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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.
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.
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.
And they thought the last lawsuit and raid were bad... I guess they can show the videos from their torrent site now. lol
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
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.
Infiltrated dot Net
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.
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?
Hey, thanks for the links!
Software and Games for Wii's Opera Browser
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
Be my friend.
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.
Or they'll do a hybrid. Host low-peer files, and torrent popular ones.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
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.
And no, I couldn't give a shit what my karma is.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They'll place ads in the videos and pay for bandwidth that way.
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.
Bandwidth isn't issue in the Northern Europe.
Americans have cheap petrol and Scandinavians have cheap bandwidth.
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.
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.
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?
What?
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.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
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.
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The "trick" is not being based in the USA. Our copyright laws cant touch them.
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)
A cheerful little bird is sitting here singing.
>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.
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
And no, I couldn't give a shit what my karma is.
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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."
Maybe they have some sort of peer to peer thing work out so that users provide their own bandwidth...
No sig today...