Stefan Mileschin

Big Content sunk to a new PR low this week after accusing a nine year-old girl of being a pirate and confiscating her Winnie the Pooh laptop.

CIAPC, the company that had The Pirate Bay blocked by ISPs in Finland, tracked someone who it claimed was an evil filesharer. According to Torrent Freak, they demanded that she pay €600 or be dragged kicking and screaming to court. In this case, literally.

We assume that the CIAPC did not know that the evil pirate was only nine, but €600 was certainly out of the range of her pocket money.

The CIAPC decided to use the case to make an example of its extra-judiciary powers, and called up its friends at the local plod to put the frighteners on the pirate.

The net result was that Finnish taxpayers paid for an expensive raid on the nine year-old suspect's house and confiscated her Winnie the Pooh laptop.

Under police interrogation, the girl broke and told them that she had failed to put enough money in her piggy bank to buy the latest album from local multi-platinum-selling songstress Chisu. In 2011 she turned to the internet, first via Google and then The Pirate Bay.

The download didn't work so after looking very miserable at her dad, he took her to the store to buy music.

The cops were not impressed. They told the girl that she will lose her laptop for testing the power of Big Content.

"It would have been easier for all concerned if you had paid the compensation," the police told the tearful child.

The girl's father said that it was like dealing with the Mafia. The only difference was that the Mafia rarely use police to do their dirty work these days and feel it is dishonourable to hit up nine year-olds for cash.

Electronic Frontier Finland said that this week's developments are an indication of just how far copyright enforcement has progressed in Finland.

Chisu has said that she doesn't want to sue anyone and that no artist needs this kind of media attention.

http://news.techeye.net/internet/big...-year-old-girl