This entry is not about the famous novel by Joseph
Heller but is about an alleged copyright infringement in Finland that very nicely
summarizes the catch-22 situation that Heller wrote about in his novel.
Most of you would be aware of the famous torrent
site “Pirate Bay” that facilitates peer-to-peer sharing of torrent files. "Pirate
Bay" has often been the target of various anti-piracy groups and "Pirate Bay" is
no stranger when it comes to fighting claims of copyright infringement. However,
in early February this year, it was "Pirate Bay" which was doing the suing. What
makes the entire situation even more interesting and hilarious is the fact
that the one getting sued is "CIAPC", a Finnish "anti-piracy" group.
How can this be possible, one may ask! Well, CIAPC
copied the design of Pirate Bay website including the CSS stylesheet for an
anti-piracy campaign. Not surprisingly, Pirate Bay’s usage policy prohibits
organizations from using any site material without permission. If Pirate Bay is
able to successfully assert its claim, the anti-piracy group may just have to
pay and in case Pirate Bay loses, there will be at least one precedent that
says that copyrights are invalid! A catch-22 situation indeed!
