BREIN Chases Pirate Bay Ghost

BREIN and the defense of the former owners of the Pirate Bay (brokep, anakata, TiaMO) continued their legal confrontation in the Netherlands. This was the appeals hearing to address the ongoing issue of blocking The Pirate Bay to Dutch citizens. BREIN is continues to demand that the original three block the site in the Netherlands, but they’re claiming they no longer have any control or ownership over the world’s largest tracker. Who owns The Pirate Bay? Depends who you ask, really. A name that has come up and is repeated in Peter Sunde’s blog and BREIN’s press release is a Seychelles based company called Reservella. But BREIN isn't convinced there’s a difference between this company and the defendants, and still holds the original 3 owners responsible. “Denying their responsibility and playing hide and seek is what the gentlemen of The Pirate Bay have been doing since they began their illegal business”, says BREIN director Tim Kuik. “We have sufficient reason to assume that they still are responsible. The company on the Seychelles looks like a thin veil to cover up what is really going on and it appears that they too like to play hide and seek just like they gents from The Pirate Bay. Ultimately the point is that The Pirate bay is illegal and therefore is prohibited and must be made unavailable whomever its owners are. The previous verdict against the three Swedes and the company GGF that was going to take over the site also made it crystal clear: what is illegal is prohibited whomever does it.”

Source: http://www.slyck.com/story1873_BREIN_Chases_Pirate_Bay_Ghost

Ignoring RIAA lawsuits cheaper than going to trial

Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum captured the nation's attention when they were defendants in the RIAA's first two trials against accused online infringers. But here's the mind-warping reality: both defendants would have been far better off monetarily if they had simply ignored the complaint altogether and failed to show up in court. That counterintuitive logic played out again this week in Massachusetts, where federal judge Nancy Gertner issued four default judgments against accused P2P file-swappers who never bothered to respond to the charges against them. Their failure to appear meant an automatic loss, and though the judge does have some discretion in setting penalties, judges often pick the minimum awards in such cases. That was true in all four cases, where Gertner accepted the record labels' claims and awarded them the minimum statutory damages of $750 per song. The defendants were accused of downloading an average of ten songs, putting total awards in the $7,500 range, in addition to a few hundred more for court costs. Having $7,500 in damages assessed against you by a federal court is no picnic, but it pales in comparison to the two twenty-somethings who actually showed up to court, got attorneys, went through a multiyear process and a nationally covered trial, and came out the other side owing far more money.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/ignoring-riaa-lawsuits-cheaper-than-going-to-trial.ars