Danish Students Face Legal Action and Fines Over Textbook Piracy

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Beep@lemmus.org⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://torrentfreak.com/danish-students-face-legal-action-and-fines-over-textbook-piracy/

After “awareness” campaigns that failed to move the needle for years, Denmark’s leading anti-piracy group is shifting to a more aggressive litigation strategy. The Rights Alliance confirmed it will begin filing civil lawsuits against individual students who are caught sharing even a single digital textbook. The anti-piracy group prefers not to mention the targeted platforms but says it uses undercover monitoring of private groups to gather evidence.

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gustofwind@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I used to email everyone in class a copy of the all the books I’d get off libgen/anna’s

Knowledge is expensive Stupidity is free

It shouldn’t be that way

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SW42@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Fuck, the greed of those parasites is never ending. Educational use should be free

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- testaccount372920@piefed.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Although I agree with the sickening greed part, I don’t think it makes sense to make educational use free without have another system in place that pays for the writing of educational books. There’s plenty of content that imo should be free for educational use, but educational books only have an income from educational use, it’s their whole target audience. No income, no book :/
  
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  - SW42@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Oh yes, I totally agree - I didn’t mean for the authors and even the publishers not to get paid.
    
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Fokeu@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
We should pirate more, in fact we should pirate so much that these fuckers won’t be able to decide who to punish

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Paragone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
But nobody’s suing the schools for their textbooks-with-needless-“updates” extortion-rings?

OPEN TEXTBOOKS EXIST, & school-systems ought be legally-obliged to either use those, XOR justify coercing students into economic-abuse for sake of fancier ones.

OpenStax.org

LibreTexts.org

etc.

This SHOULD be cutting both-ways: lawsuits going up AND lawsuits going down.

Since it’s only axe-chopping-down, then … obviously, then the people doing the “representing” are NOT representing the citizens in their ridings, but rather the established-special-interest-groups who’re profiting from the extortion students are currently subject-to.

Fundamentally, beyond all copyright-law, platform-exclusivity, etc, fundamentally, IF G-D put immense LivingPotential in a life, THEN it’s our obligation to be honoring that LivingPotential.

NOT to be snuffing it unless money is concentrated to a particular class, or pseudoperson, or cartel, or institution:

It isn’t that “information wants to be free”, rather, it is that LEARNING ought be free, for upright, proper, honest learning ( not evil/abuse/similar ).

The Scandinavian system whereby nobody can buy their way into higher-education: it’s merit-ONLY, & the public-education-system cannot be bypassed by money/status, THAT is more right, but I’ve no idea how they do learning-materials/textbooks.

Further, it ought be that learning & certification are decoupled: one ought be able to get learning at any institution, or even on one’s own, & then get certification independently of that-school’s-institution.

“Conflict-of-interest is the root of corruption” is a good rule for understanding why learning & certification need to be segregated, to break the cartel-system from education.

( that does, of course, require standardization of required-learning-for-specific-certifications, & many might balk at that, but if driver’s-licenses & pilot’s-licenses can be standardized, then I’m willing to bet that degrees can be standardized, in many subjects, too. )

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Kissaki@feddit.org ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This would be a great cause for universities and students for pushing political reforms. Hindering education and development are good catchers for politics.

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Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

Denmark’s leading anti-piracy group is shifting to a more aggressive litigation strategy.

Unless the students are acting incredibly naive, it’s almost impossible for the anti-piracy group to lift the burden of proof here.
In general all you have to do is to claim you know nothing about it. For instance having “evidence” that your IP address was used for download is not enough.

Also the Anti Piracy group has a reputation of themselves working outside the law here, so maybe an investigation into this group could be a good idea.

da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Schlüter

Johan Schlüter was for many years the embodiment of anti piracy in Denmark forming “AntiPirat Gruppen” (Anti Piracy Group).

I 2014 idømte en fransk domstol ham 18 måneders ubetinget fængsel

Translation: In 2014 a French court gave him 18 months UNCONDITIONAL prison term!
The case was followed up with a $5 million lawsuit. For the fraudulent handling of Charles Trenet copyrights.

In 2015 he was reported to police for defrauding 100 million from copyright holders. The investigation found “inconsistencies” in 4 companies owned by Johan Schlüter. Later that year AntiPirat Gruppen" was declared bankrupt.

i juni 2017 tiltale mod Schlüter og to andre advokater i Schlüters advokatfirma.

In July 2017 cases were raised against Schlüter and 2 other lawyers in the company.

So the people handling these copyright investigations and cases do not have the best reputation. In fact they are the real thieves stealing from copyright holders, embezzling their money through their judicial con job. Promising to help, but doing more harm than good, to a degree that Denmark is now basically protected against anti piracy lawyers immoral and illegal activities.

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fonix232@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Used to live in Denmark a good decade ago, "nice" to see that nothing really changed.

Back then there was a quasi-proverb going around - you could sit in the middle of the most public part, butt naked, your girl riding your dick, a bottle of vodka in one hand and a joint in the other, and if police saw you, the worst thing you'd get is a high five. But dare you download a single episode of Game Of Thrones...

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- MBech@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’ve never actually heard of anyone in Denmark getting in trouble for downloading stuff. Sure, some get in trouble by selling it, but supporting piracy just to turn around and selling pirated stuff is fucking hypocritcal anyway.
  
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- Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Piracy isnt really well enforced
  
  And in Denmark they have to prove who did it. Cant put the owner of an ip address in jail for what others have done…
  
  So far only distributors and people who have admitted guilt, have lost in court as far as i know
  
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