Slashdot Mirror
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."
I myself live in America and the only way I can find information on this political party is online. I wish that there were more official resources in English aside from their site. There seems to be one page with the content exactly the same as Christian Engström's post.
Is it possible that this party is popular via lack of information? I would like to see them explain their strategy & give very detailed specifics about what they would like to see changed and why. I think that if this was posted, it may cause them to lose some support but would definitely let Sweden & the rest of the world know a lot more about the Pirate Party. I like their desired end results but how to plan to achieve these goals?
I don't want to sound like an ass but in my opinion, having 200 servers of a controversial party raided and confiscated by the local government is one of the best things that could happen to said party. Especially since nothing incriminating was found on them. Do political parties now earn "street cred" like this? Certainly would strike a chord with the youth & idealists. Hmmm, sounds like pretty unlawful search and seize action
Dennis: Come and see the corruption inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
King Arthur: *seizes the servers* Bloody file sharers!
Dennis: Oh, what a giveaway! Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about! Did you see him repressing me? You saw him, Didn't you?
My work here is dung.
This looks like a job for Captain Copyright!
Seriously - of course the pirate bay will rise again - what they were doing was not illegal under Swedish law.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I think the selling of Pirates is bad. The site should stay down!
Anonymous Cowards are at -6...
Anyone that grabs someone by the shirt in a store is going to get sued... I don't believe this story is credible. Plus, someone that sells christian music and calls a patron a "bitch". (Not that christians don't cuss, but again, if the guy is having problems clothing his kids I doubt he's scare off a customer.)
Anonymous Cowards are at -6...
from TFS: Swedish National Criminal Police
the police are criminal?
well at least in sweden they tell it like it is.. i guess Oo
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Dude, that joke hasn't been funny for years. (I mean why didn't you pull out BSD is dying?)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
"...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/Boo hoo.
Do I cry that my 5th generation industry was stolen out from under my feet? Do I cry that my grandparents and parents endured hardships? No. They rolled with the punches and my dad worked construction/trucking. Maybe you should look into another industry. You smell the times changing, so react (you are allowed to do that, you know). Here's your plan: Get into another business and do it fast. You can keep your house if you're smart. No one is going to be crying over your family drama on Slashdot. Don't be emotionally soft and don't feel sorry for yourself. Pick yourself up and move on. Sell the store or change your business. It was a fun 12 years but the trend is over.
My work here is dung.
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
The news organ reports
Exactly where on the author's anatomy is this organ located?
The MPAA's statement after the takedown of thepiratebay.
Seems like Swedish authorities gave in to the pressure from **AA groups. This may be good as it will put the general public on the side of TPB.
A poll in the largest evening newspaper in sweden shows what people think of the takedown of TPB. The question in the poll is, is it right to "attack" people that are involved in filesharing. Ja = YES and Nej = NO. The results speak for themselves.
The media companies make it sound like copyright is a way of limiting your rights, but it was created with the intent of creating more diversity in content by limiting the rights of the content distributors (like MPAA). It used to have clauses which ensured the consumer's rights wouldn't be stifled (such as fair use). Why was copyright law created?? Because with the invention of the printing press things could be mass replicated much easier, the idea behind copyright was to limit who could print/sell stuff, taking power from printing press/distributor and giving it back to content creator, to allow people to create and distribute new content instead of letting the printing press have a field day selling us the same old crap making huge profits. Copyright law was created so that the content creator would be properly compensated. So that the consumer wouldn't be subjected to the same crap over and over again with no new works being created. The copyright law was made to protect the content creator and the content user. The copyright law was created to stifle the content distribution companies like MPAA, not the consumer. I don't know when this changed, but whoever had the wonderful idea of copyright would probably jam a sharp stick in his eyes if he saw what crud the content distributors have turned this law into. The copyright law has obviously failed in the past half a century and content distributors have too much power now. It's time for another copyright law with the original intent of protecting the consumer and the content creator and to make sure media conglomerates like MPAA don't make huge profits from nothing. There's no reason why a CD should cost $20 (and only a dime going to the creator) when the manufacturing cost of CD is in pennies... just my two cents. Sharing is caring. Let's try to put an end to the tyrannical misuse of copyright law. Thanks for reading!
The MPAA can hack servers and harvest private information if it wants; not a single MPAA employee would suffer any sort of police harrassment. But someone ostensibly assists violation of MPAA copyrights and BAM! - 200 servers are confiscated by police authorities.
The reason for this is explained in Sterling's account of the first major institutional crackdown on hackers, ezine publishers and other dispensers of information which some powerful corporation don't want to see in the wild. From the text:
So police is acting as mercenaries for the big corporations, since otherwise they'd hire their own. Not a very comforting thought, especially considering you are nowadays likely to be arrested for suspicion of violating corporate copyrights. Remember when police and laws were used to protect citizens, not criminialize millions for hurting corporate profit machines...?
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.
Now the big question behind all that: if you want to make a living in the computer world as it is today, should you rather be a programmer or a lawyer?
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); }
Please get the Pirate Bay back up, 'cause less pirates means higher global temperatures
What we need is a server in orbit sharing the links on a stealthed satellite. That'll screw them. Try shutting down the bit torrent links then.
Sure they were being deliberately offensive, but they had solid, legal swedish case law behind them, so seeing whether they would last was a test of the integrity of the legal system (and the speed of the political system in making what they did actually illegal).
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
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
Legal or not, the internet will eventually kill your business anyway. You should have recognized that oh, about 6 years ago. If the record industry had an ounce of sense they would have gone to online distribution years ago and put you out of business.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Come on, the PIRATES bay?!?!?!?!?
they were just sayin g NA NA NA NA NA NA: you cant catch us!
Yes, that is exactly what they were doing. It's roughly similar to civil disobedience.
They were saying: We are the people, we want things this way. A democratic government is obliged to respect our wishes because we are a majority of the population. Foreign corporations cannot make up ethics and laws to suit their business plan, they require our consent.
They have always been treating this as a political battle, not a legal one. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Sweden is unusual in that a large portion of the populace is informed about this issue and supports TPB rather than the MPAA. I don't think this is over yet.
This is the stuff that brings down governments.
I bought a DVD music video of a popular band, it contained a virus.
I bought an MP3 on-line from a major site, I couldn't listen to it on my portable player.
I bought a CD from a music store, it contained a root-kit which gave hackers access to my computer.
The RIAA sued a Grand Mother for Piracy, and she didn't even own a PC.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Want me to still buy your music after all that has happened? Think again.
But in the real world it takes losts of advertising, promotion and wheel-greasing to create a snger/band/TV show worth anything.
Bzzt, wrong.
What it takes is hard work. Being the son of a career musician, I can tell you that it is not hard to make a -very- decent living making music. What it does take, just as any other career, is years of constant work building a name for yourself in your community, and then beyond.
Would people please get it out of their head that labels somehow make music as a career viable. My dad has produced and sold several records, tapes and CDs in his career; has performed all over north america, and now in his late 50s owns his own recording studio and takes students. He has a waiting list of several dozen students, and has hired several teachers to help with the load.
You've probably never heard of him. His original music doesnt have raw mainstream appeal, BUT, contrary to your idea, he has made a very good living for himself through his music. And he never had a label around to rape his ideas and keep most of the money.
"Reality" has nothing to do with big buisness advertising, it has to do with hard work. Pure and simple. Does he support getting his music out there via filesharing? Yes. It helps him build his reputation and get other work.
.
Or, as anyone who knows a smidge of Spanish calls them, "The The Tar Tar Pits."
Man, you really need that seminar!
SWEDISH AUTHORITIES SINK PIRATE BAY
Hmm... How are you going to sink a bay ? Isn't it already full of water ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
RIGHT: Unauthorized redistribution of copyrighted works is in violation of the Berne Convention, which Sweden is a signatory,
WRONG: so it IS illegal for Pirate Bay to do what they are doing.
Pirate Bay was NOT, under no circumstances, authorizedly or unauthorizedly redistributing copyrighted works. There were NO copyrighted works in PB's servers. ".torrent" files are just files that contain the following information: "the tracker XXX is keeping files YYY, ZZZ, TTT available for bittorrent swarm downloading." And "contributory infringement" is NOT part of the Berne convention... it's an USofAn "innovation". BTW, down here in Brasil there is no "contributory infringement" either.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
You sir, ought to be modded redundant. Before you make ridiculous assertions that the legalize marijuana movement ended during the 1970s, I suggest actually reading the Wikipedia article; The legal issues of cannabis. If continual progress each and every month equates to failure in your mind, then I'm sorry but you need to revise your thought processes somewhat. Even in the U.S. at the state level, authorities are seeing the light and legalizing cannabis in small quantities - full legalization is on the way, whether it'll take 2, 5, 10, 20 or 50 years it will undoubtedly arrive.
On topic, the supposed "end" of the Pirate Bay doesn't herald the end of BitTorrent - infact this will merely boost the cause of those hosting the site. Once the Swedish authorities wake up and realize PB has done nothing wrong, then the true campaign to relinquish all copyright law can truly begin.
If this, a raid involving 50 officers, can happen in Sweden, a usually progressive, efficient and liberal nation - what would happen in more authoritarian nations? The sooner as these ridiculous, oligopoly-serving laws are erased from statute books worldwide, the better.
More like civil obidience. They (think they) are not doing anything illegal. It's like calling a group of people "The Jaywalkers" and always crossing the road when the go-light is on.
If it sounds strange to you, don't worry, that's what they actually wrote.
They are targetting LAN DC++ users (and LAN hubs) right now.
It is unknown wether they will extend this to torrent users of well-known ISPs or not.
___
The following is the translation of the bolded text in the article:
A hysteria broke all across the country following operations directed towards those who illegally use the "share" option in the so-called neighbourhood networks (translator note: LANs spanning users from a few buildings up to a few city blocks). Sources from the MAI (translator note: Ministry of Internal Affairs ? well, the police anyway) have declared the operation is code-named "The Gramophone".
Because in the IP-rights category Romania got a "yellow flag" warning from the EU, Romanian Police has enacted measures regarding weekly raids organisation in order to control this phenomenon, in all counties.
Within the scope of this endeavour, policemen and prosecutors will work together with ISPs and hub operators. Another method used by the cops to penetrate the hubs is by assuming innocuous user identities.
In Iasi (translator note: rather large city, "capital" of the county with the same name in the NE of the country, region called Moldova), cops and prosecutors have made several household searches, seizing HDDs, computers and switches. In Tulcea (translator note: city by the Black Sea coast/ Danube Delta), over 20 Internet users have ended up with penal records, and cops have confiscated "dozens" of HDDs.
The chief of the IP department from the "Parchetul General" (translator note: the higher prosecuting autority), Monica Otava, has declared that prosecutors all across the country will start [such] actions, benefitting from both legal grounds and the necessary logistics for the "annihilation" of LANs.
The only other relevant (and worying) bit is the following:
That loosely translates into something like this:
*Interviewer* : So, are we to understand that from now on anybody who is connected to a local LAN can end up with the police holding a search warrant at their door?
*Monica Otava* : Yes, anytime, he can end up with a search warrant at his door
Well... no comment.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
From the MPAA's statement: "The bottom line is that the operators of the Pirate Bay and others like them are criminals who profit handsomely by facilitating the distribution of millions of copyrighted creative works and files protected under the law," said John G. Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA. "We applaud Swedish law enforcement for their effort to stop egregious copyright infringement on The Pirate Bay."
The only Criminals who profit handsomely by facilitating the distribution of millions of copyrighted creative works and files protected under the law in this story are the MPAA. Piratebay is a search engine. You have to break a law to be 'Criminal'
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.
Actually, you couldn't be more wrong. Most people back then didn't do drugs if they were Joe Six-Pack. However, most people already break the law when it comes to pirating.
Not only that, the RIAA and MPAA want to get rid of fair use.
They want to make time shifting and recording TV shows illegal because using the DMCA they have made it illegal for Joe Six-pack to by pass the DRM.
This is stuff that grandma, Bob the Blue Collar worker, and Sara the Single Mom already do and they don't think its morally wrong. This was stuff they were doing in the 70s and 80s with the VCR and tape recorders.
So this is more like Prohibition of the 30's. People, young and old, don't think it is wrong and they actively do it every day without thinking twice.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
My business faces ruin. Troll sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many trolls as they did just a year ago. Revenue is down and costs are up. My store has survived for years, but I now face the prospect of bankruptcy. Every day I ask myself why this is happening.
I bought the store about 12 years ago. It was one of those boutique troll stores that sell obscure, lame jokes that no-one laughs about, not even the people that make them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the geek market. My store specialised in trolls - stuff that geeks find hilarious and/or annoying. I don't sell sick stuff like Goatse or Tubgirl, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive In Soviet Russia sections that I know of.
The business strategy worked. People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase trolls without anuses or violent diarrhea. Over the years I expanded the business and took on more clean-cut and friendly employees. It took hard work and long hours but I had achieved my dream - owning a profitable business that I had built with my own hands, from the ground up. But now, this dream is turning into a nightmare.
copy Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer trolls. Why is no one buying trolls? Are people not interested in pop culture references? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Slashdot is mostly to blame. The statistics speak for themselves - one in three trolls world wide appears on Slashdot. On Slashdot, you can find and read hundreds of dollars worth of pop culture references in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the lame joke industry, from artists, to troll companies to stores like my own. Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the karma store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike trolls, it's harder to copy karma on Slashdot.
A week ago, an unpleasant experience with space ninjas gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to post this troll on Slashdot right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of +1, Funny."
I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the troll industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "Zo...you ah going to post zis to your frends on Slushdot, punk?" I asked him in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger/Kindergarten Cop voice.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
So that's my idea - a national blacklist of space ninjas. If somebody cannot obey the basic rules of society, then they should be excluded from society. If space ninjas want to steal from the pop culture reference industry, then the pop culture reference industry should exclude them. It's that simple. One strike, and you're out - no reputable troll store will allow you to buy another troll. If the pirates can't buy the trolls to begin with, then they won't be able to post them on Slashdot, will they? It's no different to doctors blacklisting drug dealers from buying prescription medicine.
I have just written a letter to the GNAA outlining my proposal. Suing space ninjas one by one isn't going far enough. Not to mention space ninjas use the fact that they're being sued to unfairly portray themselves as victims. A national register of space ninjas would make the problem far easier to deal with. People would be encouraged to give the names of suspected space ninjas to a hotline, similar to Bust Your Boss. Once we know the size of the problem, the police and other law enforcement agencies will be forced to take space ninjutsu serio
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I'll even go you one further. I don't download fre music becuase of civil disobedience, nor do I try to justify the fact with the cost of CDs. I'm just a straight up thief who doesn't want to pay sometimes...
The good thing is the **AA is on the same page with me on this - and they view all of the "high price of CDs" justifiers and you "civil disobedience" as being in the same boat as me no matter what your convitions/reasons are..
"But this one goes to 11!"
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.
According to this story It was the MPAA that was behind the raid. After being contacted by the MPAA, the US government got into talks with the swedish ministry for foreign affairs here in Sweden. The ministry of justice contacted police and prosecutors, but they didn't want to do anything since the legal issues here are unclear. So the ministry of justice contacted the national police chief and got orders to raid the server hall. The legality of the operation is highly questionable and borders on ministerstyre, whatever that would be called in english, it means that ministers tell government agencies what to do or how to interpret laws. This is illegal in Sweden.
You are automatically equating protest with the word disruptive. Look what you have written. This alone proves you have little idea what you are talking about, nor have you been paying attention to the long past history of political "protesting". And before the knee jerk denial that you said that, look what you wrote.
I have personally witnessed this violation of rights BS and been the target of cops at *completely* peaceful protests where they went apeshit under some orders and attacked the crowd, going back to civil rights days, pre-anti nam war days, and from then onwards. Not to say violent protests don't happen as well, I won't deny that, but by no means are they all, most usually at least start out peaceful until the overt or covert(yes, this happens) functionaires start the violence, giving them the excuse to go nuts. I have seen it too many times now to not know this isn't SOP with them.
It does no good if you can't assemble where the action is, 10 miles down the road behind a fence is not "the right to assemble",the government has placed illegal and unconstitutional restrictions on a right, they have said you need "permission" to exercise a born-with right. This is illegal. That right no where states you have the right to assemble where THEY tell you to assemble. That's something they just started doing because they got the guns and follow orders from their "superior beings" whomever those entities are.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
It does not state you have "some" rights to assemble or that you can only assemble in some designated "zone". Show us where it says that, I have provided the full quote. If you can, I'll concede gracefully, but I have read that numerous times in my life, and can't seem to see those little clauses you insist are there. If it is public property, you have a right to assemble there (obviously personal private property is a different subject entirely), you have the right to your speech, and the right to be heard with your petitions, whether the petitions are oral, written, or visual, as petitions could take any or all of those forms. We the people have a right to tell our elected folks what we think about what is going on. Period. If they keep trying to dodge the petition, they are violating their duties as elected people, no matter what media form the petition is in. They can't refuse the petition. They can't legally order their mercenaries to keep you away from them when you are trying to deliver your petition to them, but they constantly do that. I know why of course, it's because by and large they are mostly corrupt crooks and want to keep their cushy well paying jobs and positions of "rule" over people.
If you got a political beef, you and your peers have a right to assemble, and to petition the government. That's it, it is that simple ancd clearly the intent of the founders. they were just coming from a time where the redcoats broke up crowds, told them they couldn't be in the town square in a group, arrested "ring leaders' for their "speech", kept them from "petitioning" the crown's authorities, etc, that's why the amendment was written exactly like that. It is beyond clear. They do NOT have the right to restrict you in such a way that they are dodging their duties as governmental workers/politicans/or functionaires, they are REQUIRED to listen to your petitions as acceptance of their official office, to follow the laws. Yes, they have to listen. They still might not agree with your petition, but they have a duty that goes with their oath. And if you come in a group, to show solidarity and the numbers,i.e., an assemblage, too bad, that is a free persons right.
They are NOT RULERS, we are NOT SUBJECTS, much as they and apparently you seem to believ
That would be the 'roughly' part. It's similar in that the goal is to force the hand of the opposing party. With regular civil disobedience, the goal is to force the government to put people in jail for things which are obviously stupid. Here, it's to force the MPAA to take them to court. In both cases the objective is to put an end to rhetoric and vague threats. TPB's position is that they are going to win in court, and then the MPAA will be screwed.