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The Pirate Bay Is Back Online
Many readers have submitted news that The Pirate Bay is back online, operating for now as "The Police Bay." Writes one anonymous submitter: "Pirate Bay got new hardware, moved the servers abroad and used recent backups. So the only bad side-effect of this police raid is that hundreds of clients of the ISP PRQ still have not got their servers back from the police. When the police did the raid on Wednesday, they took Pirate Bay from Bankgirot's secure server room. Then they also took all the servers in PRQ colocation facility STH3, effectively disabling a lot of small companies. The connection between PRQ and TPB? - Same owners, nothing more, this is beginning to become a huge scandal in Sweden with coverage on TV and all newspapers 4 days in a row."
So, at what point does it become the responsibility of the police to do enough homework to make sure that their investigation dosen't harm many other businesses that are completely uninvolved in the search for evidence? What recourse do the other effected isp customers have?
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
If it's turning into a major scandal, could this mean that people in Sweden generally don't think gestapo-like tactics are justified to take down a few people downloading video games and TV shows?
Next thing you know, you'll be telling us that talking about war isn't actually talking about peace, and that freedom isn't actually slavery.
It's been a long time.
As an American who's disgusted with the current Copyright Cabal running roughshod all over everyone and everything, I'm glad there's somewhere in the world where this crap inspires the mainstream rage it should. GO GET 'EM.
What's it like in Sweden? What's a nice time of year to visit? Are there programmer jobs available? Do you still have that bikini team?
Be seeing you...
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
but if they are in the netherlands now, what is to stop the dutch police from doing the same thing?
yeah sure, it's a giant game of whack-a-mole, but isn't the lesson here to do to thepiratebay what was done to napster?
that is, when the riaa/ mpaa behead these entities, they go underground and become headless
that is: no central server. thus, napster morphed into morpheus, kazaa, edonkey, et al
which is the real lesson for the mpaa/ riaa: you don't kill this "infection", you only make is more resistant to your antibiotics
the mpaa/ riaa is breeding superpiracy
you would think that instead they would coopt the pirate bay, legitimize it
but no, they have to fight where it would be wiser to collude. they just breed a stronger foe, drive this behavior further underground, and not stop one bit of it, and just make it much more difficult to ever stop
their behavior is creating the culture of piracy. if they embraced and extended, instead of exterminate and berserk, the mpaa/ riaa would create a culture that would say "hey, this stuff is cheap, and high quality, and easily organized... why would i want to go to a bad quality copy of my media that is hard to find?"
surely they see that that is all they are doing, no?
they are digging their own graves
you can't fight technological progress
this genie is not going back in the bottle
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Pirate Bay is *more* legal than Google. Google at least exists in this "grey area" -- with things like Google Cache, and things like that, where they actually DO distribute the actual copyrighted content themselves occasionally. Nothing that the Pirate Bay serves up is actually copyrighted, since it's just .torrent files.
These news may be great for filesharing people worldwide. But from a political point of view the Piracy Party has not won until the the servers are back up on swedish territory.
Exactly which law makes torrent files illegal? Please be prepared to cite chapter and verse.
And no matter what statistics anyone may have come up with (or forged), Bittorrent is just a highly efficient means of distributing perfectly legal stuff such as Linux releases, scientific lectures and speeches, or free renders. Much like a knife is a proven instrument for cutting food, rather than reason for suspecting an intent to kill someone.
BTW if the laws had teeth against some real ills of the information age, and if the authorities were similarly responsive, though hopefully in a more targetted way, against botnet operators perpetrating DDoS and spam, we wouldn't need to have discussions like these for more than a decade already...
The torrent files that the Pirate Bay hosts are, it appears, legal in Sweden. However, the copyright infringement being perfomed by the individuals who download those torrent files and use them to make unauthorised copies of other people's work is certainly not legal in Sweden.
So, what's the likelihood that any records they may have kept of who's been committing copyright infringement are now in the hands of the Swedish police, the Antipyratbyran, and indeed the MPAA?
Pretty high, I'd say. Expect more raids soon... but this time, targetting the people who are committing the actual crimes, rather than the people who are exploiting legal loopholes to facilitate them.
Why not use the MPAA's bandwith?
http://www.mpaa.org/press_releases/2006_05_31.pdf
How TPB is legal? I don't mean to troll I am asking this seriously. What i don't really understand is this... TPB exists purly to host torrent files of which the majority (I have never seen a legal file there) are for torrent which contain copyrighted material. Now I know the whole Google argument however Google is designed as a "capture all" system whereas TPB isn't. It is only designed for torrents and as there is no monitoring over what is a legal torrent and what isn't the system is very open to abuse.
I know torrents are also used for legal material (linux distros, free music, software distribution, etc.) however TBP isn't aimed towards this kind of material, at least not from what I can see.
If TPB had moderation so that illegal torrent where removed it would make sense however they don't. Pretty emuch Everything on their site is an enabler for downloading copyrighted material.
Now I hate the RIAA/MPAA and their ways however it is a fact that TPB isn't around to give out legal torrents. I don't know if the search was legal or whatnot and I would hate to see this hurt bittorrent as I think it is an incredible system.
Could someone please explain to me how exactly they are legal. I would really like to know.
Leaving aside the legality of the police actions, which sound dubious under Swedish law from everything I've read...
I think a lot of people here aren't looking at the bigger picture. Whether you like it or not, the vast majority of the international community in the western world does agree on some basic legal principles:
Now, Sweden may choose to disagree, and within its own borders, that's its prerogative. The problem is that in this case, the damage is not contained within its own borders. By dissenting from the general concensus, Sweden is providing a safe haven that allows people to break the law in other countries with apparently impunity.
You can't really expect the rest of the world to stand by and let this happen. If Sweden doesn't play ball, at least to some reasonable extent, then it's likely to face serious consequences on the international stage. Do you really want to see Sweden facing formal reprimands and trade sanctions in five years?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
1) TPB sucks, because they're just leechers making money off of other people's copyrighted work, all the while disengenuously crowing about "freedom".
2) The MPAA sucks, because of their tactics
3) Sweden sucks because they allowed themselves to be a tool of the USA
4) The USA sucks, because of their overreaction to file sharing, and being a tool of the MPAA.
5) Slashdot sucks, because most people here don't see the immorality of file sharing, and don't see that incredibly expensive shows like 24 and Lost WON'T EXIST if they can't make money. We might actually be seeing the fall of good video programming. It may not exist in 10 years, except for amateur junk.
*sigh*
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Major parties? ROTFL!
Worst analogy ever.
They've always been able to do this by connecting to a running torrent and seeing the peer names.
Why would they do that? Do they have something to hide!?
Horrible example. But in your own example, it would like if the police went after the manufacturer of the gun instead of the shooter. The PirateBay is not responsible for the use of torrents. Downloading TES:Oblivion would be perfectly legal in my country, as long as I also have had an original copy bought. It is not PirateBay's fault if I don't have the copy. PirateBay is legal, I am legal if I have bought a copy. Perhaps someone downloading from me could be illegal, but again that's not PirateBay's fault. That's his responsibility.
except for the fact that he said "Google==US, and US law explicitly makes caching legal and .torrent files illegal."
he said that there is a law making it legal. they were just asking which law that was.
Guns, don't kill people, people kill people. Tracker sites don't infringe copyright, people infringe copyright.
Yet another blogger begging for an audience.
Wrong guess, I'm from the EU. My understading of copyright law in a foreign country a few Km away from me is not that bad, especially when I've been reading a bit about it. What you and your trolling friends refuse to admit is that TPB encourages and facilitates sharing copyrighted material. I will continue to use it no matter what Swedish law says (is it OK, is it not? Like I care...) but I will NOT kid myself into believing that TPB knows nothing about the Windows ISOs you can download thanks to their portal. The post I replied to was trying to get away with a ridiculous technicality which didn't make any sense, that's why I compared to another nonsensical one.
The police raid of TPB (at the direction of the United States) is widely believed to have been illegal under the laws of the country in which the raid took place. Attempting to applying U.S. legal theory to the situation does not magically change the jurisdiction.
Yeah, so what? I don't care about the raid, I am simply pointing out that TPB is happy to help with piracy. They don't host the material, OK. They're in the clear wrt Swedish law, OK. So what? It does not mean you can pretend that piracy does not take place thanks to their portal. Then if their law allows this, more power to them.
Why does the United States and some of its citizens believe respecting the sovereignty of nations is optional?
I don't know, ask an American. In the meantime, were you in favour or against the bombing raids on Milosevic? What do you think of regulating the activity of farmers in my country so that the farmers in yours get a better/worse ROI? And I could make countless examples... Don't believe Europe is immune to this kind of games. The USA are definitely not alone.
Global warming is a cube.
You know, ordinarily, police would love it if someone was distributing locations and phone numbers for drug dealers. Why doesn't the *AA thank them for giving them the IP addresses of illegal filesharers?
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
And #2 is X-Men 3.
WHY someone would ever want to download a movie is beyond me. They're alwasy worse quality (especially so before the DVD comes out), and plus, movie theaters (while they may charge too much for food) always have nice air conditioning, excellent sound, a huge screen, and depending on which one you go to, comfy seats.
No, your examples are irrelevant to the TPB case.
Lets say I want to kill all the Sarah Connor in L.A. I use a phonebook to get their phone number and address. Then, I go to these addresses to kill them (by pressing my finger on a trigger, with a pointed stick or with a banana).
Can the phonebook editor be responsible for the murder of all the Sarah Connor ?
TPB is only providing a "phonebook".
Why would they set one up? I mean, bit torrent is completely open. Anyone can get your IP when you download off a torrent.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
But what if Sarah Connor specifically requested to be removed from the phone book, and was not. Then who was at fault?
You could argue that the MPAA has requested many times to be removed from the phonebook, and the PirateBay phonebook company has refused them.
Regardless though, it's people who actually download the torrents and use them that are at fault.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
The MPAA, US government, and Swedish police took down the The Pirate Bay website. If I told you that was about to happen, you'd probably see it as a very bad thing for bittorrent file-sharers and Swedes.
Instead, the action has been criticised in Sweden, gained the pirate party a lot more support and publicity, and the website has been put back up within about 2 days. Now it's hosted in other countries, and if any of those countries attempt to take it down, you can bet that it will again get widespread coverage in the news.
The Pirate Bay has gone from being a website into an idea. The MPAA thought they could just take it down and that would be the end of it. Instead, it seems that any attempt to take it down just gets support for file sharers and causes copyright laws to be questioned. Other countries can take it down, too, but the Swedes have set an example - there will be political backlash every time someone tries to mess with The Pirate Bay.
So why then would the US go after a company in sweden that does not have those law, while they leave local companies that go beyond "contributory" (ala google with their caching)?
OK the answer is obvious, but what happens when all the torrent sites are shut down? Does the MPAA go after the search engines next?
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Wow, your numbers about Stockholm are quite amazing!
I live in a small town in northern Sweden of less than 50,000 inhabitans, and basically anyone in an apartment can get 100/10 Mbps for $44, and our local energy company distributes broadband for similar reasonable prices to many others in own houses. 5% sounds quite amazing, and I have to wonder if that's anywhere near correct, and not more like 50%. I mean, given how economics play a huge role here, and Stockholm should be waaay more profitable to support than far up in our town.
Have you ever considered that it isnt a loophole and just the way the law is supposed to be. They have known about it for a long time, if it were a loophole it would have been "fixed" maybe that country wants it to be that way.
Kind of like Russia and allofmp3.com. Maybe the Russian legislature just wants the law to work that way, they have had ample time and obviously been pressured to fix it, yet have not.
And btw, downloading stuff might very well be illegal for you, but the internet is a global network, which means laws of one country do not apply everywhere, yes yes, I know this is a difficult concept to grasp but it is true.
BTW, i wouldnt be proud if I were wearing a half life 2 tshirt.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
When the news first broke that Pirate Bay was taken down, I commented "Good for them" on Slashdot. Immedate "flamebait" and "trolling" mods. I also got quite angry that people were so vehemently supporting them. I eventually got a temporary IP ban for my responses (Yeah, Slashdot! Way to block IPs if they get 5 or more 'Flamebait' mods in an hour. Glad to see I could ban just about anybody by modding them down enough).
So, anyway, my question is this: why are we supporting them?
The common response is this long and circuitous argument that Pirate Bay is somehow like Google, that links to copyright infringement aren't the same as direct copyright infringement, etc.
Bear in mind this takes the same broken logic of copyright law (When is a copy a copy? When I have all the bits aligned perfectly? When I convert the AAC to an MP3? Etc...) and tries to stand it on its head. The whole bunch of laws are mired in inconsistency -- adding the "free information" take doesn't really add anything to the conversation and may make it worse.
For some reason, no one wants to step back and look at the big picture. We, as nerds, dig into our one piece (digital copies) and ignore the rest.
The bottom line is this: copyright infringement DOES cause serious problems. It causes money not to go to shows/movies/etc. It causes creative ventures to be cancelled. It causes people to lose jobs (not just the stars who have money -- people like the crew that have little).
Yes, some people pirate to "try before they buy". Some use it to test software before buying it for a production environment. I'd venture to say the vast don't, however. Ask the average teenager/college student/etc. if he/she's REALLY going to buy that 3rd season of Family Guy/CD from Radiohead/V for Vendetta flick. Chances are they aren't.
People say "pirated works aren't taking away money from anyone". I disagree. Way back when (for hundreds of years, actually) you had to buy items to find out if they were bad. And if they were really bad, tough. That was how the market worked. If that comedy recording from Vaudeville sucked, you didn't buy any more comedy recordings from Vaudeville.
Nowadays you have tons of free ways to "sample before you buy":
1.) Go to a store and watch the movie/listen to the CD.
2.) Go to a friend's house and do the same thing.
3.) Double-click a stream on the internet. Get a sample from iTunes, for example.
4.) Listen to the radio (yes, SOME channel out there plays what you like).
5.) Rent the item before buying it.
With all those options available, pirating seems less and less of a legitimate option.
Who's pirating? A lot of people. What are they pirating? A lot of stuff.
Just because a lot of people do it doesn't make it legal, moral or right.
(Not that I don't agree with their service. The MPAA does deserve to go out of business. But claiming innocence about the service's intended usage is pushing it a little bit too far...)
I hate to be cynical, but in my area they heavily traffic the interstate until everyone has a ticket for going 3 MPH over the speed limit. Back alleys aren't as profitable so they're not really a concern. =OP
I hate seeing movies in theaters. Sticky floors, cramped seats, people talking, people standing up in front of you, stupid "please don't pirate this movie" ads (uh, obviously I didn't prirate this movie since I'm here). I have air conditioning at home, I don't need to go to the theater for that.
Downloaded movies usually have pretty decent quality, and I've got a nice monitor and a computer chair more comfortable than any chairs I've seen in theaters (I also have a computer by my bed if I want to stretch out while watching) so I really prefer watching from home rather than go out.
It's not that I'm a cheapskate, it's just that downloading is just so much more convienent. In fact, most of what I download I could legally watch for free, because it's broadcast TV shows (Veronica Mars, Lost, etc), I just find it easier to find it on Pirate Bay or IsoHunt than remember to set the VCR. ABC appearently has it's shows online, but they use Flash 8 which isn't available for Linux so I can't watch on their site. iTunes is another option for watching legit movies/tv shows, but they're not for Linux either. So, until I find legit options for watching videos (that doesn't involve waiting a year for the DVD to come out - which technically isn't legit anyways since I don't have liscensed DVD players on my computers) I'll be sticking to the illegal options.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
what happens when all the torrent sites are shut down?
Incidentally, when's the last time YOU won a game of "whack-a-mole" with an infinite number of levels?
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
In the US, anyway. Sweden? Anyones guess...
Used books is similar to duping data?
Not at all. Only one person has the book at one time. Not so with bittorrenting.
As to 24 and such TV shows, there are more and more people stealing these shows daily. Those people are unlikely to watch it first run, they are viewing it off the internet, with no ads.
That's lost revenue.
As to whether the companies could be smarter, that's not for you to decide. Why not walk into the GM headquarters and explain "you're not selling your stuff in the right way, I'm gonna start stealing cars off your assembly lines and selling them the ways I see fit".
See how that goes over.
This is a ridiculous reverse justification for theft.
If you don't think the company is doing a good job, then don't patronize them. But don't steal their stuff either. Just like you would with an object you cannot copy, like a car.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I am also very curious about what the polls will show in the upcoming weeks/months. I do expect the number for the Pirate Party in the official polls to be lower than it actually is though. I believe the polls are still performed using land-line phones and I also suspect that a fairly considerable part of the target demographic for the Pirate Party use mobile phones exclusively.
This is the case with me, for example. This event has pushed me over the edge and I intend to vote for them. But, since I only have a mobile phone there is no possibility that I'll show up in the polls.
Gasp! Are you saying that American law isn't the supreme law of the world? Handed down by god himself to the puritans, so that they might convince the entire world of the immorality of nipples, pot, and sharing?
You are wrong: Google carries much of the material in google cache. Only text, but also text is copyrighted.
[have I been trolled?]
The sole purpose of pirate bay is to facilitate crime
Yeah. And when it was illegal to strike, the sole purpose of unions was to facilitate crime.
And when it was illegal to want to run your own country, the sole purpose of Ghandi was to facilitate crime.
A few more: the sole purpose of the hardware shop down the road is to facilitate crime (they sell crowbars).
The sole purpose of the cutlery shop at the mall is to facilitate murder.
Filesharing is not, and should not be regarded as a crime. Sure as the pope shits in the woods, and the bear wears a pointy hat.
We have footage of police wandering around, and footage of cameras with plastic bags over them. Why no footage of a policeman putting a bag over a camera? In this country, CCTV cameras are mostly arranged so that if you try to disable one, you'll be caught on camera doing it by another.
I really want a still image of a policeman putting a bag over a camera that I can distribute far and wide.
Xenu loves you!
Incidentally, when's the last time YOU won a game of "whack-a-mole" with an infinite number of levels?
Everybody's very hyper about how they shut down one site and a dozen pop-up. It's not as simple. With each site closed they close a whole class of sites. With napster, they closed all us sites operating on the same principle, present or future. With the pirate bay, they'll close all swedesh sites. There is a limited number of countries (150-180), most of which are unsuitable for various reasons. If they eliminate Sweden, they probably also eliminate several european countries with similar legislation in which nobody will dare make such a site again. And so on.
So no, there's a very limited number of levels and decreasing every day. The solution will probably come from new generation p2p software, better, faster and more efficient. But then the battle will get a lot dirtier, with countries (US) banning open source software and going for individual users and lots and lots of pollution-oriented attacks. There is a war all right and the party with the more determination and resources will win. The outcome is by no means predetermined.
Maybe the solution will be a p2p software with guarranteed anonimity which is so obviously usefull that nobody will dare go against it, legally or otherwise. But this is the very definition of early internet... and things rarely go back to what they were.