Slashdot Mirror
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 soon they crowed victory, so soon will they be humbled. By the looks of things the takedown of the Pirate Bay was less than legal, and now with the 'Bay back online the MPAA must be feeling more than a little upset. Personally I'm of the view that the Pirate Bay was perfectly legal - they didn't carry any copyrighted works themselves, just as Google don't carry the materials they link to. What fun this whole affair will turn out to be...
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
Nice to see an illegal copy of Vista is number one...
Looks like the Swedish Police is making a free, wide and very positive campaign to favor the Piracy Party. I bet they will be getting a lot more votes thanks to this weird operation. Thank you Swedish police officers!
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
I can only hope this is causing a huge scandal s Sweden as stated by the article. Can any Swedish readers provides us a synopsis of some of the reports on tv and in the newspaper?
A lot of the site doesn't work right (I just tried downloading two .torrents and got a nice 404 for each of them), but it's good that it's making progress to come back online. Hopefully it won't be too long before they're back to normal. Whether that's in Sweden or another country doesn't really matter too much for the average user, but I hope it's Sweden if only for pride.
From the IRC channel, it sounds like the new servers are located in the Netherlands with hot backups running in Ukraine. The MPAA just got rocked. If it wasn't so damn early, I'd drink to this news...
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.
..is available at YouTube. For some reason the police covered the cameras with plastic bags halfway through.
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
There will be demonstrations in Sweden's largest cities this afternoon, condeming the actions of the Swedish police and department of justice in this matter. It is being co-organized by the Pirate Party, and the youth organizations of several mainstream parties from across the political spectrum.
In Stockholm it starts at 15:00 on Mynttorget (right by parlament). That is in 15 minutes so hurry!
In Gothenburg a demonstration will start at 16:30 on Gustav Adolfs Torg.
..cops does it take to change a light bulb?
50. One to do it and 49 to confiscate every other light bulb in the house as evidence.
Representatives from two major political parties in Sweden, Folkpartiet and Vänsterpartiet have filed formal complaints against the Minister of Justice and members of his staff.
This has increased the general publics awareness of The Pirate Bay and probably increased the number of p2p users.
A very nice shot in the foot for the Swedish Justice Dept., the police and our very "customer friendly" **AA organisations.
# ~: no sigs today
They do! With merry beautiful women from the carribean isles!
And then they claim their part of booty!
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Well I am not from Sweden but I can tell as much as this has made it to some of the big radio stations here in Denmark (P3 which I am listening to right now), which means that things are pretty big in Sweden for them to make the headlines in Denmark.
So far a quick overlook over the big media here tells me what attracts the most attention in Danish media is the demonstration that is on it's way right now in Stockholm and the talks abuot the Swedish government acting after orders from the USA with politicans bypassing Swedish laws.
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
Judging from a traceroute, the servers seem now to be hosted in The Netherlands.
I'm a bit surprised, when the admins of TPB said in Swedish media that they will relocate abroad, I actually thought that they would move outside the EU.
Let's see how the Dutch officials will react to this; how long TPB will stay up before they try to take it down again.
In Chaosradio International #009 one of the maintainers of TPB called "Peter" mentions traffic data and server capability of TPB and also comments on the Pirate Bay induced traffic on the Swedish part of the internet. According to Peter, each of the Pirate Bay high end servers handles about 20000 connections per second. This kind of packet flow once brought the main router of one of the biggest Swedish internet service providers to its knees. The traffic volume to and from the Pirate Bay actually isn't very high, just a couple of gigabits per second. The induced traffic between the peers allegedly reaches 50% of the total Swedish internet traffic. Swedes can get 1Gbps connections to their homes and don't have to pay an arm and a leg for it. 100Mbps is quite common.
The interview also covers the political environment and the internet culture of Sweden, and of course the raid.
You think I'm funny? Well screw ya, after this police campaign I love the pirate bay guys more than ever.
They've turned from an underground torrent search engine to a symbol in the eyes of a lot of people.
MPAA/RIAA you're pretty consistent in screwing up, I know it hurts, but don't worry, your end is near.
Feele-a shereeng seete-a Zee Purete-a Bey, vheech ves clused doon fullooeeng Vednesdey's reeed by zee Svedeesh puleece-a, oopened egeeen oon Setoordey murneeng under a deefffferent neme-a: Zee Puleece-a Bey.
Zee seete's perffurmunce-a ves steell petchy et loonchteeme-a oon Setoordey, despeete-a beeeng roon frum noo serfers in Hullund effter ell zee Svedeesh iqooeepment ves cunffeesceted. Bork! Bork!
Zee reeed, vheech ves cerreeed oooot et husteeng cumpuneees in Stuckhulm, Fästmunlund und Fästra Götelund tergeted oone-a ooff zee vurld's lergest seetes fur shereeng mooseec, gemes und cumpooter prugremmes.
It ves prumpted by a cumpleeent tu puleece-a frum Unteepuretbyrån, vheech represents zee Svedeesh feelm und mooseec indoostreees' cupyreeght interests. Bork! Bork! Bork!
Un infesteegeshun egeeenst Zee Purete-a Bey hes beee oongueeng fur munths. "Ve-a beleeefe-a thet ve-a veell be-a fuoond nut gooeelty," seeed Fredreek Neeej, oone-a ooff thuse-a roonneeng Zee Purete-a Bey, tu Ixpressee. "Ve-a ere-a gueeng tu cunteenooe-a unteel zee ferdeect cumes. A-yup!"
The changed the old logo adding cannonballs shooting from the pirate ship smashing a hollywood sign. Way to go my proud swedish brothers. I admire your balls! (ehm.. well you get it).
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.
First time in years I got off my butt and actually donated money towards something...
Well, for the record, 2006_05_31.pdf.
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...
I love their new logo.
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.
As long as their laws are worded the way they are, the Police is in Trouble as is the Minister of Justice who ordered the raid. The only reason why they fired up the Bay where they did was to get it back up before the brouhaha was settled.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Donating via SMS? Perfect!
*donates*
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
But do we feel safe that we used pirate bay? It's not insane to think that the police will follow up IPs of DLing torrents and use this as "reasonable" evidence to investigate further in other countries (USA for example), then take this as far as to taking down trackers or even tracking down single IPs and sueing/arresting people.
I like muppets.
I was fully expecting anti-terror units in all black combat suits, with shotguns pointing, flashbangs going off and stuff. But nooo. Also no ninjas cutting peoples' heads off, RoboCops or a horde of battle monkeys. All very boring scenery.
/. frontpage story as soon as the Pirate Bay has a torrent of the raid video online.
By the way, PLEASE make a
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
the clumsiness with which the swedish police went about gutting an entire isp when they only wanted one server
nor was i talking about the corporate interest-coddling legal procedures of the usa where one powerful private complaint might lead to a shut down
i have no problem with thinking the the dutch way of going about shutting down a server might superior to both models
what i am getting at is the weakness that you only need to shut down one server AT ALL, no matter how difficult or easy that is to do
i am saying that all these trigger happy tactics do is breed a headless system where there is no single point of failure
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why not use the MPAA's bandwith?
http://www.mpaa.org/press_releases/2006_05_31.pdf
In other news! "Hackers hit Swedish police site Logo of The Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay site says it plans to be up again shortly Cyber vandals have attacked the website of the Swedish police, forcing it to shut down. Police said the site was taken offline after it was overloaded by net data." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5041848.stm what do you think? Perhaps swedish police got slashdotted :D
http://www.polisen.se/inter/nodeid=10230&pageversi on=1.htm
I think this is the link, it isnt back up yet from its denial of service. If people could keep checking and let us know when it is back online??
Mininova, Demonoid and a bunch of other huge sites are located in NL and the RIAA/MPAA cabal has been trying for ages to take them down. It just hasn't worked. The Pirate Bay will reopen its servers in Sweden as soon as the equipment is returned post-investigation. Judging from the public outcry against the long arm of the **IAs, it shouldn't be too long before The Pirate Bay has servers in three different countries.
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.
A .torrent isn't copyrighted and linking to copyrighted material isn't either.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
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.
Software pirates don't have guns.
This wouldn't have happened if those network admins were armed.
paintball
"The MPAA has a multi-pronged approach to fighting Internet piracy, which include educating people about the consequences of piracy" Is this going to be the old-school 'piracy == terrorism' line? I hope not; I'm look for a more SouthPark style: 'Here's X's private jet, notice anything? X used to have a Gulfstream 4, but now she's had to sell it and get a Gulfstream 3 because people like you used to download her music for free. The Gulfstream 3 doesn't even have a remote control for its surround sound DVD system. Still think downloading music for free is no big deal?'
Major parties? ROTFL!
honeypot
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Piratbyrån is a different organization (lobbying org.), albeit with similar goals.
Ever heard of contributory infringement?
...right here "Most people also think that music piracy would go down significantly if a music CD had a resonable price."
IF the music and movie industry were to realise that they could make more net profit with volume sales at a MUCH more reasonable price for relatively cheap to make plastic stamped discs hardly none of this piracy action would have occurred in the first place. It is ludicrous to charge 20 dollars for a cheap disk. Look at the cost of production/transportation/warehousing, etc of a VHS tape as compared to a stamped disc, yet they want similar money for them. So why is this again? It makes no sense whatsoever unless you use the word "gouging", which I realise is subjective, but still...
If the entertainmnert industry wants to get this behind them, I suggest a few dollars *tops* for a stamped entertainment disc as the answer. It wouldn't completely eliminate so called "piracy", but they would see sales and net profits skyrocket. There is a simple fact of retail life here, people can see and react to gouging, and the entertainment industry just refuses to admit they are, in fact, serious chronic gougers. Their prices have NOT dropped and kept up with technological advances that make the reduced cost of duplication and distribution possible.
What is your reasoning behind the .torrent not being copyrighted? You're not allowed to summarize the works of others in any manner in text (although much is allowed), so why should you be allowed to do it in binary? True, this "summary" is basically only useful to make sure you have the correct file, but it is still very directly based on a copyrighted work, with no added value of any kind, it's not like a review of the original work, for example.
Vansterwhatever sounds like small fry, but FolkPartyYes is "the third largest party in the Swedish parliament and currently is in the opposition bloc", which makes it pretty fucking major. ROTFL!
Where do you draw the line?
The torrent file is just a hash tree.
So with your argumentation, MD5s would be illegal, too, right? (same thing)
What about CRC32. Is that not-illegal enough for you?
Hint: there is a difference between an summary of a work and a hash. That is that the summary is a work in itself thats derived on the original work, while the hash is just a data structure.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
That's interesting, they compare the popularity of thepiratebay.org (21st in Sweden by Alexa), with CNN.com (125th in Sweden, Alexa). Color me surprised: a swedish site is more popular in sweden than an american site.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Congrats. to the Pirate Bay people. It's a happy day.
A torrent file is basically an "assembly instruction manual" for data file(s). Just as it's not illegal to distribute instructions for building a bomb or a gun, it is also not illegal to distribute instructions on how to create a data file. Actually building (or using) a bomb might or might not be illegal, but merely delivering the instructions on how to build it is definitely not illegal (at least in the U.S., so far). Just so with torrents: hosting the torrent files, distributing them, downloading them, that's all legal. Actually using the torrent file to "build" the data file(s) it represents is what is illegal, if the file(s) being (re)built are copyrighted.
If you want to start a website that does nothing but provide instructions on how to build bombs, you can do it. Even if every single person who downloads those instructions uses them to build a bomb and tries to blow up a packed church on Sunday.
A summary of some ones work is not illegal. That would be crazy... "I just saw this movie about a guy who lived in a world that wasn't real and then he woke up as a... battery? Really strange."
And the next thing you know you're kidnapped, blindfolded and shipped to Guantanamo...
You can just as well say that it's hard to draw the line between mp3 and .torrent. If you downsample far enough and lower the bitrate enough, what's left is a (bad) hashing method.
As far as I can tell, Swedish law doesn't have a concept of "contributory infringement".
It's big in the US, though..
With both sides being immoral, there's only one logical conclusion: humans aren't as good as we think we are. And hey, some people (you) get to feel superior to everyone else because of it. Bonus!
If the manual summary was detailed enough that you could read the original book/see the original movie and notice if any one frame/sentence was missing or had been replaced, it would obviously be rather detailed...
Like I said earlier, I'm taking part in the IRL demonstration in Stockholm so while walking aroung trying to keep the wifi up and I have to correct my post as this esteemed site does not allow editing.
;-)
It was representatives from CENTERPARTIET (not Folkpartiet) who have filed a formal complaint.
-apologies for any errors attributed to one-handed typing
# ~: no sigs today
...TPB may be back, but ask yourself this: What US based organizations with a perchant of suing the bejesus out of people would love to see all the BT records for the US ip range?
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
So why not just use MD5? What does a torrent have that makes it better to use than an MD5 hash or a CRC hash?
They contain information about how to contact the computer[s] that have the files to request them. That seems worse to me :-/
well it was online... till we slashdotted it.
believing the big bang requires a certain amount of supernatural faith
In addition, of course, it's possible to generate MD5 collisions these days. Although it's still not possible to generate data with a specific hash, you can generate two sets of data with the same hash easily.
Nice feral apostrophe, by the way. Haven't seen one of those for a while.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Of course they contain info on the file. A hash for each piece. On the other hand, they contain NO information on who has the file, only a reference back to the tracker, which provides that information on demand over HTTP. Any torrent on TPB only contains the TPB web server address, and hashes based on the original file(s).
... in the Swedish political system the smallest political parties play the role of "the tail that wags the dog", as Vänsterpartiet and Miljöpartiet do whenever they ally with Socialdemokraterna. This makes them and their policies major in my opinion.
# ~: no sigs today
Nice PHP code.
/var/tracker/www/blog.php on line 98
Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
thepiratebay.com in the statment? I was under the impression TPB is an .org.
Quickly, citizens!
The Pirates have gone global this time. They can change their port with the tidal waves of mind crimes and its nefarious actions.
It's not time to save on resources. The criminals can move between countries in a matter of days.
We need the help of a new super-hero spotted in Canada previous week! Only him can track down the Pirates and sunk their ship of infringments around the Earth.
Support the fantasy! Don't let our dreams die!
Captain Copyright, our prays are with you. Save us from the Pirates!
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
For more information, contact:
MPAA Los Angeles
Kori Bernards or Elizabeth Kaltman
(818) 995-6600
MPAA Washington, D.C.
John Feehery or Gayle Osterberg
(202) 293-1966
Kick ass! - This has made my week!
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
incredibly expensive shows like 24 and Lost WON'T EXIST if they can't make money.
This is like saying that without the RIAA, there'd be no Michael Jackson or Madonna. Is that such a bad thing? Can't stop people making art, but the days of the $500gazillion blockbuster may be numbered, and perhaps that's not such a bad thing.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I'm pretty sure there's a .com that redirects to the .org too :)
Swedish police has more leeway in Sweden then in the US because we don't have any institution to audit them. In american police (at least judging from police movies, correct me if I am wrong) it is considered improper for somebody to investigate themselves and therefore there are special police units that investigates on the actions of policemen. Here in Sweden it is the same polices doing internal investigation as all other investigation.
Also when it comes to courts. In the US you have a right to be judged by your peers (in theory, atleast). In Sweden you have the right to be judged by your politicians - remember, those same people who apparently ordered the bust (which they had no right to do, as so many others have pointed out).
The Swedish legal system is a catch 22 when it comes to govermental responsibility. The police carries out the orders from the politicians, the police investigates itself if anyone complains that their actions were illegal and if that investigation shows something was not right the politicians get to judge whether it was right or not of the police to carry out their orders.
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.
Pictures from the piracy demonstration
Piratdemo1.jpg
Piratdemo2.jpg
Piratdemo3.jpg
Piratdemo4.jpg
Piratdemo5.jpg
Piratdemo6.jpg
Actually, to be completely correct, isn't a .torrent file copyrighted by the person creating it? :-)
I think copyright defense is automatic for created material.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Oh, and one more thing. There's not even a link to the infringing material in the torrents either (and hence on TPB). Just a hash. That should realistically tie torrent files to the actual material, not like direct links, but more like a description a person gives for a piece of software.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
http://tpbeng.blogspot.com/
look for "The Pirate Bay to be spread over six countries":
Emule/Edonkes ed2k links are that.
Just a filename, a filesize, and a MD5 hash.
The torrent stores also hashes for every block of the file (32k-4MB), as to detect and correct errors.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Sorry, I'm not usually a grammar nazi (although my pet hate is currently coworkers. Those people should be reported to the SCPA) but I just love the term "feral apostrophe" ;-)
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Carnifex0 was giving his daughter a bath.
Close, but still doesn't meet the criteria of "No recourse", since the article itself is posted by someone taking legal action to reverse the actions by the agency. (and the bad law that made the action possible)
I don't doubt or dispute that bad things happen at the hands of some cops, but to make a blanket statement that indites all of Law Enforcements and paints them as jack-booted thugs by saying things like this happen "All the time" simply isn't fair or true.
Same owners, nothing more,
Yeah, cuz there's no reason why the cops would grab EVERYTHING belonging to someone when looking for evidence of a crime...
Doesn't work now. :( Hey guys, if you're reading this thread, here's what I wanted to say (well I'm expanding it a little more here on slashdot since the textarea is larger):
:D
Glad to see you back, keep up the good show. Can you use this rebuild as an opportunity to weed out unseeded torrents, or at least make it an option to filter them out?
You've generated a lot of great press showing how corrupt the MPAA and our (I'm American) government are. Great work! I hope you guys win your upcoming legal battle. If courts actually enforced laws as written and intended, you wouldn't be in this mess to begin with, and here in America noncommercial trading would be a non-issue, but sadly our corrupt politicians keep extending copyright so it's effectively infinite and fair use is quickly disappearing. I'm glad you Europeans have a lot more common sense in that arena. Keep it up, and although we can't help you from here we are definitely rooting for you. The MPAA and RIAA still won't face the fact that "try before you buy" works even though Napster resulted in a huge spike in CD sales, and I'm sure that other P2P networks have helped to fuel the DVD sales explosion in recent years.
--Kim
P.S. I think it's high time you add to your "legal threats" page. It's great reading.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Well, that's the "pro-legality" arguments. Now, let me play the devil's advocate.
Let me first reduce the scope to files where there's no valid distribution license, i.e. where the transfer of the actual file would be a direct copyright infringement. You may of course try to invoke the "I didn't know" defense, but given the overwhelming majority of such files and the publicity it has recieved for doing so, nevermind the colorful responses to C&D letters, that is never going to fly. The Pirate Bay have been distributing torrents of those files with impunity.
First of all, a torrent file does not contain "generic" information like building a bomb (which is an embodiment of chemistry and physics) or a gun (ballistics), none of which are outright banned anyway. A torrent file contains explicity assembly instruction for the file concerned, and is useless for any other purpose than assembling or verifying that specific file. Imagine CSS wasn't so horribly broken, instead you had people posting decryption keys to specific files like: "This is the decryption key for the X-Men 3 DVD". That would obviously be illegal, and so would probably torrent files be if it was that simple.
A better comparison would be to a par2 file, a parity information file which also contain a hash of the blocks making up that file. It is a completely legitimate tool for transferring data over unreliable connections. Pretty much the only difference between a torrent and a par2 file is that it also contains the link to a tracker. A tracker serves no other purpose than to facilitate a trading ground for that file (though the actual trading occurs between the peers connected to the tracker, not over the tracker itself).
Why is that relevant? Well, because it changes the whole concept from "This is how you build a gun" to "This is how and where you kill people for maximum terror effect". It is explicit instructions on doing something illegal and where to do it. If courts rule that torrents have no substantial use except to conduct copyright infringment, and that to distribute files is to contribute to that, then I would say you're pretty screwed at least in the US.
Basicly, the whole thing smells to me like allofmp3 in Russia - basicly, yes we fully know what we're doing but thanks to a technicality you can't actually prosecute us for anything. Had this been a criminal case, they would probably be prosecuted for "aiding and abetting/accessory" to criminal copyright infringement. Their whole defense seems to be "There's no secondary liability for copyright infringement in Swedish law, suckers! You can't touch us, na-na-nanana"
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
24 and Lost won't exist? YES! YES! YESSSS!
*Starts pirating in earnest*
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.
You should remember to call him a "superzero" -- you can't call him a "Super-hero" [TM] because Marvel & DC jointly own the trademark on that! You'd think they'd want to *avoid* infringing a little more carefully...
:]
In the mean time, I'm still having lots of fun linking to things that set off their stupid security system (all it requires is a ? in the URL), and Google-bombing those propaganda whores
...that someone had set up a powerful magnet system in the door to the servers so that if they were removed, the drives were turned to soup. Someone here is bound to know if such a thing would work, would do any good, or is even possible. I was just curious.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
> incredibly expensive shows like 24 and Lost WON'T EXIST if they can't make money.
But incredibly expensive shows like those didn't even exist back when the home video was making an appearence, and then too the media conglamorates said the same thing (but then it was about the movies).
Well, okay. So in a way they were right. TV is killing the movies -- at least quality wise -- but not because of home recording.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Okay, I'll bite.
Assuming that the site in question is not in the US, or subject to US laws, why would is this true:
posting decryption keys to specific files like: "This is the decryption key for the X-Men 3 DVD". That would obviously be illegal,
It's not illegal everywhere to post a decryption key. It's perfectly legal, in the US, for me to use such a decryption key on a disc which I own (actually, I've ripped about 100 of the 300 discs I own, using a program to get the encryption key). If this were a much stronger encryption that I couldn't break myself, I could still procure a key and use it legally.
The "technicalities" you mention are part of the law, and there are actually times when the technicalities are the major part of the law (called "loopholes") and are placed intentionally for the benefit of those who pay to have the laws created. The problem with laws is that you can't put intent into black and white. Otherwise, there would be no need for specifics in Copyright law. It could simply be stated that copyright is for the advancement of the arts and sciences - those things which detract from the creation of art and science are illegal, and all other activities which do not are legal. That's not sufficient, though, so we create terms of copyright, and allowable uses which spell out what is and isn't lawful, and the rest is up for interpretation.
Their whole defense seems to be "There's no secondary liability for copyright infringement in Swedish law, suckers! You can't touch us, na-na-nanana"
Well, I suppose you could get a group of 18 year olds and take them over to England and have them order up a drink at the local pub, then make a video of them holding their drinks, saying "The drinking age is only 18 in England, suckers! You can't touch us, na-na-nanana". Childish, to be sure, but fully legal nonetheless.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
When the execs raided those server rooms, stealing (legally, because of the warrant) the servers of innocent bystanders (i.e. companies hosted there), how much damage was done that single day by the ??AAs? How many businesses lost a fortune? How many went bankrupt? How many people lost their jobs because of a half-assed witchhunt?
I blame this for a dramatic, irresponsible and irrevocable blow to commerce and trade, and I think organisations like the ??AAs should be outlawed right now, because of the damage they cause in their overzealous, almost religious, attempt at hunting down witches where there are none.
Better now than later!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is interesting because when a raid happens, aren't the owners of the sites typically taken too? How did the site get reestablished?
[%] Cingular Ringtones
It's interesting to see how the Swedish media reacts to all the happenings compared to how American media would react if something like that happened here. It seems the Swedish media is capable of fair and balanced reporting on the facts without any apparent political spin or control. I could easily see American media portraying the takedown of a filesharing network as a win against terrorists/child porn/drugs, and as a strictly positive thing with a 'government knows best' slant.
Sharing can be good for TV as we know it, too. Let's say you miss a few episodes of a show and then heard from someone else it's good. You can download past episodes, and if you like it start watching and spread word of mouth yourself. This happened to me for American Inventor, I had not heard about it until a few shows were past but after watching the back episodes I proceeded to watch it every week on real TV - with ads.
Sharing is a way for a show that got shafted with a bad timeslot but it otherwise good to find a new purchase on life. What if TV filesharing had been more popular back when Firefly was being produced?
Movies are somewhat different, since many movies you wouldn't want to watch more than once - but even there you can argue early sharing may drive people into the theaters through word of mouth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I found this torrent on the resurected Pirate Bay Site:
The Pirate Bay Bust video converted to divx.avi format - http://www.thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3492068
I got a 404 message when I tried to download it. The site may not be fully available. I'll try again later.
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
Ok so cut your file up into small chunks and SHA-1 each 256K-4M chunk. The only real difference between an MD5 (SHA-1) hash and a torrent file is that the torrent file stores information on the server (Tracker) you can use to get a copy of the file(s) chunks that have been hashed in the torrent file yes?
If it is done on demand over HTTP then isnt TPB server assisting in copyright infringment when it passes on that information on demand? Say the whole argument over torrent files has been resolved and torrent files are perfectly ok no matter what they are used for, isn't it illegal when TPB starts giving you info on who has each chunk of the file?
Yes but could you get a bunch of 18 year olds, take them to England, buy a load of alcohol and take it back to America and drink it there?
Of course not, but if they did, I don't think that the US authorities could have the pub raided and their kegs confiscated.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
They get about 20 000 new connections/second. Yes, that is NEW ones. They already have a bunch.
The linux kernel just can't handle that many incomming connections, so it breaks down. I heard that they used to reboot their servers every 7:th minute, just to get rid of the quene of connections Linux couldn't handle. Now, they've written some modifications to the kernel to make it more durable, but it still isn't enough: they can't handle every connection with the limited amount of servers they have. I heard they're replacing the whole IP-stack to improve their performance even more.
The solution, for you, is to be patient. They may not respond to your request the first, second or even third time you ask them. But they will, eventually. Just wait.
read: slyck.com
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
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.
whoever ordered the raid should be tried and hung in the hague.
i disable sigs
Harddrives are reasonably well shielded against magnetic fields. I mean the last thing you want is your HD losing data because you happened to set a refrigerator magnet near it. They also have some pretty powerful magnets of their own inside. So you would need an overwhelmingly powerful magnet in your door to accomplish what you want, espically since you have to remember magnetic attraction, like so much else, desceases with exponentioally distance. So the little magnets on the HD heads are trememnously power with respsct to the platters because they are right over top of them (like less than a human hair away).
If you did have a magnet strong enough to achieve this, it would grab anything magnetic from quite a distance, such as the case of a computer, and stick it to the doorframe with grat force as happens with an MRI you get too close to.
Cool bit of sci-fi plot, but not something you could do in reality.
Folkpartiet? One guy from Centerpartiet did it first, and then Vänsterpartiet. I'm not sure if you said the wrong one or if three partys have done it.
"incredibly expensive shows like 24 and Lost WON'T EXIST if they can't make money."
http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing
5 episodes available!
Seems ABC's already adapted to our digital world.
Just route your tracker requests through Tor + Privoxy. There's no way anyone's going to catch you from behind that. When I need extreme privacy, that's what I do.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
Isn't the city and/or state of New York suing a number of gun distributors for essentially that reason? There's some extra nonsense about the fact that the distributors weren't able to read the minds of their customers and determine how they intended to use the guns that they were buying.
I might add that Centerpartiet the last one or two years seems to have been most piracy friendly (and maybe more like freedom of speak and such even thought I can't remember the different occurencies I'm thinking about) of the partys not counting Piratpartiet which I suspect not many will actually vote for anyway.
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?
I was not talking about pubs, I was talking about consuming the alcohol on your own property, which, I assume, is still illegal in the US?
I went to the PB blog and got this:
/var/tracker/www/blog.php on line 98
Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in
THE AUTHORITIES CONFISCATED ALL OF THEIR @ SYMBOLS! CORRUPTION!
TPB traffic beeing 50% of the swedish Internet traffic? I call bullshit. What about other GOOD torrent sites? FTP sites? DC? The traffic of whatever backbone node went down like 20% or so when TPB was down, I expect some of the traffic on that one is foreign however so that value can't be trusted, but on the other side shouldn't even more of the traffic from countries except sweden be even more full of torrent traffic?
Also I don't even know WHERE to turn to get 1gbps and it sounds like totally bullshit if you don't score some special deal and I guess you could do that in any country.
Some people can get 100mbps, but Bredbandsbolaget which use to deliver most high bandwidth Internet connections only delivers 100/10 now (at the same price as they did with 10/10 earlier so it's still cheap.)
Most people got crappy xDSL like 24/1, 8/1 and so on thought.
Our Internet connections aren't as good as they could have been if the government didn't screwed it up, fiber to everyone >>> xDSL.
People DO periodically go after gun manufacturers nand gun distributors, including governments. That's not to say that that's a reasonable course of action (isn't it then, by extension, the government's own fault for allowing the manufacture and sale of guns? Why don't they sue themselves?), but it's entirely inline with the way people in positions of authority behave.
Read a newspaper some time. The united states is holding thousands of people without charge right now, who are assumed guilty until proven innocent (not that they are ever given a chance to prove themselves innocent). Police routinely kill people who aren't resisting arrest. Millions of people go to jail without trials, simply because their lawyers don't want to waste time that could be better spent with clients that can actually afford to pay them.
Please point out where in your above original post, the words 'No Recourse' appear or are implied.
Ummm. Ok.
before the owner can get the courts to force it back to them, it's already been sold at a government auction
Any other stupid requests? I do magic tricks, too.
I never said I never broke copyright law. But I don't kid myself about it when I do it. Sometimes I'm doing it for the right reasons, sometimes I'm not. But I don't lie to myself about it.
You made the argument about being similar to used bookstores to bolster your argument. It is useless as an argument, because of the reasons I point out. If used bookstores duplicated books and sold them, then it'd be a useful argument, they would indeed be similar.
Your hypothetical situation does indeed arise. I know people who have gotten back episodes that way and then began to watch the show. However, regardless of whether it helps the company or not, it's illegal, it's stealing their content. If the company is smart enough to allow you to view back episodes to get caught up, that's great. If the company doesn't do it, it isn't up to you to change their business model.
It is their right to hold on to their stuff so tight that they lose gobs of money. You don't get to remold their goals because you think you know better, even when actually you do know better.
Again, just like a non-duplicatable object, if you don't like how they sell it, you are free not to buy it. You aren't free to rip it off.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
So many product ideas, so little time and capital.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
LOL!
Here's some wild speculation for your amusement. (i have not even rtfa)
It has been suggested that the U.S. pressured them to do this right?
They seized all the servers in the secure hosting area of this ISP...
Perhaps TPB was not the most important target. It could be a cover for an intelligence gathering raid.
Where's the battering ram taking down the door? Where are the flash-bang grenades? Instead we got a group of very slow moving, bored guys shuffling about aimlessly, looking like they haven't got a clue, once in a while jotting something down or taking a photo, smiling at their friends, but mostly looking like my grandma would at the server racks.
This space available.
The U.S. gov't isn't the only bad apple in this orchard. Governments of all countries have agendas. They have people working in them that want to help their country and they have those who are following personal agendas as well as possibly global conspiracy agendas. Repeat: ALL COUNTRIES HAVE THIS. Stop acting like your country is so much better.
The U.S.A.: Its a work in progress, either help out, or SHUT THE FUCK UP!
They probably know it already. That's probably one of the reasons why they keep lots and lots of servers that the connections are ballanced betwen.
According to your previous statement you either pay for things or do without. So, how is it that you are prancing around in a free Half Life T-shirt. According to your previous statement, you must have paid for the T-Shirt or done without.
Representatives from two major political parties in Sweden, Folkpartiet and Vänsterpartiet have filed formal complaints against the Minister of Justice and members of his staff.
In Sweden, it's clearly detailed in the constitution that the Ministers may not interfer, tell or even discuss an individual case or act of whatever field they are the Minister of. The members from the farmer and liberal parties filed the complaints to the Constitution Committee which oversees matters that might violate the Swedish constitution. Thomas Bodström was accused of using his position as a Minister to tell the Police to carry on this raid. That is clearly an illegal act if it were to be true. Bodström denies that he has done this.
The Swedish constitution has some cool stuff in it actually... For example, the Riksdag has negative parlamentarism which means that if you forfeit your vote to elect a Regering (executive/government) it is counted as a Yes. This gives the interesting scenario where if the coalition parties forfeit to vote because they don't agree with the Prime Minister and minister cabinet presented they'll still be confirmed.
Also there's the passage in the constitution that says if the entire monarch family dies and there is no clear person to elect as the new king/queen the Riksdag is given the authority to vote on whether to turn the country in to a Republic. It's funny/interesting because this is the only place in the entire constitution that deals with turning the country in to a Republic, actually.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Almost everyone here seems to be in agreement that this was both an illegal raid and an unnecessary power play on behalf of the MPAA that may threaten US relations with Sweden. My questions is: Isn't there anything We Americans can do to make the MPAA pay for what it's done?
Now all we need is a little energon, and a lot of luck. -Optimus Prime
best video ever... will definately make me think twice before engaging in any software piracey http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9045861006 530293045
First, because he's not speaking Swedish, he's speaking mock-Swedish. And Second, because his native language is actually mock-Japanese, as was revealed during the Jean Stapleton episode of the Muppet Show.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Ordinarily, I'd ask someone like you to share the really good drugs you have access to, but evidently you've already given away all of your anti-psychotics.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
You missed the analogy there; Grandparent was suggesting that the pub was analogous to the tracker in Sweden, and US pressure was what shut it down. No, it's not legal to download infringing works in the US, however, that would be a penalty that the end user downloading the file would face. It shouldn't be one for which the tracker, operating a system that is entirely legal in their country of origin, should have to pay.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
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!
http://www.critter.net/~voop/FURRY/Tiff.jpg
In other news: tits more popular than dog crap.
According to your previous statement you either pay for things or do without. So, how is it that you are prancing around in a free Half Life T-shirt. According to your previous statement, you must have paid for the T-Shirt or done without.
;-)
I bought a copy of Half-Life 2 over Steam, built a mod for it, for fun, in my spare time, had that downloaded a couple of hundred thousand times, got invited over to Seattle by Valve (travel and accommodation paid for by themselves) and spent a week there - and on the last day, got given a swag-bag containing two T-shirts and a book.
So I think I did fairly well. One of the benefits of paying for software...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
hey look, a google cache of a page linking directly to a torrent file of a copyrighted work!
Hey, are you trying to get Slashdot closed down for assisting copyright infringement, by linking to a page that is a copy of a page that links to a file that includes a hash of a derivative of a copyrighted work?
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Rule #1 of being a grammar nazi, friend. Point out others' mistakes and make a more stupid one yourself...
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Fuckwit. Someone forgot to close their tags.
Hrrrm. You are repeating the furphy again.
Does the pirate bay list torrents of things that aren't "illegal"? I got "The Elephants Dream" from there.
A single contradiction is all that is needed to destroy a general case. But you knew that didn't you...
And, for your info, I STARTED with abuse, troll. Go away now, silly thing.
You said you have no choice but to download it?
You act like you're a victim, that you're cornered by them.
What about not watching it at all?
Again, I'm not saying I never downloaded a TV show from the net, but when I do it, I don't tell myself that I'm being forced to do this. I've made a conscious decision to do what I did. And you are also.
Your argument about theft is ridiculous. You're trying to apply your own definition to the word to make what you're doing not theft. Words have lots of meanings in English. What happens when someone steals a kiss? Did they actually take something away from someone? When two lovers steal away? Long before the MPAA got political, people were stealing cable? Did the cable company actually not have something anymore? The Russians stole the atomic bomb and other secrets from the US in the 50s, before the MPAA even existed. Yet all they did was duplicate information they weren't supposed to have.
All these are examples of stealing in the English language. No one was actually deprived of property in any of the cases. Stop trying to redefine the language because you don't like that a word is applied to you.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Libraries shouldn't be facilitating IP theft like that.
And are you arguing in later paragraphs that this isn't fair? Fair? Are you 10 years old? Going to run to mommy and daddy saying that your big brother isn't playing fair?
No one ever said life is fair.
I don't know what the "angry man yells at cloud" thing you refer to is. I don't see food ever being cheaper/more effective to replicate than to grow, so I don't see the situation arising. And Africa isn't starving for any reason that food replicators would fix anyway. Look up what happened in Somalia. Look at what is happening in Sudan right now. It's the same thing that Bob Geldof tried to fix with Live Aid. The problem isn't drought, the problem is their leaders are using food as a weapon against their own people. They only give food to those who have allegiance to them and pay tribute to them. The others starve. And if you try to send food in, they'll disrupt your food delivery chain to ensure that the people they don't want fed don't get fed. That's what happened when to Live Aid's food aid. That's what happened to US and UN food aid since then. And that's how we ended up in Somalia and making a mess of it.
Boy, when I think of it, that just isn't fair. Who do I complain to about this?
Another post asks a little better question, when half of people download, will I make half of people criminals? The answer is that I wouldn't. I would prefer to see the companies fix their business plans, or even to change the law. And it's starting. ABC offers their shows now, at least some of them.
But in the meantime, each time I download something I shouldn't, I don't tell myself that I'm being forced into this. I'm doing it for my own reasons, right or wrong.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
You miss the point. The content distribution people keep saying without the appropriate qualifiers that getting things are wrong without paying for them. You also failed to add the appropriate qualifying words. It seems to me that many people don't understand the effects of those qualifiers on the discussion and the content distribution people are avoiding them because they don't want them "cluttering up" the discussion. It's much easier to defend the principle of remuneration if you can just pretend that people need to be remunerated whether they want it or not.
And as for the benefits of paying for stuff, just imagine if I turned up at Valve with a warezed copy of Half-Life 2 on my laptop. Would they have:
Remuneration may not be some physical law of the universe, but I like to thank the people who make the stuff I buy. And, occasionally, they thank me back...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Oh, for fuck's sake - stop with the pseudo-intellectual doublethink and legal definitions masturbation.
Funny, I don't see it that way. If you do, then I suggest you quit holding up your end of the circumstances of talking about the subject.
Now back to the trenches...
The rest of your response doesn't seem to understand the nuanced action in this theater of war.
First, the whole point of the Valve thing is so that they can bask in the glow of their admirers. In their minds, at the very least, it is not part of the arena of debate.
In that sort of situation, their priorities are different than when they are doing the bluster on piracy.
The purpose of doing as you suggested would be to force them back into the arena of debate.
In an environment with sane procedures for negotiating exchange of goods, copyright infringement is closer to stealing. There is also the state of the copyright infringer's mind. If a neutral country or any of its citizens in WW I decided to go over to Germany to knock over banks for the sole purpose of enriching their own pockets with no interest of helping the war effort against Germany, that meets the definition of stealing.
It's expected that profit during war goes up as people need that profit to offset the risk of doing business during war. However, the more that a person or group of people take advantage of the war situation to increase profits, the less that it is appropriate to consider it stealing to take from them.
Sure. Which the torrent tracker may be guilty of.
Fortunately, the law doesn't (AFAIK/IANAL) recognize double-indirect contributory infringement.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
$2 might be ok for a couple really great programmes, but right now I can watch a hell of a lot more than 15 episodes of programming for the $30 I spend per month on cable. Even just watching the daily show and colbert report would cost too much with that model. The other issue I would have is that it would force me to make a value judgement for everything I watch, including programmes I've never seen before.
An alternative is a two-tiered system with and without advertising, sort of like TV vs. DVD.
(Not a troll, fact)
Nonsense. The sole purpose of pirate bay is to facilitate crime, Google has a ton of uses and occasionally, very rarely, they may end up hosting something they shouldn't - for a brief while. Google removes things from the cache, the pirate bay tells people to fuck off. They have been asking for it forever.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
(God, I wish the 12 year olds didn't have moderation priviliges here)
"The owners of the Pirate Bay don't post any torrents. "
They host torrents to illegal material, they know so and refuse to do something about it. That makes them culpable.
"There are arguments to be made that Google caching is more legal than TPB, "
I doubt there are arguments to be made that Googles cache is illegal or has anything whatsoever to do with the pirate bay. Their intent appears to be criminal, Googels isn't.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"They host text files which list ip addresses. "
No, torrents are binary files.
"Yes, I'm sure they're aware people use those text files to ultimately end up with files which infringe upon copyright of american corporations, but under Sweedish law this is not illegal. "
I don't believe that.
"So they are not 'culpable' for anything under the laws of the country in which they live and operate. "
That remains to be seen.
"So, if I sell you a crow-bar, and tell you it's really effective for breaking into houses, I'm a criminal? "
It might yes.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"Pirate Bay no more INTENDED to faciliate crime than an Interstate Highway is intended to provide a getaway route for bank robbers. "
False.
"That they CAN be used that way is up to the user.......or highway builders would all be de facto accessories to every crime aided or committed by the existence of highways. "
Nonsense.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"Pirate Bay is *more* legal than Google. "
Nonsense.
(Come on! What fucking nitwit of a retarded child can claim its more legal than Google, and then they mod ME down!)
The sole purpose of pirate bay is to facilitate crime, Google has a ton of uses and occasionally, very rarely, they may end up hosting something they shouldn't - for a brief while. Google removes things from the cache, the pirate bay tells people to fuck off. They have been asking for it forever.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"So your statement is inaccurate. "
No, I don't think it is. Their purpose is to facilitate crime - however, you have found a legal argument that *might* work in court. They could claim that, of course nobody is likely to believe them whey they call themselves "the pirate bay".
"When its in google's cache, they are directly hosting it on their servers- that's a crime, no ambiguity included. "
Indeed no ambiguity, they are innocent. They don't put anything there, it is gathered automatically without intent. Makes all the difference
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Please enumerate the countries that are making pressure on Sweden. Are they Mexico? Canada? Brazil? Russia? Ukraine? China? India? Japan? Who are these mythical international countries that are forcing Sweden to comply with the so-called consensus?
So far I see only the U S of A.
Ummm.... Pratchett : ))) I totally loved the 'Good Omens book' with Neil Gailman. Do you, per chance, remember the title of the tentacled book?
Google for WIPO, and in particular the three criteria that any local exemption to copyright must meet to comply with the major treaties.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
rotfl - http://thepiratebay.org/blog.php/
...meanwhile usenet flys under the radar.
Maybe the halcyon days of the big movie and music companies are over. Maybe we've had enough of paying over the odds for music CDs whereby a very small percentage gets back to the musician. But maybe we're happy with the amount they do get as they seem to do quite well thank you very much.
Other industries have had to adapt when new technology came along. Digital cameras weren't banned by traditional film manufacturers. Every digital photo I take is 10p less in the coffers of Kodak. I appreciate not exactly an accurate analogy but you get the idea. Why should the movie and music industry be different. Heck, if I could download an album for £1, there is a *very* high chance I might end up spending more per year than before. I don't rent movies anymore as I've got movies on demand via cable. I didn't see Blockbuster trying to shutdown NTL or Sky movies on demand.
They had to evolve or go under.
The movie and music industry has to do the same. We know that, they just haven't realised yet. No, I'm not surprised they are trying to protect their huge income - we'd all do the same. But the way they are doing it isn't helping their cause in the slightest.
As for whether the pirate bay is actually breaking the law in Sweden I'm not going to comment. It's murky enough already. Even they aren't breaking a Swedish law, we all know that something isn't quite right.
But at the end of the day "Do we care?"...
>And there HAS been legal precedence around
>commercial plagiarism involving summaries
Please link to the appropriate Swedish High court ruling (which is the one typically seting precendence in Sweden) you refer to.