Police in Finland decided that maybe they looked like crap for raiding the home of a 9 year old accused of copyright piracy and seizing her Winnie The Pooh laptop. They had charged her with all kinds of crimes but decided to go ahead and drop them and just fine her dad about $450. Great, so make dad pay. I get that. But, are you telling me that a $450 fine made this all go away and that was worth raiding a home of someone? It had to cost way more than $450 to raid the home and people could have been injured or killed all because some 9 year old was getting her torrent freak on so she could watch Justin Bieber 24/7? That is ridiculous. Oh, and police have held on to the laptop.
The finland police obviously have a lot of time on their hands
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ReplyDeletethis probably made Lars Ulrich's Christmas.
ReplyDelete*Hides Paddington Bear laptop*
Please look after this laptop thank you.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine what else there is to do in Finland.
Too funny...that kid's better online than I am
ReplyDeleteWow! The crime rate there must be phenomenally low for them to get so worked up over a 9 year old pirating content.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they didn't know it was a 9 year old child. Stealing is stealing. But yeah, sounds like the police may have overdone it a little.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually a rather complicated case involving a mafia-like society who first sent her threatening letters after purposefully leaking a file and monitoring its downloads. The society has no actual legal power, so in the end they involved the po-po... It's a ridiculous case and has risen a lot of discussion about rights and piracy in Finland... It's not like police in Finland has nothing better to do, really!
ReplyDeleteUgh another issue that has been blown WAY out of proportion. People downloading overpriced music shouldn't be on the top of must raid houses for list.
ReplyDeleteArtists are no longer getting paid for their work. It may not be an issue for the small number of legacy artists who have money from when albums used to sell, but many musicians aren't making a decent living. If it's "overpriced," then you don't need to own the song. But $1 for a song you really love is not a lot, especially when you are supporting the artist.
DeleteDoes she even understand the concept of copyright?
ReplyDeleteThey make winnie the poo laptops? Dear Santa...
ReplyDeleteShe's nine but she's also accused of being a thief. If she's downloaded enough to garner the attention of some group, then her laptop (the evidence) should be held and her parents fined.
ReplyDeleteTough tit.
No, Jem, she only got busted because she downloaded a trap. She was not a specific target for "downloading enough to garner attention". And with that attitude, I'd monitor my own behaviour veeeeery closely if I were you. Raiding a home for music piracy is in fact overkill.
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ReplyDeleteShe didn't have enough pocket money for a cd she wanted, so the dad showed her how to use Google and maybe find some songs to listen online. She managed to download something on her own, but the files were damaged and could not be listened. The next day the dad bought her the cd. A while later they got a letter to pay 600€for sharing files illegally and to sign a consent of silence. He refused, so they got sued and the police took the little girls computer. This ridiculous incident got a lot of publicity here in Finland. An anonymous provider sent the girl a new computer to use while the police has the Winnie the Pooh one.
ReplyDeleteCDAN commenters are the best... What started as an absurd story about overkill police action against child and laptop got far more interesting once I read he comments!
ReplyDeleteNow I'm off to learn more about it.
Honestly, as the parent of a girl in that age-range, I envision having her search for cat videos on YouTube, downloading a honeypot trap file like this one accidentally, getting a letter demanding 600 Euros and having the exact same reaction as her Dad.
IANAL, but what is the age of legal culpability in Finland? Here, you'd have a damn hard time proving intent on the part of the 9 y.o. and a good attorney would argue that there was no damage or loss to the 'entity' that put a corrupted file that wasn't actually anything other than a trap. Unless that company could show that the file was something hat wold cause them personally to lose money. It would be like me putting up a file with the title "Justin Bieber - Baby", really having it be a script that reports back the info about the downloader and not a song, then insisting that anyone who downloads it give me money on behalf of Sony (or whomever the heck actually produces his records, I don't know.)
But whomever made the call to raid the home should be ashamed. If it had been the equivalent of a CD that she had accidentally left a store with would anyone be trying to fine her 600€? Or raiding her house and fining her Dad that much? Because here, it's more likely that the CD would be returned to the store or paid for and the girl would get a lesson. The rest seems a bit extreme.
According to YLE (Finland's state-run media, sorta like the BBC) they settled with the family, and the 600€ fine was cut in half. The story I read didn't mention if she got the computer back or not... hopefully so.
ReplyDeleteIn case there is no Finnish topics on Thursday, Happy Independence Day, everyone! :D
Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää kaikille! :D