thepiratebay.se is currently redirecting to a cached Cloudflare version of the site. The authorities seem to have got something wrong. However piratebay.se IS offline
Swedish government wins legal case to seize Pirate Bay domains
The Swedish government has won its case to seize piratebay.se and thepiratebay.se, but the site is already back up under another domain with a new logo to show it isn't beaten. The new round of whack-a-mole flared up on Tuesday when The Stockholm District Court ruled in a case brought by government prosecutors against Swedish …
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Wednesday 20th May 2015 08:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The government can take stuff it thinks belongs to you if you've been convicted?
I believe this is correct in a sense. Stuff that has been used to commit the crime can be taken as part of the conviction (which I think was done in this case).
I think what's more interesting is that a domain name was deemed property and thus not something that is rented. Does this mean the registrar can't give the domain to someone else if the registry fee isn't paid (they could still deregister it in DNS of course)? It is after all the property of the one who did register it.
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Wednesday 20th May 2015 10:58 GMT Andy The Hat
Re: The government can take stuff it thinks belongs to you if you've been convicted?
If the domain is rented, surely it returns to the ownership of the registrar at the time of renewal (as mentioned above) otherwise the registrar, not the perpetrator of the crime, is being penalised ...
If I lived in a rented house and committed a crime who would then own the house, the rented tv, the Complete Anthology of Great Works by J K Rowling pamphlet borrowed from the library?
Sounds like a dangerous precedent to set ...
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Wednesday 20th May 2015 18:40 GMT Pseu Donyme
Re: The government can take stuff it thinks belongs to you if you've been convicted?
>If the domain is rented...
I suppose the government could sidestep the issue by paying the regular fees to the registrar for as long as they want to keep the domain out of circulation. This would be in line with no harm to the registrar - as with the court costs - due to finding them not liable. Actually, maybe the 'property' here is the right to the domain name under the same terms as with the original owner as opposed to a perpetual right to the domain name itself.
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Wednesday 3rd June 2015 05:30 GMT jsbg
Re: The government can take stuff it thinks belongs to you if you've been convicted?
Isn't the reasoning about the government paying for renting the domain a bit flawed? Following the same train of thought the government should continue paying the car rental of those running people on the street, or house rent for rapist houses, etc. It is all for the safety of the society, to prevent another rape.
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Wednesday 20th May 2015 06:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Legal reasoning.
Legal "reasoning" according to swedish news was "the domain name was a tool used to commit crimes, therefore this tool should be seized just like a weapon, drugs or anything like that".
That makes one wonder though, where does it stop? Can they take your home, car, phone and credit card too?
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Wednesday 20th May 2015 07:25 GMT Michael H.F. Wilkinson
Re: Legal reasoning.
If you use those to commit a crime, according to that reasoning apparently: yes. Without wanting to go into the right or wrong of the current court decision, I would expect many countries have similar provisions. A home might be difficult to see as a tool in a crime, but if someone is a persistent drunk driver, and kills somebody whilst driving under influence, few would argue that confiscating car (and licence) would be excessive punishment. If someone uses his credit card to defraud people, confiscating it could be part of the punishment.
What is needed in most countries is a court order.
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Wednesday 20th May 2015 19:06 GMT Crazy Operations Guy
Re: Legal reasoning.
In the US, the RICO act allows for confiscating anything that was purchased from the proceeds of a crime. The FBI, DEA, and the other organizations have taken cars, phones, and even houses. They can make you homeless if make even a single mortgage payment using even a single penny that was gained from crime. They can then turn around and use that property for whatever they want, including selling it and dumping the cash into their budgets, and if it turns out that you were innocent, they'll give you the profit they made on the sale (Usually only 10%, but many times less than the actual value of the item).
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Wednesday 20th May 2015 07:15 GMT Haku
First Pirate Bay Helps Puts Sweden on the Map, Govt. Agency Says
Then the next day they seize their domain names.
Congratulations Sweden, your government is as abysmal as everyone elses.
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Wednesday 20th May 2015 15:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
You've missed the point
Not only are the domains seized, TPB operators will be fined millions and sent to prison like the former TPB operators. It's all good. More scum is being sent to prison daily and the seized servers link those who pirate so authorities can prosecute this dimwits, too.