Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:50:25 -0500
From: No Piracy <nopiracy@advfilms.com>
To: tracker-d1-a3-a2-03-41542f4e_prq.to, tiamo_prq.se
Subject: Electronic Notice of Infringement - thepiratebay.org
September 24, 2004
Fredrick Neij
Box 1206
Stockholm 11479
Sweden
tiamo_prq.se
tracker-d1-a3-a2-03-41542f4e_prq.to
RE:
http://www.thepiratebay.org
Dear Fredrick Neij,
This office represents A.D. Vision, Inc. (ADV) and its affiliated
companies that own and/or are exclusively licensed to use the following
protected work (the "Protected Work"):
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Through our Internet monitoring program, we recently discovered
unauthorized use of our Protected Work in connection with your website
(www.thepiratebay.org) (the "Site"). Specifically, the Protected Works
are being offered for Internet download, copying and distribution through
Bit Torrent technology.
Our intellectual property rights are our most valuable assets. In order
to promote a cooperative and beneficial relationship with fans, ADV
prefers to send out written requests such as this first, rather than
institute litigation or request that your ISP disable your Site.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, unauthorized copying and distribution of
ADV's protected works (including images) constitutes an infringement of
one or more of ADV's rights under the copyright laws the United States,
Canada and many other jurisdictions throughout the world, including
States that are members to the European Union. Applicable law provides
for substantial penalties for such infringement, including injunctive
relief, attorney's fees, and damages. ADV has instituted litigation in
the past, and in every such litigation, ADV prevailed. If necessary, ADV
will not hesitate to take such action again to insure that its rights are
fully protected.
Therefore, without limiting any right, remedy or defense available to us,
ADV MUST ASK THAT YOU IMMEDIATELY:
1) Delete and cease all further use of the Protected Work, and any
other unauthorized ADV works, from the Site.
2) Remove and delete all copies of the Protected Work, and any
other unauthorized ADV titles, from any other distribution channel
owned, operated or otherwise controlled or accessible by you or those to
whom you grant access including other web sites, FTP servers, web-based
storage services, peer-to-peer systems and the like (each of the
foregoing being a "Channel").
3) Remove and delete all references, pointers and hypertext links
pertaining to infringing copies of the Protected Work from all such
Channels.
We also ask that you please advise us in writing within five (5) days
from the date of this notice as to whether you will comply with our
request so that we can determine whether any additional action will be
required beyond this point. I trust this will receive your prompt
attention, and if there is anything I can help you with in future, please
let me know.
Sincerely,
Aaron Guerrero
Enforcement Team
Anti-Piracy Division
A.D. Vision, Inc.
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:11:44 -0100 (GMT)
From: anakata
To: <a href="mailto:nopiracy@advfilms.com">nopiracy@advfilms.com">nopiracy@advfilms.com</a>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:11:44 -0100 (GMT)
From: anakata
To: <a href="mailto:nopiracy@advfilms.com
Subject: RE: Electronic Notice of Infringement - thepiratebay.org
Hello, my dear sir(s)!
We all like Evangelion a lot. This, however, does not mean that we like
YOU. So instead of mindlessly acting on your notice of so-called
infringement, I took the liberty of forwarding it to our legal counsel:
On the subject of thepiratebay.org's supposed infringement of your
intellectual rights. I have been given the authority, as legal consel,
to reply to your kind letter.
We understand that you are familiar with Bit Torrent technology. Then you
may, or may not, understand that none of the data that you hold the
copyright to reside on thepiratebay.org's servers.
This raises the question of the reach of Swedish and European copyright
law. It is the opinion of us, and the Swedish Supreme Court, that
information about WHERE to obtain copyrighted material, which is the
case with Bit Torrent, is not illegal. The '.torrent' files that are
offered for download at the site in question contain nothing more than
hash and checksum information. How this information could, in itself,
possibly be an infrigement of your copyright is beyond us and apparently
the Swedish legal system agrees.
As to this date the third paragraph of the Swedish copyright
legalislation does not criminalize information exchange. You may also
wish to rewiev the 'Lag (1998:112) om ansvar för elektroniska
anslagstavlor'. It is stated in the fifth paragraph that under certain
circumstances an administrator of a site might be required to remove
certain 'messages' entered by the users. However it is our opinion that
'.torrent' files is not of the nature stated here. The subparagraph in
question is aimed at stoping people from quoting whole literature
works or posting copyrighted pictures.
In your e-mail you state three demands. The first two are obviously
completley void since The Pirate Bay in no way store any of your
copyrighted data on their servers.
As for the third demand: We have no intention of removing anything as
long as our actions are not violating Swedish law and to our knowledge
this is not the case.
For your convience we took the time to review European law on this area.
Considering that it takes several years, in some cases almost a decade,
to get an answer from the European court on an inqury about how a law is
to be interpreted, the question whether the european copyright law also
includes bittorrent is less interesting. You may return in about 5 years
when there is a ruling from the European Supreme Court. Until then we
have no choice except respecting Swedish copyright law. And as we have
explained the information contained in our servers is clearly not of the
nature required of Swedish law, to be considered an infrigement of
intellectual property. This would be similar to outlawing a map outlining
where to find the library or the local video-rental store.
Our guess, since you did not provide us with adequate information on
which laws and regulations that you feel are violated, is that you are
referring to 'Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of
copyright and related rights in the information society'. Whether or not
this act does indeed state that the information contained in '.torrent'
files is a violation of the authors' intellectual rights or not is of
little importance in the case at hand. The act does not have direct
effect and calls upon the member states to take appropriate action in
order to protect the rights refered to in the directive.
Obiously the Swedish government, to this date, considers that it has done
so and that all rights are protected under the current Swedish
legalizlation. And as stated above our activity on the site in question
and on our servers are not in violation of Swedish law. As law-abiding
good upstanding citizens we do not question our wise government's policy.
Sincerely
/Judas, on the behalf of The Pirate Bay
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