Anti-Piracy Police Raid on a Nine Year Old Girl in Finland

It's a story which Chisu wishes would just go away.  But forged in the super-heated outrage of the internet, it's going viral instead.

So what just happened there?

It all began when a nine-year-old Finnish fan of the singer didn't quite have the funds to purchase her idol's new album.  She took to Google, then ended up on Pirate Bay. 

Not exactly being your stereotypical evil pirate mastermind, she did something wrong with the torrent.  The album didn't download.

Like thwarted nine-year-olds everywhere, she became upset about it and her father found out. Just wanting his little girl to be happy again, he did a lovely thing.  He took her out to the shop and treated her to said album. Chisu got her royalties; the unnamed girl got to boogie on down to Kun Valaistun; and her parent felt like Dad of the Century. 

That is until he received a letter from Upphovsrättens informations- och övervakningscentral (TTVK).  On the off-chance that your Swedish is as good as mine, that's the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC) to the likes of you and I.

The letter demanded 600 Euros (approximately £485 or $773) to be paid up immediately or else the attempted illegal download would be reported to the police. Also enclosed was a non-disclosure form, which stated that he could not go to the press with this story.

The girl's father, viewing this as extortion, simply ignored it.

A few mornings beyond the payment deadline, the family were just going through their breakfast routine, when a knock came at the door.  Outside were several police officers with a warrant to search the premises.  They had come for the pirate.

At this point, the constabulary had no idea that they'd been sent out for a nine-year-old girl.  But they soon did.  One of them told her father that he should have just paid the fine. The girl's Winnie The Pooh decorated laptop was confiscated and the officers went away.

That's around the point when the story hit first the Finnish press, then the whole internet.

The great anti-piracy argument is that it's stealing from the artist. 

You wouldn't nick a bike or break into someone's house, so why would you listen to their music or watch their acting without paying?

It's a great argument right up to the point where statistics turn out to be bogus, and those artists who put their work freely in the public domain report that it actually has a beneficial effect.  People who otherwise wouldn't bother checking them out become fans through casual exposure. But these are all debates for another article.  Right now, let's stick with how this is working out for Chisu.

On the one hand, great!  As an artist who sings solely in the Finnish language, she's not exactly Psy gone Gangnam Style.  She is huge in her own country. The publicity of this case has made her name internationally recognized.  But not quite for all of the right reasons.

Above is a screenshot from one of the deluge landing on her Facebook profile. I carefully selected it, as it's one of the few with language clean enough to appear on Wizzley.  It pretty much sets the tone for all of the others though.

I didn't spot a single counter-argument from a fan, which I would have expected given her popularity. Though, when the story first broke, there were plenty in evidence.

Chisu has had to respond.  She's taken to writing, in Finnish and in English, comments which distance her from the raid upon her fan's home.  "Of course I didn't want to sue." She told fans on Facebook.  Then later, "I hope that the matter will be resolved soon, and on behalf of the 9-year-old girl, my apologies."

She also pointed out that she had no direct knowledge of the raid being done in her name. The CEO of her record label, Warner Music Finland, Niko Nordström was prompted to write a statement on her behalf.  It confirmed that she knew nothing about it and warned that it was 'unreasonable that she is being picked on' about it.

In yet another post, Chisu has directed fans to Spotify, where some of her tracks can be legally listened to free of charge.

Meanwhile, it seems like half of the internet is on her Facebook profile, launching personal attacks upon her moral values and demanding that she see the girl right, either with a new lap-top, a visit or intervening to get the charges dropped.

Unfortunately, there is little that Chisu can do about it.  Joonas Mäkinen, from The Pirate Party in Finland, explained to Torrentfreak that copyright issues are centralized in his country.  The demand for money and the raid may have been done in Chisu's name, but she did not order it.  Nor could she stop it now.

When Disney created its internationally acclaimed Winnie the Pooh animations, it wasn't in perfect legal harmony with the copyright holders.

A.A. Milne had spread his rights out amongst several people, all of whom needed to give permission and claim some royalties off the franchise.  Unfortunately, Disney dragged its feet on that so much that it took eighteen years to sort out.

Finally, each of the recipients sold their copyright to Disney, except one. In a notable twist, the film company even tried suing him in the name of Christopher Robin's daughter Clare.  It was thought that hiding their involvement might make him cough up his rights.  It failed.

Stephen Slesinger, the last original claimant, died, leaving his widow and children to take on the legal might of Walt Disney.  They eventually lost, when a Los Angeles judge found that the Slesingers had illegally hired a private detective to go through the Disney trash.  Apparently they were after incriminating evidence.

It's intriguing to note that, during those two decades, Disney was technically pirating all images of Winnie the Pooh.  If only it had been Warner instead, the parallels would have been perfect.