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Comment by ashray | Hacker News Reader

Clicked through to the article hoping to see a picture of the laptop. Was not disappointed! :)

On topic though, this just shows how ridiculous the MAFIAA is getting these days. Unfortunately, this episode played out negatively on the artist as well - who probably had nothing to do with the event. So piracy harms the artist, but in this case the MAFIAA hurt the artist even more by prosecuting someone for it [1] ? Not sure if that's justice, but it feels quite strange to think about it.

[1] - The article says that the artist experienced a serious backlash on her facebook page from enraged fans.

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I'm wondering if the backlash might actually be a good thing. If this sort of backlash becomes common, there will be a disincentive for artists to sign up with records who indulge in such nonsense. Perhaps the system will adapt such that prosecutions like this would be eliminated.

> If this sort of backlash becomes common, there will be a disincentive for artists to sign up with records who indulge in such nonsense.

Unfortunately this is the last thing on artists' minds when they're about to sign a deal with a record label, and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

That's true, but established artists might have some leverage. If they get fed up enough, they will start looking for alternatives.

Latest spin from the .fi copyright mafia is "this demonstrates how we need legislation enabling softer measures for enforcement", cue 3 strikes etc badness.

Maybe people will stop buying music from the MAFIAA

> there will be a disincentive for artists to sign up with records who indulge in such nonsense

Why would a creative person who's primary method of feeding the family are checks from publishers not want their publisher to diligently protect the revenue model?

Because they understand that "protecting the revenue model" distinctly different than confiscating 9 year olds' laptops.

Because "protecting the revenue model" is destroying the whole market. Instead of "protecting" the existing model, the music industry has to innovate. Doing what they're doing might squeeze out a little cash in the short term but it's a sinking ship and when an alternative breaks out, every artist that isn't part of the new model will be left out just as great bands are left out of the current model now.

> there will be a disincentive for artists to sign up with records who indulge in such nonsense

No, there won't be. The recording companies will keep doing what they do and the artist will occasionally tweet how awful it is but they can't do anything about it since it's the big bad corporation. The company will take the blame along with its cut.

I've mentioned it before, and I'll say it again: hold the artists accountable. They are the one these organizations are speaking on behalf of. Call them out on their tweets about how they support this directly.

Or do more than call them out. If all the people who posted a useless message would instead avoid buying/watching/listening to anything that involved a certain artist, if we could somehow destroy one big artists career, then no artist would want to be involved.

Basically, use old media's strategy against them: we can't touch the big guys, they're too big. But if we could destroy someone they depend on it would eventually kill them too.

Well, by hold them accountable, I thought it was clear that you would also not buy their products. Regardless, I still think calling them out would do more than simply not buying their album.

The picture I have in my head now is a group of police gathered around a Winnie-The-Pooh laptop listening to the latest Chisu music.

I envisioned the music video to Weird Al's "Don't download this song."

In this case the piracy didn't hurt the artist as they couldn't get the working files and went out and bought the cd. So even though it started with piracy they bought the music legitimately.

That kind of makes me wonder how it works, or the logic. If you download something to try it (pirate) then go buy the same content you'll still get in trouble? I understand that the law was broken then the legal way to obtain the content came but doesn't that sort of deter you from bothering to buy in the future? My idea above really would matter most for say downloading one song from an album then buying the album (books/movies you'd have the entire content anyways).

Just a curious thought as I'm sure I have a lot of the details quite wrong but following the logic here: if you've downloaded any part of an album you might as well download the entire album rather than buy the rest.

Well, (and I'm not defending what happened here, just explaining what I suppose may be the reasoning), the problem with BT is that you're not just downloading the album, but also uploading and sharing it back to the BT swarm. Compare with the reasoning why downloading is/used to be[1] legal in the Netherlands: Copyright consists of exactly two rights: the right to make public and the right to make copies. Since Dutch law already allows to make "home copies", this means that only the uploader is breaking the law, not the downloader, because the right to make these "home copies" is not contingent on how you obtained the works in the first place.

Unfortunately most filesharing networks, and BT in particular, won't let you download without uploading and sharing back.

Of course the details of copyright and IP enforcement in Finland would be very different. Still, the point is, if you use BT to download a copyrighted music album, you're violating copyright not just by obtaining a copy, but also by redistributing it back to the BT swarm. Buying the album may make right on the former, but not on the latter.

[1] I'm not sure but I seem to remember they reverted that decision a while back. It was all based on a stupid error by BREIN's lawyers in the Kazaa vs BREIN case a long time ago. (BREIN is basically the representative of RIAA in NL, as well as a rather shady organisation)

I doubt that is the girls actual laptop. Looks to clean and unused, more like a product picture. I would imagine her laptop to have stickers and glitter all over it.

Given this wasn't related to the RIAA/MPAA (given that this wasn't a US case), I wouldn't lay the blame directly at their door.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that most (if not all) of the copyright insanity worldwide stems from the RIAA/MPAA. It would be willing to bet a lot that if they became sane, most of the rest of the world would, too.

The copyright laws in Spain have been modified from pressures made by the US government ,in fact Joe Biden on behalf of RIAA/MPAA, even threatening with commercial sanctions. I think we can extrapolate those pressures to the rest of the world. It was known as the Biden-Sinde law, now it has changed to Sinde-Wert (name of the ministers who obeyed the orders as seen in wikileaks).

Yes, the U.S. influence is enormous. Very visible in the case of Wikileaks. Their ability to alter another nation's laws at will is unnerving. I wonder how effective a technological solution may be, if they can easily find a judicial way around it.

I think there should be the same zest in seeking justice for governments that wage wars and bankers that rob citizens, as it is for a 9 years old watching Winnie the Pooh.

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