[raymor]

Originally Posted by nate

Thats all pirate bay does as well. They just point you to whatever you searched for. The mechanics may differ, but the action is the same.

Also, as I said, google is just as guilty because they will point you straight to the alleged pirate websites.

No, Pirate Bay does NOT gives you links to web sites. Pirate Bay gives
you links to stolen movies. Do you not understand the difference between
"stolen" and "not stolen", or the difference between a stolen MOVIE and
a WEB SITE? Apparently not.


Do you not understand the difference between a set of systems
designed solely for the purpose of theft and a general purpose
tool like a pair of scissors?

And I suppose a guy named Captain Morgan actually makes rum. Names are not a means to judge either content nor intention. Does Bass Pro Shop actually sell Bass Pros?

Yes, Bass Pro Shop sells things of interest to Bass Pros.
Champion Firearms is in the firearms business, and Pirates Bay is
in the pirating business.

I'd like to see which federal law makes possession of lock picks and certain other tools illegal. I can walk onto any of the local tool trucks and buy a lock pick set and other tools designed specifically to unlock cars without a key. I don't need a license.

In most states, you can't. You asked about federal laws - you do realize that
most laws aren't federal, right? Like laws against robbery, murder, etc., all
all state laws under a federal system. As a matter of fact, under the most
well known federal system, the federal government doesn't have the
constitution right to make such laws:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article...merated_powers

You might want to glance over the constitution and get a rough
understanding of how the system is designed before making arguments
about the constitution. When you assume that all laws are federal laws,
during debate about a constitutional issue, you look kind of silly.

Regarding this thread in general:
Frankly, I'm surprised to see people that rely on the first amendment so heavily, piss on it when it doesn't suit their purpose. That's pretty disgusting.

So you think the first amendment protects a bunch of people planning
a robbery, and the mastermind is perfectly innocent because all he did
was plan the robbery and tell the other members of the gang exactly how
to carry out the robbery? All he did was SPEAK, right? That's what the
owners of pirate bay did - plan and organize an ongoing series of thefts,
provide the tools needed to carry out their plan, and explain to other
criminals how to go about executing the planned thefts.

Perhaps extortion, threatening to harm someone unless they give you
money, is covered under the first amendment because the person was
speaking while committing the crime? No, freedom of speech means that
the act of saying something is not itself a crime, generally. The PURPOSES,
EFFECTS, or RESULTS of what you say may indeed be criminal - as in the
case of extortion, espionage, etc. The crime of extortion is the making of
the threat, whether that threat be verbal, drawn in a picture, or communicated
in sign language. It's not the speech that is criminal, but the purpose
you seek to accomplish - the unlawful taking of money. Similarly with
the copyright infringement by pirate bay - whether they had provided
HTML links or smoke signals doesn't matter because it's not about the
speech per se, the crime is that they acted for the purpose of causing
theft.

I guess you'll never understand that, tough, the idea that what you are
doing, stealing, matters, not just HOW you do it - by HTML links.
Pirate Bay and Google both make links. Google exposes an index
of the internet by making links. Yes, they both use links, but for entirely
different purposes.