Update 19/4/09 

A Swedish court has ruled against the founders of the Pirate Bay, a file-sharing Web site. The four men, on trial for infringing on film and music copyrights and making the copyrighted works available, were sentenced to jail and fined Friday.
Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstroem were sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay compensation and damages totaling $3.6 million. A message on their site before the judgment vowed that "the losing party will appeal." After the verdict Friday, this message was posted on the Pirate Bay: So, the dice courts judgment is here. It was lol to read and hear, crazy verdict. But as in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow. That's the only thing hollywood ever taught us."The Pirate Bay was charged with making copyrighted materials available to Internet users for free through BitTorrent. BMG, EMI, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG, Universal, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. were among those accusing the Sweden-based peer-to-peer site and its operators of copyright infringement. They sought more than $12 million in revenue losses. The defendants caught a break from prosecutors in February, when charges were reduced. Prosecutors acknowledged that the Pirate Bay didn't copy or produce the copyrighted material, and pursued instead charges that the site's operators were complicit in making the copyrighted works available.
The move was attributed to "largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against the Pirate Bay," Peter Danowsky, the lawyer representing the music companies in the case said at the time. The Pirate Bay launched in 2003. (InformationWeek)

Swedish Pirate Bay Judgment  by Judge Thomas Nordstrom in PDF  17/4/09

Pirate Bay Case Video   -   Swedish Judge Thomas Nordstrom Announce His Pirate Bay Judgment 17/4/09

On March 17, 2006, John G. Malcom, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy for the MPAA, addressed a letter to Swedish State Secretary Dan Eliasson. The letter articulates the MPAA’s frustration, specifically that little progress has been made to eliminate The Pirate Bay problem.

State Secretary Dan Eliasson responded to Mr. Malcom on April 10, 2006. He offered consolation by expressing some of the anti-piracy efforts the Swedish government has taken, but the underlining message remained constant. Swedish Ministries are forbidden to interfere with local police or persecution.Promised action and measures soon.

Videos from the pirate bay raid

The Pirate Bay Police Raid in PRQ Web Hosting

The PRQ Hosting Shutdown & His 300 Websites

Jag är pirat - Mynttorget 3/6 - Demostration Speech

4Law ThePirate Bay is Back onLine - 1 Saved Page    - 2 Saved Page   - (3/6/06) 

Many readers have submitted news that The Pirate Bay is back online, operating for now as "The Police Bay." Writes one anonymous submitter: "Pirate Bay got new hardware, moved the servers abroad and used recent backups. So the only bad side-effect of this police raid is that hundreds of clients of the ISP PRQ still have not got their servers back from the police. When the police did the raid on Wednesday, they took Pirate Bay from Bankgirot's secure server room. Then they also took all the servers in PRQ colocation facility STH3, effectively disabling a lot of small companies. The connection between PRQ and TPB? - Same owners, nothing more, this is beginning to become a huge scandal in Sweden with coverage on TV and all newspapers 4 days in a row." - Slashdot

When police raided the company hosting file sharing site The Pirate Bay, they also closed down a number of sites that have nothing to do with music or film sharing, it has emerged.The Pirate Bay's servers were kept at the PRQ hosting company in Stockholm. But when police raided the company on Wednesday, they allegedly took all servers on the premises without checking who they belonged to.According to a message on PRQ's own homepage, "all servers and network eqipment was seized in an act of blatant abuse of power by public prosecutor Håkan Roswall."The company also said it planned to sue the Swedish state to get the equipment returned and "for the multi-million dollar losses sustained by us and our customers."One of the customers to be hit was Birdie, a gaming association which had some of its games hosted at PRQ."We can't really understand why it was necessary to take all the servers," said Birdie's Peter Olsson to The Local."We've talked to the police but it's impossible to get information out of them".Olsson said that he believed PRQ had borrowed more servers to try to help its customers.IT news website IDG named 9 sites that had been taken offline in addition to The Pirate Bay.Police spokesman Ulf Göranzon refused to say whether the other servers had been taken on purpose, and if so, why. Prosecutor Håkan Roswall also said he could not answer questions about the precise circumstances of the raid.When The Local called PRQ, a spokesman said he could not talk "as we are in a bit of a hurry - the new equipment has just arrived."Does this mean the websites will be up and running soon?"Yes, they should be".The Pirate Bay is suspected of breach of copyright law, alternatively assisting breach of copyright law.The Motion Picture Association of America said that the raid "served as a reminder to pirates all over the world that there are no safe harbours for Internet copyright thieves." - The Local

PRQ Web Hosting Site - Saved Page  - 
Sweden Police site crashes after attack - Front page of  Aftonbladet   -

The Swedish police's homepage crashed on Thursday evening, following a major attack. Police say they do not know whether the attack was revenge for the raid on file sharing site The Pirate Bay.The site, www.polisen.se crashed after receiving around half a million page requests a second. Police IT director Lars Lindahl told The Local that the problem was caused by a distributed denial of service attack. He said that investigators had not made a positive link to The Pirate Bay case."We don't know who is behind it or where they are based, but an investigation is underway."

4Law - Sweden  (31/5/06)

Swedish Police Crackdown On Illegal File Sharing  -   MPAA Notice PDF
MPAA File Sharing Video Clip  - Streaming-
The Pirate Bay Notice - Saved Page - 

Stockholm, Sweden (AHN) - Swedish police raid 10 locations and shut down a popular Web site suspected of illegal file sharing. The Associated Press reports authorities detained three people, aged 22, 24 and 28, who allegedly violated copyright laws in their dealings with the site, The Pirate Bay. Although they were not formally arrested, they detained were questioned. The Motion Picture Association of America lauded the crackdown, saying movie studios lost $6.1 billion to piracy in 2005. Dan Glickman, the MPAA's chief executive, "The actions today taken in Sweden serve as a reminder to pirates all over the world that there are no safe harbors for Internet copyright thieves."
The first piracy conviction in Sweden was handed down last year, when a man was fined $2,200 for using a file-sharing network.

Music Companies under hackers’ fire/Sony - (31/5/06) 

Boaz Guttman Advogado - Israel

BIO & ABSTRACT  English & Spanish

Tendências na lei civil e criminal  (PPT)

P2P -  Trends in Civil & Criminal Law  7/11/06 - PPT

P2P -  Tendências na lei civil e criminal PPT  7/11/06 - PPT   - Alternativa

Sumário

Para dez dos milhões dos usuários worldwide, lima-compartilhar através do Internet transformou-se uma maneira de vida. Lima-compartilhar faz exame de muitos formulários: em seu formulário ilegal, varia do uso por paedophiles ao infringement de copyright. Sobre o ano passado, o autor foi acoplado ativamente nos esforços combater a lima do par-à-par (P2P) que compartilha sobre o Internet. Em setembro 2005, a edição compartilhando do software alcançou as cortes Israeli, seguindo governar da corte suprema dos E.U. da terra arrendada de junho 2005 que a entidade que cría uma tecnologia permitindo usuários de compartilhar limas se enlata estivesse prendida responsável para o infringement de copyright.  O exemplo de corte em Israel terminou em junho 2006, e no mesmo mês os plaintiffs alargaram sua atividade a Sweden. Em todos os três países, os plaintiffs são produtores na indústria de entertainment dos E.U. Os meios do enforcement aplicados em cada país - Sweden, os EUA e Israel - eram diferentes. Em Sweden, o sistema criminal foi usado. Os negócios do lecture com os testes padrões dos esforços aplicaram-se nas esferas criminal e civis de encontro aos operadores do software lima-compartilhando, as dificuldades em obter a prova, regulamentos existentes, as provas requereram no criminal e as áreas civis, os danos causaram aos terceiros partidos, e aos tipos de legislação. Uma demonstração é dada de como a colaboração internacional ajuda a plaintiffs lutar lima-compartilhar. Boaz Guttman representou o réu principal no caso Israeli.

(3/6/06)

Hollywood to university: Crack down on file sharing

Hollywood film industry sends letter to Haifa University asking that tough legal action be taken against a student suspected of violating copyright laws

Hollywood media giant NBC Universal sent a letter to the University of Haifa asking legal action be taken against a student who used the university's internet network to download a film whose copyrights it owns.
The letter includes IP details of the student who downloaded a copy of Universal copyrighted film via a file-sharing network. NBC Universal said it will not press charges against the university for the time being, citing its belief that the University of Haifa will take "appropriate action." The University sent a letter to the student mentioned in the letter warning that his actions contravene Israeli and international law."As can be seen in the attached complaint, an illegal posting/delivery of material protect by copyrights of NBC Universal was performed from your personal computer," the letter read. The student told Ynet he will stop doing "what they claim I did in the letter I received."
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has sent over 40,000 letters to hundreds of universities in the United States demanding action be taken to prevent the circulation of copyrighted material through their networks. In a bid to avoid legal action, some universities set up filters to block entry to file-sharing networks for their internet users.

Größter Schlag gegen den Illegalen Tausch von Musiktiteln im Internet

Größter Schlag gegen Tauschbörsen-Netzwerk in Deutschland Verfahren gegen 3.500 eDonkey-Nutzer
Im Kampf gegen den illegalen Tausch von Musiktiteln im Internet ist der Staatsanwaltschaft in Köln nach eigenen Angaben der bisher größte Schlag in Deutschland gelungen. Wie die Ermittler am Dienstag mitteilten, gab es bundesweit 130 Hausdurchsuchungen. Dabei wurden 3500 Verdächtige identifiziert, die jeweils bis zu 8000 Dateien über die Tauschbörse eDonkey angeboten haben sollen. Gegen alle Beschuldigte wurde ein Ermittlungsverfahren eingeleitet. Festnahmen gab es keine.

4Law - France Weighs Forcing iPods to Play Other Than iTunes

In the digital music market, France is singing a different tune. A bill under debate in the French Parliament may require iPods to be able to play music purchased from competing Internet services, not just Apple Computer's own iTunes Music Store, forcing changes in the business model that gave rise to the revolution in legal digital music downloads.

France Drafts Internet Copyright Law -Droits d'auteurs sur internet

France :Droit d'auteur  -  Dossiers  - (17/3/06) Media : P1 -  P2  - P3 -  P4

Explications de vote et vote, par scrutin public, sur l'ensemble du texte le mardi 21 mars après-midi
France Lawmakers Legalize P2P File-Sharing 1  Streaming  - 
France Lawmakers Legalize P2P File-Sharing 2  Streaming  - 

Le débat à l’Assemblée nationale  - (22/12/05)

P2P : une étape vers la légalisation du téléchargement sur Internet ?

P2   -   P3  -   P4  -  Media France:   P5   -  P6

TV1 Russia on Film Video Piracy in NYC / Save as or Open - 

File Sharing New Law 20/9/06
TV1 Russia on The File Sharing Law / Save as or Open   - 

Media Russia: P1 Eng.  -  P2

21/9/05
TV1 Russia on Film Video Piracy in Moccow / Save as or Open - 

P2P Users - Wild File Sharing Disclosure

Seoul National Police Office,the cyber criminal investigation team acted against P2P site enterprise and against server operator , they  booked & charged people. After making P2P sites in the Internet in 2003,  they uploaded videos.The members  put  the money and  ordered, from 3 hundred ten thousand people they received 69 hundred million won . Police investigation result & estimation .

- US -

BitTorrent goes Legit

(22/11/06)

Universal v. My Space  - (Hebrew short  & Media )

(17/10/06)

BitTorrent P2P Man to Jail -   2  -  3 MPAA Notice   - &  4   - 

(12/9/06)

eDonkey Announces $30M Settlement with RIAA and Shuts Down

4Law  - The firm behind popular online file-sharing software eDonkey has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry, according to court documents filed in 12/9/06.New York-based MetaMachine Inc. was one of seven technology firms to receive letters from the recording industry last fall warning them to shut down or prepare to face lawsuits.Since then, the operators of BearShare, i2Hub, WinMX, Grokster and Kazaa have reached similar agreements.Under terms of the latest agreement, MetaMachine and its top executives, agreed to immediately cease distributing eDonkey, eDonkey 2000, Overnet and other software versions.The company also agreed to take measures to prevent file-sharing by people using previously downloaded versions of the eDonkey software.The eDonkey Web site in 12/9/06 featured a message from the company telling visitors that the eDonkey2000 Network was no longer available, and a warning that people who steal music or movies are breaking the law.The message concluded with "Goodbye Everyone."
eDonkey2000 Surrenders to Labels  -

(27/6/05)

Grokster Surrenders to Labels       - 
 

27/6/05 Metro - Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. - PDF

The Pirate Bay Israeli Style 5/3/08

The Honorable Judge Gideon Ginat Deputy of the President in Haifa District Court Oedered ISRAELI ISP`s to BLOCK ACCESS in Israel to the Suspected Israeli File Sharing Site Called  HTTPSHARE.COM in February 25/08 Decision.
Haifa District Court -  Deputy Chief Justice GIDEON GINAT   - 

The Lawsuit again by NMC Music et al - The Same Companies in 2006 Case v. Avi Hirsh...
NMC Music et al v. Avi Hirsh - Avi Hirsh Photo 2/6/06- 

But now the Defendent are the HTTPSHARE.COM  Site Operators Alone.

The Suspects Sent E-Mail to inform that they are alive in 5/3/08.
The Primary Site is Down.
The Alternative Site is now alive in Brasil 5/3/08.

Banned from accessing the Internet except doing bussiness/Israeli  new court  decision  22/9/06

Israeli Cyber Crime Unit v. Moshe Halevy 22/9/06 - English PDF

Israeli Cyber Crime Unit v. Moshe Halevy 22/9/06 Hebrew PDF

Israeli New Draft of Bill to Ban File Sharing from 27/7/06 Translated to English  -  11/10/06

Israeli New Draft of Bill to for Commerce Law from 8/12/05 Translated to English  -  11/10/06

Israeli New Draft of Bill to Ban File Sharing from 27/7/05 -  English PDF

Israeli New Draft of Bill to Ban File Sharing from 27/7/05  -  Hebrew PDF

Electronic Commerce Law - 2005  8/12/05  - Bill Memo English  PDF

Electronic Commerce Law - 2005  8/12/05 - Bill Memo Hebrew  PDF

(8/6/06)

4Law 18/11/05  - Lawsuit follows the US Supreme Court's decision

Israel is emerging as a new hot spot as EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and Universal record label cartel continue their vicious and doomed-to-fail war against p2p and file sharing, as p2pnet reported last month,The RIAA and the MPAA are, “using Israel as a test ground for their next acts around the world” and “it seems that the situation here is of much interest to file sharers everywhere,” Nana Net-Life Magazine’s Nitzan Weidenfeld told. Singled out by the cartel were warezfaw.com, Lionetwork.net, lala.co.il and subs.co.il and now the Haifa District Court has ruled against p2p sites Shift, Lala, Lionetwork, and Subcenter, says the Jerusalem Post.

Haifa District Court -  Deputy Chief Justice GIDEON GINAT   - 
First Defendent Avi Hirsh Lawyer -  BOAZ GUTTMAN  (B.GRG) - 
"The War Starts..." in the NMC Music et alLawyers Website  - 

"The War Starts..."  with  NMC Music et al   Lawyers in the Media...

Statement of Claim NMC Music et al v. Avi Hirsh et al   - Hebrew PDF

Statement of Defence Avi Hirsh v. NMC Music et al   - Hebrew PDF

Court decision in NMC Music et al v. Shay Levari - Hebrew PDF

Lionetwork the biggest File Sharing Site in Israel till the Trial - Background.

In 1994 Avi Hirsh  Refused to Provide the Films & Music Corp. The Identity of Lionetwork Owner (Shay Levari) Without Court Order.
The Revenge Came in the Suite - The Corp. Presents him in the Suite -  "Avi Hirsh is Lionetwork..." , In spite in the end of  September 2005 under the Court order he provided all the relevant info...as the case started in Haifa District Court under the Corp. Lawyers monitoring ...Because Avi Hirsh was the Host of the 4 websites the revenge hit him as the First Defendent also when the Corp. Lawyers already finshed with sites owners / other defendants , settled with the plaintiffs, by which they paid tens of thousands NIS as damages ...in 2006...

Statement of Defence Amir Tesler v. NMC Music et al   - Hebrew PDF

Notice of Avi Hirsh Objects Media to Tap Record the Trial - Hebrew PDF

4Law 3/6/06 : Background

1.The War Starts by The Films &  Music Corp. in Israel  21/9/05

p2p news / p2pnet:- Israel has become the newest battle ground in the war between the entertainment cartels and p2p communities, Nana Net-Life Magazine’s Nitzan Weidenfeld tells p2pnet.“ALIS, the Israeli representative of the MPAA and RIAA, has taken a most aggressive approach to fighting piracy,” he says.“Suing the most prominent P2P sites in Israel for 110k$ each, even those sites who dealt with release reviews only (and held no actual links to pirated material). Furthermore, ALIS has admitted to ‘monitoring the P2P networks for month, gathering information’ in order to ‘sue the sharers themselves’."Weidenfeld says it seems the RIAA and the MPAA are “using Israel as a test ground for their next acts around the world, it seems that the situation here is of much interest to file sharers everywhere.“Four of the most popular file-trading websites were shut down yesterday after the court agreed to the request of the record companies and released a restraining order which ordered them to halt all activity,” he told us. In an interview with Nana Net-Life, ALIS lawyer Eran Presenti who, with Sarah Presenti works for the cartels, “explains his world view and the arguments which convinced the court today to turn him into the official eliminator of some of the most popular file-trading websites in Israel”. And his observations include the hoary "it's like drugs" line...."We've been working on the current suit since February, four months prior to the verdict delivered by the US Supreme Court, so it's not possible to say that the suit was filed in it's wake. However, we did mention the decision of the US court in this case.While the Israeli court is not committed to decisions made in the United States, a verdict such as the one which was concluded in the Grokster case, especially when it involves the US Supreme Court, can be an affecting element in the interpretation of the Israeli courts, as in it's analysis. Among others, it was decided in this case that sharing companies would be those held responsible for the illegal actions of their users, in a case in which the main usage of these services would be the illegal sharing of films and music.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/6341

2.The Victory of one young man in Israel aginst the  Films &  Music Corp.  11/6/06

The Israeli Union of Music Companies, which includes 27 companies, and the U.S. Union of Music Companies(Include ALIS, the Israeli representative of the MPAA and RIAA), which includes 40 companies, have removed their claim against defendant #1 Mr. Avi Hirsh, in the biggest of its kind Internet file sharing lawsuit in Israel. The claim was made in September 2005 at the Haifa District Court and was heard before his honor Judge Gideon Ginat, vice president of the District Court. The plaintiffs, represented in Israel by the Dr. Sarah Prezenti law firm, in cooperation with defendant #1’s attorney, Boaz Gutman, requested the court to remove his name from the prosecution.
Avi Hirsh had supplied a storage site for sites, which were claimed to have broken the Internet file sharing regulations. The site is www.spd.co.il The claim was filed following the June 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, that file sharing on the Internet was illegal. In the defense statement, filed by defendant #1’s attorney, Boaz Gutman maintained that the claim against his client had no basis in reality. The other defendants settled with the plaintiffs, by which they paid tens of thousands NIS as damages.
The alleged sharing sites settled & hosted in spd.co.il are: www.lionetwork.net   - Shay Levari ,
www.lala.co.il - Amir Tesler , www.shift.co.il - Eli Segev , www.subcenter.co.il - Tamir Ferminger.
The settled ISP`s , formal defendant , are: 012 Gold Lines , Internet Gold - Gold Lines  .
The removal of Avi Hirsh’s name from the claim was confirmed by the court.
The motion filled in Haifa Court 31/5/06.
The motion confirmed detail -  the Honorable Judge Gideon Ginat Deputy of the President in Haifa District Court - Avi Hirsh v. N.M.C. Music at el Civil Judgement 8193/06 date 8/6/06