9-year-old girl's house raided, laptop seized, all for downloading an album that her father ended up buying for her anyway
A Finnish anti-piracy group has landed itself in a major controversy by ordering police to search the house of a 9-year-old girl, and to seize her "Winnie the Pooh" laptop.
All because the girl is alleged to have downloaded a music album from a torrent sourced from The Pirate Bay back in 2011, a download that according to the girl's father did not work anyway. The father subsequently bought the album from Finnish musician Chisu for the girl the day after.
The anti-piracy group CIAPC (or TTVK locally) monitors torrent downloads, tracks down the Internet user via the ISP, and then demands 600 euros, and the signing of a non-disclosure agreement, to make the matter "go away".
But when the girl's father refused to pay the fine for an album that they've already paid for, CIAPC escalated the matter to the police, and due to Finland's ever harsher copyright laws, the police had no choice but to raid the house of a 9-year-old girl and seize her prized Winnie the Pooh laptop for evidence.
Even during the invasive house search, investigators hinted to the father that the matter would go away if the 600 euro fine was paid, something he was still unwilling to do, and something that he says reminded him of a Mafia blackmailing attempt.
Even the artists at the center of the copyright dispute, Chisu, found the whole affair distasteful. "I hope that the matter will be resolved soon and sorry to my 9-year-old girls," Chisu posted on her Facebook page after users went there to complain about the harsh treatment dished out towards the girl.
However, artists like Chisu have little if any control over the anti-piracy actions employed by labels and anti-piracy agencies, something that Finland's Pirate Party finds alarming. "It is sad to see how even the big artists have no idea what CIAPC / TTVK is doing in their name. And the worst part is that even after learning about this, like Chisu did just now and took part in the discussion on Facebook, they can’t stop it since all copyright protection and monitoring is centralized," Joonas Mäkinen of the Pirate Party told TorrentFreak.
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