The Pirate Bay is Here to Stay?

vitaly.friedman wrote to mention a Wired article about The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing crewe out of Sweden that thumbs its nose at the MPAA just for kicks and has yet to be shut down. From the article: "The Pirate Bay's legal adviser, law student Mikael Viborg, said the site receives 1,000 to 2,000 HTTP requests per second on each of its four servers. That's bad news for the content industries, which have fired off letter after menacing letter to the site, only to see their threats posted on The Pirate Bay, together with mocking replies. Viborg said that no one has successfully indicted The Pirate Bay or sued its operators in Swedish courts. Attorneys for DreamWorks and Warner Bros., two companies among those that have issued take-down demands to the site, did not return calls for comment."

Comments

(Don't) Call Your Congressman!

[dada21]

I always love when people think that writing or calling their elected official makes a hill of beans of difference. For me, all it generally did was give me a nice elated feeling when I received a signed letter in the mail thanking me for my opinion, and then writing a paragraph about why their decisions would never change.

I've lately become a firm believer in wasting the time of the company that has used the power of government against me -- in this case, the content and distribution cartels (RIAA, MPAA). Instead of calling your elected official, call the companies themselves and keep moving up the ladder with the fact that you have a general complaint about their products. Don't accept the underlings and don't tell them exactly what it is you're mad about. If that doesn't work, call up their sales department and work your way up the ladder there requesting information about their services.

The slashdot effect is great on the Internet, but it is even more powerful on the phones. Each and every server request you make costs any one company very little. Each and every phone call you make gets heard, at least in the bottom line.

I'm not telling people to do anything illegal -- don't hassle, don't spam, don't swear, don't threaten -- just call. Call and tell them you don't appreciate their actions, you don't appreciate their products, and you don't appreciate their lobbying to creatre a more powerful Congress.

I know my phone calls don't make a difference -- yet. But over time, as more people realize that voting with their dollars and voting with how they spend their time, we'll see change being made through a free market of motivations.

To stay a bit on topic: I recently spent quite a bit of time researching the Swedes, and I'm very surprised at the amounts of freedoms they had in a country that has typically been considered socialist. I think they'd be a dream country for most Progressives (which means it would be a nightmare for me), but it surprises me how many rights they still retain that we gave up in the US a long, long time ago. The freedom to do what you want with products you physically own is a great freedom, in fact I believe it is the basis for freedom. The freedom to do what you want with your labor and your mind is included in that freedom, and that is why I am against intellectual property rights in every way.

Go TPB!

Re:(Don't) Call Your Congressman!

[MikeBabcock]

You made a great comment that reminds me of something I've always been annoyed by as a canadian -- socialism is not contrary to freedom. Socialism is in fact designed to be freedom, freedom from poverty and medical expenses as well as personal freedom.

Socialism is simply contrary to pure capitalism, which obviously doesn't work (see neighbour, USA). Plenty of imprisonned people with no access to lawyers, lots of people living in complete poverty in major centers, no easy access to medical services for those without insurance, no easy access to pharmeceuticals to those not in the middle and high income brackets.

Re:(Don't) Call Your Congressman!

[Lumpy]

Slashdotting phones and fax machines are extremely useful. It got many of hacker out of jail really early. It also recently helped release a man in california that was arrested for growing pot that he used medically to control his rare cancer. he fled to canada to seek asylum and canada being the United States good lap-dog sent him right back to awaiting arms of DEA officers and directly to jail.

He recently was released because of non-stop phone calls to the jail, judge, and municipality causing their phones and fax machines to be 100% useless.

I do not have any links to the above. I listened to it on several radio talk shows at the beginning of this year.

but shashdotting a companies phones and faxes for days will certianly get their attention as well as action.

Re:(Don't) Call Your Congressman!

[glesga_kiss]

Pure socialism is pure totalitarianism.

Where did you study politics? I need to register a complaint about their standard of teaching. Never before have I heard such a lunatic suggestion. Socialism is an ecconomic system; it does not require or mutually exclude democracy (which is a political system). Socialsm dictates different "ownership" of property and land, and what you can do with it. If you see owning land as a "freedom", then you really ought to read up on what freedom really entails. Possessions and healthcare aren't freedom; the freedom of expression/religion and such like are.

There are many socialist countries in Europe with more freedom (i.e. less totalitarianism) than the Capitalist states of the world. And there are many capitalist states with really represive regimes. Hell, I've seen people arguing that the USA is moving closer to totalitairism every day. Two years ago, standing out against the Iraq war was a bad career move for politicians. They were deemed unpatriotic and a danger to the security of the USA and were exiled. Capitalism allows freedom only when it doesn't get in the way of a profit.

Re:How to be popular

[erroneus]

No, I'm already convinced. It's good.

For all the damage these industries cause honest and would-be honest customers, they deserve a true thorn in their sides. For all the monopolistic and oligopolistic crap they pull; For all the price-fixing and other dirty tricks; For all the innocent people they have attacked with their lawsuit crusades. We have no effective weapon against their activities since they have already bought all the politicians that are for sale. All we have is our defiance.

It's good even if it's not good enough.

Sweden vs US Capitalism

[Bluude]

My favorite was when they moved the servers to a new location across town. They even put up a GPS map showing their exact location so everyone would know how soon the site would be back up.

They must believe their country will protect them instead of hunting them down and arresting them.

I wonder if their government will still protect them when the US threatens to impose trade sanctions if they do not get rid of The Pirate Bay. Janet Reno did that with Australia and they caved soon after. Now Australia has some of the toughest copyright laws in the world. I think they are even harsher than the US equivalents.

Re:Sweden vs US Capitalism

[liangzai]

The Swedish government is not known to protect its citizens very well. Recently, the Justice Department and the security police caused the shut-down of a political party's website because of a cartoon of Muhammed looking at himself in the mirror with a blindfold, with the accompanying text "self-censorship". That is just about the tolererance level the Swedish government has.

Sweden is also notorious for being a leader in the EU implementing repressive laws in general and on the Internet in particular. The recent EU Data Directive is essentially one man's work, Swedish Justice minister Thomas Bodstrom, a former football player who smoked dope, somehow managed to become a lawyer and then to everybody's surprise was turned into minister of justice, on which position he has drafted more laws than anyone in history and effectively flushed personal integirty down the toilet. The directive, since long before in effect in Sweden, makes it mandatory for ISP:s to save customers' internet traffic data for at least two years. Other repressive measures in Sweden include a law against writing about other persons without their express permission unless being a journalist.

Sweden has also joined the ranks of the filter regimes, using DNS spoofing and other sabotages to the infrastructure to redirect pornsurfers looking for kiddie porn to a government website. It is not by law, but by cooperation with all the larger ISP:s (under threat of legislation).

You might also wonder why Sweden has not voiced concern over Chinese journalists being jailed in China. Well, that is because Sweden has had its own Shi Tao since the 70s, Jan Guillou (and Peter Bratt), who investigated and reported about an illegal spy organisation (Inormation Bureau) and subsequently was put to jail for espionage.

One might have the impression that Sweden is a free and modern welfare state, but those days are since long gone. Today's Sweden is the leading oppressor in Europe, with no-tolerance laws on everything from gambling to prostitution and drugs. The Swedish government sees the Internet mostly as an outlet for hate speech, porn and illegal downloading, and if they would decide to shut down the Pirate Bay during a lunch break, it would be done in a matter of minutes by a simple phone call.

Re:How to be popular

[richie2000]

there is no difference taking content this way and going to a store and stealing a CD or DVD.

*sigh* Yes, there is. If I have a hammer and you also want a hammer so you copy my hammer by manufacturing one yourself, just like mine, have you just stolen my hammer then? Even though I still have my hammer, right here? Because that's actually what you're saying.

You cannot make a big budget action movie by 'touring', 'selling merchandise' or any of the self-satisfied rationalizations people have suggested that musicians turn to.

No, but you can't realistically build a real movie theater at home either. Any way value is added, it can be exploited to drive sales of a good or a service. In Singapore, movie theaters have luxury seats and serve meals as an added value to the movie. Economically, there is no longer any added value in making a copy so it should not be used as the basis for value. Economics 101.

References:
Mindjack - Piracy is good?
International Herald Tribune - Imagine a world without copyright
A History And Possible Future Of Cinema
First Monday - Piercing the myths of p2p
TV Week - NBC: iPod Boosts Prime Time
Stealing Music
Roderick T. Long - The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights

Sweden is far ahead of the rest of the world.

[babbling]

I'm an Australian who has just returned to Australia from a 1.5-month long trip to Sweden. Sweden is doing so many things right and it's really unfortunate that Australia isn't a bit more like Sweden.

First of all, there's not nearly as much crime in Sweden as there is in Australia. The Swedish government takes proper care of their people, so no one feels a need to commit crime. There's no homeless people sleeping in parks at night. People are much, much friendlier.

They also don't have any terrorist panic. There's no "terrorism alert levels", and there isn't much security. There's not even nearly as many police around as there is in Australia. The Swedes haven't made enemies for themselves by invading other countries, so they don't need to be afraid of any terrorists attacking them. The Swedes are more "free" than Americans are, which proves that terrorists don't hate America because they "hate freedom", as George Bush wants everyone to think. They attack America because America attacked them and is occupying their countries.

Sweden will probably also now lead the way in having free culture. They will soon show that money can be made even from creating free culture. Hopefully the rest of the world will follow their lead. Unfortunately, the rest of the world seems to be going crazy.

I just hope everyone who reads this post can imagine what life would be like to live in a country where you don't need to be afraid of terrorism or crime, a country where almost all of the population gets a good education, and all this despite alcohol (and probably other drugs) being more easily accessible in this country. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that such a country can't exist, but it's important that everyone knows it does, for that is how other countries can follow the Swedes' lead in being a more peaceful, calmer, and better educated population.

Re:Sweden is far ahead of the rest of the world.

[wootest]

As a swede, it's a strange feeling reading these kinds of comments.

To say that I voraciously live through the Internet would be wrong, but I do practically live in some sort of pseudo-american culture when I'm spending any amount of time online. Swedish, real life friends, sure, they're there too, but my AIM buddy list (the one I use to keep in touch with online friends) is longer by far than the MSN Messenger list (swedish friends).

Every day I read on Slashdot and on other sites about how freedoms are in the process of being taken away. Mostly, the problems are international or apply globally in some ways, but a surprisingly big chunk is US domestic. I'm really quite surprised you haven't risen up, shook your heads and beaten the crap out of your established political system yet - as an outsider, it seems like the "American" thing to do, if I'm to believe various over-patriotic messages relayed to me over the years.

What I think is happening is this: the US is more and more about its government. Two major political parties and a winner-takes-all system in general does that. The "American" thing has evolved towards supporting the government, instead of the government supporting the people. And any government today - especially Republican, *it seems* - "are not above a little bribery and corruption in the same way that the sea is not above the clouds" (thanks, Douglas Adams). What you have is the government, who is either to be awed or to be ignored, played around by the corporations while your civil rights go straight down the can and anyone who opposes is a communist^Wterrorist. (McCarthy would have been proud, from all I hear.)

I'm not saying my analysis is right. I'm currently not 'rooting' for one of the major american parties, though I am certainly rooting against the current administration. I'm just saying that it's odd that Sweden's the one following the 'socialism' ideology branch, while it's the american citizens who have to take in in the hiney from their government.

And for what it's worth, Sweden is far from perfect. But there's no doubt in my mind that it's the american citizen that's worse off of the two.

Re:Not illegal

[spyrochaete]

Thats sophistry. Without that information it would not be possible for people to steal the content. The information is made available in that form for the express purpose and with the express intent of facilitating theft.

That's the law. In the eyes of Swedish law, TPB is not facilitating theft, they are a library of text files. TPB has mentioned that as soon as storing text files becomes illegal they will provide hyperlinks to the text files. And when hyperlinks become illegal they will provide hyperlinks to the hyperlinks. They are committed to bogging down copyright more than providing a specific service to the people.

I, for one, am glad to see the beaurocracy of law choke on its own bulk. Despite what some mega corporations are whining for these days, many countries allow their citizens to share culture openly. To share and to be shared with, not to give or take and remove from the source.

Technology is granting great freedoms to the populace, and some countries feel the public needn't put a nickel in the jar every time they whistle a tune.

The Pirate Bay is identical in nature to Google

[Anonymous Coward]

It's important to realize that The Pirate Bay does not host any infringing content on its servers.

The Pirate Bay is identical in nature to Google:

Both sites allow users to enter searches from a web page, and both return a list of links to (sometimes infringing) content.

If The Pirate Bay can be shut down, then Google can be shut down.