inGame footage of various games. In the future I hope to add reviews. ^_^
Published on August 30, 2009 By aroddoold In Everything Else

... aren't the torrents.

It's the correspondence!

http://thepiratebay.org/legal

The best ones are those where the non-pirates are really insistent, like the websheriff lawers:


Subject: Re: Re : WHITE STRIPES / Pirate Bay - Torrents
From: anakata
To: Jgela1@aol.com
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 14:01:41 +0200

On Thu, 2005-05-26 at 06:11 -0400, Jgela1@aol.com wrote:
>
> Web Sheriff
> Protecting Your Rights on the Internet
> Tel 44-(0)208-323 8013 / Fax 44-(0)208-323 8080
> websheriff@websheriff.com www.websheriff.com
>
> STRICTLY PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL
> ATTENTION ADDRESSEES ONLY



>
> Dear Frederik,

It's spelled "Fredrik".

> We would refer you to our notification of yesterday's date regarding
> the above, the contents of which are self-explanatory (hereinafter
> referred to as the "Notification"), to which we have yet to receive
> the courtesy of a response.

We would like to refer you to our Legal Threats section, on which we,
while having much fun, ridicule people like you.
Thank you for your contribution.

> Notwithstanding the fact that you contend that torrent hosting is
> legal in Sweden (which we would dispute),

...and I would like to refer you to the relevant court cases.
Unfortunately, our legal team partied quite heavily last night, so the
only reference I can provide you with is Högsta Domstolen (the Swedish
Supreme Court) NJA I 1996 page 79.

> you also seem to fail to recognise that your web-site is accessible
> all over the world and that, as such, your actions and, furthermore,
> your refusal to act, opens you and your company up to the possibility
> of law suits in - inter alia - the United States and the United
> Kingdom. Such law suits could result in your being refused entry to
> both the US and the UK

Damnit. You got us there. Now I'm so scared I pissed my pants. Where
should I send the invoice for cleaning them?

> Accordingly we would strongly recommend that you immediately comply
> with the Notification, failing which we shall be obliged to advise our
> clients' attorneys to take against your company (and your company
> officers) without further notice.

Wow, we have something in common! See, I also have obligations of my
own. For example, I'm obliged to provide entertainment to our users.

> We would also warn you that, if such steps do prove to be necessary,
> our clients' attorneys would also (a) notify the Swedish tax
> authorities of your commercial activities,

You mean our non-commercial, loss-generating activities?

> ( notify the Swedish government of your illegal activities, (c)
> notify the Swedish record industry association of your pirate
> activities and (d) notify the IFPI of your piracy activities.

Do you seriously believe that these parties aren't already aware of the
site? You may want to read Swedish media...

> We shall look forward to hearing from you.

We look forward to receiving more of your so exquisitely designed HTML
e-mails with the shiny wanna-be-police-star.

> Whilst writing, we would further caution you against communicating
> or otherwise posting any remarks that could be construed as being
> defamatory of our clients (or Web Sheriff) or that could otherwise be
> injurious to our clients' (or our) genuine business interests.
> Similarly, we would inform you that the copyright in the Notification
> and, indeed, this e-mail is vested in Web Sheriff and that, in the
> event that you attempt to publish either the Notification or this
> e-mail on your web-site (or elsewhere), appropriate action shall be
> taken for infringement of our copyright (we trust, in this regard,
> that you will concur that Sweden does recognise copyright).

We trust, in this regard, that you will concur that publishing your
e-mail is not in violation of Swedish copyright law. When our lawyer's
hangover has passed, he will be more than happy to explain the juicy
details to you.

> Naturally and notwithstanding the foregoing, all accumulated rights
> of our clients - including, but not limited to, the right to institute
> proceedings against your company in the United States - remain
> strictly reserved.

You also have the right to institute sodomizing of yourself. Preferably
with barbed wire, but retractable batons might also work if you push
them far enough.

> Yours sincerely,
>
> WEB SHERIFF

I wanna be a cool WEB SHERIFF when I grow up. Do I get a shiny star and
a six-shooter?


Second Email & response

Subject: Re: WHITE STRIPES / Pirate Bay - Torrents # 2
From: anakata
To: Jgela1@aol.com
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 20:36:08 +0200

On Thu, 2005-05-26 at 10:53 -0400, Jgela1@aol.com wrote:
>
>
> Web Sheriff
>
> Protecting Your Rights on the Internet
>
> Tel 44-(0)208-323 8013 / Fax 44-(0)208-323 8080
>
> websheriff@websheriff.com www.websheriff.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Frederik,
>
> Hello.

Hi! Please, learn to quote properly in your e-mail messages. You can
learn from how I do - I promise you that proper quoting is not patented.

> - We know all about your immature responses to rights owners.

What did you expect? I mean, I still wet my pants damnit, but only when
I'm scared by big mighty policemen like you.
Now you need to pay for another cleaning .

> - Fascinating.

Not as fascinating as the fact that you don't seem to get the hint, or
the fact that someone might actually be paying you to send poor attempts
at scaring people...

> We would suggest that you nominate attorneys in the US who can accept
> the service of proceedings on your behalf. If you do not do this, then
> an application can be made to the Federal Court to serve proceedings
> out of the jurisdiction (ie. in Sweden). This would simply mean that
> our clients would seek to recover more costs from you for the
> additional application. Once proceedings are served overseas, a
> default judgement can easily be obtained unless you elect to defend in
> the US.

I hereby nominate Mr. Lionel Hutz at I-CAN'T-BELIEVE-IT'S-A-LAW-FIRM.
He's a fictional character, but that should be enough to receive your
fictional servings in your non-existent case.

> Not when the ultimate content (ie. of the combined torrents)

What the [my mom told me not to swear, so I deleted this word] is a
combined torrent?

> belongs to third parties ... ... these are their rights to exploit,
> not yours (as you shall no doubt discover).

Now that's what I call a miserable attempt at a cliff-hanger. Let me
guess, you failed your literature classes? Just like you failed law
school and the police academy, and became MR WEB SHERIFF. John, is that
you?

> - That would be a matter for the appropriate authorities to decide
> upon once a formal referral has been.

"once a formal referral has been" ? Me fail english, that's unpossible!

> - Our clients would ensure that the matter is progressed in tandem
> with the IFPI
>
Tandem, is that kind of like spooning? Mommy doesn't allow me to watch
porn, especially not gay porn starring people in fake police uniforms.

> until such time as these activities are ceased permanently ...

At the current rate, I would approximate that you will succeed slightly
after the heat death of the universe, or the Armageddon, whichever comes
first.

> .. this is only a matter of time ... ...

Another miserable cliff-hanger.

> then you would be held to account to all of the parties whose rights
> you have infringed.

> - Regrettably, you may well be in receipt of further communications
> from us.

Yes. You are consuming valuable disk space, CPU time, and bandwidth.
Should I put it on the same invoice as the pants cleaning?
>
> We trust, in this regard, that you will concur that publishing your
> e-mail is not in violation of Swedish copyright law. When our lawyer's
> hangover has passed, he will be more than happy to explain the juicy
> details to you. - You are wrong ; unauthorised publication is a
> copyright violation, which is actionable in virtually every
> jurisdiction in the world (including Sweden).
>
I managed to wake him up (at least he wasn't passed out in an alley this
time), and after he finished laughing, he wrote a nice response for you.

Since you have proven to be such adepts at Swedish law I feel a bit bad
about telling you this. In Sweden not everything is protected under the
copyright laws. A text, for example, has to reach a certain level of
"artistic" and/or individuality value. Itÿs arguable that a, more or
less standardized, e-mail notification of infringement of copyright does
not measure up to this required standard. In any case one can only
reclaim actual damages in Sweden. And proving that the ´unauthorized
publication of your copyrighted material¡ (as in your e-mail) has caused
you any actual damage or loss of profit, related to the infringement and
not the plain stupidity of your own wording, seems to us to be an almost
impossible task. Knowing Swedish law and the Swedish justice system I
would guess from none to zero. And for your information Sweden is a
civil law country and we do not use the idiotic jury system that is
favoured in the common law countries. (you might want to get a
translated copy of the Swedish copyright law ´Lag (1960:729) om
upphovsrätt till litterära och konstnärliga verk¡. We are sure that such
a respectable company as the ´web sheriff¡ must employ a vast staff of
translators. Good luck!


> > Naturally and notwithstanding the foregoing, all accumulated
> rights
> > of our clients - including, but not limited to, the right to
> institute
> > proceedings against your company in the United States - remain
> > strictly reserved.
> - We have read all of these (supposedly funny) insults that you
> publish before ... ... you might not be laughing when proceedings are
> issued against you in the United States (amongst other things).


As you might know American law is NOT applicable in Sweden. Even though
USA seems to think, from time to time, that there is only one law, just
as there is only on god. In your own law your courts claim only
jurisdiction (under the ´long arm statutes¡) over non-state residence
only in certain cases. Namely when the ´defendant¡ has minimum contacts
in the state where the suit was initiated. In the case Asahi Metal
industries Co., Ltd v. Superior court of CA the U.S. Supreme court ruled
that such ´contacts¡ did not exist since the defendant had no offices,
no agents, no employees or property and so on. Much like our case. The
only thing connecting us with the US is the fact that our torrents are
accessible worldwide. Not being an expert on American law (we have
something in common. Isnÿt it fun how people from all over the world are
connected through our own ignorance?) we still are of the opinion that
there is no, excuse the language, chance in HELL that you will be able
to initiate a suit in an US court against our us and have us summoned to
the US.

That means that such a suit will have to be initiated in Sweden, under
Swedish law. As to this date Swedish law does not forbid the activities
relating to having bitorrent-tracker. Nor does any Swedish precedent
exist that forbids it. We are confident in our assessment that our
activities are perfectly legal and they will continue until such a time
that the Swedish lawmaker changes the law.

It might be hard for you to get what Iÿm about to say through your thick
John Wayne foreheads, so bear with me. The tracker provides the user
only with .torrent files which contain no copyrighted data. The actual
copyrighted material is to be found on the individual machines of our
users, not on our servers.


> - Yes, when you grow up.
>
My mother says I'm a big boy now .

>
>
>






Comments (Page 1)
10 Pages1 2 3  Last
on Aug 30, 2009

I love this site , I heard they were getting bought out though.

on Aug 30, 2009

They have been having fun with these threats for along time and they are quite fun to read.

on Aug 30, 2009

They have been having fun with these threats for along time

I had fun with a legal eagle who was trying to collect for an ISP who reckoned I owed them money.  I upped my speed about 3 months into a 12 month contract, so when the original contract period had expired and I changed ISP, they reckoned I still owed 3 months in payments to complete said contract, (not according to the terms I read) so sicced a lawyer/debt collector on to me.

Anyway, this legal eagle said that if I doidn't make arrangements for the immediate payment of the 'outstanding amount he would take me to court.  I wrote back and said something to the effect of: "be my guest, I don't get out a lot anymore due to a disability and would love a car ride to watch proceedings at the courthouse.  Have your car pick me up around 9.00am on 12. 07. 07 and I will gladly join you at the courthouse for the day's entertainment. Oh, and please tell the chaffuer not to have his seat too far back as I'll need lots of leg room in the back seat."

I got just one more threatening letter with a final demand... I think it was the reply he received that blunted his resolve....

"Dear, Sir,

              I could quote the actual contract terms here to show I have no case to answer, however, I shall not.  Put bluntly, my arse is broke because I'm an invalid pensioner and now have to pay child support for 13 children, so good luck with convincing the magistrate that your client should be paid monies which are not due while my many children are deprived.

                             Sincerely *******"

Hehe, I never heard from him again.

on Aug 30, 2009

You should have demanded he pay for cleaning your trousers because you wet them after reading his threatening letter.

on Aug 30, 2009

The Piratebay's invoice to the websheriff...

http://static.thepiratebay.org/interweb.pdf

 

lol

on Aug 30, 2009

I TPB

on Aug 30, 2009

TPB will be in for a rude awakening if they think International and/or foreign law does not affect them.

Test case was proven already In an Oz suit against a US company re defamation....all purely on the net.

The one and only possibility of 'safety' is whether the claimant wants to put in the appropriate time. effort and money to start proceedings.

Pick the wrong entity to upset and you WILL be screwed to whatever object is nearby through whatever orifice suits.

on Aug 30, 2009

I have to agree with Jafo here. Sure, they beat out the people aligned against them however they now seem to have this mindset that they are indestructible and it's fueling crap like sending out T-Shirts, begging the opponents to try again and to try harder because they think they're driving home the point of "We simply can't be beaten ROFLCOPTER". When they fall, and believe me with crap like this it'll happen, they will fall harder than they ever imagined just so that they get the point.

on Aug 30, 2009

niiice! i love TPB too!!

 

on Aug 30, 2009

You should have demanded he pay for cleaning your trousers because you wet them after reading his threatening letter.

Never thought of that!  In fact, I was SOOOOO scared by his harrassment (not) I almost had a bowel motion in my underwear (not).... but hey, in for a penny in for a pound, right?

on Aug 31, 2009

 

TPB will be in for a rude awakening if they think International and/or foreign law does not affect them.

Test case was proven already In an Oz suit against a US company re defamation....all purely on the net.

The Court in Gutnick v. Dow Jones ruled that Gutnick could bring suit against a foreign entity in Australia. However, if companies were to file suit in their home countries, the question then arises what the courts of those home countries could do to enforce the outcome of any decision. Even if the action were criminal, rather than civil, Sweden might not fulfill a request to extradite the proprietors of TPB since their actions, while illegal abroad, may not be illegal in Sweden

Also, to my knowledge, Gutnick is not settled law (esp. not in the jurisdictions in which a suit is likely to be brought), and the precedent, if any, is potentially confined by the decision. 

The one and only possibility of 'safety' is whether the claimant wants to put in the appropriate time. effort and money to start proceedings.

This, I think, is the real deterrent. It's unlikely that any plaintiff could ever recover damages that would make a lawsuit worthwhile. This is particularly true, given that such a lawsuit would be messy for the reasons given above.

When they fall, and believe me with crap like this it'll happen, they will fall harder than they ever imagined just so that they get the point.

See above.

 

on Aug 31, 2009

And even if the PirateBay is taken down, I can guarantee you that there'll be TPB2 coming online within a week. You just can't shut down peer-to-peer networks, not without installing hardwired controls on every computer or having state control over every ISP, and even then modern encryption methods make it impossible to actually monitor the nature of data being transferred between individual users.

The sooner the copyright holders wake up to the fact that it is the nature of their business to "shout" out their merchandise out in the wide open ether, and adapt to the fact that not all people who are listening are willing to pay for the experience, the better.

Lower prices, reprioritized and lower budgets, quality user support and good community relations are best methods of reducing piracy of your games. Use piracy as free advertising - because sure as hell you won't be able to stop it.

 

on Aug 31, 2009

TPB will be in for a rude awakening if they think International and/or foreign law does not affect them.

Test case was proven already In an Oz suit against a US company re defamation....all purely on the net.

The one and only possibility of 'safety' is whether the claimant wants to put in the appropriate time. effort and money to start proceedings.

Pick the wrong entity to upset and you WILL be screwed to whatever object is nearby through whatever orifice suits.

LOL.

"You are doomed .... DOOOOOOOMED, I say."

PirateBay has NOTHING to fear because what they are doing is legal in their country.

And even if swedish law should change, the PirateBay guys have plenty of time to react and shut down their activities.

After all, changes in law don't work retroactively.

And until that happens I hope that the corporations that have no problems with sueing private persons for millions of dollars for "pirating" 30 shitty songs have their executives abducted by terrorists and screwed through whatever orifice they fancy.

on Aug 31, 2009

Ah, so because it's legal in their country, that makes it morally right for all parties involved despite the name of the site implying that they are quite proud of what they do and why they do it?

Sorry, just because they managed to worm their way through the court system in their country doesn't make the fact that they provide a service on which thousands of I.P.s are copied from user to user to avoid paying for them go away for me.

on Aug 31, 2009

ZehDon
Ah, so because it's legal in their country, that makes it morally right for all parties involved despite the name of the site implying that they are quite proud of what they do and why they do it?

Sorry, just because they managed to worm their way through the court system in their country doesn't make the fact that they provide a service on which thousands of I.P.s are copied from user to user to avoid paying for them go away for me.

If Piratebay is doing something illegal, so is google and all other search engines around the world. Google is by far the best source for pirated media, piratebay has nothing against it. It just starts with piratebay, if you think it's going to end there, you're sadly mistaken. Therefore I welcome all the piratebays of the world, as they keep those deluded lawmutilators away from the important stuff.

10 Pages1 2 3  Last