[tor-talk] Police arrest

[Joe Btfsplk]

On 8/7/2014 10:21 AM, krishna e bera wrote:
> On 14-08-07 11:06 AM, mick wrote:
>> This is worrying.
>>
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/07/london_cops_close_down_site_arrest_suspect/
>>
>> If this reporting is accurate, it implies that UK City of London Police
>> may be co-operating with copyright enforcers in closing down a service
>> which bypasses an ISP filter.
>>
>> A logical extension to this would be arrest of any UK VPN or Tor
>> operator for "facilitating" access to sites which have been blocked by
>> ISP filters.
>>
>> As many of the commenters on the Register post have said, "what crime
>> has been committed here"?
> Exactly the question.  Does UK have an injunction process, where you can
> get a judge to order police to cease and desist enforcement of some
> infringement complaints, if enforcement is causing greater harm than good?
> It is essentially a civil/contractual dispute between copyright holders
> and individuals, better to let it happen and let copyright holders file
> lawsuits to recover for alleged damages if there are any at all.
>
Right.  I don't understand the criminal aspect of this, unless somehow 
the "copy righted" material is also a criminal offense to distribute / 
possess.
Since the latter isn't true, what qualifies this as a criminal offense?

Is this classed as "theft?"  If you stole enough video tapes / DVDs to 
be a worth their time, the police might arrest you.
Do laws concerning this make it a criminal offense?  If not, people 
don't usually get arrested for civil violations.

But it also appeared that providing means to access sites that were 
"banned," was also classed as a *criminal* offense.
I'm not sure that one would hold up in the highest courts of various 
countries.
"We told you not to go to that site - now you'll have to go to time 
out." (punished like a small child)