approach of prosecuting people for copyright infringement and then claiming they deserve it because of the child abuse material. That's a bait-and-switch.
goblin89 12y ago
> 75% of my work relates to child exploitation material, and an enormous amount of child abuse material disappeared from easy access when mega-upload went down. However, this apparently did not serve as the grounds for punishment, and is not mentioned in statements quoted in the article—the whole deal seems to hinge on copyright infringement allegations.
fluffheadsr 12y ago
Yep, lets arrest everyone.. FOR THE CHILDREN! Everytime a case comes up you law enforcement bring up the same big scarry bad men.. Drugs, Pedophiles, and Terrorists.. GET LOST
icebraining 12y ago
I don't understand. They were using a service were everyone's IPs and other data were logged and could be subpoenaed, now they're using services that add many more barriers to discovering their identity, and you consider that an improvement? What am I missing?