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ThePirateBay.org Raided and Shut Down
An anonymous reader writes "ThePirateBay.org, a longtime fixture of the BitTorrent community, is currently under investigation. Slyck.com is reporting their servers have been seized by the Swedish police." What's really interesting about them is the strange political power that they held in their homeland. There was much discussion even of a political party. This will be interesting to watch unfold.
Seeing as trackers don't actually have any copyrighted information on them... how can they be illegal? Sure they are illegal in the US due to the DMCA, but here in Sweden there is no DMCA.
It is illegal here in the United States, but it sure isnt illegal in Sweden. You would do well to not assume the whole world has the same laws as the United States.
No, it isn't. That's the point. Where TPB is/was located, hosting torrent files is not illegal because torrents -contain no copyrighted data-. If these guys ever traveled to the USA, they'd probably be arrested (hell, they'd probably be called "enemy combatants" by the *AA and incarcerated for life without trial). But as long as they stayed where they are, and kept their servers where they are, they should have been fine, provided the local law did not change.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Hmm, check how many bankruptcy filings there have been from members of congress. Then look at the number of failed businesses they have had....
A bunch of porn profiting pirates who are breaking even seem like a big improvement to me. At least they seem to understand that you have to have revenue in order to spend money.
I can't imagine why. The fact that you were using the free resource for a legitimate use doesn't have any bearing on their ability to sieze it due to illegal activity.
This is basically the same as American cops raiding Bell because the Yellow Pages lists the phone number of a paper mill, and paper can potentially be used to write harassing letters.
I think a better analogy would be cops raiding a house because the guy was distributing directions on where to buy [drugs,hookers,whatevers illegal].
How do you figure? From what I can tell, the bandwidth fluctuates pretty evenly on day-to-day numbers for the last several months.
Learning the basic difference between the Nordic (Scandinavian) country of Sweden/Sverige and a country called Switzerland/Swiss/Suisse/Schweiz/Svizzera located between Italy, France and Germany would be a nice start before tooting your horn about either country's laws.
Guilty of what exactly? The First Ammendment?
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
I can sort of believe that they had no illegal copies of anything in the office where The Pirate Bay was located. It makes it easier for them to wipe their hands of any wrongdoing.
However, as the main goal of the pirate bay is to facilitate copyright infringement, I find it very hard to believe that none of these guys had any illegal copies of stuff at home, on their laptops, etc.
Since their homes apparently also were raided, this is probably a way for the authorities to get to them, even if the Pirate Bay itself does nothing illegal. When you are involved in something like The Pirate Bay, it is too tempting to use it yourself.
Of course, if Swedish copyright law allows for downloading copyrighted material for personal use, then this will be fine as well.
Wow, 50 police men... That's more than we have on duty in our city, and they're too few. And they're supposed to handle, you know, abuse and stuff. Something here feels pretty wrong.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Many countries recognize the moral rights of artists in addition to commercial copyrights. The Pirate Party's platform is a 5 year term of commercial copyright. The right of attribution is a moral right of the artist.
...they're hoping that someone posts a link to a repacement site...
>Now what the fuck was that "protected area"? A diplomatic zone???
Someone's house/appt? You know, cops can't just walk into any building and take what they want. Unless, of course, they don't like the person who lives there.
So, if I search Google for free full copies of copyrighted software, is it Google's fault if I download one of those free copies?
If I understand Bittorrent correctly, one is downloading from other people, not TPB. So, TPB is like Google for Bittorrent, right?
In which case, they can't fairly shut one down without doing the same thing to the other.
TPB and Google provide a service. What people do with that service should be the people's fault.
"In a world that exists without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
"I'm getting really tired of this "Not in my country" defense. It doesn't hold water."
So you'd prefer another country to have hold over what is and is not legal in your own?
What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if the law being violated was, for example, Iranian, and the website was American? I'm sure there are thousands of porn sites hosted in California that are just as blatantly illigal in repressive countries as TPB is in America. Would you be so quick to say "It doesn't matter what country they're in, it's still illegal in the prosecuting country, so that makes cracking down on them OK" ?
And no, it doesn't matter that the prosecuting country in question is "unfreindly" - in case you missed the memo, what matters legally are local laws and possibly extradition treaties. Plus, many Swedes would undoubtably view American law as repressive on IP issues, just as many Americans would view Iranian law as oppressive on free speach issues.
The "not in my country" defense is otherwise known as national sovereignty. Don't like it? Tough. You either abide by it, or accept the idea that another nation can enforce it's laws upon you remotely. If you wish legal sovereignty for your own nation, you must allow others the same right. To grant them any less makes you little more than a hypocritic shill.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
It's more like reading books in the store without buying them. You got the content without paying, but the original media is still there to be sold.
I agree that you should know the party's complete set of politic viewpoints if you're going to vote them.
I disagree however with the idea that one should only vote for parties that 'have a chance' of winning or anything like that. People should vote for the party that represents them and their interests the better, no matter how important they are right now. Small parties usually are small just because of people thinking that way. If you think something, and believe some party is proposing a good response to your expectations, you should put your vote where your mouth is, and vote them. Otherwise, don't complain when the government does something you don't like, because they will be doing it with your implicit approval (except if they deviate from their own political viewpoint).
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
something is very very wrong if a country can "spare" 50 policemen to work on a case where they are not even sure if a crime has been committed or not(!)
"...The police right now is taking all of our servers, to check if there is a crime there or not (they are actually not sure)," ThePirateBay.org spokesperson "brokep" told Slyck.com.
It is down a quarter from any of ther other peaks - it's pretty obvious the difference. Also remember that this is not just Pirate Bay that's down but a few other high-traffic sites.
Others say we wouldn't need copyleft if there was no copyright. Without copyright, people could do evil things such as plagiarize. There may be ways to have the protections of copyleft without copyright law. We can have laws against plagiarism and similar evils without having to base them on or associate them with copyright law.
I would prefer an incentive based system. Having only the Big Stick of law to force people to do "right" doesn't often work, especially in America where protest against and distrust of authority is part of our culture. I would like to see a system that makes not sharing about as intelligent as shooting yourself in the foot, because if you don't share then you don't get any recognition or credit, and therefore no compensation. I'm not talking anarchy-- not let's throw copyright away and replace it with nothing. What something could or should replace copyright I don't know, but I have some possibly unworkable ideas about that.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Note that their program would invalidate Creative Commons and the GPL as well.
More importantly, their program would make both Creative Commons and GPL redundant. With no copyrights, everything would be in the commons, so a separate "Creative Commons" would not be necessary. The only reason we need the GPL is because commercial interests use copyright to artificially restrict their customers' freedom to do as they wish with their products.
Abolishment of copyright would be a decisive victory both for CC and GPL.
sigs are hazardous to your health
Maybe if you could vote "No" to candidates there'd be a higher turnout.
A "No" vote = -1. "Yes" = +1.
The candidate with the most positive total or lease negative total wins.
In current "popular" systems if you don't like a candidate you have to vote for some other candidate or don't vote at all - this distorts stuff significantly - you could have a situation where a candidate wins even though hated by the majority, because the voters spread their votes amongst the other candidates. After a while the voters might end up just flip flopping between two fairly hated candidates, or give up entirely.
With my proposal if people really hate someone they get to "pull them backwards", rather than trying to figure out who else to "pull forwards" and hopefully the hated one doesn't win.
The popular method probably works fine if the _majority_ actually _like_ the candidates and want to _vote_for_ them, but it doesn't work if the majority don't. And perhaps the latter is true in the USA?
Abolishment of copyright would be a decisive victory both for CC and GPL.
Not quite.
The GPL uses the power of copyright to enforce certain goals. If copyright loses force, the GPL loses force.
The BSD license is basically "you can do anything you want" and if copyright runs out, that's pretty much the situation. If copyright loses force, it's like everything is now BSD-licensed.
With no copyrights, Microsoft could take FSF software, change it, and sell the result without releasing source code. RMS would not be pleased.
The only reason we need the GPL is because commercial interests use copyright to artificially restrict their customers' freedom to do as they wish with their products.
No, another reason for the GPL is to keep anyone from taking free software, changing it, and not releasing the changes to the world.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
This argument drives me nuts. They're not selling you the paper on which the book was printed. They are selling you the entertainment/knowledge/whatever you derive from the content of the book. The lost sales argument aside, this is the problem I have with any music/movie pirates who justify it the way you did. "Well, I wouldn't buy that shit anyway, and I just made a copy, I didn't physically deprive them of anything." Well, 1) How pathetic must you be to waste your time downloading shit you don't value? Either that or you're lying, and enjoy getting something for free. And 2) If you delete a bunch of vital information on a company's server, would you use the defense that "I didn't physically destroy anything, I just realigned some bits on a hard drive"?
Of course not, because the typical /. demographic understands that you can't apply laws and governance of the physical world to the virtual, technology world. So perhaps it is not THEFT in the traditional sense, but it is THEFT in the "I'm taking something that I'm not authorized to take" sense.
I post similar comments everytime I see this issue raised, and most people must think I'm a shill or something. I'm not; I personally believe in free (speech and beer) information, and public disbursement of my creative efforts. As a multi-medium content creator, however, I recognize that not everyone believes the same things I do, and it's more important to respect that than to push my own beliefs.
Slashdot: News for nerds. Stuff tha-- MICRO$OFT IS THE DEVIL!!1
How odd that you think a concuring opinion by Justice Thomas somehow overturned a precident, when the opinion of the court was the one written by Justice Rehnquist.
IMHO the language J. Rehnquist uses shows respect for the doctorine of Stare Decisis:
Rehnquist's opinion has the court declining to expand congressional powers, but neither does the opinion contract back those powers already ruled constitutional. It declares no previous decision overturned. And you'll note the opinion citing supporting decisions. Stare Decisis in action.
btw I have no interest in breaking balls. Its just irksome to me that some people seem intent on undermining the purpose of the judicial branch. Its their job to fill in the gaps of statutory law, not to be mindless robots ruling on the letter of the law rather than the intent.
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
What about Libraries? I can go to my local library, check out any books I want for no money read them and if I truly like them go out and buy them. Have I dramatically reduced the value of the book? If noone bought any books but everyone went to the library to read said books, would the library be considered pirates and be responsible for the "loss of income", raided and all the stacks confiscated?
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
It's more like photocopying the entire book and taking the copy home with you. You get to enjoy the content any time you want without going back to the store. And although reading the book in the store might be legal (but rude), photocopying the whole thing is certainly copyright infringement and against the law.
Wow! You're an idiot!
How DO YOU THINK they GET THE ORIGINAL ITEM?
Typically, they buy it in a store, it's given to them by the studio as a screener/review/demo copy, or (less often) copy it at the studio.
Shoplifting != piracy
Shoplifting !-->piracy
I "know people" who pirate movies, music, and software. If you broke into their houses you'd find shelves and shelves of store-bought movies, music, and software. Why? Because they're not shoplifters or thieves. They buy the things they love, and frequently make copies for their friends. Sometimes they set up torrents for them.
This is the norm- not your hypothetical thug who does a smash & grab at Best Buy. You're trying to tie together two crimes (theft of a physical item and copyright violation) that are fundamentally different and unrelated. Stop it. You're wrong, and you're making yourself look like an asshat.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
This is a common misconception that I see around slashdot...
People don't "waste their time downloading things they don't value"... it takes no time, and ridiculously little effort. With nzb files, you can take about 15 seconds to queue up a download for an entire season of a TV show, for example. Let it run overnight on your fast cable connection and when you wake up in the morning, it's just done. No effort, really. No time spent, really. The argument "well, if you go through so much trouble, you MUST value it" falls apart when you realize that it really isn't any trouble/effort at all. Also, it's not so much a question of valuing or not valuing something, it's a question of what KIND of value you see in a product. Let's say a company is selling a DVD of a very bad movie (let's use Gigli as an example) for $19.99 at the local store. Now, I (and everyone else on Earth) know that Gigli isn't worth $19.99, but I do have SOME limited interest in seeing the film, or at least part of it, just to see HOW very bad it actually was. Is satisfying that curiosity worth twenty bucks? Hell no, but it's worth 30 seconds of my time. This example leaves aside the issue, obviously, of that content which isn't even for sale, AT ANY PRICE. I fail to see how you can seriously assert that copyright infringement of, say, an Anime series which isn't available in the United States is problematic. What lost sales are there if there are no sales to lose? What artist is going to be upset and not receiving compensation from someone whom they've never sought as an audience? These are just two examples of cases where "you must value it if you download it, so why not pay for it" fall apart.
As for the "fairness" of someone getting compensated for their creative work... well, do you watch every commercial when you watch a TV show? Do you ever fastforwad through them with your TiVO? The TV episodes were available, for free, in the past. The fact that I wasn't physically in front of the television at the time they were offered is irrelevant. I own a TV and I pay for a cable connection, so I'm paying for content and delivery. If I want to time shift (and if I choose to do that by downloading the episodes from Usenet), that's my business. No one is losing anything there. I didn't download the episodes instead of buying the DVD... I wasn't going to buy the DVD. Why? Because I don't want to watch a TV series over and over again like I do with movies. I want to watch a TV series ONCE, and it's my choice to wait until the whole season is over so that I can see the whole season at once and don't have to be pissed off by being forced to wait a week between cliffhangers.
I understand that there are other kinds of copyright infringement out there that have a much less rigid relationship to fair use and timeshifting... but the point is, that there ARE some things that the **AA considers "copyright infringement" that are both legally (as I read the law) and morally (as I've explained) A'OK.
"The market value of the content is dramatically reduced by allowing use without compensation."
Not necessarily. For example, Janis Ian claims she has actually sold more cd's thanks to Napster and its offspring. Most DVD's I own were bought because I downloaded the movie and decided I really liked it. I think p2p will usually increase the sales of quality and decrease the sales of crap. The movie and music industry prefer to produce crap because it's easier and cheaper, which is why they oppose p2p.