I don't see that the police had any choice in the matter ..... they are bound to execute a search warrant when instructed, and to take into custody items that might be related to the reasons for the warrant.
Until the warrant was executed no one would have had any inclination that a 9 year old was involved ..... too late then .... the warrant must be executed.
I would have serious doubts if that ONE time claim by the father was anywhere near the truth ...... up until now one-offs have not been harassed and I believe it highly unlikely that a judge would issue a search warrant based on a single appearance of an IP address on a torrent site ....... always supposing a judge is required to issue such a search warrant in Finland.
This is just a publicity stunt using the 9 year old.
People should be concerned about this kind of thing without such news-worthy minors being involved.
All that may well be true. On the other hand people
aren't concerned about this sort of thing, and if a news-worthy minor can make them more concerned, what's wrong with that?
In 2005 when the Finnish copyright legislation and criminal code were amended, ostensibly to make them comply with the EU Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC, a few activists organized a demonstration against the bill. They represented all political fractions, but most of them were young and they weren't that many. Most people just didn't care.
Nevertheless there are some strange aspects to this story as reported.
The amendments criminalized many things that were quite legal seven years ago, but even if downloading "pirated" material is prohibited today, there are no penalties for downloading for personal use. You won't be fined or sent to prison. You may have to pay for damages though - if you
knew or
should have known that the source was illegal.
But how were the damages assessed in this case? 600 euros may not sound like a lot, but to some people it is, and it's certainly tens of times more than the damage anybody suffered from the loss of one single CD sale - even if you add the cost of sending the letter demanding the cash settlement. Particularly as the download failed and the family had bought a legal copy anyway.
That a nine year old can't be expected to know that her download was illegal is less important as Just17 is right: nobody could have known that the downloader wasn't a full-grown criminal before they saw her.
It is of course possible that somebody had downloaded a lot more music of dubious legality to the girl's laptop, but so far that hasn't been given as a reason for the raid.
