The Pirate Bay To Create YouTube Competitor

Jared writes "The Pirate Bay has confirmed that is working on a streaming video site with user-generated content. A spokesman said the site will be modeled after YouTube but there will be 'no censorship': The Pirate Bay 'will not be the moral police' and determine what content stays or goes as is oftentimes the case with YouTube. He added that 'the community will have to do that.'" The site will be at thevideobay.org, but nothing is up there for the public yet.

Comments

Ironically

[Anonymous Coward]

Their version of YouTube will have no copyright infringement.

Re:Ironically

[elysiuan]

I'm curious how they are going to pay for the bandwidth to run such an endeavor. If the service is unreachable due to bandwidth issues then no matter how in demand it might be its not going to go anywhere. I'm sure that thepiratebay.org is a fairly high traffic site but essentially they are just serving lots of little static text files. Full, streaming video is going to be a bit of a jump from that.

I imagine they have some sort of person-network in place for bandwidth but how will that scale? Even things like topsites wouldn't use as much bandwidth as a youtube thing since they are hidden from the general public.

I'm perplexed.

Re:Ironically

[BakaHoushi]

If their name is any indication, they'll travel the seas, attacking any and every Bandwidth Ship that journeys by. Their fearless captain at the helm, they'll be like the Robin Hood of the seas and the Internet. For too long have the Bandwidth Barons held the vast majority of the Internets, and preventing the peasants from using theirs as they will. TV episodes and music clips for all who need them!

Re:Ironically

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll place ads in the videos and pay for bandwidth that way.

Re:Ironically

[HaMMeReD3]

I'm sure the answer is "advertising"

Re:Ironically

[Dragon By Proxy]

Ahhh, this sparks memories of the Crimson Personal Assurance...

Terrors, one and all, I tell ye.

Re:Ironically

[SlOrbA]

Bandwidth isn't issue in the Northern Europe.

Americans have cheap petrol and Scandinavians have cheap bandwidth.

Re:Ironically

[accelleron]

It will be interesting to see how they'll get the ad support necessary. Apparently, these guys don't plan to remove copyrighted content, but have some trick up their sleeve to get around being sued for it.
That pretty much excludes anyone within the MPAA/RIAA's sphere of influence as potential advertisers, and really leaves me with the question of, will they be able to get enough advertisers on board to foot the bills fast enough, without over-saturating the site (i.e. clickthrough ads or ads that interrupt videos)?

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out (and crossing my fingers for TPB)

Re:Ironically

[LiquidCoooled]

And the English have neither.

*Damn my country*

Re:Ironically

[mgabrys_sf]

Bit of a jump of course is an understatement. Rumors here in the Bay Area was that YouTube's bandwidth bill was 1 million a month at the end and growing fast. A lot of us drew a sigh of relief when Google stepped in because their burn rate was getting close to the end of their last round of investment. There was a distinct possibility of implosion or some kind of major site revamp to contain the drain.

Love to see how they cope with those kinds of bills - but I'd also have to publicaly ask what the rates are for Europe. They can be pretty dodgy in that regards (higher or lower). Where are they located and how are they set for upteen gigs per day? Terabytes per month? Petabytes?

Re:Ironically

[robgig1088]

The "trick" is not being based in the USA. Our copyright laws cant touch them.

Re:Ironically

[stonedcat]

What do you expect when you live on a big island?

Re:Ironically

[Daychilde]

That's not the problem. Yes, that prevents them from being [successfully] sued.

The problem for them is how to pay for the servers. You need revenue to do that, hence the discussions of advertising.

The discussion isn't how they'll be able to avoid being taken down by a court; the discussion is about how they'll avoid being taken down for non-payment to their providers (datacenter or backbone provider or whatever)

Re:Ironically

[king-manic]

The trick is they don't live in the US of A.

Re:Ironically

[dmsuperman]

A good way to serve it would be using the technology that TPB is known for; BitTorrent. Have the server be the main seed, then once people download it they can help with the distribution of the videos. If you could incorporate the BT protocol into a web browser, you could substantially lift the load off of the server.

Re:Ironically

[ultranova]

I'm curious how they are going to pay for the bandwidth to run such an endeavor. If the service is unreachable due to bandwidth issues then no matter how in demand it might be its not going to go anywhere. I'm sure that thepiratebay.org is a fairly high traffic site but essentially they are just serving lots of little static text files. Full, streaming video is going to be a bit of a jump from that.

So forget streaming and serve torrents to video files instead. That is better for the user, too, since he can use proper video player to watch the file full-screen (as opposed to a poststamp-sized picture surrounded by blinking adds) and save it for later.

Using streaming video to serve static video files is just plain idiotic.

Re:Ironically

[Aliriza]

I am sure that the project will go down the sink , if they host the videos they will have a lot of problems , if we host them we don't have the bantwidth.I myself have some projects like this comes up when I'm drunk :)

Re:Ironically

[hviezda14]

once they will become popular, advertisers will arise, even from RIAA/MPAA supporters. Money don't stink.

Re:Ironically

[rtb61]

Most of the RIAA and the MPAA product is used to advertise other companies product. When television was first introduced it was other manufacturers who subsidised the program before the the MPAA and the RIAA became the bloated beast that the are today.

The distribution medium of the Internet combined with the falling of cost of CGA and real life animation means that manufacturers might go back to producing entertainment content them selves and use it to promote their products.

Why pay again and again for advertising, when they can create the content them selves and get the end users to distribute it for them for free and achieve their advertising requirement at a significant discount and a one time only cost.

It would be far cheaper for manufacturers to advertise on bit torrent than it would be on free to air TV.

Re:Ironically

[Anonymous Coward]

The guys at PirateBay own an ISP. http://prq.se/ If they don't already have enough bandwidth I'm sure it won't be hard for them to increase their commitment with their bandwidth providers.

Re:Ironically

[Splab]

The trick they will use is keep humiliating the lawyers threatening to sue them. Worked very well so far.

Re:Ironically

[mrogers]

My guess is that they've implemented BitTorrent inside the Flash movie player.
"But Flash XMLSockets can only make outgoing connections to servers in the same domain that supplied the movie," I hear you cry.
"Ah," I respond sagely, "who determines what is inside thevideobay.org's domain if not thevideobay.org itself?"
"So they're assigning single-use dynamic DNS names to all their clients, but that doesn't solve the outgoing connection limitation," you protest.
"Hush little one," I reply with irritating condescension, "have you never heard of TCP simultaneous open with port prediction? It has an 85% success rate through domestic NATs and doesn't require raw sockets."

Re:Ironically

[SuperDre]

It will have not restrictions on content, BUT they sure have to remove any copyrighted material, as they cannot get out of that one this time.. Torrent files may be a legal grey area, but copyrighted material isn't..

Re:Ironically

[ultimad]

...theoretically!

Re:Ironically

[malsdavis]

England actually has amongst the cheapest home broadband deals in the world, especially as most of them now include free telephone call deals. It's everything else which is expensive here.

Re:Ironically

[dmsuperman]

I wouldn't have the first clue how, but someone should turn the theoretical into actual. It wouldn't work for all types of web systems, such as those that are dynamic, but static data such as video would work great.

Re:Ironically

[kalirion]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a cargo freighter full of tapes.

Something tells me a war is comming

[Intrinsic]

It will be interesting to see what happens if the new pirate bay video site becomes as popular as youtube. As more sites pop up that dont have restrictions on hosted content, what is going to happen to the other content providers who are restricted to what content they can host?

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[xmas2003]

YEP ... although my guess is that censorship at the country borders (as has been done to YouTube a couple of times) and/or blocking by large organization (US military is doing so now) might curtail this slightly if they get really, really popular.

But yea, the content providers who have to "operate by the rules" will be handicapped ... so perhaps I Too Welcome our new Video Site Overlords!

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[PopeRatzo]

As more sites pop up that dont have restrictions on hosted content, what is going to happen to the other content providers who are restricted to what content they can host?

Here's a news flash for the "entertainment industry": I'd even PAY for such a site that doesn't have restrictions on hosted content. Pay AND click through to their advertisers. And because it's The Pirate Bay, I'd even tell my friends about it, because while Sony and iTunes and URGE and [Corporate Media Site Here] has always had some aspect of their service that was like a stone in my shoe, not to mention DRM (which is a deal-breaker for me under even the best circumstances], The Pirate Bay has managed to give this consumer exactly what he wants.

The big Entertainment/Industrial Complex just doesn't get that a satisfied customer is a happy customer, and happy customers will make you a success. So while they are all looking for new ways to frustrate the consumer, someone like The Pirate Bay has an opportunity to do it right.

The entire entertainment industry can't disintegrate fast enough for me. And you know what? There will still be music, and movies, and novels, and art. And the innovators, the creative souls will still make a living. Brittney Spears might become underemployed, but that's just the price of sucking.

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[Anonymous Coward]

As more sites pop up that dont have restrictions on hosted content, what is going to happen to the other content providers who are restricted to what content they can host?

They will call the cops, and accuse the alternative sites of "stealing". And of course the military/nuclear option is always open to "protect their interests". For the Americans, copyright is as important as petroleum. Things could get really nasty while Hillary is on her period. God help us when she goes through menopause.

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[misleb]

It will be interesting to see what happens if the new pirate bay video site becomes as popular as youtube. As more sites pop up that dont have restrictions on hosted content, what is going to happen to the other content providers who are restricted to what content they can host?

My gut feeling is that a completely unregulated video service would fill up with porn before anything else. I doubt the regular providers have anything to fear.

Then again, maybe it wouldn't be anything special at all. Just another video service. Bittorrent is most likely going to remain the preferred method of downloading copyrighted material such as movies and TV shows.

-matthew

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd even PAY for such a site that doesn't have restrictions on hosted content. Pay AND click through to their advertisers.

Talk is cheap.

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[Anonymous Coward]

I cancelled my Cable TV and put that money towards a newsgroups account. I still get my shows, but in HD and commercial free. The money isn't going to the party that deserves it, but mostly because the party that deserves it is unwilling to provide it in a format that can compete.

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[Alsee]

Brittney Spears might become underemployed

About the only way Brittney Spears might become underemployed is if you stick her in a Cambodian brothel.

Would you like fries with that?

-

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[PopeRatzo]

About the only way Brittney Spears might become underemployed is if you stick her in a Cambodian brothel.

meow.

Re:Something tells me a war is comming

[PopeRatzo]

Talk is cheap.

So is broadband and hard disk space.

pr0n

[Weston O'Reilly]

http://www.xtube.com/ and http://www.pornotube.com/ beat them to it.
Let's be honest, that's what we're talking about here.

Re:pr0n

[CowboyBob500]

And there's also sites like TV Links that link to streaming videos of all your favourite TV shows.

The genie is already out of the bottle, and no-one can put it back in again.

Bob

Re:pr0n

[jythie]

The interesting question then will be, what kinds of porn will the censor?

pornotube and xtube _do_ have restrictions on what you can upload.

Re:pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, like people with clothes, what kind of sick person would upload that in those sites

Re:pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go asshole, you slashdotted PornoTube. Now what am I going to do for the rest of the night?

Re:pr0n

[sayfawa]

Don't forget Youporn

Re:pr0n

[drsquare]

Youporn shits all over pornotube. Sometimes quite literally.

Paedophiles

[Threni]

If child porn (posted by RIAA/MPAA minions) doesn't get PirateBay shut down, nothing will.

Re:Paedophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

Any evidence of that happening?

I can believe the RIAA doing something like that, but I'd like to see evidence of it first.

Re:Paedophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

> I can believe the RIAA doing something like that, but I'd like to see evidence of it first.

"The site will be at thevideobay.org, but nothing is up there for the public yet."
Let's wait for the site to go live first, eh?

Re:Paedophiles

[Virak]

How the fuck did this get modded insightful? Funny maybe, but insightful? I seriously doubt they'd go that far; if it ever got out that they did such, they wouldn't even be able to convince the average sheeple that they were the good guys anymore. And shutting down one of the myriad BitTorrent sites, no matter how large it is, wouldn't be a big enough prize to justify that kind of risk.

Re:Paedophiles

[Carnildo]

Law enforcement agencies love the fact that the Pirate Bay doesn't censor child-porn torrents. You see, when you connect to a torrent, you tell everyone else connected who you are. The only thing law enforcement likes more than self-identifying criminals is self-convicting criminals.

I suspect there will be something similar for the VideoBay site.

Re:Paedophiles

[Threni]

Duh..they wouldn't declare publicly that it was them uploading the stuff. Just that everyone knows that there's pirate stuff at pirate bay and no-one cares, but that if there were child porn there and the site owners were going `we don't care, la la la` a lot of people would find that morally wrong and Something Would Be Done.

Re:Paedophiles

[Threni]

> Law enforcement agencies love the fact that the Pirate Bay doesn't censor child-porn torrents. You see, when you connect to a
> torrent, you tell everyone else connected who you are. The only thing law enforcement likes more than self-identifying criminals is
> self-convicting criminals.

Two points. 1) If you use TOR then the RIAA have no chance of catching you. 2) They can currently catch as many music/movie pirates as they like - it won't get piratebay (or this planned new video site) shut down as it's legal in Sweden - they can only catch the file sharers. But that won't be true if it's child porn and it's being actually hosted by the pirate bay guys. Then they can shut the site down.

Re:Paedophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate it when people spell it with an "a" just to make it sound like something that's sick and wrong.

Re:Paedophiles

[Kjella]

You see, when you connect to a torrent, you tell everyone else connected who you are. The only thing law enforcement likes more than self-identifying criminals is self-convicting criminals.

Or whose open wireless you're using... Recently I get the impression the police has gotten really careful about speaking too loudly until they have recovered some evidence on site too. There's been some embarrassing press where innocent people have had their lives fucked over.

Re:Paedophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

Law enforcement agencies love the fact that the Pirate Bay doesn't censor child-porn torrents.

But they do censor them. Look for yourself, there are none on the site and trust me, there's been a few. They've all been taken down.

The bay management does this with the explanation that there is no category for such files, so they are uploaded in the wrong category and can be deleted to keep the bay clean.

Re:Paedophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

Double duh. Of course they wouldn't declare publicly that it was them uploading the stuff. As the grandparent said if it ever got out that they did, which is always a very real risk, it would merely be a minor nuisance for The Pirate Bay but the RIAA/MPAA/whoever would be SERIOUSLY fucked.

No censorship? Or no blame for censorship?

[Chairboy]

If the community controls it, that means censorship through mob rule. Post something from Ogrish? Maybe it'll get zapped even though that's a form of censorship.

Freedom of speech exists not so people can say things that other folks agree with, it's so that the unpopular opinions can exist too. That's why Illinois Nazis (I hate those guys) can do their thing, not just the civil rights marchers.

So, in practice, I bet there'll be little difference between the end product and YouTube. New boss will be same as the old boss, except instead of a room of guys with thin mustaches and black eyebands that cackle as they zap content, it'll be legions of computer users doing the same thing.

Lawsuit

[eharvill]

And they thought the last lawsuit and raid were bad... I guess they can show the videos from their torrent site now. lol

Re:Lawsuit

[I confirm I'm not a]

> And they thought the last lawsuit and raid were bad... I guess they can show the videos from their torrent site now. lol

They thought the last lawsuit and raid were bad?

"Just some stats... ... here are some reasons why TPB is down sometimes - and how long it usually takes to fix:
Tiamo gets *very* drunk and then something crashes: 4 days
Anakata gets a really bad cold and noone is around: 7 days
The US and Swedish gov. forces the police to steal our servers: 3 days .. yawn."

Wow, they're hiding their ph33r well.

lol, indeed.

Re:Lawsuit

[eharvill]

Meh. Of course all of their claims of server downtime are for real. I mean, they did publish it on their own website.

Regardless....hosting video...a lot of which will most likely be copyrighted and published without permission...is a little bit different than hosting "pointers" to "random" files (aka torrents), imo.

Only time will tell I suppose.

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

What lawsuit?

Re:Lawsuit

[I confirm I'm not a]

> Meh. Of course all of their claims of server downtime are for real. I mean, they did publish it on their own website.

Well, you're right, we don't have any third-party confirmation of how long their servers went down when Timo got drunk and tripped over a server. Many of us will remember how much downtime there was when the RIAA goaded the Swedish authorities into raiding them. Three days seems a little long, they're maybe counting the time they were setup temporarily in the Netherlands?

...and you're right, too, about hosting videos. I mean, how long did YouTube last before it was shut down?

> Only time will tell I suppose.

Well, they've been annoying the RIAA/MPAA for several years with filesharing, it's reasonable to believe they'll continue to annoy the RIAA/MPAA for several more years simply by expanding their service to include something similar to YouTube, a service that's legal in the USA (and therefore more than likely to bhe legal in Sweden), and that the RIAA/MPAA haven't managed to lawyer into the ground. I'd be tempted to conclude that its going to be easier for RIAA/MPAA to shut down YouTube than TPB, unless Swedish or European copyright law undergoes a seismic shift.

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

law suit?

Bad bad news

[packetmon]

While I don't believe in censorship, this will likely last extremely briefly. For one, pedophiles will likely lurk there... Secondly, judging by what the US government is doing - censoring troops from MySpace, etc, soldiers will likely post videos there to the dismay of politically idiotic government who will call for a ban... Not to mention moronic terrorists using it as a forum to post their hatred. Hey I'm all for it, but expect it to last no more than a half a year.

Re:Bad bad news

[Anonymous Coward]

You are such a fucking moron. The military has been blocking webmail, humor, video streaming and chat sites have been blocked for a long time. This is primarily a bandwidth concern, not a censorship approach. Hell, they block comics.com. That's not censorship, that's keeping the military network used for military type stuff. You, sir, a fucking retard. I know, it's Bush's fault. Keep repeating that until you get Queen Hillary elected.

Re:Bad bad news

[th3rmite]

How many times do I have to say this, US Troops are only censored from using Myspace on government computers. It has been this way in my Division for over three years now. Our internet at the office is slow enough without streaming video bandwidth hogs.

I happen to use Myspace and Youtube from my personal notebook in my room just about everyday. jeez

Re:Bad bad news

[Creepyguywithastick]

I wouldn't call blocking MySpace in a place of business "censorship"--it's not like MySpace is a crucial news source. Aside from preventing soldiers from screwing around on the job, it cuts down on the tons of bandwidth that monstrosity chews through (flash movies, flash music players, streaming music... glittery gifs) in a situation where bandwidth is at a premium.

Re:Bad bad news

[Anonymous Coward]

For one, pedophiles will likely lurk there...
Not to mention moronic terrorists using it as a forum to post their hatred.

I agree completely, but you forgot to mention those awful homosexuals! Eww.

God have mercy on their souls. I pray for them every night.

(No, not really.)

The site will be hosted on Sealand,

[markov_chain]

will run on Hurd web servers, and the first 1000 registered users will get free copies of Duke Nukem Forever!

Re:The site will be hosted on Sealand,

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. That will give me something to play while I wait for Starcraft Ghost to be released.

Good

[damacus]

I'm sick of seeing worthwhile content getting pulled from valid sites. I remember looking for some video clips of Carl Sagan's appearances on Johnny Carson's show, and finding links to them in an index, but then getting there and finding that they had been pulled due to copyright restrictions.. I do hope this site can make it through. Like other posters mention, porn, especially pedo, may be an issue... but it's the cost of free speech. Althgouh I hope at least some level of self-censoring is put into place. I mean, there *has* to be a limit somewhere.... right?

What's wrong with this picture, moving that is....

[y2imm]

So, uh, movies of me sodomizing the body of a baby I just microwaved would be ok? Or step by step illustrated instructions on how to carve grandma for dinner are cool? Censorship exists for a good reason.

Thanks

[HullBreachOnline.com]

Hey, thanks for the links!

Re:Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

shufuni.com be my fave

Re:Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck did this retard get modded +2 Insightful? Sheez, the quality of the slashdot moderators is as good as the digg crowd. I am posting this anonymously for obvious reasons, but this is too lame folks.

Re:Thanks

[rozz]

How the fuck did this retard get modded +2 Insightful? Sheez, the quality of the slashdot moderators is as good as the digg crowd. I am posting this anonymously for obvious reasons, but this is too lame folks.

100% agree with your oppinion about *some* of the moderators.
but i disagree when you call the GP retard .. the guy only said thx.

and what exactly are you doing to fight against "diggy-slashdotters"? or maybe you think an anonymous post will help?
and in the end, why did you post anon? what exactly were you afraid of, the diggy-slahdotters will burn your house or what?

Re:No censorship? Or no blame for censorship?

[glwtta]

So, in practice, I bet there'll be little difference between the end product and YouTube.

There'll be more porn. More, weirder porn. I'm looking forward to it.

Already a site that does this...

[satchmodian]

http://www.tv-links.co.uk/ Someone beat them to it.

Re:Already a site that does this...

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't host the shows. Those are linked to other pages, and some of them are broken due to the videos taken down from the source.

Re:Already a site that does this...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still kind of cool.

Re:Already a site that does this...

[eMbry00s]

mod parent up for truth, also to bring more publicity to tv-links.co.uk

Re:Already a site that does this...

[Anonymous Coward]

>also to bring more publicity to tv-links.co.uk

Yeah, 'cause what we need here on Slashdot is a little more blatant support for copyright infringement.

Re:Already a site that does this...

[noddyxoi]

fuck you copyright lover.

Re:Already a site that does this...

[eMbry00s]

More like highlight alternative routes to the customer so that they are brought to the corp's attention, you luddite fuck.

good news or bad news?

[Erris]

So is it bad news because it might be shut down or is it good news that an uncensored video site will be born an easy to use?

That's fine and dandy

[Adult film producer]

but how about making a copycat site that supports higher resolution videos. Desktop screencasts are next to useless on youtube & google video.. the video is just too pixelated/grainy :~(

Re:That's fine and dandy

[Suriken]

try veoh.com You can download full-resolution versions of the video via the "veoh player"

Is this legal?

[Poromenos1]

How is this legal? I can understand how a tracker is legal, since they aren't hosting the actual files on their own server, but unless they come up with a way to do p2p video streaming, I can't imagine how this will stay up very long.

Re:Is this legal?

[WoLpH]

Well, using a system like Tribler it should be possible to realise a youtube without hosting it, but for something like that even a website wouldn't be needed anymore.

Perhaps it'll be a site where people can upload there torrent files with a description and thumbnail so others can view?

Re:Is this legal?

[Timesprout]

At first glance it's legal, they have been very careful to say user generated content, so expect to see lots of poor quality video of knobs behaving like only knobs can. Unfortunately all too many people confuse user uploaded third party content with user generated so they can actually have some decent content on the site(thats their no censorship clause kicking in). Thats when the legality starts to crumble.

Re:Is this legal?

[gradster79]

I would imagine they will simply host the site in a country where copyright laws aren't enforced.

Re:Is this legal?

[halcyon1234]

Maybe they are doing a bitorrent-in-the-browser thing. There's nothing to say that someone can't hack together a nice Flash-based instance of a Bitorrent client. {shrug} It'd probably be slow as heck, but it'd be non-hosted.

Or they'll do a hybrid. Host low-peer files, and torrent popular ones.

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this legal?

You must be new around here...

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine they will simply host the site in a country where copyright laws aren't enforced.

Hence the forthcoming server move to North Korea?

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is no such thing as censorship in North Korea.

Re:Is this legal?

[Gossi]

As far as I know, Pirate Bay actually operate their own Torrent trackers at the moment, which connect the clients together (suppling IP, peer data etc). It's already a little shady from that point of view. Plus, when The Pirate Bay's servers were raided, they were moved to another country, which makes things murkier. One thing I can say: the fact The Pirate Bay still exists and runs fine after all these years is a huge embarrassment to the MPAA and RIAA. It shows how little power those folk have in foreign lands, and that must be humiliating for them.

Re:Is this legal?

[TheRaven64]

I don't know about Flash, but the Java security model does not allow an applet to make socket connections to any IP other than that of the server from which the applet originated. I'd be slightly surprised if Flash were any different, since it's a potentially nasty security hole to allow arbitrary connections. Actually, thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if Flash were different...

Re:Is this legal?

[Poromenos1]

I highly doubt that. For one, it would be really hard to prioritise the pieces to get the streaming done well, since BT doesn't get exactly the pieces you specify in the order you specify. Streaming would be way way longer, perhaps too long to be useful. The biggest problem, however, would be that since people close the browser window after seeing the video, noone would keep seeding. The last pieces would disappear pretty fast...

Re:Is this legal?

[Shinra]

Well you see, ALL content uploaded would be user-generated.
So if I ripped an episode of Heroes from the broadcast, and uploaded it,
I would have generated the video onto the site.

*ducks for cover*

Re:Is this legal?

[birdboy2000]

There's nothing against it in North Korean law, is there?

Re:Is this legal?

[Virgil Tibbs]

You must be new here.

Re:Is this legal?

[kosmosik]

That could be legal in some cases. I don't know swedish law but in polish law there is something like "fair use". It literally states that if an artwork (tv show, movie, audio recording etc.) was once published to public you can use it (record it, share it with your friends or relatives etc.). This is very old law and was constructed when the net was not reality.

What I want to say is that such things can be legal given that most of intelectual property laws are ancient in age of Internet and given that some countries respect laws that they constructed themselves it can be walking (albeit thin) legal line.

The fact is that we now live in times when laws regarding such stuff will show up.

Re:Is this legal?

[Bitsy Boffin]

poor quality video of knobs

I expect there will be far more poor quality videos of knockers than knobs.

Re:Is this legal?

[mrogers]

I was thinking the same thing so I've just been looking into it. Up to version 6, a Flash movie could establish a network connection to any machine in the same base domain as the machine from which it was downloaded - eg movies from www.foo.com could connect to downloads.foo.com. But starting with version 7, Flash has the same restrictions as Java: a Flash movie can only establish a network connection to the exact machine it was downloaded from. However, it's possible to circumvent this by installing a policy file on the machine you want to connect to. Flash will download the policy file, and if the policy allows the domain from which the movie was downloaded to connect, it will make the connection. (Yes, this is thoroughly broken because it relies on the client to enforce the security policy.)

That still leaves the problem of how to accept incoming connections - Flash doesn't support server sockets. TCP has a rarely used feature called simultaneous open that allows two clients to establish a connection if their SYN packets cross on the wire. This can also be used for NAT and firewall traversal, and the NUTTS group at Cornell has achieved an 85% success rate by combining TCP simultaneous open with port prediction. So it looks like BitTorrent in Flash might be feasible after all, if a little hacky.

Potential Uses

[anjin-san 3]

If implemented properly this video service could be quite useful for pirate bay users. Imagine if you could use it to preview the quality of a movie before you torrent it. That would save a ton of wasted bandwidth previously used for mistakenly grabbing a camcorder-quality flick.

Of course the video quality would have to greatly surpass that of youtube for this to work...

Re:Potential Uses

[the unbeliever]

Just use a good tracker that hosts the original files from the release group, Sample/ subdirectory included, and download the sample first...

Re:Potential Uses

[WilliamSChips]

Fiscally conservative. Socially liberal. Against revisionist history. The term "fiscally conservative" is revisionist history. The Republicans have never supported smaller government(which is what most people mean when they say fiscal conservatism), excepting maybe Coolidge. Conservatives don't support small government, they support replacing the gov't programs that help people with gov't programs that hurt people.

Re:Potential Uses

[Anonymous Coward]

Congrats for shoving words into someone's mouth so you could sucker punch them. "Fiscally conservative" means "spend less" regardless of how the Republican party, Reagan, and the neo-cons have abused the term.

Re:Potential Uses

[Oktober Sunset]

Did the dude mention the Republicans? I don't think he did, so why are you ragging on him about what the Republicans did and do?

Re:Potential Uses

[Anonymous Coward]

Conservatives don't support small government, they support replacing the gov't programs that help people with gov't programs that hurt people.

Gee, troll much?

Conservatives do in fact support small government. That is why conservatives are highly annoyed with the self-identified "conservatives" who say they support small government while building a bigger government.

Many conservatives think that government does a really damn poor job of helping people, and would rather see non-government agencies help people. Consider that the Red Cross, etc. get donations even today with a crushing tax burden; imagine how much more they would get if our tax burden were sharply reduced. That's the idea, anyway; in practice, it seems like anyone who actually joins Congress gets sucked into the big government machine, so we get minor tax relief if any.

And before you accuse me of anything: I'm a libertarian, not a conservative. That means I think government should be really damn small and do almost nothing, and taxes should be really damn small. And both conservatives and liberals think I'm insane and impractical, so I'm sure you do too.

I'm all for no censorship except...

[iamnafets]

Kiddie porn? Bestiality? For the majority of people, there are lines...

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Anonymous Coward]

i live by this rule: "Dont like it, Dont download it"
no "Dont like it, dont download it, whine until content i dont like is deleted"

i believe in total freedom of information, some may agree, some may not. But you have to agree other peoples "lines" as you put it, are not always in the same place as yours, and its not so nice when what YOU think is OK starts getting removed.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Anonymous Coward]

That seems a little naive. Things like child pr0n are *always* exploitative. In suppressing content like this it's not people's free speech that's being suppressed (they're still free to express the perverted view that it's OK to exploit 10 year olds for sex) it's the actual exploitative act which is suppressed. And surely demonstratively defamatory content (malicious, demonstratively untrue statements about other people) should be censored - it maybe just one person that doesn't like it, for obvious reasons, but it would be morally wrong in my view for a web site's admins to implicitly promote such views by giving them a platform.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Oktober Sunset]

That's not a good rule, a better one would be: Legal to make, Legal to download.

So if you shit in your wife's mouth when you make a vid, that's legal, its nasty, but she likes it the dirty skank. If you rape a kid to make your film, thats not legal, and it's not legal to make a film of it, so the distribution of your vid should be illegal too. I'm not sure about the legal status of animal fucking tho, it's probably classed as cruelty to animals in most places, so I think you will have to miss out on your dog porn and horse on woman action.

The only flaw with this rule is, someone might try to apply it to those cool videos of kids smashing the crap out stuff, like the one where they completely trash that guys house, and smash his toilet and everything. That would be uncool, cos that video rocks.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Mr2001]

Things like child pr0n are *always* exploitative. In suppressing content like this it's not people's free speech that's being suppressed (they're still free to express the perverted view that it's OK to exploit 10 year olds for sex) it's the actual exploitative act which is suppressed. No, it isn't. That's like saying you could suppress terrorism by banning the 9/11 crash videos!

The actual exploitative act has already been committed long before the video recording of it is posted or downloaded by anyone. Censorship can't turn back the clock and prevent the original act; it can only prevent speech.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[iminplaya]

If you're for "no censorship", there is no "except". There is no wiggle room here. You're either for it, or against it. If you wish to censor anything, then you are for censorship. It can't get any simpler than that. So, what's it going to be?

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Oligonicella]

Maybe not the original act, but those videos are exploitive of their victims for the duration of their existence in being available for the decrepit tastes of pedophiles.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[aussie_a]

Wow, you're actually defending kiddie porn. How sick are you?

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Anonymous Coward]

In basically the same way that the Star Wars Kid videos were "exploitive". It's embarrassing and you don't want people to see it, but it doesn't actually hurt you when a stranger you'll never meet watches it. The actual harmful act is in the past.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[808140]

The Star Wars kid is an interesting thing, because arguably, the making of the video didn't hurt him at all, it was the distribution. There are a class of things like this, most of which involve being caught doing something embarrassing and then having said action passed around for all to see and ridicule. Do I think these should be restricted? Not at all -- but I think it's an interesting example of the opposite of the child porn scenario, where the making of the film hurts the child, but the distribution doesn't, at least not relatively speaking.

I personally am against any form of censorship, including of things I personally find abhorrent, such as child pornography. However, I think it is important not to create an economic incentive to create such material, which means that I am against the distribution of child pornography in exchange for material compensation. If people are swapping it for free on the internet and there's nothing to encourage morally bankrupt production companies from producing more, then I don't really see the problem. When a film surfaces no effort should be spared to locate the people involved in its production, and they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But people who look at it -- why should looking at it be illegal? Lots of people get off on stuff I find disgusting. There are people who get off on corpses, for example, and download pictures of dead people. This is gross, but not illegal -- nor should it be. Killing someone to have sex with them is illegal, of course. But fantasizing about necrophilia thankfully is not.

There is no evidence that I'm aware of that people who look at child porn are more likely to rape a child. Certainly, child rapists often look at child porn, but what does that prove? Rapists often look at normal porn, too. Maybe porn causes rape? Unlikely.

Bottom line: it should not be illegal to look at pictures of anything. Acts that are illegal should remain illegal, but watching videos of illegal acts should not be. Otherwise, watching footage of Jack Ruby killing Oswald would be illegal. Think about it.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Catbeller]

what child porn on the net? how do you know it's there? you ever look? no? who told you, then? ever consider the idea it's not there? that this is this generation's communist plot to take over America, or that Satanists killed ten thousand babies in Mississippi?

it isn't there, people! they are lying or exaggerating whatever little is out there to cow us into accepting surveillance on the net. you won't look, 'cause it's wrong and the FBI is monitoring Google to catch you doing it. so it's just the FBI and the other more spookier surveillance types telling us it's there. and we swallow the lie.

and consider the power the spooks have now: all they need do to nail a political opponent is say he looked at kiddy porn. Bush's people already pulled that stunt on one of their most honorable opponents, former marine Scott Ritter, weapons inspector, who insisted bush was lying in 2001. he was arrested for kid porn, and he was no longer welcome on TV or the papers. they then dropped the charges, no explanation. bang. rep dead. anyone else want to embarrass bush or cheney? want to be a kiddy porn trafficker on tomorrow's news? message received.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Anonymous Coward]

ah yes, the "think of the children" argument

im pro freedom of information, so i must enjoy child pornography and thus all i said is invalid and i should be tied to a pole and burned alive.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[aussie_a]

Nice straw man there. Not once did I say you enjoy child porn, I simply expressed amazement and questioned your health at being able to defend it.

Re:I'm all for no censorship except...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is quite simple: I believe that ANY piece of information by itself is neutral, that means there is no GOOD or EVIL information, and that information by itself can cause no harm. Its the actual use or misuse of information that is "wrong" or "right" and that is what should be punished, not the information itself.
And as we all know from this articles discussion, the first thing that comes up when someone says "NO CENSORSHIP!" is "what about child porn?" And if I as a believer of total information neutrality do not defend even the most infuriating piece of information, then i would be a hypocrite.
Maybe im a stupid idealist, but that is what i believe in.

Awww yeah!

[erroneus]

Thousands of young exhibitionist females out there making videos of their lovlies for all to see!!!

If TPB went legit...

[Podcaster]

I'm not sure that it is a good idea for TPB to try to build an real business running a proper internet service. The many software developers here on /. will tell you that there is a massive difference between what it takes to host the current TPB website, and what it would take to develop and deploy a youtube rip-off.

Developing such a site demands a return on investment, which calls for a business model and legitimate corporate structure, which will ultimately require them to protect themselves by censoring their users and removing illegal content.

Looks to me like the start of a slippery slope - if TPB ever goes legit it will bring about the end of an era. Until copyright law is reformed on the international stage, true rebels will have to remain completely outside of the system.

-P

Re:If TPB went legit...

[TubeSteak]

Until copyright law is reformed on the international stage, true rebels will have to remain completely outside of the system.

That'd make for a nice sound bite, but it's wholly ignorant of the international landscape. There are plenty of small countries in Eastern Europe & Asia that have fat internet pipes and no regard for copyright.

The only small countries that give a damn are those trying to get into the WTO or the EU. And most of them don't take enforcement as seriously as the MAFIAA/RIAA/BSA/etc.

Re:If TPB went legit...

[kebes]

You seem to think that TPB isn't pulling in lots of cash right now. I'm pretty sure they are. The ads on the site generate revenue, and I'm sure they get quite a bit of traffic. Creating a second site with user generated content is simply an expansion of this: it will also have ads, of course, and will generate revenue. TPB is a huge site with massive traffic, so the people involve already know how to scale a site, and build redundancies (witness, for instance, how quickly TPB was back online after their servers were confiscated!) Admittedly they will have to do some new work to build a decent flash player, but I'm sure they already have experience with running a large database.

And of course, as we all know, community is one of the most valuable things on the internet. The "brand name" that TPB would bring to this new site is significant. People would feel that they could post and discuss things there that they might not want to post or discuss on other sites. (For example, people might trust TPB to not hand over search records or user account records... or indeed to not even maintain such data.)

So in terms of return-on-investment, I think they have a pretty solid case, and I don't think they'll have too much trouble pulling together the money required. Whether or not the site actually succeeds is another matter, but I think they have a good chance.

And, with regard to TPB "becoming legitimate" ... well, as they are fond of reminding us, they are not violating any Swedish laws. So, in fact, they are already entirely legit.

Re:If TPB went legit...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, I find that TPB going 'legit', as you call it, would simply be the evolution of business.

The current economic perspective holds that most everything has value, and that value is naturally taken advantage of by market forces as much as possible. It's called increasing economic efficiency. Market forces don't care about morals, ethics, or laws; they just work around them, through them, or over them, if there is a profit to be made. Usually this is considered bad because it leads to uncompetitive behavior, exploitation, and voodoo like Enron is so famous for. But these same forces are responsible for the black markets that spring up wherever laws make it easier than going legit.

There's a boatload of demand in what they're proposing. Business types see this as a boatload of money to be made. Sooner or later, they will find a way.

Re:If TPB went legit...

[Have Blue]

I don't think you understand the problem here. A torrent file is perhaps 50K. A video is perhaps 50MB- a thousand times larger. You can't run a video streaming site on a residential or hobbyist connection, not even the 100Mbps lines everyone here likes to drool over. I have no idea what TPB uses right now but they already move enough 50K text files that when it goes down you can see the effect on the overall bandwidth usage of the entire country. Scaling that up three orders of magnitude won't happen by magic.

Sneak preview

[glassesmonkey]

Thanks to the google.

(Though one of their test uploads looks to be NSFW) google cache of thevideobay.org/recent

Prior to shutting down all external links that were left live, they were using flvplayer.js with this header in the javascript.

/* Unobtrusive Flash Objects (UFO) v3.20 <http://www.bobbyvandersluis.com/ufo/>
Copyright 2005, 2006 Bobby van der Sluis
This software is licensed under the CC-GNU LGPL <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/LGPL/2.1/>
*/

Re:Sneak preview

[ozamosi]

There is a really simple way to get a sneak preview: http://eurovisiontorrents.com/ Their videos are hosted at thevideobay.

Of course, most people probably don't want to see music from the eurovision song contest, but hey! :)

Re:Sneak preview

[grimJester]

Which country entered a song with a midget porn video?

Update to sneak preview

[glassesmonkey]

Oops, it appears the flash player is still live: http://thevideobay.org/player/flvplayer.swf

You can also download some of the sample uploaded vids, but some are VERY weird.. probably nsfw.. you have been warned!
http://video01.thevideobay.org/vids/38.flv (replace "38" with any number)

Re:Update to sneak preview

[Falkentyne]

You can also download some of the sample uploaded vids, but some are VERY weird.. probably nsfw.. you have been warned!
http://video01.thevideobay.org/vids/38.flv (replace "38" with any number)
All I can say to that link is.. tiamostyle!

BTW they like to be called Little People you insensitive clods!

Re:Update to sneak preview

[Paradise Pete]

Wow, that "38" song (and video) is really good. Who is that?

Re:Update to sneak preview

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to be Hungary's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2007. You can also see it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7jRtYWPkzA.

Re:Update to sneak preview

[Paradise Pete]

Thanks. Her cover of Janis Joplin's Cry Baby is really good.

Niche Porn

[EnsilZah]

Niche porn if you will, like beating off a dead horse. (Shamelessly taken from a post i saw today)
Oh please, can this be a new Slashdot meme? Pretty please?

Re:Niche Porn

[mux2000]

Stop it man, you're beating off a dead horse.

Re:Niche Porn

[fimbulvetr]

In Soviet Russia, dead horse beats off YOU!

Re:Niche Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

EnsilZah is a terrific douchebag, and should he died before me, I would gladly urinate on his wife and grave.

Re:Niche Porn

[CitizenJohnJohn]

I for one welcome our new dead horse off-beating overlords.

Re:Niche Porn

[Alsee]

Link?

-

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[WilliamSChips]

Well, aside from the whole "valid evidence in the prosecution of a crime" thing, you'll be 100% allowed to post those things online!

These guys are asking for it

[suv4x4]

I mean, honestly. Freedom of speech and what not. From aside it looks as if they weren't happy they got away so easily last time, so they decided to push their luck further.

I see no use of their service, YouTube isn't exactly repressive and brutally censoring free speech, is it.

Not much good will come out of this

[streptocopter]

If you look at every other Youtube clone site that claims to be uncensored, they all have a small but faithful psycho/pedo/wierdo/crying-bald-eagle89 user base, which means no sane human being will ever go there twice.

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[Mercedes308]

You're a rather brave chap to post this as a non-ac, wish I had some mod points. Sometimes I wonder if people that take a subject to the absolute extreme to point of being ridiculous or peddle hatred to whoever really think that what they are doing is in the spirit of 'freedom of speech'. I'm for freedom of speech and expression, but some people just blatantly abuse it for their own perverse agenda.

In related news...

[Gerocrack]

"In a marked change of approach, the RIAA and MPAA recently fired their entire legal staff, and began purchasing surpluss cruise missles from the US military."

Streaming Sucks

[coaxial]

Sure streaming is fine for viewing things in a one off way, but there's sometimes I want to save the video. Streaming sites, don't let you do this. Sure, I can use something like VideoDownloader for Firefox, but that only works for a handful of sites, and really, I shouldn't have to. Easy downloading the FLV instead of the MOV or MPG would be fine. I don't want to have my videos on unstable remote storage damn it.

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[Virak]

So, uh, movies of me sodomizing the body of a baby I just microwaved would be ok? Or step by step illustrated instructions on how to carve grandma for dinner are cool?

They should be. You should be locked up for the rest of your life for the good of society for committing those acts, but you shouldn't be punished just for copying some particular bit pattern.

Censorship exists for a good reason.

Only for those doing the censoring.

Bandwidth

[nurb432]

That was my first thought as well.

However, perhaps they have some ad revenue lined up to pay for the extra hardware/bandwidth they are going to need? They are doing ads now so its not that far fetched.

Web TIVO?

[hack slash]

If there really is no censorship and care about uploading of copyrighted works, then this site could become your own personal tv channel like a TIVO. Just think about it, no more having to wait for that usenet/bittorrent download to finish of the latest episode of some tv show you're hooked on but they're not airing it in your country yet (or ever), just press play and watch.

Just like a TIVO you could tell it what kind of tv you like and it brings up suggestions, teach it what specific shows you like and throw in a random function so you could create a few 'channels' just like regular tv.

The potential is there to end up with something quite extraordinarily good, lets hope the programmers can come up trumps, that there's plenty of server space + bandwidth for decent quality video that looks good on fullscreen, and lastly that they've thought out the sticky legal situation of hosting (inevitably) copyrighted material.

Boob Tube

[bit trollent]

This service practically names itself.

Re:Boob Tube

[JonathanR]

But if you're watching it on your 19" LCD, then there's no tubes anymore... ...oh. Um, er, hello there Mr Stevens!

Misplaced morals

[mattpointblank]

"The Pirate Bay 'will not be the moral police'"

Moral? Er, doesn't it just mean, "the police"? Sharing copyrighted material is a legal matter, it's not like debating the ethics of euthanasia.

Re:Misplaced morals

[evilviper]

Sharing copyrighted material is a legal matter, it's not like debating the ethics of euthanasia.

You could say euthanasia is just a legal matter, as well. Not like debating the merits of the current copyright system...

Also, since the PirateBay is outside the US, it's really NOT a legal matter. More than copyright, I suspect they were talking about censorship for violence, sex, or other offensive material.

Re:Misplaced morals

[Zedekiah]

What makes copyright law less set in stone than the ethics of euthanasia?

Morality (from Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behaviour") refers to the concept of human ethics, which pertains to matters of right and wrong...used within three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments (taken from wikipedia)
Copyright law would fall neatly into all three of these. It certainly would seem to me that this very much makes copyright law a moral matter. In fact, it would make ANY law a moral matter.

Re:Misplaced morals

[ozamosi]

Actually, that is a word-by-word translation of a swedish expression. A person who can decide what is morally right and wrong is known as a moral police over here.

Re:Misplaced morals

[Jugalator]

You're right, but I guess it's not as simple today as it once was.
Some use e.g. the DMCA exactly for "moral reasons", or other reasons (like protecting your economy), not because there are legal problems. :-p

If people would only properly shield themselves with ridiculous laws, wow, then I'd even know what I'd dare to post online!

Re:Misplaced morals

[Kattspya]

Mod parent up.

Moral police is just a literal translation of a Swedish expression.

Re:Misplaced morals

[smoker2]

Who said anything about copyright ?

They said they would not be involved in censorship, unlike YouTube, who have pulled videos they don't agree with, legal or not.

So they won't be policing the video content based on their own sense of morality.

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[janrinok]

No, I don't agree. Most people would find what you describe as objectionable and would therefore practice self-censorship. The problem however is when someone else is doing the censoring and then you might not agree as to what is acceptable and what is not. While I do not think that your examples would be difficult to find some consensus of agreement, what would happen if someone with extreme views had the responsibility for deciding what is decent? I wouldn't want some religious zealot telling me what I can view, nor would the majority of the US accept, say, a muslim cleric deciding what kind of images are deemed 'suitable' for hosting on the video site. Family videos? Not acceptable if the subject includes a female and the hair is being displayed or anything more than the hands or feet in view, for example? No, censorship will always be wrong in someone's opinion.

Re:No censorship? Or no blame for censorship?

[rmccann]

One of the samples on the google cache seems to be a midget gangbang scene...

this is a non-event

[acidrain]

But yea, the content providers who have to "operate by the rules" will be handicapped

Or the main stream won't notice because censorship is a nerd issue. So for the last time, there are no girls surfing youtube that want to see you naked.

Also Sweden's laws allow hosting .torrents as they are not copyrighted, but tpb will have all the same headaches as anyone else if they start serving up tv rips off their servers.

Re:this is a non-event

[acidrain]

One last thing: Can I be the first to coin the term "The Pervert Bay."

Re:this is a non-event

[QuantumG]

hehehe.. I just love the way Americans immediately think of porn when someone says "censorship". Does the fact that this is The Pirate Bay making this announcement give you some idea what kind of "censorship" they are against?

Re:this is a non-event

[fireweaver]

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=2549 4_Muslims_%20%20Secretly_Organizing_to_Dominate_Yo uTube&only

Re:this is a non-event

[acidrain]

I'm not American. And YouTube, last I heard, doesn't enforce censorship by repressive regimes. Porn is the main thing that Western governments are hung up about. Killing people, that's just fine.

Re:this is a non-event

[QuantumG]

Yes, you are braindead. Copyright is the "censorship" they are interested in. I tell ya, gotta draw some people a map.

Re:this is a non-event

[txikito42]

I tell ya, gotta draw some people a map.
A map to the pirate's booty, arrr.

Re:this is a non-event

[jaymzru]

I just love the way Americans immediately think of porn when someone says "censorship". I just love the irony in the fact that your generalized, completely pejorative comment trying to make Americans look stupid just makes you look like a moron. I understand American bashing is in style, but it's getting ridiculous.

Re:this is a non-event

[Alsee]

So for the last time, there are no girls surfing youtube that want to see you naked.

The heart and brain may be geek, but my Bod is totally Hot!

-

Google acquisition?

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHA, It'd be great if Google bought thevideobay.org before the price skyrockets.
Would love to see how Google lawyers would defend both companies....

Re:Google acquisition?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish there was a "-1, Stupid" mod.

Ignorance is a virtue

[Anonymous Coward]

That'd make for a nice sound bite, but it's wholly ignorant of the international landscape.
Among the Left ignorance is considered a virtue.

Re:Ignorance is a virtue

[iminplaya]

Among the Left ignorance is considered a virtue.

And among the "right" it's considered a mandate. :-)

thankyouverymuch

Re:The ACLU will defend them

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see anything about the ACLU in there.

Wont be an easy ride

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but the reason why thepiratebay is somewhat free to continue as is despite concerns of piracy will not work for a youtube knock off.

Actually hosting copyrighted material, which will happen and wont be "user censored" sooner or later, and their gonna be violating copyright. Now sure, they wont be getting DMCA notices, they'll be getting polite nudges from the swedish legal system to take em down before they have to throw em all in jail.

Unless... they really are buying sealand, yaaar.

Re:No censorship? Or no blame for censorship?

[soulxtc]

I was also wondering about the same thing, for is censorship any less wrong when it's done by the many instead of the few?

You are for censorship.

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship is one of those few things in life that is absolute. Either you support censorship, or you do not support censorship. There is no middle ground. The moment you think in the slightest that some idea, subject, work, etc., should be censored, you immediately support censorship. It's impossible to be against censorship, while concurrently believing that it's acceptable to prohibit certain forms of expression.

So please don't say that you're against censorship, only to immediately list two subject matters that you apparently think should be censored. You're making yourself look foolish. At least come out and admit that you do support censorship.

limits

[Anonymous Coward]

All content now! No limit! I buy stuff I like, I look at stuff I am only slightly interested in. I am not stealing from anybody cause if I am interested in it and I like it I will buy it. As for kiddie pR0n, I have no desire to look at that crap so what's the problem? If you are worried about your kid seeing it then you need to be more involed in your kids life and know what they are doing.

Re:limits

[Walkingshark]

Technically, if a kid wanted to see kiddie porn they don't need the internet, they just need a mirror, right?

Re:limits

[Catbeller]

How does "everyone know" kiddie porn is out there unless they've been looking for it? It's one of those things "everyone knows", like the communist infiltration of America and all those terrorist cells "everyone knew" were ready to spring into action in 2001.

A quick look in the forums..

[eZtaR]

reveal a kinda disturbing google cache of the site :P

Re:A quick look in the forums..

[Jugalator]

At a glance, I first thought the dude was a kid, but it's of course really a dwarf. Not that that's much better. *shudder*

And no, don't look for political correctness in this post. :-p

Re:A quick look in the forums..

[lordtoran]

Parent should be rather modded funny ... the dwarf pic is hilarious ;-)

Re:Child porn isn't so bad, we do much worse thing

[Oligonicella]

There is no "we" in this, chum. They do that to children. You can't foist the action on someone a half world away who is unaware of the problem. Even your link puts the numbers at one child per 40 "small farms". How does someone in the US tell which it came from. We should indeed put the Ivory Coast on notice and jamb decency on them as best we can, but you'd starve 39 of each 40 because of one?

Your assertion is also a non sequitor. Just because big problems exist does not obviate the need to deal with other big problems. No, I'm not "offended" by either child slavery or child rape. I'm enraged by both.

step illustrated instructions

[nurb432]

If they are line drawings, sure it would be ok. That would be considerd ( sick ) art.

And dont forget, in some countries its a right to do things that isnt ok here ( whereever 'here' happens to be ). So who's 'rights' and 'morals' should prevail? Mine? Yours? How about the guy that thinks cows are his reincarnated relatives and is sacred so eating them is immoral? Or the guy that has a right to carry a firearm?

Nothing is black and white, unless we all end up living under ONE government at some point.

Re:step illustrated instructions

[Anonymous Coward]

So who's 'rights' and 'morals' should prevail? Mine? Yours? How about the guy that thinks cows are his reincarnated relatives and is sacred so eating them is immoral? Or the guy that has a right to carry a firearm?

I guess suggesting that the morals and rights of the majority would be too logical of a choice huh? Of course you will have disagreements among certain individuals as to whose morals to abide by. For Christians it is easy to point to God's morals as the absolute set of morals that rule the world. Unfortunately, other people don't like that idea and want to create their own thus muddying the waters unnecessarily (see next paragraph). But at the least, collectively a group of people can come to a consensus as to what the majority believes is right and wrong and those are what should prevail if nothing else can be used.

Nothing is black and white, unless we all end up living under ONE government at some point.

I hate to break it to you but everything is black and white. It is just that people like you who want to believe everything is gray so you can impose your own beliefs. Humans by nature have bias but that doesn't mean we (at least some people) can't see beyond that bias. I don't see why you wouldn't want to since it would make things easier by having either a black or white choice. You may think only having two choices is harder but that is only because you want to include things in the situation that don't belong anyway and thus create a gray area. Case in point: saying a baby that is *not* born yet is therefore not alive and can be killed w/o being considered murdered. Why does it matter if it isn't born yet? It matters to those who want to introduce gray areas but to a person who sees things in black and white it is easy to see that a baby's heart is beating before it is born and thus if that heart stops it is dead, period. It's that simple. That's what a still born baby is but yet if a person makes that heart stop it is not a crime unless it is born. Birth doesn't define life.

Re:step illustrated instructions

[Eli Gottlieb]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that "Don't rape children." is absolutely wrong, no matter where you live.

Re:step illustrated instructions

[Eli Gottlieb]

OK, that was perhaps the greatest semantic error ever made on Slashdot. Mod me troll.

It should read "'Don't rape children' is an absolute moral, no matter where you live."

Was that like the Law of Grammar Nazis or something, wherein a grammar Nazi makes a grammar mistake while reprimanding someone else?

already been done

[Danathar]

blip.tv is already there. Plus the quality (video) is better.

Re:No censorship? Or no blame for censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah look at digg any good story that would be considered "against liberal ideas" that gains any steam gets buried to the center of the earth

what's in a name

[stonedcat]

YouPirate

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[JimDaGeek]

but some people just blatantly abuse it for their own perverse agenda.

So, how does a person "abuse" freedom of speech? Do they do it by saying somthing that you think is "wrong". I believe in _real_ FREEDOM OF SPEECH. That means that if some "idiot" says something I _hate_, well, guess what... I don't get to cry about it and say that it "shouldn't be freedom of speech". That person who says something I "hate" is what FREEDOM OF SPEECH is all about. Freedom of speech is not about just saying what the majority wants to hear.

I grew up in the burbs of Philly. Then moved to the South. I can tell you that here in SC, there is one Baptist "church" every 2 miles or so. I have never lived in a state where people were so robotic about their beliefs. There are laws in the Columbia, SC area that are _very_ unconstitutional. For example. On Sundays', most stores are not _allowed_ to open until 1:30 PM. Why? That is exactly what I was asking when I ran in to this situation. I was told by many "robots" that "Sunday morning, you should be in church". The next thing I found found out was when I wanted to buy a six-pack on Sunday. In our WHOLE county, you cannot buy _ANY_ beer, alcohol, etc. The strange thing is if you go to a restaurant on Sunday (that pays the county taxes) you can buy as much beer/alcohol as you want. Another thing I noticed is that most/all small/medium stores/shops are _forced_ to be closed on Sundays until 1:30 PM. However, the local 24hr WalMart is allowed to be open. Though, Walmart is not allowed to sell alcohol on Sunday. I wish I were a millionaire so that I would have the resources to fight crappy "laws" like this. By the way, I am a Christian. However, I think it is incredibly stupid to try to make someone a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, etc. by passing "laws". It just doesn't work.

I have heard far too many idiots exercise their "freedom of speech". Most of the time I hated what they had to say. However, I still supported their ability to _say_ those things.

I joined the U.S.M.C back in 1991. That was during the Gulf War. I did it because I wanted to be a Marine, I wanted to "serve my country" and I wanted to protect the rights of my fellow Americans. Yeah, I now know that the Gulf War didn't protect or provide any of those ideals. However, I still joined because the last thing I want to see in the USA is some num-nut who is not allowed to worship a piece of cat poo if they wanted to.

I want the USA to allow all kinds of beliefs and all kinds of worship. Period.

Linux?

[alexandreracine]

Does this work in Linux? How to?

Re:Linux?

[mux2000]

Yes. All you need is a flash player. See here.

If you're using Ubuntu, check out Automatix for lots of goodies, including flash.

Flash and Linux don't generally get along too well, so YMMV, but I've been enjoying tv-links.co.uk for quite a while now :).

Clever, Pirate Bay, very clever indeed.

[Jugalator]

Did you people know that it's 100% legal for Swedes to watch copyrighted streaming video? (without holder's permission)
I'm not sure about the USA, but over here, it's not put in the same class as downloading. That's illegal as usual.

So while the uploader may well be a criminal according to Swedish law, due to the design, that'll probably be very time consuming to prosecute those. Much like individual BitTorrent original seeders. You don't see those punished often. And all Swedish users of the site would use it legally. I'm not sure where the host would stand legally, but then again, I'm not sure TPB will be the hosting server either, or if it'll be distributed to a third party (read: country).

So, once again, they're seeking to enter a legal loophole much like The Pirate Bay currently operates within the boundaries of a Swedish "BBS law" where it's OK to host non-copyrighted content, which .torrent files of course are.

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[UserGoogol]

I fail to see anything wrong with that. You really shouldn't rape dead baby corpses, but once the deed is done, no additional harm is done in letting other people see it. And I really don't see the problem with giving instructions on how to carve up grandma. Cannibalism isn't exactly rocket science.

That said, PirateBay might get in trouble if they take their "no censoring" rule that seriously.

Piracy apologetics

[Anonymous Coward]

I cancelled my cable TV and used the money to pay a day laborer to climb up and reconnect the wires. I still get my shows, but now they're free. The money isn't going to the party that deserves it, but mostly because the party that deserves it is unwilling to provide it at a price that can compete.

Re:Piracy apologetics

[Anonymous Coward]

I canceled my CATV, kept my CM and got a newsgroup subscription.

I shouldn't have to be force fed their shit with their aging channel line ups and brain drain commercials when I can just as easily download the content I want to see, when I want to see it. If they start playing things I want to see and advertising how I want them to advertise, I might subscribe to their online video feed. I'm a consumer, god dammit, and that's how I do it. I'll upload content to the newsgroups when ever I feel like sharing it with others. If we drive them to canceling their content because they're not making enough revenue, then somebody smart will come along and make good content with advertising that I don't mind seeing.

Dog eat dog.

YouTube Clone immune to copyright lawsuits

[cashman73]

I'd love to see the **AA go after GodTube for copyright infringement. Maybe their lawyers will finally be smited! ;-)

On an unrelated note, you've gotta check out the banana video,. . .

Re:YouTube Clone immune to copyright lawsuits

[Nightspirit]

Thanks, I'm drunk, and I don't think I've laughed so hard all week.

Re:YouTube Clone immune to copyright lawsuits

[Alsee]

check out the banana video

That video really made me reconsider my atheism.

You know, if they have a kumquat video I think I might just join them and follow Christ.

-

Re:YouTube Clone immune to copyright lawsuits

[cashman73]

Well, it's not a video, but,. . .

This story deals with watermelons, kumquats, and God. It's probably only a matter of time before the Kook Cameron and his buddy make a video of this,. . .

Re:pr0n : A summery

[freakxx]

Listing by ranking (according to my experience):

1. http://www.myfreepaysite.com/ [you need to create a free account, that's all. Trust me, this is a great website]

2. http://www.youporn.com/

3. http://www.sexuploader.com/

4. http://www.shufuni.com/

5. http://www.xtube.com/

http://www.pornotube.com/ is a shit. Don't use it.

That was priceless

[symbolset]

++++!!!++++!!!!++++ Excellent link, would follow again. Hilarious.

Re:The ACLU will defend them

[Anonymous Coward]

The conservatives blabber on about 'strict constructionist' interpretations of the Constitution but get their panties in a wither when the courts actually reads the document and defends a basic right like free speech. Then the ACLU gets called nasty and irrational things by the reactionary hypocritical right.

No, not Sealand

[CrimsonScythe]

They'll probably locate the servers in Arrrgentina, Arrrmenia, and Arrruba.

Pirates FTW

[Kuvter]

I for one accept our new pirate overlords.

Video, proving pirates better than ninjas, coming soon.

define 'no censorship'

[cliffski]

i'm sure thats an over simplification, or is this the new home of child pr0n? Of course there will be some censorship.

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[trenien]

You're gross!

You should microwave the baby to eat it AFTER sodomizing it to death...

/sarcasm

Re:That's fine and dandy -- Stage6 Divx

[Anonymous Coward]

there's also Stage6 Divx, supporting HD resolutions and file downloads, although it requires the divx web app.

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[Mercedes308]

I don't actually disagree with anything you say, but I think I didn't really make my point clear. I think some people use freedom of speech as an excuse just to slander. I've been on the receiving end of it (for being a lesbian in a place where it definitely was not the thing to be) and while I couldn't give a shit what they thought about me it does get to the point where it's not just freedom of expression, it's just hatred. I think that I'm pretty liberal (I'm Australian, liberal has quite a different non-political meaning to us)and most things don't bother me, but where is the point where freedom of speech becomes exclusion through majority hatred? Perhaps I'm not articulate enough, but I'm trying to make my point without getting all PC, I have an intense dislike for all things PC :)

What you said about the south and the integration of church with state makes me curious. America is secular by law as far as I know, how do they justify legally this behavior?

I think it's a noble thing to join the military to serve your country and the values that are central to it, but it annoys the living shit out of me see that loyalty abused through ulterior motives of the executive. It's an abuse of the trust of those in authority.

New Zealand, the country I originally came from until 2000, for all it's faults generally has a good policy with the deployment of it's modest armed forces. Mostly they are employed as peace makers and peace keepers in neighbouring states that suffer unrest. Although NZ's force is very modest, especially compared to US, it's pretty hard to argue that their policy is unjust or cynical; they serve the interests of human rights and not economics. New Zealanders have a strong sense of a fair go. This foreign policy of NZ is rarely critised, but when the US does similar it attracts criticism for arrogantly assuming the role of the world police. That's hypocrisy born from a unprejudiced disposition I believe. I think this is policy that should be encouraged and supported, especially compared to recent endevours. Even in the face of harsh judgment, fighting for the human rights of your fellow man, particularly when their culture is vastly different than your own, is a noble cause. All evil needs to prevail is for good men to do nothing, so someone once said.

Thanks for your reply, I found it very interesting. Mercedes

the morals and rights of the majority

[nurb432]

The majority wins? That is how we got the Salem witch trials. That is how we got WWII started .. and millions of the 'minority' were gassed in Germany as a result.

god's morals are absolute? No, you will find that even that changes as time goes on, since religion is a scam and every sect re-invents themselves often to keep the revenue stream going.

Most things dealing with people, when you get down to it, are grey. Sure it might be 'simpler' if the world was more concrete and absolute, but its not how the world really works.

Re:What's wrong with this picture, moving that is.

[Mercedes308]

"That's hypocrisy born from a prejudiced disposition I believe

damn typos.

Cheap Petrol

[andersh]

Americans have cheap petrol and Scandinavians have cheap bandwidth.

Ironically, Norway being the world's third largest exporter of oil you would think we had both.. We pay more per liter than the Americans.

Re:Cheap Petrol

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, Norway being the world's third largest exporter of oil you would think we had both.. We pay more per liter than the Americans.

It's true. We pay $0 per liter in the US. It's those damn gallons that cost so much.

Re:Cheap Petrol

[Real_Reddox]

We pay about four times more. It's all in the taxes, Norway has about the highest taxes on the planet.

Why should users determine what content will stay

[inews.110mb.com]

Why should users determine what content will stay or not - more content, more joy. see http://inews.110mb.com/

Norwegian taxation...

[Joce640k]

Norway has some of the most expensive petrol because if has one of the best education/healthcare systems - guess where the money comes from.

Once enough bandwidth is in use to make it worthwhile I'm sure they'll tax that as well.

Maybe they have some sort of peer to peer thing...

[Joce640k]

Maybe they have some sort of peer to peer thing work out so that users provide their own bandwidth...

Re:pr0n : A summery

[ronocdh]

www.empornium.us High quality torrents for the pr0n connoisseur.

Aside from full Family Guy and Lost episodes

[Elbowgeek]

Do we really need *another* flipping video site dishing out the same bloody videos of kids decking out on skateboards, transportation disasters, animals doing unintentionally cute things, lame attempts at humour, underage bimbos trying to shake their collective booties to eminem songs, video mashups between the 300 trailer and The Simpsons Movie trailer, and annoying thirteen year old kids playing guitar way better than I'd ever be if I lived to be 200.

Sorry, I can get all that now, and those same videos are posted on at least a hundred other sites. I say file this idea under "Redundant, redundant, redundant". And if there's one thing I really, really, really can't stand, hate, and loath, not to mention dislike intensely, is redundancy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

sloooow

[Anonymous Coward]

it's about time.. use bit torrent for the backend duh :P it's legal remember :P

I'm completely unimpressed with how slow people are to develop working business models on the net. It's fucking simple most of the time, start a community, SELL movies over the net, sell music over the net. This shit should have been happening years ago. Net innovation has been shit ever since the .com bust slow and near sighted. I'm surprised the file share networks arent move sophisticated really. They could be the backbone for everything including wireless secondary networks maintained by home users, proxies, distributed computing, and hundreds of other consolidated tasks which more or less should all come as kernel level parts of the OS by now considering their popularity. Developers suck ass, thats the problem. Really who else can you blame ? Our programs are lame. Who can't think of a dozen or so improvements for their favorite program which you know damn well would take the development team minor time to implement.

Re:pr0n : A summery

[hax0r_this]

I love how this post is modded informative.

Kiddy porn is still illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they get popped for something besides copyright as soon as they set this up. All the MafIAA has to do is host a kiddie porn video on PB's servers and bam, they are raided by the cops.