Finnish police confiscate 9-y-o's laptop after she downloads a song from the Pirate Bay

A nine-year-old Finnish girl's computer was confiscated by the police after she downloaded a track from the Pirate Bay. She was trying to preview the new album by Chisu (she later bought the album and went to the concert). The Finnish TTVK (Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre) demanded 600 Euros in summary fines from her family, along with a gag order, and the family refused, so they sicced the police on them.

Events started when last year's october family's daughter tried to preview to Chisu's new album. According to child's father, searches took her to the Pirate bay. Next spring the father got a letter from TTVK demanding 600 euros. TTVK's letter also demanded a nondisclosure. Father didn't oblige, but instead, wrote a letter back to the attorney. Letter included photographs of the bought album, and the tickets to the concert, which her child attended.

According to a TorrentFreak report, the confiscated machine was a Winnie the Pooh laptop.

9-year old girl prosecuted for Piratism in Finland

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MORE: Copyfight • finland • Kids • law • tpb

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Øyvind

It would probably be more efficient to go after the parents, though. A 9 year old with her own laptop, that knows not only where to go, but also how to download? Odds are the parents are heavy users themselves…
- http://twitter.com/DiscoverFinland Discovering Finland
  
  Not necessarily. My 8 year old boy knows how to download, and transfer data via bluetooth from his laptop to his phone, and he wasn’t shown by his parents. Neither of us download music, or have ever bothered to use bluetooth. Kids learn this kind of stuff incredibly quickly, usually teaching their friends new tricks as they master them.
- http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
  
  Please, I was teaching my parents how to operate computers by the age of about 7.
  - http://twitter.com/shay_guy Shay Guy
    
    That late? Mine can still tell you about the day we got our first computer, when I was 4, and they were freaking out because I’d set it to black and white. (I promptly changed it back.)
    - Boundegar
      
      That’s nothing, I was programming in FORTRAN in the womb.
      - danarmak
        
        Oh, your poor mother.
      - SheriffFatman
        
        FORTRAN? Luxury! My parents had me setting zeros and ones by hand before my constituent gametes had even fused.
      - Robert
        
        Well, I had to badge in to work a half hour after I went to bed, work 29 hours a day down software shop, pay software shop owner to work, and when I got home, download videos from BBSs at 3 baud of people killing me and dancing about on my grave singing Hallelujah.
      - teapot
        
        XKCD wins the argument, again.
      - SheriffFatman
        
        @boingboing-b571ecea16a9824023ee1af16897a582:disqus
        And you try and tell the young people of today that ….. they won’t believe you.
      - NynjaSquirrel
        
        Reminds me of this: http://youtu.be/I2AcJSkUw6M
  - http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
    
    My mother lives two hours away and every time she calls me for tech support I tell her she needs to make friends with some kids in her street.
- dragonfrog
  
  I’m guessing you haven’t spent a lot of time around 9 year olds lately. BitTorrent software is hardly complex to use these days – I’d guess a normal 7 year old should be able to use it.
  - That_Anonymous_Coward
    
    And if she was using Opera, she just clicked a link and it did all of the work for her.
- Ipo
  
  You need to socialize with kids more.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    You don’t hear that every day.
    - Andrew Singleton
      
      Because whenever someone does they’re branded a pedo.
      - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
        
        Spoilsport!
      - cdh1971
        
        Only if you’re male.
- That_Anonymous_Coward
  
  She knew were to go, she typed it into a search engine.
  She might not have been as savvy as everyone else… but then we all laugh at the people who fall for the advance fee fraud and wonder who would be like that… if it wasn’t working they wouldn’t do it.
Martijn

Good job, going after your own customers! She bought the album and went to the concert. Of course that needs to be punished!
http://twitter.com/DiscoverFinland Discovering Finland

TTVK is not a governmental body, it is a private company with the suffix Ry in Finland. It serves its members, who have the monopoly in copyrights, rather than the artists.
http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch

Prosecution lawyer: “And what happened to Winnie the Pooh, little girl? He got so GREEDY he got his little head STUCK in a honey-pot.”
Michael Rosefield

Guys, stop being so predictably reactionary.

I think that, if you took the time to think about it, it would be fairly obvious that if that girl hadn’t downloaded that track, she would have bought the album 15 times and purchased at least 13 tickets for herself for the concert.
Bodhipaksa

Thank goodness technology in the 1970s didn’t allow for our cassette recorders to be confiscated when we taped songs from the radio or recorded LPs.
- vonbobo
  
  “when we taped songs from the radio or recorded LPs.”
  
  … don’t you mean File Shared on tape?
peregrinus

I used to be a great consumer of CDs. I have about 1,000. But over the last 10 years, with all the vicious tactics employed by the media companies and their minions, I have become inured to the lure.

I cannot think of the last time I bought a CD, and I’ve got a good memory. I don’t listen to commercial radio (it’s too annoying, too repetitive). I don’t download anything, illegally or otherwise. I have to pay my BBC license, but they actually have great broadcasts, despite setting royalty payments way too high.

I just … hate the way these companies act. It’s so distasteful I want nothing at all to do with them.
- IndexMe
  
  I stopped buying CDs too. Unfortunately there is a lot less music in my life.
  - GlyphGryph
    
    This is why I only buy music from groups not associated with these mobsters. It’s a bit harder, but hey – most of them are fine with me listening before I buy anyway.
Gendun

Of course, she most likely did not “download a song from the Pirate Bay,” she downloaded a magnet file. There’s a not-insubstantial technical and legal difference.
- t3kna2007
  
  +1 for making the kind of fine-grained but important distinction usually glossed over in the typically-lower-res news media.
  
  Also, gag order? WTF is that about?
  - That_Anonymous_Coward
    
    Copyright trolls around the globe use nondisclosure agreements to protect how they operate, how much they extort, and how the shakedown works.
- bcsizemo
  
  Well from TPB’s point of view it makes a lot of difference, but I’m not sure it does from her side. She still downloaded the song/album, she just acquired it via a magnet file hosted by TPB.
Kaleberg

This sounds like something Cory Doctorow would write with running gun battles, deadly midnight raids, and diabolical scheming in the battle between youthful fans and the hired goons of their favorite bands and performers.
- Andrew Singleton
  
  More like ‘hired goons from the record labels saying they’re representing the bands… then the bands being horrified how their names are attached to this and sue.’
miasm

Another disaster averted by the timely and conscientious adjudication of tolerance by our wise and perspicacious leaders, brows trammelled with naught but a crease of concern for all of the free and happy world.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RREC2OY32JFN6JWSK4KZNBZF7Y Jim

One possible solution to overly zealous copyright enforcement is to promote a wide-spread and long duration boycott of all copyrighted music until the bastards go out of business. After that, just mention to the movie and book guys that if they don’t come up with more reasonable copyright solutions, they’ll go the way of the music industry.
- http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
  
  No thanks, as all music created automatically falls under copyright unless the creator specifically licences it under say, Creative Commons (which of course is another form of copyright) I think that action might be a little overzealous. The concept is also completely unworkable as your view wouldn’t be shared with even a large minority and by extension the boycott would be rather fruitless.
  
  By all means, avoid buying music from record labels that are involved with this sort of heavy handed approach, but don’t expect it will run them out of business, and please keep supporting the record companies and independent artists that don’t use these sorts of techniques (despite still copyrighting their music).
Grok

I’ve turned my back on commercial radio, i-tune type sites and the like.
I attend live performances were possible and buy directly from the performers, or buy directly from them online.

The major labels have been lashing out more than ever because their control and profits are shrinking. They will soon be a bad memory.

I say good riddance! Most have never really stood for the artist or their art, just profit.

We are fundamentally at a point with the w.w.web that any artist can promote themselves and handle the sales of their own content. This is the future I think.
- http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
  
  Are their profits shrinking though? I think you’ll find that it is only the rate of growth that is shrinking.
TelmeaStory

Ambient music from Limbik Frequencies on Screamer Radio.
Mitchell Glaser

What they didn’t tell you is that the little girl burned dozens of copies of the song to CD’s and sold them on eBay!

But seriously, you wouldn’t prosecute anyone if that girl had stolen a candy bar, but she saw a link dangled in front of her and suddenly – a crime has been committed! Give me 600 euros, right now!
http://twitter.com/DavidTrotsky David Trotsky

Spotify anyone?
Florian Bösch

And that’s how you raise a hardcore pirate party member.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_AXLHJCZSFG62I2JLIUFBMNCLBA Timmy

Can we at least agree that all artists are better off now that this little girl has been punished?
- howaboutthisdangit
  
  Absolutely. We all know that the recording industry’s first concern is for its performers.
  
  Oh, wait…..
http://www.meneghello.net Marco Meneghello

Ah, this is justice!