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Uncategorized Thursday, November 22nd 2012 at 2:00 pm

Finnish Police Take Winnie the Pooh Laptop From Nine-Year-Old Accused of Piracy

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Seriously, Finland? We understand that Internet piracy is a problem, but this is just too much. Police raided the home of a nine-year-old girl and confiscated her laptop — her Winnie the Pooh laptop – because she was accused of downloading one song off The Pirate Bay. That really happened. We all live in this world now.

Back in the spring of this year, the parents of the little girl were told their Internet connection had been used in an act of online piracy. Their daughter had come across a song she was searching for on The Pirate Bay and downloaded it. She later bought the album. The family was told to pay 600 euros for the incident and sign a non-disclosure agreement, but they refused at the time. On Tuesday, things got real when Finnish police showed up at their door with a search warrant, and took their daughter’s Winnie the Pooh laptop.

To artist of the song the girl downloaded, Chisu, has stated that she does not want to sue anybody, and apologized publicly for the incident. She even provided a link where fans can listen to her music for free via Spotify. This hasn’t stopped Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC from pursuing action on her behalf.

If this had happened in Germany, it wouldn’t even be a story because parents aren’t responsible for the online piracy activities of their children, but in Finland they’re still gunning hard for pirates of any age. The young age of the accused girl, and the fact that she is only being accused of downloading one song, makes us question if this is really the best use of Finnish police resources. Not really. This is clearly a waste of Finnish police resources.

Just give the little girl her laptop back, Finland. You’re being ridiculous.

(via TorrentFreak, image via v8media)

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  • finnfag

    You should also mention that the original uploaders of the torrent were the key people of the record company THEMSELVES, waiting for those who take the bait.

  • Idlethoughts

    CAIPC really needs a better PR department or even just a couple of members with common sense and a conscience. I mean seriously who thought this was a good idea, how did this even happen, let alone no get dropped instantly?

  • Anonymous

    Id like to know how the girl knew how to download the song.

  • http://twitter.com/2guyspromotions Bill

    Agree I know some grown ass adults who don’t know how to use torrents.

  • http://twitter.com/2guyspromotions Bill

    Agree I know some grown ass adults who don’t know how to use torrents.

  • Anonymous

    Same here, when I was 9 I could about only find Paint and Solitaire for Windows 3.1. It would have had to have a torrent downloader to begin with, so I think that her parents or some family member used the laptop to download other things as well.

  • t0kp0k

    How come a family member? Maybe a school friend or someone else? Actually kids tell each others how to do things if they learn something cool… like porn links, or free games or songs via torrents.

  • Anonymous

    Well my niece could do it when she was 9, I taught her, not that hard really, type the name of what you want into Google (before the recent changes), with torrent on the end, if it popular, there will be a link that take you straight to the torrent download page for the torrent, click on link, and it will automatically open the torrent client and start the download, go to desktop, click download folder and hey presto it there, She taught most of her friends to do it.

  • Liggerstuxin

    This boils my blood. Clearly she was taught, hopefully her parents aren’t throwing her under the bus. Regardless those laws seem draconian. There needs to be room for judgement call, and restraint when needed. This is a PR nightmare for those police. I refuse to believe that little girl or family owe anything. Sure the cops pants off.

  • badguy

    It is eventually a Finnish guy who invented Linux, of which practically every recent distribution has a torrent client. Not for the purpose of piracy, but because file sharing via torrent is a useful technology anyway. If you suffered from using MS op systems, your children have two or three more steps to find, install and run torrent clients by their own. I’m sure all you check every installment on your computer daily, in order to keep him/her away of problems like this.

    I’ve a standard, popular Linux distro on my computer. Though I’ve never found my own 11-year-old kid downloading illegal stuff, if he could not download any popular content if he wishes, I would feel I’m an unfortunate parent, having a child with serious mental problems.

  • Yech

    It’s a moronic move, agreed. That said, a nine-year old has NO business being able to access the internet unsupervised.

  • Anonymous

    Torrents can be used for legal downloading purposes. I recently downloaded a free modification for Half-Life 2 via torrent and everything was 100% on the up-and-up. Just because something is a torrent doesn’t make it illegal.

  • Anonymous

    I know that, I never said anything about illegal downloads.

  • infridgingthenameofgoogle

    I like how everyone assumes her parents taught her…idk having a computer since the age of 4 (with win 3.1) and learning the whole back system on my own I naturally learnt everything I needed about windows file system, downloading, the internet and some basic programing. I knew how to download game mods from my fathers computer, write them to disc and manually install them onto my off-line computer (most mods didn’t have an installer executable at the time in order to save space since everything was still pretty much 56k) with the way kids grow up with tech today I’m not surprised if she knew how to download and rip a torrent. Hell my 4 year old cousin knows how to operate his father’s Iphone as well as his dad.

  • infridgingthenameofogoogle

    edit: the whole system, also want to mention I knew this around the age of 10.

  • CIAPC Blows Goats

    HAHAHA… This is ridiculous on a whole new level. Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC is not working on behalf of the artists. They are working on behalf of the recording industry. Obviously they are not concerned with FAIR usage. In fact, they bought the album, so what piracy has occurred Sounds like they listened to the song, liked it, and then bought it. Isn’t this a win win situation? The CIAPC is a bunch of extortionists looking for a quick buck and hiding behind a guise of legalese.

    Grow up and give the little girl back her ‘Winnie The Pooh’ laptop.

    Who’s the real crooks now?

  • >Argentina >White

    Meanwhile in Finland