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ThePirateBay Will Rise Again?
muffen writes "IDG.se has an interesting article up giving more details about the raid on PirateBay, and a little history of the organization. The news organ reports that nearly 200 servers were taken, and many of them had nothing to do with the torrent-serving group. After yesterday's raid, the site is back up with a single page explaining the situation. Brokep, one of the people behind PirateBay, claims that the site will be up and running within a couple of days. He also says that there is no legal basis for the raid against them and that he is certain that the case will not go to trial." From the site: "The necessity for securing technical evidence for the existence of a web-service which is fully official, the legality of which has been under public debate for years and whose principals are public persons giving regular press interviews, could not be explained. Asked for other reasoning behind the choice to take down a site, without knowing whether it is illegal or not, the officers explained that this is normal."
"...the site will be up and running within a couple of days" Hmmm, thought I heard that once when ShareReactor got raided a couple years ago.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Im sure the folks at TBP were totally prepared for this raid. Their hilarious abrasiveness in the face of criticism only angered and further instigated the detractors. I am confident this group had prepared statements, lawyers already ready for the case, and these guys knew exactly how to react.
At least, I hope so.
Best of luck to them
We would very much like such a party in Romania. It would be hugely popular in the wake of the lastest events: In order to please the EU, the police concluded that all computers connected to local unregistered LANs are used for hosting/trading illegal software/movies/mp3s and began breaking the doors and seizing the computers of anyone not connected to the Cable operators who "sponsored" this operation.
Link Here (in romanian - but the picture is worth a thousands words)
The jail term for software piracy in romania is up to 15 years (more than rape) and in a few days the police arrested almost 100 people for this - with the only proof being an IP address.
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The most amazing thing of all is that the persons that were questioned, were forced to leave DNA. That's totally unheard of, and make one think that maybe this was done, and this will sound completely conspiracy nuts, on request from the US ("MPAA"). Collection of DNA has been reserved for severe crimes; Rape, murder, etc.
Personally I believe the goal here is to make an example of the ISP, PRQ. Taking non-related servers makes perfect sense in that context. They want to make sure no one dares host trackers, even if it's found to be legal! I believe the charges as they relate to "TPB" will be dropped, but they'll go ahead with materal found on the suspects home computers (sadly, it seems they weren't smart/careful enough to not sample their own warez, so to speak). However, for PR reasons they'll blur this issue, making a case against the individuals based on their home computers seem like a win against trackers.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Yep, just like this old fogie predicted, the piracy issues is evolving along nicely parallel to the 50's-60's "legalize marijuana" drug movement. Good luck, but we already know how it's going to turn out. I admire idealistic youth - they're young, they'll learn.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Some of the other servers were related, insofar as they were also torrent servers. The site known as Karagarga was affected, as was the Asian DVD Club. There was no warrant against these sites, but they are down nonetheless... and I repeat, according to the police themselves, they are not even sure that the Pirate Bay, which they did have a warrant for, was violating any of the laws in Sweden.
What Pirate Bay did more than anything else to bring this massive shitstorm down upon their heads was not facilitate filesharing; rather, they taunted the MPAA/RIAA and their lawyers egregiously and often, and no doubt caused quite a bit of apoplexy among these people over the last few years.
Me, I'm not interested in the films that come out of Big Hollywood. I like old classics, I like arthouse, I like cult, I like rarities. The torrent site I frequent specializes in those genres, and doesn't even allow people to share Big Hollywood product. The site owners don't like the DMCA, but they do comply with it, and consequently have never been bothered by MPAA/RIAA about their activities. In their private forums, they have had a running poll going for most of a year now, which is somewhat illuminating... and overwhelming percentage of the members there (82%), people who are all quite familiar with where and how to download anything they want for free, still buy commercial DVDs and CDs! This data corroborates findings of researchers at major US universities, who have concluded that filesharing does not necessarily hurt the sales of traditional media. The research indicates that filesharing of majorly hyped Big Hollywood releases (like a new STAR WARS movie, for instance) has a small but noticeable negative impact on ticket sales and DVD rentals, but that filesharing of more obscure fare actually has a significant POSITIVE impact on ticket sales and DVD rentals -- it exposes more people to the work in question, and consequently, more people go out and buy a commercial copy of it.
It seems that the real problem is not that filesharers are evil 'pirates' who are cutting into MPAA/RIAA profits due to their wicked refusal to pay for culture... the problem is that when you buy a cinema ticket or buy/rent a DVD, and you have never seen the film or heard the album before purchasing, you are far more likely to spend money on movies and music that you ultimately find disappointing, and people don't like that. Filesharing should properly be regarded by Big Hollywood as pressure to stop making such a tremendous amount of recycled garbage, stop using marketing as the ultimate focus and raison d'etre of every film and CD produced, and get back to the old school traditions of making fine art for fine art's sake, with marketing a strictly post-production affair that has no say in what scripts get chosen or how directors do their jobs.
Would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive? Would you pay for clothes without trying them on? How many times have you walked out of a theater after a film, or ejected a DVD from your DVD player, and wished for your money back? All the actual hard data that has been collected shows that even hardcore filesharers DO go out and buy commercial DVDs and CDs; they like to own the tangibles and they like to support the artists and companies whose work they appreciate... so filesharing isn't piracy, it's more akin to trying something before you buy it, and rejecting it if it's poorly made. MPAA/RIAA's strident insistence that filesharing is piracy is simply their bid to retain their obscenely high profits without doing the tough job of making products worth buying. They prefer to work according to formulae and sell the same tired bullshit again and again, with explosions and special effects in lieu of actual
Funny fact: in correct (germanic) pronounciation, møøse acutally is a very colloquial (and rude) word for vagina.
Which makes your sentence much more funny.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
As it turns out, the illegal action against the pirate bay was on direct order from the swedish justice department (this is also illegal in Sweden), which in turn acted on a request from the US government, which in turn acted on behalf of MPAA.
This is all classified, but leaked to a very authoritative (as BBC) TV channel in Sweden.
Therefore, the swedish government is determined to ignore the law, as has happened so many times before.
Look for the pirate bay in the free world, i.e., in china or something.