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

pirate bay URL

[Anonymous Coward]

http://thepiratebay.org/

a pirate's life

[DigDuality]

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot,
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We extort, we pilfer, we filch, and sack,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.
Maraud and embezzle, and even high-jack,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We kindle and char, inflame and ignite,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.
We burn up the city, we're really a fright,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.

We're rascals, scoundrels, villans, and knaves,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.
We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We're beggars and blighters, ne'er-do-well cads,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.
Aye, but we're loved by our mommies and dads,
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.

How to be popular

[Zeinfeld]

The sad part is that a large number of slashdotters will convince themselves that this type of thing is good despite the fact that the site is very clearly engaged in theft.

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

It costs $200 million to make some movies. If people stop paying to make the movies then that type of movie will not get made in the future.

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.

Re:How to be popular

[hkmwbz]

Your honor! My client will not plead guilty to murder. He did no such thing! He simply stole the person's life. He will accept a sentence for theft, but not for murder.

Re:How to be popular

[Zeinfeld]

really? What are they stealing?

The site is engaged in theft, they are not performing the theft themselves they are helping others to steal. Sure that makes them popular with the beneficiaries of the theft but it does not make what they do right.

A person who sells spam tools to a spammer is engaged in spamming even if they never use the tool themselves. A fence who receives stolen goods is engaged in theft even though someone else does the actual stealling.

Sure you can rationalize a set of values where taking a movie off bittorrent is different from stealling a DVD off the shelf of a store. But the reason people have moderated my original comment down as troll even though it is nothing of the kind is because they know deep down that what I am saying here is correct and they don't like to hear it.

Re:How to be popular

[Dobeln]

The sad part is that Slashdotters mod a critical, but well-reasoned and coherent statement down as "troll". Sad, sad sad.

And yes, I have used TPB extensively before I got decent broadband (I now use DC++ instead - 10mbit+ hubs ftw!) - yet I never deluded myself to the point that I believed that I was involved in some sort of great cause.

Re:Not illegal

[Zeinfeld]

They aren't hosting any of the content. Only text files (as explained on their web page).

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.

It is not illegal (Again, according to their web page) to host files that *point* to the content. Untill that changes in their country, they will stay alive (also, so long as they can keep their bills paid, that would help... :) )

Seems like you were not here for the Napster affair then. During the Napster affair there was no shortage of people flaming about how the service was obviously 100% legal. After the company folded it turned out that they had never received even an internal opinion to the effect that the service was legal.

Turns out that the appeals court that gave Napster a stay of execution only did so so that the company could stay around long enough for them to make a landmark ruling on Internet copyright.

Re:socialist-democratic not communist

[manthrax3]

Of course socialism doesn't truly protect the most important of all rights: the right to earn and keep property.

You can't do a whole lot if you're taxed at 50-60% except hope that some of that money is redistributed to you in a fair way. Fair is subjective, "mine" isn't.

Who pirates now adays?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone explain the piracy mindset to me, because I must be so far out of it now I just don't get it.

I used to pirate software as a kid - Turbo Pascal, Borland/Watcom C, Visual Studio, Photoshop, 3DS Max, unpaid shareware, and rarely games. It's kinda hard for a jobless kid to learn computers without software. Piracy is what allowed me to learn things above my means and become a super-geek. But I never pirated music. Who are the people who are so poor they can't afford music and so addicted that they must have it?

Maybe some swedish pirate please explain the mindset to me? :-)

omg...

[veeoh]

this is so like two day old news!!!11111one ;)

Re:Not illegal

[Zeinfeld]

Seems like you were not here for the Napster affair then. Seems like you didn't read the whole thing, or believe that US is the only country in the world.

I think it was pretty obvious in my post that what I was saying is that Slashdot is not noted for the accuracy of its legal advice, particularly where rationalizations for stealing copyright material is concerned.

Absent a favorable decision from the Sweedish courts the only conclusion that can be made at this point is that Sweedish law moves slowly.

And this my friends...

[stubear]

...is exactly why things like the DMCA get passed and we're stuck with DRM systems that overcomplicate playing a CD or DVD. You have no rights to distribute intellectual property in any way shape or form, period. To go beyond that and thumb your nose at the MPAA only exacerbates the problem. You want legal digital downloads and on demand content from the MPAA? Then the online community is going to have to prove that they are a responsible group and are willing to play by the rules. So far, the willingness of the community to replace P2P distribution servers which were know for illegally distributed intellectual property only serves to strengthen the argments the MPAA.

Re:Not illegal

[Zeinfeld]

That's the law. In the eyes of Swedish law, TPB is not facilitating theft, they are a library of text files.

Sweedish law has said nothing about the matter to date. You are certainly not a Sweedish lawyer.

From a moral perspective this is theft. The Sweedish law may have a defect that means that this particular form of facilitating theft is not currently covered. But there is absolutely no reason to think that this represents a concious decision of the Sweedish lawmakers.

Re:Not illegal

[Zeinfeld]

From Wikipedia theft is defined as "...the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it". Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but do have any idea what crime is allegedly being commited?

You appear to intend permanently depriving the copyright holder of the payment that they would expect to receive for their services.

From a moral perspective this is plain theft. You know you are taking something that does not belong to you.

But you don't want to call it theft because you don't want to think of yourself as a theif. So you call it other things, you insist on calling it 'copyright infringement'.

That is exactly the type of thinking that led the Bush administration to Abu Graihb. They didn't want to think of themselves as torturers so they had a corrupt lawyer provide them with a convenient definition of torture.

Re:Not illegal

[Zeinfeld]

And maybe you feel morally conflicted about libraries and lending, but you don't speak for the whole.

Neither do you.

If you don't like file sharing, don't do it. But some of us feel entitled, morally and legally, to share culture with our neighbours, and we will exercise that freedom.

Ah you are not stealling from the copyright owner who paid to create the material. You are engaging in the noble cause of freedom and culture.

What you seem to be saying here is that we should each amuse ourselves in our own way.

Fine, you amuse yourself by stealing from others and I will amuse myself by bringing the law down on you and people like you.

If you think that the most important political issue facing the world today is your right to take what does not belong to you without paying for it I really do pity you.

Re:socialist-democratic not communist

[Snaller]

Surprisingly very wealthy people such as Bill Gates Sr. and Warren Buffett support the death tax.

Well death tax is sick twisted and amoral, so is it a suprise Bill gates supports it?