The Pirate Bay, Featured in Vanity Fair

koregaonpark writes "Via the TorrentFreak site, an article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair about BitTorrent, movie piracy and The Pirate Bay. The Vanity Fair piece is lengthy, and covers the MPAA's struggle to stamp out piracy, Hollywood's increasing losses, and how the 'heartfelt testimony of Ben Affleck, a man who was paid $12.5 million to star in Gigli,' didn't help one bit. 'Pirates of the Multiplex' covers the saga of Pirate Bay in a very high-level, mass-market fashion. Did you ever think you'd be reading about TPB in Vanity Fair?"

Comments

Re:Ben Affleck

[Hijacked Public]

A packet of Myoplex costs less than $1 if you buy them in bulk on EBay, and each packet contains about half of the USRDA of more vitamins and minerals than I care to count right now. They also have enough protein to do whatever job you need protein to do.

I'm not sure if many people have the discipline to eat them very often but they can be made to be pretty satisfying.

Re:Who works 3 jobs and eats TV Dinners?

[mrsbrisby]

With that much money coming in, a single person or even a couple could afford to eat better.

How much money coming in do you think 3 jobs gets you?

When its said someone works three jobs doesn't mean they're working 40+40+40 hours a week. They're probably only working about 60-70 hours a week. If they make minimum wage, they're probably barely scraping together 1000$ a month.

That's not a lot of money, but it's significantly higher than the poverty limit. It's barely enough for an extremely modest mortgage, utilities, toiletries, 90 or so "2 dollar cheese pizzas", and 30 gallons of gasoline. They even have some money left to splurge and buy a book once in a while.

Did these 'working poor' get raped on a mortgage because they really couldn't afford to own a home but wanted one anyway?

A mortgage should always be cheaper than renting: why would you possibly think your landlord's mortgage was higher than your rent?

Did these 'working poor' simply not get educated on how to eat affordably? Buy a whole freakin' chicken. Buy the 30lb bag of rice. Buy the huge bags of frozen store-brand veggies. There you go.

Check prices on those things. The cheese pizzas are actually cheaper per-meal- and likewise- so are the TV dinners.

Did these 'working poor' have children when they couldn't afford to have children?

Maybe, or maybe they lost their jobs when the President gave tax credits to companies who outsourced American jobs overseas. Maybe they lost their jobs when their office building was blown up by an airplane. Only a fool would pretend to know.

Minimum wage is supposed to be the minimum necessary allowence to have an "acceptable" standard of living, and at minimum wage it takes quite a bit more than 40 hours of work, but you seem to think that's okay.

Just exactly how many hours a week does someone need to work in order to afford a house? Healthy food? Clean water? A child?

Or do you really believe the definition of capitalism intends for people to degrade themselves below the acceptable standards of living when someone wants to buy a book?

Re:You can't stop commoditizing of an item

[Lumpy]

I think deep down, many people just want musicians to accept their new place in society -- a place that's a notch below programmers, IT people, etc. on the social and economic ladder.

Huh?? they always have been that way. Before 1920 musicians were roving poor with the incredibly rare composer that was rich only because he was fancied by the rich that threw money at him.

Musicians being rich spoiled brats is a strange happening in history and they are simply getting reverted back to what they were less than 100 Years ago.

They were looked down upon by the upper class through most of history and were equals of the working man.